Hello from South Dakota

Hey everyone! It's been a while but I managed to steal some wifi from a house near McDonalds and figured I'd catch y'all up.

Right now I am sitting in Chamberlain, SD, 2119 miles logged so far. The weather has been decent the past few days so I have really been able to crank out distance. My trip out of NY state wasn't anything special, I blasted down the highway, ran right through PA, zipped past Cleveland and the Indians ballpark and made camp just inside the Indiana border. The next morning I woke up to this...

On my way out of Indiana I figured I would stop and take a walk around Notre Dame because I figure I'll never get another chance to go to the campus. Unfortunately a storm was rolling in so I had to cut my walk down to 30 minutes, but I managed to take a few pics of the things I wanted to see.

After that I made short work of the rest of Indiana, went right through Chicago and the rest of Illinois, worked through Wisconsin and finally made it to St. paul, MN to hang out with Maldonis.

Sorry if you are from Illinois, but the state is awful. The tolls were crazy expensive (why does the "skyway" cost $3 if you never get in the air?) and there were about 300 of them until I got to Wisconsin. Also, where do you get off calling rest areas "oases"? After all that mess Wisconsin was a breath of fresh air, and way cooler than any other state I had gone through up to that point. there were some pretty cool rock formations Northwest of Madison, but I couldn't get to my camera so no pics. And there were maybe ten INDOOR waterparks right off the highway. Indoor! What more could you ask for? I even stopped off the highway for some awesome cheese. If I ever decide to start a farm it will probably be in wisco. Five cows, a few acres of crops, some sheep... maybe I'm too obsessed with Harvest Moon. Oh and I'd have to make my own cheese.

Made it to St. Paul and got a great view of the Mississippi river from the top of Jim's building.

While in St. Paul I got to feed my Rockband addiction, check out a cool little bar, and watch the movie Up (totally awesome) with Jim and Shelley. If you get a chance go see it in 3D, we weren't able to but it looked like it would be worth it.

Jim in awe of my Rockband skilz

After a wonderful night on a real mattress (thanks again guys!) I headed out of Minnesota and into South Dakota. So far I am in love with the state, and I havent even hit the western awesomeness yet. The sky is so big out here it's unbelievable. I don't really know how to describe what I mean by big but I tried taking a huge panorama in a field and will work on stitching it together when I get home. Anyways it is beautiful out here.

The road signs are also hilarious, about every 5 minutes there is a board for Wall Drug, which is apparently some massive place that has everything you could dream of. There were also some boards for the Corn Palace, a place made completely out of corn, that said "Just go see it" or "Why not take a little break, its free!" I couldn't resist the temptation...

And then I got to Chamberlain and made camp. The next few days of my trip are going to be very exciting. Tomorrow is the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and Devils Tower. The next two days are going to be spent in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and after that on to Seattle. I should have some more great pictures soon! Now I'm off to find a nice place to relax for the evening. Catch ya laters, alligators.

Never Call Me a Fair-Weather Rider

Hey everyone! I made it to Cayuga Lake, NY and amazingly they have free wifi at the campground! As I sit here it's 6:00 and overcast, 70 degrees. The birds are chirping, the bugs are biting, and I am in much better spirits then I have been all trip so far. So here's a recap. I ended up leaving campus at 9:45, thanks to Anna for providing the picture below.

I dont have photoshop on my laptop...

As you can see, I left right in the middle of a three day storm. Unfortunately because of the rain I wasnt in much of a mood to stop anywhere and take too many interesting pictures, but hopefully they will be coming soon.

After 180 miles of pouring rain I made camp just south of Burlington, VT. The rain had let up a little bit so I made camp and headed into town for some dinner. Hooray sushi! After dinner it had started pouring again so I made my way back to camp (without my rain suit on). Wet and tired I decided to call it a night at 8pm and let the sound of the rain on my tent put me to sleep.

Up at 5 to the sound of more rain I broke camp and started heading south. I decided to take the Essex ferry in to NY and managed to take a shot of Champ, the Lake Champlain monster!

I really want to take some real pictures soon...

After some more rain and riding through the Adirondacks I finally hit Rt 90 and saw the most beautiful sight of my trip so far.

Now you may be thinking that this is just a rest area on rt 90, nothing special about that. But you would be wrong! This was the first time I was able to continue riding without my full rain gear on! I had forgotten how much fun riding a motorcycle actually is.

Another 100 miles later and I made camp in Cayuga which is apparently crazy wine country. Figured that since I was here I'd go for a wine tasting at the Buttonwood Grove Winery. I recommend the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Franc, delicious.

For now I'm just going to relax a bit and head out to The Golden Buck for a burger and a brewski, and yes, it looks as rustic as it sounds.

Tomorrow should be a fairly boring day but I am going to try and head to Indiana, not sure how much of Cleveland I'll get to see. After that it's on to St. Paul to hang out with Maldonis and not sleep on the ground for a night.

Better stuff is coming soon, check back in a few days!

Here we go

George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man.

George Hanson: They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.

Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.

George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.

George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

So here we go, ever since I saw Easy Rider as a junior in high school I've been hooked to the idea of a cross-country, insane motorcycle adventure. I've wanted to just hop on my bike and disappear for a while; carefree and happy. I feel like I am at the point in my life where it's possible to take a month off from work and see if I can do it. I'm pretty sure I can. I wanted to model my trip on the ride taken in the movie but to take it to an extreme in case I never get the opportunity to do this again.

The trip basically consists of a loop around the entire country. Starting from Hebron, ME I will be working my way across the north to Seattle, stopping at a bunch of national parks and campgrounds along the way. From Seattle I am heading towards San Diego, all the way down on rt 101 and 1, to cover the entire west coast. After San Diego I'm heading across the southern part of the country to New Orleans (almost like the ride from LA to New Orleans in Easy Rider). New Orleans to Washington, D.C. and then back home. One gigantic circle with a lot of stops along the way. 21 days (plus a few extra relaxing days) and over 9100 miles. And I'm leaving tomorrow!!!

I'm going to try and post a ton of pictures and further blog posts every few days when I start to feel too disconnected from the world and need to boot up my laptop, which hopefully isn't too often (it is a vacation after all).

Cheers!