14 October, 2009

New Update

So a lot has happened since I finished the road trip in mid September. I still haven't finished the reports on my mini Megatransect (see Nat'l Geo magazine to understand the reference) but I'll have to interject the rest of the motorcycle story (some of which should hopefully make for interesting reading) in the coming weeks, likely interspersed amongst some other posts.

I had managed to last almost 7 months in North America before leaving again. It's now been nearly 2 weeks since I flew out of Dulles airport yet again for a trans-atlantic flight as one part of a longer journey. I'm not sure the running total, but am positive I've crossed the equator more times than I have years on earth. I'd try to count, but it's been over ten years since I've had a math class, so I may not be able to get that high accurately. Regardless, it seems most of the poll voters from my question of how long I'd make it in the States were correct. Of course, I think there were only 7 people who voted, about 4 saying I'd leave before the first snow, 1 that I'd be over a year, and 2 only a couple of months.

So I thought I'd avoid the snow, and left just as the leaves were getting some color. I did end up in the mountains of Montana in September a day after they awoke to white snow covered hillsides, but thankfully the day I got there had only started with frost. And, I am just about to head to Switzerland for a couple of weeks, so there's a chance I'll see some snow up in the mountains, but I doubt I'll have the opportunity to be up in the snow. I'm sure I'll be quite a bit colder than I have been the last couple weeks regardless, and am actually looking forward to some jacket weather.

But for the most part of the next year, I'll be trying to avoid the sun and sweating even in the shade. My pants will be sticking to my body nearly every time I stand up and I won't have to look in a mirror as no one will care if my hair or face is messed up. I must like it that way, because I keep coming back for more. Here's some photos for your viewing pleasure (that I am borrowing, I haven't taken any pics yet).



09 October, 2009

The Great Plains


Tiger Walk photos


So the first day was a long one. But I was hoping to make it to Columbia Missouri by the following afternoon, so I was happy to have travelled the greater distance the first day making the next seem tolerable. After crossing some pretty scenic roads in Southern Indiana, I got onto Interstate 65 by late midday and was bored all the way to St. Louis. The Arch was a cool landmark to see in passing as I rolled through and merged onto I-70. Columbia couldn’t come fast enough from there though.

I met up with my friends Ben and Yoder at Ben’s place by about 5pm. It was great to see them again, and Yoder had driven the 5 hours or so from Hutchinson, KS to meet up. Ben helps with the campus church at The Rock on the University of Missouri campus, so we got to attend the Saturday evening service there that night. It was cool to see the ministry that Ben’s now involved in, and they’re doing some good stuff to try to connect with and encourage students from Scripture. It is often a tough transition for students leaving home and all, so please pray for Ben and the others helping with the Rock.

It was welcome weekend for the campus as classes were to start that week. It was quite impressive as Ben and his girlfriend took us for a tour of the campus. I never expected central Missouri to be as nice as it was, but the campus is full of rolling hills, and some architecturally stunning buildings. After my first ever experience eating at Chipotle, we had the privilege of participating in the annual Tiger Walk where the incoming freshmen walk one direction through the huge columns in the middle of campus (by participate I mean eat some free ice cream that is available for those who walk through). It was actually pretty cool as there are 3-4,000 students signalling their entrance into the University, and after 4 years (or however many it takes to graduate), they’ll all (who pass) walk the other direction just before graduation to signal the exit.

The next morning I left through Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas where there wasn’t much of note, but at least a few hills still. I got to stop in Newton, Kansas, where Tina had just bought a house that had been trashed by the previous residents. It’ll be a really nice place when she’s done with it, but she was still in the middle of putting lots of time and energy into it when I visited. I thought about giving a hand with the varnishing of the hardwood floor she was working on that day, but for some reason Tina wouldn’t let me help after I grabbed a can of black spray paint and asked her where to begin. And then that night I got to stay for the first time with an Amish family (a progressive Amish tradition called Beechy Amish). There was some great food and conversation and I learned that a couple people in the family had attended a Mennonite Bible Institute very close to where I grew up. It wasn’t nearly as awkward, nor quite as funny as the double-date my Amish-background friend and I had been on a year and a half before when the one girl was making comments about how weird the Amish were before she knew he had grown up in an Amish family, but it was definitely a good evening.

The following day was a lot of driving through the flat, open expanses of Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado. Passing through Dodge City and the site of the first rodeo was not nearly as exciting as I was hoping it would be, and a crazy Midwest storm a couple hours outside of Denver made for a fitting end to a lousy day. The torrential rains came from a pitch black sky in the late afternoon and winds and rain that forced me to wait at a gas station for over an hour and I still drove an hour or so in the not so heavy part of the storm. But, by the end of the day, I was near to the foothills of the Rockies, so I knew I had some nicer roads to look forward to.

That will wait for another day.

01 October, 2009

Day One

I woke early August 21st in the hopes of getting started as the sun rose and possibly ending the day around sunset. The goal was Bloomington, Indiana, a distance of 600 miles. Riding a motorcycle requires stopping every hour or so just to stretch, and is much more exhausting than driving a car. On quite a number of occasions I’d driven for 10 to 12 hours in a day and gone 700 or more miles, but this would be a couple hundred miles further than I’d ever driven in a day on a motorcycle. (I did drive from 6am until 4 or 5pm on a motorcycle from Foya, Liberia to Bo, Sierra Leone back in 2006. While that was maybe 200 miles, it took all day as the road was mud and dirt until the last 50 miles of pavement. But oh how nice that pavement was to drive on as I hadn’t seen any for the month and a half prior to it. But I’m not going to get into stories about driving motorcycles in Liberia, because that could take a while as well.) So I had what was an ambitious goal for me, but given the delay in the start to the trip, I wanted to cover some long distances early on.

I hadn’t gone more than 20 or 25 miles, and it was maybe a quarter after 8 in the morning when the rain started. A steady rain at first turned into a downpour in another 20 miles or so, and just as I was nearing the West Virginia border on I-68 cars were slowed down to 30 mph on the interstate due to the lack of visibility. I actually could see much better than the cars with their windshield wipers flying back and forth, but it was too wet to really continue too easily, and after going through several huge puddles and realizing I didn’t want to end up having a hydro-planing caused accident in the first hour and a half of the excursion, I stopped to wait out the rain a bit and get a hot drink. After about half an hour the rain had slowed to a normal rain, so I continued. It rained until about lunchtime almost all the way across West Virginia and finally as I was entering Ohio on US 50 the clouds started breaking up. After shedding my rain gear, the next couple hours were pretty enjoyable as Southern Ohio is a lot more scenic and a better drive than Interstate 70 is. I’ve driven along 70 between Indiana and Pennsylvania probably 25 times, so was really surprised and pleased to find such a scenic route only 50 or 60 miles south.

I managed to meet up with my good friend Jonathan and his wife Sara in Cincinnati for a few hours, but was feeling pretty good and decided I’d try to make it to Bloomington still instead of stopping early. So I left Cincinnati about 9pm for the hundred and fifty mile stretch. It wasn’t too long until I started to recognize the wind picking up and realize that ahead there were no stars or anything visible in the sky. After half an hour I’d realized it was a mistake to try to go farther, but I’d already started, so I thought I’d just push through the rain that was starting. So the rain wasn’t too heavy, but I was right at the edge of the storm, so the wind was just howling and really tried to whip me around on the little motorcycle. I’d lean one way and then a gust would hit from the other direction causing me to drive about 15 miles an hour under the speed limit for the rest of the way to Bloomington. The first day ended with me soaked (I was optimistic in thinking it wouldn’t really rain, so didn’t put on my rain pants until I’d already gotten pretty wet) at about 12:30am at the University of Indiana campus where my friend Corey lives. It was great to see him, but I soon fell asleep while he was talking as it had been a long day, but I had managed to cover 625 miles on the first day of riding on the trek. Not the way I’d have chosen to start the trip, but thankfully the rain held off for a few more days after this.

To be continued again (it won’t be one day per post most of the time, but I’ve realized this is already a long post so am not going to add anything else now and don’t feel like going through and editing this. In fact, I should be packing right now as I leave in 12 hours for Nairobi, but I wanted a distraction because I really don’t feel like packing.)