Off on the road!

Yesterday morning was the last I'll see of my house until January 2nd or 3rd! I'll be going home to Massachusetts to see my family and friends for the holidays. Then, I'll be off on the first road trip (of many!) of the decade! I won't be hitting any new states, but I'll be hitting new areas within states. I'm perfectly fine with that- after all, my goal is about quality AND quantity. Kentucky (the closest state to me that I've yet to go to) will just have to wait.

While I don't want to say exactly where I'm going yet (and a couple of the details have yet to be ironed out/are dependent on weather), I'll be leaving Long Island on Monday, the 27th with my lovely girlfriend and I won't be back until late Saturday night. We'll be spending New Years Eve in a nice small city with a good First Night. There's not a ton, ton of driving, although this is coming from someone who did 6,000 miles in two weeks and felt like THAT wasn't a whole lot of miles.

When I come back, there will be pictures, documentation, all that good jazz. Hopefully it'll create a nice template for future road trips, and give others who are considering road trips in these areas some good food for thought.

Training begins

From April to October of this year, I biked daily. Daily to work (a few miles each way), to various errands and random points, driving only when weather was the crappiest. Thanks to daylight savings time, needing to be on campus until 5, and my general wariness of the ability of Long Island drivers to see anything after dark, I haven't biked since the end of November. Hell, my last route outside of just back and forth to work was October 8th.

However, during spring break I plan on doing some long distance biking, some sort of multi-day tour. Not sure who with, not sure where (though I do have some ideas, more about that later), but I hope to be pushing about 400-500 miles in 6 or 7 days. That, combined with having more time at the end of the semester, means returning to the gym.

I did about 20 minutes on the bike (about how long it would take me one way) and one hill workout...and it felt great to feel that tingling in the thighs and get that slight weak-leg feeling. But, after a summer of solid biking around, gym bikes just feel so lame, so unnatural. They have no concept of the vagaries and wonders of hills, pavement, potholes, the necessities of intersections and traffic lights, the real feel of air. Man, I can't wait until I can get on a bike again. I'm hoping to tomorrow. Oh wait- it's supposed to blizzard all weekend. Wonderful.

It seems a little futuristic to be thinking about a possible trip four months away. However, I've never done a multi-day tour, and only biked 75 miles in a day once. It's not going to get that nice out before the end of March, so I don't know how many miles on real wheels I'll be able to get. So I have to do what I can to make sure my body is in tip-top shape over the next three and a half months so I can be ready for a week of solid activity.

Welcome!

Welcome to my travelogue! Let me introduce myself.

My name is Dave, and I'm a 25 year old Ph.D student in music history on Long Island. As I grew up on Cape Cod, I've lived all of my life in the Northeast, and usually surrounded by water. Because of this, the urge to travel has been with me for a long time. I love driving, biking, and exploring unseen roads.

I have spent the last three years of my life in suburban Long Island, which has only increased my Wanderlust. I have studied and worked hard here, but I plan to be ABD in the spring and to begin dissertation research outside of the northeast US. This, combined with traveling to various conferences around the US and Canada and going on trips with my lovely girlfriend, makes me want to document my travels and to talk with others about the wonderful areas in this beautiful country.

This past year, I have gotten to experience many new places. I spent a weekend in Denver, drove across the desert in I-8 from Tucson to San Diego, took a road trip out to Milwaukee and Detroit, and spent a wonderful week in northern Vermont and Acadia National Park. I also biked for charity to Montauk (about 75 miles). This year has been great, and I look forward to what 2010 brings.

So why this title? A year or so ago, one of my friends and I made a bet to see all 50 states by the time we turn 30. I currently sit at 35, due to growing up in the Northeast (where travel between states is obliged) and a few great road trips with friends two years ago. However, I want to make this bet happen. I want to spend time in these states and experience them.

Below is the list of all 50 states, and Washington D.C. I have bolded every state that I have been to. Although this doesn't apply to me, I do not count airports as states. While I have counted states that I have just driven through without seeing much other than a Wendy's, they are asterisked.

THE LIST:
Alabama*
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico*
New York
North Carolina*
North Dakota
Ohio*
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington, D.C.
West Virginia*
Wisconsin
Wyoming

I'm looking forward to sharing my travels, whether by car, bike, plane, or train, and seeing how my life is changed along these journeys.