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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

WINDOW ROCK, ARIZ. - Travelling cross-country by bicycle has put us in contact with many interesting folks we wouldn't have met ordinarily. Tonight we staying at the home of a World War II veteran; a member of a group of unsung heroes whose stories couldn't be told until recently.

Roy Hawthorne was a member of the cadre of Navajos who joined the Marines and became "codetalkers."

They fashioned a code based on Navajo words that represented military information. The Japanese never broke the code, and the codetalkers couldn't talk about their exploits until the government declassified the code in the late 1960s. ....   more »

GALLUP, NM - I've seen fireworks shows at golf courses, football stadiums and along lakefronts. Never have I seen one at a rodeo grounds, where the announcer translated everything into English from Navajo, and where an errant flare set off a series of explosions that lit the scrubby undergrowth on a hillside.

We had read about the fireworks display at Gallup, so we got an early start at El Morro. We passed by the huge Inscription Rock and headed downhill into the Zuni Pueblo Reservation. A sign posted the rules: No pictures. No alcohol. We turned onto Route 32 and missed the Zuni Pueblo itself, one of the 7 Cities of Cibola sought by gold hungry Spanish conquistadors. ...    more »

EL MORRO NATIONAL MONUMENT, N.M. - We passed through several nations today; those of the Isleta, Laguna, Acoma, and Canoncita. They're all pueblo tribes that thrived here before the Spanish Conquistadors and missionaries enslaved them. English is spoken here, but it's not the native tongue.

None of that mattered to us this morning. We awoke out in the desert while there were still a couple of stars in the sky and the sun was brightening the East. We walked back to our bicycles hidden under the railroad trestle and Bruce removed that crudely carved horse's head, given to him in Missouri, from his handlebar pack and set it on the trestle support. I imagine it will startle whoever finds it. ...   more »

SOMEWHERE IN ISLETA INDIAN RESERVATION, N.M. - When things are going well, I tend to leave things too much to chance ... at least until I'm brought up short by lack of planning and bad decisions.

That's why Bruce and I spent the night in our sleeping bags on a dry wash under the stars next to a railroad trestle. Except for the occasional freight train, the only sound was a soft breeze and the startling yelps of coyotes.

We left the motel late this morning and stopped by Old Town Albuquerque to shop. We looked at jewelry and learned the differences between the Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo styles. We had a lunch of tortillas and beer -- a true meal of champions, and picked up some odds and ends at a K-Mart before finally getting underway at 2 p.m. ...   more »

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - We spent much of today riding on the Turquoise Highway. It looked like plain old blacktop to me.

We left Santa Fe in a light drizzle, which quickly burned off. It was such a mellow Sunday morning that Bruce wore his headphones as he pedalled along. He was spacing out near the center of the road when a car came up from behind and couldn't pass. I expect the driver was afraid of honking and scaring Bruce to death.

I stopped and yelled and waved my arms, and Bruce must have caught the vibes as he looked back and swerved out of the way. He packed up those headphones for the rest of the trip. ...   more »

SANTA FE, N.M. -  I seem to keep repeating this in my journal -- "this place reminds me of Annapolis."
Of course Santa Fe doesn't really remind me of Annapolis, but there are aspects that are similar. Same with Taos, Ouray, Ste. Genevieve.

Santa Fe is steeped in the Hispanic culture, Annapolis isn't. Annapolis sits on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Santa Fe sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

The similarities? Neither are the largest cities in their states, but they are the state capitals. Both have campuses of the liberal arts St. John's College. A large part of their economies are based on eating and drinking and partying downtown ...   more »

SANTA FE, N.M. - Most of the day, I felt that I was no longer cycling through the US, but had slipped south of the border. The Hispanic culture here, mixed with the Native American, is very strong.

For instance, after Penasco, we followed a road that reminded me of cycling in the Alleghenies because it rose and fell like a rollercoaster. We passed through some towns, such as Las Trampas, that had a mission older than most of the Colonial era buildings back home in historic Annapolis. ...   more »

TAOS, N.M. - We've covered almost 3,000 miles on our cross-country bike ride so far, and I don't remember any place as unique as this. I almost feel like I'm in a different country. Much of the area sits on a plateau, so its flat like Kansas. But it's arid, so there's only dry brush around.

We were back on the road at 6:30 a.m. No ranger hassled us. We had a free night.

We continued on the same road all the way to Antonito, about 15 miles away. We steadily dropped from the woodsy environment to a scrubby sagebrush plain. The small towns we passed, Mogote and Las Mesitas, had many adobe houses. ...    more »

ASPEN GLADE, COLO. - This is rough terrain, and we crossed back over the Continental Divide and bicycled in and out of New Mexico today. We're still making progress to the Pacific, though it doesn't seem so.

We said our goodbyes to Gunter and Elsa (they said they didn't want to hold us back, although I doubt this because they set a torrid pace), and pedaled south on Route 84 to Chromo. Nothing much going on here except a second breakfast. After leaving the mountains, we're in some high plains here. A landmark, Chromo Mountain, we watched approach for more than 10 miles. We passed it on our right, and continued over the New Mexico border...   more »

PAGOSA SPRINGS, COLO. -We hooked up with a German couple on the road today who taught us about a new health drink, although we have yet to try it while cycling.

We packed up early at the hostel in Durango and took off. Anymore, I always feel better being back on the road, no matter how much I needed a rest day. Today we're following a new map behind the clear window in my handlebar bag. We're long-finished with the traditional Bikecentennial maps -- that route veered north somewhere after Pueblo. We're on the Great Parks South Bicycle Route Extension map.

It's good to know that we're back on a route found suitable for bicyclists, although it's disconcerting to have California as our final destination and not be chasing our shadows in the morning. ...   more »

DURANGO, COLO. - Note to self: If you're touring by bicycle, stay on the bicycle.

We've just returned from a strange and troubling adventure involving our reliance on a pickup truck we borrowed for the day. We're all safe and sound, but it could have turned out much worse.

Bruce and I had planned to take today off and take a $25 guided tour to the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, about an hour's drive away. The hosteler said we could do it cheaper if we rented a car, and what's more, a German hostel guest, Christiane, could go with us and make it back by her 4:30 bus ride out of town.

A guy from across the street who hangs around to drink the coffee here did that one better, and offered us the use of a pickup truck he had just purchased from a local mining company. We took him up on the offer...    more »

DURANGO, COLO. - I can't imagine a better day bicycling, even though it did include several hours on a narrow gauge railroad.

The climb up Red Mountain Pass is a monster. It's a 13-mile ride from Ouray and rises from 7,706-foot elevation to 11,018 feet. It took us 3 and a half hours, partly because of the climb and partly because of the scenery - which we were all too happy to admire as we caught our breath.

We climbed switchbacks out of Ouray, which was surrounded by lofty cliffs, and followed the roaring Uncompagre River, which had cut the hell out of these mountains. We could see old wooden miners' cabins clinging to the mountains, and passed several slides where ice had recently scoured out everything in its path. ....   more »

OURAY, COLO. - You never know what fellow travelers you'll find when you break camp in the morning.

After leaving the Elk Creek campground we rode along the Blue Mesa reservoir shore and crossed a bridge to Sapinero, which is more of a cafe and filling station than a town. We stopped for another breakfast there. When we were getting ready to spin off, we met a group of college-aged folks who were walking from West to East to protest nuclear weapons. They asked us to "join their circle" as they held hands and looked for inspiration for the day ahead. I was inspired by being on my bike, instead of on foot.

Just as we left Sapinero, we picked up another bicycle tourist -- Frank -- who told us about all the problems he'd encountered. Just like the guy in Golden City, Mo., this guy was starved for conversation and talked nonstop. ...   more »

ELK CREEK, COLO. - This is one of those days that I'd been looking forward to ever since we started planning the trip. We crossed the Continental Divide under our own power at the 11,312-foot Monarch Pass. I knew all along we could do it; I just didn't know how hard it would be.

Now, sitting at the hot and dry Elk Creek National Park Service Campground, I realize that we must have been in better shape than I realized. Bruce says it was easier than the hills in Virginia and Kentucky

We hit the road at 7, leaving the Ponderosa campground at about 8,500 feet. We made 7 miles to Garfield, at 11,000 feet, in about an hour. It took us 90 minutes to cover the last 6 miles to the pass. ...   more »

MAYSVILLE, COLO. - The climbing begins in earnest today, but we start with a long, cold, downhill after crossing the Silver Bridge, touted as the world's highest suspension bridge. The winding road takes us back down to the elevation of the Arkansas River.

Along US 50, huge red outcroppings of rock towered over the road. The river rushed alongside. We could hear it as we pedaled upstream on the gentle grade. Down here we could look up the valleys sometimes and see snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

We stopped for snacks in Texas Creek and Cotopaxi. Several groups of rafters passed us, shouting and throwing bucketsful of ice cold water at each other. We talked to a woman who was drinking a cup of coffee to prepare for guiding her first group of rafters today. She was a little nervous. ...   more »

ROYAL GORGE, COLO. - So there I am posing at the side of US 50 with a horned antelope skull balanced on my helmet. Is it wacky altitude weirdness of just giddiness about being on the road again?

Probably the latter. We left Pueblo early and steadily headed toward a line of blue mountains ahead of us. As the morning wore on the mountains grew and finally enveloped us as we progressed into the Rockies.

We stopped at Penrose at 21 miles, then lunched in Canon City 15 miles later. About a mile outside this town, we both geared down to our grannies and just started climbing. To paraphrase Dorothy, we weren't in Kansas anymore ...   more »

PUEBLO, COLO. - We decided to lay around and do nothing for the day. We had covered so many miles the past couple of weeks, we were feeling just plain tired.
The news that a controversial liberal radio talk show DJ -- Alan Berg -- had been gunned down had upset our hosts. Anyway, we just didn't feel right overstaying ...   more »

PUEBLO, COLO. - It's after midnight, and Bruce and I have just finished making basic overhauls and installing new parts on our bicycles. We used the "bicycle workshop" in the shed behind the home of our newfound friend -- a 14-year-old in a house full of biking enthusiasts.

We got a late start this morning from Ordway after our epic 124-mile ride the day before. Fortunately the air had cleared this morning and we continued on good, old Route 96. In all, we'd ride this road for 241 miles, all the way from Dighton, Kansas.

We first saw the Rockies -- just a blue strip along the horizon -- at Olney Springs and continued effortlessly into Pueblo, the biggest town on our trip and about our halfway point. We made our way into downtown and found the YWCA (yes, women's) where our guidebook listed another hostel. Wrong again ...   more »

ORDWAY, COLO. - Most of western Kansas and eastern Colorado was closed this Sunday, so we did the only thing we knew -- we kept pedaling.

After patching up two flat tires just after sunrise, we rode out of town and back to the flat terrain. Everything was closed in the first town in Colorado -- Towner. Same at Sheriden Lake ...

So when we finally got to Haswell, thirsty and parched, there was nothing but bad water and what little water we had in our bottles. No bathroom. No shower. The only store in town was closed. Nothing to do but jump on our bikes and press on....   more »

TRIBUNE, KAN. - We're walking back from dinner at the Cactus Patch restaurant, and realize we're riding through history. We're in the town of Tribune in the county of Greeley. The next town down the road tomorrow will be Horace. Follow the bouncing ball. What did Horace Greeley write in the New York Tribune? "Go west young man!"

We started heading West early in the morning after a torrential downpour struck at 4:30. We ate and washed up at the church (still open, as promised) and hit the road at 6:45. After a few miles the terrain opened up more than before, if that's possible.

Not a lot between Utica and Tribune. We'd spot a grain elevator on the horizon, pedal for awhile, then see small clumps of trees to the south and north of it as we got closer. These were the towns with the parks. We'd pedal for another hour or more before reaching the town. ...   more »

UTICA, KAN. - How many times have I heard people complain about driving across Kansas because it's soooooo boring?

Chalk up another reason why bicycle touring is the best way to see the country. Kansas, by bike, is anything but boring. For one thing, you get to stop at all the small-town cafes.

I have a notion that many of these towns where we've stopped lately -- Bison, McCracken, Ransom, Utica -- are all frontier towns. Each is surrounded by hundreds of square miles of wheat farms and pasture. The highway we're on runs past the southern edge of town. The grain elevators are one or two blocks north on Main Street, sitting on the railroad tracks. Main Street has the post office, cafe, bar, and grocery store. These towns boast the only trees on the landscapes ...   more »

LA CROSSE, KAN. -- We're sitting here writing at our journals at a picnic table that's about 30 miles south of the geographical center of the US.

We clicked off a lot of miles today, and I am tired and a little sore, but I feel like I could charge across more than 100 miles of Great Plains tomorrow morning.

We left Hutchinson early in the morning and made it to Nickerson early enough to run into a couple, ages 58 and 52, who spent the night in the home of a stranger who was worried about them camping in the park with tornado warnings broadcast. They too were amazed by how many people help the bicycle tourists...   more »

We stopped at a cafe this morning for a long breakfast and fiddled around so we got a late start. Bruce later admitted he just didn't want to get going, given the accident yesterday on the busy highway.

We strapped his bent wheel rim to his panniers and left, finally reaching County Road 88 and the TransAmerica Route.

After dealing with all the trucks yesterday, it was like being delivered back to a slower way of life. Traffic virtually disappeared and I could hear birds singing from the perches on fenceposts. The tension left my body. Our road was flat and straight. We could see trees, towns, and grain elevators on the horizon and pedal for an hour before we reached them...   more »

EL DORADO, KAN. - We're staying at a motel across the tracks in a town with the unlikely name of El Dorado after Bruce had a close call with an oil tanker truck on a busy highway today.

Bryan, who put us up the night before, suggested we take that road to avoid gravel stretches on the Bikecentennial Route. In retrospect, not good advice.

We had tailwinds in the morning (but we stayed together) and could see for miles all around when we picked up US 54 heading west. Mostly I kept my eyes glued to the pavement, though. The winds from the south caused a dangerous riding situation as I leaned to my left to counteract them. When a passing car or truck blocked the wind, I'd veer slightly left momentarily...   more »

Tonight finds us at Bryan and Janette's apartment in Chanute. They're a wonderful couple that Bruce met at a restaurant in town where he was eating. Bryan found me a few hours later as I was riding into town.

That's because Bruce and I got separated today.

We cycled the 35 miles from Golden City to Pittsburg in about 3 hours. Riding our first flat roads in four weeks meant  we had a lot of power to cover lots of ground -- fast.

At Girard we turned north and the tailwinds pushed us even faster. I took off with the pure joy of cycling fast. I made a left turn after 7 miles, stopped, fished around in my handlebar pack for a plum and waited for Bruce. He never showed. ....   more »

GOLDEN CITY, MO. - Was this a mirage after too many hours in the saddle? We slipped into a couple of valleys after Pennsboro and were climbing out of the second one when I saw something standing up ahead of me in the road. At first I thought it was Bruce, but he was behind me. Then it looked like a tree had sprouted from the pavement. As I got closer, I saw it was a woman sitting astride a horse watching our slow approach.

She called us over just as we were about to pass. There was a birthday party at a farmhouse. Someone offered us a beer, and we could see no reason to refuse...   more »

The Ozarks are starting to level out, and we were on pace for a 90-mile day when we saw the homemade sign on Route 38 between Hartville and Marshfield: "Lazy Louie Bicycle Camp." It was only early afternoon, but we knew we had to stop; we had told the Cookie Lady back in Virginia that we'd check in on him.

Lazy Louie opened the bicycle camp in 1976, the first year that cyclists started passing through on the Bikecentennial route. A eastbound couple who we met in the morning called the camp "kind of rustic." The camp is an overgrown woodlot across the road from his house and barn. There's a shelter, picnic table, and shady grassy areas for tents. You can tell he has put a lot of work into it over the years. ....   more »

HOUSTON, MO. - The hills in the Ozarks are bigger, steeper, and harder to climb than I expected. At Carl's Cafe in Eminence, Carl said we'd have to walk our loaded touring bicycles up these hills. No way. We pedaled -- very slowly.
Bruce isn't feeling well this morning, but I don't think that's holding us back. Gravity's doing that. .

This whole area of the Ozarks draws lots of whitewater adventure seekers. Current River is popular with tourists, so is Jack's Ford. Lots of canoe, kayak, and raft businesses in Eminence. Up a steep hill and down the other side is Alley Spring, the picture-postcard site of an 1895 mill (above). The caretaker operated it for us, to show how wheat and corn was ground in the old days...   more »

OWL'S BEND, MO. - If you could pick a time to be sick, it probably wouldn't be the day you're pedaling the rollercoaster hills of the Ozarks.

We left Johnson's Shut-ins in a light drizzle and immediately started climbing. A little while later, a carload of Boy Scouts who we camped with the night before pulled up alongside me, and they said my friend was way down the road. I waited for him, and when he caught up, Bruce said he wasn't feeling well. After that, we took it real slow.

We stopped at Wisdom's Cafe in Centreville for a second breakfast. Afterwards I went to mail some postcards and pick up some grub, and when I returned Bruce was sitting lotus-style with his back against a building, fast asleep. ...   more »

JOHNSON'S SHUT-INS STATE PARK, MO -- We're tenting in the group camp area near some Boy Scouts tonight. They're pretty comical, and a couple came over for awhile to talk bicycles, like: "Can you ride no-hands?"

I know Missouri is the "Show Me" state, but I don't know why it's called that. I would like to have people around here show us some common courtesy.

The folks in Ste. Genevieve were very helpful. One lady said to us out of the blue, "You look lost." (As a matter of fact, we were.) In Farmington this morning, we talked to a guy while I filled the fuel bottles and were offered unlimited iced tea in a cafe at the square.

But as soon as we entered the Ozarks, things changed. People stare, more like glare. ...   more »

STE. GENEVIEVE, MO. -- We rode up along the Mississippi River to Ste. Genevieve to waves and some applause. If we had festooned our bikes with flags, the people lining the streets might have thrown money.

After crossing bridge across the Mississippi at Chester, we ran into the Olympic torch caravan again at St. Mary's. Everything is very low-key, compared to the scene in Berea.

Essentially two Winnebagos were parked in a roadside lot, some runners were milling around waiting to pick up the relay. AT&T sponsors the torch run, and the guys who do all the heavy lifting between cities are AT&T employees.

Two hundred were chosen, 16 on this week-long stretch, to run four miles twice a day with the torch. The torch, which they get to keep, weighs 2 pounds, 4 ounces, is about 2 feet long, and is filled with butane. ...   more »

CARBONDALE, ILL. -- We had plans to take off this morning for the Missouri border. I jumped out of bed early, did some laundry and putzed around. When it was 10 a.m. and we were just getting to breakfast, we came to the brilliant conclusion that we were still half hungover, we hadn't stopped since Charlottesville, Va., and we could ...   more »

CARBONDALE, ILL. -- After three weeks on the TransAmerica Route, we decided that we needed a break here in the hometown of Southern Illinois University.

A bike rider out for an afternoon spin hooked up with us outside of town and guided us along a shortcut to his favorite bike shop. We found a room at the Uptown Motel, took our first showers in about three days, and began to celebrate like cowboys coming off a dusty cattle drive.

We stopped at a tavern called Booby's (it might have been Bobby's, but I wrote double o's in my journal... it's a college town; probably was Booby's) for a pitcher of beer, ate some greaseburgers at Wendy's, watched the just-released, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and then stopped at a bar for another pitcher. We had landed in dry counties every night since Whytheville, Va., so we had some catching up to do....   more »

CAVE-IN-ROCK, ILL. -- We crossed the brown-with-mud Ohio River on the Ida L ferry this afternoon on our ride through the former haunt of pirates and bandits and the present-day domain of mosquitoes. 
We were happy to leave the Sebree park, what with freight trains passing by all night. Our route immediately detoured because of the flooding (the paper said 30,000 acres was underwater due to the Green River backing up), but we still made good time into Dixon, where folks told us a small group of bicycle tourists had passed through yesterday.

At Marietta's Cafe in Marion, we signed the guestbook and saw the names of three cyclists from Connecticut (the same guys we've been leapfrogging ever since Virginia) just above ours. ...   more »

SEBREE, KY. -- We're at the Sebree City Park tonight, camping downwind from preparations for the St. Michaels annual cook-out. They're preparing 1,500 pounds of mutton and pork for tomorrow, and this evening they're stirring a huge cast iron pot of homemade barbecue sauce.

While Bruce and I were talking with them, a couple of the old hands asked one of the younger guys to sample the hot sauce. He lifted up the wooden ladle, sipped it, squinted his eyes and choked out the words, "Hmmm. Just about right!" Then he gasped for breath.

"Just about right" describes our ride today. ....   more »

We pedaled over to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site today, just up the road from Joel Ray's Lincoln Jamboree. Yee-haw!

The park ranger giving the tour said, "As far as we know, this is where he was born." Sounding a little cagey? Over in Springfield yesterday we had stopped in the Lincoln Homestead State Park, a woman in the office said, "Older people around here say that Lincoln never would have been born down in Hodgenville in the wintertime, so they believe he was actually born up here in Springfield."

With my keen reporter's instincts, I asked him about the discrepancy. He shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody seemed to care where he was born until 1860 when he was elected president." Makes sense. ...   more »

HODGENVILLE, KY. -- We thought nothing could smell sweeter than the good country air of the Kentucky bluegrass country, until we left Bardstown.

We had just finished an unsatisfying lunch at a shopping center deli in the hometown of  composer Stephen Foster (My Old Kentucky Home), when we caught the fragrance of good home cooking in the air. Bruce said, wherever it's coming from, "that's where we should have eaten."

We rode on for a half-mile and saw the entrance sign for the Heaven Hills Distillery, the source of that fragrance. If we could have "eaten" there, our trip would have ended, no doubt. What we smelled cooking must have been sour mash. We merely cycled past huge warehouses full of booze...   more »

HARRODSBURG, KY. -- What did I say about bicycle touring and the kindness of strangers? Forget it.

Tonight we're at the Parkview Guest House. When we walked in the front door of the two-story men's-only "guest house," a guy told us to wait right there for the manager who would soon be home from work. We sat in a couple of chairs in the hallway. Soon the manager walks in:

"What the hell's going on here? And get that thing off the table."

Bruce removed his helmet from the lamp table. We asked for a room. The old guy said he had one but didn't know whether he'd let us have it. It only had a double bed. "You're not going to get drunk and puke in bed, are you?"   more »

BEREA, KY. -- We didn't make as big a splash as some people upon entering Berea, but we felt heroic all the same and did receive a warm welcome and invitation.

We arrived in Berea about 10 minutes ahead of the Olympic torch. AT&T was sponsoring the torch run through all 50 states on its way to the Summer Games in Los Angeles. We just happened to ride into Berea at about the same time as the torch. A local woman had raised $3,000 to carry the torch for a mile and people lined the street waiting for her arrival.

While we waited, a woman came up and started a conversation. We were the first bicycle tourists she'd seen this year. She and her husband bicycle. Their house is listed in a national organization's newsletter as an overnight spot for travelling bicyclists. Would we like to stay? Of course we would ...   more »

BOONEVILLE, KY. -- We never stop climbing hills. The route heading west crosses one ridge after another. I can appreciate what Daniel Boone and the pioneers had to endure.

We did go through some wide open bottomland nestled between the hills today, though, generally after passing Buckhorn Lake. We saw some cows in pastures today, something we hadn't seen for many days. Before it's been pigs, hogs, and chickens. Those smaller farm animals must be better suited for small farms on hillsides.

These hills are gut-wrenching for me. I start out in medium gears, but soon I'm in my lowest -- the granny gear or stump-puller. I grind away, travelling 27 inches for every pedal stroke; don't try to think about how many pedal strokes in a 4.4-mile climb...    more »

PIPPA PASSES, KY. -- Last night's fear and loathing about spending the foreseeable future dodging coal trucks turned out to be a waste of time.

Coal is king in these parts, but even the king gives a holiday to his subjects over the Memorial Day weekend. No coal trucks confronted us today. We could see them parked in gravel parking lots behind chainlink fences, their trailer beds tilted up so they wouldn't collect rainwater. It was as if they were saluting our passage.

Although the coal trucks were absent, the grinding terrain still had to be dealt with. As we broke camp in the morning, an old camper who knew the area said our route would be "rough as a cob." We didn't know how rough a cob was, but we soon found out. ...   more »

BREAKS INTERSTATE PARK, Va. -- There's nothing like a big ol' country-style breakfast to start the day -- if you plan to go right back to bed.

Bruce and I weren't napping, however. Rev. Chuck and his wife served us an extra helping of biscuits 'n' gravy, along with sausage, bacon and eggs this morning. He said we'd need that extra larder to get over "Big A" Mountain up the road.

Being used to pop tarts or oatmeal for breakfast, I carried those extra helpings of undigestable grease high in my stomach all the way to the Kentucky border. We climbed four or five ball-busting passes today. I'm getting discouraged and feel weaker each day ...   more »

ELK GARDEN, VA. -- "Bikers. Take a Break. Good Cool Water. Welcome."

After climbing in and out Appalachian hollers all day and seeing a sign like that, we didn't need to be told twice to stop for a while. That's where we met the Rev, another unforgettable person on our TransAmerica Tour.

In the morning I discovered that the campground showers did have hot water. Wish I knew that last night. Also met and talked with a group of three cyclists from Connecticut who were riding the same cross-country route as Bruce and me. We hung around together for awhile, but they were getting a late start and said they'd meet us later down the road.

We pedaled down to Damascus where we did laundry and talked to a couple who were hiking the Appalachian Trail. They had come to town to shake a "trail leech" who kept bugging them along the trail ...   more »

GRINDSTONE CAMPGROUND, VA. -- We hit it all today -- headwinds, rain, steep hills, illness and an opposite direction bicycle tourist (he had a nice tailwind) who told us how great things were. That last was the hardest to take.

We broke camp at the Elizabeth Brown Memorial Park, packed our damp gear, and headed to the laundromat in town. I tried to fix my front derailleur while my shoes dried, broke the nut, cursed and threw things, then walked around town until I found an auto parts store where a guy replaced it for free.

Back on rolling Route 11 again, we came across a guy who was wrapping up his cross-country trip from San Francisco...   more »

Today, our stupidity almost got the best of us.

After a late start, I had problems with my front derailleur and tried to fix it as a gas station. It was 10 a.m. before we got underway. We stopped for a bite at Newbern, where several log cabins appeared to be under restoration

We continued on along a road that had a beautiful sweeping vistas of wide green valleys backed by blue tinted mountain ridges (bottom photo).

This led us to the Draper Country Store, "18 and 90" it said above the door. Inside, a guy cut some longhorn cheese from a huge block he kept under glass. The old store had a pool table, a cast iron stove, some well-worn chairs, and lots of unusual items for sale...   more »