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Inuvik to Ushuaia

Into Mexico

nancy

We are in Magdelena de Kino. We rode 68 miles yesterday through - from
Patagonia through the border crossings to Imuris, Sonora, Mexico. What wonderful folks.
All sorts of people giving us waves and friendly beep and calling out from
the side of the road. The Nogales border crossing from Mexico to the
United States was had a line of semi trucks three deep and miles long waiting
to get into the USA. We got so many waves and beeps and whistle it was
almost embarrassing but I still kind of enjoyed the attention.

As evening approached we got looking for a place to camp for the evening a
guardian angle appeared. This American from Tucson stopped by the edge of
the road to say hi and ended up escorting us to his house 20 miles away.
He drove in back of us with his lights blinking and flashing. Our private
support vehicle. Bill is truly an angel. Read more · Lee más

Camping in the Sonora Desert

rfay

It took us the better part of three days to ride south from Santa Ana to Hermosillo (arriving today). We camped two nights in fairly raw desert surroundings. Both nights we got to sundown without an established place to camp, so we stopped at a locked gate, unloaded our bikes, lifted everything over, and found a place to camp. Last night (shown in this picture) was a beautiful place among the cows and coyotes and cactus.

Riding along the four-lane divided highway that is Highway 15 I was thinking about some of the things I like about Mexican drivers. Two things I like:

1. The Mexican drivers do their absolute best to give us some space on the road. The truck drivers try to move over as soon as they see us (and there are two lanes in each direction, so it works most of the time).

2. Mexican drivers know how to use their horns to communicate, not just to irritate. They have one honk to say "watch out" and another to say "go for it" and yet another to say "hey -what a beautiful woman!"

Read more · Lee más

Camping at the rural police station

nancy

We stayed a police station last night. Evening came, and dark was nipping at our heels as we came to a intersection of two roads. The store and the gas station were the only thing around and they were both closed. The man with the little hot dog stand was closing up but had four hot dogs for sale which we gladly purchased and greedly wolfed down.

In the dark we noticed another building with a TV playing and a police car in front. We went to the door and knocked. We asked permission to camp there at the police station, a very safe place to stay.

Two of the policement asked if we needed anything.. I said yes - I would like two cans of beer. They went to the town many miles away 45 minutes later drove back with their lights flashing. The beer had arrived.

There are 5 guys who live at the station for a week to ten days, 24 hours a day. They make 100 dollars a month. Wow. Read more · Lee más

Site Navigation - Our Various Trips

Here are links to our various trips - we've taken the links off the front page so it can concentrate on the current trip.

Our Big Trip - Arctic to Antarctic, Canada to Argentina, North Pole to South Pole

  • Canada: Inuvik to Victoria (June-August 2006) blog triplog route photos
  • USA West Coast (Washington, Oregon, California (August, September, October 2006) blog triplog route photos
  • Mexico (starting in Arizona) (January 2007 - ???) blog triplog route photos

Older Rides: Central Mexico (2003)

blog triplog

Older Rides: Great Divide down to Copper Canyon (2003)

Older Rides: Denver to the Pacific Northwest (2004)

Older Rides: New England (2005)

Contact Information

We're Randy Fay and Nancy Lewis.

Send us an email at .

Our phone number is +1 303.241.7711, but you can also call our SkypeIn number at 303-731-3611 - it's a little easier for us. Our Skype username is randyfay.

Our physical address is:
1340 Zenobia Street
Denver, Colorado 80204
USA

But we're not home right now!










Website Updates - Hope you like it

rfay

We re-did the website - Hope you like it! You can now get to lots of things on the links up on top. Some of the changes:

  • Info from all of the trips is available in order if you want it that way. It's kind of hard to read everything backwards! So for example, you can choose "Canada" from the top of the screen and read about our Canadian adventures in order.
  • Buttons on the top lead you to the most-commonly-requested articles.
  • I added a "Contact" page in case people want to get in touch with us.

Luis Alfonso Valencia - Bicycle commuter near Navojoa

rfay

Near Navojoa, Sonora, we ended up riding with a very interesting local person, Luís Alfonso Valencia. He's a true Mexican bicycle commuter. He rides 25 kilometers (15 miles) each way every day to his job as a heavy equipment operator for the state of Sonora. All this on a single-speed bike. We were impressed. And he gave Randy a real run for his money in a little race. Only when Randy had (many) more gears to speed up with did he pull away.

Do you notice the wonderful reflectors he has for safety on the back of the bike? They're discarded CDs. So why do we use anything else? We're going to try to get some for our bikes.

In the flat agricultural region from Navojoa to the sea we saw many, many cyclists, mostly on bikes like Luís's. In one small city we saw three bike shops in one small region of the downtown. And we've seen bike shops in several towns we've been in. We're just hoping they have some of the parts we need when the time comes.

Candelario Viniegra Chavez in his 6th grade classroom

rfay

I met Candelario on my 2003 trip down the Great Divide to Copper Canyon. He was a schoolteacher in a remote canyon town unreachable by car and I happened by his open-air classroom. We chatted a bit, and I talked with his class a bit. He then walked up the canyon with me for a delightful afternoon, showing me his favorite swimming hole and telling me all about his life. At that time he had to live several hours from his family in a tiny place where he was the only teacher, had no running water or electricity, and no walls on the school. But his delightful attitude and happy smile were my real memory.

Read more · Lee más

Exhacienda Minera near Batopilas

nancy


DSC03373 exhacienda minera
Originally uploaded by refay.
Exhacienda Minera: Here is the ruins of an old mining building in Batopilas, one of the oldest silver mining towns in Northern Mexico.

Even today there are mining activities in the far mountains in Copper Canyon where new roads have been built giving people access to areas of this region where before only foot access was possible.
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