3 Days and 3 Magazines read.

Well I have 3 days left till departure and I have decided (Thanks to my dad's savy road knowledge) to alter my route. Now instead of stopping at my dad's house, in York, I am going up to Valperso and then taking a short bicycle trail to a different town. This route will save me an extra 10 miles or so. Additionally, I was at Barnes and Noble today and read three different bicycle magazines, which all gave some good advice. I should eat bananas and raisins, said one bicyclists, often. Also, the authors gave some great advice for the gear I need to bring. I decided after much thought that I will not bring my computer or get internet access through some new devices most cellphone carriers have. I thought about bringing my computer so I could update this blog and do some other important items for school, but have decided against it. All of this means, I will not update this blog as much as I had hoped, but I will save 4 pounds from not carrying things such as my computer. I have decided tomorrow morning I am going to try and route my way out of Lincoln (As getting out of the city is often the hardest part for me) and then take my bike in for a final tune up. It looks like I will have good weather for Friday and Saturday which is exciting!

A constant and relevant worry: Water

I have been biking quite often now; however, yesterday was one day that was unlike the past. I bicycled about 14 miles and then ran out of water in my Camelbak (It holds about 2 liters). Luckily, at that point I had bicycled into Eagle, NE and bought some water from Casey's; however, this was not enough. That day I bicycled a total of 35 miles and used the MOPACs water fountains quite extensively and I have a new worry (Though many have warned and asked me about this). This worry is that I need to really plan out my water supply. I have my Camelbak and two 20 oz. water bottles, but I think that will only last me about 20 miles or so, which then means I will have to stop more often than thought. Moral of this story: Jacob will be watching his water supply constantly!

6 Days till departure!

The semester is over!

Well I just slept 13 hours and you know what that means? It means I am officially done with my first senior year of college (Yep one more year left). It was probably one of my most intense semester in college due to the upper-level Political Science courses I was taking.

I should be in perfect shape for this bicycle trip, right? The answer is no I am not. The last three weeks I have not been able to put any significant amount of miles on my bike (only commuter miles were put on probably averaging 6 miles ad day). The next few weeks, however, I plan on bicycling a significant amount of miles everyday. Obviously, that won't prepare me as much as I need, but then I will train while on my trip. You may think this is crazy, but think of this football analogy (though I despise football). Before you start playing football you lift weights, and run, but nothing quite prepares you for the two-a-days or the actual game. Thus, when you finally start playing the 'game' (or for me my tour) you start to get into more shape.

At least, I have read that is what you can do with bicycling on a longer tour. I am also trying to figure out my situation on coming home because if I do not make it to Portland, which is a possibility, I have to figure out how to make it back to NE by July 30 for a friend of mine's wedding. Plan A for that situation, right now, is to rent a car and drive back. I will investigate this more later.