Last Post

This should be the last post for the trip, I'm out of ideas! As to where the blog goes from here, I'm not sure. My plans are to print the whole thing out and keep some hard copies for posterity. When Laura and I are old and decrepit, it will make for good reading. I have some tentative plans to retrace the trip in a car and keep mileages, document conditions and terrain a little closer than I did on the bike. Then I can write a sort of travel guide. Laura was the trip photographer, and took a lot of pics, only a few of which appeared on the blog. She will get home and fine tune them, with captions and such, on her Mac. I would be happy to mail some or all of the pics to anyone interested. E-mail us at Lauranewlin@mac.com if interested. It would be interesting to talk to the folks we met one more time. Somehow I think I might avoid spending the night in a few of the choice spots. Big O is in pieces in Tim's garage, plans are to leave it until January or so, when I will make a trip out to pick it up. With kin out here on the east coast, it gives me an excuse to see them. Anyone who travels much knows what it feels like to get out of your crib for awhile. Four months is more than awhile. We are both ready to get home and enjoy some of the routine we're used to. I've always felt like looking forward is the best way to keep a good attitude about things, so I'm looking forward to new plans. Just don't know what they are right now.

To get in shape for the trip, I suggest just riding beforehand as much as you can. We are not exactly big, strong folks, but the riding was not a big issue. It's bike touring, not racing, so we took breaks when we wanted, and stopped to eat or drink as necessary. I probably lost about 7 lbs, maybe ten, and Laura maybe 5. It's because you ride for so many hours, It's hard to determine the effort output. We weren't racing, but it takes some calories to push that tandem for 6-7 hours a day. We ate whatever we wanted, but didn't always find what we wanted.! Fried food is everywhere, fresh food is scarce. It became habit by the end to ride for an hour or two before breakfast, just to break things up. Of course, if there was complimentary breakfast at the motel, we scarfed it. Neither of us had any issues with knees or anything chronic. Give the tandem credit for that.

Overall, it was a great experience. The biggest drawback is the motor traffic. The roads are just not designed for bicycles in most places. Drivers are usually good, and almost are courteous, but the problem is that it only takes one to squash you. By the end,we were knocking on wood that nothing had or would happen. To me, the greatest thing about the whole thing is that it takes you out of your element for awhile. The people we met we'll never forget, nor the places we stayed. Since we've ended the trip, we've talked about it and shake our heads at some of the things we saw. You'd never stay in most of the places we stopped if you had a car because you could just drive on to a spot more in your comfort zone. We ran across a guy in Idaho that had ridden from Virginia and was going to the Pacific, and he told us that “ it may not be the trip of a lifetime, but it is the experience of a lifetime.”