Road Trip to Austin

Written: Sept 1st

You may have noticed that none of our entries lately have been about the bicycle trip. But these days, the closest we come to preparing to ride 1,000 miles on two wheels is checking, each time we get out for gas or water, that our bikes are still secure on the back of the car (for accompanying paranoia, see Tradgedy). That and reading through our book: "Bicycling the Pacific Coast." It will be nice, once we get to the coast, to simply stay on one road almost the entire time. Surely this will keep us from ever getting too lost, right? Routes 101 and 1 (which are basically the same) will take us all the way to San Fransisco with a few side trips here and there.

So far we have penciled in trips to two different cheese factories in Oregon and California! I will be paying special attention to see if I want my next career move to involve cheese (that's a likely yes).

We also made some last-minute decisions last week. Instead of taking a Greyhound back to Austin From Los Angeles, we're going to fly. It turns out bikes have to be packaged up in the same way for buses as they do for planes. And since we were thinking of taking a bus from San Fran to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Austin, we decided to just package them up once in San Francisco and ship them home via UPS (no other mail carrier will do! Don't you worry uncle Frank!). That will make things easier, and flying home will save a few days. We are also not going to visit Portland. It's a trip inland, away from the coast we don't want to make. That will allow us to take our time riding, and give us more time with Hina in L.A.

On a related note, I want to say thank you to those of you who have donated to our fundraiser for Posada Esperanza so far. Raising money for this organization has given our trip a purpose and motivation outside of personal exploration. There are a lot more dollars per mile to raise, so if you haven't already, consider parting with a few bucks for Posada. You won't regret it! Thanks to everyone who has talked about the fundraiser or written to friends about it. Hopes of meeting our dollar-a-mile goal are high.

For now, I'm in the car with my arms sticking out from under a map. I'm using it more for protection from the hot sun than I am for navigation (seeing as its a Pennsylvania/NewJersey map and we're in Tennessee). Today we left my Aunt Sally's house in Lexington, Kentucky. My eyes watered a little when I sat on the antique divan that was always in my grandparents' home growing up. Their pictures were on the walls and now and again Aunt Sally would grace me with little memories of them. It's so nice to hear stories and memories from someone other than my father, just to have a different voice and perspective. One of the things Sally told me was that she still gets anxious being on the phone for too long. As a child she was always told to keep it short since an emergency call might be coming through for my grandfather, who was a surgeon.

Before that, we were at a campsite in Virginia, and before that, we stayed with Lyon's great aunt and uncle, Sophie and Eddie. They were so sweet and doting, and hilarious! In the car on the way from dinner, Sophie, whose license plate reads "SD BLOND" told us about a group Eddie's a part of called the ROMEO's: Retired Old Men Eat Out. I needn't say much more.

Now on to Arkansas. I'll post this tonight and include pictres.

Love to everyone in back of us and in front of us.