Route

The route followed Adventure Cycling's Southern Tier maps, with a few shortcuts and detours.

• Northern Florida, including the panhandle to Pensacola.
• Mobile Bay, Alabama.
• Mississippi along the Gulf coast to Biloxi, then north to Wiggins.
• Louisiana from Bogalusa through DeRidder.
• Texas through Austin, Del Rio, and El Paso.
• New Mexico up the Rio Grande and over the mountains through SiIver City.
• Arizona, Safford to Wickenburg and Quartzsite.
• California from Blythe south to Brawley and west to San Diego.

Among the capitals visited were

• Spud, potato capital of Florida.
• Caryville Florida, Worm-fiddling capital of the world.
• Bayou La Batre, seafood capital of Alabama.
• St. Francisville Louisiana, capital of the Republic of West Florida.
• Austin, state capital of Texas and live music capital of the world.
• Sanderson, cactus capital of Texas.
• Hatch NM, pepper capital of the world.
• Phoenix, kidnap capital of the US.
• Glamis, sand toy capital of the world.

Roads were secondary wherever possible. We rode large stretches of US 90 in west Texas and US 70 in Arizona. We also rode interstate highways where those were the only roads, including short stretces of I-10 in Texas and Arizona and I-8 in California.

Although the route did not cross the Mexican border, it got close enough that we saw lots of Border Patrol and went through several highway checkpoints.

Almost a third of the route was in Texas, and almost half of it was desert.

Old Spanish Trail

This route approximates the Old Spanish Trail, one of the first transconinental highways (but not to be confused with the historical Old Spanish Trail in New Mexico), connecting St. Augustine to San Diego along US 90 and US 80.