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Spring 2024, 48 State Trip: Summary

Above is loosely the route I took, you’ll note I actually rode in 44 of 48 states, but I’ve ridden OR/WA/ID/MT plenty of times before, so I figured those are covered. And yes, at some point I will rent a motorcycle in Hawaii so I can say I did all 50 states.

Before I left, the states I have ridden my motorcycle in

Individual posts:

48 States: Motorcycling Time
48 States: Day 1 and Day 2, Flagstaff AZ & Wichita Falls, TX
48 States: Day 3: Texarkana & Louisiana
48 States: Day 3.5, Crawfish Interlude
48 States: Day 4 & 5, Robbinsville North Carolina
48 States: Day 6, Deal’s Gap, North Carolina & Tennessee
48 States: Day 7, Virginia is for Mowers
48 States: Day 8, Providence Rhode Island
48 States: Day 9, Portland Maine
48 States: Day 10 & 11, still Portland Maine
48 States: Day 12, Saratoga Springs New York
48 States: Day 13, Kane Pennsylvania
48 States: Day 14, Columbus Ohio
48 States: Day 15, Lansing Michigan
48 States: Day 16, Roseville Michigan
48 States: Day 17, Manistique Michigan
48 States: Day 18 & 19, Lake Geneva Wisconsin
48 States: Day 20 & 21, Omaha Nebraska
48 States: Day 22, Fargo North Dakota
48 States: Day 23, Fargo North Dakota Day 2
48 States: Day 24, Sturgis South Dakota
48 States: Day 25, Black Hills & Cheyenne Wyoming
48 States: Day 26, Grand Junction Colorado
48 States: Day 27, St George Utah
48 States: Day 28, Kernville California
48 States: Day 29, Home!

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San Diego Day 3 of “Remarkably Bad Idea” trip – Palomar & home

3 day total:
~15 hours motorcycling
~10,000 feet cycling ascent / 7 hours ride time

I’m pretty beat. Today was Palomar and then ~7 hours of motorcycling home. Palomar is #39 out of the top 100 US road climbs. If Nate Harrison is the WORST road conditions possible, Palomar is probably the best. I can see why people like to do long effort training rides on it. It is smooth and fast and not particularly pitchy, and the switchbacks tend to give you a nice break.

Strava activity here.

The lower portion along the highway isn’t super fun – lots of 3″ wide shoulder and curbs, but I left early so it wasn’t so bad. But it IS a busy highway, I took no pictures.

Once you get to the turn off for the park, traffic dies off and it is smooth sailing.

I planned to switch from “Ride as slowly as possible” to “Ride as fast as my knee could handle” – but it turned out there wasn’t much difference, my knee just isn’t happy with any significant power put through it (or standing up.)

That’s okay though because the lights started going out with about a mile to go. Zero power in the engine room. It felt like that last mile went on and on and on. Once I finally got to the top, I had to rest up a bit to have the mental energy for the descent. Was starting to feel kind of ‘sea legs’ with all the time spent on 2 wheels.

The descent is super fun, on a good road bike and familiarity with the curves you could do this with barely touching the brakes. The upper 1/3 is also freshly paved.

I made it safely back to the hotel and packed up the moto-bicycle rig and slogged my way home across LA. That is really miserable with 1000s of big rigs screwing up the air flow plus the usual mountain pass cross winds. To add insult to injury there was a 6+ car pile up 5 miles from my house. So close! By the time I got home I was super super beat. That was a lot for 3 days with so few miles (bicycle & motorcycle) on my body.

Not sure what climbs are next, we’ll see how the knee does!

1.2 miles to go.. so much groveling at this point, burned out trees from past fires

Taking a break at the bustling post office before descending

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San Diego Day 2 of “Remarkably Bad Idea” trip – Nate Harrison Grade

Nate Harrison is a mixed surface climb that would rank #16 out of the top 100 in the US. Knee is still pretty dodgy and I want to do Palomar tomorrow, so my goal was to ride this as slowly as possible.

Link to Strava Activity

Starts out with some no shoulder highway but I left super early so not too bad. Once you get to the dirt section it’s pretty mixed. Some is not too bad (gravel on hard pack) and other sections are pretty brutal – deep ruts, rocky stretches, sand. I was very glad I did not have to descend the dirt part – it would take a lonnng time. The grade on this climb is also extremely deceptive with a roughly 10-11% average. But much of that is made up of 15-20% pitches mixed with 6 to 8%. And of course the most rutted/rocky sections were the steepest!

The sun was in my eyes on half of the switchbacks, so that made it extra exciting to not ride off the side of the road or into a bike size rut.

Knee was pretty much not happy right away, but didn’t seem to get any worse? So I ignored it. Hopefully it will be okay tomorrow.

I was very happy to see the end of the dirt section, and then a slight climb to get to the descent, which is very fast and no shoulders. Luckily traffic was very light, so no problems. At the bottom is a convenient Taqueria, so I rewarded myself with a breakfast burrito.

The descent was also a preview of the ride up tomorrow, which other than being smooth pavement, looks very similar in profile and length.

You can make out the switchbacks up the hill

more more more, knee getting grumpy around here

About halfway up, looking down into the valley

3/4 of the way it turns inland under trees and into the park

End of the pavement.. after 2.5 hours of bumpy dirt, pavement felt super smooth and fast!

After the false summit, you go up another 100 feet to get to the pavement descent.

Preview of tomorrow.. the start of Palomar descent

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San Diego Day 1 of “Remarkably Bad Idea” trip

I’m wondering if maybe this was overly ambitious. 8 hours on the motorcycle including dragging across all of Los Angeles being buffeted by winds and big rigs was pretty exhausting. Also, no place had restrooms open until I stormed a Mcdonald’s. Route to the hotel gave me look at Nate Harrison grade and it looks REALLY tough. Given my current riding shape (and body shape) tomorrow will be interesting.

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Top 100 US Road Climbs Resumes

After hiatus for being injured, fat, buying/selling houses, COVID, et cetera, I have resumed my not-very-urgent quest to ride the Top 100 road climbs in the USA.

A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend in Santa Barbara and I took care of Gibraltar Rd (#62) and Refugio Rd (#70)

Gibraltar is pretty boring with a fair number of cars and a lot of close brushes with OHV toting pickup trucks, and Refugio was blasted to heck from the fires and mud slides. Really awful pavement made for a lonnng bumpy descent! But 2 more knocked out. This currently brings me to 26 out of 100 (a list that is somewhat ever changing as new climbs are added that push others down the list.)

Next up I am headed to San Diego to knock out #16 (Nate Harrison Grade) and #39 (Palomar.) Not too many non-snowed in opportunities in January.

Taking the motorcycle-bicycle rig for this trip since I’m solo.

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Owen’s Valley Day 3: Onion Valley

Very brief update since I need to hit the road and head home. This was definitely the coolest of the 3 road climbs. Onion Valley is the hardest climb in California, and #57 in the world. A pretty solid continuous grade to the top (no false summits!) and the terrain is varied and interesting vs. mile long switchbacks and the usual epic scenery.

Since this was my last climb, I was also able to ride it at a more aggressive pace which is good because it was also the COLDEST day. 37F and a stiff breeze coming up the valley – I never took off my windbreaker the whole ascent.

After the cold windy valley, the grades kick up to a continuous 8-9%

I took a lot more pictures on the way down, because it was so cold my fingers would go numb and I’d start shivering. I’d pause in the sun to warm up a bit and continue on. Winter was definitely in the air!

The expansion cracks were actually better than Horseshoe – most had been filled in and I didn’t see a lot of tire eaters on the way up, so mostly it was just annoying KERTHUNK KERTHUNK KERTHUNK

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Owen’s Valley Day 2: Horseshoe Meadows & Whitney Portal

Oof, that was pretty tough – it has been a while since I did a 11,582 ascent day.

Tackling two of the hardest climbs in the country in a single day was a bit ambitious. Horseshoe Meadows is #7 in the US and #69 in the world. Whitney Portal is #14 USA, #122 in the world.

Horseshoe Meadows starts off a few miles south of Lone Pine via Lubkin Canyon – you can also do it the long way from Whitney Portal, but I was going for steepest/shortest.

It starts off with a gradual climb up Lubkin over pretty broken pavement, then you hang a left and do a lonnnng drag to get to the ominous switchbacks.

In general nothing too extreme, but the pavement is pretty rough, above 7000 feet, there’s a lot of broken expansion cracks. 700×32 tires suggested.

There’s a false summit around 8600 feet which is annoying, then you eventually end up in the camp ground areas – not much to see up there other than trees!

Switchbacks in the distance from the start

End of the long drag, left onto the first switchback

The descent was pretty crappy coming off Horseshoe – those expansion joints are brutal, some were tire eaters, so I had to go slow. Even down low, the pavement was pretty choppy.

After a quick snack and reapplication of sunscreen, I drove back to the hotel and started off on Whitney Portal.

This is another long drag and then 2 (or 3) huuuge switchbacks. My legs were definitely feelin’ it by the time I hit the first switchback, which, coincidentally, is when the grade kicks up to 10-15%, yech.

Pictures declined significantly, which usually means I’m groveling. I did, eventually, make it to the top.

Good news is the pavement on Whitney Portal is good, so I was able to blast back down the mountain.

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Owen’s Valley Day 1: Cerro Gordo Ghost Town

Well, been a while since I’ve done a blog post from my android phone on the road.. not even with the motorcycle this time. Only a few days off and I wanted to bring two bikes.

Day 1 is a full dirt climb up to an old mining site, Cerro Gordo. Notably, by FIETS score (16.98 FIETS, Pike’s Peak is 17.8) so this would be a solid Top 10 in the USA if it was paved – it climbs 4600 feet in a little less than 8 miles. It starts about 15 miles south of Lone Pine toward the Panamint Valley and then onto Death Valley.

There’s a whole bunch of interesting history in this area related to the Water Wars where LA diverted their river – it’s still going on to this day over toxic dust clouds caused by the dry lake.

Anyways, it kicks off in Keeler, where a few hardy souls still hang on, and a lone US Post Office outpost.

Once you roll out, it takes you onto a pretty well maintained dirt road (and in fact I passed a grader on the way back down) – the washboard was not too bad on the lower slopes and the first 5 miles is a pretty gradual (heh) 8-10% grade.

After you make this turn, the grade goes up

It kicks up in a few spots, but nothing egregious. At this point I was wondering what the fuss was about and figured it was cake.

Nearly fell over here taking this picture. ha

Then you get to about mile 4.8 and take a small downhill, and the rest is pretty brutal. Solid 15-20%, and I saw upper 20s a few times. The road surface becomes a lot more challenging – much looser and more washboard. I don’t advise trying to stop: You may fall over or may not be able to get going again!

The summit gives you a peek over into the Panamint Valley and you can check out the old buildings and random artifacts related to the old mining history. I didn’t hang around for a tour and headed on down.

The upper descent was definitely sketchy on skinny gravel tires. You don’t want to get too much speed going on the loose wash board, or you may run out of traction. Being solo, I took it easy.

Once onto the lower slopes, I met up with the grading tractor knocking down all the washboard (what luck!) and it was smooth sailing.

As usual in this part of California, epic scenery abounds!

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New Rig and What Happened to 2018?

So here we are in September 2019, with hardly any updates. So what happened to 2018? The plan was: Double Century in March, Death Ride in July, then Mauna Kea (the hardest bike climb in the world) in August/September.

2018 reality (the light blue line is “training load” – ie, how fit you are and prepared to go ride up crazy mountains)

In short, the wheels fell off the wagon. I still managed to do Death Ride with the wonky Achilles but it wasn’t super fun: Strava Link

After a bust of 2018, I took some time off and gradually trained back up and lost all the weight I gained being injured, preparing for Mauna Kea in July 2019.

5 days before I left, the natives shut down the road(!) – could have been worse, I was meeting a buddy from the U.K. that flew over to do it.. so I couldn’t complain that much. But I did anyways. I still rode across the whole Big Island and up Mauna Loa, but I can’t help being disappointed. Strava Link

More importantly, here’s the new motorcycle and new 2×2 rack!

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2017 – Summary

Obviously severe blog burn-out after my summer trip, but I figured I’d roll up 2017 into one post.

Top 3 Rides of 2017

Wild Rose Canyon, Death Valley
Pike’s Peak, Colorado
Mauna Loa, Hawaii (no blog post on this one but it was ridiculous due to the rain and wind!)

Summer Motorcycle-Bicycle Trip

Spring Death Valley Try-Out Trip

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Why motorcycle with a bicycle?

Well, this goes back a bit. I’ve been motorcycling for a while. I’ve been bicycling for a while. ~5 years ago, I spent 4 weeks riding my motorcycle around Canada and Alaska.

As my next 5 year sabbatical approached, I began planning what I thought would be a motorcycle trip down the Continental Divide (from the Canadian border down to Mexico.)

I also started recovering from my latest injury and began bicycling more, culminating in participating in a local hill climb series (shout out to Low Key Hill Climbs!) as well as dropping the latest 30 pounds I gain every time I get injured.

I figured I should use my current cycling form for something, and decided I should at least ride all the top climbs in California this summer. Which lead to John Summerson’s “Complete Guide to Climbing by Bike” book.

51ue-vpn0hl-_sx320_bo1204203200_ — Amazon

Which lead me to PJAMM cycling’s “Top bike climbs in the United States” web page. Which lead to pondering how many of the Top 100 climbs I could visit in 4 to 6 weeks of traveling.

Unfortunately for me, I loathe long car road trips.. but I can ride my motorcycle day after day forever, no problem.

A quick Google for “bike racks for motorcycles” turned up the most excellently engineered 2×2 Cycles Rack and a vague sketch of a plan formed in my mind: I would travel around the western US with my motorcycle AND bicycle. Motorcycle to the foot of a remote climb, switch to bicycle, ride it, then switch back! CRAZY!

Crazy enough people said I should blog about my experiences, including my lovely wife. I don’t do Facebook, my Instagramming is inconsistent, and Strava only covers a small aspect of it. Plus, I’m capturing my own learnings and actions as I go along.

So, here it is… count-down to (probably) June. Please leave a comment if you’re interested in any particular aspect of this craziness!

This is, so far, my deeply thought out plan (each balloon or diamond represents a notable climb.)

routeplan — Route planning via MS Paint!

48 States: Day 29, Home!

A super nice day to coast the 280 miles home, the Kern river is always nice and then across the boring central valley & home. The weather is nicer at home than within 10,500 miles. It was a pleasant 60 degree and no wind.

Amusingly I’ve done three 4 week trips, and each one had its own weather theme:

Alaska – rained for 3 of 4 weeks

Moto-bicycle trip – 90 to 100F every day

48 state trip: wind wind wind

I’m not sure what will happen next time, hopefully no biblical plagues.

I’ll draw up a route map and do a summary post of this trip later.

What’s next? Well, hopefully back to the bicycle. I still have 70 of the top 100 US climbs to do on a bicycle. And a bunch of those are in California, so I may try to focus on that next.

48 States: Day 28, Kernville California

Starting to feel like Odyssues trying to get home.. woke up to another 70+ mph gust high wind warning on the Sierra slopes, so up early again and out.

Headed toward Pahrump (if you know, you know) to cut through Death Valley because Death Valley is super cool.

Was hoping to catch some wild flower blooms but most tapered off around 2000 feet. Although things were generally a lot more green than usual!

As I headed down into Badwater, I encountered obstacle #2: Road work with a vehicle escort. I sat for 15 minutes watching the temp go up from 63 to 79. Not super great.

I motored to Stovepipe Wells for a splash n dash and then into the Panamint valley.. road work #2, thankfully this one was less than 10 minutes and no escort.

Winds were starting to pick up and blow dust around and climbing out of Panamint valley was already blustery.

After Ridgecrest I had to climb up 178 to get into the Lake Isabella area.. this is where the gusty winds were kicking up. It was already pretty cruddy at 11 AM.

Up and over, my route would normally take me on Sierra Way.. oops.. road closed. I later found out it will be closed for at least a year. Not sure why Google & Garmin decided it was ok.

So I headed down 178 to take the “long” way.. only to find the latest obstacle.. the onramp to Hwy 155 was also closed. A 5 mile detour and a u-turn and I made it onto 155 going the right way.

Oops.. road work #3… another 10 minute delay.. also by this time the wind was really ripping over the lake, with white caps and all.

Eventually I made it into town and ate breakfast. I was thinking I’d ride some more before hotel check in, but decided that was probably enough for the day.

Tomorrow is a short (290 miles is now short) trip home and done!

I’m not tired of riding, but I’m definitely tired of hotels.

48 States: Day 27, St George Utah

There’s always one day on a trip where you think “Was this an incredibly bad idea to ride today?” – I guess (with 2 days left) this was probably it.

Last night gusts peaked around 50 mph, and several trees and a bunch of tree branches fell down around the hotel. Unfortunately today wasn’t looking much better after the front (and rain) moved through.

The smart thing to do would have been to stay another day and wait for the weather to clear.. but I wasn’t in a very good hotel & location and I was only 3 days from home.. sooo.. into the wind forecast of 20 to 40 mph.

Leaving Grand Junction was pretty gusty for the first 30 minutes and then settled down. I was feelin’ pretty cocky at this point, with the sun rising behind me and the winds blowing away all the haze/clouds, the scenery was quite stunning all the way into Utah.

Then I started climbing the passes and noticing more and more snow.. hmmm.. I guess with rain would also come snow.

And more snow.. and more snow.. and then snow plows.. and then trying to avoid ice and staying in semi-truck tire paths where there seemed to be more grip. Then around 7000 feet, I also got 40+ mph sideways gusts of wind.

I think I did this stretch at 45 mph for about 45 minutes trying to maintain a 6″ line of clear road.

Occasionally a car would pass me spraying me down with salty dirty slush (hence the picture of my bike looking salty.. If this was earlier in the trip I’d hose it off, but I only have 2 days so… it can wait.)

Once started there was no real way to abort.. so.. just hoped for the best and made it through.

There was 1 crashed Harley on the other side of the road, and another guy drove off the road towing a uhaul. The cops were pretty busy.

Well after that, it was just more gusty wind going down the mountains, eventually turning south to go to St George. Things started warming up out of the 20s/30s/40s once I got within about 20 minutes of St George, so good job, whoever controls the weather.

Tomorrow the “scenic” route across the desert an Death Valley with the traditional moto-stopover in Kernville meth hotel (it used to be pretty nice, it declined significantly during covid.)

48 States: Day 26, Grand Junction Colorado

Another day, another bout of wind.. this time 65+ mph gusts coming on the edge of the storm I am dodging around.

So was out at 6 AM to beat it. 40s mostly and then 30s at 11,000 feet over the pass. The wind was okay until the last 1.5 hours, then those gusts definitely started up. All the tractor trailer guys were parked and looked to be settling in.

Living dangerously after successfully eating biscuits & gravy 2 days ago, I stopped at a diner and ate a chicken fried steak & biscuit to kill some time until hotel check-in.

At check-in time the wind was realllly getting going, so I’m glad I didn’t dawdle.

Tomorrow St. George Utah, which is a fairly short hop but I want to be comfortable the next day crossing Death Valley. I think most of the dramatic weather should be over.

48 States: Day 25, Black Hills & Cheyenne Wyoming

Colllld again this morning, a bunch of 20s on my route. So I waited until 9 AM to head out.

Plan was to do some loops around the Black Hills and then head to Cheyenne.

Wow, those were some amazing roads. You could definitely spend a couple days riding around there. I imagine during the summer you get a lot more traffic, but I mostly had the really twisty stuff to myself. The routes through Custer national forest & around Mt Rushmore are amazing. Do a google image search for “Iron Mountain Road” for some more flavor.

Hwy 16a is awesome – basically all 20-30 mph switchbacks and spiral turns and cool single lane tunnels through the rocks. I quickly decided if I was going to get a speeding ticket, this was the place. It was by far the best riding of the trip (sorry Gap & Cherahola.) Again probably just luck of the season, I imagine during the summer you’d be stuck behind endless tourists.

I had zero traffic for the entire 16a loop. Really amazing and got to use the sides of my tires (and some peg feelers.)

Unfortunately a few roads were still closed so I ended up wandering around a bit, but it was all good. Plenty of snow still lying around on the hills and not much wind.

Around noon I started heading toward Cheyenne – this is a pretty boring drag through the grasslands and lots of local speed traps. Saw someone nailed for 5 over (I was doing 3 over and they passed me.)

Tomorrow I get to deal with the cold again because 60+ mph gusts are coming in after noon on the edge of this storm system. I want to get as far west as I can and have the storm pass over me during the night, and then hopefully clear sailing all the way home.

48 States: Day 24, Sturgis South Dakota

Hoping this is going to be the worst wind day in this trip. Forecast was for 20 to 25 mph. The locals all said they don’t bother riding once it gets above 20 because it’s just a drag.

I left around 6 AM to hopefully get at least 2 hours in before the wind kicked up, even if it was 42F when I left. This actually wasn’t too bad until it got colder and the wind picked up. It was hovering around 37F + 80 mph + 20 mph wind.. which results in a 17F windchill.

Plus the wind was going sideways so it was blowing up/around my fairing and windscreen and helmet. Pretty brutal. At least after 150 miles I got off the highway and cut through the middle of ND/SD. Still pretty rough but no traffic. Hadn’t seen dirt road gas stations and no credit card readers since Yukon & Alaska either. One stretch was “No services next 103 miles.”

There was a bit of scenery going through the reservations, but mostly just cows.

Since I left at 6 AM and I was gaining an hour from the time change and it was “only” 7 hours, I got near town pretty early. However I was super beat and cold and was close to calling it a day.

However a biscuit and gravy (first one of this trip due to stomach issues!) and a bunch of decaf coffees thawed me out enough to gain some riding enthusiasm. Plus the wind report further east/north was much better.

So I headed to Devil’s Tower about 1.5 hours away. I then saw a sign I hadn’t seen in 1000’s of miles: “Steep turns next 9 miles” – huzzah! That stretch of road was the best riding since West Virginia. The wind was also really mild through this bit.

Devil’s tower is exactly what it looks like – a big ol’ random mountain stickin’ outta no where. Neat.

Sadly the drag back was straight into the wind again, now with random gusts.

Tomorrow I plan to wind around the black hills a bit an then head toward Wyoming.

48 States: Day 23, Fargo North Dakota Day 2

Raining all day here, but found a place that put new tires on only 1 mile away, so did that this morning. That should easily get me home.

Looking at the weather patterns, the northwest corner of the country is looking pretty active for the next 3 to 5 days.

Original plan was to just head west, then cut down West Yellowstone, through Idaho and Nevada and across CA around Tahoe. But that’s looking both snowy and wet.

So instead I plan to cut south through Wyoming and Colorado, then cut across Utah & Nevada and go through Death Valley. Assuming the weather holds up.

Less chance of rain and snow, but sadly.. more wind for at least another couple of days.

48 States: Day 22, Fargo North Dakota

Wind. Windmills. Wind. Cows. Wind. Fields.

That’s about it. I thought I would be clever and ride part of this on state highways in Minnesota and they were even worse with tire/wheel eating potholes.

I did ride through South Dakota too though, which means I’ve ridden a motorcycle in all of the continental 48 states (and Alaska.)

Now I have to figure out how to get home and find another tire.

48 States: Day 20 & 21, Omaha Nebraska

ooof, that was another long day. Some self-inflicted and some just rough.

The original plan was to boogie out at 6 AM so I had at least 2 hours of mild winds – this went exactly to plan until I realized I didn’t have my heated pants. Since I’m headed up north where it is still in the 30s and 40s, not having these would be a poor idea (particularly since my heated socks attach to the pants.)

After checking every bag at least 5 times, I realized I probably left them at the place I ate breakfast on Saturday. That day it was 80 degrees when I got there, so I stripped off all my layers in the bathroom (heated jacket, pants, socks, glove liners and baselayer shirt and baselayer pants) – since I had such a huge wad of clothes, I didn’t realize I left my pants hanging on the coat hook in the bathroom.

So I had to wait until 8 AM when they opened and hope they were still there. Thankfully they were! I was super grateful and left them 5 star reviews everywhere!

But now I was 2+ hours behind schedule on a 640 mile 9.5 hour long drag.

I cut down through Illinois and then west across Iowa and it was windy and rough the whole way. At least with the late start the rain had pretty much blown through. But oof, my arms/shoulders/core were crying.

Around Kansas I got got maybe 1 hour of break in the wind. That corner of Kansas was pretty neat and riding along the Missouri river was cool. Then I headed north to Omaha – this whole stretch had 30 or 40 tornado touchdowns the day before, so I guess I should be grateful for the “mild” winds and warmish temperatures.

I dragged my tired self into the hotel around 6 PM.. Only to be told I can’t park my motorcycle in the garage for “insurance” reasons. I assured them I am incredibly dull and won’t be going in and out, so they made room for me. Plus I am now employee of the month.

One upside/downside of this trip is the endless free drinks people buy you for being a loonie. So that’s why there was no blog update last night.

Also in “weird travel coincidences” – I ran into someone who went to the same high school I did in random-podunk-california town. I haven’t seen anyone from that area in 20 years. Bizarre.

Thankfully(?) tomorrow afternoon is more thunderstorms so it’s a double day in Omaha again so I can recover. I am sore all over.

Next it is up to Fargo with a detour through Minnesota, which will actually complete the last 3 states!

Audio book: Finished ROTK absent the appendix (sorry not that hardcore.) – downloaded book 1 of Malazan Book of the Fallen, because it is long and complicated and will hopefully distract me.