My 1979 Journal (partial)

[m610]

I thought I'd share it.

Reading it now I really wish I would have kept a journal for the whole trip.

I barely changed a word as I types this out.

I'm working on a write-up for the rest of the trip, using other notes, photos, and Google Maps to help me piece it all together. It is amazing how much of the trip I remember. I am unsure of many of the more mechanical details, but the scenes, the feelings, and the people I remember well.

Mike

[jwrushman]

Am enjoying your journal.  How much has changed, and not changed, with bicycle touring.

[m610]

Thanks. It was really fun reading it again and I've shared it with a few friends who liked it.

I am currently working on "Middle Leg", a description of my ride from Carbondale, IL to Pueblo. I don't have notes to go by, nor do I have my original Bokecentennial maps, which would have really helped. I did jot some names and addresses down in my notebook, and that helped. I have a few photos, but not much, and I have a couple of business cards. But mostly I have been relying on Google Maps, which naturally will not show me the same towns and roads that existed in 1979, but it has been valuable.

The one thing about this is the more I researched my route, the more questions I asked myself, and the more answers, by which I mean memories, came out of it. I'd say this has been the most fun part of the project.

As far as memories go, some are more trustworthy than others, but as I kept digging many of them got sorted out. For example, after putting a lot of time into a route I thought I had taken in western Kansas, where some memories fit while others clearly did not, I found I was off-route and was too far south of my actual route. Once I made the correction a lot of details fell into place. And using street-view I could verify the bar where I stopped after rolling into town at 10 PM and the aluminum picnic tables in a park where I met a traveling sign painter and his dog.

I still have a few vivid memories that I cannot square with the maps I have, so I'll just write them in without linking them to specific locations.

I've been at this for a few days now and I am finding it really amazing how much of the trip I can remember. I'm sure that if you sat down to write up your adventure, a flood of fond, and not so fond, memories will come back to you.

Mike

[m610]

I finished "Middle Leg", and that completed my account of that tour I did so many years ago. All three sections combined ended up being 22,000 words, so I guess a lot of memories really did come back to me once I started writing and reviewing the maps and my photos. I wish I had more photos, but oh, well.

I highly recommend doing something like this, to preserve your memories, impressions, the whole experience.

Mike

[Tmorken]

Thanks for posting the Lazy Louie card. I did not keep a journal for that portion and was trying to remember where he was.

[Tmorken]

I mapped out the route in RideWithGPS. You can do each day and keep in a Collection and it will show the whole route on a US map. I use the original maps to do it. Boy, those maps were BAD - very hard to read and some areas were VERY confusing due to so many turns and directions like "go right at the third dirt road..."

I also used RideWithGPS to use Street View to look at landmarks and matched them to photos I have. I was able to find various cafes, stores, parks we stopped at. Kind of tedious, but if you know the general stretch of road it take a half hour to go through to find something. Some places are totally decrepit now, or torn down altogether. Things change  a lot in 50 years!