From the West to the East

You can zoom around and check out the features that we have flagged as potential stops along the way.

The shower symbols are potential host from a vast network of "Warm Showers" hosts that are a cheap way to stay clean and well rested as well as meet amazing people along our way with ties to bike touring.  Everything else is pretty self explanatory!

Check back on this post (I may add the map to the side bar later) to see how it changes as we get closer and closer.  Please comment below if you think we are passing near something particularly interesting or worth a detour and/or rest day!

I'm really excited to see a part of our country that I have never seen before, and do it all with my wonderful wife by my side.  Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas will all be new areas with unique climates, culture, and food that I am ready to explore with an open mind and an empty stomach.

WJT

From the North to the South

We're gearing up for our bike tour across America, cementing our plans, practice-packing sleeping bags in new compression sacks, and tuning up our bikes, but before we start traveling east across the country, we have to make it down the coast.

In 15 days we'll fly into Seattle and spend some time visiting Jane and Don, my great-aunt and uncle. Jane is my grandpa's sister, and she and Don met when Jane moved in with her brother after college. My grandparents already had enough kids to make a basketball team by then, and their neighbor Don would entertain them with enormous hide and seek productions, pranks, and some of the most infamous scary stories known to the Lister family. Jane and Don met, married, and eventually moved out to Seattle, where they have a beautiful house known as The Red Cottage. They don't make it back east very often, which makes it even more special when you finally convince Don to revisit one of his stories.

I'm hoping for the "Inside-Outside Man", but would be satisfied with "Snowball, Arizona" or any of the Paru Bear stories.

We'll definitely make time to visit First Light Farm, one of Jane and Don's more recent projects.
While in Seattle we also plan to cash in one of our wedding presents- a meal in the Space Needle! Thanks, Natalie and Lauren! We're planning to visit the Pike Place Market and do some other touristy things too. Suggestions are welcome. Our buddy Uncle Tony has already sent a list of Twin Peaks-related sites to visit.

After Seattle we'll hop on a train down to Portland where we plan to stay with one of my college roommates, Audrey. Will and I have been to Portland before and are mostly looking forward to spending time with friends while there and trying to avoid Powell's City of Books since we'll have limited space in our backpacks... and I have limited willpower when it comes to saying no to novels.

After Portland we'll head to Corvallis, visiting another college buddy, Meaghan. Meaghan defies that saying about rolling stones gathering no moss. She can't get enough of those sweet bryophytes, and she's traveled all over the country pursuing botanical work. Then we're onto Eugene to see Pete, one of Will's companions on his first cross-country tour.

We'll cross the mountains and head to Bend next. I lived in Bend for a few months after college, and am really looking forward to spending time with Julie, my aunt, and my fantastic cousins. There's so much to do in Bend that we're going to put down our luggage for a few nights while we spend time with family, relax in some soaking tubs at McMenamins, drink some amazing beer, and hopefully get to do some bouldering at Smith Rock State Park. I had so much fun living with my family out there, and one of the things I am most looking forward to during the first leg of our journey (the bike-less part), is getting to spend time with the Noodles, my wild, smart, fun-loving cousins, not to mention Aunt Gummiworm.

After Bend, we'll head to Crater Lake National Park. Autumn was just setting in the last time I was there, and the warm days and cool nights made for some excellent hikes and beautiful night skies. Will and I are looking for a way to rent some cross-country skis so that we can explore the park in a totally new way. Our National Parks Pass will be put to great use during our honeymoon, and we're so grateful to Goody and Erin for giving it to us as a wedding present.

After Crater Lake we'll head to the Redwoods, then to Yosemite, Sequoia, and King's Canyon National Parks. Did I mention that pass was going to get a lot of use?

We'll soak up that nature while we can- our next stop will be Los Angeles, CA to visit Abby and Dan. Abby was my companion during my first journey down the coast, and I'm so excited to get to see her at the end of the first leg of the honeymoon.

At that point we will have been traveling for almost a month, but there's not much time for weariness. We'll say good-bye to the coast at that point and start pedaling.

--SLL