Day 64, Two Babes Off Bikes and Into the Pacific Ocean!

WE DID IT! WE MADE IT! Love to everyone who supported us through our 4,040 mile journey from Crane Beach, MA to Dillon Beach, CA.

Day 63, Martinis to lick your wounds

In an effort not to dwell on the past, may we only say that today's effort was mightily rewarded with hard liquor at the end that will power us tomorrow to the Pacific! But if you really want the story, California was evidently trying to test our endurance, since we went 92 miles today (accidentally) in strong headwinds, some rain thrown in there, several miles of gravel roads, and choices between certain death and less certain death. That was, in fact, a choice we had today: death by Route 12, with no shoulder and trucks whizzing by our cute little heads, or endless miles of gravel roads, which on 25/28 mm tires with headwinds and tired bodies and minds spells somewhat certain death also. We hedged our bets and chose gravel. Since we write tonight, we evidently beat the house.

By the end, it was solely the knowledge of the proximity of the ocean and our welcoming crew that kept us going until well after dusk. Beer was just not going to cut it tonight; strong martinis (on the house) did! Vive tomorrow! Tomorrow, tomorrow, we love you, tomorrow, you're only a day (and 61 miles) awaaaaaaaay.

Day 62, Is that salty air I smell?

A vertical mile of climbing today, over 30ish miles up Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevadas that varied from fairy benign to horrifically steep. While the views from the mountains were scenic, suffice to say that we are decidedly over climbing mountains, and do not find it necessary to climb any more anytime soon.



This one's for you, Scotto:

Our reward for our 30-mile uphill effort was 50 miles of descending 7,000 vertical feet, which unluckily for us at first did not always mean downhill. Some cruel road engineer decided that it would be fun to have several miles of downhills intermittently punctuated by terrible, demoralizing uphills. However, the last 20 miles of our 76 mile day were indeed all downhill and a very, very appreciated rest on our legs.

We are so close to sea level! A mere 1,200 feet above, we are the lowest we've been in a long, long, long time. We are so excited to only have two more days of biking, and cannot wait to see our huge welcome crew next to the PACIFIC OCEAN. We've started making wave noises to each other. It's quite soothing although our imitations will not sound so sweet as the real deal. Pssshhhhhhh. Psssshhhhhhhh. Ahhhhh we can hear it already!

Day 61, California, Here We Are

Our last state line was crossed today, a very momentous occasion, which as the following pictures demonstrate was a solemn moment for us both:

We are now in the Sierra Nevadas and are ready to tackle our last mountain pass of the trip tomorrow! We are a little non-plussed at least by the foothills of the Sierras, as they seem to look exactly like the 100 other mountain ranges we just crossed in Nevada. We are now finished with our brief encounter with civilization where these squarish things called "houses" and these tall, alive things called "other people" exist and are headed instead to comingle with bears. But as soon as we have descended from the mountains we'll be back into it all and closer to the Pacific than ever.

Days 59 and 60, Cruisin the Carson City Strip

In this post-Carrie era, we have now developed a new "camping" routine, which involves staying in hotels and not cooking our own food. We must say that it is rather luxurious, especially when the hotels involved have hot tubs. After 70 miles yesterday cycling with David (including 7 extra miles since our route had a TURN on it for the first time in 450 miles. Not being used to this "turning" phenomenon, we missed the one turn of the day) and some gambling last night at our hotel casino, we decided to take our rest day today here in Carson City.

Carson City is probably everything you'd ever expect from the Nevada state capital, which is not much. But it has Starbucks, a movie theater in which we drank in the entertaining "Burn After Reading", and a nice pub where we had a drink with Molly's friend Justin aka Woz who was passing through!

Justin's talk of owning a plane to get around made us think twice about our current mode of transportation. However, the mere 300 miles we have left are supremely undaunting! FOUR MORE DAYS OF CYCLING. Bring it.

Sunset Riding into Carson City

Day 58, We're almost done with this state...

We rode 111 miles back to civilization today! We are really excited to have been able to double up a day, which will make our Sierra Nevada mountain pass in a couple of days easier to break up and then it's all downhill to the ocean! We write from Fallon, NV, and are extremely happy to have made it here, almost all the way out of this forsaken state.

We rode today with David, another x-c biker, and having three of us really made quite the peloton on the road. We must have had enough people to attract a tailwind for once, and by lunchtime, we had already gone 80 miles. With Carrie motorpacing us for the third day in a row (so pro, so pro) we finished out the long day with smiles on our faces and appetites enough for double chocolate milkshakes.

We are happy to report that we have now seen the world's largest shoe tree, which looking at the picture with all of the dangling shoes becomes rather self-explanatory:

Sleeping in tomorrow and then to Carson City to perhaps try our luck before Cali? Back to reality now that Carrie-Mom will be leaving us, although we have made the strategic decision to send all of our camping gear home and motel it up for the rest of the way. Less weight for us, the faster we get to the ocean.

Day 57, Groundhog Day

Mountain. Basin. Repeat. Mountain. Basin. Repeat. Every day, Nevada stretches on endlessly, with the same rhythm of 4 mountain passes and 4 headwind-filled basins. We empathize with Bill Murray.

Quite the exciting apres-bike adventure, however. We found ourselves in the middle of the desert at a quasi-nudist colony with hot springs. The hot springs were lovely; the sight-seeing was not so much. But the "jacuzzi" in the middle of a giant basin was a good end to our day.

Our accomodations are so "rustic" this evening that we are afraid to use the beds and have instead decided to camp out on the floor. Carrie is with us an extra day in order to get us back to civilization!!!

Day 56, How many mountain ranges can you cross in one day?

The traveling convenience store/deli strikes again, and again, and again! We have given food and cold drinks now to Dai, a Japanese guy biking from Alaska to Chile, to Josh and Judy who are walking across the US (!), and to Chris and Paul, an Englishman and a Welshman biking xc who almost thought we were mirages in this desert.

Besides the beautiful Great Pyrenees who guarded his sheep ferociously and the four mountains we ascended today, nothing much of interest to report from Eureka, NV. But we are alive and well and a week from tomorrow we will see the magnificent Pacific Ocean!!

Day 55, Motorpace Mama

Trees are inspiring. Especially living trees that were around before Jesus Christ ever walked the earth. The bristlecone pine tree can live up to 5,000 years, and the closer it is to the tree-line, the more it thrives on its harsh conditions. There are many reasons for its survival: it sections off its trunk, meaning that even if most of the tree has died, the sectioned off parts can continue living. Its bark, instead of rotting like most trees, instead is enormously resistant and erodes slowly. The three of us hiked up to 10,000 feet early this morning (after mule deer joined us for breakfast) and saw these magnificent trees.

So if those trees can survive that long and through so much, surely we can survive a little over a week in getting ourselves to San Francisco!

Molly showed some serious awesomeness today and totally saved an x-c biker named Dave, who found himself at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, with a completely broken chain and no idea how to fix it. She swooped in, got her mechanic's hands all greasy and voila, he should be good to get to Cali now!

We had lots of fun pretending to be pros as we motor-paced behind the van today. Carrie was an excellent motor-pacer, especially since there was 35-mph headwinds. We couldn't wipe the permagrins off of our faces as we cruised behind at 20 mph when previously without the van, we had been going a ferocious 6 mph, downhill.

It's now time for some R&R as we head out to the middle of nowhere again. Our days in Nevada have the following rhythm: uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Repeat after me: uphill, downhill, flat/headwind. Uphill, downhill, flat/headwind...

Day 54, We may be in the desert, but no more dry towns

We write from under the twinkling stars again in the darkest night sky in the contiguous United States, at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. We are quite proud of our Nevada stateline pic and used some serious creativity for this one:

What a day. As soon as we left Milford, UT, we were immediately in the middle of nowhere. The landscape is like nothing any of us have ever seen before. It is stark but mountainous, with huge basins in between the mountains. Nevada has over a hundred separate mountain ranges due to the massive fault lines underneath us, which means we have a lot of climbing ahead of us! We are in the Great Basin, which stretches from Utah to Idaho to Nevada to New Mexico, and it is an area where water, instead of finding its way to the ocean, washes into basin areas and evaporates into the air.

We had several notable occurrances today, which did not include the approximate 30 cars we passed in total today, eastbound and westbound. We off-roaded in the minivan (there's a phrase you don't hear often) to an abandoned mine called Frisco. We saw beehive-like charcoal ovens and remnants of what used to be a lively community and is now scrap metal left rusting in the desert.

We had a herd of pronghorn antelope gallop across the road in front of us while we were riding, and we saw a coyote surveying the land by a river. We also had three climbs in which Molly and Stephanie played the ever-popular categories, with today's categories being 'Foriegn Phrases', 'Cartoon Characters', and 'Names in the Bible'. If anyone has any eclectic suggestions for categories, please send them along as they will be much appreciated in this desert. Carrie is always waiting for us at the top of the climbs with her driving buffet car, and we appreciate her honks as she passes in front of us into the vast nothingness. And when I say nothingness, I mean nothingness:

The sagebrush ocean we are crossing is unlike any scenery anywhere else, and it is quite the adventure to be cycling across it. Tomorrow morning we will hike to see the oldest living things on this earth, which are bristlecone pine trees that are 4,000 to 5,000 years old. That and the open skies are more than enough to amaze.

Day 53, Happy Highway Hills

Utah has kicked our butts for quite awhile now, but we have been kicking its butt right back at it. And we are about to kick it for good as of tomorrow! Due to the rather difficult nature of Utah's hills and mountains, we were slightly behind schedule. We decided that without weight, we could probably double up and do two days' worth of riding in one, and we had planned on doing 95 miles today. A little sleuthing and we found a 77 mile route instead that did NOT involve a 4,000 foot climb! So here we write for the last time from Utah, thankfully.

Our sleuthed shortcut was really fun riding. The climb in the morning didn't take very long, and certainly the newly-stocked sagwagon was delightful. The entire trunk is filled with an assortment of yummy goodies that make convenience stores look like child's play.


The downhill was classic and helped restore our faith in bicycling. Just two days earlier, Stephanie had decided she hated riding her bike, but this downhill put the love for her bike right back into her heart (it may also help that 60 extra pounds are no longer attached to her bike). The shortcut then took us on I-15 for 16 miles, and we summited a mini-mountain (6500 ft) on an Interstate highway--not bad for a day's work. An extra long break at lunch in Beaver, UT (where the Budweiser sign proclaims, "it's always colder in Beaver"...hmmm....) gave us the strength to finish up our day in questionable FLDS-compound lands.

We even had time this afternoon to have an apero outside the hotel on the lawn, where Carrie was delighted to be mistaken for Stephanie's sister! Tomorrow there are no services for 84 miles, except of course the minivan/sagwagon service, which is better than any old Chevron could ever provide.

Day 52, Party in Panguitch

What started off as quite a difficult day turned into a realllllly good one in the end. We had two tough climbs today (what else is new in Utah...) and the first one we climbed up at the turtle pace of 6 miles per hour with a ghastly headwind bearing down on us. It took us three hours to get 18 whole miles. In the words of a dear brother, "woof."

We saw our German friends from Salida, CO for the third time in two weeks on the first climb, though—they stopped to take our picture. Truly, when there are so few people in remote places like this, people you see twice feel like old friends.

We got to leave our trailers half-way through the day, because Stephanie's mom Carrie joined us today! She picked up enough provisions to get us through Nevada (which with as much as we eat is quite the carload...and she did not forget the important things like Coronas and limes). While she was shopping we left our trailers for her to pick up later so we could tackle the second climb that was much, much easier on our poor bodies without 60 extra lbs.

The highlights of the day came at the end of the day. We got a huuuuuge downhill on a bike path which is so fun when there are no cars to honk at you and scare the living daylights out of you:


Then, as we were momentarily stopped on the bike path, Carrie drove up next to the bike path and we got to get huge hugs on the side of the road and get previews of the food and beer coolers she has purchased for moon-like Nevada! And then, as we arrived in our destination of Panguitch, Molly’s husband Doug arrived on his way back from vacation to join us for the evening! More hugs (and kisses for one of the babes :) We have quite the party here and had dinner all together at the only place open in this rockin’ town.

We start off tomorrow knowing that we have a super-sagwagon driver for the next week! Our legs couldn’t have done it without you, Mom!

Day 51, Angels and Fairies

It was a day of angels. We both were dreading the day ahead, with our bodies battered by all of the climbing in recent days. Today we had on the menu a 3,500-foot, 25-mile climb up Boulder Mt., followed by another grueling and STEEP 1,000 foot climb in desert conditions. At the bottom of Boulder Mt., as soon as the climbing began it was miserable, and so we decided to take matters into our own hands. Stephanie flagged down a minivan, and asked if they might be able to do us a favor. The passengers of the minivan didn't quite understand the request, but once Stephanie discovered c'etait des francais, tout allait bien! A quick explanation in French later, ces anges francais took our heavy bags up to the summit of the mountain so we could bike practically weight-free! 25 miles later, we found our bags right next to the summit sign (9,600 feet) and our legs rejoiced the entire way up. So did we, actually, as we laughed and chatted for the first part of the climb, instead of being covered in a cloud of doom instigated by our pain.

The second set of angels came as we were taking a quick sun-filled siesta at the bottom of the Boulder descent at a state park. We awoke to find a cold Pepsi near Molly and a cold Dr. Pepper near Stephanie--it was the same couple as yesterday who had offered us cold drinks from their RV as we sweated through desert-like heat in Capitol Reef! The two of us babes had been talking about how nice it would be to have a "cold drink fairy" here in Utah, and now for two days straight, Merle and Becky have been our cold drink fairies! Thank you to them!

The third set of angels came as we rolled into Escalante and found the grocery store shut on Sundays, naturally. We had passed the only open convenience store about a mile and a half before and were not looking forward to going back and buying some horrid food such as Kraft mac n cheese or the ever-lovely processed meat. Then, two boys came out of the closed grocery store holding, lo and behold, bags of groceries. It turned out to be the owner's sons, and they let us in to do our shopping--cheers to not having to eat bologna or hot dogs for protein!

We figure that it will take us our whole lifetime to repay all of the kindness that we have been given on this one trip. And that, in the end, is probably the most important thing we will take away from this amazing adventure.

Day 50, The things they were given

We have amassed quite the list of items that we have been offered, and in almost all cases have accepted, on this trip by various kind people in every state: pears from an orchard, homemade cherry pie, peaches, tomatoes out of the garden (normal), a tomato out of a purse (not normal), grilled chicken for breakfast, coffee, cookies, protein bars, water, Gatorade, beer, wine, cold Coke and Dr. Pepper in desert-like conditions (heaven!), cabins, firewood, backyards, hot showers, computer usage, pancakes (twice!), concert tickets, serenaded guitar songs, rides to the grocery store, rides up the hill to our campground on our day off in the rain, rides in a golf cart to carry firewood, a ride in a boat to waterski, an offer to shoot badgers with a pistol should those pesky badgers come abotherin' us durin' the nighttime, and in the most recent and perhaps most eccentric yet fascinating episode, we have been given dinosaur poop. Yes, you read that right, good old petrified dinosaur crap! Scientifically known as copralite, we are now both proudly carrying bike-friendly portions of this oddly-beautiful substance. As Molly noted, now we too are fossil-fueled.

The source of the poop was friom an off-hour tour of the rock shop in Hanksville this morning, which was run by the late Ernie, a man who the scientists came to for questions about dinosaur bones, fossils, rocks, and petrified wood in southern Utah. Ernie would've turned 90 today. We met Bill and MaryAnn last night who were Ernie's good friends and shared his passion for the land, and they offered to give us a tour of his ecletic and impressive rock shop. We always find it best to learn about things by the people who are passionate about their subject, and so the rocks of Utah came alive for us today through Bill, MaryAnn, and their friend Reese as they gathered together for a memorial for Ernie.

You can tell a lot about the earth during the dinosaur age via copralite, but we found the story of how copralite came to be called as such the most compelling story. Back in the 1800s, the early paleontologists were cutthroat about their dig sites and would devastate and even bomb each other's sites. This guy Cope and this guy Marsh were mortal paleontologic enemies, and when Cope died, Marsh decided to get the ultimate revenge by naming dinosaur crap after Cope--hence copralite.

We biked in crazy headwinds (which luckily became crazy tailwinds, eventually) through Capitol Reef National Park and up to Torrey, a small enclave of culture in southern Utah. We had very good culinary experiences today. We hit an organic farm, Mesa Farm, in the middle of the desert and got our long-standing (since Kansas) questions about irrigation answered by Randy, the farm owner. Then we had the ultimate gourmet dinner at Cafe Diablo in Torrey. We figure that if Stephanie climbed Boulder Mountain last year (as we'll do tomorrow) fueled by Patron margaritas, then we shouldn't break the tradition!

Photo Extravaganza

A computer in southern Utah woohoo!

The long-awaited stateline pic:

Lake Powell with our campground under the stars on the left in the distance:

The rocks make you feel pretty small:

More rocks to come in the next few days...well quite a few days really, no trees until Cali. Rocks, rocks, rocks. Rocks!

The Signs We Live For

Day 49, Next Interview in 5 Minutes

We write from Hanksville, which the few that have been to this town know that there is not much here. But it has been quite accommodating--for one thing, it has cold beverages, which is pretty exciting when for the past couple of days you haven't seen a single town or home. Nothing but canyons means no refrigerators, which means warm water and Gatorade to drink. Mmmm not so much the babe style!

We had a gorgeous morning of cycling, but lots of climbing which means lots of time to ponder the many rocks you see. We did see some petroglyphs and some cave art of a princess from 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. The princess art was in an amphitheater-like cave about a football field tall and a football field and a half wide. It was a good place to yell ECHO and also to imagine having been cavewomen, although unlike the grunting cavewomen, we two babes would have been much more Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble.

Dinner this evening after our somehow very long 52 miles was chock full of events. We met a couple who is going to give us a private tour of the late "Ernie the Rock Guy"'s Rock Shop here in Hanksville tomorrow morning. We met two German women who we recognized seeing at a Salida, CO convenience store about a week and a half ago. We met two other Western-bound bikers headed to San Francisco. That's about as much excitement as you could ask for in Hanksville! We also were asked probably ten million times just today (in addition to the four billion times we have been asked along the trip) what we are doing and where we are going. We're thinking of concocting a "FAQ" sheet for all question-askers. It would look something like this:

We are coming from Boston.
We are headed to San Francisco.
We are taking 9 weeks in total.
We have been on the road for (insert total time here).
We plan on being in San Fran beginning of October.
We left Boston beginning of August.
We camp mostly, but have stayed in some motels.
4,000 miles total.
Yes, we went over the Rockies.
No, we do not take interstate highways.
No, we are not biking back home.
No, you may not have our phone numbers!

Day 48, Near one of the darkest night skies in the US

We are writing from underneath the brilliant stars at Hite Recreation Area on Lake Powell. We are miles and miles from anything remotely resembling civilization, and decided to sleep outside under a blanket of stars.

We dropped into the canyons today, and had quite a day of climbing, descending, and everything in between with huge rocky cliff walls as our views, stretching endlessly before us and endlessly behind us.

It's nice being away from everything, as long as it doesn't make you crazy wearing aviator sunglasses and sporting a mustache where one side goes straight up and the other goes straight down, like one s-c biker we saw today!

Twinkle, twinkle.

Day 47, From pinto beans to canyons

Before we entered the great state of Utah today, we had quite an exciting event occurrance--we entered Dove Creek, CO, the pinto bean capital of the world! Fans of the beloved pinto bean flock from all around the globe to admire this pinto bean haven. Much to our delight (or chagrin), the pinto bean crop looks exactly like soybeans, and we haven't seen too many of those on our trip...

We crossed into Utah and the stateline pic will be posted whenever we find a computer in southern Utah, so basically, never. Apparently we are very popular in Utah, it being our home and all. We had a guy we had briefly met in Telluride slow down in his car and talk with us on the side of the road-we must be memorable! Then not 10 minutes later, we flagged down a guy in a pick-up truck because we didn't know what to do with the dog who had followed us for three miles and kept running out in front of cars. The guy promised to take the dog back home and in the meantime asked us, 'Hey, was it you two girls who were in the pub last night in Dolores?' Why yes, it was. Our fame precedes us!

We are in Blanding, UT tonight tenting in a very nice couple's backyard. We saw Mark biking along our same route and he offered to have us stay here. We thank Mark and Carla for giving us a safe place to stay, especially with their three enormous mastiffs guarding the house!

Don't be alarmed if the blog is not posted for the next couple of days as we are headed out into some remote canyons. And we had thought Indiana was the middle of nowhere.

Day 46, Rocked Rockies

We are done, fini, finito with the Rockies! Our last climb was up Lizard Head, which had an elevation of a mere 10,222 feet considering we started in Telluride at about 9,000 feet. Sounds easy and short, right? Well, we probably climbed a total of 4,000 feet to get the total elevation gain of 1200 feet since we rollercoasted down and then pedaled up over and over again (I wish I could say we rollercoasted back UP but no dice). We are psyched to have climbed so well the past couple of days. However, if anyone has perchance looked at a topographical map of southern Utah recently, you will know that our climbing is far from done!

We had quite the international flair today. We met a motorcycling Danish couple, rode a bit on the bikes with a fun French couple cycling from Denver to Vegas, ca faisait du bien de parler francais un petit peu! Then we fell in love with Dolores Food Market in the town we are staying at since we found such rare items as Greek yogurt and Thai curry sauce. But we stayed local with our beer and got a 'growler' of Dolores Brewpub Pale Ale-a growler is a half-gallon take-home jug of beer which fits perfectly underneath bungee cords on bicycle trailers, incidentally.

Our last night in CO-we have both absolutely loved this state. Onto the gorgeous canyons of Utah. Luckily southern Utah is indeed beautiful which makes up for its serious dearth of culture. We have horded up reading material and NYT crosswords so as not to go brain-dead in the desert! And how we have missed 3.2% beer.

Lizard Pass - final pass in the Rockies

Day 45, Picture Perfect

Telluride just may be the most idyllic mountain town to live in. Sunshine (well, for us anyway!), snow, cute shops, good restaurants, steep skiing, mountain biking, pink cruiser bikes parked along the streets, what more could mountain girls ask for?

Lazing around this gorgeous town on a bright, sunny day was the best medicine we could have asked for on this rest day.


And what isn't a great day when new skis for a certain babe member were purchased??? This babe in question even bought the exact same skis that the other babe had already purchased at the end of the season last year...as if we needed more things in common...! Watch for the two babes on bikes to morph into the two (matching) babes on skis come December.

Jack DC will be happy to know that a bar made especially for him is on Main Street here in Telluride. One co-owner of Brown Dog Pizza played football at Michigan and is also an avid Lions and Tigers fan, and the other co-owner comes from New England and is a Pats/Sox fan, and the bar is decorated with memorabilia from all of these important teams. Tom Brady signed a Patriots jersey hanging in the bar "To Brown Dog Pizza, GO BLUE!" Though one babe in particular is mourning the loss of Tommy, perhaps Belichick can save the season after all...but alas, Jack, there seems to be no hope for Michigan this season. There's always next year!

Our two-person team is headed up Lizard Head Pass tomorrow for our last climb in the Rockies. We're getting closer to Utah--will we resist the pull north towards Park City? Stay tuned.

Day 44, Blues, Brews, and Nudes

So the pictures can probably speak for themselves today. We had 65 miles of riding today, 13 of which were downhill and all the rest were uphill.

Sunrise view from the campsite...it's hard to get out of your sleeping bag when it's near freezing outside! But not a bad view to have breakfast with.

We took a mini-detour today and went to the Orvis Hot Springs near Ridgway, CO. Hot springs are pretty great when you've been climbing for days! And the people-watching is...interesting...especially when the place is "clothing-optional". We optioned FOR the clothing, thankyouverymuch.

We climbed a mini-pass today, Dallas Divide at a mere 8,500 feet, but the scenery was not too bad:


Riding to the sky:


We write from Telluride, where we have a rest day tomorrow! We were fortunate enough to experience part of the town's Blues and Brews festival this evening. Both the Blues and Brews were much appreciated after our long climbs today. We got through the climbs by intermittently feasting on crackers and Brie. There are only so many granola bars you can eat before haute cuisine becomes the meal of choice on the bikes! More brews and potential massages tomorrow to revitalize us.

The longer we're on the bike the more tempting the water becomes...trying hard to wait for the Pacific.

Blue Mesa in Colorado

Day 43, Mother Nature's Apology

What a day of riding! We think the weather today was perhaps Mother Nature's way of apologizing to us for what she put us through yesterday. This morning it was brisk but clear blue skies with abounding sunshine and a noticeable absence of any clouds or more importantly, wind. It turns out that its actually pretty easy to ride on fairly flat lands when you haven't got hurricane force winds trying to knock you over or demoralize you so completely that you give up and nap on the warm pavement (hmm wouldn't know anything about that...)

We rode by the Blue Mesa Reservoirs this morning, which are manmade via the Gunnison River and stretch for miles through an enormous canyon with walls formed by volcanic ash. One of the rock formations is called Dillon Pinnacles, named after Molly and Doug, obviously. We then had some climbing after the reservoirs, made competely worth it by some of the glorious and fun descents afterwards. It was some of the most beautiful riding we've had.

Our lunch was in a town, if you can call it that, with 6 whole inhabitants, called Cimarron. We met three of these inhabitants, one of whom happens to be quite a famous rock climber called Jim Newberry. We heard his stories about first ascents in the precarious Black Canyon back in the days when most people had never heard of rock climbing.

We are in a city called Montrose tonight, which is not only very bike-friendly but also boasts an amazing view of the San Juan Mountains where we are headed tomorrow. Forgive the reference, but in order for our readers to understand, these mountains are the Coors Light Rockies exactly how they are in the ads. Can't go around them, gotta go over them, we really ARE tapping the Rockies, but with better beer!

45 mile headwinds?! Say it isn't so!

It's all down hill from here right?

Day 42, Rocky Mountain High

See the two babes.
See the two babes on bikes.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather in driving rain.
See the two babes on bikes hauling 60 lbs each going uphill in 35 degree weather in driving rain with headwinds.

Thus went the Dick and Jane version of our first grueling 15 miles of the day, which was essentially climbing to our climb. We stumbled into a mountain lodge after these miserable couple of hours and thankfully downed hot coffee while our clothes dried in a dryer. Our day was going a lot better than this poor college kid in the lobby, though. He was driving home from college to be with his mom for his birthday. He was on the pass (we had seen the cop cars but nothing else) and swerved to avoid hitting a deer, lost control of his car and went tumbling down a 100 foot ravine. He landed upside-down and kicked his way out the window. Luckily he was wearing his seatbelt and was unhurt but shaken up with a totaled car. The cop told him a woman had done a similar thing in the same place without her seatbelt on and they found her body 50 feet from the car. Always, ALWAYS, wear your seatbelt! Our hearts go out to him.

Anyway once we were warmed up, we started out on the mountain pass and by some strange miracle the sun was now shining! We rocked the climb and reached the Continental Divide at the top of Monarch Pass, 11,312 feet. We dressed ourselves in all of the clothes that we own on this trip for the descent. We wear less clothes to go skiing! But at least we were warm.

When we got down, we still had 30 miles to go to Gunnison, and we were pretty surprised at the headwinds. Going downhill at 5 miles an hour pedaling in granny gear is never a fun situation, especially when it lasts for 20 miles. We later discovered that we were biking in headwinds of FORTY FIVE mph. That is not gusts. That is winds, with gusts up to 60 mph. Its pretty demoralizing, and neither of us are sure exactly how we did it! A day of extremes, to be sure.

Day 41, Laughing Ladies Lunching

Having changed our plans, we took it easy today. A rare leisurely morning in camp (waking up to river sounds is quite pleasant) led to 25 miles of flat river riding in the canyon. The ride was really easy on our legs, which is good since we have the over-11,000 foot Monarch Pass tomorrow. A very dear, sage woman said: 'Monarch? As in the butterflies? If they can go over it, so can you girls!'

We rode to the cute mountain town of Salida (pronounced Sal-eye-duh), which is nestled in the Collegiate Range of 14,000 foot mountains so-named for eastern Ivy League schools. There is the big, egotistical Mt. Harvard, the majestic and clearly the best Mt. Yale, and also Mt. Princeton, which hardly matters at all. We spent a nice afternoon in Salida, lunching at the Laughing Ladies restaurant, shopping (it turns out that it's really easy to send purchases home!) and enjoying the mountain-town atmosphere.

If only we become as light as butterflies tomorrow...

Day 40, Where the deer and the antelope play

We got up nice and early in order to be at the Clarion Inn for their all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (yessss to make-your-own waffles) since we knew we'd have a long day ahead of us, but I don't think we knew quite how long...

We saw our buddy Aaron camping in the Pueblo City Park as we were leaving in the morning and caught up on all the goss on the TransAm trail. Although I doubt the x-c biker community will get it's own OK! or People magazine story anytime soon, when these are the people you meet along the way, they become quite fascinating. We heard the updates on Charlie, the Forrest-Gump-esque maniac who the day we met him was still 40 miles away from being done on a 167 mile day, and the sun was already setting. We also heard that a pair of Swedish girls would be doing the Western Express Route (that we are now on) so perhaps we will meet up with our Swedish babe counterparts along the way.

It was definitely a zoo-like day, since we saw so many animals! We started off rather tamely and played with some horses as we ascended towards the mountains. Apparently they thought Stephanie was pretty funny (looking?):

As we approached the mountains, the animals got a little wilder--antelopes roaming the plains and mule deer jumping across the road. We also loved the wild sunflowers lining the roads, waving in the wind as if they were our cheering, adoring fans. We had lunch about 1,000 feet up into our 4,000-foot climb in the Wet Mountains. The view from lunch:

The scenery was breath-taking. Quite literally, actually, as Stephanie suffered from a severe asthma attack that she couldn't get rid of on the climb. With Molly's encouragements and a little mind-over-matter, we successfully completed the climb, hailstorms and all!

The riding post-climb was some of the most magnificent views either of us have seen. The openness of the mountains and 360 degree mountain views were stunning. We were riding just until the sun set, and finally made it to a campground right on the Arkansas River, further than we had expected to go, with a total of 82 miles with some serious climbing and headwinds.

Hot showers, a campfire, and a rising moon over the river gorge rocks made for the perfect evening after our challenging but spectacular day. We have changed up our schedule for Colorado to enjoy some of the scenic mountain towns and to break up the climbing, but are still right on track for our October 4th finish. We can't wait to see what more Colorado has to offer...but it will require some serious work on our part to see it. Any massage therapists out there who want to join us for a bit??

Day 39, Pike, Capt. Powell, Kit Carson, Molly, Stephanie

It really does the mind and body good to immerse yourself once in awhile in that concept called civilization. Not that we don't appreciate the beauty of the prairieland we just crossed, but my oh my things like bike stores and book stores and Target are hugely appreciated when you haven't seen them in, oh, say, 1,000 miles.

The two babes were highly productive even though it was our day off. We had warm clothing to purchase, chains to be degreased, travel-sized products to buy, extraneous items to mail home, sodas to be purchased at drive-thru convenience stores while on bicycles, tarps to be cut down one inch to save weight, etc.

We are mountain-ready! And even more excited for them after talking to some true mountain men who indicated that our route is going to be pretty spectacular. We start off the mountains tomorrow with a mere 4,000 foot ascent to warm us up! The flatlands gave us the endurance boost we'll need to tackle these puppies, and the half-moon cookies in Mom's care package will help shoot us up and over (we can also pray for 30 mph tailwinds to do the same thing!).

Days 37 & 38, Finally, something to look at

Due to lack of cellphone coverage most likely due to a combination of remote location and extreme weather conditions, we did not post yesterday but today write from Pueblo where we'll take a rest day tomorrow! And well-earned after 12 days of riding straight.

The pictures of nothingness best describe yesterday's riding. Nothing to look at allll day long. When all you have to look at is nothing, your eyes constantly scan the horizon in hopes that the nothing might turn in to something. But the most that ever happens is that you get pretty excited about far-off clumps of trees.

We rode the past couple of days with a fellow x-c-er called Aaron, who has dubbed us the 'wind fairies' because as soon as we met up with him, he had his first days of tailwinds. We're pretty psyched ourselves to have such an honorable nickname especially since it works in our favor! We pulled out 80 miles yesterday and 92 today with relative ease and speed.

We stayed last night in Haswell, so named because back in the day it was the town that 'has a well'. Haswell, besides being endowed with the wonder of water, also is home to the nation's smallest jail. As jails go, its pretty cute and comes equipped with such necessities as a wood stove and a copy of the book 'The Oil Lamps of China.' The jail might have been better accomodations than our tent in the town park last night. I doubt the jail toilets had spiders so large they could be used as Broadway props, and at least the jail had walls tough enough to stand up to 50-mile an hour winds unlike our poor tent in the thunderstorms.

But those winds (minus the t-storms) are quite nice when they're at your back on a bike, as they were this morning. The stark nothingness of the prairie this morning was haunting. The only noise for 40 miles was the whistling of the wind. We slowly came back into civilization as the day ended, as well as into sight of the mountains! They appeared faintly on the flat horizon at first, and seem more of a reality now that we've had lots of miles to ponder them and our imminent ascent of them. But for now, a lovely rest day tomorrow as we prep for going up and over these awesome Rockies. We got a 'warm clothing' package from Carrie Mumma today (thanks Mom!) and are ready to face the cold and climbs with our usual two babes gusto.

Day 37, mile 75 afternoon view

Day 37, mile 50 lunch time view...

Day 37, Our Morning View...

Colorado!! Score!!

Day 36, Looking for the end of nowhere

Our trip is going so well between the two of us babes that we are now thinking that perhaps we should stage a huge fight (a la terrible reality shows) just to make the last day of Kansas and the days in Eastern Colorado (which resembles Kansas) go by quicker. But then we were stumped about what we could fight over--tire pressure? Mis-lubed chains? Never-ending caloric consumption? Water-bottle colors? If anyone has any ideas, let us know, as this landscape is rather mind-numbing and a good fight just might make the miles go by more quickly as we seethe over, maybe, who sets the tent up better?

We are spending our last night in Kansas tonight in the tiny town of Tribune. We stopped for lunch in a town called Liota and it's funny how quickly you adapt to small-town life where anything and everything becomes fascinatingly interesting. While eating fluffernutters, we found ourselves (and everybody else in the town) intently staring at four oversize load trucks carrying wind turbine material attempting to navigate a tricky turn at an intersection. A lady informed us that the town joke is that the intersection, which has been poorly designed for trucks to pass through, must have been designed by someone from Kansas U, as a Kansas-Stater would never have done such a thing!

We write from Mountain Time Zone, although nothing around here could even remotely be described as a mountain. But passing into CO tomorrow means one more state done and in a few days, the 'Mountain' in Mountain Time Zone will take on a whole new meaning!

Day 35, Back to the two babes

Having pancake breakfast at a Catholic elementay school is a pretty awesome way to start the day, especially when its thunderstorming out and Connie gives you a ride to and from the school to wait the rain out! Thank you Connie-your hospitality was amazing.

Andy left us today and thus ends our brief stint as three babes on bikes...oh wait. We will miss you Andy and we hope you manage to convince the Amtrak conductor late this evening to accept your bike on the train even though it is not packaged as a 28 x 22 x 14 carry on.

Pool, jacuzzi, Chinese food, Joe Blow Red Wine, and TBS friday night movie all do the body right. We are staying in the lounge of an athletic club where Stephanie taught the young 10 year old Alexis how to dive (Alexis was fearless!) and Molly sadly (although perhaps smartly, post-wine) refrained from showing her stuff on the uneven bars. We were quite disappointed that the high school football game opener was away as we were planning on taking in the Friday Night Lights but go Scott City Beavers!

We are on the same road for four days straight without a single turn, so its pretty hard to get lost at this point. Colorado is getting closer and we are a long way from Boston--more than halfway done yeeeeeeeehaw!

Talking to a man about a horse in the milo field

Day 34, Going to see about a cow standing in the road

Today was one of the most beautiful days-a brisk day with not a cloud in the sky and wide open prairies where the horizon stretches on forever.

We started off our day biking through town, which was a better start to a day then others had. We passed this crying teenage girl outside of her car getting talked to by a cop with an entire fence smashed in beside her-hey, backing up is hard! We then visited Fort Larned, where the park ranger Betsy gave us a brief history lesson of the nearby Santa Fe trail, which was primarily used for international commercial trading purposes. Once sufficiently sated with cultural knowledge, we continued our trek through the milo fields and ate lunch at the only joint around for miles. We knew we'd like it when the menu stated: 'we are not responsible for the flavor of any meat cooked medium well or well done.'

Our penchant for ice cream at the end of the biking day certainly led us in the right direction today. We stopped in small Ness City at the Frigid Creme to enjoy our shakes, and wouldn't you know it but Connie at the window offered to let us camp in her backyard and use her showers! This was a much better option than the showerless City Park where we would face a stinky night together. We palled around with the sheriff while eating ice cream with him, until he was called away to go see about some cows standing in the road. Evidently, putting the police siren on from behind while honking is the tried and true method of getting the cows to move. Connie has been so lovely and hospitable-cherry pie this evening and pancakes tomorrow morning! Score!

Food for thought as we leave you this evening: is the real test of friendship hucking a loogie huge enough to name (Louie the Loogie) and spitting it onto your bob trailer where it stays frozen for miles and then being able to laugh about it all together?

Day 33, A Jealous Mother's Son...or The kid is not my son

Of all people, Michael Jackson helped us get through some mighty flat lands today. A days-long-standing argument of the words to "Billie Jean" may finally have been put to rest after a fellow cross-countrier named Sarah that we biked with today agreed with the two babes that the words do not even remotely resemble "a jealous mother's son." We told her she could keep biking with us for as long as she wanted! And Andy felt even more outnumbered than usual.

A highly "Center Stage"-worthy move by Molly Ray to the MJ tune of "Black or White", accompanied by the appropriate vocals "owwww!":

We covered 70 miles today. Two turns in the whole day, winds from the northeast (!), and zero hills. Not even one single elevation gain or loss. The xc biker Sarah hung with us the whole day, which was good to add to our posse! We are in the remote town of Larned, which appears to contain a Scouting museum and another museum about the Santa Fe Trail, as well as several fast food joints and one very comfortable motel. As we roll on through Kansas, we have now started passing the feed yards for the cattle herds. Those who have ever had the distinct displeasure of the olfactory experience of a feed yard in their lives know that you've gotta pray you won't be downwind from it. So may the winds stay the same, and may all the feed yards be on the left side of the road.

Newton fire station - best hosts in Kansas!

Day 32, Milo Plains and Spy Planes

Our easy day today was only 42 miles, which we would love to say we cruised through but changes of the winds slowed us down a bit. The slightly off-route bike shop here in the Hutch, as this town is affectionately called by its residents, is the only bike shop anywhere near where we pass in the entire state of Kansas, so we stopped in. A few fixed squeaks later, we set up indoor camping again in the basement of another Lutheran church (we miss the fire station!) and went to the movies! But not just any movie. We visited the Kansas Cosmosphere, which houses the country's largest collection of space memorabilia outside of the Smithsonian in Washington. Stephanie remarked that she had never actually been to a cosmosphere, upon which it was noted that none of the three in our small party are even sure if any other cosmospheres actually exist. So we may, in fact, have seen an imax movie today in the only cosmosphere known to mankind.

We ambled around downtown, which may have seen better days as we were discouraged by locals from bringing our bikes unless we had some really strong, sturdy locks. But there are some pockets of charm to be had in the Hutch. We ate dinner at a good, family-run mexican restaurant where we chatted with the owner. We were walking down Main Street Monkee-style and passed a tiny theater, where Andy peered in the window and promptly we were all invited in by a tech working while the cast was rehearsing for an upcoming play. This tiny Family Children's theater is a converted movie house and runs 8 shows a year. Murals on the wall depict all of the huge movie and theater characters ranging from Little Orphan Annie to Julius Caesar to Frankenstein to James Cagney to Mark Twain. The hundreds of characters lining the walls ensure that 'our cast always has an audience.' What a gem of a place to see-we wish we could see one of their productions.

Services in Kansas will become, shall we say, somewhat limited with no services for 60 miles tomorrow. This will be a good primer for the desert of Nevada but without the UFOs.

Day 31, Andy is a Big "S"

Finally, the long-awaited post from the Kansas stateline. We think it is quite the masterpiece!

Also, in order to preserve the "two babes on a bike" theme, the following picture of the two babes has been included. Sorry Andy, you are not a babe.

We write from the comfort of the Newton, Kansas fire station! The novelties of staying in a fire station do not cease. Yes, they do really have the poles that they slide down (three, even!) which Andy tried out just to make sure they really work. The fire fighters are all extremely nice and funny, and they make each other dinner and hang out in some really comfortable arm chairs. We haven't experienced a call yet, but we have been told that it may get noisy tonight if there's an alarm. They also have a washer and dryer! Which we think is pretty exciting after an uncountable number of days of handwashing clothes in the showers. You start to get a little gamey even after your best efforts of washing smelly bike clothes with shampoo.

We started off this morning by leaving camp and heading straight for the inventively-named "The Cafe", where we experienced the world's BEST biscuit in the form of sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches. The biscuit was airy, light, and delicious. We cannot sing its praises enough. We bicycled today through the Flint Hills, open pasture land that continues for miles, and miles, and miles. It was pretty to bike through, with cows leisurely grazing over open, green fields. The best way to describe the biking for the past couple of days is "lulling monotony". It's not quite boring, because it's scenic, but it stretches on for what seems like forever. By the eighth day of Kansas, it will definitely have seemed like forever! We had exactly three turns on our route today, each of which we anticipated for miles ahead. We totaled 97 miles today, and passed through the grand total of three towns, including the most exciting town of Cassoday, the world capital of prairie chickens. These prairie chickens look like they're wearing fur boots, but we're not sure how it is the world capital when we saw just a single, solitary example of this prairie chicken. In other Kansas news, we also were passed by some farming combines on the road that are bigger than most people's houses.

We've been running into fellow adventurers cycling cross-country going west to east, since we are currently on a well-traveled route called the TransAmerica Trail that goes from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. All of the cyclists headed the other way have been complaining about the headwinds--not us! Our forays east to west have recently been treating us quite well...roll on winds from the southeast. We've got an easy day planned for tomorrow, no more than 45 miles into the bustling community of Hutchinson. They have over 40,000 inhabitants--we may go see a movie AND go bowling if we can handle all of the excitement!

Post pizza party at Courtney's Place in Toronto, Kansas

Day 30, Blazing Hot Saddles

We write while being sweetly lulled to sleep by a guy who is jammin and twangin out some country music and some southern rock with an electric guitar and an amp at an adjoining campsite. It fits with the whole picture of Cross Timbers State Park here in Toronto, KS. Gimme two steps, gimme two steps good!

We muscled out 72 miles in some blazing heat, which according to locals is not at all hot for this time of year. Unfortunately the winds blew from the south today but we are hopeful they will change for tomorrow--we saw a flag blowing westward tonight!

Among today's events include an insect the size of a bird landing on Andy's back while riding. Stephanie heroically rode as fast as she could away from Andy in order to save herself. The insect cawed like a bird, I kid you not, brrrrkaw brrrrkaw. Guess they grow 'em big in Kansas. We had a lively game of categories (anybody who has spent extended time with Stephanie will have played this game). Category was 'Names of Songs' with the rule being you had to sing it loud. We had some good double-pointers with 'Witchy Woman' and 'Rockin Robin' along with Andy's imaginary 'Zulu Fight Song' (he couldn't think of a 'z') that went something like boom chucka chucka chucka boom chucka chucka chucka to the rhythm of his pedaling. Quite inventive.
We didn't know how far we'd get today, and when we got to this small town of Toronto, nothing was open and none of the soda machines even worked. We were starving and hot, and napped in the only shade for miles. Some of the townspeople took pity on us and told us that if we waited half an hour, we'd have some of the best pizza in Kansas and wouldn't you know, Courtney's Place opened and we have to say it was indeed amazing pizza and especially good malt shakes, served by Courtney herself. With our current serenade of 'Jeremiah was a Bullfrog' we are most definitely in Kansas, Toto!

Lake front property - Chateau Velo