Photos from a Bicycle Ride across the USA - 2007

*****

IF YOU are thinking about riding a bicycle across the United States, I absolutely encourage you to get out there and pedal. 

I’ve done three trips, one in 2007, one in 2011, and a 3,200 mile trip in 2024, when I had to stop 600 miles short of the Pacific because of forest fires in Oregon. Those were two-and-five-sixths of the greatest adventures of my life. I tell everyone who’s interested: It’s not that hard. If you can pedal without crashing, you can do what I did. I was 58 years old when I rode across the country for the first time. 

And I was 75 in 2024. 

On all three trips, I rode in the name of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, now renamed “Breakthrough T1D.” 

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO EXPAND.

Since my topic is journeys - my wife's grandfather and her dad, Max, back right,
are seen here.

Anne's great grandmother had to walk most of the way
from Council Bluffs, Iowa to Salt Lake City, when she was only fourteen. 

Her great, great grandfather joined the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.
He later took a second wife.

In 1976, the first time I tried to take a long ride, I planned to pedal
from Cincinnati to Akron, where I grew up.

I gave up after 72 miles.

In the 80s, I took several multi-day rides with my college roommate,
Terry Kamenec. We were too clueless to wear helmets.

I did ride back from Yellowstone to Cincinnati, in 1999.
That was my challenge to myself, when I turned fifty.

Dead Indian Pass (note semi-truck and trailer, center hairpin turn.

One obvious payoff of a trip across the USA: Spectacular scenery.
Glacier National Park - 2024.

Stealth camping site - explained below.
Free camping!

This video is from Glacier National Park,

at the Red Rock stopping place along the Going to the Sun Highway.

I am interested in all kinds of journeys - including this one from rock to river. 

Going to the Sun Highway - Glacier National Park.
I was pedaling west from Saint Mary.

Free camping spot with rain - Maine forest.

Motivational note from my granddaughter - first day of the ride - 2024.

To jump into a leaf pile is a journey.
Twin grandsons, Prosper left, Story, right.

Emily, our youngest child developed type-1 diabetes in 2005.
This is her two years later.

Fossil fish that had just swallowed a fossil fish.
The museum in Glendive, Montana is good.

The people who run it have a biblical view of the science.
So one exhibit shows Noah's Ark under construction.

In the air nearby: Pterodactyls.  

I meet so many fine people on my rides.
Chris Wensel, the cook at The Launching Pad in Shawano, Wisconsin,
 told me his wife had just died from kidney disease.

Then he heard what I was riding for, and handed me a $10 donation.
I was touched by his gesture.

Newlyweds in Glacier National Park.
The trip to the altar is a journey, too.

"Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly." Voltaire

Haley Mowatt, a young Canadian cyclist, passing an Amish buggy.

I met her and Markos McFerrin during my 2024 ride.

I always ride for JDRF. Lily Kniskern, right, has type-1 diabetes.

Her sister Becca, survived two battles with cancer
by the time she was in kindergarten.
There are many journeys harder than cycling across the USA.

Camping in Minnesota - ice on the lake can be two feet thick in winter.
2024.

I used unicorn-themed duct tape to hold my shoe together.
Two kind Asian American riders sent me a gift card for $100.
(I counted that as a donation to JDRF, and sent JDRF the same amount.)

My benefactors were pedaling around Lake Michigan.

These two Mormon gentlemen were getting ready to lead 55 teens
on a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail.

At one point, nice people promised to pray for me four days in a row:
Latter-day Saints (above), Lutherans, Jews, non-denominational.

A young Palestinian student - protesting the bombing of Gaza.
I talked to a group at the College of the Atlantic,
the first day of my ride.

Andrei, an Israeli cyclist, was doing a "loop" 
around the U.S., probably 8,000 miles. I met him in Ohio.

I had sympathy for both the Israelis and Palestinians, myself.

Even towns journey through time. Moccasin, Montana was dying.

Sky Bruggeman and I had a great conversation at lunch.
She was pedaling east when we crossed paths in Montana.

She had already hiked the Appalachian Trail.

She was exactly  one-third my age.

I don't cook on my long rides - but I do carry food.
Who needs a plate when you have a cheese-filled hotdog
and a packet of ketchup to use?

The debonair cyclist takes a water bottle shower.
Stealth camping again.

Emily Gilbert was also traveling solo, heading east.
We shared travel tales in an air-conditioned rest stop.

I like the adventurous spirit of the other riders that I meet.

This Michigan store advertised "Cookies on demand."
I slammed on the brakes and went in and demanded three.

Then I demanded three more.

Baby shoes - Lakota people.
The journey of the Lakota turned sour in the 1870s,
with the settler invasion.

When the buffalo were gone the Lakota way of life died too.

(We should probably worry about climate change, ourselves.)

Paintings in the museum at Fort Mandan, N.D.

The Bossen family in Stanford, Montana,
both twins, Mia, left, and Tory, right had type-1 diabetes.

Meeting the family was a highlight of my 2024 ride.

Longest wooden covered bridge - connecting Windsor, Connecticut and 
Cornish, New Hampshire.
Longest such bridge in the country.

Jack Lynch, 94, was out riding along the Erie Canalway Trail.
I told him he would be my new role model.

What pioneer in the old days ever had a coffee-cup warning
to show a trail was blocked. Erie Canalway Trail.

Who knew: A wedding on a canal boat in the good old days.

I'm a blue rider, passing through the red parts of almost every state.

Chris Poliquin was a competitive cyclist,
who flew past on Kancamagus Pass.

When I was young, girls and women would have been discouraged
from participating in such activities.

I had fun talking to turkey hunters one day in New Hampshire.
Tyler's bird weighed 21.5 pounds.

Photo bombed in Stanford, Montana.
Charlie Norton, right, was pedaling east, all the way to Cape Cod.

Sky Bruggeman's bike on the Paul Bunyan Trail - Minnesota.

My new friends in Page, North Dakota.
(Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and German immigrant heritage.)

Matt and Kenzie Palmer-Bowles were pedaling across the USA
on their honeymoon. 

Google maps suggested I use this North Dakota road.
It sucked.

North Dakota - stormy weather.

Morrow, Ohio - Little Miami Bike Trail
Jessica Lunsford grew up here - and was murdered in Florida at age nine.

Many journeys end tragically; so I try not to complain about mine.

On all three long rides, I have lost twenty-five pounds - and then put it all back.
Time for Ozempic?

One goal on this 2024 ride was to meet up with my wife Anne
when she visited our daughter Sarah, and her husband Logan
in Portland, Oregon.

David Shaut, a former student, met Anne and me for lunch in Portland.
That was great and his daughter Brooke was cool.

Keith Gallacher, Anne's uncle, died at age 20 on a basketball court.
A journey cut short.

Anne's dad died at age 46, of a heart attack. His brother Doug, right,
lived to be 93.
They both made it through World War II alive.

Porter Woodmansee changed Anne's family history on her mother's side
when he got the maid pregnant.

For my wife to be here on this planet, Joseph Smith had to find
golden tablets on a hill near Palmyra, New York,
translate them into the Book of Mormon and launch a new faith.

I leave it for others to discuss Mormon theology.

Joseph Smith - murdered in 1844 by a mob.

Brigham Young, who led the Mormons to Utah.
He had 26 wives and 56 children by the time he was done.

Thanks to him, the San Francisco 49ers won the 1995 Super Bowl.

Charles Woodmansee's family in Salt Lake City.

If you’re interested in details, I have posts describing both 2007 and 2011 trips. I was still teaching in 2007 and my students at Loveland Middle School helped raise $13,500 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 

I raised $10,500 in 2011, and got handcuffed (briefly) as a suspected bank robber while traveling in Indiana. 

I did both rides east to west, saving the most spectacular scenery for last. I also made a point of hitting Yellowstone both times and traveled more than 4,000 miles each time. 

Here’s the best news. Both times, when I reached the Pacific, I wished I could turn around and ride back.  

I had that much fun.  

I set out to ride across the USA again in 2024, and made it from Acadia National Park, all the way up and over Glacier National Park, along the Going to the Sun Highway. I got stopped in Kalispell, Montana, by forest fires exploding across Oregon. So, I only did 3,200 miles. Now, I tell my wife, I will try again in 2029, when I turn 80. God willing. 

She is not a fan of that idea.

THESE PICTURES ARE FROM THE 2007 RIDE

CLICK TO EXPAND.

My daughter Emily developed Type 1 diabetes when she was 14.
I rode in her honor.

(UPDATE: She has now been type-1 for twenty years)

Emily had twin boys in 2021. Prosper, left, Story, right.
Prosper's journey began with 109 days in the NIC Unit.

I always tried to teach my students if you have two legs, you can do it.
You can always do more than you think.

(I retired from teaching in 2008.)

Bruce Jennings did it in 1976, with one.
Story used in lesson on motivation, with students.

I began my 2007 ride in Avalon, New Jersey.

The first few days, I rode down the coast, took a ferry from Cape May
and crossed over into Delaware and Maryland.

I carried camping gear; but when I was tired I paid for motels.
In Fredericksburg, Virginia I stayed in a real dump.

That's the towel the motel supplied!

I taught history, so I visited the Chancellorsville battlefield.

I also steamed up a steep hill to see Jefferson's home at Monticello.

A magnolia blossom in Virginia.

Every famous pioneer needs a good set of wheels.
Blue Ridge Mountains.



Roadside memorial - Indiana.

I didn't take many pictures of Ohio, Indiana or Illinois. Lots of farm fields.
I live in Ohio.

Oldest church in Vincennes, Indiana.
Basilica of St. Francis Xavier.

(Founded by French missionaries in 1732.)

My bicycle (21 gears; heavy duty wheels) held up well; camping near Columbia, Missouri.

For my second ride across the USA I upgraded to 27 gears.

For my third attempt, I had 30.

Tenting on the banks of the Missouri River;
a bunch of drunks at a campsite nearby kept me awake late into the night.

These two young men were pedaling east from California.
I met them in Kansas.

(I lost their names; but we shared acquired wisdom.)

Perhaps you've heard: Kansas is flat.

(Well, that is true.)

Kansas sunflower and visitor. 

More Kansas! Still flat!

Many small towns in the West are shriveling
as family farms are supplanted by agribusiness.

Population declines mean even churches close.

(In two towns I was told even McDonald's had closed.)

Abandoned farmhouse in Kansas.

Abandoned high school, Ness County, Kansas.
Large parts of the West have fewer people than in 1920.

Kansas scene.

Eastern Colorado is flat, too, but you gradually rise in elevation to around 4500 feet.
You can tell you're approaching towns
because you can see grain elevators twelve miles away.

Somewhere in Colorado.

Royal Gorge Bridge is fun to see and the scenery in this part of Colorado is fantastic.
I was fat when I started and could barely fit into this jersey!

I joked that I looked like a fat, pink sausage. Now I was in shape.

A view of the bridge.

Scene from the Arkansas River Valley.
The ride up that valley was beautiful.

I woke up near Leadville, Colorado to this view outside my tent.
I often made my own campsites, as here.

Elevation: 10,151 feet.

Parts of southern Wyoming are barren. Somewhere north of Rawlins.

The only spot of shade when I stopped to eat lunch, was from my bicycle.

I pedaled from New Jersey to Wyoming before I got my first flat.

(I served with the Marines, 1968-1970.)

While fixing my flat, Sarah Brigham pedaled up and we had a nice chat.

She was riding south to Durango, Colorado.

Large parts of Wyoming are wide open country.
I took this picture looking back south, the way I had just come.

(Not far from Jeffery City - population in 2010, 58 persons.)

Lake at the top of Togwotee Pass, not far from Grand Teton National Park.

You soon start a 17-mile-long downhill ride.

Pedaling a bicycle in the Grand Tetons is a joy.

The Garcia family was camping on the site next to mine.
They invited me over for a steak and a beer.

They were a delight to meet.

Morning view: Jenny Lake, Grand Tetons.

If you're pedaling coast-to-coast, I highly recommend
going through Yellowstone National Park.

You'll be glad you did.

Blue hot springs.

Large hot springs.

Spectators watch me pedal past in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone elk.

Geyser erupts.

A geyser erupts.

Yellowstone countryside.

Earthquake Lake was formed in 1959
when a huge rock slide blocked the Madison River.

Several campers were crushed in their tents.
(Montana.)

So many people people donated for the cause. These two waitresses at a place near Earthquake Lake heard what I was doing and gave generously to JDRF.

(I failed to get their names. Nuts!)

You can ride I-90 near Butte, Montana. There were some big fires in the area in 2007.

(My third ride across the USA was halted in 2024 by fires all across Oregon.)

Pedaling up and over Lolo Pass, in Idaho, I met Gene Meyers,
one of the few riders I ran into also heading West.

He was a gentleman and we rode together for several days.

It was fun to have someone to talk to after going solo so long.

Gene had been pedaling most of the way with a woman who drank too much.

We spent an entire day pedaling up the Lochsa River Valley.
A gorgeous Idaho stretch.

When I hit the Washington State line I realized, "Hey, I'm actually going to do this!
I said I'd pedal across the USA and I'm nearly finished."

Farm near Walla Walla, Washington.

Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Valley, Oregon.

You can ride I-84 down the Columbia River; here, I was on Old Route 30, high above.

Mt. Hood, sixty miles away, Oregon.

  

Only a mile from the Pacific.

My brother met me on the second-to-last day of my ride,
carried my gear in his car, and brought champagne.

Finished the ride after 51 days. Oregon Coast not far from Tillamook.
__________________

THESE PICTURES ARE FROM MY 2011 RIDE.

I prepare for all my long rides by eating a lot of candy. 

I started my 2011 ride at Acadia National Park in Maine. 

If you’ve never visited that park, you should.

I completed a practice ride in Florida before starting off in June.

I wanted to be ready to pedal over the high passes in the Rockies.

Dawn in the Everglades.

I met Sidney and her brother Sam during my Florida ride.

Sidney had type-1 diabetes, too. 

So I agreed to ride in her name.

During another practice ride in Ohio, 

a goose ran out in front of my bicycle at the last moment. 

It was a direct hit and we both went flying. 

Luckily, I landed in soft grass. I think it was an assassination attempt.

Cadillac Mountain, rises 1,526 feet, not far from the Atlantic. 

It was a good climb to start my first day.

Lupine – Maine.

Sunrise – somewhere in Maine. The roads in that state are good for pedaling.

Warning sign at the foot of Kancamagus Pass - N.H.
A gradual climb for twenty miles, then steep for six.

I did see this moose lurking in the bushes later.
But that was in Grand Teton National Park.

I was in the Marines. I can take a moose.

First big climb in 2011, up Kancamagus Pass, New Hampshire.
It's a beautiful ride along the Swift River for the first ten miles. 
The last five or six miles are steep.

The pass tops out at 2,867 feet.

Dipping my toes in the Swift River.

The bed of the Baker River was just a solid slab of granite - New Hampshire.

In Vermont, I got drenched twice.

Pedaling in Vermont, especially around Middlebury, was a joy.

You can take a ferry across Lake Champlain and see Fort Ticonderoga, N. Y.

Ethan Allen and his “Green Mountain Boys” capture the fort

without firing a shot – May 10, 1775.

The British recaptured the fort on July 5, 1777, 

in part because the defenders were drinking.

The Erie Canal.

I should have stopped for a snack...and maybe some weed. New York.
By the way, the roads in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York
are generally good for cycling.

New York farmland - near the Finger Lakes.

If you don't count New York City, the state is more rural than Ohio.

I visited the museum in Seneca Falls,
where the fight for women's rights began in earnest in 1848.

Susan B. Anthony fought for equal rights for women for fifty years.

“Failure is impossible,” she once said.

I like that spirit of perseverance,
which is all it really takes to pedal across the U.S.A.

Before women were "woke."
You could have worn the bustle in 1876.

Morning - camping on Lake Erie shore - Ohio.

Abandoned house - northern Ohio.
They don't make beams like that anymore.

I stopped at my house in Cincinnati for a few days to rest up.
Otherwise, I didn't take many pictures of my home state.
I already know what it looks like.

I do a lot of stealth camping.

Unfortunately, in Indiana, the first day out of Cincinnati, 
I got handcuffed briefly at this spot.
Police though I was a bank robbery suspect.

I was framed!

The good news: Indiana is mostly flat and easy riding.
It looks a lot like big chunks of Ohio.

Every days is different when pedaling across the USA.
A crop duster in action.

My phone showed the Dog Patch Motel was only eight miles away.

It was 100 degrees out - and when I arrived it was a dog daycare place.

I paid $20 to sleep in the air-conditioned office.

Fertilizer runoff causes algae to bloom.
Many lakes and streams in Indiana were clogged.

An Indiana farmer told me you could be paid $7,000
 to have a windmill erected on your land.

(That might have been annually.)

Some people today say windmills cause cancer. I'm a skeptic.

I thought it took a lot of faith to pedal across the USA again.

Mike Frizoel saw me looking at my map and asked if I needed directions.
It turned out his wife Kathy had been a type-1 diabetic since age eight.

She nearly died - but the doctor said she fought like "a tiger" to recover.

Mike showed me hit tattoo to honor his wife.
(I didn't think to ask about Jerry Garcia.)

Wilmington, Illinois - the Shriners show up for the Catfish Days Festival.

Watching the Wilmington parade.

Birthplace of Ronald Reagan - Tampico, Illinois.

I was surprised Reagan's hometown didn't do more to honor him.
There was a little museum - but it was closed when I pedaled past.

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Illinois - 2011.

Laundry day. Illinois.

About to cross the Mississippi River - into Clinton, Iowa.
Illinois is also mostly flat and it was easy to find good roads for riding.

(I like to make my own routes.)

Caesar Lopez was proud to tell me his restaurant (La Feria) in Clinton,
served 2,000 meals on a good day.

Unlike some people, I don't think immigrants are ruining the country.

Joe Ossman rode with me all day, in Iowa, and took the lead to cut the air
and make my job easier.
He pedaled across the USA in 2010, at age 64.
Rich Fowler, 67, was his sidekick.

Cornfields if you turn left, cornfields if you go straight,
cornfields back the way you came.
If you are a fan of cornfields, you will love Iowa.

In Clear Lake, Iowa, a good Samaritan named David Delperdang, got me to a bicycle shop, where Russell Rayburn fixed me up.

He was a mechanic in the spirit of Wilbur and Orville Wright. 

A sign on his front desk read: “In the summer I will refuse certain jobs. I refuse to sacrifice quality for quantity.” 

I even got to sleep in his shop on a cot that night, for free.

Pool part for cows - only the cool cows were invited.
Western Iowa.

I ran into Phil Hinrichs near Bancroft, Iowa.
He was taking his seventeenth ride across the USA.

Yeah.

He said he thinks he has pedaled 260,000 miles.

The Woitte family put me up for a night.
(Near Sioux Falls, S.D.)
Lexie developed type-1 diabetes when she was a toddler.

My Cannondale 700 was resting.

I loved pedaling thorough the Badlands of South Dakota.

 View from a hill in the Badlands.

Another view of the Badlands.

Stealth camping two miles south of Mount Rushmore.

Four deer watched me eat breakfast the next morning.

Baby mountain goat grazes at Mt. Rushmore.

Mt. Rushmore - the carving was planned out by Gutzon Borglum,
the son of Danish immigrants.

Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, Lincoln.

During the week of the Sturgis, S.D. motorcycle rally, the population
of the state almost doubles.
Bikers (not the pedaling kind) admire the monument.

Not my best picture - but trust me:
The Mickelson Trail, 109 miles long, is beautiful.

It will take you through the heart of the Black Hills.

Wide open spaces for pedaling in South Dakota.

Population density in 2011 - 10.5 people per square mile.

The road, pictured above, ran parallel with Interstate 90.
I pedaled along for twenty miles, and only two cars passed.
It was just me and the hay rolls.

Everyone else was using I-90, about half a mile north of my route.

You can pedal along Interstate 90 in Wyoming. It's legal to ride the 
interstates in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana too.

Not in Utah, though!

You do have some long climbs during a cross country trip.
Coming out of Buffalo, Wyoming you gain a mile of elevation
and pedal uphill, basically, for 33 miles.

What a view on the way. Here, I was halfway up,
headed for those snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Looking back the way I came, after 22 miles.

I did a lot of riding in the Yellowstone area; every inch was beautiful.
I pedaled up to Bozeman to see the family of a young lady I met in Florida,
Sidney, then seven, also has type-1 diabetes.

Sam and Sidney. I went to visit their family near Bozeman.
Sidney is type-1, like my daughter.

Sam had a pet pig named “Slugbutt.”

View from Mt. Washburn - near the center of Yellowstone N.P.

If you're coming down from Mt. Washburn (center of photo)
you can coast for fourteen miles - Yellowstone National Park.

The hike up Washburn is fantastic.

Blurry picture: but a real live bear in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone: hot spring.

Buffalo along the Yellowstone River.

Yield to buffalo in the park.

I wanted to tell a park ranger they should have added a bicycler's silhouette.

David Rothschild, 23, was pedaling from Santa Barbara, California
to New York City.

Many national parks now reserve camping spots for hikers and cyclers.

Close up of the falls. Note observation deck, at right.

The falls.

Brink of the falls.

These guys went off the road while sightseeing and took the bark off two trees.
The driver, left, was lucky. No injuries to the people inside.

I spent a beautiful day riding back south along the Gallatin River.

I ended up riding in the dark at the end of that day, 
having missed a campsite I thought I'd find along the way.
In an effort to reach West Yellowstone and find a motel room, I crashed in the dark.

I guess you can tell.

Grand Prismatic Hot Springs, Yellowstone.

Indian Paintbrush – flower beside the road in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone view: Grand Tetons (center), 44 miles away.
Leaving the park, I turned south for 800 miles, headed for Salt Lake City.

My route took me through Grand Teton National Park.
Good place for a lunch break.

Grand Teton view #2.

Grand Teton View #3.

Grand Teton View #4.

Hiking in Grand Teton National Park is also cool.

Abandoned Mormon church, Ovid, Utah.

Utah scenery. There are wide open roads in many Western states,
which makes pedaling fun.

Sunrise near Bear Lake, Utah. On this morning, I was stealth camping on a golf course.
I didn't even put up my tent.
Did you know they turn sprinklers on at golf courses in the morning?

Trust me, damply. They do.

Bill and Shirlee Wyman, newlyweds.
Bill has been dealing with type-1 diabetes for more than fifty years.

Raspberry milkshake. Rocket fuel for a cyclist.
The region around Bear Lake is the raspberry capital of the world, I think.

Mormon Temple, Salt Lake City.

Model of the Mormon Temple.

Many Mormon pioneers crossed the continent in 1846, pulling handcarts. 
At least I had 27 gears.

Crossing the Sevier Desert in Utah.
I didn't even know there was a Sevier Desert till I pedaled across it.
As you can see, this part of Utah was pretty bleak.

Colleen Zinn was finishing a cross-country ride she started 25 years before.
Husband Doug was supporting her ride.

The 92-mile stretch from Delta, Utah to the Border Inn, on the Nevada border, 
was as barren as any place I saw.

I was checking out the route across Nevada in 2009.

Here, I was looking for the site of a ghost town.

Apparently this tourist just gave up.
Highway 50 across Nevada is starkly beautiful.

You can go bicycle across almost the entire state of Nevada, 

using U.S. 50, nicknamed “The Loneliest Highway in America.”

Sage brush coming.

Sage brush going.

Lance Crowley was heading east when we stopped for a talk. 

This is a fair representation of the scenery in Nevada.

There's not a lot to do in parts of Nevada.
So people like to plug the highway signs for fun.

I think there are twelve serious mountain passes along Route 50.
Rick Arnett was riding across the USA, too. Nevada.

Rick was fun to ride with for a few hours; but he liked to walk up mountain passes.
So I bid him adieu.

Still barren. Nevada.

Occupational hazard: sunburned hands.

Camping for free near Eureka, Nevada.

High school graduates used to throw shoes into this tree.
Some idiot cut it down a few years ago.
Near Middlegate, Nevada.

I took this picture in 2009, while scouting out the road.
It was cut down by a vandal in January 2011.

Some say the tradition of tossing shoes into the tree began when a newlywed couple’s argument ended with the husband pitching his bride’s shoes into the branches. The tree evolved into a landmark for travelers, symbolizing good luck, milestones, 

or simply a fun, artistic gesture. 

At Middlegate, Nevada I decided to take a shortcut to Yosemite National Park.
(Bar at Middlegate; that's about all there really is there.)

I ruined a tire near Gabbs, Nevada and had to hitch a ride to Reno to get it replaced
the next day.

The owners of the only café in Gabbs helped me find a ride to Reno to replace a tire that had a hernia. In 1970, the town had 874 residents – but by the time I pedaled through, there were only 269. 

In 2023, population was down to 158.

As was so often true, the people I met while pedaling were very kind.

Approaching Tioga Pass, from the Nevada side.
Expect to climb more than 3,100 feet over a twelve-mile route. 

Top of Tioga Pass, California.
For perspective there's a large RV, a white dot, on the road above my handlebars.

Lake not far from Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.

Cathedral Peak in the distance. There's a cool hike right off the road nearby.

Switch from pedaling to hiking for variety. Near Cathedral Lake.

Keep your eyeballs peeled for bears - which do defecate in the woods.

Mountain stream; hiking in Yosemite. My bicycle is resting.

Lupine growing in the woods.

Hikers high above the main valley.

Most people enter the valley from the west to see this view.
El Capitan, left, rises 3,000 feet.

Go for a swim in the Merced River - even if the water temperature is 43 degrees.
You may be the only person that dumb.
(That's me - c. 1995, during an earlier visit to the park.)

View from Glacier Point, overlooking Yosemite Valley.
Bridal Veil Falls in distance.

Looking down, more than 3,000 feet; Glacier Point view.

Bears will rip open a car to get at food. What will they do to a bicycle?
Or a harmless old bicycle tourist!

Swimming in Yosemite.

Hiking up to Vernal Falls.

Showing my colors for JDRF. Top of Vernal Falls.

Young couple conversing.

My older brother, Tim, 65, met me in Yosemite and rode with me for three days.
Not bad for two older gentlemen.

Heading for Stockton, California, where my brother lives.

California hills – probably fifty miles east of San Francisco.

Nearly done. San Francisco; by now my brother
was carrying part of my gear and following in a car.

If only I could stay so thin!!!!

It was dark by the time I reached the Pacific. 
I did dip my tire in the surf.
That's like a rule.

I rode 55 days, and did 4,600 miles. 
I flew home in five hours.