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.