San Francisco

We made it to the west coast!  We have been biking SF's many bike routes and even biked across the golden gate bridge!

Bike paths from Folsom To Davis, CA

Lots and lots of bikes paths! Biking along the 30 mile American River
Bike Trail through Sacramento

Bikes and Lakes

Carson Pass, California

We camped in the National Forest then climbed the 8500 ft pass. We
were south of Lake Tahoe but we saw tons of beautiful alpine lakes!

CALIFORNIA!

We crossed the border into CA and encountered the tiny sign...

Turning $1 into $3.58

Enough money for a meal at Mickey D's for two

All our gear

Nice compact camp site

Lahonton Reservoir, Nevada

$1 entrance fee for bikers! What a steal

Desert and sand dune outside Fallon, NV

Middlegate cont

Middlegate, Nevada photos

Some pictures from Middlegate, about 50 miles east of Carson City (capitol of state of Nevada)

The shoe tree...

Cool campsite

Nevada

We crossed into Nevada yesterday, state #10!

Scipio, Utah

Photo from Wednesday the 28th.  Taken by a fellow biker, Chip Latshaw, who is also a professional photographer.  He's traveling west to east and we are traveling east to west and our routes intersected in Scipio, Utah!

107 miles and NO water

 Utah - long stretches of road with no water.  Yesterday 107 miles with no water!

Utah

Last of Colorado

The view from the road behind... The new landscape contrasted with the snow capped Rockies

Camping in Colorado's Public lands

Views from our camp site at the Blue Mesa Reservoir

Biking in Salida

Library display- all biking books! We spent hours reading up on the
history of bikes, bike touring info, and the modern bicycle revolution.

Salida- bike friendly town

We stopped in Salida, CO for our "vacation" from the bikes. This town is full of cyclists of all ages! It is a common sight to see the bike racks outside the stores on the main street full of bikes! The Main St has the same feeling as downtown Newark, so I feel like we can learn from Salida. The town of Salida facilitates biking by marking county roads as "bike routes" and by having well signed bike paths. The more we bike, the more I realize how importantant is to have the bike info well signed. I definately think we should add more signs in Newark as well as painting bike symbols on the roads, I have seen these in action and they seem to be very effective! In addittion, both Salida and Newark have easily accessible mountain biking trails. I think we could try to inform students and the Newark community of these recreational trails to get them outside and having  fun!
In addition, Salida has consignment shops for outdoor gear and bikes which makes these activities more affordable. UD or Newark could look into something like this...

Mt. Antero

Kris and jordan signing the registry after summiting the 14er (14269
feet!)

Continental Divide

Week in Colorado

We've had a great week in Colorado.  We did some awesome hikes, one of which was 26 miles.  We camped near the tree line one night and made the summit of Mt. Antero at sunrise - over 14,000 feet high!  Kris also took me mountain biking and I loved it until the moment when I hit a rock on the black diamond trail and took a spectacular fall.  Although I hit my head, I WAS wearing my helmet.  I looked like a real dirt ball as I rolled down the hill scraping my exposed body parts.  I was pretty sore for a couple of days but a soak in some natural hot springs was the perfect antidote for my injuries.

Today, Sunday the 18th, we leave to continue our trip.  We will cross the continental divide at Monarch Pass and spend a couple more days crossing Colorado and then we'll be in Utah.  I haven't been posting as we've been out of range for my AT and T service.  I suspect that I'm not going to have service again for a couple of weeks but if we hit a library or wi-fi connection I will return to posting and add some photos!

Thanks for your notes and comments along the way.  I can't believe we've come so far!  What an adventure it has been.

We made it to Colorado!

Wichita

To celebrate the 4th of July, we pushed a 99 mile day into Wichita to visit Kris's cousin Lisa and her husband Travis. We rode through hours of storms and 19 mph winds that cut our speed virtually in half. Just outside town, Kris got our first flat tire (I proceeded to get 2 more in the next 24 hours) but Lisa and Travis saved us from the dark night and picked us up! We had a great time visiting with them!

We made it to Kansas!

Mississippi River

We crossed IL in 2 days and made it to the Mississippi, across the
water is Missouri!

Illinois!

We made it into our 5th state today! Finally into Illinois , doing a
90 mile day on some flatter terrain. It is nice to be out of the
mountains, I can't stress it enough!

We hit 1000 miles!

Over 95 degrees in KY

Takin a breaaak

Kentucky

We made it into eastern Kentucky 3 days ago! Land of the coal trucks and crazy dogs... We were given water guns to ward off the dogs by our fellow trans am riders Morgan and Asher. It has been a beautiful
state so far and we are finally out of the Appalachians (bigger climbs) and into the hills!

We took our first full rest day in Berea and Scott came over from Louisville to visit! What a great surprise!

Kentucky!

We finally made it!

Vesuvius to Lexington VA

We camped behind Gertie's store in Vesuvius,VA. They boast the best BBQ and everything was great! It was so nice to get some rest after the hard climbs on the Blue Ridge Parkway! To read more about Gertie's go to http://www.flyingcompass.com/Virginia/Vesuvius/a-16.html  This is for you Melinda Sawin.

Blue Ridge Parkway

We made the climb up along the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday, tackling some intense elevation changes and steep graded roads...We thought this was high... Little did we know we would be climbing to 3000 feet