SPOKIN' HOME - A YEAR OF ADVENTURE

We love to travel and especially to visit our family in Denver. Four years ago we had the crazy idea to ride our bikes home from Denver, approximately 1550 miles. Over a period of several months we told many people about our idea - the idea began to turn into a plan and before we knew it we had told enough people that we were going to do and couldn't turn back!

So over a period of four months we started seriously working towards doing this. There were some ups and downs and we certainly were not in the condition that we hoped to be by our start date. We started by doing biking on stationary bikes at the LifePlex in Plymouth, IN. We have had some good hours on the bike and were able to watch a few movies on their projection system while biking. It is great to have such a nice facility. I admit that watching Julie and Julia, instead of the 2008 Ironman is a little different workout, but it has been fun.

We had a great ride for 1,000 mile and then we had a little mishap. If you read through our blog Stick with our blog you can read more about that cycling experience and other adventure for that year.

Now we are four years down the road. Many good things have happened to our family during those years. On May 28, 2014 we will return to our last riding point, get on our bikes again and finish the last 500+ miles. Join us as we continue our adventure.




Thursday, June 5, 2014

Saying Goodbye to Historic Route 66

Today 55.53 miles (a good day), This trip 399.07 miles, total from Denver 1, 399.07 miles in 28 days

The closer we get to home the more it seems like home. Nothing to fae out of the ordinary again today. We just keep rolling the pedals over and over. Since the storms came through there has been a shift in the wind. Since we are going Northeast an d tomorrow East, the winds have decided to come directly toward us. So tomorrow morning if everyone would step outside around 9:15 your time and blow real hard towards the East it would be great. Maybe we can change the direction. I will let you know.

As I said in the title we will be leaving 66 tomorrow morning. We will miss the mystic and the people we have met along the way. Today we stopped at an old Standard Oil gas station that had been reconditioned and houses a little gift shop. It still had the repair bay in tack with many old tools and machines. It brought me back to my Dad's old stations and shops. I saw brake tools, old charge card machines, the hoist, just so many things from my past.  A group of four or five couples drove up on motorcycles. The motorcycles were all very new, everyone was decked out in their new leathers. They were from Switzerland and had just left Chicago this morning on a trip two and a half week trip on Route 66 to Los Angeles. That had rented their motorcycles and had a SAG car riding with them. I can't imagine the cost of that trip.

The only other excitement came when one of the Amtrak trains must have had something going on, because we had fire trucks pass us and shortly we came upon 4 or 5 spots where grass fires had started along the tracks.  We had a little smoke issue, but not too bad. It took ou minds off if  our sore bottoms.  We did have in truck today that didn't want to share the road with us. I believe we could have easily reached out and touched him. Much of our ride was similar to 17 in Plymouth, but fortunately not as busy. Almost everyone else was very considerate.

We are only 126 miles from home. We would love to do it in two days, but halfway is about Lowell, IN and there really isn't a hotel close to there without going beyond our mileage max. Of course if we could find a place there is still no guarantee we could make it. That darned wind could cause our mileage to be a little less.  We will see. Right now we have two plans, one isto go to Kankakee,  Il. which is only 30 miles or Momence, Il which is 43 miles. We will see how the wind blows and how the roads are.  So as we finish our 8th/28th day of riding we find ourselves in a subpar Super 8 in Dwight, IL.

See everyone soon.

Peace and Prayers,
Jack  and Mary Kay

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