joesacher.com

My mom has owned a red Betty Crocker cookbook probably longer than I have been alive. I’ve had this book for a few years, because I have been doing more and more cooking. The book isn’t all about the Betty Crocker recipes, because let’s face it, they all aren’t that good. The things that are important are recipes and modifications written in the margins by mom.

The problem with me having the book is I am in Indianapolis and my mother and both sisters are in Jeffersonville. I’ve fielded calls from them at times, when a recipe is required. Putting them on the web will eliminate this problem. It will also give me a place to pull them up on any computer. My electronic recipe software runs on Windows and I’ve been using Linux for a year now. Solves that issue. As a fringe benefit, anyone coming to my site can use the recipes. Enjoy.

I have been asked many times why I wanted to ride a bicycle across the county. Having completed the trip, the question became easy to answer. It was not easy to answer before I left. My history started the same year as cross country ride. I am a bicentennial baby, born in 1976. This is the same year the Bikecentennial route was created. Thousands of cyclists rode across the country on that route, during that year. Many thousands more have crossed the United States on the same route since. The route is still maintained by the same organization with a new name: Adventure Cycling. Their maps are extremely helpful for the bicycle tourist and have kept the same basic route, with slight changes as roads are modified over the years.All of this is good and well, you say, but it still doesn’t answer the why. The truth is that I didn’t really know. I read a tour report on-line and thought it sounded interesting. Over the years it fermented into a strong desire. I wondered if this was something I could do. I started riding a Trek 520 touring bike in college. I was overweight. No nicer way to say it. Riding 50 miles in a day was a task. This wasn’t because I couldn’t physically do it, my butt just couldn’t handle the time on the bike. Yes, I had the real bike shorts. I tried three different seats. It just didn’t work. All season would be required before I could do two back to back 50 mile days. I couldn’t see myself riding across the country, when you are doing 50+ mile days every day. The idea was put on the shelf.
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