I can't close off this cross-country bicycle trip without a postscript, because the tour really didn't end for me when we arrived in Oceanside. Still suffering from wanderlust, the trip ended for me up the Pacific coast with a chance meeting with another cyclist who had ridden ahead of us on our bike tour.

.... It made me realize that while we cross-country bicycle tourists are pedaling throughout the world, we're also cycling in our own world...    more »

OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA -- Bruce and I achieved the goal -- to ride from coast to coast -- that we'd made up our minds to accomplish two years ago. It seems like the end arrived too soon.

Fittingly, this was one of the easiest days of the trip. From 2,727 feet, we were coasting down to sea level. Soon after leaving our pace quickened and we had to slow for switchbacks and suddenly we began passing orange groves. It was all so California. We passed a mission, but we didn't stop to investigate. As Lazy Louie would say, all the hills went down and we had the wind to our backs.

Traffic increased as we hit residential areas, and James nearly had a head-on as he sped around us in the van. We were all riding together, and each tried to be the first to spot the ocean. ...   more »

The last full day on the road ended in warm camaraderie making toasts around a picnic table. But it began much chillier than that for me.

I was slow waking up as I felt totally exhausted from the day before. I was finally breaking camp when I heard the crunch of tires on the road leading to the campsite. It was James in the blue van. Everyone was worried about me. They got an early start and would be passing by soon. He offered to carry my gear. No, I brought it this far, I'll take it the rest of the way.

I did take him up on the offer of water, though. A sign posted at the campsite spigot said the water wasn't potable.

He left, and by the time I got to the main road I assume they'd already passed. I was a little upset that my pride hadn't let me give my stuff to James. This extra gear was heavy ...   more »

ANZA-BORREGO STATE PARK, CALIFORNIA -- Too much heat? Not enough water? Too much pedaling through the desert? Too close to the end of the trip? I can't explain it, but I isolated myself from the group today and rode up to a solitary campground in the desert.
Expecting another hot day, we set the alarm for 4:30 but didn't really get going for hours. We all stopped for pictures at the Arizona-California border then cycled on Interstate 8 near the Mexican border through an area aptly named the Imperial Sand Dunes.

Turning onto State Route 98, we left the sandbox and found ourselves in a lush farmland. Instead of sand blowing in our faces, we were pelted by thousands of small white butterflies flitting back and forth across the road between crops. ...   more »

YUMA, ARIZONA -- There are days on this cross-country trip that I anticipated from the first time I spread out the maps on the table in my apartment in Annapolis.

One was the climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia; another was going up and over Monarch Pass in Colorado. Today was another -- 80 miles across the desert of southwestern Arizona where nothing was marked on the map except a thin line for Hwy. 95.

We were up before dawn today, filling our water bottles and two 2-quart blue plastic water bladders that we'd brought along for this occasion. We'd been planning on this stretch for months, and we had vowed we wouldn't depend on the van for support.

So the four of us slipped out of Quartzsite into the cool, dry desert morning air at 5:30. We rode by the light of the blazing red sky... dawn was still an hour away. ...   more »

I awoke about sunup this morning and ... no Bruce.

It had been so hot and dry, we didn't see the need to pitch the tent last night. We threw the tarp down and just slept on that, until, at some point in the night, I realized all kinds of insects were walking around on me. I took my mat and put it on a picnic table and went back to sleep. Jim had already booked the other table.

 Bruce woke up later, about 2 a.m., for the same reason I had, discovered the picnic tables already taken, and took off for a ride. He ended up at an all-night cafe where a group of 20 Native American runners showed up. They're members of the Sioux and are running from the Dakotas to LA to protest the Olympic Committee not allowing them to participate in the Summer Games in LA as their own nation. ...   more »

AGUILA, ARIZONA -- We're camping at the City Park here tonight. We've left all the cool, shady mountains behind us, and we're out where it's dry, sunny and hot. The park doesn't have much; just a picnic shelter and a small building for restrooms.
At the back of his building is a water spigot that drips. In the puddle underneath there sits a toad. I noticed him ...   more »

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- We spent much of today in the small gears, the stump-pullers, the grannies.

We started our climb almost immediately after leaving Dead Horse campground. Jim had already left -- we told him we always got a late start -- and we gingerly picked our way across that slippery low-water bridge.

The old ghost town of Jerome was only about 4 miles away, but 2,000 feet above us. From the brush along Route 89, we could see the town sitting on the edge of a mountain, with a big white letter "J" adorning a slope above it   more »

Cottonwood, Ariz. -- We've liked everyone who has crossed our path as we cycle cross-country. Today is the exception. The scenery here has been beautiful, though, and the terrain has been in our favor.

We faced a major chore breaking camp at the Motel 6 -- our laundering and bike cleaning resulted in our crap strewn from one of the room to the other.

It was sprinkling when we left (isn't this Arizona, why so wet?) and we headed south on Route 89A. We passed through a quiet Ponderosa forest and reached Oak Creek Canyon, which marks a 1,600-foot descent over the Mogollon Rim. The rim sits at the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, which encompasses the Four Corners region. We've been pedaling across the plateau since leaving Albuquerque...   more »

FLAGSTAFF -- We stayed here in Flagstaff another day to parcel out our time. We want to meet up with our friends from the UK in a couple of days further down the road.

It's hard to do nothing. We cleaned our bikes, did laundry, sat out by the pool, drank a couple of beers and it started raining. Back inside, the housekeeper slipped us a key to operate the TV -- this was a Motel 6 and we hadn't paid the extra few bucks for the feature. ...   more »

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ. - We rode through hail and back to get to Flagstaff today. Why we left the Grand Canyon, I have no idea. I guess we're just too accustomed to hitting the road  everyday.

We awoke at dawn this morning, and took all the gear off our bikes for a ride out to the South Rim for more sunrise pictures. We flew along without the panniers,and I found it difficult to steer the bike straight. Returning to camp, we loaded up to our old sluggish selves and left by 9, stopping at the camp store.

Remember that geology lesson of climbing up to the Grand Canyon? It worked in our favor this morning. We zipped along mostly downhill for 28 miles to Valle by 11 a.m. Passing the Flintstone Village amusement park there (with a huge sign of Fred Flintstone) we followed a hillier and more winding road to Flagstaff. ...   more »

It's nearly two months into our cross-country bicycle tour, and I finally get off the bicycle for a hike. There's just no way to get into the Grand Canyon on a bike.

Before dawn Bruce and I broke camp and started our ride along the South Rim road to Grand Canyon Village. It was a short ride but it took forever -- just too many picture possibilities. Dawn and dusk are the best times to shoot the canyon because the low sun adds shadows that gives depth to the formations.

We reached the campground at 9 a.m. and there already was a line for camping spots. Bruce checked further and learned we didn't have to wait. Because we're bicyclists, they let us right in for $2 and let us camp in one of the two hike-and-bike campsites. The deal was that the campsites had to hold anyone who showed up...   more »

Although I had visited the Grand Canyon a couple of times before, I never really appreciated in a personal way how it was formed until I rode there on my bicycle.

All the books (well, the scientific ones) say that eons ago, a plateau rose up in this area while a river cut through the rock. I always understood the erosion part, but I didn't get the rising plateau part until I realized I was climbing a big hill to get to the canyon.

After leaving Tuba City this morning, we passed the edge of the Painted Desert (above), an area whose colors change through the day. Because of the clear air and lack of reference points such as buildings, it's impossible to guess at the distances to the hills and ridges...   more »

TUBA CITY, ARIZ. - We passed through the Hopi Reservation today, in an area where age-old conflicts and rituals still exist.

The Hopi generally live in settlements on three mesas, that look like three fingers jutting from a high plateau in the north. The road passes south of the First, but climbs over the Second (above) and Third. The Hopi have lived on these mesas for centuries and are believed to be descendants of the Anasazi, who left cliff dwellings scattered throughout the region. Amazingly, they have developed a form of agriculture in a land where water in extremely scarce. ...   more »

KEAMS CANYON, ARIZ. - We started riding across the wide expanse of the Navajo Reservation this morning and added to our tribe.

Just a few miles outside of Window Rock, we overtook bicyclist Geraldine Onslow, a spunky Brit from south of London.

Her's is a tale of tragedy and determination. She and her sister collected pledges for a cross-USA trip back home to raise money for cancer research after their father died of the disease. Geraldine, her sister Jane, and a cousin, James, who drove the support van, set out from New York City.

In West Virginia, an 80-year-old motorist ran into the back of Jane's bike. Both legs were broken in the accident, and she spent three weeks in a Morgantown hospital before returning home. Geraldine persisted, however, and a number of friends and relatives have ridden portions of the route with her. ...   more »