Illinois and Missouri

So I dont think I will be uploading pictures untill probably july while I am in colorado. But I am alive and well and deep in Missouri.
     On the 8th of June I set out on my own into the state of Illinois, I wont be getting into to much detail about everything thats happened between now and then because I am typing on my phone and its frustrating.  But it really has been pretty great.
      Illinois is flat. Very flat. This made for a few terribly hard days with head winds and killer heat but also three days of smooth riding, wind on my back, and lots of mileage put in.
     It took me five days total to get from Chicago to St. Louis Missouri. Some nights were real buggy others I was able to just roll out my pad and sleeping back and just sleep outside.  I saw more stars in that state then I have in quite a long time.
     I got a bunk at a hostel in St. Louis. I don't know anyone there or much about the area so after my initial afternoon of exploring I felt content going to sleep early and ridinng out in the morning.
     Missouri has been a hell of a ride. The.ozark mountains are no joke on a bicycle. They never get all that high but the roads are just constent hills. Up and down. I am also now officially on The "TransAmerica Bicycle Route" the oldest cross country bicycle route here in the usa. This makes things way different. For one, any local that lives in the small towns im going through are well aware of the yearly flow of cyclist that show up on their roads from spring to fall. On that note... There are others. This is the most ridden route to cross the country. So i've met other people already and am aware of a group behinde me and a few people ahead of me through word of mouth.  I rode the past two and a half days with an guy named ray. We didnt so much ride together but we started and ended our days in the same places. Also since this is a well established and old running route, a lot of the towns have park space that you are aloud to use to camp on for free. Its a beautful thing.  Im doing the same stuff I did while traveling with ryan bryan and kyler but now I dont worry about sneaking around. At least for missouri and kansas as im told.
     Another amazing thing happened yesterday.. Well, to start. Anyone that knew me while vanessa and I rode from.san diego to ny has probably heard me make mention of Huey. Huey is a guy we.befriended day two out of san diego and then continued to see randomly here and there all the way to austin, tx. He too was bike touring , riding the same roads but sleeping each night in hotels. In austin he droped out due to spending to much and the poor planning of not having camping gear. He later that year went on to complete the ride with a group tour. And then called me in october while doing a group tour of the pacific coast. And what do u know, when I start telling ray about this crazy guy I once knew, he stops me and says" hueys just three days behinde us right now riding the trans.am with a tour group! I was riding with them for a few days last week"
     I called huey that night and sure enough. He is about 150 miles east of me. Here we are two years later 2500 miles from where we met and were this close. Its too much. The world gets smaller and smaller. Or at least america. We are going to try and link up somewhere around colorado.
     Which brings me to my main reason for posting. I will be able to recieve mail in colorado, and a few times after colorado. But for the sake of time and planning my first mail pick up spot will be at my good friends Erin and Rob Debono's house you can send me a letter or a photo or a snack. Whatever but plan acordingly because I believe I will be ariving sometime around the 4th of july and will probably stick around for 4-5 days.   The address is

9854-B Grove st.
Westminster, CO 80031

Just address it to me L
"Ross Munroe" or " the Debono residence(Ross)"

Whatever works for you.

I will be in the state of Kansas by tomorrow evening. Hitting a bike shop tuesday morning to deal with spoke issuses then a good week or so of exploring the southern great plains.
I can only hope for tail winds.
So long friends, unless things change Ill be posting photos around.the 4th ishh

RVA-CHI some photos.

It takes a really long time to upload 32 photos to this website in one sitting. But here is a quick photo recap of my past month of hanging out with three of my best friends traveling from Richmond, VA to Chicago, IL

 Day one

 Night one

 Hole in the sky, DC

 My team, DC

 Kylers Team, DC

 A not so serious, serios Trail shot.

 Mama All Good's house. Jefferson, MD

 You can't see it good but this is a crop circle in Maryland.

 PawPaw tunnel

 On the path into Cumberland.

 On top Mt. Washington. Pittsburgh, PA

 Best bike i've set foot in.

 Sometimes hoarding is cool.

 There is four floors of this.

 Britt came to visit in Pittsburgh, we danced.

 Bryan entering West Virginia on the path.

 Road dogs.

Kyler looking good...

 Life guard Jacob leading us to his family farm for a night of rest. Memorial Day, Ohio.

 Indiana.

 My failed rear wheel. Indiana

 CHICAGO

 Matt and Ryan Chicago style.

Being true tourist.



I'll be leaving Tomorrow to head south towards St. Louis.  There is talk of karaoke this evening? we'll see...  Chicago has been really awesome.  Everyone has been extremely hospitable and fun to hang out with. I'll be doing some last minute bike work today.  I set up my front rack and my old panniers that had been mailed here from my parents in NY. So it's a whole new game now,  I'm loaded down a bit heavier then ever before but I'm now able to evenly distribute the weight between the front and back of my bicycle.  I went shopping yesterday and stocked up on road food.  Which for now consists of Cliff bars, Crazy trail mix that I've been adding to little by little, Oat meal, cous cous, and some noodles.
    Once again I am extremely excited to get back on the road. And am happy I was able to get some photos up before leaving town.  Getting to St. louis from chicago appears to be a bit tricky but I plan to take it slow and make my way down over the course of the next week. Once I'm a day outside of St. Louis I'll be following the Trans America Trail which has been routed out by the Adventure cycling Association.  Using their maps will make planning my days easier and allow me to ride further day by day.
     I look forward to what lies ahead. Into middle America I go.

Chicago

     It's harder to find a place to upload photos while traveling then you'd think.  But one day, I swear I'll have a bunch.
     So we made it to Chicago. It took us three days of riding from Fort Wayne, which included one hotel room, lots of head winds, my back wheel exploding at a gas station, our last night of camping out in a weird place together, and a beautiful ride into the city on a bike path along the shore of Lake Michigan.
     We had a late start leaving fort Wayne due to waiting out some rain. We hit the road with intentions of riding about 70 miles to set us up for two easier days after to make riding into this big city of Chicago easier. We quickly realized how difficult this would be, we had massive winds and one and off mists of rain. It took us a few hours to go the first 30 miles.  We then decided that it would be a good idea to try and get a hotel room at the end of the day.  We hadn't showered in a long time unless you count our plunge into the pool on memorial day. This along with the fact that we had been seeing signs for 30-40 dollar hotel rooms made it seem like it was worth riding another 30-40 miles in the rainy windy weather knowing we had a bed and hot shower at the end of the road. So we did just that, our day totaled at about 67 miles, we got a room for two and snuck in the other two, went to the grocery store and bought food that we could micro wave and room temp. beers because that's the only way they sold it. we spent our night eating and watching cable TV.
    The next day we went straight to the gas station down the road after packing to get our coffee and hot water for oat meal. While I was inside Bryan came in looking confused and told me that my rear tire had just exploded.  There was nothing that I rad over or that I had leaned my bike in that could have done this. When I got outside we realized that not only did my tube pop but it popped due to the side wall of my rim. The actual metal part that holds the tube and tire, had completely separated from the rest of the wheel in an 8 inch area. Now, how this happened or why this happened is beyond me. Normally I'd say this company owes me a wheel and what not. But realistically, I rode this wheel out. I have probably put over 6,000 miles on that thing. I'm just lucky it happened when I was in a gas station with my friends and not when I was going 25 miles an hour down a hill by myself. Some how with luck on my side The one bike store in town had exactly what needed. I found this out after placeing calls to bike shops all over north west Indiana, all of which told me that did not have a wheel that would be able to replace what I had, meant for touring, to fit a 9 speed casset with enough spokes to make it as strong as I need.  But then there it was, just a mile and a half down the road for 60 dollars even. By 1:30pm we were back to riding.
     We rode a hard 50 miles that afternoon ending our day with the sun setting over corn fields to our right.  We found a nice field with a privacy way behind a truck stop that made for a perfect night of camping.  It was a bitter sweet night really. It was the eve of kylers 25th birthday, it was the eve of the day we'd enter chicago, but yet this also meant it was the last night we'd camp and cook outside together, the last morning we'd wake up and eat oatmeal and bananas outside of a random gas station together, and the last day I'd have three friends to talk to while riding miles and miles and miles throughout the day.  But this is the way things go. We all have different things going on and these guys have life's to attend to back in Richmond. I am a lucky person to have been able to share these experiences over the past month with kyler Ryan and Bryan.
     And now here we are in Chicago, the windy city. We are staying with friends of friends and spending our days riding around exploring. Yesterday we met up with Richmond friend Matt who in on his way back east after months of traveling the west coast. We spent time walking the city and went to the new wes anderson film last night.  Even on my days off here, I still somehow rode somewhere around 35 miles yesterday. Today we are going to the beach, which is Lake Michigan. (It has more of a beach front that I ever imagined in my head)  I also plan to grab a map of Illinois and a hand full of post cards.
     I haven't mentioned this yet here but I will be traveling the rest of the way solo.  Due to things beyond his control, My friend Mike who had planed to meet me here and travel west is unable to due so.  So from here on out I'll just be keeping all of my friends and family in my thoughts and will try and stay in touch as best as I can.
     I'll be leaving town in just a few days but perhaps I'll find a computer when I make it to St. Louis.
Until then. No Bad Days.

Pittsburgh to fort wayne

     Pittsburgh is a real cool city. We took three days off to rest and explore and do fun stuff.  The hilliest city I've ever been too, but our friends alex zack and nico had one spot of land up the hill behinde there house where it was level enough to set up our tents to sleep in while we were visiting.
     We spent the first two days exploring the city, eating indian food and partially fixing up our bikes, which were more beat from riding the trails then we had realized. The second day we all rode up mount washington for the heck of it. Took pictures of the city skyline, then layed around for almost an hour.  We then ventured to a neighborhood called polish hill knowing there was an outdoor show but had no address.  We say a guy and girl with some tattoos and dirty tank tops and sure enough they were headed there.  We followed them behinde a baseball field and into a wooded trail up a hill.  This soon opened up to an old over grown basketball court that was currently covered with punks, dogs, a small stage area, a bbq And a table full of food for sharing. That night was a lot of fun. We say two local bands one was zacks band "napalm doughnut" the other was fronted by a lady who lives across the street from zack. Both really good. We also say a band from new orleans that was awesome. 
      After all of that one of our best friends from richmond Britt, showed up to hang with us our last day and night there. We spent a lot of time sitting in front and working inside of the coolest bike shop i've ever been to. "Kraynicks". It was a system of organzied chaos. He had any and every part you could need and not just one but a box full. Once again, when I get on a real computer I will show pictures.
     We said goodbye to britt nico and zack on our last day and alex escorted us out of the city. We rode yet another bike trail for 29 miles that took us out of PA. And into the pan handle of west virgina. The six days of riding from PA across Ohio and into Indiana were brutal.  Started hilly then we hit a heat wave and head winds.just as the land started to flatten out.  Although our days were filled with some of the hardest riding conditions, our nights always worked out perfect. We have yet to pay to sleep.  We continue to find beautiful safe spots to set up for our nights of cooking and sleeping. Often times even finding outlets to charge our stuff or a source for water.
     Memorial day took the cake. After riding in 95degree humid heat all day, we entered the town we figured we would try to stay for night.  Then there it was, a huge park, people playing baseball,.bbqing, and right in the center layed a huge public pool.  We imediatly learned that the head lifeguard was in to bikes and toured a bit last summer. He let us In on a discount of 50cents a piece.  We were happy to be let in at all considering.how absolutely filthy we were.  That night we were invited to follow jacob(the life guard) back to his families farm to camp for the night. We hung out around his fire pit on his grass yard that you wont be able to see from the road in a few short months, for the acres and acres of corn surounding the house will grow to tall. We slept outside, no tents needed and were kept company by their dogs Homer and Dingo, and a small cat named Party Cat.
    A few days later and here we are in fort wayne. We are staying at a house that has consistently had shows in their basement for 8 years running.  Friends from home always play here when on tour which is.how we got in touch. We took yesterday off to rest our bodies from the days of headwinds. We got to see Preston and Sandi last night. San diego friends who moved here because preston was raised here.  We ate frozen pizza and listened to music, shot gunned beers and danced to prestons rap songs. 
     I feel very lucky to be able to be in new strange places and somehow feel right at home. We will leave today despite the rainy weather. Should be a three day ride to Chicago. I'm already missing my friends with just the thought of us all going our own ways from there.  These past few weeks have been the best.