So I made it to San Francisco in one piece! Well, I guess two pieces, if you count the bike. It has a way of becoming an extension of yourself after two months. Right now we're in San Jose, picked up by friends of Lou from school who moved out here after graduating.
Since the last post we teamed up with another group, this time a father and son, and blew through the last two states. Guy and Miles are from Palo Alto, CA and are riding from Boston to San Francisco. We actually met them pretty much immediately after you last heard from me; when we walked out of the library in Milford we saw two loaded bikes propped up outside and of course had to wait to see who they were. Miles walked out of the restaurant across the street a minute later and we invited them to stay in the house with us to wait out the storm (we figured Eddie wouldn't mind!) We're really lucky to have met them; these are two of the most genuine, kind people I've met and they had us laughing a lot over the last week and a half.
Nevada for us had pretty much two sights to see: desert basins and mountain ranges. Notice how the word "towns" didn't even make the list. We went through exactly one per day and this wasn't because we weren't putting in enough miles; they're just 60-80 miles apart. Aside from the monotonous scenery, Nevada wasn't too hot thanks to the cold front brought in by the dust storm in Milford. I was actually colder during the day in Nevada more often than I'd been on the whole trip, and on a few nights it got pretty frigid. Nevada really wasn't as bad as I was told to expect; I actually found it beautiful (in a lonely, desolate sort of way...) Stayed in a town called Baker, population 52, where the owner of the only restaurant/motel in town lets cyclists camp for free in the backyard. He left us while we were eating dinner to keep an eye on the shop while he stepped out for a few minutes and when he came back said to us in his deadpan voice, "I have to kick you out now, because I have to start drinking."
Had some really good Chinese food (go figure) in a town called Eureka. We were excited when we saw the $3 glasses of wine on the menu, because there are few things more satisfying than a glass of wine after a long ride. I don't know why this didn't cross my mind immediately, but we soon discovered why they were only $3: the wine was pretty watered down, as was the soap in the bathroom in that place and the place in Baker. For an area where you see "Please Conserve Water" signs everywhere, they sure do like to use it in places I wish they wouldn't. The single waiter in the Chinese food place had a little trouble keeping up with all the tables, and when the very thirsty bikers finally got the refills we needed for our waters Miles warned us, "I don't know, guys, this tastes a little watered down."
California was a big change of scenery (trees! streams! other bicycles!) Actually, I think we saw more bikes in the two days in California than we saw in the entire rest of the country combined. The majority of the route after getting into CA was on bike trails or dedicated bike lanes on roads, which was really nice. The four of us stopped along the way yesterday to take a swim in a river that the bike trail was following, and a girl there was so shocked by my tan lines that she yelled to her boyfriend to look. I can't really blame her, because they are pretty appalling.
Started our last day with breakfast at Denny's, rode through the cutest farmer's market ever in Davis, and passed through miles of fruit trees and fields of vegetables before taking the ferry from Vallejo to San Francisco. Before saying goodbye to Guy and Miles we took a little victory lap with them to the sound of "We Are The Champions" coming from my portable speakers that we rigged to my handlebars. Navigating a strange city on a Saturday night was um, interesting, but we made it to the Golden Gate bridge and rode across it all lit up. (Don't worry, we used the bike/pedestrian walkway, fenced off from the car traffic!) I can hardly believe we got here on bicycles, but we have a few days to explore San Francisco and San Jose to let it sink in.
More later, including reflections on the trip.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Day 62: West Sacramento, CA.
Sincerest apologies for the newest break in posts: Nevada was a black hole for cell phone service and apparently eastern California is too. That's right, I'm in California! We're leaving Sacramento this morning and guess where we'll be ending up... SAN FRANCISCO. Today. I'll update you on the last week when I get to a computer, because right now I have to go to Denny's.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Days 52-54: Catch-up of the last few days in "Emergency Calls Only" territory.
Sorry for dropping off the face of the planet again, family and friends. Kansas was the Land of Cell Service (nothing to block the signal... at all) but Utah is apparently not so cell phone-friendly. I usually try to keep posts relatively short to limit the bore factor, but I've got a little more ground to cover on this one.
Miles (all cities are in Utah... yup, we're still there.)
Day 52: Bryce Canyon to nowhere, 40 miles (ugh)
Day 53: nowhere to Cedar City, 45 miles (ugh)
Day 54: Cedar City to Milford, 55 miles (double ugh)
But, thinking more positively: total miles, 3420.
As you can tell by the mileages, lots of unfortunate events have been keeping us from getting the miles done the past few days. Flat tires, steep grades, weather, and time were not our friends this week.
Rode through a town called Panguitch the other day. We were looking forward to that one for a while. Lou and I confessed to each other that we think "Penguin Sandwich" every time the name is mentioned, which I enjoy a lot more than is probably called for, and is almost definitely not as funny to you as it is to us. Had a guy in a truck slow down to offer us a place to stay in town, but we wanted to get a few more miles done for the day. Headed down the road to a campground called White Bridge that you did in fact have to travel over a tiny white bridge to get to. That U.S. Forest Service is pretty creative with the names.
Yesterday started with a long climb after which we dropped off the Colorado Plateau right into Cedar City. That descent was the most fun of all of the long ones we've had; I'm thinking it had to do with the absence of ridiculous headwinds and the ensuing storms that we had during every one in the Rockies. 17 uninterrupted miles of downhill was nice, to say the least. Cedar City is only one of two towns on this whole map (covering 465 miles) that has a bike shop, so I needed to get a new tube while I had the chance. We were disappointed to see that the shop was closed, but as we turned to leave a man opened the door and asked what we needed. When we told him, he solemnly motioned for us to follow and turned back into the store. He set us up with the tube and advised us that camping in the city park would be no problem. We rode over to it and saw a sign indicating that, unlike a lot of city parks we've been through, you're actually not allowed to camp there, but we found a dark corner and it was warm enough not to even set up the tent. Sneaked out this morning before it got light enough to see us, pleased with our stealth camping success.
Today started out looking promising: we got on the road early and even with having to stop to fix Lou's flat rear tire, strong tailwinds got us 40 miles before lunch. A few miles in, a car pulled over to the shoulder and the driver got out. As we passed by he asked us if we needed a place to stay in Milford, which was 55 miles from our starting point that morning. It was really nice to receive such an offer twice in three days, but again we wanted to get as many miles done today as possible (and with such a great tailwind, what was to stop us from being carried 100 or so today?), so we thanked him but had to decline the offer. We were planning on filling up water in Milford, the last town before an 84-mile stretch with no towns or services and camping somewhere along the road again... until we saw the dust storm. That's right, people, a new weather feature decided to make an appearance. It was actually kind of exciting at first, with thick dust making it impossible to see through to the other side and wind blowing the grass and small bushes crazily. We put bandannas over our faces to keep from breathing the dust and kept riding, but as we approached Milford, the road turned West and the crosswind was so strong we had to get off our bikes and walk until the road turned back North. It became pretty apparent that we had to stop when a trucker told us the wind in the next valley we were heading to was worse, and the woman in the post office told us it was supposed to keep up until 3am. During the "should we go on?" conversation, we miraculously ran into Eddie, the guy who'd stopped to offer us a place to stay earlier today. His father owns a house in town that he rents out, but it's vacant at the moment, and Eddie generously offered to let us stay there for the night.
Not happy to be covering so few miles today, but at least we got some in before the storm got bad, and we're way lucky to be meeting such nice people in Utah. They say that Kansas has the nicest people, but I'm pretty sure I've met a higher ratio of nice people to mean people here. Pretty much 100% nice, which is... nice.
Miles (all cities are in Utah... yup, we're still there.)
Day 52: Bryce Canyon to nowhere, 40 miles (ugh)
Day 53: nowhere to Cedar City, 45 miles (ugh)
Day 54: Cedar City to Milford, 55 miles (double ugh)
But, thinking more positively: total miles, 3420.
As you can tell by the mileages, lots of unfortunate events have been keeping us from getting the miles done the past few days. Flat tires, steep grades, weather, and time were not our friends this week.
Rode through a town called Panguitch the other day. We were looking forward to that one for a while. Lou and I confessed to each other that we think "Penguin Sandwich" every time the name is mentioned, which I enjoy a lot more than is probably called for, and is almost definitely not as funny to you as it is to us. Had a guy in a truck slow down to offer us a place to stay in town, but we wanted to get a few more miles done for the day. Headed down the road to a campground called White Bridge that you did in fact have to travel over a tiny white bridge to get to. That U.S. Forest Service is pretty creative with the names.
Yesterday started with a long climb after which we dropped off the Colorado Plateau right into Cedar City. That descent was the most fun of all of the long ones we've had; I'm thinking it had to do with the absence of ridiculous headwinds and the ensuing storms that we had during every one in the Rockies. 17 uninterrupted miles of downhill was nice, to say the least. Cedar City is only one of two towns on this whole map (covering 465 miles) that has a bike shop, so I needed to get a new tube while I had the chance. We were disappointed to see that the shop was closed, but as we turned to leave a man opened the door and asked what we needed. When we told him, he solemnly motioned for us to follow and turned back into the store. He set us up with the tube and advised us that camping in the city park would be no problem. We rode over to it and saw a sign indicating that, unlike a lot of city parks we've been through, you're actually not allowed to camp there, but we found a dark corner and it was warm enough not to even set up the tent. Sneaked out this morning before it got light enough to see us, pleased with our stealth camping success.
Today started out looking promising: we got on the road early and even with having to stop to fix Lou's flat rear tire, strong tailwinds got us 40 miles before lunch. A few miles in, a car pulled over to the shoulder and the driver got out. As we passed by he asked us if we needed a place to stay in Milford, which was 55 miles from our starting point that morning. It was really nice to receive such an offer twice in three days, but again we wanted to get as many miles done today as possible (and with such a great tailwind, what was to stop us from being carried 100 or so today?), so we thanked him but had to decline the offer. We were planning on filling up water in Milford, the last town before an 84-mile stretch with no towns or services and camping somewhere along the road again... until we saw the dust storm. That's right, people, a new weather feature decided to make an appearance. It was actually kind of exciting at first, with thick dust making it impossible to see through to the other side and wind blowing the grass and small bushes crazily. We put bandannas over our faces to keep from breathing the dust and kept riding, but as we approached Milford, the road turned West and the crosswind was so strong we had to get off our bikes and walk until the road turned back North. It became pretty apparent that we had to stop when a trucker told us the wind in the next valley we were heading to was worse, and the woman in the post office told us it was supposed to keep up until 3am. During the "should we go on?" conversation, we miraculously ran into Eddie, the guy who'd stopped to offer us a place to stay earlier today. His father owns a house in town that he rents out, but it's vacant at the moment, and Eddie generously offered to let us stay there for the night.
Not happy to be covering so few miles today, but at least we got some in before the storm got bad, and we're way lucky to be meeting such nice people in Utah. They say that Kansas has the nicest people, but I'm pretty sure I've met a higher ratio of nice people to mean people here. Pretty much 100% nice, which is... nice.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Day 51: Escalante Grand Staircase National Park, UT to Bryce Canyon National Park, UT.
Miles: 45.
Took a short day to spend some time at Bryce Canyon, which Lou has been looking forward to for the whole trip. We were really disappointed by how touristy the park was, and how expensive it was just to get in, but the park is really beautiful; thousands of columns of rocks amid the pink, red and white canyons. The Native American legend of Bryce Canyon is that before there were any Indians, there was a village there of spirits which were really animals but had the ability to make themselves look like people. They did something bad, which supposedly the legend is unclear about, and as a result were turned into stone. Camped in the park and going to take a hike around the canyon this morning before we head out. Sorry this is so boring; nothing much to talk about from yesterday except more rocks and steep climbs.
Took a short day to spend some time at Bryce Canyon, which Lou has been looking forward to for the whole trip. We were really disappointed by how touristy the park was, and how expensive it was just to get in, but the park is really beautiful; thousands of columns of rocks amid the pink, red and white canyons. The Native American legend of Bryce Canyon is that before there were any Indians, there was a village there of spirits which were really animals but had the ability to make themselves look like people. They did something bad, which supposedly the legend is unclear about, and as a result were turned into stone. Camped in the park and going to take a hike around the canyon this morning before we head out. Sorry this is so boring; nothing much to talk about from yesterday except more rocks and steep climbs.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Day 50: Torrey, UT to somewhere past Escalante, UT.
Miles today: we're not done yet, but 66 so far. (Update: it was 74 or 75, can't remember.)
Figured I'd write a post while there was cell service available. Breakfast today was the very first pancakes we've been able to find with real butter and real maple syrup on the whole trip. I couldn't believe it took until Utah, and I don't really know what's wrong with the rest of the country, but margarine and high fructose corn syrup are not where it's at, people! Lunch was not as good an experience as breakfast: expensive, touristy, and we were treated pretty much like an annoyance. I've gotten better treatment at Taco Bell at 2:30am on a Saturday night; if you've been to a college campus at this time of the week ever, you'll know just how much that puts things into perspective.
Pretty much the most intense climbs today since the Appalachians that I loved so much (if only I could express sarcasm over text message...), except on these, I didn't feel the burning need to fall off my bike and die halfway through. I still went ridiculously slow, but hey, not feeling like flinging myself under the nearest Rent-an-RV.com monstrosity is a good sign that I've gotten stronger in the past 7 weeks, right? Went down the Hogback, the most amazing/terrifying experience I've ever had on a bike. This was a narrow two-lane road with no shoulders or guardrails most of the way, and I'm not sure how far down the bottom of the canyon floor was, but I can tell you it was a long, long way down. The views were incredible, but the sinking feeling I got in my stomach looking over the edge was not so much.
Had an interesting and unique experience today: I'm pretty sure we were photographed by a member of the paparazzi. As we stopped to take a picture of the "14% Grade Next 4 Miles" sign at the top of the Hogback, a car stopped right in front of the sign. As we groaned about it having chosen the worst place to stop at that moment, the driver's door opened and a man, his face obscured by a camera, leaned out just long enough to snap our picture without greeting or explanation before shutting the door and driving off. There were a surprising number of French tourists around today, so we were thinking that it was likely a foreigner. I can imagine the travel agents in France telling their clients about what to expect in the American west: "If you're lucky, you'll spot a crazy American riding their bike across the hot desert. You'll be able to identify them by the heavy bags attached to their bikes and the profuse sweating. Be sure to photograph this creature if you see one, but don't get too close, because they smell pretty bad most of the time."
Figured I'd write a post while there was cell service available. Breakfast today was the very first pancakes we've been able to find with real butter and real maple syrup on the whole trip. I couldn't believe it took until Utah, and I don't really know what's wrong with the rest of the country, but margarine and high fructose corn syrup are not where it's at, people! Lunch was not as good an experience as breakfast: expensive, touristy, and we were treated pretty much like an annoyance. I've gotten better treatment at Taco Bell at 2:30am on a Saturday night; if you've been to a college campus at this time of the week ever, you'll know just how much that puts things into perspective.
Pretty much the most intense climbs today since the Appalachians that I loved so much (if only I could express sarcasm over text message...), except on these, I didn't feel the burning need to fall off my bike and die halfway through. I still went ridiculously slow, but hey, not feeling like flinging myself under the nearest Rent-an-RV.com monstrosity is a good sign that I've gotten stronger in the past 7 weeks, right? Went down the Hogback, the most amazing/terrifying experience I've ever had on a bike. This was a narrow two-lane road with no shoulders or guardrails most of the way, and I'm not sure how far down the bottom of the canyon floor was, but I can tell you it was a long, long way down. The views were incredible, but the sinking feeling I got in my stomach looking over the edge was not so much.
Had an interesting and unique experience today: I'm pretty sure we were photographed by a member of the paparazzi. As we stopped to take a picture of the "14% Grade Next 4 Miles" sign at the top of the Hogback, a car stopped right in front of the sign. As we groaned about it having chosen the worst place to stop at that moment, the driver's door opened and a man, his face obscured by a camera, leaned out just long enough to snap our picture without greeting or explanation before shutting the door and driving off. There were a surprising number of French tourists around today, so we were thinking that it was likely a foreigner. I can imagine the travel agents in France telling their clients about what to expect in the American west: "If you're lucky, you'll spot a crazy American riding their bike across the hot desert. You'll be able to identify them by the heavy bags attached to their bikes and the profuse sweating. Be sure to photograph this creature if you see one, but don't get too close, because they smell pretty bad most of the time."
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Days 47-49: Blanding, UT to Torrey, UT.
Miles: 75, 65 and ugh, 50.
Cell phone service, hooray! In the news from the past few days: we broke 3000 miles, we went 128 miles between towns (I have never been so happy to see a convenience store), and I got my first flat of the trip (which dashed my hopes of going the whole way across without one). Actually, Lou got 3 of them the following day, which makes me want to call up Utah and suggest they change their slogan from The Beehive State (I have seen no beehives whatsoever) to The Flat Tire Capital of America. I feel that title would be more accurate and deserved.
The desert came up pretty much immediately after Blanding and we've been seeing some really amazing landforms ever since. I had no idea the geography of Utah was so beautiful, varied, and HUGE. Rocks and water can really do some amazing things.
Met 7 new cyclists, all foreign, from England, Belgium and Germany. We weren't expecting to really meet anyone once we split off the Trans America route, which goes to Oregon and does not include a desert, to follow the Western Express route which definitely does, this late in the season. My theory is that the foreign people didn't have anyone to tell them that the desert in July is really, really hot. The Belgian, a 52-year-old science teacher, apparently has some knowledge of orthopedics and adjusted my wrist for me after we had breakfast together this morning. Super nice guy and we're super lucky to have met him! Today was Lou's birthday and after breakfast with the Belgian (pancakes, not waffles) we came across an organic bakery and coffee house a few miles farther into nowhere. The guy running the place was an interesting sort; went back and forth between being really nice and coming off as kind of a jerk as he bustled around the small kitchen. Later on we discussed our impressions of him and decided that he probably just spends too much time alone baking bread and tending to his plants and his goats. In either case, we had some freshly baked bread, freshly ground and brewed coffee, and freshly made feta cheese courtesy of the goats.
After that, bike trouble plagued both of us for the rest of the day, and we decided to call it a day when we got to Torrey and heard about the bluegrass festival in town tonight. We'd been looking for one the whole trip and I kinda can't believe it took us til Utah to find one. Dealt with the bike trouble, showers for the second night in a row (an unfathomable luxury), and then heading to see some live music.
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