We just arrived to Prineville, OR after a week of ridiculous riding through the desert of Eastern Oregon.

Eastern Oregon is not fun to ride. Do not be fooled by the beauty of Portland and the coast. East of Prineville OR and you get a haven for people in trucks with LEER cabs, McCain/Palin, Obama is a ******, and ‘I love to fish’ stickers. They honk and yell things (not understanding how sound waves work). Water is scarce. The scenery and flora is almost non-existent, other than the … I digress …

We are in good spirits, and I’m really excited to see my parents in 2 days. The thought of the journey after the ride gives enough energy to scale mountains. Joe is ready for this to be over and his body is telling him the same thing. We have given up using the tent and have been sleeping (peacefully) on picnic tables and bleachers.

Cyclists (in cars) have pulled over to make sure we have enough water and food. A guy even pulled over to apologize for honking a few miles back.

Geiser Grand Hotel in Baker City is a complete sham. The owner is a liar, and the entire experience was rancid. I’m not one to complain, but that needed to be said. This paragraph should have a post of its own, but I am 1,000x a better person than they are.

Joe’s wildlife self started to bloom in the woods. He has been cooking his own food for the past few days with a home made stove:

Roadblocks on our path:

This is what the trip is about:

The colors!!!

A little rock-star moment once we left Yellowstone:

Slideshow of all pictures from Yellowstone:

Slideshow from Jared’s skating photo-shoot:

Joe and I have been in the woods camping, starting fires to fend off mosquitoes, and have joined a group of cyclists. The geek part is still with us, as any outlet we see is an oppotunity to charge our electronics.

We have been biking for the past few days with 7 people that we met in Yellowstone. Joe and I had been getting along great and this just bumped our spirits to the next level.

Touring Tip: Biking on the Trans-Am route designated by the Adventure Cycling Association has forced us to see cyclists everyday. Stay on the Trans-Am route! Meeting cyclists and biking together takes fun to a new level.

The Wreck

This is being written from the Hot Springs Lodge in Jackson, MT. How I got here is quite interesting; I was biking with Aaron, one of the other cyclists part of the 7 person mob of bikers. He had picked up a giant ball on the side of the road and attached it to the side of his bike. It was no one’s fault, but rather a combination of misfortunes.

We came down the hill, I knicked the ball, and went over the handlebars. The bike is OK and I have gashes on a few parts of my body. My helmet pretty much saved my life. I hit the ground hard with my head and the helmet worked perfectly. The handlebars were jammed in the frame but came out with a forceful pull. Aaron felt a little bad, but I made it clear it was neither of our faults.

When I went down, I was scarily composed. I laid on the ground and didn’t move. I just thought about what I had hit, and assessed the situation. About 7 cars stopped to ask, “Are you OK?” I even made a joke which fended off a few of them… “Sure he’s OK.”

Joe’s pictures will tell the story of our past week. They will be up ASAP.

Firstly, a huge thanks to Tara Anderson from Lijit.com who helped put together a meetup in Boulder. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out!

This morning, Joe woke up with a bit of altitude sickness (hypoxia) which knocked him out for 17.5 hours. We have been over 6000+ feet high for the past few days and it finally caught up to him. He woke up to vomit, then fall back asleep. After a few more hours in his mini-coma, started feeling better.

• We celebrated the 4th in Boulder, CO.
• We almost ran over a rattle snake.
• We legally biked 100+ miles on I-80. We felt safer than MANY other roads.
• Mosquitoes are ridiculous! A motivation to not stop.

The live tracking is temporarily broken and says we are still chillin’ in Julesburg, CO. I have temporarily put up another map on the Track Us page. Greg Hendrickson from MapMyRace.com is helping us get the kinks worked out. He is quite amazing to work with.

After the old-historic-east, the corn-nothingness-middle, we have reached the outdoorsy mountains of our west. The creeks are clear enough to swim in, and there is a huge increase of people wearing The North Face outerwear.

Joe hopped a barbed wire fence to take this picture:

It’s impossible to feel geeky at certain moments. The farther west we go, the more these moments happen. I was biking at night into Laramie, WY at night on a wide shoulder with few cars, stars in full bloom, and only the sounds of prairie dogs and crickets to entertain my ears. The moon had been casting shadows and gave enough light to see debris on the shoulder. I drifted off into a trance for about 20 miles and had no thoughts of technology, email, or anything that required electricity. I was in the true sense of “getting back to nature.”

The Tour De France podcast has been keeping me up to date on the standings. I just finished watching Breaking Away and I’m tempted to enter some races when I get back to Austin. Any suggestions on how to judge which races one should enter?

Cycling from Denver to Fort Collins was too easy. Iowa and other states were a challenge while Colorado had to be better and put bike lanes everywhere. Hundreds of miles of trails gave the peace of mind that we can enjoy a nice bike ride. Cyclists sprinkled all over the roads, and drivers who are probably also cyclists. Way to show-off, Colorado! How dare you give us awesome people like these riders:

Upon Entering Wyoming:

The next few days will be ‘getting to nature’ times for both of us. Electronics will run out of battery, Joe will be taking beautiful pictures, and I’ll be in deep trances of thought.

Many thanks to Ian, our host in Boulder who let us borrow the last half of the Trans-Am route maps made by the Adventure Cycling Association. The second half of our cross country journey will be on a designated, widely traveled path. It is not geeky to use paper maps, but we do appreciate quality work. These maps are pure analog quality.

I woke up in Sterling, CO with both tires flat. This would have been all and well but the goat heads were attacking Joe’s bike the previous day. He had 4 flats the previous day which had us in a town with no bike shop, 50 miles from next days destination, and 2 flats.

Thank you Sam Walton! Walmart had cheap patches that lasted only about 45 miles, exactly what was needed. I had our 7th flat (in 24 hours)as I was pulling into the day’s destination.

Touring Tip: If you are passing through places with goat-heads, bring enough patches and tubes for 10+ flats. You don’t want the horrible feeling of possibly being stranded, something we were on the brink of. Never underestimate how strong those little buggers are.

Thank You Randy Ballheim!

As luck would have it, our next host was a huge bike geek. His garage was a mini bike shop and he fixed Joe’s bike…with a 2×4 piece of wood and a hammer. It was quite the spectacle.

Click, click, click…*silence* BOOM! My tire got a nasty tear in it and the tube started to poke through. Once that happens, the tube explodes! The sound was enough to have Joe swerve from shock.

Randy came to the rescue a second time when, 7 miles into a 100 mile day we were stranded on the side of the I-76 access road. He stopped his day, went to go to the bike store (luckily open), and drove to us to drop off a tire. Thank you Randy!

Randy helping to fix up the tire situation:

Would you see this driving on the interstate?

Joe’s new favorite shot:

One for the grandkids:

Hey Horsie:

Ole’s Big Game Steakhouse in Paxton, Nebraska:

The elephant is real:

Hanging around the most phallic state capitol our country has to offer. This was in Lincoln, Nebraska:

“You want to take a picture of art? Here I am.” -Man Below

What creepy hands you have…

Just because:

Luckily for us, the road had a shoulder large enough for Joe and I to comfortably bike side by side. It helps pass the time when we are able to chat.

We met up with two cyclists a few days ago and just got the picture up. These guys are doing a less scheduled trip (which we envy at times) from San Fran to NY.