Thanks, guys.. Details, hmm.. Where to start? Firstly, Doug.. Thank you for the routing suggestions before. I actually just returned from the ride two evenings ago, so.. Heh.. Don't want to be turning any cranks for a while now.. My body is still not quite sure what to do with all the free time it now has on its hands. I want to say that I absolutely loved Oregon. What a beautiful state.. We took the 26 out of Portland, through Rhododendron and down into Redmond. There we decided to continue onto Prineville and just take the 26 into Vale instead of down to Bend and the 20 out east. Went through some of the most amazing scenery that I really never expected.. Stuff you would only see in movies. Painted Hills, Picture Gorge.. Wow.

Out of Vale we struck out East on the 20.. Boise to Mountain Home, then up onto the Plateu, through Fairfield.. Arco. In Idaho Falls a man pulled up to us in a jeep and handed us a GPS that was preset to his home address.. Told us we had a warm shower and a home cooked meal for the night, and that there were only two ways out of town, and he knew them both well.. Said he would be a very cranky old man if he didn't get his GPS back and drove off..

Out of Idaho Falls we kept on the 26 through Swan Valley, then up to Jackson. Rode alongside a wall of rock, the Teton Range, then went over the continental divide at Togwotee Pass.. This was almost 10000 feet in elevation. The elevation definitely played with the brain a little. On the other side of the pass was a 25+ mile downhill.. We continued on the 26 until Shoshoni, where we met the 20.. Took that all the way through into eastern Nebraska.. I must say, Nebraska was absolutely amazing in terms of the people.. Hospitality. Shoulders were ample. Great state. The one stick was the fact that we had 20+ mph headwinds for the 8 days we rode through it. Really made it a tough ride and slowed us down considerably.

We cut it in a Southeast direction coming out of Norfolk, NE and entered Iowa just north of Omaha/Council Bluffs and took the Wabash Trace rail trail South, then cut East. Southwest Iowa was some of the hilliest terrain we had encountered on the whole trip. Felt more climby than all the mountain passes we went through back west. We crossed into Missouri and continued through Kirksville into Illinois and Terre Haute, IN. Had a ten day lay over in TH, then onward through Southern Ohio and into West Virginia.

In WV we ran into a series of setbacks. My companion crashed and had to be taken to a hospital to rule out a possible fracture. The following day the road we were on, US 50, turned from a four lane into a two lane and ran out of shoulder just east of Clarksburg. It became extremely narrow, hilly, and winding. There was also a great deal of traffic, including semis and gravel trucks. We decided not to risk it and rented a car to drive ourselves into Pennsylvania. There we picked up and continued onto NYC.. And here I am today.

Overall, amazing experience.. Deserts, mountains.. Eagles, foxes, Moose.. On one occasion my friend was charged by a moose cow on the side of the road. On another we woke up on a freezing Teton morning to find a couple of moose grazing through the campground where we set up for the night. Thunder and hailstorms.. Great people.. I will post up some photos of the tours, even though they don't do any justice to what was actually witnessed..

Thank you all, once more.