Keith - 

I see from earlier posts that you will be doing the PPP.
I helped to develop that route.
From Yellowstone east to Devils Tower it is quite nice.
The Bighorn Mountains are nothing to sneeze at.

Not sure when you will be hitting the Black Hills in Sturgis Season -
But the more dirt you do - trails or otherwise, the fewer Harleys.
And Black Hills dirt is different than High Plains dirt.
Less sandy, less dusty, more rideable after rain.

And you mention going thru Kansas City.
So, I'm guessing you will use part of the L&C.
Did you know that the Sandhills of Nebraska are a bit cooler?
Usually 5F cooler than the Platte Valley or South Dakota.

US 20 is fairly low traffic with shoulders - some Sandhills.
NE 2 is lower traffic with some shoulders - lots of Sandhills.
NE 92 is almost no traffic and stunning Sandhill scenery.

Hi John-

The P3 route is the basis for my plan in SD.  I want to go to Brookings to take advantage of family hospitality for several consecutive rest days; that happens to be just past the midpoint of my schedule so a longer break seems desirable.

The schedule I've developed- subject to change as wind, weather, and whims strike me- calls for:

Week 5 - 30 July to 5 August 
7/30: Buffalo WY to Spotted Horse WY    61 miles
7/31: Spotted Horse WY to Gillette WY    37 miles
8/1: Gillette WY to Carlile WY    48 miles
8/2: Carlile WY to Aladdin WY    46 miles
8/3: Aladdin WY to Rochford SD    66 miles
8/4: Rochford SD to Hermosa SD    63 miles8/5: Rest day in Hermosa SD (*)    0 miles

Weekly miles: 321Total trip miles: 1,629

(* - This week's plan is malleable; I may elect to have a few shorter days in favor of an additional night of camping at one of several spots along the way and forego an "official" rest day in Hermosa.)

Week 6 - 6 August - 12 August
8/6: Hermosa SD to Scenic SD    41 miles
8/7: Scenic SD to Philip SD    62 miles

and then on to Brookings over the next few days.

I was planning to "bushwhack" for two days to get from Brookings down to Vermilion and then yes it was going to be the L&C until another do-it-myself bypass around KC to get to Olathe KS where I have another extended rest period planned at a cousin's place.  Two "long" rests a week apart may be just what I need or they may be more than necessary.  Assuming I don't "need" them both, I could skip the Brookings plan and go through the Sand Hills to Olathe instead.  That in turn opens up the possibility of a stay in Lawrence KS at yet another relative's place; he's done some cycling himself and would be a wonderful host if I chose to do that.

I've never been to the Sand Hills; you make them sound very appealing.  Cool == Better in my book, especially in August.

Doing a very quick, non-critical route on RWGPS to get from Gillette WY to Olathe KS, I came up with this:

Although it bypasses the Black Hills to the west I'm not altogether sorry to miss them; I did a six-week geology field camp based in Rapid City back in the early 1980s so I have actually seen them before.  Not on a bicycle, of course, but still...

Your thoughts?  For example, is it worth altering the route to include the Mickelson Trail?

You may wonder why I routed into Kansas so early; I have family roots (but no family, any longer) in Clay Center KS so for sentimental reasons I thought it might be fun to plan to go through there; maybe even staying overnight on the farm where my Dad grew up.

I do find that elevation profile rather appealing.  :)

Google Maps is not your friend - - - 
Especially out West.

The Sand Hills are the largest expanse of the Great Plains that remains unplowed. 
Thus, in many places it is an uninterrupted sea of grass - almost like eons ago.
The small north-south roads are as empty or emptier than NE 92 - - -
BUT services are very, very few and far between - even fewer post-Covid.

Highway 250 south of Rushville is absolutely magical.
Check out on Google Streetview - esp. around the Niobrara Valley and Smith Lake.
You can camp at Smith Lake - primitive - possibly buggy.
But you will have a true Great Plains sunset and sunrise.

Only 200 vehicles per day south of Rushville, further south, 100.
Hwy 61 from Hyannis to Arthur has 300-350 Average Annual Daily Traffic.
(Anything below 500 is amazingly empty - many ACA routes have 1000-2000)

But the one-lane county road between Whitman and Bucktail has a 50 AADT.

If you take this road, you will have 50 miles of the most amazing emptiness.
But the sun in August can be unrelenting and shade is rare in the Sandhills.
Not to mention afternoon thunderstorms which can be stupendous.
And the prevailing summer winds are southerly.

It is a land of extremes and yet, at the same time, delicate subtleties.
It May it is a carpet of green ablaze with tiny wildflowers.
By August, it will be hues of sage, blond, and brown - still lovely.

On my first cross-county bike trip in 1987, I rode the Sandhills in early October.
I also read Willa Cather's My Antonia in my tend by flashlight.
I have loved Nebraska ever since.

We loved this area across Nebraska. And when we say to people when asked what state we liked the most...Nebraska....they are always surprised. As we were, you have to get off the interstate to appreciate Nebraska.

True for myself as well.  My ride through the Sand Hills back in 1974 is one of my favorite cycling memories.  Having driven across the center of Nebraska years ago the previous year and been bored senseless I was amazed to find it was the same state.

For my first cross USA ride in 1996, I drove across the USA in my old car, which was a dying Mazda 626 hatchback, with my bike in the back. I drove from North Carolina to Oregon in 3.5 long days and junked the car in Springfield OR before riding home. In order to do those long days, I'd stop every few hours and ride my bike for 45 minutes or so.

One of those stops was on I-80 in the Platte river valley in Nebraska. Driving the interstate was very boring, but riding small roads in that river valley was marvelous! I fell in love with riding in Nebraska and have ridden across it , usually on US 30, several times since then. It is one of my favorite states.

That's an alluring, enticing rhapsody.

I think it may be a mistake to try, now and from here, to guess how I'll feel and what the weather will be like in August when I am out "there".  I may leave it at a large black arrow on my maps at Gillette WY, pointing southeast toward Olathe KS with a note saying simply "Thataway", and then take what comes.

I can go for three, or possibly four, consecutive nights without a recharge of my CPAP batteries.  But water?  There's no way I could carry a four-day supply.  So that's the thing I'll need to be aware of, and to plan for.

As a strategy, navigating from one county seat to the next seems like it would move me from place to place with reasonable assurance of supplies, etc.  There appear to be some opportunities for camping, either formal or "dispersed" or even stealth, provided I've ensured an adequate food and water supply to get from wherever I fetch up for the night to the next place of opportunity.

I have some questions for you. 

I don't know your route to Gillette, but Wyoming is certainly not densely populated, so why is riding across Nebraska more problematic than riding across Wyoming?

Your concern about water is certainly wise, but I don't understand what needing four days supply means since I don't know what your expected daily mileage is. I've ridden through Nebraska by several different routes during both the summer and the fall and never worried about access to water. My most recent ride across Nebraska - https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=3XQ&doc_id=20134&v=C2 - was when I was already in my 70's and could, on a bad wind day, cover less than 50 miles, but that was still enough to have access to the services I needed. Note that Wyoming  is the only state where I've HAD to rent a car because, heading towards  Jackson Hole from Laramie, the wind was so bad that I couldn't ride far enough to get to the next places with services.

My experiences riding in Nebraska have shown me that it is one of the friendliest states. It is a state where people care about other people and, because they expect to need other people to help them, they are very open to helping other people, including us strange folks that like riding long distances on bicycles.

On one of my fall rides from Asheville, NC to Fort Collins, CO, I routed through northern Kansas on US 36 which is hillier and windier than riding across southern Nebraska.  As I rode, a record breaking early winter storm passed north of me through Nebraska and the Dakotas. There were blizzard conditions 50 miles north of where I was riding and, because this happened in early October, lots of cattle that were out on the open range died.

A year or two later, riding east across southern Nebraska, I visited, during lunch, with a rancher who had about 1000 head of cattle.  He'd lost a few of them in that blizzard, and was sad because he had failed to protect them.  In South Dakota, the same blizzard had killed almost all of the cattle. He told me how ranchers in Nebraska had 'shared' part of their herds with ranchers in South Dakota to help them get started again. 

Hi Mark-

I'll be following the ACA TransAm route to get to Gillette.  It is well-enough traveled that I know it should be do-able, and the people along the route are accustomed to seeing (and helping) bike travelers.  Not so once I depart from ACA routes.  I'll be on my own for a couple weeks, so I'm trying to ensure that I don't put myself in a position where I find myself by the side of the road, exhausted and hungry and thirsty, with no food or water to be had.

I didn't mean to imply that I feel the need to carry a four-day supply of water.  After all, there are people who live out there; they must get water from somewhere.  But if their sources are private wells to which I have limited or no access (yes I would knock on a door- if I could find one- at need) then I must plan for alternatives.

Suppose I end up stealth camping (or "dispersed" camping, in USFS parlance) somewhere, at the end of a long, hot, hard day.  I would likely have consumed much of whatever water I had started with or acquired during the day and would need more that evening (and night) and the next day.  The next morning, I'd be starting with a significantly depleted supply, and miles to go before a resupply opportunity.  What then?

I have been warned, both explicitly and implicitly, that very small towns may have nothing available for my needs.  The businesses may have failed, leaving empty buildings.  The church may be closed; there may be no fire department or law enforcement or much of anything else.  And they are far, far apart.

Arriving at a boarded-up town after traversing many miles of open country, possibly fighting a strong wind and being broiled under an August sun the entire time, with no water left, only to find that there's nothing there for me and the next place is another many miles farther on would be something between disappointing and disastrous.

It is encouraging to learn you've had better outcomes.  But I note from your journal that it was pre-pandemic.  Some of the towns you passed through, and resources you had available, may now be gone.  I simply don't know, and the not knowing gives me concern.  Still, you have been there and done it; thanks for sharing your journal.

I'm targeting days of 50 to 65 miles at most; anything beyond that will be due to unusual circumstances.  There are a few such in my itinerary but, where I can make choices, I'm opting for lesser distances.