hello!! i'm home!! yay! we got home yesterday around 11am. i haven't really unpacked yet, but i have showered... twice. i fell asleep on the couch last night around 9:30 or 10 while billy and mike were playing video games. i got up after about an hour and went to my bed. i slept until 10 this morning. it felt good to sleep in my own bed again. my cat stayed nuzzled up close to me all night. i think he missed us.

it's good to be home... but some part of me wants to go out and do it again right now. or at least get on my bike and just go ride down the street or something. it just feels so wierd to not be riding my bike now...i haven't been on it since we got off of the golden gate bridge... not even to ride around san francisco or anything. it was kind of an abrubt ending to the trip... that i hadn't really expected... i wasn't really thinking about it.

biking up and down the pacific coast was really hard but i'm so glad that i did it. and i'm really glad that mike and i kept going after nick took off. i don't think i've ever done something so painful, but so rewarding at the same time, before. it's so hard to explain.... i wanted to go home so bad so many times... and i was really looking forward to coming home when we got to san francisco, but i totally want to do it again.... i can see why people get so into this and go every year.

during our trip i didn't think i'd really changed much... it just felt like a trip... like any vacation... only with a lot of work involved. but i feel really different now.

i'm totaly inspired.

today is Saturday... i'm pretty sure. i have no idea what the date is, but i know that i'm in Bandon, Oregon, at the public library. it's raining outside. mike just fixed my 5th flat tire. i'm really tired. and cold. and hungry.

i can't think of anything else to say.

Originally posted at proj: pedal...

06/16 - 7:00 pm [day 18] After eating lunch at Subway, Amanda gets a pinch-flat on her rear tire... we stop in the parking lot of a car-wash to replace the tube.

7:45 Three miles outside of Florence Amanda gets a second pinch-flat on her rear tire… we very carefully replace the tube again and keep our finger’s crossed...

8:15 Several miles later Amanda’s second tube is leaking air – out of desperation we begin to pump air into the tube and ride and fast as possible until it goes too flat... we do this several times.

We are now in the middle of nowhere, 40 miles south of North Bend & Coos Bay – the closest bike shop – the sun has gone down, we are forced to start walking the bikes...

9:15 After an hour of walking/ attempting to flag someone down, Kevin [who is driving a giant diesel truck with a 30-some foot trailer behind it] pulls over and saves the day... we explain our situation – and he offers to throw our bikes onto his trailer and give us a ride to North Bend... if you're reading this Kevin, thank you very much for helping us out.

10:30 We’ve been in North Bend for about 10 minutes, the bike shop is on our left and a park with bathrooms & two pavilions – both with three walls, one with a working fire place – things are starting to look up for us... just then a couple pulls up in a Bronco and asks if we mind them joining us while they eat, they tell us they were married in this same spot two years & six months ago... before we can really say anything or offer to move our stuff and give them some privacy, they flick on the pavilion lights and a cop pulls into the parking lot... our cover is blown and our night goes back to being shitty as usual...

1:30 am After sitting around in the shadows for an eternity we decided it was safe to crash in the park after all... we both have the best night’s sleep of the trip so far...


06/17 – 9:30 am [day 19] We walk across the street in the rain to the bike shop, we are hoping that Amanda’s flats are due to a slight wobble, we get the spokes trued and – just to be safe – the bike mechanic puts in a new tube... he says nothing looked wrong with the tire besides the very, very slight wobble.

Which makes this the second time we’ve gone to a bike shop only to be told “nothing seems wrong...”

11:30 We decide to get out of the steady rain and eat at ‘King’s Buffet’ [the same buffet I stopped at for lunch in Coos Bay four years ago during my first trip]...

11:35 It stops raining outside, the sun starts to poke through the clouds...

11:39 It’s pouring rain again...

1:00 pm We are finally on the road with a very, very late start – it’s pouring rain heavier than it was when we first went into the buffet, we head out of town on the ‘101’ for Bandon [20 miles south] with hopes of the rain letting up eventually...

1:45 The rain has shifted from “heavy” to “torrential downpour” – we stop on the side of the road for a second to double wrap my GL2 with two garbage bags on top of the two zip locks its already slipped into...

An extremely nice female state-trooper pulls up and asks us if we are okay or needed any help...

2:00 we are slowly making our way up a 500’ish foot hill with a river of rain water pouring back down along the curb. My shoes way ten times their normal weight. Every car/ truck/ RV that speeds past us with out a care or an ounce of consideration covers us a mist of mud and water...

3:00 “torrential downpour” times 2...

3:15 Going up yet another hill – Amanda’s back tire goes flat, we pull over in the pouring rain to try and pump some air into, hoping to make it the last 5 miles into town. While running across the road I realize for the first time I have no feeling what-so-ever in my feet...

The tube doesn’t come close to holding any air. We begin walking our bikes.

4:30 It’s been four miles on foot in the pouring rain – out of the hundreds of people who have passed us on the side not a single one bothered to even ask us if we were okay or if needed to use their cell phone for help...

We come across a state-park and wander around until we find the bathrooms – we very, very, very carefully replace the tire-tube and decide to haul-ass the last mile into town.

5:00 We arrive in Bandon and coast into the shopping center looking for a phone book & a laundry mat. We find two bikers outside the laundry mat – the same two bikers we passed days before outside of Hebo...

We small-talk for a minute before Amanda & I run over to the grocery store to slip out of our water-soaked cloths and into something dry.

They wander down to the deli to eat...

8:30 Our cloths are finally done – Amanda and I feel warm for the first time in what seems like forever, the two bikers come back to say hello & goodbye - they have to get to Eureka, CA by the 19th and they are very behind schedule, so they are hoping to hitch a ride south. They tell us their names are Sky and Carla and I give them a link to the website so they can let us know if they made it to Eureka or not... we say our goodbyes.

9:00 They both come back into the laundry mat and Sky starts talking to a guy about letting them crash on his hotel-room floor - Amanda, Carla and I talk for a half-an-hour.

[I need to finish this post up, there are people waiting for computers...]

Long story short, Sky and Carla were amazing – the four of us sat on the side walk outside the laundry mat and ate pizza and talked until 10:30 – I wish we could have hung out more, I’m sure by now they are half-way to Eureka... where I hope it’s not half as rainy out as it is here [and from the weather it looks like it’s not going to let up for at least a week].

I’ll more about Sky and Carla later I’m sure – we took a few pic’s of them and I more to say but I just don’t have the time. Wish us luck, we’ll need it just to get out of this town with out blowing a tire-tube.

Originally posted at proj: pedal...

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve last posted – I assumed it wouldn’t be next to impossible to come across a library more than once a week, I was wrong. This is the first library I’ve seen in forever that has “normal” hours, the past few days we’ve been desperately trying to post and have come across place after place that didn’t open until noon, or didn’t open at all on sundays & mondays… but here I am – I have 39 minutes remaining – and there is so much to talk about I don’t know where to begin:

I’m at a library in Newport, Oregon at the moment – Amanda and I have been running around all over town trying to find somewhere [that doesn’t charge $16 per CD] to upload or burn our digital camera’s memory card… this apparently is easier said than done.


Last night we spent the night at Devil’s Lake State Park in Lincoln City terrified we were going to be swept away into the ocean by a giant tsunami - every person we passed on the way through downtown stopped to frantically warn us of the massive earthquake off the coast of California… but it turned out to be all hype.

I don’t have my notes or journal [that’s right, I said journal, I’m secure enough to admit it] in front of me and I seem to be drawing a blank as to what to update everyone on… things have been going great so far, our train ride to Seattle was five hours late pulling into the station – we were dropped off around 4 in the morning with our bikes wrapped up in boxes and no place to sleep. Amanda took a nap on the station benches while I rebuilt/ re-packed our bikes.

Then it was all downhill from there – wait, make that all downhill after breakfast at a small diner called Mimi’s [I think] on the corner of Denny and 1st… our pancakes with over-easy eggs, sausage and bacon was heaven on earth – but right after that, that’s when things got crazy. To sum up the experience – Washington is full of jerks who either a) can’t stand sharing their shoulder-less roads, or b) have a natural hatred for bicyclist… it’s a toss up.

But there was John, we met John at a gas station in Federal Way and ended up talking for an hour about more bicycler-friendly routes and the big annual Seattle to Portland ride… John has done it every year for the last ten years – he seemed very dedicated and nice and eager to help us crazy-young-kids.


Well, I’ve got to be going – I know this is short but it’s almost 3 o’clock and I’ve got to get something to eat before hitting the roads again, the last day and half have been fairly easy on us [with the exception of one 752 foot climb we encountered yesterday] but tonight we are in for some much-more challenging hills/ mountains… both our knees have been a bit “creaky”, so hopefully we don’t overdue it.

On a closing note – I’m listening to ‘Good Feeling’ by the Violent Femmes while I’m writing this… it’s been days since I’ve really listened to anything but waves and wind – if you have this song, I highly recommend you put it on, turn it up, lay down and close your eyes… [ahhh] well, “break time” is over for me – wish us luck, “San Francisco here we come”.

If you're a Futurama fan (and who isn't?) then you'll be very interested to hear that FOX has loosened it's grip on it's inexplicable boycott of this groundbreaking and Emmy award-winning show. The top guys at FOX were extremely impressed with the sales of the Futurama DVDs and so the idea being discussed right now is to make a Futurama movie direct to DVD with the distinct possibility of a 2nd and a 3rd. Fox and producer David X. Cohen are trying to figure out a budget for the whole project, but ultimately I think the final decision is going to rest on how well the upcoming collection, Futurama: Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection coming out on August 23, does. So, everyone go buy it. It's only going to be four episodes I believe (Hell Is For Other Robots, Anthology Of Interest 1 [hilarious], Roswell Than Ends Well [Emmy award], The Sting [very touching]), so it should be fairly cheap. Well, anyway, here's to hoping that it's the first step to bigger and better things (Hey, it happened for Family Guy). Until next time, 01100101 01101110 01101010 01101111 01111001 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01000110 01110101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100001 01101101 01100001 !

Alright. For those of you who are a bit curious as to the progress of the three wise...guys traveling afar, let me give you a quick update. I received a phone call from our wayward travelers a little earlier tonight. Apparently, they've spent the better part of the last day making about half the time they should be due to strong seasonal winds not-so-gently kissing their frontsides (and not in a good way). This has precipitated a slight change in plans. Stay with me on this: Since this frontal wind has been a bit of a deterrent, the only way to avoid it is to travel in the other direction, right? So, our heroes are going to spend tonight in a hotel, followed by a full day's trip back in the other direction to catch a train somewhere between 8-11:30p.m. tomorrow night. They're going to travel to their final destination, which I believe is Seattle, rest, and then start the next day traveling south back towards home, so that the harsh winds are comfortably kissing their...umm, backsides. Time permitting, they may attempt to travel the entire way home, but at this point it would seem that the trio's journey will end around San Francisco with a small chunk of a car ride home. Man, all of their well laid plans and hard work compromised by heavy winds. That really bl...You know what? No. I'm not going there. I'll just say that I pray that the rest of their trip is a much more satisfying experience and leave it at that. Hope you're having fun, guys.

Originally posted at Project Pedal...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post - I stopped by the library in Santa Barbara to update everyone where we were at and how we were doing, but there was a ten minute max on the computers with internet access and on-top of that, it took three minutes alone for the browser to load the blogger page. Not to mention some homeless-guy behind me was wandering around mumbling something about "donkey-dicks"... needless to say I didn't get to far.

Now, I don't have a lot of time to get into a whole post at the moment, we are running very behind today - this morning Nick had to stop at the 'Marian urgent-care' in Santa Maria due to a wicked bee sting from two days ago - this morning his foot & ankle were about twice their normal size. But we are back on the road now and in a small town called 'Nopomo', which is in the middle of endless strawberry fields.

Here's the cliff-notes version of our trip so far...

[day one] Santa Monica to "the rocks" - about 40 mi.
* Saw a guy on a road-bike slam on his brakes to avoid nailing a kid (who wasn't watching where he was going)... the guy flipped forward over his handles, it looked very painful.
* I saw a state-park truck at 'Leo Carrillo' slam into a car that was pulling out of a parking spot.
* Nick got a flat tire 50 feet into the bike trip...
* I also saw a 3-car fender-bender while Nick was fixing his flat...
* We had to soak our fire/pile-of-sticks with wd-40 to get it to catch, it was a very cold and very windy night...
* We all slept on a cement-slab that was slightly slopped... we all woke up in the morning two-feet further down the slop (which put all of our feet into loose rocks)...
* saw the old-guy from "Burbs"

[day two] "the rocks" to 4-miles south of 'Carpinteria' - about 40 mi.
* Spent four hours in Oxnard at the old-country buffet & walmart, I bought a bike-helmet and a long sleeve grey shirt.
* got a terrible, terrible sunburn on my arms, left leg and face...

[day three] 'Carpinteria' to 'Gaviota' - ???
* Nick got stung by a bee...
* Went to the Amtrak station in 'Santa Barbara' to see the countries largest fig tree, it was amazing - it gives 500 feet of shade, I had to walk 200-some feet back just to get it all in the camera (and that was with the wide-angle lens).
* saw some oil rigs off the coast of Gaviota...
* We walked up to the clock-tower in the Santa Barbara courthouse.
* a nice guy outside of the Ralph's gave us directions to the library and also told us that the tunnel we were a day away from going through was the same tunnel used in the movie 'The Graduate'...

[day four] Gaviota to Orcutt - 40 mi.
* Meet a guy at "Chalries hamburgers" in Orcutt who looked/ talked/ acted exactly like Thomas Haden Church... I would bet good money he was related.
* It's bitter ass cold outside - going back down the slope on the 'Purisima Hills' (outside of Lompoc) I started to shiver...
* Nick & Amanda stopped by the post office to mail a few things home, lighten their load...
* Nick took a nap in the grass while I wrote in my journal and Amanda re-packed her bike in the park.

Okay, time to get back on the road...