Well the journey had a mind of its own. A 68 mile ride turned into a 91 mile ordeal. Road construction, bad directions, and misinformation and I just now arrived at the hotel in Athens. I am waiting on my lovely wife!! Some new stats for ya. Flipped off twice, ran off the road into the grass once, yelled stupid things at three times, and rude honking twice. You guessed it, all in Ohio in three days!!! All of the above never happened even once in all the other states. Some very nice people in OH too, but they were everywhere, but no idiotic rude people encountered anywhere else. I wasn't at all surprised. One guy flipped me off as he left from pumping gas. I was sitting on a bench drinking gatoraid! Oh well!! The shoulders of the Ohio roads are littered with gravel, sand, glass, and truck tire rubber. I probably road an extra 10 miles dodging all the debris on the shoulder. Needless to say I am not impressed with buckeye land! HAPPY TO BE ALMOST HOME!

Welcome Randy Home !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We would like to invite everyone to welcome Randy home on Saturday, July 31st. He will be arriving in Parkersburg around 1PM and invite everyone to mom and Randy's house (1703 Park Ave) around noon on saturday to surprise him when he arrives home.  I know he would love to see everyone and has mentioned every time we talked how much the messages everyone has left during his trip has meant to him and his family thanks you also for encouraging him. We hope  to see everyone saturday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The pics are of a diner in Sidney, OH , famous for serving President Bush and other famous people over the years. The place is over a hundred years old and is like walking into a 1950's soda shop. Food was not very good and the worst burger I had on the whole trip. I did drink a lot of ice tea and water and then almost immediately after leaving town, I had to climb this huge hill to get out of town. Like to killed me! I felt like a big toad climbing out of a well! I am in Urbana tonight and hoteling it. Supposed to get some bad storms. Place is $45 a night and certainly not a Hilton, but then neither was my Kelty tent! Roger, I will be coming in entirely on Rte 50 and getting off downtown. I'm not sure deserve that much attention , but sure could use the company. I hope you all don't think I'll get lost coming from Athens. As for the motivational speaking, I just hope my kids in room 13 will listen to me. If I can master that, then I might consider motivational speaking. Already given up on the family! Nadia might be the only one , but she's only a few weeks old, so not sure about her yet. I am on schedule, so I should be home on time! Not sure what Charlotte has planned, but I hope it's not too embarrassing. It will be so nice to get home and sleep in a good bed and fight with the two furry idiots. Never thought I would ever miss them but I do! Charlotte has them well trained by now! I was looking at pictures last night from the beginning of my trip and they seem to be from last year. Haven't really had much time daily to think about more than how my body feels, what I will eat, where I will sleep, do the daily routine to PJ, blog, and think about tomorrow. Please know that your comments, concerns, and well wishes have kept me going! See you soon!!

OHIO! Celina to be exact. Camping by Grand Lake, a lake that has been plagued by algea and virtually shut down. Normally used by skiers and boaters, it is now just a big pool of water. You can see by one of the pics how the algea has killed a lot of fish, etc. The backroads I used to get here went through Amish country and I got this pic of the horse. Before this horse turned around, I thought it was a U.S. Senator. Unlike the mennonite girls the day before, the Amish do not want their pictures taken. I could have taken a hundred of them as they passed me in their buggies. All of them waved! In answer to what time I will be home Saturday, I will be there between 12:00 and 1:00. I am staying in Athens on Friday night. Tomorrow I will go to Urbana, Circleville, Athens and not sure after that. Might turn around and go back! See you all soon!

Greg we will make a hard copy Of the blog and give it to Ernie the first day of school, as he doesn,t use the school computers either.Jasmine, does this mean you won,t be mean to me when I get home?

Road construction and delays were the order of the day. At least no gravel or rain! I am in Monroeville, IN and will be headed to Ohio tomorrow. Will definately be home on Saturday! Marsha, your rain came down in buckets last night and flooded everything. The pic of the flooded yard was a common scene today. Bill, I bet if the Spanish guy who won the Tour de France had been riding a 35 pound bike with 40 pounds of gear and sleeping in tents, my guess is he would have quit early. :-) Teresa I will be home in time to pick on you the first day of school. It's a hobby. Will be turning over 3000 miles soon. I can tell by the pain in the butt. The 3 major disappointments of my trip have been...... not being in Portland when Nadia was born, missing Justin and Stephanie's wedding, and not being able to see Lauren and Mike on my ride through Ohio! I thought about all of them a lot! I ran into these ladies on bikes at a Hardies. They were super. The young girls surrounded me at lunch and had a hundred questions about me and the trip. Honestly, Six Pack can't touch these girls when it comes to talking! They had me laughing with all the chatter and questions! They were all one family!? Yeah, I know! Their manners and kindness towards me and each other blew me away. It was truly the best lunch I've had for 7 weeks! Not sure I even ate anything! .........FIVE MORE DAYS! YOUR BREAK FROM ME WILL BE OVER!

I can almost smell Charlotte's cooking! I am in Wabash, IN after a rather cool ( thanks Marsha ) morning. Got in 60 miles before noon and 85 total for the day. Nothing exciting about the ride, but I did make friends with 5 turkeys. I think they are members of the Indiana Hoosier cheerleading squad. These ladies were in a little field and when I stopped to look at them, amazingly, they came walking towards me. I'm just an animal magnet! Maybe they thought I was an old Tom! Then I was peddling by this house and heard some real loud noises. When I turned to look I saw all these big birds in a caged in area attached to a house. Let me tell ya this was fun! All of these guys could talk and I had a ball with them! One told me i was cute. He said , "You're a cuty" This lady had 67 exotic birds and 11 dogs. Crazy! Tomorrow I will go to Monroeville , IN and then make an assault on Ohio. It's hard to believe I'm almost home! I am already planning my next adventure! Thought maybe the beach with Charlotte might be a good start! Maybe even go camping!! ;-) Brenda, the guy at the house was not a barber or I would have gotten my hair cut! I hope all of you have enjoyed your summer! It will be good to get home and have a few days before Bill and Jenny put me to work. I can't wait for the opening school meetings. It always gives me a chance to day dream about cycling adventures and stuff! Take care and see ya all soon!

INDIANA! It greeted me with 2 big ole thunderstorms and some hail. Covered myself up with my tent groundcover by a corn field and waited them out. Dry as a bone except the sweat already hanging on me. Put the Adventure Cycling maps away and using my own routes now. Silly things the last four days have led me over gravel roads and road construction. Need a mountain bike! Gravel and a loaded touring bike do not get along. The couple in the pics invited me to their house for ice tea. She is a fifth grade teacher and he heard me tell a guy at a store that I was on summer vacation from teaching. They lived just down the street in this beautiful Victorian house. We swapped house and school stories and I hit the road. I am in Rensselaer, IN. Bill, when I get home, I am stripping PJ of all the racks, etc and we're going for a fast, fun ride. A couple days ago I road to the store without my stuff and didn't know what to do with all the speed. Scared me! :-) I thought , "oh so this is what riding a bike feels like." Greg, thanks for educating me about the house. I just thought it was a roofer's house. Joanie, I didn't keep the dog but I would have if I thought I could ride home with him. Some info: 1. The most disaapointing state was Montana. 2. The most beautiful was Minnesota. 3. The most difficult climbs were in Iowa. 4. The worst roads were North Dakota and Iowa ( tied ) 5. The nicest people were in Montana. 6. The hottest has been Illinois. 7. The state I would most like to live in WEST VIRGINIA! 8. Least friendly people were in Iowa. 9. Most interesting thing so far was watching the sheep being moved through the streets of Lincoln , MT. 10. The scariest thing was the moose standoff in Washington! Be home July 31 I think! ONE WEEK! Gonna jump off the bike and mow my yard!! Miss that! Miss you all too!

This where I am sleeping tonight. You maybe can't tell but we are having a terrible storm with high winds. Pitching the tent under the shelter. Another cyclist is here from PA so we are sharing the space. Walked up town and ordered a pizza. They are supposed to deliver it here. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Sorry no pics today! It is so hot, 97 degrees, where I am now in Ashkum, IL. Tomorrow morning I will be in Indiana. It is supposed to cool down a little the next couple of days. Today I had a great morning. Cool, roads were flat. Then I stopped in Odell, IL to get lunch and the day fell apart. The road out of town was under construction and gravel for 3 miles. Let me tell ya, it's not fun to ride on gravel with grain trucks passing and covering you with dust. Then, after all that I came to a sign that raed " road closed ahead" went to the closed road just in case !i could walk the bike through. Nope! Had to backtrack through the same gravel road and go back into town to get directions. This added 15 miles to my planned short day. An that's about the sum of my day. Good thing is, i am ok and closer home! Other than that, it ainKt so good. Marsha, pray for rain! Jasmine I don't have time to do math. I have came to the conclusion that there are only two kind of bicycle touring days. Hard ones and the really hard ones. Oh well, i am enjoying the adventure and meeting so many super nice people! Besides, if this were easy it wouldn't interest me. Please keep in touch!

Pretty good day, but very hot. Thank goodness for the big white fans you see in the pic to keep a breeze going. Too bad they can't use these things to make electricity. Dozens of these things dot the landscape. I assume they are there to keep the dairy cows cool so they make more milk. The pic of the crop duster doesn't show how close this guy was to me. I stop several times a day to watch them. Got a better pic of the cornfield hummer, so you can see how big they are. They sit up high and have fairly skinny tires so the don't mash the corn as they go through the corn fields. The other pic is just a wierd house that I saw this morning. Dang thing is all roof. I am at a Super 8 tonight. Too hot to camp and got very little sleep last night. Will get some laundry done so I can stand to eat lunch with myself again. Next three days will determine if I get home on the 31st or Aug. 1. Heat will be a factor, as I can't ride 80 plus miles in this smoothering heat and humidity. Bill and Bill, thanks for the encouragement. Jasmine if you miss me too much, I can always send you a little Math work to do. Kenny, thanks again for the knowledge to keep this bike going. Jordan, thank you for keeping in touch! Kaylain, I am always safe!! :-) Miss you all!

Glad today is over! First day the heat got to me. No shade trees unless I run and hide in the corn fields. I am in Kewanee, Illinois. Didn,t want to ride 84 miles today but camping situations , etc changed all that. I think I changed roads 25 times. Had to stop several times to ask directions. My route has numbers for the back roads and the signs have names. Hard to match them up without asking the locals. I hope you enjoy the pics. They also slowed me down. The little buffalo nursing was too cute. The pic of the tree growing out of the silo caught my eye, and the machine headed at me is what I have named cornfield hummers. Man these things are huge and they own the road! The pic of the river I took early this morning of the Mississippi as I crossed the river from Iowa to Illinois. Jackson, i will have a haircut before you see me! Bill ! Just keep peddling away but that yellow jersey just keeps eluding me. If I have to climb the French Alps to get one, I'll stick with red and blue. Kaylein, I am always safe! Missing my lovely wife and for some dumb reason I kinda miss the twin furry terrorists of Park Ave. Charlotte said she will have them trained when I get home. Honey ya better do it quick!

I am in Muscatine, Iowa. Tomorrow morning I will cross the river into Illinois. Unless something goes wrong, I will be home on July 31 or Aug 1. Today was very hot but a fairly easy 74 miles over gently rolling hills. Got hot about 2. The pics may be hard to see, but what I saw most of the day. Corn fields and bean fields. Thanks for the encouragement from home. I am holed up in a hotel this evening enjoying the air conditioning. Nearest campground was 6 miles off my route. I told a lady today that if they pay road taxes in !owa , they are getting cheated. Worst roads I have ever seen. Today ! Went through road construction where the blacktop had been stripped away. When I got to the end, I told the flagger it was the smoothest road I had been on since I entered Iowa! All the berms are gravel , which made me ride in the road. Please take care and I hope to see you soon!

Sorry I have no pics today! Long and difficult day in saddle. Today was personal challenge day and I won! Day started at 5:30 and ended at 5:30. Almost 10 hours of riding time but most of the hills were before noon. Over 90 miles today. Getting to be a habit but what else do I have to do all day? Ride, eat, sleep, and repeat! I am surprised my body is holding up but it is. Bill, not sure who would want a motivatonal talk from an old man on a bike. I don't even know why I'm doing this sometimes, but I know if it motivates anyone then I feel good about that. Honestly, some days this is so very hard and it is difficult in the mornings to get up and keep going at times, but I do think how fortunate I am that God has given me the strength and abilty to do it. Many people would love to have what I have. The most difficult emotional thing I deal with daily are the little animals I see along the road. Today I saw a little fawn. Tore me up! I pray a lot about things but never for me. If I am doing any suffering it's by choice. Many people and animals don't have that choice. I don't consider myslef a hero. That's a title that belongs to those who sacrifice for others. Today I had a bike issue. Chain link froze so had to stop and fix that. Not a major problem. Tonight I am camping in Cascade, Iowa city park. Pool and showers are free. I don't have energy to swim, but might make it to the shower. Maybe! Hey, i need a haircut! Can you imagine that one? Please know that I am doing ok and will be home in time for Christmas! Miss you all!

Sparky , Skari and Z. Please text me your numbers! Also need The Pile Gang and the Modiacs! Miss you all!

In Lansing, Iowa after a fairly easy 75 mile day. Fairly flat, so the riding wasn't much of a strain. Tomorrow ALL hills for 45 miles. I will be home in 2 weeks if all goes well. I should be home the first weekend in August but that can change with weather, etc. Once I get to Illinois in 2-3 days, it is very flat and I can go long miles unless i have to ride into the wind. I am now in Lansing, Idaho. The pic of the little dog is my friend Lucy. The painted wall is beautiful and is in Red Wing, MN. The one pic of the Mississippi River does not do the river justice. It sprawls out all over the place and meanders around like a drunken serpant. The pic of the sign stopped me! It struck me funny. In this county in MN the roads were named alphabetically and this one looks a bit strange. The other pics are self expanitory. I am doing fine! A few stats for you! No flats , fastest ave daily speed 13.6 , hotel stays 6 , camping 28 , mechanical problems 0 , health issues 0 , yelled at 1 , flipped off 0 , fastest speed 41.8 in MT mountain , and weight lost ???? No scales! Miss you all! Thank you Bill, Marsha, Kaylain, Roger, Jeff, Judy, and Andrea! Your comments are encouraging and uplifting!

Had my phone stolen yesterday so I have no phone numbers or e-mail addresses. Please text or e-mail me and identify who you are so I can keep in touch. What happened is a long story. The fella who runs the hostel where I stayed last night in Dalbo, MN drove me 45 miles each way so I could get a new phone. I am now in Prescot, Wisconsin after a 94 mile day. The two campsites I planned to stop at were full, so I had to keep riding. got here about 5:30. I feel fine, but tired! I only have one pic today because I just learned how to use the camera on my phone. I have ridden 2021 miles so far and am more than 2/3 of the way home. Many more days like today and I'll be home next week. Bike is doing great! Still no flat tires and I had the tires sqitched in Alexandria,MN two days ago. Will be home before you know it! Miss you all!

Very good day, after dodging a major storm this afternoon and tornado warnings from the town I had left this morning! I am in Holdingford, MN. Famous for it's group of women who pooled their money and hit the megamillion jackpot. You might remember that. It was huge national news. Also today I stopped along the ride at a one man museum called Memoryville. Far too much to tell here but an absolutely amazing place and man. I have included some pics that won't begin to explain it. I rode the entire day on a bike trail that is amazing. Over a hundred miles. Today I rode 71 miles on it and yesterday 52. Flatter than a pancake! I am camping in the super nice city park of Holdingford! Great day! Bill, Collen, Bina, and Mrs West. I apprecaiote all the nice things you said and the encouragement. Little one, keep checking my blog and you will know the day and hour I will be home! Thanks for all the nice things you said! I miss everyone!

Crazy day! Wind in my face and rain from the start. About 30 miles into my ride I met this family of 5, mom, dad, and 9 yr old triplets. ( see the pic ) They asked if I was planning to take the rail trail. I never heard about it. Changed my route and rode this rail trail for over 50 miles and will be on it tomorrow for at least that far. Flat as a board! (see pic) Wind was relentless! Twice wind gusts completely stopped me and I had to unclip to keep from falling over! That's never happened! I stopped to camp at about 65 miles ( was gonna be a short day ) and a lady told me not to camp. There are severe storm warnings tonight with damaging winds here. Tornados about 100 miles north. ( where I came from ) She called a hotel for me about 15 miles further and got me the only room left. So, I am holed up in Brandon, MN for the night. Yahoo! What a trip! I am doing fine! Watching it pour the rain down at this time! Marsha, I am gonna enjoy this real bed! Bill, thanks for all the encouraging words! Kaylain, I am being safe! Don,t wanta leave my skin on these terrible MN roads! I don't have enough to fill all the gaps and holes in these things! The highway department here must also be in the tire business! Miss ya all!

So I leave the little town of Arthur, ND looking forward to getting into Minnesota. The roads were like wash boards and after 62 miles, I have 5 more to go and run into a detour. After riding another 5 miles, the signs point onto this dirt road. Ok, I thought a little dirt won,t hurt PJ or me. WRONG! This road was impossible to ride on and Miss PJ and I walked the whole 4 miles. The dirt and gravel were even hard to push a bike in, and numerous cars went flying by throwing dust everywhere! Now, I am sitting at my camp site and know that I have overcome some adversity to get here and I feel good about it! Back a couple of weeks ago I relaized that winning isn,t a long term goal. It is something you have to do every day! I put a note in my handlebar map case that says, " WIn Today". I look at it often and it keeps me going. Amazing what a little note can do for an old man! :-) I am looking forward to the next few days. They say the many lakes are beautiful. I am camped by one now, but as you can see it isn,t all that wonderful to look at, but I think the mosquitos love it! Miss you all!

@hought you might like to see the biker gang that dropped by to visit. The guy in the glasses is the leader. When I asked them how he got to be the leader, they said he had whipped all of them in wrestling matches. They said I couldn,t be in their gang till I told the?m I was a teacher and they let me in. They said teachers are cool. Are you guys listening?

Ok, here I sit in Arthur, ND and nothing in town is open. Another nice park to camp in though. Sure glad I picked up some junk food this morning or I would starve here. Tomorrow I will be out of ND and they tell me Minnesota actually has trees. I have talked to 2 people in ND who love the state because it doesn't have trees. They say they can see fires coming. Hey, I was wondering what the heck is gonna burn, the grass. There aren't houses, trees, or many people, Just big grain hoppers and railroad tracks. The pics are: One of the road I came in on. I called the ND road for the blind. It has deep rumble strips on each side and one in the middle. If you look off the road there are just flat fields, so what the heck are ya gonna hit if you run off the road, grass? The other is where I ate lunch in this little town of 100 people but the cafe was new and very nice. We all gotta eat! I have been told that Minnesota is beautiful with all the lakes and such. Maybe the pics will get more interesting. I am looking forward to fighting the millions of mosquitos that I hear are lurking around all those beautiful lakes. Miss you all! Kaci, I hope you are there when I get home. Bill I got nothing to do all day but ride and eat. Marsha I call my tent the Park Hotel. Take care and keep in touch!