The initial route plan for my cross country bicycle trip

Start in Astoria, Oregon and proceed east…

I have the Adventure Cyclist maps for the Lewis & Clark route to Bozeman, MT, so the route might be a little different when the map goes on nearby lower volume parallel routes (that’s not shown on this road map).

East on Route 30 to Portland. I was planning on Highway 14 in Washington which runs adjacent to the Columbia River. Then jump on Highway 12, across Idaho over Lolo Pass into Missoula, MT.

From Missoula, head south on Highway 93 along the Bitterroot River, then over to the Big Hole valley, then cut over to Dillon. From Dillon, take Highway 41 to Three Forks then south to Bozeman on county roads. My brother lives in Bozeman, so I hope to spend a couple days visiting the area. I’m estimating Bozeman to be 900 miles from Astoria.

From Bozeman, head east on frontage roads along Interstate 90 and then south on Highway 89 through “Paradise Valley” to Yellowstone National Park, home of big RVs. From there I was going to follow the Northern Wyoming Route that I downloaded. Basically a mixture of Highways 14/16/and 20. This route will go past Devil’s Tower of “Close Encounters” fame. Maybe it will still be alien tourist season when I get there. Then cross into South Dakota and head south on 385 to Mt Rushmore. From there I was going to go Highway 44 through the Badlands across SD and hook onto Highway 34 in Minnesota. Highway 34 and 44 aren’t popular enough to make the USA road map. I’m guessing that this is cornfield country.

I got a traffic volume map of Wisconsin, so I was going to go low volume county roads as much as possible from La Crosse to Manitowoc. There is a 100-mile bike route (rails to trails) from La Crosse to Reedsburg. The route that I show on the map is an approximate route. From Manitowoc, take the ferry across Lake Michigan to Ludington MI.

From there, I have an Adventure Cyclist map to Monroeville, IN. Again, I took liberty in guestimating the route. For crossing Ohio, I sent away for a trans-Ohio route map. This map has mainly county roads, away from cities, and ends up near Beaver Falls, PA. Pennsylvania has several trans-PA routes. So I chose to cut and paste sections of the routes. I grew up in Tyrone, Pennsylvania and intend to ride my bike in to good ol’ Tyrone. It’s been something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and part of my motivation for the trip. From Tyrone, I would get back on the trans-PA route which goes real close to Gettysburg (I might go through there) past Valley Forge and ends at Washington Crossing on the Delaware River. I really had no idea how to get across New Jersey. Originally, I thought that it would be a fitting end to dip my toe in the Atlantic Ocean in Atlantic City on Highway 30 (Highway 30 starts in Astoria). I had doubts about this because Atlantic City really isn’t the nicest place to be and I wasn’t sure how to get there and what the traffic would be like. Anyhow, I found a website hosted by the “map guy”. He had maps of Central NJ. I asked him for a route from Washington Crossing to the Atlantic Ocean. He sent me a route that ends at Asbury Park (former stomping ground of Bruce Springsteen). So I figure, if I am not too worn out from the trip, I’ll go to Atlantic City, otherwise, it’s Asbury Park. I'll have plenty of time to think about it.