"Plowing" Across Kansas... And a PSA

Bales of wheat straw

We are making great strides in getting across Kansas as quickly as possible.  We have put in several long days of riding.  In the last 4 days we have gone 94, 104, 119 and 118 miles.  I have never done 3 centuries (100+ miles rides) in a row before.  I have done 4 in the last 6 days, so we are really rolling up the miles.  We are currently in Herington, KS which is straight north of Wichita.

But now for the Public Service Announcement.

Jim and Heidi, our son and daughter-in-law who live in Seattle, have had a great opportunity come their way.  Last week they found out that they are going to be a part of a Pro-Am racing team which will travel to France for a 4 day charity racing event in late July called Trois Etapes (read more at the link).  This will be a fully supported race just like the pro's with a support car, race radios, the whole nine yards and they will be racing in the mountains of southern France.  Now for the hard part.... As part of the team they have to raise a substantial amount of money for their team charity, World Bicycle Relief.

World Bicycle Relief is a non-profit organization focused on addressing transportation hurdles in rural Africa. They have local assembly facilities and offices in Africa where specially designed bicycles to help kids get to school, allow healthcare workers to visit more rural patients, and to assist farmers getting their products to market are assembled. World Bicycle Relief has distributed more than 135,000 bicycles and trained more than 850 field mechanics over the past seven years. 

Jim and Heidi have teamed up with two other local Seattle cyclists who are also on the team and they are calling their effort Racing 4 Buffaloes. Buffalo is the name of the bike that World Bicycle Relief designed specifically for the rugged African environment.  As a team of 4 they have a goal to raise $60,000 for World Bicycle Relief.  Clark and Randy, the two other riders from Seattle, have been fundraising all year.  They have given the team a great start toward the goal but they need your help!  Jim and Heidi are getting a really late start since they have jumped in to replace two riders who have dropped out and left a big fund raising shortfall.  

Jim and Heidi would greatly appreciate you donating to World Bicycle Relief to support their team on such short notice and most importantly the worthwhile objectives of World Bicycle Relief.  100% of your donation goes directly to World Bicycle relief and is tax deductible; Jim and Heidi will be paying all of their own travel costs for this race.  If you feel it is a worthwhile effort please make a donation of any amount you see fit.  You can contribute directly by following the link below and it will be credited to their team's fund raising goal.

Click Here to Donate

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog.... 

As I mentioned before, it is wheat harvesting season.  A lot of the wheat harvesting is done by contractors from around the country going from farm-to-farm.  Yesterday (Saturday) must have been the day to rotate fields.  We saw 10 or 15 of these semi's hauling wheat harvesters flying down the road.  We were riding in pretty good cross winds most of the day and when one of these monsters comes flying by at 65mph, you need to get your head down and wait for the air blast and road debris to clear.  They clearly aren't very aerodynamic.  Nicholas and I met two these semi's side-by-side, one passing the other, on this same road. We were both looking for a place to hide and the wind blast from two of them was pretty impressive.

We have been pretty lucky the last couple of days with the weather.  It was 106 F when we rolled into Eads, CO a few days ago, but the temperatures have been dropping everyday since then.  It was about 95 when we arrived Scott City, KS and in the mid-80's yesterday when arrived in Great Bend and the low-80's today when we hit Herington, KS.  However the wind was a bigger factor today, blowing very steadily at 10-15 mph out of the north-northeast.  Except for some very short sections where we headed south, it has mostly been a cross wind all the way across Kansas.  So much for getting any good tail-wind rides across the plains.

We are now into the eastern section of Kansas with rolling hills, more like northern Missouri.  Today, coming into Herington, I had a little section where the road turned to gravel for about 3 miles, but at least I got to cross one more famous trail along the way, the Santa Fe Trail.  That should pretty much cover the famous western trails.  We spent plenty of time on both the Oregon and Lewis and Clark trails in Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Tomorrow is scheduled as a "short" day at 70 miles to Osage City, KS.  We'll stop there and drive about 25 miles to Topeka, KS to visit the state capital building.  Then Tuesday, we'll be leaving Kansas and heading for our old stomping grounds in Missouri.

Again, if you can help Jim and Heidi with their fundraising for World Bicycle Relief, we would all greatly appreciate it.

Hey Dorthey!!! We're in Kansas!

We have said "so long" to the mountain states and moved on to the great plains!  I'm wondering if the Kansas tourism board made sure there was wheat planted next to the "Welcome to Kansas" sign.

We have put in some long days to get here and we have had to adjust our daily routine to account for the hotter, windier weather.

After spending the night in the church parking lot in Rush, CO, Beth and I left the RV at about 6:15 on our way to Eads, CO via Kit Carson.  By leaving early, we got in about 50 miles before the temperatures and winds picked up.  After we leave, Nicholas sleeps a while longer, does his cross-country training run and then catches up to us about 3 hours later.

Nicholas finished up the day with me and got the better end of the deal.  The first 57 miles had a lot of rough, cracked pavement which is pretty hard riding on the tandem.  When we hit US 287 at the 57 mile mark, it was a nearly new concrete pavement with a big wide shoulder .... and a tail wind for the last 20 miles south to Eads. By leaving early we had completed the 94 miles by 1:30 in the afternoon which was nice since it was already 96 degrees with a good wind from the east.

When we got to Eads we found the sign for the half-way point of the Trans-America Bike Route.  In general we are following the Trans-America route, but have deviated several times to get to places like Helena, MT; Topeka, KS; Jefferson City, MO; Nashville, TN (do you see a theme here?)... And Beth and I both wanted to finish at Kitty Hawk, NC (not a state capital).  So when I was planning the route, the Trans-America route was just a starting point.

Today, Beth and I got another early start on our way to Scott City, KS.  Right as we rolled into Tribune, KS at mile 57, Nicolas pulled up behind us in the RV... perfect timing.  I finished up the day solo and actually enjoyed riding through the Kansas farm country.  There is a lot of wheat harvesting in progress in this area of western Kansas.  The wind was down to only 4-6 miles/hour, but of course it was almost straight out of the east and in my face the last 50 miles.  Still no good tail wind to blow us across Kansas and looking at the weather forecast, there may not be one for the next several days... only head or cross winds.  Here is the track for today at 104 miles.

I have sometimes wondered what happens to those giant hay bales if they sit around too long.  Today, I saw a big operation that uses a front end loader to dump them into a machine that grinds them up into fodder and shoots it into a semi-trailer.  Maybe they haul it over to one of several of the huge feed lots that I passed a few miles down the road... now that was a sweet smell when it was already in the mid-90's.

Tomorrow is another long day... my 3rd century in 5 days with a planned 119 miles into Great Bend, KS.  This will is the longest ride planned on the trip... by a couple of miles.  The next leg into Herington, KS is only planned at 116 miles.  At the current rate, I may make 2000 miles of riding in the month of June.

The wide open spaces of Kansas... and this section at least had nice pavement.

No Services Next 95 Miles

Just a quick post.... we road out of Colorado Springs late this afternoon. I have been waiting the whole trip to see this sign.

About 15 miles east of Colorado Springs on CO highway 94 is the small town of Ellicott.  This sign is posted on the eastern side of town...

We are spending the night in the RV in the parking lot of the Community Church in Rush, CO (pop <50) about 32 miles east of Colorado Springs.

The goal for tomorrow is to make it to Eads (about 93 miles from Rush), but we have an option to stop in Kit Carson, CO if the wind gets too bad.

We may be a long way from a gas station, but at least my cell phone hot spot is still working!

Colorado Springs and heading for the flat lands

The highest point on our trip across the country.

I thought I should put out a quick update since we continue to have issues with phone and internet access, even on the outskirts of Colorado Springs.

We did our last Rocky Mountain stage yesterday, riding from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs, CO.  We also did our last crossing of the Continental Divide at our highest point of the trip at Hoosier Pass, 11,539'.  It was a 101 mile day with 3 climbs, but a massive descent over the course of the day.  We climbed 4900', but dropped a total of 7900', so a lot of good downhill riding.  Link to the ride.  Nicholas rode the first 57 miles with me and Beth and I rode the tandem into Colorado Springs around the foothills of Pikes Peak.

Nicholas' family met up with us in Colorado Springs as well.  We toured the Garden of the Gods park in the morning.  Then they all drove up to the top of Pikes Peak while I did the planning for the rest of today and tomorrow and Beth restocked the groceries.

April, Curt, Beth, Emily, Nicolas, Ruth, & Barbara

The Royal Gorge was our original stop for today, but with the fires there and limited access to the park, we diverted to Colorado Springs.  That has forced some replanning.  Tomorrow we will join our originally planned route at Eads, CO, the "half-way" point of our trip.

I rode across Colorado Springs at 5:30AM this morning.  While it is a very bike friendly town, the bike paths and routes don't connect very well or at least not as far as I could see.  Also, Colorado Springs may have the worst maintained streets I have seen.  So anyway I rode to the junction of highway 94 that will take us east into the prairie.  We'll do a 30-40 mile ride this evening and finish up tomorrow in Eads.

Here are a few stats after 4 complete weeks on the road (5 if you count the drive to Oregon):

27 unique RV parks and campgrounds (includes our drive to Oregon)

RV average gas mileage:  16.1 mpg (impressive for with the mountains and wind)

9 crossings of the Continental Divide (we're done with that)

"Rest Days" in Boulder, CO

Nicholas, Beth Stacy and Ted at Dillion Reservoir

We spent Friday night with Stacy Ohlsson in her family's townhouse in Silverthorne.  After Stacy fixed a great breakfast for us we all rode from the townhouse to Breckenridge on the large bike path system that they have here in  Summit County.  Stacy returned to the townhouse from here to return to Denver.  Our plan was to continue on to the summit of Hoosier pass above Breckenridge, but 6 straight days and some pretty tough miles got the better of us.  So we had lunch at the  Breckenridge Brew Pub and then returned to the townhouse.

We packed up and drove to Boulder, CO to meet up with Nicolas' family (Curt, April, Emily and Grandma Ruth) at Beth's sister's (Barbara) house.  We all had a nice dinner at Chautauqua.  Barbara had lived in one of the cottages in Chautauqua when she first moved to Boulder last year.

After dinner Beth, Nicholas and I headed to a Marriott Courtyard across town to get some much needed sleep and start with our long list of "rest day" chores.  Laundry, laundry, laundry, cleaning out the RV, really cleaning out the RV, washing the million bugs off the RV, grocery shopping and cleaning and lubing the bikes, etc.

After I epoxied the pieces back together

What we didn't need was for me to add more work to this list.  I went in search of a car wash where I could vacuum the RV out and remove all of the bugs.  I thought I had found the place, but boy was I wrong.  When I looked at the opening of the car wash bay, it looked to be about 11' tall, but there was no height markings.  I can now tell you it it was probably 10' 5.75".  The top of the RV is 10' 6".  I just scraped the entrance.  What was really bad was the skylight had been opened to make sure that Mo, the beagle, had ventilation in the RV.  It cracked the skylight at the hinges.  So I spent the rest of the day epoxying the skylight together.  Looking at the car wash, I wasn't the first one to scrape the entrance.  I have now taken the lead with damage done while driving the RV.  Those skylights are expensive and a new one is being shipped to Jefferson City as I type.  We'll pick it up there when we ride through in a about 10 days.  Hopefully it holds together until we get there.

Barbara hosted a big family dinner at her house Sunday night which included her daughter, Maureen and boy friend Jon.  We all had a good time and play some entertaining croquet in the back yard.

Emily, April, Curt and Nicolas zip-lining

On Monday, I finally got around to cleaning/repairing the bikes and we restocked the groceries; yet another busy "rest" day.  Nicolas went with his family to visit the Colorado state capital building, have lunch with Maureen in downtown Denver and then on to zip-lining in Idaho Springs.  We met them there.  It looked like they were having a great time.  Then we all went for pizza.

We are back in Breckenridge, ready to start on a long day to Colorado Springs.  Now it is up and over Hoosier Pass first thing this AM!

Sweetwater Station... No Camping Allowed

I'm going to back up a few days to a story that occurred while crossing the wide open spaces of central Wyoming.

First let me say there isn't much between Dubois and Rawlins, Wyoming.  It is roughly 200 miles and I had planned to cover it in 2 days.  The only problem is there are no towns at around 100 miles.  Landers, WY is about 75 miles from Dubois and Jeffrey City is about 132 miles from Dubois.  But looking at maps and satellite photos, I noticed this wide spot in the road called Sweetwater Station rest area.  I did some Google searches and found a YouTube video that said that cyclists could camp there.

The wide open spaces of Wyoming... and busted up roads

So in planning the route, I ASSUMED we could camp at the rest area.  As Nicholas and I finished up the 114 miles of riding we cruised into the rest area and it is clearly posted that "No Camping" is allowed.  And to make things more hospitable there were swarms of hungry mosquitoes.  As we rolled in, Beth had just finished talking to the rest stop maintenance person who told her we could park in the gravel lot across the road where they store cinders, but just don't tell anybody.  I'm not sure why I wasn't comfortable with this, other than I was very tired and a little dehydrated.  Beth tried to convince me to just stay, but it was bugging me for some unexplained reason. 

So Beth used her iPhone (yes, we had service in the absolute middle of nowhere) and found info on an RV park in Jeffrey City, 19 miles down the road.  We loaded up the bikes and headed there.  We drove the 19 miles and found what used to be an RV park with a few trailers, a lot of dead trucks and no sign of life in what used to be the office.  That pretty much sums up all of Jeffrey City.  We later found a sign that said that Jeffrey City had been a Uranium boom and bust town with a current population of less than 100.

Beth saw a guy pull up to one of the trailers in a University of Wyoming truck.  She rolled down the window and asked if you could still stay at the park.  He said sure and gave us a phone number to call Cowboy Garth, the owner.  He said that if you don't get Garth on the phone, just pick a spot and hook up... he won't care.  Beth called Garth who was quite the character.   He said slip $25 in the slot on the door of the "office" and pull into the spot next to his RV that was parked next to the "office".

Well the mosquitoes here were just as bad, but we did have electricity, water and sewer, so we could take a good shower.   By this time it was getting late.  Beth fixed some dinner and I pretty much crashed. I had conceded since this was all my screw up in both the planning and insisting on driving to Jeffrey City that I would skip the 19 miles of lovely Wyoming desert.

Cowboy Garth's RV Park

In the morning, Beth offered one more time to drive back to the rest area so I could ride EVERY mile and I took her up on the offer.   As the rest area came into sight you could see a giant RV parked there and it had clearly spent the night.

We did have a great ride back to Jeffrey City from the rest area.  It was a really nice morning and we made great time covering the 19 miles in just over an hour on the tandem.

I have now conceded that Beth has full authority when it comes to decisions about when we stop and where we stay.  I clearly approach "brain dead" after some of these long rides.  She exercised that authority the next day as I battled the wind on our way into Colorado.  She said the first thing we find after 80 miles is where we stop.  At 84 miles, we found a great little camp ground, 6 Mile Gap CG, two miles down a dirt road.  She got no argument from me, the wind had completely whipped me and I couldn't go much farther.

An interesting sidenote - Jeffrey City (a literal ghost town) was the last time we had reliable phone and internet service until we arrived in Kremling, CO.

The end of the Internet is somewhere in southern Wyoming

It has been a while since our last post to the blog.  Technology is a wonderful thing as long as it works.  Our last reliable WiFi internet connection was in Dubois, WY, five days ago and our phones haven’t connected to the internet since day before yesterday.   Maybe we have found the end of the Internet… It is somewhere in southern Wyoming... or maybe northern Colorado.

We are currently in Silverthorne, CO, about 65 miles west of Denver on I-70.  We spent the night with our friend, Stacy Ohlsson from Denver.  Her family has a very nice townhouse in Silverthorne. It was nice to be out of the RV for a while, especially since we have been camping for 2 nights in a row.  She has been a great host and it was very nice of her to come out to Silverthorne to meet us.  She is planning to ride part of our ride with us today before she heads back to Denver. 

Anyway, the trip is progressing and we are still one day ahead of schedule.  We have transitioned from the high desert /open plains of south central Wyoming  to the mountains of northern Colorado.  We have racked up some big miles this week in some pretty tough conditions.  Here is a summary of the rides by day with links to the tracks:

		Miles
17-Jun	Dubois to Sweetwater Station, WY	114.2
18-Jun	Sweetwater Station to Rawlins, WY	86.5
19-Jun	Rawlins, WY to 6 Mile Rd Campground	84.7
20-Jun	6 Mile Gap CG to Sulphur Hot Spring, CO	90
21-Jun	Hot Sulphur Springs to Silverthorne, CO	53.2

Nicholas is definitely in the Polka dot jersey

The ride from Dubois to Sweetwater Station was a long day with a little surprise at the end which will be the subject of another post.  That has been our longest day so far.  Beth rode the first 60 miles with me on the tandem and Nicolas finished up with me for his longest day so far as well, 55 miles and 2600' of climbing.  There was a nice little 5 mile, 1000' climb at mile 100 which really got your attention.

The ride from Sweetwater Station to Rawlins was really nice for the first 60 miles or so.  Beth and I rode the tandem and then I finished it into Rawlins with a real mixed bag of conditions.  At first, I had a screaming tailwind and I was moving along at 30+ mph on flat ground which was fantastic.  The only drawback was the  shoulder of the road was awful and the highway wasn't a lot better.  Then I hit a 9 mile stretch of 1 lane road construction while a thunderstorm blew in with head winds.  Luckily Beth and Nicholas made through the construction and waited for me so could wait out the rest of the rain storm.  Then it was a 10 mile ride on into Rawlins.

Winds were so strong it bent the rod that holds the RV door

The initial plan had been to ride two very long days from Rawlins, WY to Silverthorne, CO, about 230 miles in just two days.  But when I was reviewing the plan again in early May, I put in an extra day to make sure we made.   It was a good thing I did.  We hit several stretches of 18-25 mph head winds along with more beat up roads that just really took its toll.  Luckily we were able to find camping spots along the way for both nights.  The water situation in the RV was a little tight with 3 people, but we made it without any problems.

We'll be spending the next 3 nights in the Boulder/Denver, CO area visiting with Beth's sister Barbara and her daughter Maureen.  It will be a mini family reunion as well.  Nicholas' mom, dad, sister and grandmother (Beth's mom) will be coming in from Missouri as well.  It will be good to be off the bike for a few days and visiting with family and resting.

But before we can do that, we are all going to ride today to Hoosier Pass between Breckenridge and Fairplay, CO.... the highest point on our trip, 11,530'!  Then we'll coast back to Silverthorne and head to Denver.

Quick update from Rawlings , WY

We have been having Internet issues, so just a quick note to say we made it across the 200 miles of pretty much wide open spaces between Dubois and Rawlins, WY.  There are a couple stories to tell, but they'll have to wait.  On to Colorado today with another big ride on the schedule.

So long Tetons, hello central Wyoming...

The Grand Tetons across Lake Jackson

The view back to the Tetons climbing Togwotee Pass

We had allowed for 2 days in Jackson just in case we had fallen behind schedule or felt we needed an extra rest day.  We haven't had any delays and are all feeling good, so we hit the road again today after only 1 rest day.  On the drive back to our starting point, we drove through the Grand Tetons National Park so that Nicholas could get a closer look at them.  Beth and I had been here for 3 days last August but still enjoyed the drive along the mountains and Lake Jackson.  

The ride for today was 59 miles to Dubois, WY which included a 3000' climb over Togwotee Pass at 9584' and crossing the continental divide again. This is our highest point in elevation so far this trip, but there are more big climbs to come.  Beth and I rode the tandem the entire way today. I think that makes the 7th time to cross the continental divide in the last week and we may do it a few more times as we head into Colorado.  All-in-all it was a good day.  The temperatures were mild and the wind was with us for the most part.  Here is the track for today's ride.

Nicholas' bike almost fell off the rack

We nearly had another bike damaged while on the bike rack today.  As we pulled up to the RV for first arranged stop, I saw that Nicholas' bike was hanging off the rack at a weird angle.  The bike is supposed to be attached to the rack by a skewer through the front fork.  Some how it had come loose and the bike was dangling from the rear tire attachment.  The cable that we run through all of the bikes to lock them to the van was holding it up so it wasn't bouncing off of the pavement.  Nicholas's bike hasn't been off the rake since West Yellowstone, about 175 miles of driving over mountain roads, so I'm not sure why it came loose.  I did put the bike on in a hurry in West Yellowstone since it was starting to rain on me, so maybe I didn't get the skewer tight... I really don't know.  Luckily there was no damage, but a close call.

I'm sure you have always wondered where you should go if you wanted to see the worlds' largest Jackalope exhibit. Well, now you'll know that answer to that burning question.  It is the Exxon station in Dubois, WY.  While I am no expert on Jackalopes, I would say this is the largest stuffed Jackalope that I have ever seen weighing in at 432 lbs.

432 lbs stuffed Jackalope

We have a couple of long hard days (113 miles and 86 miles) through central Wyoming coming up.  I'm pretty sure there will be very limited cell service and no internet access until we get to Rawlins in south central WY.  Tomorrow night we plan to spend the night at  Sweetwater Station rest area along the highway about 40 miles from the nearest town.  I'm just waiting to see the sign.... "Next services 90 miles".

Yellowstone and Grand TetonsNational Parks

Buffalo along the road in Yellowstone

We have made it to Wyoming passing through the west gate of Yellowstone National Park at West Yellowstone, MT and exiting through the south gate into the Grand Tetons National Park.  It has been a couple of days of challenging riding.

I got an early start riding from Ennis, MT in hopes of getting a jump on the wind.  That worked out for the first 23 miles and then somebody flipped the switch on the head wind.  Luckily it died down after about 7 miles to more of a gusty breeze instead of a non-stop head wind or it would have been another very long day.

Beth decided to take a break from riding.  We had been riding for 9 straight days since we cut our last rest day short in Missoula, MT and rode 40 miles.

Nicholas finished up the last 25 miles with me into West Yellowstone which included a little climb to our first marked crossing of the Continental Divide... and he crushed me again at the climb.  I think I just need to concede that I can't ride 60 miles and then keep up with him climbing, even if he is running almost every day.  Here is the track from our ride into West Yellowstone.

Nicholas, Beth and Old Faithful

I tried to get another early start out of West Yellowstone, but the overnight temps had dropped to freezing and I just didn't have the right gloves for cold weather riding.  I made it out onto the road at 7:45 with temperatures still near freezing.  I made the mistake of starting out with cold hands and they only got colder with pretty steady cross winds.  I had to stop every few miles to warm my hands under my jacket.  Luckily at mile 14 there was a park restroom with hot-air hand driers.  I must have used the hand dry for 10 minutes to thaw out my hands and gloves.  After that I was good all the way to the 30 mile mark at Old Faithful where I met Beth and Nicholas.

Beth was hoping to join me on the ride some time after we toured the Old Faithful area, but the temperature never got above 45 and with the occasional strong gusting winds and intermittent overcast it was too cold for the gear she had brought as well.  So I ended up riding the whole day by myself... 93 miles and 5000' of climbing, stopping every 10-20 miles to warm up a little and get support from the crew.

The sights through here are pretty amazing.  At one point, there was quite the traffic jam on the road.  A hundred yards out into a field, a wolf and a goose were eyeing each other pretty intently.  In the end, they both just walked off into the woods.  I think everybody watching was hoping for some "wild kingdom" carnage, but they were disappointed.  We also saw Bison just off the road. Again a huge group of onlookers as they just lay there.

After spending about 2 hours at Old Faithful and walking to the surrounding pools and smaller geysers, we grabbed some quick lunch.   I bundled up for the final 64 miles of riding including 3 more crossing of the continental divide. Luckily the wind only gusted up every now and then and the ride went fairly quickly given how much climbing there was to do.  Here is the route from yesterday.

I hadn't really thought too much about it, but when Old Faithful erupts, the water flows to a small stream behind it, which then flows to the nearby Madison river, then Missouri and Mississippi rivers and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico.  Good thing it is up over 7000' in elevation since it has a long way to go.  Strange things you think about when you are peddling your bike at high elevations.  What ponderings are yet to come in the Colorado Rockies at an elevation over 12,000'?

Today is our rest day in Jackson, WY., about 30 miles south of our route.  We had scheduled two days here just in case we had run into bad weather, but so far we have avoided any delays.  Right now the plan is to start riding again tomorrow through the central part of Wyoming.  These are going to be some tough days, long miles and tough climbs with very few towns along the way.  And very little if any cell coverage until we reach Rawlings in south-central Wyoming in about 3 or 4 days, depending on how hard and from what direction the wind blows.

Here are the riding stats after 16 days of riding (out of 18 days on the road):

The Grand Tetons across Jackson Lake

So much for a leisurely 50 mile ride

Beautiful grass lands outside of Three Forks

As of this morning we were about 30-40 miles ahead of our planned schedule.  That was fine, but we are coming up on Yellowstone National Park day after tomorrow and that pretty much has to be ridden in one day from end to end.  Getting a camping spot in the park is almost impossible.  There are campgrounds that don't take reservations, but they are usually full by 10AM. Getting a reserved camping spot along our route didn't work out either.  So in the end, we made the decision to ride to Ennis, MT which was our next scheduled stop, only 52 miles away.  That should give us time to rest up, do laundry, etc to get ready for the ride to West Yellowstone, MT tomorrow and then through Yellowstone NP the following day.

At 52 miles (here is the track), this should have been a fairly easy day, even if there was 3000' feet of climbing.   Well, think again...today was anything, but easy.  

The day started out well.  We met a father and daughter in the Missouri River Headwaters campground that were also riding across the country with a support Sprinter Van.  They are taking a more northerly route and will end in Virginia.  We traded stories for a while, had breakfast, Nicolas did his training run, we packed everything up and were out of the campground by 9:45.

The first part of the ride was really nice.  We crossed the Madison and Jefferson rivers which merge at the camp to form the Missouri.  The ride was rolling hills, but with a steady climb.  At 22 miles we were finishing a fairly long climb and were hit by three pretty strong gusts of wind and then a steady head wind.  It only got stronger as we rode.  We had met Nicolas at the 20 mile mark along the route and told him to wait for us 15 more miles down the road at the 35 mile mark.  It took us almost 2 hours to cover the 15 miles with the hills and head wind.  

Looking forward to a nice downhill ride, but the wind killed that.

At that point, Beth said her fun-meter was pegged and got in the van with Nicolas.  I got on my single bike to ride the rest of the way to Ennis.   There was an almost immediate 1000' foot climb with 2 miles of 7% grade while being hammered by the wind.  I grunted my way over the top.  With only 10 miles left to go, including 3 miles at a 7% grade down hill followed by 7 miles of flat, it should have taken less than 30 minutes to get to the RV park....but it took almost an hour.  I was lucky to hold 10mph on the flat ground going straight into the wind.

When I got to the RV park, I pulled out the anemometer.  It was measuring a very steady 16-18mph with gusts well over 20mph.

It is 10PM now and the wind is just now starting to settle down.  There have been storms in the area, but we haven't seen any rain yet.  I'm planning to get up early and try to get a head start on the day, hopefully before the winds kick up again.

On the good side, we are making a serious dent into the overall mileage on the map.  Currently at 1068 miles.  See the map below.    

Pink is completed miles; Blue triangle is current location; Grn-Blu-Brn segments are individual rides left to go.

From the Headwaters of the Missouri

Hopefully I get this posted before the batteries die on the notebook and cell phone.  We ran the RV batteries low last night, so we are little short on juice this AM.  And the internet connection through my cell phone hot-spot has been very "spotty" which only eats more battery as I have to retry almost everything.

It was another busy day with a quick visit to the Montana State Capital building.  They were running tours and the whole place seemed to be much more lively than the capital building in Boise.

Then we drove to a Pizza Hut parking lot to drop the bikes and hit the road.  We had decided to change the route a little and head toward Three Forks, MT.  This took us down Hwy 287 which was much more scenic than riding along the interstate which is what I had originally planned.  Plus there were a lot more options for camping.

This is BIG wheat country.  As you can see, there were a few clouds hanging around.  This had been the case all day.  We even had a few sprinkles on us a couple of times, but nothing to get us wet.... which was really fortunate since we forgot to put the "trunk" on the tandem that has our rain jackets in it, along with spare tubes, chain links and food.  I'm not sure what we were thinking.  We were 50 miles into the ride before we even noticed.

Luckily, we made it to our stopping point without getting wet.  We loaded up the bikes on the RV and drove 7 miles to the Missouri River Headwaters State Park to spend the night.  We had barely got the RV parked before a thunderstorm dropped about a half-inch of rain on us in 30 minutes.

It was kind of interesting just riding over the Missouri river for the first time yesterday.  I thought that maybe we should drop a bottle with a note in it and see if it would beat us to Jefferson City, MO in about 3 weeks.

I'm not sure if you have wondered what two AARP candidates and a 16 year-old do in the evening with no TV, a limited selection of DVDs, and spotty (if any) internet connections.

... we play board games.  And right now the game of choice is Catan.  This is a game that Ben and Vicky (son and daughter-in-law) introduced us to a few months ago.  It is a lot of fun with 2-4 players.  It is a game of strategy with a good dose of luck since there are dice involved.  Somehow 11 was rolling a lot last night and that wasn't helping me at all!

Here is a link to yesterday's ride.

We are still a little ahead of our planned schedule (about 40 miles) and we are trying to decide if we push-on to try to make it to Yellowstone a little early or spend tonight in Ennis, MT.  We'll have to decide soon....






After two full weeks on the road (13 riding day) here are the stats:

Greetings from Helena, MT

We are definitely in "Big Sky" country now.  Big open valleys surrounded by mountains. Lots of hay and cattle.

We made it to Helena a little ahead of schedule.  We didn't take our full "rest day" off in Missoula.  About noon we headed out and road 41 miles toward Helena. We spent the night in Russell Gates Camp Ground along the Blackfoot River.  Today was a scheduled 110 mile ride to the MacDonalds Campground about 20 miles from Helena. But by putting in 41 miles early, we made it all the way to Helena today.  We will have plenty of time to visit the state capital tomorrow before heading down the road toward Boulder, MT and Yellowstone National Park a couple days after that.  So far we have had plenty of sunshine since we left the Oregon coast, but tomorrow is forecast to be rainy, so we will see how things go.

Just for fun, Beth has made it a mission to find a license plate from every state that we are in along the roadside.  So far she has been very successful.  Today she found 2 Montana plates along the road.  So far she has found at least one plate in every state, OR, ID and MT.

Beth and I rode the tandem 60 miles today and then Nicholas and I rode the last 27 miles together including the climb up to MacDonald Pass.  Nicholas absolutely killed me going up to the pass.  He was at least half a mile ahead of me when he reached the summit.  Even so it was a blast riding down the other side, at least for the first 4 miles with an 8% grade going down.  Here are our tracks from the past couple of days.  Rest Day... Today.

It is hard to believe that we will hit the 1000 mile mark tomorrow on this journey across the country.... only 3000 more to go!!!

At the top of MacDonald Pass

What in the heck is this thing????... think of "finding a needle in a ..."

Welcome to Montana!

Lolo Pass summit and the Montana state line

It has been 3 days since our last post on the blog and we have covered quite a few miles in western and central Idaho.  The cell phone coverage has been very spotty (and that is being generous) and access to the internet was very limited at one RV park and non-existent in the Clearwater National Forest.  I think we went 200 miles with no cell phone coverage at all.  Anyway we are in Missoula, MT right on schedule and having some issues with the internet in the hotel.

If you haven't seen the schedule, here it is.  I'll try to update this if it changes for any reason... weather, mechanical problems, etc.  I'll also try to add links to the ride descriptions that are stored on ridewithgps.com as well.

Nicholas rolling down the mountain.

The 3 days in Idaho were great.  We had perfect weather, great scenery, nice places to stay, big climbs and big DESCENTS (I'll try to keep spelling it right).  Speaking of descents, Nicholas got his first taste of a nice ride down a  mountain outside of Grangeville, ID on the way to Kooskia. Mom and Dad don't worry, we barely broke 30 mph and as you can see there was a nice guard rail.  On the other hand Beth and I hit 48 mph coming down from Lolo Pass today.

Here are our rides from the last three days:
Riggins to Kooskia, ID:  72.8 miles / 3732' climbing
Kooskia to Wendover Campground: 84.3 miles / 2333' climbing
Wendover CG to Missoula, MT:  61.8 miles / 2328' climbing

When Beth and I were at the summit of the climb between Baker City and Halfway, OR, a guy who works for the local telephone company stopped to take our picture.  He asked about the trip and started to rattle off every small town between here and Missoula that has a big climb into or out of it.  I can barely remember the major towns (population greater than 250 in Idaho) for each day, much less 3 or 4 days in advance.  Anyway he said we would have quite the time with White Bird.  Well he wasn't kidding.  7.5 miles and 2500' and you can see almost the entire climb from the start.  Luckily there were pullouts every mile or so and we had Nicholas hang back for while until were part way up and then meet us half way to the top.  Everything went well, but it was a long steep climb.

We also ran into our first major stretch of road construction about 8 miles outside of Kooskia, ID.  The construction crew were very friendly.  They wouldn't allow us to ride the 2 miles of one lane construction zone, but put us into their lead truck and hauled us across.  We still had another 9 miles of ground off asphalt beyond our drop off point.

Speaking of rough roads, the torn-up chipseal roads we have hit, sometimes for 15-30 miles at a stretch have made for some sore hand, shoulders and seats.  For the most part, it looks like clearing the winter snows has torn up the roads and made them really rough.  So far no major problems, it just makes the day seem a little longer.

We are clearly on the Lewis and Clark trail.  Mile after mile of Lewis and Clark camped here markers.

Today is a rest day, but we plan to ride 41 miles to put a dent into the planned 110 miles scheduled for tomorrow.  Then push on to Helena, MT tomorrow to give us a little more time in the capital on Tuesday.

Whitewater rafting on the Lochsa River in Clearwater NF

Casinos at every gas station in Missoula

Stats after 10 riding days