Planning the Trip - Part 1

So I have to admit, I'm sitting here writing this on Valentines Day and I've been verrrrrrrryyyyyyy baaaaaaaddddddd!  I haven't ridden in about four days and I feel incredibly guilty.  I had good reason to though, yesterday I had to buy the chocolate and today I have to get home to deliver/share it with my loved one, my best friend, my wife.  But tomorrow I will be back at the training with a vengeance.

However, as I looked at the calendar I realized we are 130 DAYS AWAY FROM THE GRAND DEPARTURE!!!!  This past weekend I spent a lot of time finalizing our route back and I double checked large parts of the route.  The more I look over the maps and the terrain the more I want to ask myself, "what the #@$#@$ were you thinking?"  Or to put it in the words of the singer Jenny Owen Young (Warning: This song contains the "f-bomb" but I'm still mystified as to how someone can make it sound so beautiful);



Of course this isn't to be confused with Avril Lavigne's "What the Hell";



or as Jeff Dunham would put it, "What the hell is wrong with you?" (WARNING: You will only hear Jeff and Peanut, you will SEE this cute little Anime video);



Nevertheless, as I started to go through the maps we purchased from Adventure Cycling Association, I realized that I'll be cycling through TWELVE (12) states this summer - CA, AZ, CO, KS, IL, MO, KY, VA, MD, DE, NJ and NY!  All in the space of 64 dyas so that averages out to just a little more than FIVE (5) DAYS A STATE!  Considering we have at least one rest day every two or three days, that's not too shabby.

Unfortunately, we won't really be in every state for only five days.  As it turns out, once I start rolling, we'll only be in California for two and a half days.  Our longest sojourns will be in Colorado and Kansas which account for 20 days, or almost 1/3 of our journey!

Now tentatively, the route will look ROUGHLY like this;

(The Long and Winding Road)

The big differency is that where it shows looping up into Indiana and back across West Virginia, I will instead go down through Kentucky and Virginia (hopefully to see my sister Alina).  We're about halfway into the planning stage at this point and we're ready to start booking the accomodations so we've been working on locking in the route.

Now I know some of my followers on my Connor's Army facebook page have asked where we're going and we're 90% sure these are the towns we'll be passing through on our way;

In CA:   San Diego, Pine Valley, Brawley
In AZ:   Blythe, Salome, Wickenburg, Ash Fork, Tusayan, Tuba City (as a former Tubist, how can I resist?),  Kaynton, Four Corners
In CO:   Cortez, Pagosa Sptings, Del Norte, Fort Garland, Colorado City, Pueblo, Ordway, Eads
In KS:    Tribune, Dighton, Larned, Hutchinson, Eureka, Pittsburgh (side trip to THE Little House on the Prairie)
In MO:   Marshfield, Houston, Ellington (with a Rest Day side trip to St. Louis?),  Farmington
In IL:      Murphysboro, Cave-in-Rock
In KY:    Owensboro (Utica?), Sonora (with a Rest Day side trip to Mammoth Cave), Harrodsburg, Booneville, Hindman
In VA:    Rosedale, Sugar Grove, Christiansburg, Lexington, Charlottesville (with a Rest Day side trip to Monticello), Fredericksburg, Springfield (to visit Alina)
In MD:    Frederick, Bel Air North
In DE:     Sorry, not stopping here.
In NJ:      Swedesboro, Verona (not sure on that one yet, we have to check with Mark and Laura)
Then HOME!!!!!!!

The plan is for me to start riding at 6:00 (or so) in the morning and stop six hours later (or so) at the day's destination.  The longest distance I'll have to go is 115 miles with the shortest (the first day) being 50 miles.  The following days range from 52 to 85 until I start to get my endurance up and hit the big push of 106 miles from Wickenburg, AZ to Ashfork, AZ the day after resting and trying to see some friends in Phoenix.

Now in all of this we are trying to see some of the country.   And one of the most important things to do is to ride Route 66 - even if for only five miles!  I mean, how can we go across country and not touch at least a little while on THE MOTHER ROAD!  What's that?  You don't know the Mother Road?  Well, let Asleep At the Wheel tell you about it; 



And speaking of Old Route 66 and Ash Fork, AZ - this is the view we'll see;



I'm very excited since I haven't passed over any of Route 66 since I was about eleven years old and we moved from Monterrey, CA for Augusta, GA.  And now my own children will get a gret chance to see it too!

So, take a look at the cities listed above and if we are passing through (or close to) any of you, we would REALLY appreciate the opportunity to visit with you and if you have a place that five weary travellers could bed down for the night, it would be really appreciated.  The money we save could be that much more that goes to the kids of Sunrise!

And now, one more little video for a dessert treat - "Life is a Highway!"  - ain't it fitting?!?



Stay well my friends, and I'll see YOU on the (long and winding) road!

Frozen Cyclist (on a stick)!

And the above picture pretty much sums up the way I felt when I rode in to school this morning!  You see, when I finally arrived at school this is what Weather.com said the outside temperature was;



Of course, the good folk over at The National Weather Service said the temperature was actually 20 degrees but I'm not going to get into the debate over whose more accurate.  To tell the truth, at those temperatures, four degrees really doesn't mean much.  Especially when the wind is gusting up to 25 mph!  It really felt like I was riding on rollers in a walk-in cooler!!!!  I truly just felt like an popcycle shaped like a cyclist.  Of course, this is not to confuse me with Jose Jalapeno on a stick who is usually much warmer (being a jalapeno) than I was;




Of course it could be worse, it could be like cycling in the Antarctic;



Now I have to say as I rode in I saw a lot of curious faces.  Well, not so much curious as flabbergasted.  They sort of looked like this;

(What the ????????)

Although (speaking of lemurs) I have to say that at one point during this morning's ride I felt like this (fast forward to :52 and leave it there a while);



Mainly becuase I was pedaling as fast as I could but with the wind gusts on my nose, I was only averaging 15 mph!!!!   But mostly people seeing me ride into work were asking me the simple question "Why?"  Well, its not so I can do my impersonation of an Emperor Penguin;



Though I suppose if I WERE a penguin I would be more like this guy;



But it would be a cross between dancing and cycling I think.

No, the real reason I'm riding in this weather is that I have to get used to a couple of things - 1) Riding EVERY day (or at least ALMOST every day) and 2) Riding in all kinds of weather.  I realize it probably won't get to be 20 degrees at any point during my ride IN THE SUMMER but I do have to get used to riding in some degree of coldness as I'll be passing over a couple of mountain ranges.  I also have to get used to riding in the wind.  We're planning on leaving at the end of June and traveling east to catch some of the westward winds but there's never a guarantee - especially on the plains of Kansas!

So, I plug away and I'll keep on riding in all kinds of weather becuase I just can't see the possibility of telling the kids of Sunrise, "oh, I couldn't cycle the whole way becuase it was too cold (or rainy, or windy, or hot)."  No, its 3600 miles or bust come rain, shine, hail, tornado (okay, hail storns and tornadoes MAY slow me down a bit), fog, gloom, and dark of night.  Hey, maybe I should just work for the US Postal Service.  But of course, we know they don't support cyclists!

Okay, its time to retire for the night and get ready for tomorrow's big commuting ride - at least its supposed to be warmer!

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!