getting closer

okay, let's clarify:

since i started this blog to document our trip in 2007, and neither john nor i finished typing up our handwritten journals from that trip, we are skipping (for now) that trip (which was glenwood springs, CO to lawrence, KS, via pueblo, CO).

so: this trip. late spring, 2009.

john and i are leaving logan square, chicago, on saturday morning, may 30th. we're riding our bikes counter-clockwise around lake michigan. we don't have an exact route, so we don't have exact mileage, so we don't know exactly how long this will take. i have randomly selected 12 days as the amount of time. it may be more than that. we have maps, and an iphone with gps. we are planning on camping most of the time. we will carry sleeping bags and a tent with us.

our first night, we plan on camping at warren dunes, michigan, which is eighty-something miles from john's house in logan square. my friend tom allen (photographer/x-acto knife artist) lives a few miles from there and may come to see us. if we do really well on saturday, we may decide to ride to tom's house, instead, so we can see his chickens.

due to time, we know that we won't be able to see every awesome thing along the shore of lake michigan: we're going to mostly skip the leelanau and old mission peninsulas in michigan, and door county, wisconsin. these are lovely places, but we can't go to every lovely place.

i plan on posting from the road, from my iphone. i hope john's blackberry will do the same, but, to be honest, i don't know since we haven't talked much at all due to both of us having a ton of stuff on our plates work-wise and travel-wise. this is probably the least planned-out trip i've taken in quite a while.

john is riding a bianchi 'volpe', roughly a 2004 model. i'll be on my surly 'long haul trucker', c. 2005. we both have front and rear ortleib panniers. neither of us is a racer, but we both can take the tortoise route and cover some good distance, slowly and steadily through a day. we expect to do 80 to 100 miles a day.

i'll try to post our mileage for each day, as well as our cumulative mileage for the whole trip.

okay. i'll post a gear list when i gather stuff up late tonight or tomorrow.