restless bikers

It’s Monday. It’s June 11th and it’s our 9th week on the road. Sweden just lost the soccer game against a not much better Ukraine. But they had Shevchenko and that meant 2-1 in favour for Ukraine when the clock said 90 minutes. So here we are, a bit sad, but more happy. We are in Nebraska. Almost in Omaha, but not really. We are about twenty miles north of Omaha, in Bennington, a small place by a small lake surrounded by rolling hills and corn fields. It feels remote, but it’s not. And it’s quiet. Except for a neighbour mowing his lawn there is no other sound than the water smashing against the boat house and the orange birds singing in the distance. I forgot what they are called, but who cares, they’re beautiful, and make this place even more peaceful. We found this place via warmshowers, and it’s perfect for sure. An American couple living in a big house. Two daughters who have moved out means two empty rooms. A hell of a lot better than sleeping on a parking lot just next to the highway and railroad. Believe us! And with homemade food, a speed boat and a pool table we are pretty happy. It feels like a spa, a spa we don’t really wanna leave. But we have a date with the road tomorrow, so we have to put our sore butts on our saddles and keep peddling.

We came here yesterday, after a long journey through Nebraska. A couple of hundred miles with nothing but fields. It’s very beautiful, but it’s also very boring. The same view day after day, all the towns look the same, and a crosswind that makes life a little less enjoyable than it should be. And no shower for 9 days. A swim in the lake and a shower yesterday was more than needed. And that’s the truth. We’ve probably never been more dirty in our lives. But now we smell of shampoo and detergent! Thanks Randy and Patti!

During our trip across Nebraska we met three guys from Arizona (Sam, Jordan and Michael), biking from the state of Washington to Boston. We met them randomly on the road and spent one night with them in a garage that belonged to a friend of Sam. The next day we had to stop in North Platte to buy bike stuff, and the Americans had to continue, so we said goodbye. But a few days later we met again, also randomly, so we biked with them for a day and spent the night together at a parking lot under the skies, watching the movie Platoon on a computer and eating Sam’s mothers homemade cookies. The next day we said goodbye to them again, but perhaps we will meet up in Jordan’s summer cabin in Canada in a few weeks. We’ll see how that goes.

What else is new? After 11 flat tires Christian finally changed to Schwalbe tires, and hasn’t gotten a flat since. Jonas still bikes on his Continental and Specialized tires, but he has only gotten six flats so far. Perhaps he’ll change to Schwalbe when he reaches 11 as well. Christofer is stuck on one flat, which makes him kiss his tires every morning. Almost.

Yesterday there was a big thunderstorm in the US, stretching from Omaha all the way up to Canada. But we were sitting under a roof, drinking wine and chewing on a steak. So we have still only biked in one hour of rain during our eight weeks on the road. It’s somewhat incredible, but fact is that the US is experiencing a draught, so it’s not that weird.

We have now biked about 4000km, which probably is half of the entire trip. The original plan was to bike 10 000km, but because we don’t want to stress the trip we might “only” bike 8000km. Next big stop is Chicago, in about 10 days, and then we’ll change country for a while. Hopefully we’ll still be in the US for the 4th of July celebrations though.

If you wanna check out the American bikers web page you can visit mikeandjordanadventure.wordpress.com

Thanks for all the comments, we love reading them! Next week we’ll give you a new episode of the restless saga.

/spoiled bikers