This 'vacation' has been very nice! I spent the first day relaxing and not worrying about my trip. I felt I deserved something of the sort since I had just put my body through some grueling situations. Since my left calve was in quite a bit of pain over the past three days of riding, I placed it under the infrared light and stayed off it as much as possible. With the help of my mothers healing hands my calve quickly healed and my legs felt great! Of course my mother did not stop at just my calve, she had plenty of other muscles and joints to work on. Being the worrying mother that she is, and probably rightfully so, she is on pins and needles about how my legs, wrists, hands, back and probably my left pinky toe are doing. Gotta love her for it though, because she just cares that much!
I will skip all the mumbo-jumbo that happened in between important parts of my break and this leads me up to the weekend; the whole reason why I stayed home for a week. My brother Jon played in a soccer tournament in Madison, WI. My parents and I went down to Madison and met up with my sister and grandparents on Friday night. It was great to see Grandpa Jim and Grandma Alice for I have not had many opportunities to visit them since I accepted the job in Massachusetts. Of course there was tons of talk about my bike trip but the real treat was just getting to spend some more time with all my family.
Since returning back to Hudson on Saturday night, I have been constantly on my computer planning out my route into the Rockies, applying to dental school, placing new music on my iPod, mapping out my trip thus far, updating my blog, writing letters to family friends and trying to upload the rest of my photos onto photobucket.com. I have also been packing constantly, picking out a new seat for my bike (I have two new ones now) and I was interviewed by the Hudson Star Observer (article release on September 24th). Of course I have been dinking around on my computer researching random things as well but that is more of a cooping mechanism so that I don't go crazy with all the stress.
I knew that leaving my hometown would be hard but I never thought taking a week break would be so stressful. It is a different stress than while on my bike but it wears me out just as much, if not more. While I was traveling from Maine towards Hudson, WI, I always had the idea in my head that I was heading home. I had a destination that meant a lot to me and I had a large drive to get there. Now that I am home that drive to get to the next place has diminished quite a bit. I am not looking forward to crossing Western MN and all of SD. This could potentially be the hardest part of my trip for two reasons.
1) It is very flat and there is not a whole lot to look at
2) I am traveling away from home which feels like it should be my final destination
I am really looking forward to getting to Yellowstone but that is quite a ways out (about 2 weeks) and that is a lot of biking to do for a single destination. After I make it to Yellowstone things should be a lot better though. There are so many amazing sites to be seen from Yellowstone till the end of my trip that I will be in heaven! I just have to make it there... I will just keep telling myself, "think happy thoughts".
To bring the first part of my trip into conclusion I have included a map of the trip thus far. I made this map on a new site I found called 'map my ride'. It is quite a nice site and I will hopefully be using it more often for the duration of the trip. I will pair this site with couchsurffing.org to make sure that I meet as many people as possible over the next 3 months.
The cool thing about 'mapmyride.com' is that I can transfer my route to google earth and do a mini 3-D tour of the route. I love technology!
Wish me luck on the next week of travels for I will be very lonely and hopefully depression does not kick in! You know what... I am going to kick this portion of the trips arse! Who knows, it could be the most fun I have ever had! I just pray for no 25mph headwinds!!!
