Hard to say goodbye

Aaron and I met lots of incredible people all along the trip that we would like to have spent more time in their company. Inevitablly the two of us had to move on to continue our journey. Those goodbyes we're not always easy but as we departed I always had the pleasure of Aaron's good spirited energy and conversation. Today's departure without him brought home the finality of our cross country adventure. Aaron had offered me a car ride to the Amtrak station. I thought the best medicine for post-adventure blues would be to ride my bike and gear to the train station. It was sad to load the bike one last time with Rick, Steve and Aaron's family and friends there to send me off.  By saying goodbye early it gave me all day on the bike to come to terms with the end of the trip. I got a bit emotional when I saw my 1st Volkswagen "Slug Bug" and couldn't call it out.  The 1st convience store rest stop was sad too. It felt like any moment Aaron would roll and put in his usual chocolate milk and Red Bull request but obviously he never appeared so after I finished my snack and waited for a few cyclists that road by to get far enough ahead (wasn't in the mood to chat with strangers today) I left the store alone.

The dose of exercise, views of the Atlantic Ocean and fresh ocean air did help to uplift the spirits.  I also had the distraction of my rear wheel falling apart. The 1st spoke broke about 5 miles into the ride. I fixed it with a fiber spoke repair kit. Then 25 miles later another spoke popped. I still had 28 miles to go and with a severe wobble wasn't too confident the wheel would make it the rest of the way.  I looked up a local bike shop in Jacksonville Beach and luckily the Trek store was only 2 miles away and right on the route.  After unhooking the rear brake because of the wheel rubbing on the pads, I pedaled gingerly to the store leaning my weight on the front wheel.  The mechanic quickly repaired the wheel when I told him about the train I had to catch.  After 30 minutes the wheel was fixed.  My destination was due West of the shop and I caught a break with a strong tail wind all the way to the station.  I was relieved to arrive without any further mechanical trouble and 90 minutes early.

This overall trip experience was incredible and I'm so greatful for all the kind people we met that helped to support our efforts during the journey.   I'm also overwhelmed by the support of all the family, friends and co-workers back home that encouraged and allowed me to take this dream adventure.  I can't put to words how much this support and caring means to me.

Last 2 weeks of pictures are now on Picassa

Took some time from the celebration to post the final 2 weeks of pictures (see link to the right of the page).  Need to go back to the celebrations ...plan to finish the rest of the blog on the fast train home to see my honey!

We did it!

3054 miles and we made it to the Atlantic Ocean on schedule with firetruck escort, sirens blaring and cheering all along the ocean front beach road.  Will post pics and summary of the last week once the party is over!

3/7 -3/10 update

We hope the picture captions and location tell part of the story over the last few weeks.  I planned to write up a narrative summary but sleep and talking to all the new people we've been fortunate to meet recently has been a higher priority.

On Monday March 7th we met 2 Nicole and Judy, who are also biking to the east coast, just as we finished our days ride from Franklinton Louisiana to Poplarville Mississippi.  All 4 of us got caught by 2 recent road closure our 1st of the trip.  I was aware of most of the road closures by printing out route changes from the Adventure Cycling website before starting the trip but this road closure happened only a few weeks ago.  We were lucky with the 1st bridge out and we got through but ended up a bit dirty as I helped drag Aaron's bike through dirt fill that ended up being a  deep mud pit!  Feeling emboldened by our success on the 1st road closure we thought nothing of ignoring a 2nd road closure sign 3 miles further down the road.  When we encountered a 10 foot wide stream and only bridge pilons in place their was no choice but to backtrack adding 10 miles to todays ride.

Very early on March 9th a terrible thunderstorm hit.   Around 4am we all woke up to constant loud thunder, bright flashes of lightening, rain pelting the RV metal roof and high winds.  After 2 very close strikes we discussed if we'd get fried if lighting hit the RV.  The hope was that the electric hookup ground would divert a strike.  Still not sure if that would help but at the time made us feel better.  We pulled up the weather channel on our phone and saw a tornado warning for our area.  Contemplated a dash to the brick shower house but decided the tornados rarely hit trailer parks so we took our chances with laying in our warm and dry bunks.  The next day the manger told us the storm set a record number of lightning strikes and a tornado touched down 10 miles north of us. The next morning the small creek 30 feet from our site was roaring with water. 

This major storm forced a rest day on March 9th and gave us an opportunity to drive into Gulfport Mississippi to buy a new rear wheel and fix a broken spoke on the one I borrowed from Rick.   Aaron had about 15 flat tires to my 1 flat but my 3 broken wheels are much more of a bummer.  About 2 weeks ago I broke the hub flange on my wheel.  Aaron lent me a delicate racing wheel that quickly started to wobble.  A few days later Rick brought a 28 spoke wheel.  It was a bit sturdier but busted a spoke after a week.  I went back to using Aaron's wheel after trueing the wobble but after 2 days the wheel bearing went making it unrideable.  Luckily we found a gem of a bike shop called Competition Sports.  Robert Driskell fixed Rick's wheel and sold us a sturdy 32 spoke rear wheel.  Robert also helped me with a Specialized cycling shoe insert that helped with some mild arch pain and toe numbness when riding hard.

After an added day of rest and the bike in working order we heeded the call of the rooster had Lenny's eggs in a hole and departed on Thursday for a planned  92 mile ride with our 2 new companions.  This would be our longest day of the trip (and the longest self supported touring day for Nicole and Judy too).  Weather today was on our side.  We had a 10mph perfect tailwind all day.  After some initial hills we were lucky to have flat riding all the way to the gulf coast town of Bayou La Batre!

New pictures up

New pictures (captions and location tags updated too) from the last 2 weeks have been added to the picasa web album.

Well deserved day off!

Friday March 4th Rest day in St. Francisville LA (3V Tourist Court)

We've been out of touch recently as we've been putting in over time to make up miles on the smaller hills of East Texas and even flatter low lands of Louisiana.  In the last 8 days we have covered 509 miles with a pedaling time of 46 hours.  The 46 hours doesn't include the time when we pull over for rest along the road, go into stores, stop to talk to people along the route, roadside phone/e-mail etc.  The total time from saddling up to arriving at our destination for the last 8 days is 68 hours.  Luckily the weather has been nearly perfect with sunny skies and light winds until the rain hit today on our planned rest day.   We've also had the good fortune of being well fueled by a large shipment of home made goodies from both of our families!

Due to putting in overtime on the road and extremely spotty cell coverage keeping in touch has been difficult and we feel pretty bad about that.  We're planning on updating pictures and doing a more thorough update of the great people we've met and places we've seen very soon.