Blogs

Well, here we are again, on the road again. We arrived in Tucson on Thursday of last week and here we are on Tuesday still in Tucson but we are on the southern most part. We enjoyed a wonderful stay with Caroline and Mary in their beautiful home near Sombrero Point. The stay was useful as we got to get the last last kinks worked out of gears and backs. I had to go to the chiropractor to straighten out my back and to the dentist to check out the tooth from hell which I had pulled three days before we left Denver. The visit was also wonderful to share their home and friendship. And we got to watch the Super Bowl. Go Bears! Read more · Lee más →: Shakedown Ride: Still kicking around Tucson

I don't think we expected the cold to follow us from Colorado, but we found out! The first day out from Phoenix was an easy day with an easy desert campsite. But the next day we got caught by the afternoon rain (and hid out in a motel). But the third day was all a gradual climb, with gradually increasing (cold) rain until we finally bailed into the desert beside the road as dusk approached. It was so cold and wet! We just huddled and tried to warm up and never did cook dinner. And in the morning I didn't ever get the courage to get up and fix the coffee like I do every morning. Nancy had to seize her role as Chief Courage Officer and get up and do all that. Finally we dragged out, and the final ride into Tucson wasn't really all that bad. But we sure hope it doesn't rain that much all the time!

To add insult to injury, I had *two* flats on the way from Oracle Junction into Tucson. That's the number of flats I had in the entire 4700 miles we rode from June to October. What's up with that?

We're enjoying a couple of fine rest days with great friends here in Tucson, and catching up on a little bit of work.

It's still the middle of a difficult winter in Denver (no bike riding for us in the last few months) but we flew yesterday to Phoenix, Arizona, to start our ride south. We're starting up again!

As you know, we finished up the first segment of the ride in San Diego/Tijuana in late October, and went home to get our affairs in order for the rest of the ride. We sold our house, sold our car, put everything we kept (not much) in storage, and are ready for a ride of at least two more years to Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America.

We went for a test ride today and it's all strange - the bikes feel different and we feel out of shape. And of course we're threatened by what lies ahead, wondering if we're in good enough shape. As always, we'll try to take it a day at a time.

Our plan is to ride south through Tucson and Patagonia, Arizona, to Nogales, and then enter the Mexican state of Sonora, and head south from there. We hope to go up to Copper Canyon through a new route (coming in from the west) and then we'll down the Mexican heartland toward the Central Valley and Mexico City.

Come along and join us! If you haven't already signed up for the email list, we invite you to sign up at hobobiker.com/subscribe. We're delighted to have you along.

Well, we fly to Phoenix on Saturday the 27th to start our adventure anew! Our house sold (accidentally-we were going to rent it out), our stuff is packed. We have our rabies and Hepatitis B shots. Our finances are in order. We have a place to store our household goods. We're ready to head from Mexico to the bottom of South America!

The website is not updated for the next part of the trip, but I'll get to that eventually.

As I said, we sold our house accidentally. We decided to rent it out and hired a rental manager. They came and put up a sign, and a day or so later our neighbors 5 houses up the street came down and said "can we please, please, please buy your house?" We said yes, and the deal has already closed. Pretty amazing way to sell a house.

I've been selling stuff like crazy on Ebay, Craigslist, and Amazon. Almost all of my technical books are gone, along with old electronics, etc. Normally this stuff just eventually gets thrown away, so I'm pretty happy to be getting a little bike touring money off of it. A $50 sale is at least day of bike touring...

Well, we're home trying to sort everything out after five months on the road. Our trip across the Western U.S. in a rental car took us to Bryce, Zion, and Arches National Parks, and mountain biking in Moab, Utah. I'm afraid we took way too many pictures and hope you'll indulge us in looking at them anyway. These places are among the most beautiful in the world.

We have new pictures of southern California and of our trip across the west on the photos page. Thanks for riding with us!

Our stove is the wonderful MSR Whisperlite Internationale, which will burn many things besides the ordinary white gas. Most important, it burns regular unleaded gasoline, which we can get anywhere in exactly the right amount for a pittance. When we pull up to the gas pump, we pay from 25 to 75 cents to get about a 3-day supply. Our friends with white gas-based stoves sometimes have to buy a gallon of white gas for $7.00 or more and then give away (or waste) most of it.

Nancy's loves to pull into a gas station with our bikes and set up to fill the cannister. Sometimes she'll claim that I have a motor on my bike and that's what the gas is for. Other times the station will have a "free donut with fillup" or some such deal. She'll ask if we can have the free donut.

Let me introduce you to Amy Farrell. We were on our way back from California to Colorado (in a car, no less, not on the bikes) and she noticed us in the Burger King going over our maps and trying to figure out our route and where we could camp for the night. She was helpful with campsite and local information, and then, deciding that the campsite options weren't good enough, she decided to invite us to sleep in her backyard. She just all four of us home from the Burger King to set up in her back yard!

Amy really made me wonder about the differences in openness and generosity among people. How can a young mother with little ones at home be so open and generous (and unafraid) as to just invite us home? On the other hand, she's gotten through life this way, so why isn't everybody like this? Anyway, kudos to you (and THANKS), Amy for your openness and generosity to us.