I got home from BAK yesterday afternoon, and it’s really great to be back. The trip was a success and I have a lot to tell about it. I wrote a journal while I was on the trip, and took a whole bunch of pictures with MrPilot’s digital camera. However, I doubt that y’all actually want to read all 19 pages of my journal in one go, and I know for sure that I don’t want to type them all in one day, so here’s how it’s going to work: using a nifty feature of my blog called The Fully adJustable Ordered Replay Device (aka The FJORD), every day at about 8pm CDT, I’ll post the next journal entry and the pictures from that day.

Some notes about the entries. The mileage is what the odometer on my Dad’s bike said, not just what was on the route guide, so it’s even more accurate. The times are from when we started in the morning to when we got to the school at night, so they include all SAG breaks, lunch breaks, tire changes, etc. The average speed uses those times also, so we weren’t actually going as slow as that makes it sound, it’s just an overall average for the entire day. The entries will be presented, for the most part, as I wrote them on that day. So, if I was delirious with exhaustion, it probably won’t make much sense. Any comments that I add in the posting process will be in italics.

The pictures for each day will be posted in the BAK 2005 section of the Photo Gallery, and there will be a link at the bottom of each post for the day’s photos. They will be meant to be viewed in order and will all be captioned. I’d recommend just clicking on the first photo to see it full size and then using the arrows to go to the next one. Thanks to David Wiebe for the elevation charts. Also, there are more photos at the BAK website.

I’ll talk about SAGs quite a bit in the journal, and most of you probably don’t know what they are. SAG stands for Support And Gear. Basically, they were little rest stops about every 10 miles or so on the trip. Every SAG had apples and oranges, animal cookies, pretzels, water, and other goodies to help you out on the trip. Some of the SAGs were themed, like the SAG Hags, which were a group of ladies that had different costumes for each day. I can’t overemphasize how important the SAGs were, you wouldn’t believe how much difference some apples would make after 10 miles of riding in the hot sun. All of the SAGs were simply amazing, they went beyond just giving us supplies and were extremely nice and made the trip fun, often by doing crazy things (I’ve got pictures). SAGs also provided a way out if you needed it. You can “SAG in” and get a ride on the “SAG wagon” to the day’s destination if the ride was just too much for you.

The posting will start tomorrow, and I’ve got 9 days worth of entries. So, stay tuned. :-)