January 11, 2022
Projected itinerary
It's hard to know whether this is fantasy or close to reality
IT FEELS LIKE IT'S TIME to publish the outline of my ride. Details, of course, are subject to change as events unfold. I might have a better-than-expected day somewhere and get farther than the itinerary calls for, or I could have one of those "Nope. Not today." days where the sum total of my ambition is to remain where I happen to be at the time.
At least some of you will look at this and say "Geez- why go to all that trouble rather than letting events unfold naturally from one day to the next? Why put pressure on yourself by creating needless, artificial expectations?" And you're not wrong. But, for me, a plan is a valuable framework that helps identify potentially problematic issues well in advance so that I can prepare for and, hopefully, mitigate them before they escalate to the level of catastrophe.
Building and refining the plan also helps me engage with the idea and rev myself up for it mentally. I enjoy looking at Google Maps, finding out what I might encounter, looking for out-of-the-way nooks and crannies that could be interesting- or that should be avoided - and so forth. Some of you have already helped with that by pointing out places where I had inadvertently routed myself onto unpaved roads, affording me the opportunity to make course corrections even before I arrive at the launch pad. Others have jumped in with offers of hospitality, for which I am more than grateful. I'll be darkening your sheets and towels, in all probability.
Anyhow- it's my trip and I'll plan if I want to, plan if I want to, plan if I want to... :) You can assume that I'll be taking a rest day about once a week, with longer stops in West Yellowstone MT, and Olathe KS.
Oregon (following the ACA TransAm route once I reach Prineville on Day 1 after departing Bend)
Bend
Ochoco Lake CG
Mitchell
Dayville
Prairie City
Union Creek USFS CG
Baker City
Richland
Brownlee USFS CG
Idaho (following the ACA TransAm route)
Fruitvale (Evergreen USFS CG)
Riggins
Kooskia
Montana (following the ACA TransAm route)
Powell USFS CG
Missoula
Hamilton
Wisdom
Dillon
Virginia City
West Yellowstone
Wyoming (following the ACA Parks Peaks and Prairies route as far as Gillette)
[6/13/2022. The news has just run a story that Yellowstone NP is currently not allowing new visitors to enter due to serious flooding, which has damaged some roads and other structures in the park. I do not know exactly what impact that may have on my plan but will need to monitor the situation carefully. Fortunately that's still several weeks in the future.
At least part of the route I had planned, from Canyon Village CG most of the way to Bridge Bay CG, and from Bridge Bay CG to the East Entrance then on toward Cody WY, is currently closed. It may be that the East Entrance Road closure is simply part of the Park's strategy of closing the entrances, rather than due to actual flood damage, but that's not clear to me right now.
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Canyon Village NPS CG [6/14: this location is OUT due to the flood damage.]
Grant Village CG [6/14: this location is IN, after rerouting to avoid the flood damage and road closures.]
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Bridge Bay NPS CG
Cody
Manderson
Meadowlark Lake
Buffalo
Spotted Horse
Gillette
Newcastle
[Edit 2/11/2022
The original plan called for a traverse of South Dakota then turning south toward Olathe Kansas. However, the timing of my arrival in the Black Hills would put me there at the same time as the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally. Not only would the roads be full of motorcycles, there is a well-documented uptick in prices coupled with extremely limited availability of accommodations, food, and so forth as a result of the huge influx of outsiders. None of that is anything I want to deal with, so an alternative plan is in order.
Another journal writer here suggested the Sand Hills of Nebraska as an alternative to coping with the Sturgis crowd and all the associated issues it poses. Based on that suggestion I believe I'll spend about 2 or 2 1/2 weeks finding my way southeast from Gillette, angling toward Clay Center KS and then onward to Lawrence and finally Olathe, where I'll resume my original plan.
There was a lengthy discussion in the 2022 plans thread in the Forums about the Sand Hills plan and what it means to me.
As what amounts to the hypotenuse of a large triangle, the Nebraska route is a couple hundred miles shorter than the two legs of the triangle route through SD to Brookings and then south to Olathe KS that I had originally contemplated. That "buys" me several potential slack days in the event of adverse weather, serious wind issues, and the like. Then again, the entire schedule east of Yellowstone was, and is, still entirely hypothetical as I've made no reservations or commitments.
End of edit 2/11/2022]
[Edit 4/20/2022
The loose plan for "bushwhacking" (riding off the established ACA routes) through Nebraska and Kansas is:
Gillette WY
Newcastle WY
Edgemont SD
Nebraska
Crawford
Alliance
Hyannis
Thedford
Broken Bow
Ravenna
Hastings
Superior
Kansas
Belleville
Clay Center
Manhattan
Rossville
Lawrence
Olathe
From Gillette WY to Olathe KS is a shade over 900 miles, none on established ACA routes.
From Olathe I'll return to my original plan.
End of edit 4/20/2022]
Missouri (following the Katy Trail)
Pleasant Hill
Windsor
New Franklin
Mokane
Washington
St. Clair
Farmington (rejoin the ACA TransAm route here)
Illinois (ACA TransAm)
Chester
Carbondale
Dixon Springs (off TransAm, following the Trail of Tears)
Cave-in-Rock (Following the Trail of Tears)
Kentucky (ACA Underground Railroad)
Henderson
Hawesville
Indiana (ACA Underground Railroad)
Mauckport
New Washington
Kentucky (again) (ACA Underground Railroad)
Sparta
Maysville
Ohio (leaving the ACA route and "bushwhacking" northeast toward Pittsburgh)
Portsmouth
Chillicothe
Lancaster
Zanesville (join the ACA Chicago to NYC route)
Belmont
Pennsylvania (Great Allegheny Passage)
Washington
West Newton
Confluence
Maryland (C&O Canal)
Cumberland
Hancock
West Virginia (C&O Canal)
Harper's Ferry
Maryland (local roads I ride regularly)
Rockville (home!)
Some summary statistics, for those who have plowed through to this point:
Number of planned (*) 0 mile days: 15 (*: there are likely to be a couple days somewhere that I wake up and say 'Nope, not today'. Those are not included in this total.)
Days under 20 miles: 2
Days between 20 and 30 miles: 0
Days between 30 and 40 miles: 9
Days between 40 and 50 miles: 18
Days between 50 and 60 miles: 24
Days between 60 and 70 miles: 12
Days between 70 and 80 miles: 2
Days over 80 miles: 4 (These are the days of most concern to me because they are long, and services will be sparse or non-existent)
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There you have it - a grand plan, which is certain to be modified as it is carried out but at least it's a starting point.
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We have routed as much as two months, motel reservations included. Are you camping? I can't tell from the commentary to this point.
2 years ago
There will be certain touch points, probably, that are less flexible. For instance my rest days at Powell Campground, which I expect will be fully reserved by the time I get there, are likely not going to be easily changed.
I am expecting to be in the Black Hills at the same time as the Sturgis nonsense, so that's another area where having a plan and committed reservations is important.
Other than those, I feel most everything else can float for a while. I do not want the avoidable stress of feeling like I "have to" be someplace in particular on a certain date just because an artificial schedule suggested I could be.
2 years ago
1 year ago
1 year ago
1 year ago
I started in '83 and should have finished in '85 but diddled around and managed to add an extra year. I think your wife came in with the next year's cadre, who I mostly didn't get to know as well as I might have liked. And now, nearly 40 (!!) years later, the memories are pretty faded.
For a while, I was the caretaker of the seismographs down in the basement of Parkinson Lab. (In fact that's where my final office was, after I moved out of the one right next to the front door of the building.) Every day I'd change the paper on the instruments and periodically update the ones in the display case near the building entrance, along with putting pins in the world display map to show where they had occurred.
The massive 8.0+ quake that devastated Mexico City happened on my watch.
We can take the rest of this off-line. Ping me at ibike2havefun at gmail dot com if you want.
1 year ago
You can find pictures of the bike, not so many of the rider, in some of the entries in this journal.
1 year ago
I'm retired several years from USGS and looking forward to following Dave Henderson's ride on-line, and my wife and I plan to camp a night or two with Dave in eastern KY.
Great to learn than you are well, and I now look forward to following your ride as well.
1 year ago
1 year ago
You can find my email address a few comments up on this page. Ping me and let's catch up on the last36 years!
1 year ago
I've spent a bunch of time finishing up the "plan" over the past several days. Where I felt it would be worthwhile (basically, to guarantee accommodations in high-demand areas) I've already made reservations (mostly in and around Yellowstone), but for the rest I've left it at identifying where I'm likely to stay and I'll make reservations a couple days to a couple weeks ahead. That should save me a lot of effort if / when I have to revise the schedule and plan, and also reduces the chances that I'll forget to update one or more after a schedule change and get myself out of synch with the host...
As it stands this is where I am at the moment:
Lodging Type (Number of Nights)
B&B (7)
Campground (25)
Church (1)
Hostel (9)
Hotel (24)
Park (10)
Private Home (7)
Stealth camping (1)
Warm Showers (2)
TOTAL 86
1 year ago
We have three days of over 60 miles, and one of over 70. All big climbing days, without services all day. Those are going to be on the far side of my fun factor. We do what we must.
Do you have a map of your entire trip? Perhaps I just haven't made note of it.
1 year ago
I made the mileage chart using Google Sheets, which is also where my day-by-day planning spreadsheet lives. In one area of the chart I set up the limits of each range, along with formulas that count the number of days that fall in each ten mile increment, and finally the label text for that increment. That area of the spreadsheet became the data source for the chart.
You can do exactly the same thing with Excel, but I've let my MS Office installations go the way of the dodo since my needs are now not only simple but also purely personal (i.e. no need for professional software now that I'm retired).
I'd bet that Open Office would also support the same functionality.
Whichever way you do it, the trick to getting it to show in your journal is to make a screenshot, save it, and post it like any other picture. It becomes a disconnected, brain-dead static image when you do that, of course, but it make the point pretty well and once your plans are close to nailed down there's not much updating needed.
The interactive RWGPS route for my trip is posted on my journal page titled "Route Planning" (https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/rejuvenation/route-planning/), which is the page that precedes this one.
Note that the map is based on one single gigantic, continuous route that I laid out months ago and then shared so it would show in the journal. I have separate day-by-day routes that I haven't made publicly available but they pretty closely follow the comprehensive public version.
1 year ago
I've added a new "how to" page in the appendix that walks you through the steps needed to create a chart like mine, that shows *each day's* mileage as a column, rather than the summary ten-mile-increment chart I thought I was describing...
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/rejuvenation/daily-mileage-chart-a-how-to/
1 year ago
I bet you are excited to get going!
1 year ago
Seven days to the start of riding. I am already in Bend this week for a family reunion. When it ends next Saturday I will hit the road.
1 year ago