Yellowstone, A Haiku (August 31st - September 8th)

Another nine days
The middle of Yellowstone
Imaginary

I'm where that little gray dot is in the middle of Yellowstone

Real life: 2,634.3 miles ridden. 134.3 miles ahead of target pace. 1,001.1 miles to go!

Everything is Bigger in Wyoming (July 24th - August 30th)

It's been over a month since my last post, so I guess I've hit a bit of a slump. I spent the rest of July making my way through the western end of South Dakota. I spent three nights in Fairburn (population 85), and one night in Hermosa (population 398). Then I rode into Keystone (population 337), which was the longtime home of Carrie Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Keystone was also a location from the movie North, starring Elijah Wood. I've never seen North, but it is the topic of one of my favorite Roger Ebert reviews:

I then spent three nights in Custer, which is supposedly home to the widest Main Street in the country. Apparently, its width was to allow a team of oxen pulling a wagon to turn completely around. Efficiency!

So wide!

I spent one night in Edgemont before crossing into Wyoming. I quickly learned that Wyoming was a lot different than any other state that I had passed through. Despite the fact that I consistently rode about 10 miles per day, I typically spent at least four straight nights in most of the towns or cities of Wyoming. I even had seven sleeps in a town called Ten Sleeps! As of August 30th, I am now in Basin, WY. I should be in Yellowstone National Park in about a week!

Making progress!

Real life: Since I last checked in, I've basically stayed exactly on my 10 mile per day pace. I have now ridden 2,530.5 miles, which is 120.2 miles ahead of my target pace. I took a three day break from riding in August, which is my longest rideless streak since early March.

South Dakota Nights (July 5th - July 23rd)

I spent nine more nights in Nebraska before crossing into South Dakota, home of the Geographic Center of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii). I spent six nights in Martin, SD, despite the fact that I rode over 27 miles during that time. You would think that this means that Martin is a happening town with a lot to do. You would be wrong, but I did enjoy the HorseShoe Bar.

Real life: The good news is that despite taking a couple of days off from riding (mostly due to illness), I've still continued to build my mileage surplus. There were a couple of highlights during this stretch that had very little to do with riding a bike. Last week my wife and I found out that we are having a boy, which is super exciting. Then last weekend we celebrated my wife's 32nd birthday, which was a lot of fun despite a thunderstorm attempting to thwart our plans. I also got to witness this great Chicago sunset with thunderstorms across Lake Michigan.

https://instagram.com/p/5Qk7DmghcI/

Total annual mileage: 2151.2 miles (119.4 miles ahead of target pace).

Home of Frank Leahy (June 27th - July 4th)

There's not a lot to write about in the middle of Nebraska. I've mostly been passing through towns with a few hundred residents (some less than one hundred), so please forgive me if I don't walk you through the details of each day. However, on July 1st, as I moved into the second half of the calendar, I spent the night in O'Neill, NE.

O'Neill has almost 4,000 residents, so it's a big city for this part of Nebraska. It's also the hometown of Frank Leahy, who was a famous football coach for Boston College and Notre Dame in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. He ended up spending most of his years at Notre Dame, which was also his alma mater. However, the two years at BC are of most interest to me. In 1940, he led Boston College to an 11-0 record, a Sugar Bowl victory, and a "National Championship". This is the only "National Championship" in BC football history. I use quotation marks because BC is one of four teams to claim that they won the National Championship that year. The others were Minnesota, Tennessee, and Stanford (BC ended up 5th in the AP Poll). After that season, Leahy left to coach Notre Dame. He had a contract with BC and they didn't make it easy for him to get put of it, but eventually he did. He went on to coach Notre Dame for 11 seasons, leading them to four less disputed National Championships.

After a 20.2 mile ride on our nation's birthday, I spent the night in Newport, NE. For a town on 97 people, the fireworks display was pretty impressive. I think every resident was lighting some off on their property.

Newport, NE

Real life: Now that I've built up a bit of a surplus of miles, I've started to become a bit more lax on some days. I've taken a day off from riding here and there, or only rode a few miles on some others. However, I've made up the miles on some days with longer rides. I also just won a GoPro in a contest at work, so readers can expect some GoPro videos on here in the near future. One highlight of the last week was 4th of July fireworks on a rooftop in Chicago while watching my buddy's band, Sheep Numbers playing live. Total annual mileage: 1933.2 miles (90.6 miles ahead of target pace)

Past the Halfway Point (June 16th - June 26th)

The ride through Nebraska continues, and on June 24th I passed the halfway point of my ride and ended up in the city of Norfolk, NE. Norfolk is a decent-sized city for Nebraska, so it was a nice place to celebrate. Based on the name alone, I had to have dinner at the Black Cow Fat Pig Pub and Steak. Here's what halfway looks like:

Norfolk, NE - the middle

I got some good riding in over those next couple of days and ended up in Neligh, NE on the 26th. Neligh is not a big town, but it does have some interesting history. In particular, there is the story of the grave of White Buffalo Girl. You can check that out in this video:

Real Life: This stretch of real life riding included Bike to Work Week (or more formally the Bike Commuter Challenge). It is a week-long challenge that is organized by Active Transportation Alliance, which encourages people to ride their bikes to work. Every year it helps more and more people discover that cycling is a great way to get around. During this challenge in 2012, I got on a bike for the very first time in Chicago. Total annual mileage: 1857.1 miles (94.2 miles ahead of target pace)

Into That Great Void (June 8th - June 15th)

After spending 6 more days in Iowa (26 days total), I crossed the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge into Nebraska, where I was welcomed by the fine city of Omaha. The city was mostly of interest to me because of its music scene. After all, Omaha is the birthplace of Elliott Smith and Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes). While Elliott Smith moved elsewhere before becoming a musician, Conor and Bright Eyes got their start in Omaha. In order to take in the current music scene a bit, I caught a local band at The Waiting Room, and then went to the Crescent Moon Ale House and tried a DL's Cafe Leche Stout from local Upstream Brewing.

My interesting fact of the day for Omaha is that it is nicknamed the "Gateway to the West", which makes it one of at least six US cities that use that nickname. What are the other five? I'm saving that for a trivia question one day. After Omaha, it was on to Bennington, which was originally called Bunz Town. I have no idea why they changed such a great name. I'm now shacking up for the night in Valley, NE, which does not have any cool former names.

Nebraska (according to Bruce Springsteen)

Real life: As of now, I'm at 12 straight days of riding at least 10 miles, including a 36.6 mile day, during which I rode from the north side of Chicago to the south end of the Lake Shore Path and back. As I rode home from work this evening, Chicago's tornado sirens started blaring. For those who are unfamiliar with what that sounds like, you can get a feel for it here. I got home safely, if completely soaked.

My view from Lake Shore Path at 39th street

Total annual mileage: 1734 miles (80.6 miles ahead of target pace).

Picking up the Pace (April 26th - June 7th)

It's been 43 days since my last update, and thankfully I've spent a lot of that time on a bike despite the lack of blogging. In the last 43 days I've traveled 485.6 miles with stops in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Since I was able to average 11.3 miles per day during that time, I've been able to erase my mileage deficit and actually build up a bit of a surplus. I am now in Guthrie Center, IA and 31.1 miles ahead of my target pace. Here is a very non-scientific map of my ride so far:

From Montauk to Guthrie Center in 158 days

As you can see, I've now crossed the Mississippi and am almost halfway across the country. The obvious highlight of the most recent stretch was my stop in my home city of Chicago, IL for two nights at the end of April. There I was able to spend some time with my beautiful, pregnant wife. Having a baby could throw a bit of a wrench into the last month or so of my ride, so it's all the more important to build up a surplus this summer.

While in Chicago, Mo and I made the most of it. We grabbed brunch at Uncommon Ground, a perfect pint from Jimmy at O'Shaughnessy's, played 9 holes of golf at the Sydney Marovitz city course on Lake Michigan, and had a picnic in Winnemac Park. Two days is certainly not enough time to spend in the beautiful city of Chicago, but it was a treat nonetheless.

Just before reaching Chicago, I also played some golf at Lost Marsh in Hammond, IN. It's a course that I've played many times and am very familiar with, so I'm glad that my route took me past it.

So far I've spent 20 days in the fine state of Iowa. Iowa is probably best known as the home of The Bachelor's Chris Soules. While I was in Iowa, I was shocked and saddened to find out that Chris and Whitney had broken up after an abbreviated engagement. Hopefully Kaitlyn will have better luck finding true love on this season's Bachelorette!

I'm going to do my best to post a little bit more frequently moving forward. I certainly won't make any promises, but my goal is to get into more of a rhythm of posting about once a week. That way I'll be able to dive into a little bit more detail on the places that I pass through on my route.

Real life: The highlight with regard to cycling for the last 43 days has actually been this past weekend. Yesterday was the opening of The 606. I encourage you to follow the link and read more, but The 606 is a new walking/hiking/biking trail that runs for 2.7 miles over what used to be an abandoned railroad route. It still needs to grow in a bit and develop some more character, but it's still exciting to have a new route in the city. It was a madhouse this weekend, so it was a little difficult to navigate, but I did ride about eight or so miles on it over the last couple of days. I look forward to seeing it develop over the coming years. Here's a montage of photos from yesterday (please click the link on the right side of this page or below if you want to follow me on Instagram):

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Total Annual Mileage: 1604.8 miles (31.1 miles ahead of target pace)