Originally Posted by
cyccommute
"Or skip the stove/pots/fuel/other cooking gear. Plenty of cafes along the way and the rest of the time you can make do with assorted cold foods."
Not necessarily true in all locations. There are lots of places in the middle part of the US that are far from cafes or even grocery stores. A prime example is along I29 on the western side of Iowa. In about 350 miles from Sioux Falls, SD to Atchison, KS, there's only about 4 places to stop for food. There's Sioux City (~85 miles from Sioux Falls), Council Bluffs (~100 miles further down the road) and Atchison which is 144 very empty miles further along. There are lots of little towns along the way but almost all of them (in 2003) have been hollowed out by the ant hill effect of HelMarts at all of the above cities.
As I said above, the rest of the time you can make do with cold foods. I'm perfectly happy subsisting on cold sandwiches and other foods that don't need cooking for a few days at a time - so I don't see any problem with eliminating all the stove/pots/dishes/fuel/etc. in the stretches you mention here.
And I think you're painting a much more barren picture than is true at least for the places mentioned. E.g. Vermillion, between Sioux Falls and Sioux City, has lots of restaurants and food stores. And the first little town I checked on the next stretch, Onawa, halfway between Sioux City and Council Bluffs, has a number of local cafes in addition to chains like Subway and Pizza Hut. Similarly, the first little town I checked halfway along the next stretch to Atchison was Tarkio - it also has a Pizza Hut and several local cafes. I've found my GPS to come in very handy when touring. With reasonably current maps/points-of-interest, it lists all the cafes, grocery stores, motels, etc. along with phone numbers so you can verify that they're still open and check hours.