Our Trip in Review

We finished our 7th map, but forgot to post it.

We have heard from our over 300 faithful followers in 31 states and 22 countries. It was their prayers, thoughts, encouraging emails, facebook comments, text messaging that kept us going. We took over 1,560 photos....about 500 went on Facebook & some went on this blog.

We received over $1000 in donations for Outreach International & World Service Corps and have people who pledged per mile that still need to get the money to us.

Thanks for your part in the journey, following us on the blog.

We have enjoyed our time with our California Cadman family, and the warm sunshine. Kathleen is headed for Seattle, WA & Portland, OR...Doris & Bob are headed back to Utah.

The Pacific Ocean looked great...the journey is over

After a few more climbs up a mountain, then it was downhill into San Diego and Ocean Beach on the Pacific Coast. We met 2 sets of riders who were climbing, and only a few days from their start in San Diego, who envied us being at the end of the trip. One even asked Doris if she wanted to turn around and sag them across the other direction.
Here is the official ending....dipping the front tires in the Pacific Ocean. The water was a bit cool, but so much warmer than our start in the Atlantic at St Augustine so many miles and weeks ago.

This is another tradition, lifting your bikes in the air at the end of a ride.

Here are the 3 of us after dipping the front tires in the Pacific, in our Outreach International shirts (one of the 2 organizations we raised some money for along the way). Thanks to all of you who followed us on an incredible journey. A lot more pictures should be posted soon to the Facebook album. We will visit family in Glendora, then head back to Utah.

Are you following us? Our last day!!

We are leaving Pine Valley on our last day of the bike ride. Kathleen will be posting lots of photos on the facebook album this afternoon of the official dipping of the tires, and we will also post photos here.

If you have been following our journey, and are not on our facebook accounts to tell us, please leave a comment here, or if that does not work, please email peddling4pennies@hotmail.com. We are trying to get a count of how many fantastic followers we have had, and in how many states and countries.

Mountains on the Map :( But near the End!!

This is the map showing where we are leaving, below sea level, on the right. It also shows the mountains to be tackled in the middle, before arriving in San Diego on the left. Not only will the bikers have to grind gears, but the VW will have to go into lower gears.

Chocolate Mountains & White Sand Dunes

Left Joshua Tree in the dark, to get back nearly 3 hrs east to where we quit yesterday. This is what the first 50 miles looked like from the VW van, but the bikers & Van were never together for photos on the steeper hills of the Chocolate Mountains.

Rode up & down more hills into the Mojave Desert, and Imperial Sand Dunes where it was in the upper 90*, but beautiful white sands in contrast to the dark chocolate brown mountains we had just left.

On a break with the van, Kathleen checked up on her college roomie who is in the hospital 5 weeks early to deliver a daughter. We went 29 miles farther than originally planned to be in Brawley, so we could be sure we had cell phone & internet as we are waiting for news of the safe arrival of Katelyn Amanda, born in the wee hours of the morning.

Joshua Tree National Park

After breakfast, we found the grave of Hi Jolly, who was the Syrian in charge of the camels, mentioned in yesterday's blog. His favorite camel's ashes are in the tube on the front of the pyramid.

They biked 22 miles, with Kathleen having her 5th flat tire, into Blythe, California. To celebrate being in our LAST STATE!!!!! and having nice weather, they put the bikes on the Van, and we drove west to Joshua Tree National Park, kind of where the I-10 symbol is on the map above. It was interesting to see the Sonoran Desert terrain & lots of Cholla Cacti and Joshua Trees.

We spent the night in the small town of Joshua Tree & will get up very early in the am to drive back to Blythe, to get back on the bike route, which heads down toward the Chocolate Mountains and some sand dunes.

Spent last night in the small town of Tonopah. It had a hot springs, 3 gas stations, 1 restaurant/bar, 6 room motel, post office. We met several guys who live in their vans, wintering in AZ, then heading N to the Dakotas for summer. One even had an old VW bus. We joined all the semis at the Shell station for the night.

We made it another 75 miles today, on I-10 (the bikers say they are given great space from the cars & trucks passing by) in fantastic weather to the next town, Quartzsite. It is known for the US Army having used camels here, before the Civil War. If you want to read about it, check out : (http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/camels.html)

We found the pasta meal Bob & Kathleen have been craving, even had salad, cheesecake and free wi fi. We are not too far from the CA border, but there are only small towns for a few days. Of course, we have found wi fi in the most unusual places, and have had cellphone service more than we expected.

After great downtime in Phoenix seeing "old" friends, and making new ones, in BEAUTIFUL weather, we are ready to head out on I-10 west toward the California border...our last state. We are starting our last map as well which is exciting. We hope for continued sunny, warm weather with very light winds like we have had here.

End of Map 6...only 1 map to go!!!!!

Kathleen started the day with another flat, discovered as she got the bike off the trailer to start the day. There was beautiful scenery through mountains, up to the Pass (it is posted as "Top of the World" ), across a scary bridge (to all but Bob), through Gonzales pass which was not so high, down into a valley loaded with a variety of cacti, into warm sunshine. Kathleen declared this was what we had all expected earlier in the trip.

We are happy to see Map 6 end, and are excited we only have one map to go. It seems so long ago that we started Map 1. We are in the Phoenix area & will take some down time to explore, the area where Bob came on business trips, and visit friends.

Two flat tires in the Apache Nation

This is the thorn that caused Kathleen's first flat of the day, then just a few hours later the same thing happened again. Luckily the Van was close enough for them to be able to change it out without having to be on the side of the road alone.

We rode through Geronimo, and part of the Apache nation, with a snow capped mountain visible most of the day. It really makes us think of the Wasatch front of the Rockies where we live.

In late afternon, the clouds got heavier with the sun trying to peek through, and we even saw lightning. Kathleen got some neat photos of the cloud formations. We are in Globe for the night.

Beautiful day to ride into Arizona

We had 73 miles of BEAUTIFUL scenery, mountains on either side of a wide valley, with snow on top. It is starting to look like our scenery in Utah now.

We arrived in Arizona, up into the Peloncillo Mountains, then back down to another valley, and had our photo taken as a family to put on the side of the blog.

Arriving in Safford, on Route 70, the Old West Highway, they pedaled 5 miles with winds becoming headwinds, and dust blowing in their faces to meet the Van. The temperature dropped quickly & the rains came, much like we had last night.

Links to all 3 photo albums

Here are the links to all the albums...the 1st 2 filled up at 200 photos each. Kathleen has only put about 1/2 of our photos on her facebook albums, and we have only put a few each day on the blog.

Photo Album 1 http://www.facebook.com/album.phpaid=2017138&id=203100697&l=460e797dec

Photo Album 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017413&id=203100697&l=0ff425360c

Photo Album 3--just started, but hopefully will be our last
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30499959&l=aacd85a180&id=203100697

3/4 finished...ready to leave New Mexico

Last night after we were in our sleeping bags in the Walmart parking lot, the wind got so strong it shook the VW van. Luckily Kathleen was sleeping across the front seats rather than in the tent popup. Today was gloomy, rainy, cold, with strong headwinds, so we are in a motel in Lordsburg, still not on the map. We cannot imagine how bad the mountain pass would have been with this weather & winds with steep roads & no shoulders, so are glad we chose I-10.

Hopefully we will make it into Arizona tomorrow. We estimate we are over 3/4 of the way.

Kathleen worked on planning the rest of the trip, Doris got a couch surfing account started, since we have been using Kathleen's to get in touch with the generous people we have stayed with along the way, Bob got his trip beard trimmed.

Starting our 3rd Photo Album, we got to Deming

We spent a delightful night in the home of Jill & Gary, then went to church with them today, and saw a gal Doris had known 40 years ago in Ohio. Thanks to the Las Cruses Community of Church members who made us feel at home.

After a wonderful lunch at a buffet, to get the riders started, they still got 40 miles in, passing through yet another Border Patrol Checkpoint.

We decided since we live in mountains, to avoid a steep mountain pass, listed as beautiful scenery with winding roads with no shoulders, seen in the distance, we are taking I-10, so our stop tonight in Deming is not on the map.

Down-day in Las Cruces, New Mexico

We spent Friday night in the Walmart parking lot, as we have done in several cities. This one had a security guy in a car who greeted us asking if we were going to be overnight guests, then told us where to park so he could moniter all 14 of us camping.

We had a great day in Las Cruces. It's such a beautiful and friendly city. We were able to go to the Farmer's Market in downtown, with lots of crafts. Then we went to Mesilla, an old historic town. Kathleen got a neat old steer head, and Doris got a unique Mexican nativity. We had great bar-b-que dinner as well.

Good Bye Texas....end of Map 5

Our bikers got to race trucks on I-10 for awhile. We were sad to see the hospitality we have enjoyed in Texas end, but it ended with being completely spoiled by our couch surfing host, Craig, in his beautiful hacienda style home on his pecan farm. What a fantastic gormet supper, with pecan pie for dessert & eggs from his farm for breakfast. Look at the sunset from his porch.

We also got to see the 17' 4" fence put up at the border to stop illegal border traffic.

Since that state was 1/3 of the trip, we were glad to enter New Mexico, and we also finished our 5th map. The new, 6th map, our next to last, is at the top.

Flat land of West Texas leads to Van Horn

A beautiful riding day into Van Horn, 59 miles in low 70s, after being in low 20s last night. We had seen something miles before Marfa yesterday, but today we went by the US Air Force small buildings where a balloon (used for spotting aircraft that come across the border) is tethered, so we know it is not a UFO.

On the 74 mile advertised "no services", we drove past miles of dirt roads used by the Border Patrol, who clear it by pulling tires across it, so they can check for footprints. Kathleen left them a message using old rusted railroad spikes she found.

We also went through Valentine with a cute stone library & quite a few houses; and Lobo privately owned with 15 residents, so there is a chain link fence with barb wire keeping people from the run-down, deserted areas.

So much flat land in this part of TX that we could see the interstate 1o miles away in Van Horn, & they could almost coast all the way in. Tomorrow starts the mountains.

Rain in Marathon turns into sun in Marfa

From Sanderson to Marathon was a rainy, cold day with a strong headwind and sleet. But, once we arrived, we had an interesting place to stay, La Loma Del Chivo. It was listed as a hostel which is free for cyclists and couch surfers, but looked a lot like a hippie commune. Everyone was really friendly, great mix of people from 3 countries.
















The next morning started off cold, but turned into a beautiful day. It's a desolate, yet gorgeous, stretch of country. We made it about 14 miles past Marfa, but since there are no services between Marfa and our next stop, Van Horn, we drove back to Marfa for the night. It got down to the lower 20s. Next stop, Van Horn.