Photos

Now that we've made it home and have access to a reliable internet connection, I've had time to upload all of the photos from the trip. So here they are, in three parts.

First, from NYC to just past Pueblo, CO:

K's Pictures New York to Colorado Complete

Second, from Pueblo to Yellowstone:

K's Pictures Colorado to Idaho Complete

And finally, from Yellowstone to FLORENCE, OREGON!!!

K's Pictures Idaho to Oregon Complete

Ahaha!

Last Climb!

Just two more days of riding to the coast, and its all downhill from here.

Penultimate Pass

We caught up with two guys we'd been chasing since Kansas. Don't be jealous, but they're kind of a big deal.

Yep

Home Stretch (sort of)

Jeanne used to hate pancakes

Our first meal in Idaho

Traffic Jam

Those are buffalo.

The Tetons

And check out Katrina's sweet new long underwear.

Avoiding Some Road Work

Storm Clouds

Forever West

Highest Point

Almost There

10,578 ft!

Good Morning!

Yesterday we climbed 4,000 feet over 65 miles. Now we're at 9,000. It was a struggle to get started this morning; it's cold and harder to breath. We're really lucky we hit unseasonably warm weather. Even in the midst of a warm spell there's frost in the mornings and my toes are numb for the first hour of riding.

But the scenery is spectacular. More on this to follow.

Great Weather

Yes it was cold this morning getting out of the sleeping bags, but we are fortunate to be encountering a warm spell and it now shorts and tshirt weather for our afternoon ride into Fairplay. Though Jeanne is still wearing long underwear of course. Tomorrow we tackle the last of our climbs for a few days as we go over Hoosier pass and into Breckenridge. It's exciting to be back in these mountains and to see Jeanne experience them for the first time.

Mountains

Pueblo, CO

> Yesterday we rolled into Pueblo. While doing laundry we were informed that our Pueblo experience would not be complete until we'd eaten a green chili "slopper" at the Coors Tavern. Then, in exchange for stories, bartender Baron offered us his couches for the night and even drove us out past the Pueblo traffic, giving us a great head start on the day.

Exciting Event #3

We can see the Rockies! We've been searching the horizon at the crest of every hill for the past two days. Finally, as we biked through a feedlot haze into Ordway, CO, we saw the sun setting behind mountains.

Exciting Event #2

After weeks of terrain like this, we entered a town with an elevation of 4200 feet. We climbed thousands of feet without realizing it.

Exciting Event #1

New state! (This picture is from the day before yesterday, but the excitement hasn't faded.)

Kansas Wind Turbines

Calderesque

Ness City, KS

Kansas at Night

When you get up at 4am noon is your happy hour

Kansas does beer right. Served in a frosty chalice. Too bad the only things on tap are bud, bud light, coors light and keystone light. Still hits the spot after 60 miles.

From Spandex to Suit

Today Leah headed back east to jump into the pre election fray and start prepping for work. We will miss her, but are excited to have her pioneer the transition back to normal life. We'll be seeking her advice on hiding weird chinstrap tans and working with numb fingers in a couple of weeks. For now Katrina and I are headed back onto the windy Kansas roads!

Kansas

We've made it from Missouri to Dorothy's lovely state of Kansas. While not as flat as everyone claimed (thank god, the slight hills are actually way better than just plain flatness) it's definitely as windy as they claimed. We biked through what we thought was a windy day yesterday only to be informed by every local we ran into that that was not in fact windy and that we would find out what windy was in a few days. We did however turn north for the last 16 miles of our day and get a lovely tailwind which allowed me to get into my highest gear for the first time in the whole trip. It was amazing and felt like we were flying. At first i thought that the wind for the day had just died down but then we took a sharp 90 degree turn only to find out that it was not dead and had in fact been pushing us along, luckily we got to another 90 degee turn and got pushed a little further to our destination - the town of Cassoday KS. Here we spent the night in the city park, after being turned away by the local pastor. This was the first time a church had turned us away and he was not very nice about it at all - so much for do unto others, but whatever. We ended up having a very loud night in the city park since there were train tracks near it with trains that seemed to pass and ring their alarms or whatever they do about every two hours all night.

Yesterday we also ran into the second group of people going our direction, a British couple, who said they'd been chasing us down since Kentucky, constantly seeing our names in all of the various log books you sign along the route. They inevitably caught us since they are doing around 80 to 90 miles a day - they called a 60 mile day a half day! They were really nice and it was exciting to meet more poeple going our direction, though they will be taking a more southern route once we get to Peublo, CO.

I'm getting really exctied for the rockies and for the first glimpse of them after the nothingness that will be eastern colorado. We will definitely be posting some pictures when they appear.

The Campsite

(per the request of Katrina's mother)

"Today I'm a Tiger."

Vacation From Our Vacation

First a big thank you to Kate and John who let us spend not one but two nights with them and showed and shuttled us around St. Louis yesterday. We had a great day off.

We are now on a little "vacation" on the Katy Trail across Missouri. We started the day as you would with any vacation, at the airport. And then crossed the Missouri river to join the oasis that is the Katy trail. We are currently enjoying an afternoon beer at one of the many breweries/wineries that run along the 237 mile trail which has been converted to a bike path from an old RR track. I love vacations!
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City Amenities!

St. Louis

We made it! New state! Day off to explore the city tomorrow.
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Great Day

Gorgeous day biking in Illinois; we avoided the rain and got this instead. St. Louis tomorrow night! Can't wait to see the arch.

Not sure bike racks were built to hold this much weight. Watching the bikes while Jeanne and Leah grab various veggies they will throw into our dinner. At some point we will have just mac and cheese!

New Photos

These aren't organized yet but here's a massive photo dump from my camera:

JKLFordtheRiver_IL

And from Leah's camera:

JKL_Leah

We will reorganize and repost these links later, but for those who can't wait, enjoy.

Bathtub Madonna

Leah claims to have seen the Virgin Mary in a bathtub repeatedly over the past week. Neither me nor the 'Bot had yet to see any such bathtub, but apparently she wasn't making it up.

Now that we believe her, we'll keep an eye out and post a picture of the next one we see. Stay tuned.

New State!

We took a ferry from Kentucky into Illinois. Better pictures to follow.

Traces of Amish

Pavement pocked by the hooves of horses drawing buggies.

Today we saw...

an ATV rolling down the road with a child's carseat (w/baby) strapped
to the back.

Video From Katrina's Bike

This is what it looks like as we ride along. I took this video after we rode down a big hill/mountain as I followed Jeanne.

Bardstown Day Off!

Today we are taking a day off in Bardstown, KY. Last night we strolled along a golf course listening to a concert at the Old Kentucky State Park Amphitheater and star gazing as we ate our McDonald's ice cream. It's amazing how many more stars you can see out here. Ice cream has become a daily part of life, and Jeanne now refuses to end a day without a milkshake.

Today we plan on doing a tour of the Heaven Hill Distillery and maybe a Bourbon tasting. However for the moment we've settled into the library to recharge phones and take advantage of some free internet. So far Kentucky has been interesting. The eastern part of Kentucky was filled with crazy packs of hunting dogs that chased us down the road and trucks with exhaust so dark we looked like we came out of one of the coal mines after we biked through it. We left eastern Kentucky (and Appalachia) on one of the prettiest descents we've seen yet, a two mile stretch of road cut through the rock of the mountain, overlooking the rolling hills we're enjoying now. We'll be heading on across Kentucky and then north towards St. Louis, where we will be diverging from the Transamerican trail for a bit. We'll be taking the Katy Trail through Missouri; it's an old railroad line that has been converted into a bike path and will allow us to skip some of the ups and downs of the Ozarks. We're looking forward to exploring St. Louis on our next day off. None of us have been there before, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

Breakfast

Two cinnamon buns, coffees and three egg and cheese biscuits later we're finally starting our day. Yesterday's 70 miler seems to have all of us moving a little slower this morning. Can't wait for Bardstown and our next day off! Just two more days of pedaling to get us there.

Hindman, KY

We stayed at the Knott County Historical Society two nights ago. The
research center also serves as a biker haven and "cat farm".

The Runt of the Litter

Heading into some very dry areas of kentucky (and even this place was closed). We were told to look out for "damp" counties though - you can get a beer at a restaurant but can't take it outside or home.
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Welcome to Kentucky

Today we left Virginia and entered Kentucky. The border crossing was exciting (as you can tell from Leah's photos), but then reality set in. After an afternoon spent fending off dogs with mace, hard kicks, and the most authoritative "No"s and "Bad Dog"s we could muster,* we pedalled into an oasis of safety, the Freeda Harris Baptist Center. The caretaker locked the door behind us and told us not to let anyone in under any condition.**

From the two small windows in the baptist gymnasium doors, we can see four-wheelers, dirt bikes, and coal trucks (these three types of vehicles outnumber normal cars 2:1, no joke) hurtling by on the shoulderless two-lane road. We can also hear the baying of the roaming Kentucky dogs that will undoubtedly greet us as we begin our ride tomorrow.

* With an audience. Leah noticed one man on his porch laughing as his pack of dogs trailed her down the road.
** Not exactly comforting, though the same woman also assured me that there isn't any crime in this town. We've just decided to embrace the paranoia, which is easy because it periodically sounds like there are four-wheelers madly circling the building.

Unrelated shout out to Anna (who started law school today). Goodluck with classes! Her fall semester line-up: Barkow, Epstein, Issacharoff. Not bad, right?

We made it to Kentucky. Notice I stopped for a photograph with the state sign. Also notice that we were in an area with curvy mountain roads...Katrina was supposed to stop too but has become quite addicted to the downhill.

We're in Kentucky!
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So we've been awful at updating the blog, but all of that is going to change. Until then here is a little catch up on what we've been up to the last 23 days. We left NYC and since then have made it through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and have spent the last 14 days in Virginia and made it all the way to Damascus. Along the way we've eaten everything in site: whoopie pies in Amish country, trout sandwiches for breakfast at a gas station (at least for jeanne), ice cream every chance we get, and lots of peanut butter sandwiches and cliff bars. We've climbed the blue ridge parkway and crept along the VA creeper trail, encountered dogs - and realized why dog spray should be easily accessible (my shoe now has an extra hole in it).

The bikes strike up conversations everywhere we go, and people tend to get a glazed over look when they hear we're heading to Oregon, but everyone has been so nice. We've gotten free nights to stay at the Cookie Lady's and other various bike hostels and town parks along the way, and we're even treated to some amazing asian pears and jam at a William's Orchard right outside of Wytheville.

The biker's we run into going the other direction (who are so close to their final destination) have been full of great information - they are the reason we'll be heading north to st. louise and onto the KD Trail instead of through the rollercoaster ride that is the Missouri transam trail. They've also all still been in high spirits which is good to see after making it that far. Though we keep getting told we're making a late start and we better pick up the pace across kansas if we want to make it through the rockies before we get snowed in. Fingers crossed it will all work out fine. Ok this looks long enough. We'll be adding more pictures to Leah's album later today so look for those, and tomorrow's update will be coming from one of the other two.

Mineral, VA

JKL Ford The River (Complete)

Updated photo album

Rainy Day Riding

Yesterday was our first true day of rainy riding - at least 4 hours of straight down pour. As the rains began we passed two cows standing in a low corner of a pasture with their feet in a puddle and I thought 'why would they want to stand with their feet in a puddle?' Half an hour later with my shoes drenched as though I were standing in a puddle I still wondered why the cows thought that was a good idea.

Jeanne has begun a rescue squad for the turtles of america. I believe 4 have been rescued to date.

Heavy Load

After making it to Oregon with this thing fully loaded I'm going to be ready for a nice light road bike. The harlem hills in central park will be a cake walk on one of those.
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Amish country

Amish country! these girls got up that hill with such ease and way faster than we would have. Have yet to find a whoopie pie, hopefully can get one today because we're pretty much out of Amish country, tomorrow we get to Maryland!