I don't know that I've ever gone through a day in Tokyo here in this blog. Sometimes I wake up and think, "maybe I'll head over to Ueno," or "it'd be great to do some people-watching in Omotesando". Then I remember I'm 5000 miles away. I'm kind of curious, thinking now from a lounge chair here in Kansas, if I can recreate for myself the environments of Tokyo again.

Read more…

52 miles

Today was a pleasant, fairly easy day. My actual travel mileage was about 40 miles, maybe, but I did a lot of pottering around Watkins Mill and then Weston Bend and the city of Weston. Another miserable road today, 92. It started off cool today, but got quite hot, and I was struggling for the last few miles.

Read more…

No caption :(

87 miles

The light-play and thunder turned into some serious business. My tent is old and poorly taken care of, but beyond a little spray now and again, things seemed to be alright. However, as time passed the lightning drew closer, until I became increasingly uncomfortable lying on the ground beneath a stand of trees. Lightning struck, lighting up my tent, and not seconds later the crash of thunder, muffled by my rain tarp, then lightning, until it was so constant that I could not tell how far away the storm was--it felt that lightning would strike a tree at any moment and fry me, and that would be the end of my trip and life. So uncomfortable did I become as the lightning and accompanying thunder grew closer and closer that I decided to make a run for it. I decided to weather out the... weather... in a shower facility nearby.

Read more…

65 miles

Today was the reverse of yesterday.

I slept well (enough) and long, but felt awful all day. I kept waiting for the energy of the day before to kick in, but despite a great tailwind and less significant hills, I trudged sluggishly through.

Read more…

68 miles

Strange how circumstances that should have made things miserable today worked to somehow make it the best day yet.

Read more…