Inuvik to Ushuaia
Pat and Cat
Stop everything right now and go to Pat and Cat's website at www.worldriders2.com to savor their adventure. I hope we can do half as well!
We made it to Tijuana!
Well, we rode into Tijuana, turned around, spent the night, rented a car, and we're on our way home. On the way we picked up our friends Stuart and Chris at the border, loaded 4 bikes and 4 people into a Taurus, and are happily motoring across the desert toward Las Vegas. Our plans are: Las Vegas, Zion National Park, Bryce National Park, Moab (Canyonlands, Arches, Slickrock) and to Grand Junction, Colorado to pick up Nancy's car. Amazing changes! It's shocking to get in a car and go 200+ miles in a few hours!
Our plan for the next leg of the trip: We hope to sell or rent our house as soon as possible and set out on the next leg of the trip (through Mexico and Central America) as soon as January. We aren't sure whether we'll start from where we left off (Tijuana) or just leave from Denver, Albuquerque, or El Paso.
Pacific Coast Route Touring Cyclist Report
The US Pacific Coast is one of the most popular tours in the world. Despite our plans, we ended up doing the whole thing (just under 2000 miles), and I wanted to write a few notes about this incredibly beautiful trip and the wonderful resources that are provided for touring cyclists.
You just can't believe how well-set-up the Pacific Coast is for the touring cyclist. There are books on how to do it, there are wonderful state parks all the way with hiker-biker sites at ridiculously cheap prices and with a shower every night. You never have to buy food ahead of time or plan your food carefully or carry any - there's another town with a nice grocery where you can buy it.
One other unique characteristic: It's so nicely set up for touring cyclists that there are an enormous number of them. And since everybody is in the hiker-biker sites, you get to meet all the touring cyclists. Whereas in the north country we might meet the occasional cyclist, and might end up camping with them, on the coast it's every night you're meeting a bunch of people. It was so intense that there was a night in California that I hid in my tent because I just couldn't seek out the stories of all those people and tell them our story. There were too many. read more here... lee mas aquí... »
Amy Farrell - Biker's angel
Amy really made me wonder about the differences in openness and generosity among people. How can a young mother with little ones at home be so open and generous (and unafraid) as to just invite us home? On the other hand, she's gotten through life this way, so why isn't everybody like this? Anyway, kudos to you (and THANKS), Amy for your openness and generosity to us.
Fill-er-up, Please!
Nancy's loves to pull into a gas station with our bikes and set up to fill the cannister. Sometimes she'll claim that I have a motor on my bike and that's what the gas is for. Other times the station will have a "free donut with fillup" or some such deal. She'll ask if we can have the free donut.
We're HOME after our trip across the western US
We have new pictures of southern California and of our trip across the west on the photos page. Thanks for riding with us!
USA West Coast Route
If you'd rather have a bit more detail, the pdf version is here for the Pacific Coast segment.
USA West Coast Photos
- Washington and Oregon all or slideshow (More Added 9-30-06.)
- Northern California all or slideshow
- Central California all or slideshow
- Southern California all or slideshow
- Road Trip Across the U.S. West: Zion, Bryce, and Arches National Park, and Moab's Slickrock Trail all or slideshow
You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of all our photos...
Our house is sold, the car is sold, we're ready to go
Well, we fly to Phoenix on Saturday the 27th to start our adventure anew! Our house sold (accidentally-we were going to rent it out), our stuff is packed. We have our rabies and Hepatitis B shots. Our finances are in order. We have a place to store our household goods. We're ready to head from Mexico to the bottom of South America!
The website is not updated for the next part of the trip, but I'll get to that eventually.
As I said, we sold our house accidentally. We decided to rent it out and hired a rental manager. They came and put up a sign, and a day or so later our neighbors 5 houses up the street came down and said "can we please, please, please buy your house?" We said yes, and the deal has already closed. Pretty amazing way to sell a house.
I've been selling stuff like crazy on Ebay, Craigslist, and Amazon. Almost all of my technical books are gone, along with old electronics, etc. Normally this stuff just eventually gets thrown away, so I'm pretty happy to be getting a little bike touring money off of it. A $50 sale is at least day of bike touring...
Starting off again - it's all strange and new
It's still the middle of a difficult winter in Denver (no bike riding for us in the last few months) but we flew yesterday to Phoenix, Arizona, to start our ride south. We're starting up again!
As you know, we finished up the first segment of the ride in San Diego/Tijuana in late October, and went home to get our affairs in order for the rest of the ride. We sold our house, sold our car, put everything we kept (not much) in storage, and are ready for a ride of at least two more years to Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America.
We went for a test ride today and it's all strange - the bikes feel different and we feel out of shape. And of course we're threatened by what lies ahead, wondering if we're in good enough shape. As always, we'll try to take it a day at a time.
Our plan is to ride south through Tucson and Patagonia, Arizona, to Nogales, and then enter the Mexican state of Sonora, and head south from there. We hope to go up to Copper Canyon through a new route (coming in from the west) and then we'll down the Mexican heartland toward the Central Valley and Mexico City.
Come along and join us! If you haven't already signed up for the email list, we invite you to sign up at hobobiker.com/subscribe. We're delighted to have you along.
