2010 Road and Bike Trip: Thoughts and Reminiscences

John at Custer, South Dakota on the George S. Mickelson path which runs 109 exhilarating miles south from Deadwood 

Janet and I want to thank the organization Rails-to-Trails Conservancy:   http://www.railstotrails.org/index.html  for the great work they are doing in promoting the use of abandoned railroad rights of way for biking, running and walking in towns and in remote places throughout our country. We also much appreciate the guidance their website gave us in choosing bike paths to experience during our six week journey, from mid-September to the beginning of November. As a result of information on the rails to trails website, we rode through some of the most interesting and beautiful countryside we have ever experienced. If you have not done so, please take a few minutes to review our earlier postings on this blog. We try to keep our comments brief. Above: a shot that does not appear earlier in the blogging of this trip. Along the route, we visited friends and relatives in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Missouri and Indiana. We also made many new friends by staying with Evergreen Travel Club members wherever they happened to be on the route and available. Evergreen is another great organization that you should seriously consider joining if you are over  50 years of age. Here is the website:  http://www.evergreenclub.com/  Although our stays with "Evergreeners" were just for a night two, we learned about areas that were new to us and made some  friends along the way.