NW/NE on HWY 20

Traveling the longest road across America. 

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And we haven’t even made it out of Oregon and we already hit congestion.  A parade in Lebanon Oregon.  

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Corvallis Oregon. 

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The official starting point of Hwy 20 in Newport Oregon. 

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June 3, 2017 / Newport Oregon / 8:22 A.M. Architecture study.  First day of our adventures on Hwy 20.

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June 16, 2017 / Lincoln Nebraska / 8:30PM.   The sky boiled and danced and turned to a sickly green. I was not prepared for what was to follow less than an hour later.  This is how tornados are born. 

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A Corn farm in near Lincoln Nebraska stands agains a vast steamy sky from an incredible storm the night before.  

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The storms were both horrible and amazing in Lincoln Nebraska.   Lighting quickly brought torrential rains, hurricane force winds that rapidly changed directions and dime sized hail.  I’m in awe of the midwest storms. There is nothing like it on earth. 

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Had a bit of a mechanical late last night which turned into a little adventure this morning. Huge shout out and gratitude to the people of Maumee Ohio!

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June 15, 2017 / Pennsylvania / 3:03pm

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up at 4:00am to walk through town out this point in the dark but it was so very much worth it.  Nantucket is such an amazing place. 

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Nebraska 2017

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We’ve met a lot of amazing and interesting characters along our way.   LT Fury (yes that’s his name) is a cowboy in the very small town of Thermopiles Wyoming population roughly of 3000. He actually lived most of his life near Boston Massachusetts as a school bus driver, driving up and down HWY 20 until he moved to live his dream in a more wild section of the midwest. 

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120 Homicides and Counting... I’m going to do a much larger post on this subject when I get home or some downtime but I’m just too exhausted at this point. But part of yesterday and today was spent in some of them most dangerous places in the United States and Route 20 took us right through them. Both in Gary Indiana and today Cleveland Ohio.  We thought about going around but we made a commitment to see America on this route both the amazingly beautiful and the struggling impoverished places as well.  I’m almost shell shocked at what i saw with blocks after blocks of lost home and entire buildings, churches, schools and apartments boarded and nailed shut.  The people who exist in these areas live with things you and I hopefully never know. There’s so many that have lost hope. 

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One of the most abundant crops in Iowa.  It’s almost mesmerizing driving past mile after mile of these fields and you could tell a lot of these farms have been in families for multiple generations. Some farms look untouched but others have new ways of earning by helping to generate clean power for their communities. 

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Farmers in Iowa working new corn. 

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A major part of this journey was to connect with other across this country.  It seems I literally meet amazing people everyday and today was no different.  Just as we were loading up to leave Chadron Nebraska we ran into Kim and Bryant Archibald from California who are riding across America (Oregon to New York) on their fundraising adventure to raise $10k for Folds of Honor.  Folds of Honor provides educational scholarships to the children and spouses of our fallen and disabled service members while serving our nation.  Their site http://vampdforveterans.com tells about their goals and allows you to follow them on their adventure.  

Kim and Bryant started their journey from Florence Oregon, passing through Eugene (my current hometown) and at the last photos were at least 40 miles outside of Chadron Nebraska on a very rough section of Highway 20 battling the fierce winds that were ripping across the plains.  We wish them the best of luck on their journey and will continue to follow their amazing ride that will still be going after my project wraps and I’m home.    It was a pleasure to meet you two.

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Mount Rushmore.