Route

The plan: High-tail it out of the East Bay via the antioch bridge. Dawdle the delta to sacto, where we’ll pick up the American River trail to Folsom. From there, we climb up to Nevada City to give high-fives to Morrigan. After rolling back down to the sweltering valley, we’ll make a pit stop in Chico to congratulate the Palmarini clan on their unburnt home. Then we scend the wall that is Mount Lassen - 8200+ feet in two days! After bagging that peak, we’ll bid farewell to our escort as we head into the vast open spaces of the southeast oregon desert. Crossing into Idaho, we’ll pick up the Adventure Cycling TransAm route. We will surely drink nothing but light beer in Kooskia, and then head over the Lolo pass to Missoula to get free ice cream at the AC headquarters. We veer southeast from there to Yellowstone (after checking up on the mosquito population in the Big Hole). Once we’ve had our fill of buffalo and bubbling cauldrons of acidic death, we’ll venture east across Wyoming. Just when we’ve thought we’d safely made it to the plains, the bighorn mountains will jut into our view. After ascending to 9,000 ft, we should be able to simply coast all the way to Devil’s Tower. In Deadwood, SD, we’ll pick up Mickelson trail through the Black Hills (where we will undoubtedly use the president’s secret book to find the city of gold). After perusing the badlands, we’ll make our way across the open plains of south dakota until they give way to the woodlands of Minnesota (which I will continue to ridicule for its shoddy method of lake-counting). We’ll be crossing the mighty mississippi in no time, entering St. Paul ready to take on anything the State throws at us.

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