Watch the film!

Eric has finished editing the film of our bike trip and it's pretty awesome. The recommended viewing format is with a DVD given/borrowed from me, but if that's not a posibility, you can view a lower quality version that Eric has uploaded to the interweb (see links below). Enjoy!

Chapter 0 (Opening)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12

View photos from our trip!

We finally have most of the photos from our bike trip up on the interweb: http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.haserodt/BikeTripAcrossAmerica200702
Enjoy!

Done! (Officially!)

We're now officially finished!!! Eric and I biked to the ocean yesterday and dipped our bikes in the Atlantic, fulling completing our trans-continental bike trip. To me though, it doesn't really feel like we're finished - my legs are still nominally sore, I'm still wearing the same set of clothes I have for weeks, and I'm still "on the road" away from home. It feels more like I'm just taking a short break, like in St. Paul or in Cleveland, and that in a short time I'll be back on the road biking. It's a little weird, but kind of neat, how biking all day has become "what I do," and seems like a normal way of life. I think going back to work/"real life" is going to be a little difficult, but I figure I'll get used to sitting in front of a computer all day, just like I got used to sitting on my bike all day - it only hurts really bad for two weeks and then it becomes mostly tollerable...

"In the sunset of dissolutionment, everything is illuminated in the ora of nostalgia," even The Bike Trip. I'd be lying is I said that their weren't some rought times and times when I wished I could just hop on a train and go home. However, all-in-all, it was a really wonderful experience and I'm very glad I did it. We've seen parts of the country, met people, and had experiences that you couldn't have any other way besides on a bike. We owe a big thanks to all the kind people who openned their homes to us, gave us a place to stay, food to eat, chatted with us, or helped us along in other ways. The scenery was spectacular, but it was really all of these people we met who made the trip truly special.

In case you were wondering, we did finish in under 8 weeks, ahead of schedule, biked nearly 4200 miles (7000 Km), and I lost nearly 20 pounds!

Done!

In case you can't tell, this is a photo of the Rhode Island sign at the side of the road and I am standing next to the sign. It was dark.

Yesterday around 1:30 pm, Eric and I were sitting in the Bella Italian Restaurant, a great little pizza joint run by a very friendly Turkish guy in Westfield, CT, when I joking mused that it would be fun to go all out and bike the remaining 100 miles non-stop stopping only for donuts ever 15 miles or so. This was of course just a joke and a total absurd idea and wasn't meant to be taken seriously, especially since we had already biked 40 miles and it was already in the afternoon.

While I continued to eat my half of our 16 inch Pizza, Eric called Rachael to see when she would be coming to Rhode Island to pick us up. It turned out that Rachael decided to leave that day and that we would have to drive back Wednesday evening. In order to maximize Rhode Island time, we thought, why not bike there tonight?

So we did the unthinkable and biked 137 miles out of the Berkshire Mountains and over some of the worst hills all the way through Massachussets, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all the way to Eric's parents home in Warwick, RI.

When we arrived, we were greeted with pizza, donuts and beer, and after eating a bit, I took a shower and collapsed on a bed. When I woke up this morning, I found that my legs and especially my knees were pretty upset with me, but that's okay, because I'm all done!

Almost all done, that is. We still need to bike to the ocean (less than 1 mile away) and dip our bikes in the Atlantic to officially end The Bike Trip. Hurray!

My carrot on a stick

I arrived in Westfield, NY two days ago and was handed a curious envelop addressed to me! Who could have sent me a big envelop? Why to this address??? The return address was from a pastor in Wolf Point, MT, who we were thinking of staying with but didn't actually end up doing so. In fact, this pastor didn't really know me at all.

When preparing for the trip, my pastor in D.C. emailed a pastor friend of his in Williston, ND, who called me up and offered Eric and I a place to stay when we came through. It turned out that we already had a place to stay in Williston, so I asked him if he knew anyone in eastern Montana who we might be able to stay with. One of the two names he gave me was the pastor in Wolf Point who I called, but who for what ever reason didn't return my call, so we just biked through there.

Why would he send me a big envelop? How did he get the address of where we were staying in New York?

I opened the envelop to find another envelop! The second was from my friend Johanna in Germany. An accompanying letter from the pastor explained that the envelop came for me with instructions to forward to New York in case we had already passed through. This guy who I never met, who knew little to nothing about me, was kind enough to send the envelop on to me in New York.

The package from Johanna was filled with a variety of thoughtful and encouraging things including flowers from her garden, some cool postcards, and a wrapper from a Doener with an accompanying drawing comparing a donkey and a carrot on a stick to me on a bike with a Doener on a stick, which was very amusing. I decided to tape the Doener wrapper on to my bike handlebar. There may be no Doener inside, but the day after I got the wrapper, we biked 125 miles!

In addition to the unexpected surprise from Johanna, we had a really good time hanging out with Anna's brother Jon and his fiancee Lisa in Westfield, NY. They are really friendly and were fun to talk with. I think they may also have talked me into trying out eharmony.com (Nathan also deserves some credit for that).

From Cleveland our route has been really scenic, taking us along Lake Erie up to Buffalo, NY, and then over the border into Ontario, passed Niagra Falls, and down along the Erie Canal towpath in the direction of Albany. Right now, we're staying over with Eric's sister, Lauren, at RIT in Rochester, NY. From here, we will continue along the Erie Canal to Albany where we will then travel southeast towards Connecticut.

Home, Sweet Home!

Hello Cleveland! Yeah! We finally made it to my glorious home state of Ohio and my parents home in Mayfield Village on the east side of Cleveland. We have less than two weeks left and now that we're in Ohio among familiar sites, it feels like we're almost done. We've already come over 3,400 miles and have less than 800 to go! We're in the right time zone now too! Tomorrow we'll keep biking east, commensing our final lap of the trip.

Coming home has been really great. The night before we reached Mayfield Village, we camped on Lake Erie and I got to go swimming in the evening. The next day, as we biked through
town, we stopped at Tommy's in Coventry for the best milkshakes, fallaffels and lamb
meatpies in the world (mmmm... mint chocolate chip milkshake!). After we arrived at my parents house, we drove back into town and had dinner at The Great Lakes Brewing Company which brews some of the best beer made in the U.S. My buddies from high school, Bill and Barry, showed up later to hangout. After church today, I hungout more with Bill, Barry, and my parents and ate a ton of food, including three different kinds of pies.

Party time ends tomorrow though as we get back on the road. Rachael, Eric's wife, drove up from D.C. and will ride with us a full day tomorrow. It will be nice to have someone else to talk with besides Eric ("Hey Eric, did you see that corn field over there?" "Yup."
"...").

Rhode Island, here we come!

Fields of Corn and Dreams

We're some where near Wyoming, Iowa, right now and are staying with a really friendly lady, Sue, and her family. We met her at the little grocery store in town and after hearing about our crazy trip, she invited us to dinner and to camp in her yard. I just ate yummy pork chops, green beans with bacon, mashed potatoes, potato salad, fresh tomatoes and watermelon!!!

I ate all that after having eaten one of the most amazing brunches of all time. Our oatmeal spilled in Eric's bike bag so we couldn't have muesli this morning as we usually do. Instead, we stopped after 23 miles in Dyersville, IA, at the Dyersville Family Restaurant run by a friendly Albanian family. Eric and I both ate two meals. I had an omelet with sausage, ham, onions and cheese, with hashbrowns, and toast for my first meal. My second breakfast consisted of three fluffy pancakes topped with apples and whipped cream - yummy, yummy!

After our feeding, we checked out the basilica in Dyersville. The gothic church looked pretty impressive from the outside, but the inside was even more incredible. Having only seen the inside, I would have believed that it was a cathedral in Bavaria.

Outside of Dyersville, we stopped at the baseball field in the middle of a corn field where the film "A Field of Dreams" was filmed. I don't really care much for the movie, however it was still pretty cool to visit. I even got to hit a couple balls on the field. Had I been half my age and still interested in baseball, it would have been unbelievably awesome.

Aside from the random, unexpected highlights here and there, Iowa is pretty much as you might imagine it - corn, really nice people, corn, rolling hills, more corn...