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.
We completed our drive across the country. Before arriving
in Vancouver where Jay will begin his ride down the West Coast, we stopped in
Bend, OR to visit the last Blockbuster on Earth (really, in the whole
universe!), then on to Eugene, OR to visit Jay’s cousin Max and his wife
Valerie. Next, we headed north to Anacortes, WA for dinner with Bryn and his
wife Shelley. Jay and Bryn met 45 years ago when they both attended university
in Malaysia.
We signed up for a bus tour for Vancouver. It was a great
way to see the highlights of the city (Stanley Park, Granville Island,
Chinatown, etc.) and not worry about parking! One highlight was lunch at the
Sandbar Restaurant. Jay ordered a gin & tonic and it was purple! We learned
Empress Gin is made in British Columbia from blossoms that make the gin purple.
We found a liquor store and bought a bottle. Not sure any of it will make it
back to Atlanta.
Vancouver, BC to Ferndale, WA
On Thursday, July 27 Jay started the ride in Hadden Park in
downtown Vancouver. The city streets had very little traffic and in some places the
bike lanes or sections of roadway are closed to vehicles. There were a few
sections of real city biking, but nothing too bad.
Jay’s crossing of the Port Mann Bridge was accomplished by a
protected bike / pedestrian walkway. Unfortunately, once he reached the bike
path entrance for the Alex Fraser Bridge, a big “Access Closed” sign appeared.
Jay was on an island and the bridge path was the only way off the island for a
cyclist.
A call was made and Helen came to the rescue. Jay was on his
way again. Today’s ride included a crossing of the Canadian – US border. Jay
had learned earlier from another cyclist’s blog that the crossing guards want bike
riders to move to the head of the line. With volumes of cars, trucks, and buses
crossing the border, getting a lone cyclist out of the mayhem is a good policy.
Helen, on the other hand, ended up spending over 90 minutes
in line with other motorists waiting to cross the border. She did get a good photo
of the Peace Arch that signifies Canadian-American friendship. The only thing
she had to declare was the bottle of Empress Gin 😊.
Jay’s ride continued without further incident. We stayed at
a Super 8 hotel in Ferndale that had secured underground parking. A first for
us.
Ferndale, WA to Anacortes, WA
The next day, Helen drove and Jay rode the scenic Chuckanut
Highway. The road, once part of the Pacific Coast Highway, has it share of
climbs, scenic views, and downhills. After passing through Bellingham, Jay had
a lovely ride along Birch Bay.
We stayed at the Cap Sante Inn that has a catchy tagline
“Best Value and More Fun.” Why would anyone stay elsewhere?
Anacortes, WA to Port Townsend, WA
The next day, Jay had a short 35-mile ride from Anacortes to
Townsend, WA. This ride had its scenic elements, but one common characteristic
of riding in this part of the country is the hills. Jay has put 145 miles on
this 1,800 ride down the West Coast into the books.
One of the reasons we came to Port Townsend was to attend a
Saturday night potluck dinner with a group of UUs called the Tomato Soup Group
(TSG). Jay was the guest speaker and made a presentation that covered long
distance bike riding, his book Used to be UU and his take on the state
of affairs within the Unitarian Universalist Association.
With lots of correspondence before arriving, we were offered
home hospitality by Doug and Pat Rodgers, members of the Quimby UU Fellowship
and the TSG, and a lovely tour of downtown Port Townsend after the dinner
by Joyce, Nils and Ron. Ron and his wife Judy invited us to attend a BBQ at
their home on Sunday afternoon and we had the opportunity to socialize once
again with a wonderful group of UUs.
The continental United States is big! We have been driving for six days. We have logged over 2,400 miles and we have still not reached the west coast. Sunday (today) we are in Eugene, Oregon, 60 miles from the Pacific shoreline. We are visiting Jay’s cousin, then we'll head north for another visit with Jay’s college friend in Anacortes, WA, then finally to Vancouver, British Columbia. After a day of touring in Vancouver, Jay will begin the ride on July 29.
There are two strategies for a cross-county drive. One, drive until you get there. Two, drive until something goofy catches your eye and stop. We are pursuing the latter strategy.
Below is list of goofy things that caused us to stop and smell the “whatever.”
Crane’s Country Store
As we drove on I-70 west of St. Louis, we fell prey to the allure of an interstate advertising campaign. “Boots, Bullets, Britches, Bologna.” True to its advertising, this country store in Williamsburg, MO had the goods.
Truckhenge
We drove another 225 miles to Topeka, KS where we visited Ron Lessman’s Truckhenge. We have visited the real Stonehenge in the Salisbury Plain in England as well as the dismantled Foamhenge in Centerville, VA. So, a henge of trucks was right up our alley. The visit was a bust. Ron, known for his engaging humor (e.g., a boat OAR inserted into the KNOT of a tree with the punch line of “do you like gorillas in thong underwear, OR NOT. . .ha!). Both Ron and the henge have lost their luster. Ron was pleasant, friendly, inviting and engaging, but could manage only a whisper of a voice. The graffiti spray-painted three trucks, long ago planted tail end in the ground, have been overtaken by vegetation. The acres of eclectic chainsaw carvings and beer and wine bottle displays in concrete are also losing the battle of time. We are glad we can now include Truckhenge in our henge experiences before time and nature reclaims this wonder.
Evel Knievel
Those of our age remember the daredevil Evel Knievel and his motorcycle jumps of buses, tanks of sharks or pits of vipers. Anything to get attention and put on a show. The museum in Topeka did justice to this showman, but a line on a closing display captured the fate of this unique man who died at age 69 in 2007. “Robert (Evel’s birth name) never made me a dime. Evel made me $33 million, but I spent $35 million.”
Abilene, KS – Ike’s Hometown
We visited the hometown and museum of a war hero and US president, most likely known now only by senior citizens, Dwight David Eisenhower, or Ike as he was affectionally known. We did not have time to visit his library but toured his burial site and museum. The museum depicted Ike’s humble beginnings, his time at West Point, his marriage to Mamie (nee Doud), the well-heeled daughter of a Midwest meatpacking magnet, his time as Supreme Commander in World War II, his presidency, and post presidential years. Very glad we stopped here!
Oakley, KS
Two hundred miles later we stopped for the night in Oakley, KS. In 2018 on our trip west for our Seattle to Savannah bike ride, we stopped in Oakley to visit the nearby rock outcropping known as Monument Rocks. Now the draw of Oakley, KS for us was the Annie Oakley Motel. The motel’s large signage is irresistible, offering direct dial phones, queen-sized beds and color TV. The signage also offers a more than life-size illuminated visage of a miniskirted Annie Oakley. We dined at Buffalo Bill’s Bar and Grill, followed by a visit to the county fair.
Before leaving Oakley, we visited the huge sculpture of Buffalo Bill riding a galloping horse and shooting a buffalo. Social commentary aside, the sculpture was impressive in size and detail.
Loveland, CO – Family
We spent the evening of July 19 in Loveland, CO visiting family. Gathered were three generations of the Borland family. We had a wonderful meal, excellent conversation, and confirmation that if you are family by birth or marriage, you are always welcome.
Lincoln Statue
Just outside Laramie, WY on US I-80, we visited the Lincoln Memorial Monument. Built in 1959, the 30-foot granite spire with a 4,500 pound bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln commemorated the 150th anniversary of the 16th president’s birth. It was originally located on the highest point of the Lincoln Highway. That highway, conceived in 1912, was the first transcontinental highway running from New York City to San Francisco.
Idaho Potato Motel
Before concluding our day’s journey to Ontario, OR, we detoured about five miles off the highway outside Boise to visit the Idaho Potato Motel. While Idaho supplies almost a third of the country’s potatoes, in 2012 the state’s Potato Commission, knowing it couldn’t rest on its laurels (or is it spuds?), commissioned the construction of a giant, hollow, fake tuber as the centerpiece of its 75th anniversary celebration. Borne on the back of a massive red truck, the 28-by-12-foot tater travelled the country for seven years, finally retiring in 2019. The travelling spud was then renovated to an Air BnB for $200 a night option equipped with an outside silo-bathroom. Call us crazy, but we continued to drive for another hour and stayed at a Clarion Inn in Ontario, OR. Our spirit of adventure stops at outside silo-bathrooms.
We are in the final preparation for another long-distance bicycle ride from Vancouver, British Columbia, down the coastline to the Mexican border. This adventure adds to our other epic biking trips, our 2018 Seattle to Savannah and 2021 Canada to Key West.
Each ride has its challenges, and this ride is no different. Helen, who is driving our Prius as a Support and Gear (SAG) vehicle, will probably log 8,000 miles. For Jay, who rides solo each day, his route of 1,800 miles is shorter than previous rides but is filled with many challenging days ahead. Overall, the route has 100,000 feet of climbing. We live in Atlanta and are taking advantage of our time on the West Coast to visit family and friends. With our late July start, we will encounter the last of summer vacationers for the first few weeks. We know campgrounds and coastal hotels are pretty much at capacity. We have made a few early reservations, but from past experience, we have found weather and riding conditions restrict our ability to plan too far in advance. We will take things day by day.
The Bike Course
Jay is following the Adventure Cycling Pacific Coast route. He has downloaded electronic versions of the route to his Android phone. However, he has converted that route to a third-party app called Ride with GPS. Unlike Adventure Cycling’s Bicycle Route Navigator app, Ride with GPS provides verbal queues on upcoming turns. Without verbal queues, a moment of inattention will result in a missed turn and a need to backtrack, an experience Jay confesses has occurred more than a few times.
The conversion of the route was supported by downloading a map of the route by another rider who also used the Ride with GPS app. With his paid subscription, Jay was further able to adjust the route. A few detours were needed to avoid road construction and road closures south of Monterey, CA. The mapping and adjustments are tedious, but the time is well spent getting familiar with the course. Understanding the hilly conditions helped with planning daily riding distances. It is not uncommon, for example, to face 2,000 to 3,000 feet of climbing in a 50-mile day ride.
Future Posts
We hope to upload a new blog post each week. The next time you hear from us, we will be in Vancouver ready to start the ride!
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!
