Archive for May, 2009

605km Davis to Lakeview

It’s a hot, hot day when we set out from Davis. It doesn’t matter that we rise at 5:30am and start out an hour later. Already we can feel the strength of the sun rising to the east and our water bottles, which we froze in Dave and September’s freezer the night before, are totally melted just a few miles down the road. So much for our hopes of icy water until at least mid-morning.

The weather forecast is for temperatures around 100F and by the time we reach Knights Landing, a little crossroads village in the middle of nowhere around 9:30am, we can’t imagine how it can get much hotter. We park our bikes in the shade of a small corner shop and go inside to buy something for lunch. The first thing that hits us is the overwhelming smell of grease. It’s an odor that will come back to us time and time again in small towns across California.

Somewhere among the stale french fries and burgers we do manage to find two sad little tomatoes and a large wedge of cheese for our lunch. It’s not ideal but it’ll do.

Now we are back on the roads of the Central Valley. The land is perfectly flat. You can see a turn in the road miles before you ever get to it and small settlements are marked on the horizon by clusters of trees. In between there’s little shade so when we get to Grimes we grab the chance to stop on the balcony of a Scout Lodge for our midday break. Most of these towns are filled with a few houses and a cluster of sad-looking abandoned buildings, some of them full of character in their own way like the Butte City Emporium. “Ducks Plucked Here” it says in large lettering on the side.

When we decide to start out again an hour or so later the heat is even more intense than before and although we only have 20km remaining to our campsite in a State Park, it nearly kills us. We feel as if we’ll die of heatstroke before we get there. We could make tea in our water bottles. And as if this weren’t enough, we pass an ammonia plant and a large cloud of gas hits us in the chest like a sledgehammer as we cycle by. It’s gut-wrenching stuff and when we finally reach Colusa we collapse under the canopy of the first supermarket we see and take a good half hour to recover. (more…)

241km San Francisco to Davis

When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day’s sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay’s call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else’s heart. -Diane Ackerman

Our departure from San Francisco was nothing short of glorious. If ever a day and a city were made for cycling, this was it. With the usual butterflies in our stomachs – yes, we still get them after 2-1/2 years on the road – we  loaded up our bags in Andrea’s garage, said our goodbyes and rolled tentatively out onto the sidewalk.

The last-minute questions zipped through our heads. Passports? Wallet? Did you check under the bed? Water bottles filled?

Finally satisfied, we gave Andrea one last hearty thanks, promised to keep in touch and ventured onto the busy city streets. We could have noticed the cars in front of us, spewing out fumes, or the buses clogging the lanes but we didn’t. Instead, we absorbed the deep blue sky above us, felt the wind rushing past our cheeks as we zipped down San Francisco’s notoriously steep streets, watched our heartbeat rise as we pumped up the other side and breathed in the scent of the pine trees as we passed through a forest.

We tuned out the honks and revving motors of the city and listened instead to our fellow cyclists, who called out a constant parade of inspiring words. “Have a great ride!” “Enjoy your trip!” “Ride safely!”

In a perfect tempo, with wings on our feet, we cruised down a hill, past a lookout over the bay and then effortlessly up a ramp and onto the Golden Gate Bridge. This was it. The beginning of our trip, the entry to the summer ahead and the way home across North America. (more…)

Welcome to America

We weren’t even off the plane and we were preparing ourselves for the worst. “What do you think we should put down for this question?” we asked one of the Air New Zealand staff, gazing at the blank space where U.S. customs wanted us to declare all the countries we’d visited before landing on American soil.

Let’s see now. Britain, France, Spain, Morocco, Portugal. The list goes on. At 30 countries so far, it would be a long list, and we were slightly wary of making a full disclosure.

“Well, you haven’t been to anywhere like Afghanistan, have you?” he asked.

Not quite. But we weren’t sure stamps for Syria and Iran would go over much better.

“Just put down ‘world tour’,” he advised. Then a smirk crept over his face. “If I see you in handcuffs being led away, I promise to call your mothers.” We laughed, nervously.

An hour later we were approaching the desk, rehearsing our lines on how we only went to Iran because we thought it would be a nice place to ride a bicycle (and it was) and practicing our ‘yes sirs’ and ‘no sirs’ and then, the most unexpected thing happened. (more…)