Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Half Way Point...

This blog comes at rather a momentous point in the trip, and is being typed in a typically strange location, the toilet block at Murdo campsite, South Dakota. We have now been on the road for exactly 5 weeks, which is half way in terms of timing, and also half way in terms of distance, as we've passed a few psychological barriers, the 2,000 mile mark, the big mountains and today the next time zone, so we're now in Central time as opposed to Mountain time!

I suppose it's quite good to reflect on the trip upto now in a few ways. The continuing changing landscape and climate has meant we're never really sure what to expect on the road. You can generally guarantee 2 things on American roads; one is roadkill every few miles, anything ranging from a squirrel, a snake or even a deer! The other is blown out tyres, thankfully none of ours so far! The past week has also intoduced us to the grasshopper! Eastern Wyoming and South Dakota are teeming with them by the sides of the roads, very nice at first with them jumping in and out of the spokes as we cycle, occasionally hitching a lift on the bike, but rather annoyingly nipping at our legs constantly as we go! The grasshopper is definitely lacking a bit in brain power though, as they appear to like just sitting in the road, cars come and squish them all, so we're regularly squishing all the dead ones some more, grasshoppers definitely lacking a bit of evolutionary survival experience it seems.

Another feature of the trip has and will always be the people we meet along the way, there's a small but steady stream of fellow tourers on their own various routes across the States, or on bigger things. During the last week we've met Katy from Seattle, who's heading to Chicago on her own, a very brave thing to do. There's also been Brent from Atlanta who quit his job and is travelling all over the States, and also Edoardo from Switzerland who's nearing the end of a 2 year tour around the whole world!
What is very nice is that even with these small "communities" of people word of mouth spreads about us, people, where to stay, what to do etc, so much so that as we rolled into a campsite yesterday we heard, "You must be the 2 Brits!". This got me wondering as to how myself and Andy are described, maybe the 2 guys that are travelling super lightweight with gear, everyone else has much more stuff than us, we met a fellow English tourer, Sam, who started off with a pannier full of just books! Or maybe we're known as the guys who like to get trashed every now and again in various bars, or possibly even the tourers that did barely any planning and have no idea about their route. Bearing in mind my preparation for this trip involved booking flights, buying panniers and one 40 mile ride in the Peak District, it is a miracle that we've ended up travelling with America's prevailing winds behind us! We're flying across the Mid-West! Anyway, as I've said before, the people are a much more vital component to the enjoyability of this sort of trip, much more so than any National Park or pretty picture, and it's definitely ringing true.

As I said, we're now, according to America's timezone, officially out of the mountains! It feels a bit strange, by no means on the home stretch but our biggest obstacles are now behind us, no more 9,000 ft passes! The last week's biggest obstacles have been bikers however. The Sturgis festival was in full swing, and this meant everyday we have had our ears constantly blasted by Harleys tearing passed us all day. All super friendly people though, one biker today even shouted as he passed us, "You guys are the real bikers!". It was a lovely compliment and I felt very proud in a way, considering it came from a real biker in my eyes.

We should be out of South Dakota in a few days, we'll be crossing the Missouri, one of the biggest rivers, and then into Minnesota. Flat flat flat. That probably means a few more nights getting drunk to keep us entertained. We've actually managed to hook our travel speakers to Andy's bike, he has a dynamo that he can charge whilst cycling. This means we're now riding with music blaring out and is a welcome distraction from constant day dreaming and roadkill counting. If you want to feel like you're cycling along with us, our song of the trip is probably Usher's OMG, love it! We're also both reading Bill Bryson's excellent book about travelling the States, The Lost Continent, very amusing.

I think that'll do for now, if I pass by a library and have a spare moment I'll try and sort pictures out again, they're proving very popular on facebook. Also, if anyone knows anyone high up in Subway, can you tell them about us! We think we'd be fantastic marketing material for them, and it coukd save us lots of money as we're having lunch there most days.

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