So long bike trip, hello Portland!

Well, we're not on the road anymore. Actually, we stopped about two weeks ago. When we were in LA, we took a hard look at our finances and realized we would have to end the trip early if we wanted to arrive in Portland with any money leftover. We decided we'd take two more weeks, bike up to San Francisco, and rent a car to go up the rest of the way.

But, about 50 miles south of Santa Barbara, I realized that I was done. I think it was the Californian desert that did me in. Well, and also I realized that I was thinking more about all the things I'd need to do to get resettled in Portland than I was thinking about the bike trip. At any rate, I wasn't enjoying myself any more. Thankfully, Dave was very understanding and agreed to stop whenever I wanted.

That's when something amazing happened. When we were in LA, we started sending emails to people about housing in Portland. I told Dave that I wanted to quit over lunch a couple days after leaving LA. We decided to stop at a library on the way to the next town to look up car rental info. When we checked our email, we had a reply from one of the people we'd written to about an apartment. It was my old college roommate, who happened to be living in Portland and looking for people to rent the basement apartment in the house she's living in. Out of all the listings that we'd read, hers was one of the few we actually responded to. So that's where we're living now. It turned out to be a huge space with lots of windows and pretty views. It was so nice to have a place to come to when we drove into town. So now we're looking for jobs. I've applied to six laboratory jobs, as well as countless retail and food service positions. Portland is beautiful. I'm so excited about living here. It's very bike friendly. Anyway, I'm going to do one more post of pictures, then I guess it's goodbye Milkweed.

Thank you to everyone who helped us out along the way. Whether inviting us into your home for a night or for nine long months (Nate and Erika, I'm looking at you), we couldn't have done it without you. This was an amazing adventure. I'm so grateful that I was able to do it. Thanks for reading the blog and giving us support and encouragement. I enjoyed reading everyone's comments. Maybe we'll get this thing up and running again in the future when we head out for Bike Trip Round Two: Return to the West Coast.

Happy Halloween!

The past few days happened really quickly. So there we were in the Californian desert. We had about four more days and a 4,000 ft climb between us and San Diego. We had planned on visiting David's cousin Chris and his wife Darnell when we got to San Diego. But, luckily we checked our email before starting those last four days. Chris, who is in the military, was leaving in two days. So, we rented a car and drove to San Diego. Although I felt a bit of remorse about not biking the whole way, I didn't mind skipping those mountains. They looked scorching hot. They had no trees, just rocks.

So, we stayed with Chris and Darnell for three nights. Then we started making our way up the coast. Hooray for the ocean! It's so nice to see it again. And to be in a reasonably cool place with lots of breezes.





Now we're in LA. Isn't that crazy? Chris and Darnell actually lived about 30 miles north of San Diego, so it only took us 2 days to get to LA from there. We're staying with Dave's friend Erin while we're here. Erin is a resident adviser at a music school downtown, so we're staying right in the heart of the city. It's amazing. We're trying to figure out what we want to do today.



Here's a picture of the Imperial Sand Dunes. It was very strange. We were riding through desert all day, then suddenly we were in the Sahara. Then after a mile or two, *poof*, back to the desert.


This is a purple prickly pear cactus. I put a different picture of it in my last post, but you can't really tell that it's purple. I'm hoping this one will turn out better.

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you're all dressed up in amazing costumes. Dave and I are going to be fitness unicorns.

Almost to San Diego

We made it to California! It's funny, now that we're only four days away from San Diego and the coast, it feels like time is slowing down and it's taking forever to get anywhere. Well, maybe it also feels that way because it's so freaking hot. The high for today is 103, so we decided to take a rest day.

oh, shoot, they're closing the library ...

Arizona

Yesterday we made it into Arizona. We camped that night under tall pine trees. The next day, after only a mile of biking, we were out of the forest and into the desert again. We started the day with 14 miles of almost uninterrupted downhill. Glorious. We had a good climb after that, but then another big downhill. Tonight we're staying at a casino campground. We're going through an Apache reservation. Then, we'll hopefully make it into Phoenix by Friday.

We're in New Mexico now. I'm very pleased to be out of Texas. New Mexico is magical .... and very steep. We made it over the highest point on the trip, Emory Pass. It was an intense day. We climbed about 4000 ft over 34 miles. It started out as a gradual uphill. That turned into bigger, rolling hills. Then, we gained 2000 ft over the last 8 miles. It was steep and neverending and cold by the time we reached the top. The next day was amazing, though. That night we camped at a primitive site a couple miles from the pass, so the next morning we started out with a beautiful downhill going through pine forests. I loved being surrounded by trees. The past couple of days we've been going through different parts of the Gila Wilderness Area. It's gorgeous. I'd like to come back and do some backpacking around there. I loved it because it reminded me alot of forests in the Smokies, but then I'd see a cactus right beside a pine tree. It's really fascinating. We also went to the Gila Cliff Dwellings and hotsprings. I'll tell you, if I had a hotspring at the end of every day of biking ..... well, it'd be nice.

This is part of the road we took up to Emory Pass. We weren't even at the top when I took this picture.

We crossed the continental divide twice in the past three days. The elevation there is 6599 ft.

I'd been seeing these plants all over the place, but this is the first one I saw in bloom.

Looking up at the cliff dwellings.

View from inside the cliff dwellings.

Birthdays, big hills, and broken wheels

So we're on our 9th week of the tour soon, with only two weeks or so left until we're in San Diego, and we're just beginning to see other cyclists on the roads. I guess the very first groups we ran into were just east of El Paso, and we barely had time to wave really, but now that it's getting more into the proper season for riding the southern tier (Ie. the season that neither heat nor monsoons will try to kill you) we're seeing people out nearly every day. We had our first decent pow-wow with another couple of cyclists last night. They are both great people and I hope to keep in touch with them, even if it's just reading their blogs. One of them is a woman named Dorit, who I really only got to kind of brush past in conversation, s she really took to Julia. The coolest thing about Dorit, besides the German accent and that unabashed willingness to share one's opinion that many of the Europeans I've met travelling have exhibited, was that she has this way of completely contradicting something that you say or criticizing something that you do, without being, in even the slightest sense of the word, offensive. I'm not sure if it's a function of her demeanor or tone of voice, or if it's that she has generally great intentions behind whatever she says, but I feel like she could tell that my entire life is a mistake in a way that still left me feeling pretty good about our encounter as a whole. Which isn't to say that she's an overly, or even overtly, critical person. It's more to say that she's a wonderful conversationalist. Anyways, she befriended a bicycle messenger named Justin from San Francisco at a BMA fundraiser and convinced him to be her support driver on tour. I'm not sure how much convincing, if any, was actually needed. Those are the kind of details that escape in brief encounters I guess. He was cool too, which is probably cliche to say about bicycle messengers, as nobody really expects them to be anything else. But I guess if you have to be seen as a stereotype, the fit hip bike messenger is not a bad one to be stuck with. Anyway, we had dinner and drank beers and geeked out on politics, future plans, and odd gearing designs for a few hours. Also, Dorit, if you're reading the post, thanks so much for the hospitality. We definitely owe you a dinner next time around. Maybe home-cooked gumbo someplace on the west-coast?

By the way, this has all been happening in Silver City, the night following the last of our climbs out of the Gila Forest. The mountains here are amazing, and nearly unforgiving, not so much in the steepness of the grade, but the duration of the climb and the thinness/coldness of the air at the top. We're acclimated now, and at lower elevation, but the first day in this area, which I count as the day we climbed to Emory pass, there were definitely times when I felt like I couldn't breathe enough, and that the road would never stop going up, that around every corner, there would be another gradual .2 mile long climb. Coming down the mountain was pretty sweet though. the eastern side had very few sharp turns, so I was able to make them with slowing to very much below 20mph, and all this time we were surrounded by canyons and gorges the monkey in us all can't help but want to tumble into and live in, eating prickly pears, grubs, and stream water.

Here's a picture of Julia topping a hill on the way to the Gila Hot Springs.

Ha Ha, tricked you. It's a picture of our birthday cake in Las Cruces. It's amazing that it's in one piece (the cake, I mean, not the picture) because we had to ride with it bungee corded to my rear rack for about three miles over potholes that night. We made ourselves so sick. Happy birthdays to us.

Here's the real picture of Julia topping the hill.

Pretty incredible, huh?

Anyways, tying up loose ends, Mom, Erika and Nate, if you do manage to come out west and meet up with us on tour, that'd be killer! Maybe LA? Wine country? Who knows if the wineries are still doing their thing for tourists in winter?

If not, then maybe Portland, or wherever we settle. I'm hoping to be able to save up for a plane ticket back to Rochester for a weekend at some point. Maybe we could all come west on the same flight?

Also, Ally and Everett (sorry if I misspelled) We have a bunch of pictures from the cliff dwellings for you, but we don't have an email address. if you want, you can call us and leave it as a message.

okaybyefornow,

david

p.s. Gale, thanks for hosting us in Silver City, and for the cork ribbon, and for the chocolate bar you just opened. yum.

It's been such a long time, I don't know where to start. When I last posted we were still in the Texas hill country. We got to camp in this beautiful canyon park called Lost Maples State Wilderness Area. I guess there used to be alot of maple trees throughout that part of Texas. Now there aren't many left at all. Although the hill country was pretty green, the only trees I saw were cedars and live oaks. But there are a bunch of maples trees down in this canyon. We trotted our bikes over a 0.7 mile trail to camp in a primitive site. The site was amazing. It was right beside this swimming hole. So pretty.

A couple days later we camped at Cooksey Park. It was interesting to me because it kinda felt like it came out of the fifties or sixties. Our campsite was sectioned off from the other sites by flowering bushes. There were tons of flowers everywhere that someone had planted and cute covered picnic tables.

Two days after that, we made it into Del Rio. Biking into Del Rio, the landscape looked like this:

Biking out of Del Rio it turned into this:

Suddenly, we were in the desert. In the hill country we had nice views, but we couldn't see very far. In the desert, the landscape is huge. We'll be biking along the road and we can see were it goes for miles ahead. It feels like forever to get anywhere because we can see so much. In the picture below you can see pretty much the whole train in the distance.

We went right along the Mexican border for a day or two. We saw the Rio Grande.

The views these past few days have been really amazing. At one point I came around a curve and the view made me feel like I was in a biking magazine. It's just incredible. I have to say, when we were planning the trip I wasn't at all excited about Texas. Every other state, I was excited about. But Texas seemed like it would be long and boring. However, Texas has been a blast. It's a gorgeous state. And it seems like every day the landscape changes a little. I love that. Louisiana was pretty boring for me because it was so flat and the view never changed much. But Texas ......

Anyway, yesterday we biked through the Davis Mountains. We made it over the highest point thus far. I think it might be the second highest point on the route. It was a little over 6000 ft. The climb was definitely difficult. It was pretty steep and just went on and on. But, we made it and we didn't have to walk our bikes, so I'm happy. Tonight we're recovering in a motel. It's pretty good.

Just a few more pictures:

This was before our big ascent. We got to try and guess which one of the mountains in the distance we'd be climbing.

In Kentucky the grass is blue and in Texas it's pink. Go figure.

This was coming out of the Davis Mountains. We went through a sort of canyon with hills like this on either side of us. It was so pretty and so different.

Well, I'm off. We should be in El Paso by Monday.

The Lost Videos

Here's one of the missing videos from my last post. It's sideways, so you'll either have to pick up the moniter and put it on it's side when you watch it, or else get really drunk.

I'll post the other one later. The library is about to close and it takes a long time to upload video. Adios Muchacho/as.

lots of pictures

This is a rabbit we found in Austin.


Dave got this shot of the Austin skyline.


Much like a crow or raccoon, I find myself drawn to shiny objects, like glowy balls hanging from trees.

This was east of Austin on a tiny road connecting two state parks. It reminded me a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Who'd have guessed that the world's smallest Catholic church is hidden away in Texas?

This is the alter.

These are the pews.

Funny looking cactus.

It's been awhile,

I have a lot to catch you guys up on. First off, we made it out of the wilderness unscathed. It was a crazy day, though. We got hit with a thunderstorm very suddenly in the afternoon. It was so scary. It felt like lightning was striking all around us. There was nowhere around for us to go, so Dave and I jumped off our bikes and huddled under the rainfly. Luckily, after about 15 minutes a passing roadcrew picked us up. They hauled us and our bikes about a half mile to what they told us was a restaurant. When we got there, the place was all dark and closed up and said "Outreach Center" on the door. Even though there was a porch with a couch on it, I was too scared by the lightning to stay outside (I'm telling you, it looked like it was hitting 200 ft away from us. Scariest storm ever.). So, I pushed the door open and let myself in. Inside, I found a small group of women sitting around a table with a bunch of candles lit. I thought I'd walked into a seance. But, it turns out that the outreach center serves as a restaurant once a week. The women were working at the restaurant when the power went out. The ladies were very nice and let us stay inside with them to wait out the storm. It probably lasted another hour. After that storm we decided we didn't want to sleep by the side of the road. We ended up riding 60 miles that day to make it into the next town.

Our next unexpected adventure happened a couple days after that. We'd been riding for about 5 miles and were going through a little town, when we decided to stop at a gas station and fill my back tire. The air pump wouldn't work, and Dave was worried it might be because of my valve. We went to another gas station down the road and that time the air pump did work. Excited, I rode away without a second thought. After making it 15 miles past the town, in the hot sun and on a bumpy road, Dave noticed that I was missing one of my pannier bags. We'd left it at the second gas station from when we filled the tire. That bag had our tent in it, as well as my sleeping bag and sleeping pad and all my spare parts. So, we went back for it. Along the way, of course, I broke a spoke. Which wasn't catastrophic, just annoying and a waste of time. But, after a grueling two hours or so, we made it back into town. My bag was still there, thank goodness. However, this minor inconvenience added 30 miles to our day, making it a 70 mile day for us. So, to answer that persistent question of how many miles we're averaging per day, I'd say it varies. There are a lot of factors that play into it.

But, those two days have been the hardest days on the trip for me. Other than that, it's been really great. This past Saturday we made it into Austin. Austin was such a blast. We stayed with a guy we met on warmshowers.com . It's a website where people offer to host touring cyclists. Our host, Carl, was great. He let us sleep on his couches, drove us all around so we could take care of some bike maintenance stuff, gave us directions to everywhere we wanted to go, and was in general just a good sport about sharing his space, friends, and food with us. I really enjoyed experiencing the city that way. Whenever I stay in a hotel or even a hostel, the city I'm visiting starts feeling cold and kinda lifeless after awhile. Staying with locals kind of puts the city in context for me. That being said, I liked Austin. It reminded me of Asheville, but on salsa-flavored steroids. Dave and I got to spend one day just sight-seeing. We got brunch at a local vegetarian restaurant. We went swimming at Barton Springs Pool. I had never heard of it before. It's a 3-acre pool with a natural bottom that's fed by underground springs. The water is 68 degrees year-round. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

We also saw the bats. Austin is home to one of the largest bat colonies in the world. There are approximately 1.5 million bats living underneath one of the bridges in Austin. Every night around dusk the bats emerge. Likewise, every night people crowd around the bridge to see the bats emerge. It was a crazy sight. There were just so many bats. We watched for about 30 minutes before leaving, and bats were still coming out. It was a sight.

So, that's the news. We're now officially in the Texas Hill Country. It's beautiful. The riding is definitely more strenuous, but it's a nice change of pace. The views totally make it worth it.

"Dude, May I call you Dude?"

Okay, so I spent a really long time, writing a really long post at the last library, where I thought I had deleted it. I was surprised, no, elated, when I got to this library, to find that it had been saved on Bloggers' website. I finished it, tried to select all of it to copy to another program to spellcheck, and ended up deleting the whole thing. Dang it. This time, everyone gets misspellings and typos

Anyway, to begin again, the title of this post, "Dude, May I call you Dude" is a quote from Carl B., whom we were staying with in Austin. I Just realized it's also a quote from The Big Lebowski, or at least it may be, but it was still awesome. Anyways, He's a really host, bike-mechanic, and tour guide, and both Julia and I are indebted to him and his friends for all their hospitality.

This is a picture of me with his very sweet dog, Beaus (or Bo?):

Anyway, Austin is an incredible city. I was afraid I wouldn't leave, pretty much until we were a good 30 miles out of town. They have a public swimming area called Burton Springs, which is fed by an underground freshwater spring. It has man-made sides that look like a normal square swimming pool, but it also has a mossy rock bottom full of seaweed and mud. Also it's 60 degrees year round. We were thankful for the cold.

Later on that day, we went to the Southern Congress ave. area, and it was cute. it reminded me of West Asheville. I took these videos there. The first is of a spinning cupcake atop an airstream trailer that sells, you guessed it, cupcakes. The second is of a cowboy with a neon rope riding a jack-rabbit. I loved Austin.

Anyway, I'll end this post by saying that we're heading through hill country right now, and have already seen some pretty incredible hill tops and such, even though the highest part is yet to come. In fact I'd say that Central Texas and the Hill country have been the prettiest areas we've been through. not to mention the nicest smelling. Twice now, the air has been so hot that it's heated up fallen pine needles and still standing cedar trees like potpourri in a burner. The resulting smell is pretty fantastic, and I'm sure it would be easy to miss in a car. It's been hard for me to notice unless I'm stopped and there's nothing else around.

As for the climbs that we've been dreading, they haven't been that bad. We're at the lowest load weight possible right now, so that helps, but the heat is pretty ridiculous. It's usually over 90 from about 1pm to about 6pm. Today we've spent a good chunk of that time inside, and we may continue to take that tack in coming days if possible.

Alright, I guess that's all I have. Let's see if it gets erased or not before I get a chance to post it.

Gustav

So we made it west of Gustav's path. I guess that's pretty much all I have to say for now. Except thgat we broke 400 miles this week! Crazy. Also, I'm adding a link on the sidebar to a 501c3 group that I've worked with in the past, in case anyone who sees the blog wants to make a donation, or just check out the work they do. I know most of you are family and friends who are checking in to see how we're progressing, but as we move further along, I may be giving the blog address out to folks who are interested in what charity we support.
Allright, catch ya' later dudes

David

Day 11: Into the Wilderness

So, for the past two days we've been biking on big, (mostly) four-lane highways. I hate it. It's really hot and having semi's zoom past me at 70 mph isn't much fun. (Although, when they do zoom past me sometimes they make this gust of air that pushes me along, and that's kinda nice.)



See, it's big and I'm dubious. However, today we're supposed to be moving back to the smaller roads I love. We're also heading out of civilization and into the boonies. I mean the mega-boonies. There are no motels or campsites for the next 60 miles. Yup, we're gonna be on the side of the road tonight. But, that's okay. Maybe we'll luck out and find some amazing spot.

The night before last we were staying in a motel in Kirbyville, TX. The family running the motel had this big garden in the narrow space behind the motel. It was so neat. They had tomatoes, okra, chili's, eggplants, and more. It made me so happy to see.



There's one of the baby eggplants they were growing. So far, the people in Texas have been really nice to us. The lady running the RV Park we were staying at last night gave us brochures for Austin and even made a few calls for us this morning, trying to find a campground for us to stay in. Yea for nice people!



This is our alcohol stove. I had never used an alcohol stove before this trip, but I am completely converted. This stove is amazing. As you can see from the picture, it's already boiling. It's so fast! Maybe it's just because it's already so hot out, but this stove boils in no time.

David is the official cook of this trip. I'm the navigator. So, if we end up lost in Oklahoma or something, that's my bad.

we made it to Texas

Today we officially made it into Texas. I took a picture of the Welcome to Texas sign, but this library won't let me post pictures. We're staying at a motel tonight. Hooray! It was so hot while we were biking today. It's always warm, but it usually gets better when I'm biking. I create my own personal breeze. So anyways, I think some air conditioning is going to do me good.

We spent yesterday and the night before at the Merryville Historical Museum. They offer free camping on their property, as well as bathrooms and showers. The people there were so friendly. We had three people come by and offer us cold drinks and show us around the museum and this log cabin from the 1800s that's on the property. Seeing it, I kept thinking about the Little House on the Prairie books. I read them all when I was a kid. In a way, I feel a little bit like a pioneer. Is that corny? There's just something about heading west with all our possessions on our bikes. I feel like I'm riding a horse sometimes. Especially when my saddle creaks and I'm moving at a steady pace.

Tomorrow we're heading to Silsbee, TX. I'm eager to see the change in the landscape as we move farther into Texas. Already we've been seeing pine forests and larger trees. Through most of Louisiana we were surrounded by fields and smaller vegetation. I'm looking forward to a change.

checking in, Texas bound

So we're in Merryville, LA, on rt 190, a few scant miles away from texas, and the people here are as nice as can be. When I talk to people in cities about decentralizing communities, I always feel a little bit like a liar, in that I want to believe we could manage ourselves in smaller communities, but, secretly, I don't. This sort of town makes the prospect seem a little more possible.
Anyways, today we only have a breif post for you, because I'm not entirelysure the computer here will work long enough to puiblish it. So anyways, now if we go missing, you know where to start looking, not that that will actually happen.
Does composite board count as wood? I hope so, cause it's all I had to knock on just then.
Okeedoke, until the next time,
David.

it's finally happening

Whoa, we're on the bike trip.



We started on Tuesday, August 19th in New Roads, Louisiana. It was an eventful first day. We huddled in a ditch by the side of the road trying to wait out a rain storm. It never stopped raining, though, so we biked on to a town that offers free camping in one of their public parks. It was at this campsite that I first encountered fire ants. I had heard of them before, but I guess I just thought all red ants were fire ants and they weren't that big of a deal. But no, fire ants attacked one of my feet and it hurt. Not a whole bunch, but more than an ant bite should. The real surprise came the next day, though, when these red pimple-looking bumps showed up all over my foot. Dave told me they act like poison ivy, in that the poison spreads when the bumps are opened.

It's been pretty, though. We followed the levies down the Mississippi for most of the first day. We've seen alot of fields and some forested areas.

I'm still a little shell shocked. Every day (more like a couple times a day) I suddenly realize that I'm actually on the bike trip. It's happening. This is it. Which is kind of a mixed bag of emotions. I'm really excited that it's happening. No more saving up, working a job I knew wasn't right for me, putting off grad school and the GREs and all that. Whenever I got really stressed out with all that stuff I would tell myself I was doing it for the bike trip, it was only temporary. But now I'm on the bike trip, so when things get hard (and wet), I just have to deal with it. I don't have any magic phrase to repeat to myself. Also, I expected the bike trip to be this incredible journey, and I think it will be. But it takes awhile to get out of the normal daily routine mindset. I've spent the last three days pedalling and eating and walking through tiny grocery stores looking for the bathroom. That's it. I like it, but it's going to take some getting used to.