We have been blessed to have travelled to many parts of the globe. The allure of the American Experience has, however, remained within us. Now in retirement with plenty of time, we decided to see more of America at the leisurely pace of one spoke at a time.
In 2018 we travelled from Seattle to Savannah. In 2021 we rode/drove the East Coast from Canada to Key West. We are now crossing the U.S. to make our way from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico.
After 42 days of cycling 2,579 miles, two hurricanes, and
two flat tires we arrived at the southernmost point in the United States at
12:15 pm on Sunday, October 10, 2021. After a rest and shower at our hotel, we headed
back to old town Key West and spent the rest of the afternoon walking Duval
Street. At the end of the day, we returned to our hotel and celebrated with a
bottle of champagne and two slices of key lime pie. After popping the cork,
eating dinner and enjoying our pie we slowly began adjusting to a life not
focused on weather, traffic, and route options down the east coast.
This trip was not only a cycling but also a logistical feat.
We suspect none of you are currently logged onto the weather app on your phone
to determine where you will be sleeping later this evening. Once we understood
weather conditions, Jay would project his riding distance, Helen then began the
search for accommodations, whether camping or a hotel for our stay each evening. Sometimes
a 60-mile ride became a 70-mile ride so we could finish the day at a facility
that met our needs. As Jay rode, Helen would seek out a grocery store to buy
food for breakfast or dinner. She also did laundry and occasionally had an
opportunity to take a day tour in a city we visited. The next day, we
would repeat the cycle of checking the weather and plotting out our day’s
journey to the next location. This was an adventure that took the art of team
work to a new level.
One observation about our trek is that ocean
saltwater and sand is an undeniable magnet to humans. As we traveled down the
east coast, we witnessed the many ways a coastal location attracts our
attention.There are amusement-filled boardwalks
where saltwater taffy and pizza can be purchased on a whim.There are also endless complexes of high rise
beach front hotels that line stretches of the coastline for as far as the eye
can see. Wealth configures the shoreline into exclusive enclaves with gated
entrances accessible only to the top sliver of the American economic food
chain. Occasionally, a shore front bungalow erected a generation ago appears.
These last hold outs from a quieter time have survived hurricanes, shifting shorelines
and surely the overwhelming family economic pressure to “sell out” and take the
money.
It is hard to consume these observations if you are zooming
along in a car at 50 – 60 mph on a road designed to move you as quickly as
possible to the next location on your itinerary. More details are seen when you are
hugging the shoreline on roads named “Beach Front Ave” or “Ocean Boulevard” at
15 mph on a bicycle. There is more time to absorb, and cycling provides
“infinite” think time as you propel yourself forward.
We are grateful that we had no mishaps or injuries to
report. Although it was anticipated but never vocalized, Jay was the most
vulnerable to a traffic accident. However, it was Helen who had the occasion to
be run off the road and thankfully avoided a last second collision with a
bridge abutment.
The Last Leg
Having completed our cycling adventure, we departed Key West
and headed up the west coast of Florida to visit friends in Venice, FL.With the drive back to our home in Roswell completed, Helen
logged 6.434 miles of support driving over the 62 days we were out
exploring the east coast.
The Prius is now unpacked, and we are beginning to adjust to our
“normal” life.Surely there is another adventure
in our future. We don’t know what that adventure is, but the possibilities seem
endless to us.
We are in the home stretch of our east coast adventure. We are now in Key Largo, just 100 miles from our destination. If the weather cooperates, we will be at the southernmost point in the US by Sunday, completing our Canada to Key West trek.
Over the past several days, we have been adjusting our riding schedule to synch up with our kids' Miami vacation plans.
They flew down to Miami from Atlanta on Thursday and we were at the hotel to greet them. They will continue touring Miami and then plan to drive down to Key West on Sunday. We are hoping that the whole family will be present when Jay arrives.
It is hard to believe that this adventure will soon end. Thanks to all who have provided supportive comments and encouragement.
Monday, October 4, 2021
When we last posted, we were on our way to Savannah, GA
where we had booked a room at the Marriott Riverfront hotel. We had an
irresistible urge to stay there since it marked the end of our 2018 Seattle to
Savannah bike ride.As was the case
three years ago, the hotel staff cheered and applauded our latest journey.
Jay continued to take advantage of the favorable weather
putting in 378 miles over the last five days. Sunday was a rest day in Edgewater,
FL just south of Daytona Beach. Since August 16, we have covered 2,100 miles
and estimate we have another 490 miles to Key West.
Jay’s cycling experience has been a mix of smooth,
traffic free roads to the rough and tumble of busy state highways some with and
some without shoulders/bike lanes. He also has had his share of road closures due
to construction, bridges rising into the sky, ferries and laid-back beach
towns.
On our last night in Georgia, we camped at the Crooked River
State Park in St. Mary. What a gorgeous campground! The lawn areas were neatly
groomed, the paved roads were in excellent condition, and the level sites were large
and far enough apart to be quite comfortable. The only downside were signs that
warned people to watch out for alligators!
While Jay was busy pedaling away, once in Florida, Helen
took advantage of the time to enjoy our stay in St. Augustine by taking a hop-on,
hop-off trolley tour. Naturally, most of the tour is in the historical district
of the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the
United
States, established in 1565, 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
Rock. The trolley drivers are well-versed on people, dates and circumstances.
As you can imagine, people weren’t as tall 400 years ago as
they are now. There is a life size statue of Ponce de Leon in a park. He was 4’11”
tall, one of the taller men of his time. Parts of the wall around the city were
made of the trunks of palm trees, and they were only about 5 feet tall. Most adults
now can look over the example that exists near de Leon’s statue, but that
wasn’t the case when the original walls were built.
Henry Flagler (1830-1913) was an enterprising businessman, a
founder of Standard Oil, and founder of the East Coast Railway. He made a
significant impact on the economy of Florida. He built a number of buildings,
including several churches, hotel, and buildings in St. Augustine that are now
part of Flagler College, considered one of the top 10 most beautiful college
campuses in the US. He was one of the first in Florida to use poured concrete
instead of bricks to construct some of his buildings.
Sharp tabby wall discouraged enemies
Of course, St. Augustine also includes a historic jail
(admission is $15 and Helen’s too cheap to pay that exorbitant amount!) and the
Fountain of Youth (which also has an admission price, but our trolley took a
short ride around the grounds). All in all, if you’re interested in history, it
would be easy to spend a week here just walking or biking around and taking in
all the sites!
When Jay gets back on the road, we are planning to meet up
with family who will be visiting Miami later this week.
After two rain days in Wilmington, NC Jay decided to put in
at least 70 miles a day while the weather was favorable. We continue to head
SSW along the coast. Jay cycled the last bit of the Outer Banks passing through
Kure Beach, NC catching the ferry to Southport to continue the ride on the
mainland.
It’s now offseason so the normally bustling summer towns of
Myrtle Beach and Surf City were at the start of the winter ghost town cycle.
Jay’s bike maps now took him off the shoreline through long stretches of
idyllic tree covered roads as well as hazardous miles on busy highways without any
shoulders.
Our roads are still planned
by car-centric engineers. In a few places where the very narrowest strip of asphalt
extended beyond the roadway that would provide some biker safety, the North and
South Carolina Departments of Transportation opted to rumple strip that bike
accessible real estate. Car safety is important, but riding with cars zooming
past just three feet away at 60 miles per
Steeple w/ wind vane instead of cross
hour is a white-knuckle experience. One
needs to accept the tradeoffs from pedaling down beach roads to gliding under Spanish
moss trees on the deep back country roads of the Carolinas.
After Jay resumed his ride from our hotel in Mount Pleasant,
SC, Helen toured the Cold War Memorial and took a 90-minute bus tour of nearby Charleston.
She enjoyed seeing all the beautiful homes with the piazzas on the sides of the
houses. Of course, there were churches, government buildings, The Citadel and
more. There is a lot of history still visible in this picturesque city.
An Off-Road Discovery
The Charleston Visitor Center itself is a beautiful, open building
full of brochures, displays and a staffed kiosk if tourists have questions. One
updated feature of this renovated structure is the restroom (singular). The
stalls are closed all the way to the
bottom. Helen was a bit taken aback when she
walked in and a smiling young man was drying his hands. At first she thought she
was in the wrong place, but then saw another woman at the sink washing her
hands. Our church in Atlanta is renovating and updating an old church for our
congregation’s use, and one of the features is to make non-binary people
comfortable is the unisex restroom. We don’t know how comfortable other people
may be, but Helen found it a bit disconcerting.
Rest Day
We are now taking a rest day in Yemassee, SC located in the
middle of nowhere at the crossroads of US 95 and Highway 17. When Jay resumes
riding tomorrow, he will cycle through Beaufort, SC completing the day’s ride
in Savannah. We plan to book a room at the Marriott Riverfront Hotel where we
concluded our Seattle to Savannah cross country bike ride in 2018.We doubt we will be greeted with hoopla and a
bottle of champagne as we were at the conclusion of our last great bike ride.
Savannah is just a waypoint on this
journey, but being in Georgia will no doubt give us a sense that we will indeed
complete this ride to Key West, Florida!
We typically post a blog on Sunday, but we find ourselves again
sheltering in a hotel dodging a swath of rain coming off the Atlantic Ocean covering
an area from Wilmington, NC to Charleston, SC . . . our intended bike route. We
are still making progress. With Jay’s last
ride, we have covered 1,413 miles and estimate we have another 1,200 to complete
our trek to Key West.
Jay’s ride yesterday took him past Camp Lejeune, a large
Marine Corps base where he was once stationed (about 50 years ago!)This was also the same base where the 13 marines recently killed in Afghanistan
were stationed. A poignant memorial honoring the fallen appeared on the road
leading to the base’s front gate. Photos of
Memorial for Fallen Marines
the fallen were also used as mileage
markers on the bike path that snaked around the base.Needless to say, Marine Corps flags flew from
every building in the towns around the base. We owe so much to so few. . .
Our campsite in Surf City was our first opportunity we had
to camp literally right next to the ocean. Only the dunes separated our tent from
the crashing waves on the beach. Ideal . . . until that night the winds started
blowing, then gusting, and then howling. All through the night the weather made
every effort to either blow down our tent or flood us out with heavy rains. Egad!
Campsite before the Winds
The weather the next morning was equally dreary with a prediction of more to come.We packed up
as best we could in the swirling winds and headed for a hotel. When the weather
clears, we’ll headed back to Surf City to resume the ride.
The video shows a flag standing straight out due to the winds.
We left the North Carolina Outer Banks via ferries and
camped Saturday night at the Cedar Campground in Sea Level, NC. We are now over 1,350 miles into our trek to Key West . . . just south of Morehead City, NC. When we last wrote we had just crossed from New Jersey into Delaware via the
Cape May Ferry where we stayed at the Big Oaks campsite in Rehoboth Beach, DE.
Jay finally had some favorable wind days, and rode some long
rides through Delaware and Maryland to Kiptoeke, VA where we put the bike on
the car and traveled through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.Our stopping point was the Travelodge Inn in
Ocean City, VA. Quite an experience at this hotel under new management. All but
three rooms had been fully renovated . . . and we had one of the unrenovated
rooms. We survived.
We took a day off to visit the Chrysler Museum in nearby Norfolk,
one of the many suggestions we had from our friend Kristina Banks, who grew up
in Norfolk. We were delighted by a docent who is an art teacher at the local
college. There were three
Depiction of T. Roosevelt's Door
of us in the group, so it was quite personalized. Our
favorite piece that was pointed out to us was a life-size painting of a door
hung with a variety of objects, including a dead turkey, an 1822 almanac, a hat, pouch and a gun leaning on it. The artist was depicting a scene in Theodore
Roosevelt’s hunting lodge.
After our day off, Jay got an early start to Currituck, NC to
avoid potential rains and winds that were predicted to shift into a very
unfavorable direction. The day started great with a ride along a bike path with
the ocean nearby. As with all great plans, something happened. About 20 miles
into the ride Jay got a flat. He inserted a new inner tube only to discover that
his bike pump was not working. A call to Helen resulted in a trip to a bike
shop, a pump repair and a resumed journey. However, the dreaded winds were now
blowing against him and light rain fell from time to time. Jay did catch the
last ferry from Knots Island to Currituck. On the ferry Jay met Charles,
another east coast cyclist.Charles is
doing his ride self-contained (carries all his gear with him) without any
support.
Fortunately, the winds shifted just as Jay was making his
way to the Outer Banks. These strong tailwinds allowed him to ride the 100
miles on the Outer Banks (OBX) over two days with a smile on his face. There
were smooth roads, little traffic, a great tail wind; his average speed was 19
mph. It was one of the best rides of his life!
Wright Brothers
Of course you can’t go to Kitty Hawk without visiting the
Wright Brothers Memorial. We spent several hours touring the Visitor’s Center,
reading the info, looking at old photographs and admiring a full scale model of
the first airplane that flew in Dec. 1903. We climbed up the original sand dune
(now covered with vegetation to preserve it) to admire the huge monument built
to honor and preserve the memory of Wilber and Orville Wright. And to think . .
. just last month untrained civilians flew almost 400 miles above the earth and
orbited it for several days!
Jay kept pedaling and Helen took a side trip to visit the
Lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The inside is currently closed to visitors due to
the first full renovation since its completion in 1870. However, visitors were
invited to tour the grounds, which includes the Visitors Center and museum, and
take as many photos as they wished. A number of young park rangers were on hand
to provide info and recount stories of the fabled monument.
Saturday was a day of ferry rides; the first one from Hatteras
to Ocracoke, then a second from Ocracoke to Cedar Island. While we waiting for
the 1:00 pm ferry to Cedar Island, we had lunch SmacNally’s.Since it was Sunday, we ordered a pitcher of
mimosas to celebrate the beautiful day. Only after checking our ferry tickets
did we realized it was Saturday. Oops! Hard to keep track of the days.
The video below has images from our blog over the past two
weeks.
Rainy days give Jay a chance to rest and we get a chance to explore where we are. We ended up in Beach Haven, NJ for two nights and took the opportunity to visit the Museum of New Jersey Maritime History. There were a number of articles from shipwrecks, including the Andrea Doria.
There was also a lot of old diving gear, hundreds of pages of maps, old newspaper articles, photos of people who had caught 40 pound lobsters, and scrimshaw, just to name a few. We could have spent the whole day there there was so much to see.
For those of you who knew Mary Sherman, we had dinner with
her sister Ida on Labor Day. She lives on the 16th floor in a
penthouse apartment. She has a wrap-around patio with lots of trees, bushes and
flowers. We ate outside at a table on the east side and enjoyed the magnificent
view of the New York Skyline and Central Park, which is only two blocks away. Ida
had just returned from one trip the day before and was headed out again on
Thursday, so she stays busy!
Since last Sunday Jay has ridden through New York, Maryland,
Delaware and New Jersey. We are currently camping in Rehoboth Beach, DE. At last
count, Jay’s ridden his bike well over 1,050 miles and Helen has driven the car
3700 miles! Quite a few of those miles were for her to make trips to urgent
care. We were staying in a hotel in Edison, NJ (home of the World’s Biggest
Light Bulb, which we didn’t get to see because all the roads leading to it were
under construction!). Helen decided to clean her tennis shoes and stuck her
hand inside one and got bitten. Ouch! It stung like a bee or a spider, but we
couldn’t find anything to verify it. Her finger swelled up and turned dark
purple. She drove to urgent care, saw a doctor that prescribed antibiotics, and
now she is well on the way to recovery. No more purple finger!
Atlantic City Boardwalk
We enjoyed an afternoon together in Atlantic City and
walked up and down the boardwalk taking in all the sights and sounds. We each
enjoyed an ice cream, and Helen took a ride on the biggest Ferris Wheel we’ve
ever seen!
We walked into a couple of casinos and saw how people play the slot
machines. They’re electronic and there’s no “arm” to pull. The player just sits
there and pushes a button. Almost every time they hit the button they lose some
money.
One casino catered to kids, and all the games were aimed at getting them
to ride a motorcycle, play a game with Cinderella or Willy Wonka or win a
stuffed animal.
Lots of loud music no matter where you go. Jay noted Trump’s
boarded up casino on the far south end of the boardwalk, far from any other
casinos or attractions. Poor choice of locations.
On the way out of town, Jay rode his bike and Helen drove.
It was a beautiful sunny day with little wind, which made for good riding.
We took the Cape May Ferry to Lewes, DE yesterday. We have
been making a point to see if we can get senior citizen discounts, and sure
enough, we got one for the ferry! Jay calculated that he’d get to the place in
Cape May where Helen was to meet him about 2:00. There are 2:30 and 4:30
ferries. We decided not to cut it too close and get our blood pressures up, so
we booked a space for us and the car (extra for the bike rack on the back) for
4:30. It ended up we got to the ferry loading dock at 2:15. The woman at the
gate told us to park on the side, and if there was room they’d let us know. As
it turned out, there was space for us on the 2:30 ferry and we got the last spot!
Our campsite is only about a 12 minute drive from the ferry
dock in Lewes, so we were able to set up camp while it was still daylight and
enjoy supper al fresco. Today Jay did a 70 mile “backwards” ride because of the
strong southerly winds. Helen took him to the end point and they both rode back
to Lewes, Jay on his bike and Helen in the car.
