So it's over. And here's how it ended. We watched Kenny ride away after Bend, OR with a tear in our hearts, not in our eyes because we don't cry and then continued to the Oregon coast. Upon arriving we immediately bought razors to shave mustaches and inquired where the nearest movie theater was. It wasn't showing the Other Guys after 5pm so we sadly shaved our faces at an Oregon state park where we encountered giant slugs.
The next day we began our ride in a heavy mist - not rain but a heavy mist. We were confused and bummed because we weren't actually riding along the coast. After twenty miles or so we stopped at a library and dried our socks; happily spending two and half hours on youtube/facebook.
101 might have been the hardest section of the entire trip. It had massive hills, no shoulder, it was cold and there was usually a head wind. It would have been a nice car ride. In fact we actually tried to talk a guy into dropping the $500 price tag of his s10 durango to $350 but he wasn't having it. 101 did provide the occasional vista which made it worth while.
Our first night in CA we spent in Eureka. It was one of the only times we actually felt unsafe. The town was dirty and gave off sour vibrations. We slept on a frisbee golf field littered with beer cans behind the town park. Once settled in, we heard voices coming towards our tent. Crazy homeless people? Angry youth? We heard something land by our tent - a frisbee. It was a group of drunk guys playing night golf.
California coast upside down.
I heard one of them threaten to burn our tent down so I poked my head out and apologized for being on the field. They said it was fine and unknowingly acted as our body guards for the remainder of their game.
For the duration of 101 we road long days and slept either on the side of the road or town parks. It was our longest stretch without a shower and by the last couple hundred miles our bike were falling apart. The spokes in Jim's rear tire were literally pulling out of the rim and mine had developed a nasty wobble as well. I had to unattach the rear break to stop it from rubbing. It was funny though because it took us a while to realize why we were so tired. Only 40 miles out of San Fran, Jim's rim had had enough and refused to spin. We called it quits and hitch-hiked to Fairfax where we took a bus into the city.
We spent a week in San Fran at a UVM friend's, Alicia, apartment. They made fun of our smell and facial hair and fed us eggs sandwiches. We went out on the town, walked around the parks, saw castro street and haight ashbury but ultimately hung around and watched movies. It was the perfect finish to two months of nonstop moving. Funny thing about our smell though...apperently we actually did smell. And the Amtrak people agreed...
Jim and I ordered our tickets the day before leaving, we left early that morning, navigated all the buses correctly - a big deal for us never having used public transportation in a city before. We broke down and packed up the bikes just in time and were about to get on the train when we heard someway say "You two can't get on my train." It was the conducter and apperantly he smelt us "all the way down the platform." And apparently deroterant "could never cover up the smell." He told us the train had circle air and our smell would be spread throughout the entirety of the train, ruining the trip for hundreds of people. We argued but finally realized he was serious. The guy at the booth when we refunded our tickets said he'ld never seen anything like it seventeen years. We took a train to the SF Airport and bought plane tickets. We passed the smell test, although I was randomly selected for a pat down, and boarded. In 6 hours we did what took us 2 months.
Thanks to everyone who helped us out on the way or just seemed interested in talking to us. It was meeting great people on the way that made the trip so fulfilling. The lesson learned is that there are nice people every were you go (except northern california). Thanks to Ben, Anthony and Alicia for putting up with us for extended periods of time. Thanks also to everyone who wrote on the blog, it was nice to know we weren't completely alone.
