wyoming! a little left leg left leg right leg right leg

We are now two days in wyoming camped out in caspar. Yesterday we pulled 70 miles and it was the hardest day we've had so far. Wyoming itself isn't that difficult, there's nice gradual uphills and even though everything looks and feels fairly flat, we keep passing towns that are above 4,000 feet. Mount katahdin is over 5,000 feet, so its cool to put that in perspective, however yesterday we had a crazy relentless headwind that even when we were going down a big hill, we still had to pedal hard just to get 10 mph, we usually go upwards of 28 mph downhill. We were absolutely cooked at the end of the day and found a nice little park with a pavillion and a bathroom as a bonus in glendo wyoming. This morning as I was riding the song jack and diane came on and just the lyrics jack was gonna be a football star were played, I looked down and saw a football on the side of the road. Out of the whole state of wyoming and out of all the songs that I could have been played, those moments somehow were in syncopation with each other. I love stuff like that. Apart from the dead animal carcasses and soda bottles fill with piss, wyoming is awesome to ride through. All of my muscles hurt, I'm shedding salt and my pee is a nice healthy nuclear neon yellow, but loving every minute of it. This why we came out here. Heading into yellowstone in a about two days.
Song of the day;
Into the great wide open- tom petty.
Quote of the day;
So you wanna take a break in like 10 miles and cry for a bit?
Me to goat as we left our lunch spot and headed out into the wind

nebraska helped me name my little hernia

Well we made it into and almost through nebraska, its flat and beautiful with absolutely nothing for as far as the eye can see, we've been passing towns with populations of less than 100 and towns that don't exsist anymore. I've never been to nebraska or seen anything like it but its awesome for big miles.had a little bit of heat exhaustion scare or something earlier today. I was feeling totally fine and then pulled over to a subway and sort of came in and out of consciousness for a bit goat and I then decided to make it an early day since the next town is 47 miles from here with literally nothing in between. We keep passing historical markers for the oregon trail and its so cool to think about what it must have been like to come west on wagon never knowing if you were going to see a town or place for food. We talked about how many people need to be rescued because they venture out into the wilderness unprepared or worse yet they assume that someone will come and save them, back then you had to be prepared to endure whatever where and whenever.we've got three more states to go and few more days until we head into yellowstone and the mountains.
Song of the day: hurt so good- john mellencamp
Quote of the day: do you know what you're naming your hernia?
Mmmmm. OGALLALA! Its name is ogallala.

Some pictures up to this point

I'm sure there's a better way to do this, like make an album or something, but I can't seem to figure that out right now:

CLEVELAND ROCKS................. sort of

well team, here's how the last few days went down. We woke up to pouring rain on thursday and lazily put our gear together and got breakfast, this should have been my first red flag, I'm usually quick and efficient in the morning, anxcious to start the days miles and get a move one, although waking up in a bed always makes this slightly difficult. We watched the weather channel as we packed to see a large green storm across the screen that we knew we'd be riding in all day. Second red flag, I decided to call my mom, just to check in and see how she was and what her game plan was for meeting us around the 4th. When I was little, whenever my mom stayed home from work, I would inevitably suddenly feel sort of sick myself and end up in the school nurses office, only to go back home shortly where I knew my mom was. Part of this was because I just wanted to be with my mom, which I didn't get to a whole lot when I was younger and part of it was because I knew she was home and I had an out. After getting off the phone with her and deciding that I should suck it up and stop being a baby about riding in the rain, Garland and I looked at each first settled on waiting till it stopped pouring, both sort of knowing that maybe we should just take a zero day ( a day off, called a zero because you bike zero miles) but neither of us wanting to give in to it first. Third red flag, we both gave in our situation, decided to go get back in bed, and officially take our first zero. We went and saw Hancock and then proceeded to sneak into Wall. E, which was very charming and cute. We ate and slept and then ate some more. It poured all day. We figured it was either ride only like 40 miles through cleveland traffic and be cold and upset, or chill out and be able to wake up fresh and probably cover twice the distance the next day. We woke up on the 4th and hit the road around 7, we coasted along the lake erie coast cruising at like 15 mph the whole way, the eastern suburbs of cleveland were very green and pretty. I then proceeded to get the worst possible flat a biker can get. I heard a large POP and pulled over to hear all the air gushing out of my tire. We joked about how if this had happened the day before in the rain, I would have been livid. We continued to ride along and went right through the projects and slums of east cleveland along the way, enduring some friendly cat calls and looks that said, what are these crazy white kids doing here?
Thanks to the holiday there wasn't a whole lot of traffic and I don't think we would have made it through alive on any other day. We fell in line with a cycling group out for the 4th and rode with them for a little bit till we saw the route 20 turn off, we turned a corner and quickly realized that we were going onto an on ramp where 20, 6 and 2 become a fun little stretch of super highway. Knowing that this was completely illegal, we pedaled our little hearts out, waiting to hear the sirens to pull us over, once again, if it had not been the 4th, we never would have made it. Happy to be outside of cleveland we coasted through the flat roads of central ohio.
Quote of the day:
'maybe you're being a baby because you know you have an out'- my mom
'I'm tired of my thighs rubbin' together!' a large black man wanting to lose weight

song of the day:
A little 'lawless and lulu' by buckcherry:
And now the dreams are near and the conscience clearing
Crazy about your love
Another change of direction and the motivation
King and queen of the nighttime world

we like state lines

I am currently lying bathed and fed on a motel 8 bed with ac cooling my sunburned legs and this might be close to heaven. We rode into ohio today and cruised through ashtabula, which I'd always heard in that bob dylan song (you're gonna make me lonesome...) And now I know where it is and that they have a nice bike shop.prior to doing this trip I never really cared for ohio, mostly because it was the longest most boring state I would have to haul through on drives home to chicago, I now appreciate it a bit more because its crazy flat, but so far its also full of the worst drivers we've had this trip. As the day got crazy hot we took a nice afternoon break for some sweet tea and sat in the shade and watched a beetle get frustrated in the grass. We are 11 days into the trip and I think we're finally 'trail tough' so to speak, our bodies are used to the abuse the bikes provide, we can pull bigger miles and our appetites continue to soar with this calorie burning festival.word.
Song of the day:
A mix of ziggy plays guitar and holyman by blind melon.
Quote of the day:
you must do a lot of waiting around in the morning- the pastor dan to me as we sat around for while waiting for goat. Mornings are tough for him.

team prest/schrader schrader/presta crosses another state line (finally)

Today we had some of the best weather I've seen so far this trip. We cruised past some more new york vineyards and made our way across the PA state line around lunch time, we stopped at mcdonalds for the only thing we ever stop at mcdonalds for apart from bathrooms. Sweet tea. Everything else is crap but this summer 1$ for 32 oz. Of cold glucose flowing liquid is the best deal a cyclist can handle on a hot day. I treated myself to a brief listen on my ipod and took in the into the wild soundtrack by eddy vedder, it made me think a lot about this trip, the boy, and the love/hate relationship I have with this country. Every town we go through everyone is trying to sell their suv, the cheapest gas we saw was for 3.99 in western mass, and every town has at least 2-4 cvs, rite-aide or walgreens on opposing corners. Plus walmarts and targets full of other crap we don't need. On one level everything looks the same, and from an outsiders perspective we have to look like complete idiots. I mean, I understand there are certain rules for fair competition on the market (although between you and me, in my heart of liberal passionate hearts I think that said rules exist because we say they do and thus we abide by them... but anyways), do we really need to clutter our land and streets with the same stuff? Do I sound like a typical skeptical angsty 20 something thinking I'm unique with these thoughts and cool because I can 'damn the man'? Absolutely.
Is my experience still valid because it is mine and mine alone? Sure.
Today I was almost taken out by a gentleman in a porsche cayenne. Let's stop and think about this for a second. I can respect a porsche for its fine craftsmanship as a fast machine. But a porshce suv. nobody needs a porsche suv. This is why we are jerks. No one is going to off roading in their porsche suv. The common man does not need a hummer h2. that is in fact the last thing we should be satiated with. Anyways... We rode into erie pa and a pastor by the name of dan offered us his home for the evening, we got shower, eat an amazing sandwich and dan took us out to see an amazing sunset over lake erie. It is gestures and generiousity like dan's that make me love this country and fuel a hope inside me, its the gems in their porshe cayennes and corporate homogeny that clogs our landscape and breeds future generations of idiots that challenges me. Some things you fight till the death.

new york is big

We managed to make it through the night in our stealth spot without getting hasseled. A woman in the church opened the window to the corridor we slept in and the first she asks is ' do you guys need any money?'. Today was the first day I was able to hold a mean 15Mph cadence for like 80% of the day. We played a little muscle recruitment game where you trick your fast twitching muscles into they aren't fatigued by tweaking the gears and cadence.I read an article that said that if a 150 lbs man bikes 15 mph for 90 minutes he can refuel with a large oreo blizzard from dairy queen. This awesome information prompted us to stop for lunch at the first dq we saw. Our appetites are definitely soaring as we trek through.at one point when I was going down hill a bee flew into me, hit the center of my collar bone, died on impact because I was going so fast and fell into my sports bra. Good times.we are clean fed and about to pass out.
Song of the day: 'before we crazy, before we explode, there' somethin' bout me baby you ought to know. I get off on 57 chevy's, I get off on screamin' guitars, I've got a rock'n'roll heart. - mr. Eric Clapton, if you haven't heard this song its amazing.
Quote of the day:
You mean to tell me you've pumping yourself with some type of rocketfuel crack every morning to get yourself going while I suffer to wake myself up naturally!? WTF! Me to goat as he drank his pink morning drink