there's water in them sandhills.

for the past several days i've been riding through the sandhills region of nebraska. scenic ranchland is a more accurate description, though everything is actually a sandy hill. for the first few days i had a sweet tailwind. the hills rolled by quickly and over every hill was another never ending expanse of grasslands. day after day nothing but rolling hills. i don't want to make it sound like it got boring, because it didn't, but after 1000 miles of corn it was a welcome sight.



the towns got few and far between. half of them are unincorporated and are more or less just settlements with no resources to be had. the air was dry and the sun was intense so i ripped through water much faster than i had thought i would. luckily there are plenty of windmills drawing water from the ogallala aquifer. the water is delicious and cold. if the windmill is spinning, it's drawing water... unless it has been disconnected, which i came across a few times. it's as much of a letdown as the oasis mirage in a desert.

with 150 miles to alliance the winds changed to a stiff 10-15mph out of the west. not exactly a good time but i had no choice but grind away the miles. if i had to spend an extra day or so among the sandhills i'd be just fine with it, or so i thought,

with 80 miles to alliance the forecast called for westerly winds of 25mph with gusts up to 45mph. that would stop me in my tracks, for sure. i made the decision to ride late into the night and cover the 80 miles instead of being stuck in my tarp, probably far enough from any towns that i'd get anxious from the disconnect. already having done a typical mileage for the day the idea of pedaling on for another 30 miles or so didn't really excite me. as soon as the sun dropped below the horizon the winds calmed down and it cooled off to a comfortable 60 degrees. maybe the rest of the night wouldn't be all that bad.

i decided to get a motel for the night and get out of the wind. staying in town, or on the outskirts, would have been a rough night even with the tarp buttoned to the ground and tuned like a drum. every now and again it's good to get in from the out and feel like a human being, even if just for a night. it had been 10 days since leaving my good friends in lincoln and i was a salty, dirty mess. i deserved a shower and to do some laundry. sometimes those things are one in the same. it's nice to get all of your laundry done at the same time rather than only how much can be draped off the panniers to dry while riding.

now i must head out of alliance and keep heading west into a headwind. pedal, pedal.

my heart rises in the west.

it certainly is starting to feel westy out here in nebraska. the cornfields are becoming further and further apart and are being replaced by more and more prairies. towns, too, are further apart... which is a double-edged sword, for sure. i've passed the bigger towns of eastern nebraska and have entered the center, filled with towns with signs that read "pop. 62". i've started carrying a lot more food and water because not all of those towns listed on a map have any resources a town should have. i'd hate to get caught starving and 30 miles from the next town that has a market/gas station.

camping is no problem out here. you basically find a field and call it a night. and what a night you'll have. yesterday i set up in a field with enough time to relax, take some pictures, make some dinner, and just overall enjoy myself. i was joined by some new friends... they seemed curious but didn't want to get too close, which is fine, because i was eating a can of savory pot roast soup and gently stroking my brooks saddle.


when the sun went down it got dark and quiet. all night it the only sound i heard was the occasional wind blowing the tall grass against my tarp, which is about is about as effective as light rain in lulling you to sleep. delightful.

earlier on in my tour i used a bugnet literally every single night and used the tarp only a few times out of necessity. now that the weather has changed and the bugs have all gone away i've sent my net home. i've had a few nights where i just toss out the sleeping pad and bag and have a wonderful night under the stars. i've been using the tarp every night simply as a shelter. the prairie offers no respite, even from a gentle wind.

iowa may break you.

uf... it was getting rough there for a little bit. i ran into some unforeseen affects of long-distance touring and it was grinding me to a halt. the last half of iowa was a tough stretch, to say the least. i made it to my destination of lincoln, NE. and took a week of to straighten my head out, and not a minute too soon.

when you effectively ride your bike for the equivalent of a full-time job, if not more, it becomes routine. you wake up, pack up camp, get in the saddle and ride, find a spot, set up camp, fall asleep, repeat. what had been exciting everyday becomes just what you do day in and day out, and that's not a good place to be. i'm sure plenty of distance tourists have run into this but i've never heard anyone ever talk about it. it's probably just like anything else, in retrospect you forget much of the bad and candy-coat everything. well, it's a thing, it happens, and it's not cool.

for me it was a mixture of loneliness, depression, never-ending cornfields, and straight up physical exhaustion. all of these things combined to a point where i was basically looking up bus schedules and utterly giving up. what an awful thought. things had conspired against me an almost had won.

when i rolled into lincoln i had already had a long shitty day of rain, headwinds, awful strip malls, horrible directions from google, and absolutely no motivation nor enthusiasm for being on a bike. i spent the next week hanging out with some really good people at monkey wrench cycles, eating good food, drinking excellent coffee, riding around town and just taking a break from touring. it could not have happened at a better time, or any later for that matter. those guys are far too generous and cool for their own good... plus, they have, hands down, the coolest bike shop i've ever been in, and that includes the shop i used to own. it had to be said.

i was able to regain some enthusiasm and excitement for the tour. i had come half-way across the country, up to the literal start of the west [the intersection of O street and 13th in lincoln, NE is marked with a giant compass and says it's the official start of the west], i could not stop now. i put my time in through the cornfields, i came to see prairies and mountains and that's exactly what i'm going to see, dammit.

so my tour continues. i have my apprehensions but i know, i know, that when all is said and done i'll forget much of the bad and candy-coat everything too.

carl, nate and eric, i'll miss you guys... you helped me out in a big way and you didn't even know it.