Where to start? I guess the best place is on the plane from Denver to Portland. Looking out the window as I flew over the area that I would be riding I thought this may not be a very good idea. Once out of the Dever area and heading north west there is a whole lot of nothing. The clear skies gave me a look at brown earth and once in awhile I could make out what looked like a road running acoss it, and very few signs of life. Driving to Astoria over much of the route I would be taking back to Portland made me even more apprehensive about doing this, I had hoped for some flat land from the coast to get my legs in shape, this was not to be. The first couple days I thought that I will never be able to do this and I should just forget it. Once past Portland I put these thoughts out of my mind and went with my plan to just ride till I was tired and not try to make it to any certain point for the day, and just stop when there was someplace to stay and I felt I had gone far enough. This worked well although a lot of days I stopped when I could have gone futher, as I would discover the next day by an easy ride to the next place that had a place to stay. There were of course days when if I had continued on to the next town I would of had a hard time getting there.

  The roads, traffic and boredom!! First a little about shoulders on the road. When they are there use them, when they are not move to the right as far as you can when approached form behind. Now some people complain about trucks and I would like to say that almost every truck that past me moved over a full lane whenever there was no opposing traffic and no one to there left on 4 lane roads and many just simply slowed down till that traffic past, even had one or two actually stop when there was no shoulder and opposing traffic coming. Did I get bored? No, how can one get bored when every hill or turn on the road gives you something new to see, with the exception of corn and soy bean fields of the I states. Which brings me to Iowa.There are no shoulders on the roads in Iowa and it is hilly and lots of traffic. Iowa was without a doubt the worst part of this trip. I will never ride in Iowa again.

  A little about people. Most seem to be amazed that anyone would ride a bike across the country, and everyone of them wish you luck and a safe trip. The folks in Nebraska make your arm tired from waving back to them as they drive by.

  Why I didn't go to the east coast. Well,I knew in my heart when I started that when I got near home that I would probably not continue on if was not able to get to the C&O Canal to ride to Washington D.C. with the guys from work. When I got to Indiana I pretty much figured that I would not get to Cumberland by the date of the annual C&O ride, and as it turned out much of the canal was closed because of flooding from Isabel and the ride was canceled.

  Would I do this again? Without a doubt what a great experiance it has been.To see just a small part of this great land at slow speed is something every one should do. Sure you can see more of it by car but there are many things that those driving by me I know they never saw, like the otters and beavers I stopped to watch in Idaho, and the moose in Wyoming that were in a field down over an embankment hidden from the road. So yes i would do it again and probably will, but I will not go through to Iowa.

  If you find the information on these pages helps you in your plans or inspires you to do a cross country ride drop me line. If you need more information about the route or something is not clear drop me a line and I'll try to give you more info. There is (or will be soon) a down loadable version of all available services along this route. Get it HERE