The Pursuit of Riding in all 50 States Will Soon Resume

It’s been almost a year since my last entry on this blog.  It has been a

challenging year to say the least.  In August I was riding in New Jersey, crashed and fractured my pelvis.  That kept me off the bike for almost two months, and it caused me to cancel my planned August trip to the Hotter N Hell Hundred in Texas.  As part of that trip I was going to make stops and ride in several states that I need as part of my quest for all 50--Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Michigan.

Then on the next to last day of 2018 I ended up in the hospital to have my appendix removed! I was finally getting back into shape last month when I had to undergo a urological procedure.  So there have been several interruptions to my cycling.  But finally I’ve gotten back on the bike pretty regularly and now am ready to resume my quest for all 50 states.  I’m more than halfway with 30, and in June I am going on a bicycle tour of Alaska. Here’s a link to the one week tour from  Alaskabike, a local Alaska bike company.

Since I have not yet ridden in Washington state, I will do that during a two night layover in Seattle as well.  Then in August, the delayed Texas trip from last year should add 8 more states!  And sometime in the Fall I will take a couple of day trip up to New England and knock off Connecticut and Rhode Island on one day, Maine the following day, and that will leave only 7 states for 2020 (at least that’s the plan!).

Below is the scorecard showing my progress toward riding in all 50 states.  For those of you who don’t know my criteria, I will only count a ride that is at least 10 miles.  In most of these states, I’ve ridden a lot further than that.  States on the scorecard with a 'J' will be added during the June trip to Alaska; states with an 'A' will be ridden during my August trip to Texas; states with an 'F' I hope to get during a short trip up to New England sometime this Fall. 

Despite all of the trips to the “disabled list” in recent months, today I reached 1200 miles for the year.  I want to have at least 1500 miles under my legs (and butt) before I leave on June 20^th on the Alaska trip.

Thanks for looking in on my blog.  I hope you’ll follow my quest for all 50 states which I hope to complete in 2020 by my 70^th birthday.  If you want, you can sign up for updates whenever they are posted.  Every couple of days for the next five weeks, I’ll post about my training and preparations, and will post daily during the trip from June 20-July 1 (although I understand there is one night in Alaska where there is no internet access so no post that night).

Bruce

50 State Scorecard

NEW ENGLAND		SOUTHWEST
F	Maine	X	Oklahoma
X	New Hampshire	X	Texas
X	Vermont	X	New Mexico
X	Massachusetts	X	Arizona
F	Rhode Island	WEST
F	Connecticut		Montana
NORTHEAST			Colorado
X	New York	X	Wyoming
X	New Jersey	X	Idaho
X	Pennsylvania		Utah
X	Delaware		Nevada
X	Maryland	J	Washington
X	West Virginia	X	Oregon
X	Virginia	X	California
SOUTHEAST		X	Hawaii
X	North Carolina	J	Alaska
X	South Carolina
A	Tennessee
X	Georgia	Summary
X	Florida	30	States already ridden (X)
X	Alabama	2	States to be ridden on June trip (J)
A	Mississippi	8	States to be ridden on August trip (A)
A	Louisiana	3	States to be ridden on Fall trip (F)
MIDWEST		7	States to be ridden  in 2020
X	Ohio
A	Michigan
A	Indiana
A	Illinois
X	Kentucky
X	Wisconsin
X	Minnesota
	Iowa
A	Missouri
A	Arkansas
	North Dakota
X	South Dakota
	Nebraska
X	Kansas