Hello, and welcome back to my blog! Its been a fairly silent month of August as far as this blog is concerned. I’ve said in a couple of places that I’ve been recovering and moving back towards a normal way of life. Now that I have a job, a work schedule, and everything is falling back into place, I’m feeling up to sharing what the 46 days of my trip was like. It was an experience of stress, frustration, map errors, gas stations, amazing views, knee pain, hills, headwinds, good food, great people, and unexpected encounters. It should be needless to say that using a month to process all of it was a necessary task of laziness! And realistically, if I thought I had it bad (and I sometimes did), it’s all nothing in comparison to what it would have been like in 1846.

This series is called “The State of the Trail” and it will be a 6 part series going by each state that the trail went through. They are: Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon. And each post will focus on one of those states and what I encountered as I biked through it, and accompanied by slideshows of pictures.

I’m hoping that it will be often funny, occasionally gross, and partly horrifying.

To get you all psyched up for the series, here are some fun stats that I’ve compiled. Enjoy!

Cori’s Oregon Trail Trip Statistics

Mileage: 2200-2300 miles

Days: 46

Average Mileage Per Day: 48.91

Cost: $2500-2900

• # of Tires Lost: 5
• # of Tubes Lost: 11
• # of Wheels Lost: 3
• # of Liters of Water Drunk: 98
• # of Gas Station Milkshakes Drunk: 13
• # of Gas Station Hot Dogs Eaten: 21
• # of Times Someone Bought Me Food: 9
• # of Books Read: 42
• # of Ticks: 14
• # (aprx) of Mosquito Bites: 200+
• # of Incidents With Snakes: 1
• # of Incidents With Cows: 1
• # of Incidents With the Police: 5
• # Of Times Someone Told Me I Was Crazy: Countless
• # Of Times Someone Told Me I Was Awesome: Countless
• # of Times I Told Myself I was Crazy (Stupid): Countless
• # of Times I Told Myself I was Crazy (Awesome): Countless
• Average Amount of Time It Took To Charge My Solar Charger (When the Package Said 14 Hrs Needed): 8 Days
• Average Amount of Time It Took For Me To Fall Asleep Each Night: 5 minutes or less