Conclusion
The tour was 44 days, from September 9 to October 22, 2014.
Total distance including missed turns, detours to restaurants, etc., was 2209 miles from Pittsburgh airport to my parents' home in east Fort Worth.
Exhaustion wasn't a problem because I stayed in motels every night and took 8 rest days.
11 U.S. states:
Pennsylvania
Maryland
West Virginia
Virginia
Tennessee
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Texas
5 "new" states:
West Virginia
Kentucky
Missouri
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Now I've done bike tours through 44 of the 50 U.S. states.
7 National Forests:
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Daniel Boone
Shawnee
Mark Twain
Ozark
Ouachita
3 National Parks:
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
Mammoth Cave National Park
Ozark National Scenic Riverways
2 Native American homelands:
Choctaw
Chickasaw
2 Wayne counties.
No flat tires. No mechanical issues that weren't easy to fix.
Warmest day: high of about 90F (32C)
Coldest day: high of about 60F (15C)
Highest elevation: 2900 feet (880 m) at Monterey, Virginia.
Lowest elevation: 290 feet (88 m) at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
I enjoyed most of the tour but Kentucky was my least favorite part. I never felt welcome in Bible Belt towns that had no parks, no coffee shops, no taverns, and no good restaurants.
The tour gave me an interesting transition from "mostly northern" to "very southern" cultures. Also a transition from the lush, green east to the hotter, drier south central U.S.
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