Journal/Blog

DAY TWENTY-THREE: Monday, August 6, 2018 FINAL DAY!!

Today is the day!! Hard to believe we will finish this long journey down the west coast today!

After a good night of sleep, we were served an authentic Mexican-style breakfast by our host Angelica. Since we only had about 30 miles left to ride, we took some time to visit with Angelica before heading back to the Torrey Pine’s golf course parking lot—the exact point where we ended yesterday. It didn’t seem real that we were going through our morning routine for the last time as we got ready to leave the golf course parking lot—but it was. Even though we had a relatively short riding day ahead of us, we still had quite a bit of directions to follow as we needed to navigate through the city of San Diego. Our directions took us near Sea World and right through downtown San Diego. Since bikes were not allowed on the interstate bridge crossing the San Diego bay we took a ferry due west to the town of Coronado and continued to bike south.

With roughly 15 miles left for our trip, we enjoyed a long stretch of a nice and smooth bike path. As we approached the US/Mexico border, we rode past several horse farms where they were offering beach horse rides for a fee. In the midst of these horse farms, we looked up and all of a sudden saw some high hills and on the side of the hill saw a dark fence. “That’s Mexico!! Wow! We made it! We just need to ride out to the beach now."

As we made our last turn toward the Border Field State Park, we approached a fellow touring biker headed the other way. We stopped and chatted for a bit. He was biking alone and had been on the road for about 4 months. He started in Los Angeles and made a big loop north through the Rockie Mountains and into Glacier National Park before heading west towards Seattle. From there he took the same course we did and made his way down the west coast. Now that he reached the border he was biking back up to Los Angeles where he was going to catch a flight back to Slovakia—where he is from.

Well within about two miles we reached the state park sign, met up with our parents who were waiting for us, and took some pictures, but we still wanted to bike to the beach, which was still another 1.5 miles. No vehicles were allowed beyond this point, but walkers and bikers were. So, Kristine and I continued to bike, while our parents decided to start walking that direction too. As we rode, we could see over into Mexico which was raised on a hill. It was interesting to see how houses and roads on the Mexico side of the border were very close to the fence, but on the U.S. side, it was barren land here at the state park—quite a contrast. This last mile and a half proved to be rough. Some of it was on loose gravel and of course we ended on sand. We still couldn’t see the border fence that goes into the ocean from the point we met the sand, so we started to push our bikes through the sand. This sure wasn’t easy! The fifty some pounds of our bike weight on thin tires continued to dig deep into the soft sand, but we eventually made our way towards the border fence on the beach. The contrast I mentioned earlier held true on the beach itself, too. On the Mexico side of the fence the beach was full of swimmers and sun bathers and was edged with buildings behind the sand. The U.S. side was beautiful but bare of any human activity besides one or two other people who walked out to take a quick look of the border fence like us. Well, we did more than just take a quick look… we took, well… a bunch of pictures!! We made it!!—1,619 miles later!! It really was a surreal moment for both Kristine and I—hard for us to believe we had just finished our long trek down the west coast! It wasn’t long before we saw our parents reach the beach after their 1.5 mile walk. We took a few more pictures before heading back to the van to load up our bikes!

Now, off to the beach — without our bikes and just to relax!! :) To celebrate our finish, our parents drove us back up to Coronado area to enjoy some time on the beach and to indulge in a scrumptious ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli’s creamery! :)

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Thanks so much to all of you for your interest in our adventure and the many ways you may have supported us—through invaluable prayer support, generous financial support for the work in Haiti, and/or providing us a place to stay while we traveled. We truly feel blessed by you all and ultimately by God for granting us a safe trip!

DAY TWENTY-ONE: Saturday, August 4, 2018

Guns a-blazing! What a welcome to L.A.

As we rode from our campground in Malibu we soon hit the L.A. area. There were two police officers on motorcycles sitting in a driveway perpendicular to our roadway. As I was nodding to say hello one of the officers whipped out a gun! Okay, I soon realized it was a radar gun, but still it surprised me. Apparently he was checking the speed of a car right behind us as the “gun” was aimed just over by right shoulder :)

Malibu has some beautiful beach homes — it was amazing how many they can cram together. Seemed different than what I know of the New Jersey shores back home.

Once again we could tell it was a weekend by the number of other riders we saw on the roadways. At one point a peloton of riders went flying past us while we were stopped for a quick check of the map. Good thing we didn’t get caught up with them — they were zooming!

We rode along the beach for a portion of the day and saw a range of things from people gearing up for a triathlon, to quiet sandy beaches, to wide beaches full of volleyball players and sun bathers, to a parking lot of RV campers at the beach, to airplanes from LAX taking off right over our heads and flying low above the teal waters of the pacific.

We had a new experience today at a McDonalds restaurant too. When I entered the store a customer asked me, “are you going to leave them out there?” She was surprised by our faith and confidence that the bikes would be okay outside of the restaurant while we ate breakfast. Taking her “local” advice regarding keeping our stuff safe from the wanderers and loiterers in the neighborhood and also seeing another biker with his bike inside, we brought ours in as well. It all worked out just fine until a manager came about 30 minutes later and said that we couldn’t have them inside after all. Oops! So, we were soon on our way.

In my mind, as we entered southern CA I was anticipating heavier traffic and having to just make the best of it. Today seemed to be a day of just putting the miles in and starting and stopping at numerous traffic lights as we weaved our way to Santa Ana and our host Emily’s apartment for the night.

Emily is the younger sister of my friend Sarah from Philadelphia. Emily had moved out to the L.A. / Orange County area from PA a few years ago. It was terrific to have a quiet place to stay in the big city and to learn about L.A. from an “east-coaster’s” perspective. Emily made a wonderful selection for a place for dinner and we “fueled up” :)

Even though we are only 110 miles from the end destination of Border State Park just south of San Diegeo, and we could crank it all out in one day, we decided to stick to the plan and break it up into two days. We should be able to enjoy the last miles a bit more this way! Plus, this will give us the chance to check out a church in the area tomorrow too for a Sunday morning service. Sweet!

DAY NINETEEN: Thursday, August 2, 2018

If it’s not one thing out to get me, it’s another! :) I can add a coyote to that list!

I told Dwayne that I am getting all the “plagues” on this trip: First, it was the countless mosquitos that seem to love my arms, legs, and face; next the issue with my shoes not clipping out of my pedals; then losing a screw to my bike rack; then the problem with my gears, followed by the epic bent chain and subsequent fall; and now this morning a coyote bolted across my path and then turned to stare me down! Later I learned that coyotes don’t tend to bother people, but still…it had given me quite the fright as I was taking my sleepy-eyed self from the tent to the bathroom early in the morning. I was proud of myself for making it to the bathroom in time though — if you know what I mean.

Well, on to breakfast… Dwayne began the jetboil so we could make our oatmeal. But, within 2 minutes the propane ran out. So, when in this situation, just make PB&J for breakfast! Good thing we’d stopped for a sandwich last night for dinner before reaching the camp — otherwise we would have been disappointed last night already and would have gone to bed quite hungry. Once again, God provided!

Our neighbor at the campground this morning wished us a safe trip and off we went ready to look for a restaurant to maybe get some more breakfast. Note — when you are riding side-by-side someone else, make sure you both are clear on which direction you are going at an upcoming turn. I am sure it was a humorous sight if anyone was watching as I confidently took a right hand turn from Dwayne’s left side and he took at left hand turn from my right side — crossing paths and nearly clipping each other’s tires. Well, only one of us could be correct about which direction we were supposed to go, but I’ll leave that detail out ;)

We didn’t find any breakfast places open, but we did enjoy a 2 lb. box of freshly picked strawberries from a farm-fresh stand in the agricultural fields of Guadalupe, near Santa Maria. Yum! Both Dwayne and I have experience picking strawberries in Lancaster county — it was one of our first paid jobs, actually. So, we were naturally curious to learn more about the picking process and the work that it takes at a large plantation such as the one where we were. So, we asked the woman at the stand about it. Her 8 hours/day, 6 days/week picking schedule puts our measly 3.5 hour/day, 5 days/week shift to shame! Picking berries is hard work!

We eventually made it to a McDonalds and filled up on a breakfast there before hitting the highly-trafficked, but wide and smooth, HWY101 once again for the next portion of the day. We made good time as we climbed some of our last major hills of the trip and headed to the coast and Rt. 1. On our final climb, we got some unexpected cheerleaders :) A couple of people in a Porsche passed us and pumped their fists out of the window as they cruised cautiously by. It provided motivation for me, for sure. It became an even bigger boost when, just a few miles later, we rode past a rest area and saw the same car — this time, the people were out of the car and cheering. They shouted: “where’d you start?” as we were riding by and when I said “Washington,” they cheered even more loudly and supportively. I hope to pass that same type of motivation along to others one day— whether that be bikers or otherwise.

Once we made it to the coast from being inland a bit, the winds caught our backs and helped to push us through the last miles of the day — through the small and cute town of Cayucas, into Morro Bay, and finally into Santa Barbara. We even made it a bit early before we were to meet our host for the night, so we stoped for an ice cream treat and then at a bike shop to purchase a few more tire tubes… because SOMEONE has used all of our stock :)

One of my coworkers from Cristo Rey High School has a brother Don who lives in Santa Barbara. He willingly met us and arranged overnight accommodations for us at a friends’ home. Then, the 5 of us, Don and his wife Di, Mary our host, and Dwayne and I headed to a local place for dinner. It was a lovely evening spent with very kind and generous people. We were treated to a beautiful night in a home on the Santa Barbara cliffs overlooking the ocean. There was even a dog waiting at the door for us when we got home from dinner — but this time it was a golden retriever and not a coyote! :) So. Happy.

We sat under the stars and listened to the crashing surf from the beach below for a bit before crawling in to bed for the night.

We’re both excited to join Mary and April (the golden retriever) on their morning walk tomorrow along the beach!

DAY SEVENTEEN: Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Good morning! It was so nice to wake up in a warm bed and have a couch to sit on while enjoying a hot drink. Since we had so much fun yesterday being with our family, some of our mapping, journaling, and Facebooking got pushed off until this morning.

We have 3 days to make it to Santa Barbara which is about 250 miles from here. We decided, based on higher volumes of elevation change around Big Sur area, that we only needed to do about 70 miles today and then the next two days we’ll do about 90 each day. (Or, did I make that decision so that we could enjoy a longer morning here with our family? ;) It’s a win, win situation, I’d say.

Well, we did enjoy more time with our family — had a wonderful breakfast and looked at a few pictures and videos from our day together yesterday. But, we didn’t want to hold up the Lefevers too much, so we left them go about their other vacation plans while we sat at a Starbucks and continued to work for a while.

The Monterey area is quite crowded with tourists this time of year, so we anticipated lots of traffic. It was nice that we’d already driven much of today’s route in the car yesterday— as we could enjoy the scenery a bit more without the stress of watching our backs as we ride. We flew down the shoulder past a bunch of the car traffic as we headed down Route 1 out of Monterey.

A highlight of our ride was cruising between 35-37MPH for about 5 minutes on a flat section of smooth roadway with a bit of tailwind as a help. Of course, we did have some hills to climb, and some of the shoulders become non-existent at times. At one point, Dwayne (who was in the lead climbing up a hill) found his front tire getting caught on the gravel at the edge of the road. Despite his efforts to balance himself, he began to teeter and fell to his left side. I was right behind him at the time and as I saw him struggle I did what I could to slow up and get out of the way. My efforts weren’t quite enough and I too laid it over on my left side. Fortunately there wasn’t any traffic close by and we were able to unclip our feet from the pedals and hop up quickly. One man from an oncoming car did call out of his window to see if we were okay. After a brief check, we realized that both of us and our bikes were fine. I had just some scrapes on my left elbow. We were ready to mount the bikes again and head off.

I did need a mental break after that to regain my focus and my confidence, so at the top of the hill we stopped for a bit to do so. It’s kinda scary how quickly things can happen— though thankfully this was a minor incident, it reminds me to stay on my toes.

South of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park the roadways cleared a bit of the touring vehicles. We enjoyed a more peaceful ride. Just over a week ago, on July 20, this portion of Rt. 1 had re-opened after being closed for a while due to washed out roadways. Our favorite view during this part of the ride was the neatly-designed tunnel that they made over the roadway. Too bad we were in traffic during that time, otherwise we would’ve loved to get a picture to share with you.

We finished our day at Plaskett Creek Campground which was a lively place — people were playing volleyball, going to the beach to surf, and singing hymns around a campfire as it got dark. We recognized some of the songs :) Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art. It was a pleasant sound to fall asleep to :)

DAY FIFTEEN: Sunday, July 29, 2018

“Over the river and through the woods…” well, more like “over the freeway and through the woods.”

Today was going to be more of a challenge for us as we looked at our route. It was so nice earlier in our trip to not have to worry about directions and missing turns because we just stayed on Hwy. 101. Well, today is just a hodgepodge of bikeable roads (and “non-roads”—which we came to find out) chosen by Google Maps for biking.

We left early from Travis and Jake’s apartment after they provided us with a fulfilling and hearty breakfast! Travis even got to take my loaded bike for a short spin. He bikes, but has yet to going on a long trip. Maybe sometime in the future. :)

As we left Redwood City, we rode past schools, churches, gulf courses, and even past Stanford University—which is where Travis is studying for his PHD.

Redwood City must also be a community of a lot of bikers. On some nice wide smooth roads, we passed countless bikers going the other way and were passed by some going our direction. It was a beautiful Sunday morning for a ride. Around this time, Kristine began to experience some trouble shifting her gears. It went on for a little while, but seemed to get better when she adjusted her derailleur a bit. It wasn’t until much later that we realized her lever for her back wheel hadn’t been tightly latched from this morning. After this was closed, the shifting seemed to improve even more.

Well, as the saying goes, “all good things come to an end,” as Google Maps instructed, we turned onto a bike path that quickly became a gravel trail. We saw many other bikers (both mountain bikers and road bikers) on this heavily used trail, so we continued. Gravel is not the easiest to navigate with a road bike with skinny tires and 45ish pounds of gear on top of it all.

The trail wasn’t too bad, but at one point it became extremely steep uphill. We had to unclip and walk our bikes—our tires just kept spinning out and couldn’t get any traction. We stopped at the top of the hill for a quick break at which point we could see there was an even bigger hill to climb on this trail. Two ladies came up the hill behind us walking their road bikes. They were very pleasant and wanted to hear about our bike trip and were very helpful. They did say we have one more hill on this trail (the one we already saw) and said, “You can do it!” It appeared these ladies biked quite often. The one is a teacher and stays quite active. She told us she has completed 14 Ironman competitions!! Wow!! They were impressed that we didn’t have compact gearing for our bikes to help us climb the hills. They do because, in their own words, “out here you are always climbing hills or mountains.” The next big hill on this trail, we were able to ride up the whole way because it was actually paved!! :)

Before starting our VERY long and massive climb for the day, we had to take another unpaved trail, although this one wasn’t even gravel—it was a narrow dirt trail used primarily by mountain bikers. But, it didn’t last long.

Next, we spent over 2 hours climbing up a mountain. We started out with fairly smooth roads with many switch backs and then the top became very roughly paved roads with many potholes. We started to get some great views of the mountain side we were climbing. We were surprised how much traffic was on this narrow, rough road—many of the vehicles had mountain bikes on their racks. We even passed several mountain bikers and road bikers on this rough stretch.

Kristine’s gears had been doing well, but then things changed really quickly. She was behind me as we were slowly climbing and all of a sudden, I heard her chain a popn’ and a grindin’ and then silence. I quickly looked back to watch Kristine lay her bike right over onto the road since she didn’t have time to unclip her shoes. As Kristine was trying to unclip and get back up, a car came around the turn and saw her waving her hands as she lay/sit on the road. We told the driver we were fine—we could see that her chain had come off. At closer inspection, we realized that some links in her chain had actually bent…REALLY bad! :|

So what do we do? Well, we found some shade along the road and began to inspect the damage to see what could possibly be done. (Mind you, we are miles up on a mountain and still climbing and don’t have a spare chain!)

Well, we flagged down a car driving by with mountain bikes, hoping they would have expertise on fixing a chain. We had the tool to remove links in the chain, but had no experience. Charlie was such a blessing by taking the time to stop and help us out. He ended up taking 2 bent links out of Kristine’s chain which seemed to do the trick. However, this meant (with a shorter chain) that she couldn’t use 2 of her gears— her two favorite gears :(

We thanked Charlie and he was on his way. He and his wife wanted to do some mountain biking that afternoon.

We finally completed the trek up the hill and were anticipating a smooth downhill. Well, it was a very nice and long down hill with little pedaling, but we had to slow ourselves down quite a bit because of the poor quality roads. The jolting on the bike frames and racks were, I am sure, not the best —especially having no shocks on road bikes.

At the bottom of the hill, back in “civilization” :), we enjoyed a wonderful meatball sandwich and side salad at Pete’s Pizza.

The rest of the afternoon was spent biking through agricultural fields — no more woods. We biked passed raspberries, strawberries, collard greens, lettuces, and artichoke fields, among other crops. We rode on Del Monte Blvd and passed a Dole production plant. Apparently a lot of produce gets distributed from this area.

We did hit some strong headwind as we headed toward the Monterey area. It was great that we had a nice smooth bike path for the majority of our last few miles. We could see sand dunes as we approached the ocean again as well as some produce which was planted in fields of sand.

We made a much needed stop at Walmart before reaching our destination for the evening. We had cleaned up practically all of our food, so we stocked up for the last week of our ride.

Out of nowhere, shopping malls and buildings started to appear — we were getting close!! We were anxious to get to our destination at Seaside just north of Monterey. Our sister and her family had purposefully vacationed along our route so that we could meet up. Tomorrow was going to be our second and final rest day — we are ready for it!

We were greeted by our sister’s family in a peculiar way. We had expected to see some familiar faces, but they weren’t so familiar after all. They had put on fake mustaches to be silly. It made both Kristine and I smile and laugh. I love my family! Our niece and nephew couldn’t wait to take us on a tour of the Air BNB they had gotten.

The evening included getting a nice warm shower, playing Foosball and Guess Who with our niece and nephew and a late night dinner of pizza and salad as we exchanged stories from our trips so far. What a day!

DAY THIRTEEN: Friday, July 27, 2018

Ahhh, the comfy beds felt so nice last night! Much nicer than sleeping on the ground in a tent! :) We took the opportunity and slept in a bit longer than normal. We were able to post some more pictures before we were treated to a homemade breakfast. Andy makes some really good waffles! In the peace and comfort of Andy and Sally’s home, we enjoyed some quiet time of reading and reorganized our saddle bags. It felt so good to have all of our clothing washed after and our bags neatly organized again. Little things like this make a big difference.

Anticipating a shorter biking day today, we got a later start, which Andy and Sally encouraged us to take all the time we wanted to. It was noon when we actually started biking again—Andy and Sally drove us back to the square in Healdsburg where we had ended our ride yesterday! It was great to learn about their lives, their family, and their town as we drove that morning. They were so excited for us and our adventure…they even helped us figure out the best way to travel out of their area—which was so beautiful.

Since it was already noon by the time we started to bike, it wasn’t long before we stopped to snack on something. Andy and Sally graciously packed us some healthy snacks for the afternoon. Thanks again Andy and Sally for the many ways you truly blessed! You were a Godsend.

As we continued to burn calories, we eventually made a stop at a Burger King for something more to eat, but also to use their wifi to post pictures and videos and journal. Journaling and posting pictures really have been a process for us to try to stick with. With the amount of miles we have been biking each day, it takes extra energy and time that we sometimes just don’t seem to have—we eventually get to it, though…just a couple days later. We are so glad we are journaling because it helps us remember all that we have been experiencing along the way and it helps us share with others about our adventure.

Because Hwy. 101 had become restricted for bikers, we spent the day riding roads parallel to the freeway—riding through the town of Petaluma—a cute town with beautiful tiny homes. On the road leaving Petaluma we rode through a roughly paved section and it wasn’t long before we experienced the effects of it—Kristine got another flat tire…her third for the trip. A fellow biker that came by asked if we were okay—it is so nice to see many people willing to help if needed. We were fine, having changed the rear tire several times before. We were back on the road in less than 20 minutes.

As we left heading west to our campground for the evening, we rode through rolling hills of beautiful yellow grass with black cattle dotting the hill sides. We also saw a jackrabbit! Even though this road was steep at times and curvy between the hills, it was a popular route for bikers—we passed many bikers going east. They were going with the wind, while we dealt with a head wind since we were going west—towards the coast.

Very quickly we entered a wooded area and enjoyed a 3 mile ride on a bike trail through some redwoods to our spot for the night—Samuel P. Taylor Campground. The campground was quite full and lively—it was nice to see families enjoying the great outdoors together.

We only had time for supper and showers before it was dark! We are excited for San Francisco in the morning.

DAY ELEVEN: Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Because of Hwy. 101 turning rougher yesterday and the debris we had to dodge, we had a decision to make this morning. Do we get right back on Hwy. 101, or do we follow the “Avenue of the Giants (redwood trees).” We really hadn’t considered the avenue of the giants before, because Hwy. 101 looked most direct, but we figured the alternate route would only add about 2 miles—at most, to our journey.

The avenue of the giants won out! :). We weren’t so sure at first if we made the right decision. The road started out really rough, but it eventually became nice and smooth! Such things as the roughness of the road are VERY important to a cyclist. Just ask Kristine. She’ll telling you how often I would comment about the condition of the road surface! :)

It was chilly as we rode among the gigantic redwoods—no sunshine to be seen. We made a quick stop for a photo op, hugged a tree and such—ya know, what any normal person would do, right? :). After climbing a nice size hill or two, we spotted a small cafe that was open! (Rare find, considering there was hardly anything along the avenue of the giants.) Apparently we hadn’t eaten enough for breakfast, because we were both hungry already. Ok, ok, the main reason we decided to stop, was because SOMEONE, yeah it was me, somehow forgot to fill his water bottles before leaving the campground this morning. Oops! :| So, we entered the small cafe, purchased a delicious muffin and asked to fill our water bottles. The friendly waitress was so nice and accommodating. She was interested in our journey as she regularly chats with those biking through. She told us about a couple who was kickbiking down the coast. That really sounds like quite the feat! As we sat and ate our mid morning muffin, we all of a sudden saw the waitress run—literally run—to a vehicle and return. When she came out of the kitchen she had two bags of freshly washed cherries she had just picked from her trees that morning. She wanted us to have them for our journey! What generosity!! Fresh fruit was such a pleasant gift for us as we haven’t had it on a regular basis. She even gave us another muffin for free. Such a wonderful stop/break for us!

Towards the end of the 30 mile long avenue of the giants, both Kristine and I rode our bikes through a redwood tree! Yeah, we were typical tourists! :)

We got back on Hwy. 101 when the avenue of the giants ended. With no shade anymore from the redwoods, the sun really made things hot. We fought the heat and a strong head wind for several miles until we reached a small snack stand at the top of what is called Confusion Hill. We both were exhausted from the heat—some would say we were hangry. :). We were definitely parched—as we had run low on water. I downed an ice cold lemonade like it was my full-time job! Then we both had a 2 hour siesta. We passed out in the shade on the benches in front of the snack stand! I am sure we were a sight to behold!

After the hottest part of the day passed, we hit the road again, knowing we had many miles to go. Right off the bat, we hit a construction zone at the bottom of the hill. I though Kristine must still be feeling quite tired, she just wasn’t going as fast as she normally does. :) As we got the slow sign from the flag man, we both cranked up the steep hill as a 18 wheeler was slowly climbing behind us. I was pulling away, but Kristine just wasn’t climbing the hill as fast. When we exited the construction zone, we stopped. Kristine was distraught and frustrated that she was struggling so much. When we got to looking, we realized that somehow her rear brake was dragging! :( We fixed that real quick before Kristine could tear up! :). It was stressful for her to be struggling so hard to pedal up hill while holding up a line of traffic through the construction zone.

We didn’t go much further before we came to the town of Leggett—where route 1 branches towards the coast, and hwy. 101 continues more inland. We were told there was one place to eat, so once we spotted it, we stopped. We still had to confirm we were in fact going to continue down 101 unlike how most bikers head toward the coast on route 1.

We had some of the best burgers at the Peg House Grill! We made the decision that we were in fact going to continue south on 101, but we still wanted to bike about 20 more miles today. We looked for camping south of Leggett, but found nothing and we struggled to even contact any hotels roughly 20 miles south. We knew that just across the street from the Peg House Grill, was a state park with a campground where many bikers stay, but really didn’t want to push those 20 miles off until tomorrow. However, this option seemed to be the best, considering the circumstances. We already knew we were planning on facing one of our longest days yet for tomorrow and this pushing off of 20 miles was daunting. (Kristine will explain in tomorrow’s entry the destination we were willing to ride over 100 miles in one day for.) At the campground tonight, we met some unique and welcoming characters before hitting the sack.

DAY NINE: Monday, July 23, 2018

We must have been tired last night because we fell asleep kinda early, which meant we had to wake up early this morning to finish all that we wanted to on the computer before we left. We aren’t sure how much internet we’ll have for the next few days as we anticipate camping in some more remote areas.

Well, today was a big day for us. We climbed hills for quite a bit of the day. One climb lasted nearly an hour with very minimal leveling off. But, you know… what goes up, must come down! :) We flew down the hills— in fact, we had to slow down at one point on the downhill as we came up behind a truck that was checking his brakes halfway down the hill.

We hit a speed of roughly 40 MPH several times today.

The climbs did provide for us some beautiful views. We pulled off at a vista point and took a quick little walk to the edge to see some natural bridges in the rocks beneath us over the ocean water. We take turns going to see things— one person always staying with the bikes. When it was my turn to go look at the natural bridges, I came back and caught Dwayne digging into our last cinnamon roll! Caught in the act! You know I didn’t let him eat all of it :)

Speaking of food…we earned our calorie consumption today — KFC’s advertised “$5 Fill Up” still wasn’t enough for the hungry Dwayne! I am learning that his metabolism is quite high. Some common quotes I hear from him: “I could eat something” or “can we have a [granola] bar now?” or my favorite… “I could eat a whole elephant!”

After the KFC stop, and also eating through some of our snacks, it was time to say good bye to the state of Oregon. We stopped at the state line to take our pictures! If we include our east coast trip, Dwayne and I have now biked through 16 different states together and California will make it 17!

On this west coast trip, the Oregon views and experience have not disappointed. We’ve loved it! Sad to leave it, but excited to see what the next 13 days of riding will bring.

The rest of the afternoon we spent climbing some more hills before we enjoyed a 6 mile coast down hill through the redwood forests on Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway.

It was another camping experience tonight — this time at Elk Prairie Campground. We met another couple bikers who were biking from Calgary to San Francisco! They shared that one of their favorite parts to bike so far had been the Icefields Parkway in Alberta, through a gorgeous stretch of glaciers and lakes. Maybe we’ll do that one day :) But…. for now, we just need to focus on finishing our trek through California. We still have nearly 1,000 miles to go on this trip!

DAY SEVEN: Saturday, July 21, 2018

We woke up today without a care in the world! Ha, just kidding.

A “rest day” typically includes a bunch of things such as doing laundry, re-stocking our food supply, prepping our route for the next few days, updating our blog and Facebook, and exploring the neighborhood/area a bit.

Today, however, as we woke up in our host’s RV, we also had something else to look forward to — a few of Kristine’s friends from Klamath Falls, OR were willing to make the 4 and a half hour drive to North Bend to visit for the day!

Katie Ruth and Kara Callahan are both medical residents in Klamath Falls. Ryan, Katie’s husband, was also along for the trip — he was looking forward to some fishing. Kara’s husband Max couldn’t make it this weekend.

Before they arrived, our host Cheryl was able to take Dwayne and me on a drive to the beautiful Sunset Bay State Park. It’s here that, after a short hike, we could enjoy the view of sea lions, seals, and our first whale! It was a lovely morning outing.

By noon, Katie, Ryan, and Kara had arrived. Their presence alone — the familiar faces—after a week on the road was a boost to our spirits! But, we didn’t stop there; we quickly set out to enjoy the rest of the day together.

First stop — Luigi’s sandwich shop — home of the “original garbage grinder.” We didn’t think this was a particularly appetizing name for a meal, but we stopped in anyway. The sandwich turned out to be great!

Second stop — the bait and tackle shop. Though we all stood around the front counter “listening” to the kind worker describe the best places for fishing and giving other tips about crabbing and clamming, Ryan was really the one who paid most attention. I believe that upon entering the store, I told the expectant cashier: “we’re with him” pointing to Ryan. I am not much of a fisherwoman, but I am happy to support others!

Next stop — Sunset Bay State Park! Yep, we went back. This time, we went to the beach area. We had to try out our clam gun to see if we could catch anything! The closest thing we got was a little shrimp. Oh well, it was worth the adventure. Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon looking for a good place to fish from along the rocky cliffs while Kara, Katie, Dwayne, and I played Spikeball and took a nap. We enjoyed one last hike on an overgrown trail atop the rocky cliffs before we realized that it was 7:40 and the place we wanted to go to for dinner closed at 8:00. Let’s just say we made a friend with a guy named Steve from Yeong’s who was so generous to allow us to be 5 minutes late. They still served us! Best elk burgers I’ve ever had!

Final stop — Walmart. We had to get a few more things so we could be ready to head out for the next 8 days of riding. We almost made an impulse buy as we strolled through the aisles. Dwayne found a life-sized minion head/mask and tried it on, asking me…”wouldn’t it be cool to wear these as we ride?!” I also tried on the mask, but we decided it was too ridiculous and just bought the things that we NEEDED.

Back to the RV at our host’s house for the night and our friends headed to their campground to set up and get a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow, Katie plans to ride about 20 miles with us! Can’t wait for it.

DAY FIVE: Thursday, July 19, 2018

After a short night in the tent, we completed our normal morning routine as quickly as our sleepy eyes would allow, knowing that we wanted to explore the massive sand dune we saw on our way in to our campsite the night before.

We got a quick morning work out as we trudged through the chilly sand. The view from the top of the dune was fantastic!

Then we hit the road by 8 am. We were informed by multiple people to check out the Tillamook Creamery. Now, “informed” is quite an understatement from one of Kristine’s friends who had worked at a summer camp right near Tillamook. She told us it was a MOST stop for us! :) We took the advice of everyone and stopped by, 11 miles into our day.

What to say about Tillamook, or what not to say. So much happened in such a short, I mean long, period of time. First, Kristine and I went on the self guided tour of the cheese processing facility. Were did we start?? At the free cheese sample section of course!! :) The worker said we picked the most ideal time to be there. We had no lines or crowds. A little while later as the place started to fill up, we realized how serious he was.

We moved on to the more informative part of the tour. Kristine skimmed the information and sights and learned a lot. As Kristine was skimming, Dwayne was practically reading every word printed about the cheese making process. Kristine quickly realized that Tillamook had EXCELLENT guest wifi service. Finally we could upload pics to our Facebook page.

About an hour or so after starting our tour, we got some parfaits at the creamery’s stand and began selecting and uploading pics and videos.

This process ended up taking over FOUR hours!!! We couldn’t believe how the time had flown by. As we sat at the outdoor seating area we observed waves of people flooding the Creamery—including quite a few bikers, some locals and some touring bikers. As you can imagine our bikes and outfits makes us stand out a tourist attraction, so we got many long stares. It also became a conversation starter. Several people ask us where we were going and where we had come from. We were also able to share that we are raising money for a medical clinic in Haiti. One gentlemen freely got a twenty dollar bill out and gave it to us for the work in Haiti. What generosity which came so quickly. This inspires me to be quick to give where the Lord reveals a need!

We had such a good time at Tillamook, both in the Creamery and also outside talking with fellow tourists. We were feeling so accomplished regarding our online posting advancements, but this sense of accomplishment quickly faded as the reality set in of having to still bike 77 miles to reach our campsite for the night.

So we hopped on our bikes and headed down the road. We didn’t get far at all (maybe a mile) when we realized in all the Facebook posting festivities that we never ate lunch and it was now after 2pm. Realizing that we were about to leave the town of Tillamook and might not have eating options for a long time, we whipped into Burger King for a sandwich.

Back on the road and heading south. Smooth sailing now, right?

Wrong. We had just left the town limits when Kristine heard something quite interesting on the back of her bike. She quickly sped in front of me and asked if anything looks strange at her bags. At first I thought everything looked fine, but then realized that the rack was beginning to lean to one side. Not good!

Stopping again!

With our bikes laying along the side of the busy roadway with a narrow shoulder, we quickly assessed that one of Krstine’s main screws on her rack had come off. “No fear, Dwayne’s here!” Hahaha Thank the Lord that I had packed a few bolts—and that one of them fit well to fix Kristine’s rack. We gathered back up Kristine’s gear that had been scattered on the shoulder of the road.

Bike loaded again! Starting to pedal south again. We started to wonder if we actually are going to make it to our campsite for the night. Mind you, it was now 3:15pm and we STILL had roughly 75 miles to bike for the day. Craziness!!!

So what do we do?? We catch a tailwind and bike for 4 hours straight without stopping. Duh! Sounds smart, right? Uhhhhhh :| Thanks to a strong tail wind we flew!!! We managed to reach our max speed for our trip today on a down hill. We hit 45 mph!

We got real good at snapping pictures of the coastline as we biked by. :)

We grabbed a sub from Subway in town right before finally reaching our campground—which was “over the hill and through the woods” or more like “down the jetty and through the tall brambles” shortly after 9pm, right before dark! Perfect!—considering the circumstances. Our showers felt so good that night, and our meatball sub was quickly devoured after pedaling so many miles in so little time!

GOOD night!

DAY THREE: Tuesday, July 17, 2018

For anyone who is interested in more of the day-to-day ins and outs of a long distance biking and camping trip, here’s a snapshot at what a normal morning routine might look like:

• Wake up- 5:30 am
• Breakfast: Dwayne gets the Jetboil (compact propane stove) ready and heats water for oatmeal while Kristine packs up the sleeping mats and sleeping bags.
• Eat, brush teeth ;) , get into biking clothes, strategically pack bags so that everything we need for the day is on top, roll up the tent.
• Get the bikes ready: pump tires, check for any sharp objects in the tires, oil chains.
• This process takes roughly an hour and a half (depending on how awake we are ;)

And… sometimes, spend 20 minutes looking for your wallet if you misplace it… which happened on this particular morning. Lesson learned: always put your wallet at the same spot! :) Sorry for the delay Dwayne!

The rest of the day we had an enjoyable ride, making good time with good road conditions. We hit our first town with a traffic light in over 150 miles of riding!

We ended our day at Bruceport County Park Campground, just outside South Bend, WA.

DAY ONE: Sunday, July 15, 2018

What’s more important? Watching the World Cup Final or beginning our 3 week bike ride? :) I knew that we should probably get out early to begin our trip because we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us from Tacoma to our start point… BUT I had to ask Dwayne if we could watch “just 5 minutes” of the World Cup because we were still at the hotel when the game began. FORTY five minutes later we left ;) Thanks Dwayne for being flexible.

Our friend Travis drove us along the beautiful coastline of the Washington peninsula and then was also our photographer as we carried our bikes to the start point at Cape Flattery. Let’s just say that the 0.6 mile trail, though quite beautiful, is not made for biking or carrying bikes very conveniently. BUT, the trek to see the northern-most coastal point was well worth it. Other hikers certainly had questioning looks as they saw us with our bikes and we were able to share with some of them about our upcoming trip.

After we hiked back to the parking lot we loaded our bikes with our gear — which somehow seems MUCH heavier than any of our other trips. I guess I forgot to pack light this time! We probably had about 45 pounds each as we began. Travis got to take Dwayne’s bike for a spin… we thought it’d be a good way to boost our total milage for the day without having to do any work :) Just kidding. We didn’t add any of his miles into our mile tracker.

As we set out along the same road on which we had driven in just a few hours before, we were able to see the coast in a different way as it was now high-tide and there weren’t any people out walking along the shoreline as they had been before. This time, as we pedaled with wobbly legs still adjusting to the weight of our bikes, we were able to observe miles of the Canadian coast from a distance across the Salish Sea.

To the many of you who told us that our trip would be “downhill the whole way” since we’re going from north to south, well, by like…..let’s say… mile… 2! we knew that was NOT true!

We enjoyed our “short” 62-mile day of riding (we aim to average 80 miles per day) and finished at our campground in Forks, WA. We saw some other “thru” bikers (long distance) at the campsite, but they were already in their tent for the night so we didn’t get to share stories.

After we sent up camp at Bogachiel State Park, we were exhausted from the last several days of traveling and were ready for bed!