California

Even before we bought our plane tickets to Alaska we knew that we may not be able to complete our trip in its entirety. Back in June we had read the most recent travel alert from the State Department; it was strife with warnings for travelers but still left us confident that a safe route could be [...]

Cycling in Big Sur, CA. The going up mountains on this trip is slooooowwww. Check it out:

Santa Barbara gave us the nicest, most isolated bike path we’ve been on:

Then it gave us the nicest freeway we’ve had to ride:

Some irony in outside of LA, sorry about the poor audio quality:

We arrived in San Francisco after a day of grueling hills and what seemed like a thousands turns. Crossing the Golden Gate bridge reminded us both of the time we had crossed it going the opposite away on the Journey of Hope (Ryan in ‘02, Alex in ‘06). The winds were stiff, the views magnificent, [...]

The night we were leaving Eureka, CA Dustin made a joke about cycling through a town named Garberville. He said something to the effect – don’t go into the woods to pee, just go from the bike. He was referencing the Garberville’s reputation as the marijuana capital of Humboldt County. Along our way we’d heard [...]

Taken by Alex as we were traversing the Newton B. Drury Parkway just South of Eureka, CA. We had to climb a big hill that eventually led us to a 12 mile downhill. Here is a small taste of what we do every day:

Leaving Portland we spent a day heading west just to get to the coast. Route 26 was likely the most frightening road we’ve been on and it taught us a valuable lesson: not all highways are created equal. Until Portland all highways with the label “US” had been two lanes and pretty simple to navigate. [...]