Bike Bike!! Bike Tour!! 2010

Minneapolis, Mn. to Toronto, On, CA. somewhere around 1,200 miles. 30 days. Long days, short days, hot days, rainy days. Bike touring, what a wonderful way to see the world, the Midwest, or your own city. The reason I love to travel by bike, is because I am with myself. Its a moment for me to focus on my body, physically and emotionally, spiritually, whatever you wanna call it. Riding for 50 to 80, sometimes even 100 miles in a day is how I get back in touch with myself. Its a time to feel my insecurities and work through my internal struggles. waking up at 6:30am, eat breakfast, stretch, and get on the road. Whats new today? It might be a nice lake to take a dip in, it might be an Amish town in the middle of nowhere, it might be Polkafest!! This is my bike trip in a nutshell:

 I wake up, see some people around town on my last hour in Minneapolis. Emily Kastrul, makes me breakfast, and I am off to see the rest for the Midwest, The land of abundance (Corn mostly). I am off, as i get farther and farther away from this now familiar city, I speak to myself, telling myself that I can go back if i don't want to do this. Its not that bad though, sleeping on the side of the road, digging through trashcans for food, stealing to stay healthy. Not bad at all. First day I managed to to get to Ellsworth, Wisconsin. Polka Fest. An RV city of good old patriotic senior citizens. I made it just in time to see the last three songs. Enjoyed chatting with a friendly stranger. If things go this well, I'll have the time of my life!! So for the next couple of days, I'm riding about 50 miles daily, taking my time to occasionally stop, look at some trees, pee in some bushes, fill up water bottles, eat some snacks. Wisconsin is a pretty place, super hot, SO many Mosquitoes!!! I bought a mosquito net in Minneapolis, hoping to be safe. I end one night in Tomah. Its 9 at night, its 90 degrees outside mosquitoes are going fucking insane! it takes me way to long to set up the mosquito net. I get quite a few of those suckers on me. I wake up around 5:30 the next morning because these things are getting into this damn net. I grab all my stuff, and get the fuck out of this campground. I managed to go 30 days without paying for a single place to sleep! pretty rad, this meant trespassing, sleeping behind churches, sneaking out of campsites (and into). This morning I managed to get to a really awesome diner, I think it was called the American Eagle Diner/Cafe/Gas Station. I go in, order some grits and gravy, wash my shorts, and enjoy the conversations of the 20 or so army troops having breakfast. Fox news is on, so I'm watching clips of bullshit, and think about how much these people would hate my guts if I opened my mouth. I get to the dells, Noah's Arc (The biggest waste of water in the world) water park. I didn't go in there, but i managed to find the lake, and took a dip for an hour. I notice that I have a flat as I'm leaving the spot. make the patch, and head out. Headwinds were on the move the whole day, then i must have gotten my second wind. I was making great time, riding probably 15/20 miles per hour. I get about 20 miles out, and i see this shadow come over me, it just got really fresh outside, humidity is GONE!! but I look behind me, Its a black cloud, and i go run under a gazebo for about an hour, it wasn't too bad, I sleep under an overhang in front of a church. I wake up at midnight to a fucking crazy storm, the wind is kicking the water everywhere. i manage to get to sleep. I wake up the next morning, and I think this was one of the nicest rides, visually, I had this trip. I get into Madison, Wisconsin. I meet Tops, and Chancho, who are hosting me for two nights, along with a bike polo team from Lexington, Kentucky. The Lexington 2! I spent a while hanging out with Chancho listening to Best Friends Forever, playing Zombies with the house, and playing music downtown. Madison is a beautiful little city, with cool people, nice cooperative houses, right by the lake! nice campus. As I was leaving town, I stopped by the Willie Street Food Co-op! I was getting some munchies for the road, and I got snagged to go to this Bike Polo tournament. It was a national tournament, so there were about 60 teams I think, or maybe it was 100, but anyways, i hung out for a bit and had a good time, then it was off, make it to Milwaukee by late afternoon. This was the longest day of my trip, i must have ridden at least 90 miles, which would include going to and from the bike polo.

Milwaukee was an interesting place. The first place I arrived at was a block party, with graffiti, hip hop, and skateboarding. I had a nice time hanging out for a little while, it was a bit strange being in spandex and having a bunch of stuff on my bike. So, I kept riding, I finally made it to Lake Michigan! I'm meeting Emily Kastrul tonight. Actually, right now. I'm biking up toward her grandfathers house. He is such a SWEETHEART! I was really tired, but i still managed to hang out and spend some time talking to Sid. He was such a genuine person. Ate some Chinese food, had some frozen custard. time to go to bed. I wake up, shower, eat some breakfast. Sid hands me a map, "this might come in handy on your trip." Its a map of the world! AMAZING!! I take it, I ask if he has a map like, of Chicago? he hands me the Chicago map. Awesome. I am about ready to make my way out of town. But first, to the Riverwest food co-op! I'm leaving Sid's house and its about 200 degrees out, super humid, perfect day to ride my bike. I get lost on the way to the co-op. I get there buy some food and hang around the co-op of a while. As I'm about to leave, my buddy Alex shows up OUT OF NOWHERE (rides his bike up). I met Alex when he was on a bike tour on the west coast. I had totally forgotten that he moved to Milwaukee! we hang out, for a bit, then go to his house, drop off my stuff. Its so nice to not have to carry my bags all the time. Talk about a lot of stuff, go dumpstering at this vegan pastry shop. A great time! I spent 2 days with this guy, had a great time. Got some good beer at a bar. I mean, it was real beer. On tap, and super dark, happy hour. So great! I made my way through Milwaukee for a few days, Then it was off to Chicago! It took me about 2 days to get there. The first day heading out from Milwaukee, was fairly nice, ran into a man who I rode with along the lake for a few miles, then turned off to listen to a jazz festival. It was a very enjoyable experience, he bought me a few glasses of wine, then made my way back on the road to find a place to camp, for it was getting dark. I ended up in the town of Zion, or so I thought I had stopped for the night. found a place to camp on the Illinois State Beach, but after hours of combating mosquitoes I got up, ditched the spot at 3 in the morning. So... I ended up riding another 10 or 15 miles. slept in a concrete jungle, a courtyard of some sort. WORST FUCKING NIGHT OF THE TRIP!! Then i woke up at 9 with my body burning from the sun, off to Chicago. I was sooo tired. I rode for about 15 miles and I crashed my bike. I got caught up on a guardrail with my pannier bag. I just laid there for about 3 minutes people wanted to help, i was just too tired to get up quickly. ended up getting to Chicago around 5ish, went to the REI, and exchanged the shittiest mosquito net for a nice one person tent. BEST IDEA EVER!
  

  For the most part Chicago was great. Stayed with some nice people. I enjoyed the atmosphere. They happened to be filming for the new Transformers movie while I was busking, so i took advantage and I made a little bit of cash, good way to treat myself to some good beer. Made some friends in the Pilsen area. Enjoyed some Son Jarocho music at a nice little bar/restaurant. Stayed at a punk house with a friend I had met at the Infoshop! It was great! Off to the next place!

I rode for a while, dont really remember, I called my friend Daniel when I was in Milwaukee, he told me he would be in Chicago the day before I got there, then head to Kalamazoo. So I caught up with him in Kalamazoo, at this point I was no longer traveling alone. It was now me, Daniel, Casey, and Courtney! Off to Toronto together for BIKE BIKE 2010! Stayed at Courtney's boys house for a few days. Went around the town, beer, liquor, amazing food from our host! took us a while to get on the road, but the day we left, around 3 o'clock, was really great!

This is us on our first day heading out as a group. It was an interesting change in pace, I was very quick to get on the road and go for a long while. We started off slow, waking up late, but, eating lots of food. These friends brought soo much food. It felt really great to be getting the nutrients I needed. Especially RAISINS!! I must say it was hard getting used to the pace, it made me a bit antsy. But other than that These guys were great. Its a bit hard to write about all that happened with them because everything has become a big fun blur. I do remember seeing this frog when we were camping one night!

Biking made me really hungry, same with Daniel, he likes Ice cream!

we managed to keep away from any sleeping fees which is great. Churches, community gardens. When we got to Toledo we made it to the food co-op got some help finding a place to stay, got to one of the community gardens, hung out with an older man who cut peoples grass. Experiences like that makes me want to stay on the road, keep traveling and see where I end up a week from today.

Michigan to New york was an interesting stretch. We ran into this sign. we ran into a lot of cool stuff too though. When we were in Cleveland we stayed 3 houses down from the house in "A Christmas Story"! It was a tourist attraction. I left a geocache there! its like a little treasure hunt thing. 

Dumpster diving was a little difficult to do in some places, also