I have been training since February 2009 with the goal of completing a cycling tour from Portland, Oregon, to Tybee Island, Georgia in 30 days. The PAC Tour group embarked on July 5th and we are traveling about 3600 miles and climbing approximately 124,000 cumulative feet. Please enjoy sharing my journey across America.
I am asking friends, family, and anybody else interested in following the trip to consider supporting this trip by making a donation to Seattle Children's Hospital, Research, and Foundation. Art and Kristin Reeck have made Children's a priority in their philanthropic efforts over the years, and I laud their achievements. I encourage donations to the Uncompensated Care Fund, to help pay the bills for children without insurance, or with inadequate insurance to pay their bills...lifting the financial and emotional burden from the children and their families. Indicate Jay Across America as the occasion for the donation so we can total the money raised.
Hopefully, someday, we won't have to raise money for causes like this. For now, however, I thank you for your support.
The donation total will be updated occasionally...Consider a donation per mile or vertical foot climbed...and follow on the GPS link, where you can see the route, the speed, the ride profile, the weather, and-yes-my heart rate.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Pac tour Day 16




Today was a recovery day, lollygagging east along I-40 frontage roads from Amarillo to Shamrock, Texas…often on Old Route 66. We did see the (allegedly) largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere, and went to the Devil’s Rope Museum (Devil’s Rope = Barbed Wire). Did you know that ranchers used the upper wire of the fence to conduct telephone signals? If you see resistors inserted into fencing, that’s what was going on! If you do make it to the museum in McClean, Texas, don’t forget to check out the cowboy hat made of barbed wire.

I did get a flat…but it was a slow one, so I could ride until I found a bit of shade under a (rare) tree to change it out. The arrival in Shamrock, of course, was marked by temps over 100 degrees – again.

One theme of the trip I haven’t talked about much is the death of small town America that we seem to be witnessing. These tiny cities off the beaten path have boarded up theaters, banks, grocery stores, gas stations, insurance agencies, houses, and motels. We’re not talking about the outskirts of a city – I mean right on “Main Street.” You can just imagine the scene on the streets when the farming and route 66 traffic, for instance, were making for boom-times. Now, literally, tumbleweeds set the scene.

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