Merry Christmas! (is it time to shave?)

Current Locations: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Distance cycled to date: 6343 km
Photos taken to date: 4332
Days since we left home: 112

It's been 11 days since our last entry, and it seems like in those 11 days we haven't really done anything. We know that can't be true though, so we thought we'd write something here anyway.

Jeff's birthday turned out to be quite a success – we stayed at a campground for two nights full of Canadian RVs, and they turned out to be a very welcoming, generous crowd. We were treated to free drinks, coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice to start our days, taken out for lunch, and to finish off the day Jeff was presented with a birthday cake, a card, two small gifts and everybody singing Happy Birthday. We also met a German couple who invited us along on a jungle river cruise, so we spent part of our day touring some really cool mangrove swamps and spotted lots of birds that we had never heard of before (and still couldn't tell you what they are), turtles, iguanas, and even a few crocodiles. Considering the circumstances, I don't think he could have asked for a better birthday. Thanks to everybody who sent in an email as well – he was very surprised when we finally got to check our email and our inbox was full of so many well-wishes from so many people. Thank you.

From our campground we made our way slowly to Puerto Vallarta, taking some short days cycling up and down the steep hills, in a hot and humid jungle that was so different from anything we saw on the Baja. We've started to see lots of squished lizards, snakes (some a whole lot bigger than we'd like to see), and iguanas on the road. The closer we got to Puerto Vallarta the crazier traffic became, and on our last day coming into the city while very slowly making our way up a steep hill with constant traffic beside us on the shoulderless road, a mini-van decided to pass the truck and boat that was passing me. While there was oncoming traffic coming down the hill. The boat was pretty much touching me as I tried not to fall down the steep ditch, the oncoming traffic was partly in their ditch, and the van scraped along between both the vehicles. Literally. Four of us, side by side, all touching, on that skinny 2 lane road. There was lots of shouting out of windows, but nobody seemed to think it was that big of a deal, and eventually traffic got moving again. We stopped for a break in the ditch to let our heart-rate slow down a little.

Before leaving Canada, our family had decided to meet us for Christmas in Mexico. We had no idea where we'd be, so they finally decided on Puerto Vallarta, because we could be close to there, and it's a fairly cheap place to get to from Canada. With the good time that we made going down the Baja we thought that we would be long past Puerto Vallarta and have to catch a bus back, but when a family friend heard this he decided to go ahead and book us in a very nice hotel here for the 13th-20^th. And so, we graciously accepted and slowed down to make it here for the 13^th. We got here that day, and spent the week taking full advantage of having a room, indoors. We showered daily, often twice a day, and cooked our meals in our kitchenette, and stored food in a fridge. We sat around and watched tv, and enjoyed an air-conditioned room. All in all, it was a great week. Our string of amazing people from Oregon continued, and a retired couple that was vacationing here took us out for a delicious steak dinner, and then brought us a Pizza Hut pizza the next evening. We've been pretty spoiled.

Our family isn't arriving for a couple more days, so we have 3 days of our old style living – camping for free on the beach and eating our meals on the curb outside the grocery store. It's good to have this break from luxury, in order to appreciate it again on the 23^rd. We're very, very excited about spending Christmas with our family and getting a chance to show them all our pictures, tell them all those stories that we forget to email, and of course, show off our nice beards for them. There have been many complaints about them throughout the trip, and we are fairly certain that our mom is going to force us to become clean-shaven again. We're not sure what the public opinion is on this, so we're going to put up a poll asking what you think. We know it's only 4 days until Christmas and probably you have something better to do than vote whether we should keep our beards or not. But if you have a few minutes to spare visit our blog site and vote. (Just one vote, everybody. Especially you, mom). We want to know what you think. And who knows? Maybe you can even convince our mom to let us keep them. Or maybe we'll find out overwhelmingly that everybody wants us to shave. We thought we'd include a picture of ourselves taken fairly recently, with our beards, camping in an informal Mexican dump. (A great place to camp, by the way)

With 30 degree Celsius heat, palm trees everywhere and bright sunshine it hardly seems like Christmas here – but it's not really something we can complain about, because I'm sure there are a few of you out there who would trade us your snow for this. We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Hopefully wherever in the world you find yourself you're able to have a great holiday season.

Now just let us know about these beards – canadatoargentina.blogspot.com.

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Tomorrow, December 10th will be Jeff's 21st birthday. Now, in many parts of the world this is a decent cause for celebration. Here in Mexico, however, Jeff will be somewhere in a small fishing town most likely, swatting the mosquitos and sand flies that we have been fighting for the past few days since getting to the mainland. He doesn't know that I am writing this entry right now, but I have not had much of a chance to work up any sort of birthday surprise for him, seeing as we are together 24 hours a day.

I don't have too much to tell right now regarding our travels on the mainland - we have been sleeping in the ditch every night since leaving Mazatlan, and now we've finally reached the coast, where we're able to sleep on beaches once again - only to find that these hot, humid beaches are covered in bugs as well. So, it will likely not be the most exciting birthday for Jeff. So I wanted to ask you, and to encourage you to send him an email, and wish him a happy birthday. Because it's always nice to get an email on your birthday, especially your 21st.

That's all that I have to say. Just asking you to email Jeff on his birthday. Wish him the best. It may not be a big party, but it's not really a bad way to turn 21 - having biked nearly 6000 km to the central coast of Mexico. We'll take the day off tomorrow and try to relax, and hopefully the bugs will die down.

Hopefully you're all doing well, and hopefully you will fill our inbox with some well wishes! Thanks for the help!

Our time in the Baja comes to an end - for real this time.

Current location: Mazatlan, Mexico
Distance cycled to date: 5865km
Days since we last shaved: 89
Number of times we have eaten pig's feet soup for breakfast: 1

We are now over 3 months into our journey to Argentina, and Keenan has finally moved over and given me (Jeff that is) a chance to fill you in.

Having enjoyed the Baja so much, we decided why not spend more time on the peninsula and ride all the way to the southern tip - to the city of Cabo San Lucas. Having seen so many Canadians flocking south to Cabo for the winter we thought we would see for ourselves what the place was all about. After an unforeseen day of cycling up and down steep hill after steep hill, we arrived in the sprawling city late in the afternoon. We were immediately drawn into the large supermarket for some supper. (We simply can't resist these massive stores filled with food.) After gorging on fresh buns filled with salami and cheese, yogurt drinks and churros for desert, we now rushed towards the city in hopes of finding somewhere to sleep. With sunset an hour away we began our search for a bargain hotel. We went up and down the streets, back against traffic on one way streets and yet couldn't find a reasonable place. So with no real options, we headed to the beach, because you can always camp on a beach...

We followed the signs to the beach only to find hotel after hotel lining the ocean front with people milling around on the sand and in and out of restaurants. We quickly contemplated our options and thought, why not? We headed a little further down the beach, finding a somewhat quieter spot and then pushing our bikes onto the sand settled into our spot for the night. Not wanting to create a scene of any sort we waited as long as we could and then around 8:00pm with our eyes half closed already, proceeded to pull our bright orange sleeping mats and bags onto the sand. I'm sure we were quite the sight for all the people out for walks that evening but we didn't let that bother us as we had a great nights sleep.

We spent the following day in Cabo San Lucas and were generally disappointed with the city and the sights. So we got back on our bikes and headed back out of the city up and down steep hill after steep hill. We timed our cycling days so we could spend a day at the beach, near El Pescadero on the way back to La Paz. We stopped in to say hi to a couple whom we had met on the way south, and we were again greeted with generosity. They invited us along to a neighbourhood pot-luck, and of course we thought why not? They didn't need to convince us and after feeding us some tacos, we headed to the pot-luck. Everyone we met there was very enthusiastic and although we clearly didn't belong, they didn't seem to mind.

We ate and ate, with a seemingly endless supply of free food, until we realized looking around we were the only guests left. The lady who hosted the pot-luck then proceeded to bag as much food as she could for us to take along on our bikes. She insisted that instead of setting up our tent we should spend the night indoors in her house, and have a hot shower, with no good reason not to we thought why not? We had a great night talking with her and her good friend who also was spending the night.

After one of the best sleeps of the trip we were treated to another hot shower and even managed to fit in a load of laundry in the morning. Later on two ladies from the night before stopped in and couldn't resist giving us all the food they could as well. So with space the only limiting factor we loaded our bikes down with all the food we were given. Having decided the night before the latest we could leave was noon we somehow managed to leave by 1:00pm. We then rode for about half-an-hour before stopping yet again at one of the guests house for yet another meal. We were amazed at the generosity of so many individuals and had a great time around El Pescadero, making the trip to Cabo San Lucas very worthwhile.

We remained on schedule and arrived back in La Paz on Tuesday to catch the ferry across to Mazatlan. Our timing was great and we waited only a short while before loading our bikes next to all of the semi-trucks lining the ship. We boarded not knowing how long the voyage would be or really where to sleep, but quickly found the small cabin with blankets and pillows spread over the chairs. We quickly found some seats, and staked our territory as well.

We received tickets for two meals with our fare, however being the smart cyclists we are still brought our bag full of food, because at this point we eat a lot. However supper was a delicious plate of some sort of meat, beans and rice. The following morning imagining a plate of eggs or pancakes, we were surprised by this bowl of soup placed before us. With the Mexican truck drivers looking our way, and no option but to try we thought why not? Still not sure of what was before us, with a carefully selected scoop, (avoiding the fleshy, white spongy stuff) we gave it a try. Not so bad. We continued to slowly eat, while continuing to eat as many tortilla chips on the side as possible. Halfway through the bowl I managed to ask the man beside me what it was, and with his actions and the look of it, we now realized we were eating pig's foot soup. Keenan being more adventurous than I ate the whole bowl, pig's foot and all. I didn't.

Despite being the odd ones out on the ferry it went fairly smoothly and we arrived shortly after 8:00am in Mazatlan. We made it to mainland Mexico! It's hard to believe at times we have been on the road so long, but it has been a lot of fun. We are both looking forward to getting back on our bikes and on route, as we make our way towards Puerta Vallarta for Christmas.

We finally put up our Baja South photo album as well. We were a bit disappointed with our Baja North, but both feel this may be our best yet. So check it out, let us know what you think.

Why We Ride.

Current location: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Distance cycled to date: 5695 km
Time until Christmas: 25 sleeps

By this time, all of you likely know that we're riding our bikes from Canada to Argentina. (We've used that line quite a few times). We thought we should tell you why.

The idea was first born more than 4 years ago, as a dream to complete one day. In September of 2007, we decided that this was something that we really needed to do. We began planning; we were going to ride our bikes to Argentina, leaving the following September. Of course, we love traveling and thought that this would be an amazing way to see so much of the world. But we also felt compelled to do our part to help those in the world less fortunate than us. Being raised in Canada, we have been blessed with a future full of endless possibilities; we realize however that the majority of people in the world don’t have this same privilege. Furthermore, we believe that it’s our responsibility as the wealthy of the world to do whatever we can to change this. We wanted to undertake this bicycle journey in order to inspire and encourage those around us, coming from such privileged areas of the world, to do what we can to make a difference.

We knew that we wanted to find an international development agency to raise money for and so we began a detailed search of the many deserving organizations in existence. We finally found HOPE International, based out of New Westminister, BC, and were instantly impressed with the organization. First off, from a financial perspective the organization is outstanding – with only four percent of their income going to administration and advertising costs, they are the best financially managed international development agency that we found. In addition, all of their projects focus on sustainable development in the true sense of the term. All monies being donated are put into locally organized projects, with local labour being used in order to further economic development. From our first contact with HOPE International we have been impressed with their professionalism and dedication to their cause of helping the “poorest of the poor”. We were presented the opportunity to raise money for a project in the Dominican Republic, rebuilding community greenhouses and irrigation systems and we committed to raise $50,000 for this project. Thus, the ride for HOPE was born.

We have now cycled from Canada to the very tip of the Baja peninsula of Mexico. Along the way we have tried to reach as many people as possible, sharing our vision for this trip, and our vision of doing whatever we can to improve the lives of so many people who have so much less than us. All of the money being raised is donated directly to HOPE International, with nothing being raised for our trip. We are not looking for a free vacation – rather, we are focused on helping those who cannot help themselves. We dream of doing whatever we can to better the world, and believe that this is a good first step in our lifelong goal of changing the world. As we set forth onto the mainland of Mexico and Latin America we are excited and optimistic about the challenges and rewards from cycling through these foreign countries. We believe that through this adventure and our continued media contact and online documentation of the trip we can continue to raise the money needed to give the people of the San Jose de Ocoa region in the Dominican Republic a chance to rebuild their lives and break free of the cycle of poverty that so many in the world currently have no chance to get out of.

With Christmas right around the corner, and the evidence of our affluence being displayed in shop windows and down the street, we wanted to remind you all why we're on this adventure. We would like to thank all of you who have already contributed to our HOPE International project, and we'd like to encourage everybody, in this season of giving and of love to consider our ride for HOPE. Our website is set up with a link to donate online at HOPE International's website. It's all set up with a secure server so that you can make a donation with your credit card, right online. You can just select "other" under the dropdown menu, and type "ride for HOPE" in the comment section. This will ensure that the money you donate goes straight to our project (as well as going towards our $50,000 goal)

If you receive this as an email - feel free to forward it on. If you're just reading this online - we hope you'll share it. We think that this is something that you should tell everybody that you know about.

Eating on a Budget in the Baja

This is our second installment from our popular series Tips for the Touring Cyclist. Today we will deal with the important issue of what and how to eat along the Baja peninsula.

Article #2 - Eating on a Budget in the Baja

For those touring cyclists continuing their journey from the United States through Mexico, the food and meal situation will abruptly change. Leaving the US you will suddenly leave behind the selection and choice found in giant supermarkets, and find yourself shopping in small "abbarotes" and "mini-supers" that have a few shelves covered in dusty goods. You'll soon grow to love the new choice and selection that these small stores offer you.

However, when first entering Mexico you will likely succumb to the temptation to dine at one of the numerous taco stands lining the highway from Tijuana to San Quentin. This will be a great choice, because these taco stands not only deliver high quality tacos at low prices, but it also gives you the opportunity to witness home cooking, as the woman running the stand will likely start up her stove and pull the fresh ingredients out of her fridge in order to serve you. You may be eyed suspiciously by everybody frequenting the stand, but don't let this bother you - spandex and sweat-stained jerseys are fine apparal for dining in these establishments.

While at first the price of the tacos may seem very reasonable, you will soon discover that you can purchase your own tortillas from one of the dusty abbarotes at the astounding price of only C$1.70 for 22. This becomes a much cheaper meal option than buying indiviual tacos. At first glance you may feel that there is nothing available to fill your tortillas with on these bare shelves; however, with a little work you will soon find that the aisles of these tiny stores actually contain all that you need for an incredibly varied, delicious, and healthy diet! First, you will want to try the obvious filling of peanut butter - this makes a delicious wrap, and contains many essential nutrients. However, it is a pricy and hard to find commodity in the Baja, so you will want to expand your tastes.

Salsa will become an excellent staple, being found everywhere and in various brands and colours. You'll want to try them all! Soon, various canned goods will start practically jumping off the shelves at you. Nacho cheese, and real cheese both make great fillings. Nutella can be found in a few of the larger "super-mercados", and this will make quite the treat on the tortillas! Even cheap iced cookies fill a tortilla quite nicely. If these flavours don't seem like much, don't fret, there are many varieties of jam available at almost all stores, and they all taste great wrapped in a flour tortilla. Honey is another great, sweet alternative. Lechera is another canned good found in Mexico, and it comes in a couple of varieties - one of them is quite solid, and spreads nicely on tortillas, and it has a nice sweet caramel flavour. Beware of the other, because the labels are almost identical and though it is a little cheaper, it is a runny, white, gooey mess. However, they both seem to be made of condensed milk? Excellent for building those strong bones. Finally, if you're feeling that vegetables are lacking in your diet, potato chips make for a great filling. With the great variety of flavours available you will easily be able to meet your daily nutritional requirements.

While tortillas and the extensive variety of fillings for them will make for very cheap, vast meal options, you may desire a snack every now and again. You can find many varieties of cookies and pre-packaged baked goods in the small stores that you will encounter sporadically along the Baja, however, a much cheaper alternative to buying these snacks is simply to find them. The best place for this is in one of the garbage cans marked "Basura" along the side of the highway. It's important that you check these garbage bins from time to time, as small store owners use them to get rid of their "expired" pre-packaged baked goods. A Mexican brand version of Twinkies, Wagon Wheels, Swiss Rolls, and many others could be yours for the taking! It's very important to remember that "best-before" certainly doesn't mean "not good after". Don't pay too much attention to those dates stamped on those packages - they are likely only a few days past, and remember, you're on vacation! The date doesn't matter! If you're very lucky, you may find a vast selection of these goodies placed right on top, as if they were just waiting for you to discover them.

Even though your first foray into Mexico may seem daunting from a culinary point of view, you will easily discover that eating cheaply and well in the Baja is simple! Keeping in mind these tips, you will be feasting like a king while biking through the Baja!

Our tour through cactus land comes to an end

Total distance cycled to date: 5489 km
Flat tires in Mexico to date: 0
Tortillas eaten to date: 370
Days in Mexico to date: 17
Days without a shower in Mexico: 17

We made it to La Paz. The Baja peninsula is done, having cycled over 1400 km, in 17 days. It was a great experience, and an almost unreal landscape at times, and it went by quite quickly. We can't really believe that we're already here waiting to catch a boat to Mazatlan, and the mainland of Mexico. In fact, we don't really have any idea when or from where the ferry runs - we're planning to just get on our bikes and start riding and come across it soon. We've been pretty good at that sort of thing so far. We might be leaving tonight, or maybe not until Tuesday - it seems like every website we looked at had different information on it. But we won't worry about that yet.

We somehow made it all the way here without really knowing what we were doing at all. Our Spanish has already started to improve - we try to use our words now instead of just smiling silently. We even have managed to carry out a few broken conversations with some locals that we've met along the way. We had planned on studying every night after dinner, but that time has always been taken up by going straight to bed, and so we just don't study very much at all. It's something like being back at university. We're also trying to learn what time it is. So far, every publicly displayed clock that we've seen (4, in the past 2 and a half weeks) has shown the time to be an hour later than our watches. So we just don't know what time zone we're in. We might be living our lives off by an hour - we just don't really know. And, it really just doesn't matter, except that we could tell ourselves that going to bed at 7:30 is much better than 6:30.

The landscape of the Baja is pretty crazy. It varies so much from place to place - and, the highway cuts across from one side to the other, and then back, and then to the other again. We bike through desert, and across mountain ranges, and through cacti forests, and then back across mountain ranges again. We've had no trouble camping since those first couple of days, with every night being spent in the middle of nowhere, and yet just off the highway. Our clothes are permanently covered in small cacti needles and thistles and incredibly sticky leaves that seem to be made of super-velcro.

We've been met with great drivers as well - that was a complete surprise. The truck drivers here in the Baja have been great to cyclists. They slow down behind you and wait for a break in traffic before passing you, and there is almost always a friendly honk and wave. It's great. We received more waves in the first 2 days here than in the entire US and Canada - we've never waved back at so many people in our lives. You're just constantly waving at traffic that's both oncoming, and passing you.

We're looking forward so much to finding a hotel or hostel or something to stay in when we get to Mazatlan. We've only taken 1 rest day in the entire Baja, which was nice, but not quite enough. We need a shower, desperately. And laundry - or even just a sink to rinse our shirts out in. They are so clogged with salt that they look white in places. It's a little gross, we'll admit. We're ready to get clean.

We've uploaded our first Baja photo album, from the northern half of the peninsula. We had so many pictures it was hard to pick out just a few, but we hope that it does this place justice. We'll try to get Baja South album up as soon as we can. For now, we hope you'll enjoy these ones.

A Day in our Lives - Episode II, Baja Edition

Total distance cycled to date: 4704 km
Number of consecutive days not looking in a mirror or using a bathroom: 4
Number of tarantulas spotted on tent: 1
Number of cacti lodged into legs: 1
Number of flat tires in Mexico: 0

We thought it was time for a Day in Our Lives again. Some things have changed a lot here (like the very infrequent bathroom breaks) while others have stayed the same (frequent breaks). We don't have quite as much to eat, but that's not because of lack of hunger, just lack of food. So here is a Day in our Lives - Novemeber 11th, 2008:

4:30 am - alarm goes off, snooze it
4:45 am - alarm goes off again, this time get up and race to pack up everything in the tent in order to get outside and go to the bathroom
5;02 am - get outside, go to the bathroom, pack up camp and eat breakfast of:

• 4 and a half cinnamon buns
• 2 packets of instant oatmeal

6:21 am - leave campsite and start bushwhacking our way through the cacti to get to the highway
6:34 am - reach the highway, get all the thorns and spikes out of our tires and start on our way
6:50 am - 3.03 km - stop for water and take off sweater, tights. Take some pictures and get out our ipods - there isn't a whole lot of traffic on the road
7:05 am - 3.03 km - finally leave again
7:18 am - 5.96 km - stop for water
7:30 am - 9.90 km - stop at a trash can to throw out our garbage from the night before, and take a drink of water
7:47 am - 13.28 km - water, and pictures
8:05 am - 16.08 km - stop for water part way up a big hill
8:20 am - 17.70 km - stop for water at the top of the big hill
8:50 am - 23.19 km - stop for some pictures, and water
9:13 am - 28.98 km - pictures and water
9:24 am - 32.12 km - lunch time! Eat:

• 4 peanut butter tortilla wraps
• 2 nutella tortilla wraps
• 3 biscuits
• 1 peanut butter cookie
• 1 orange

10:06 am - 32.12 km - time to get back on the road
10:36 am - 40.29 km - water, pictures
10:47 am - 43.93 km - water, pictures
11:30 am - 53:39 km - water, pictures, and finally a bathroom break!
12:10 pm - 61.96 km - water, pictures
12:18 pm - 64.55 km - water, pictures
12:36 pm - 69.69 km - water, pictures
12:55 pm - 76.38 km - water, pictures
1:17 pm - 87.10 km - water (but no pictures)
1:38 pm - 98.45 km - water, pictures, and 2 peanut butter cookies
1:49 pm - 101.74 km - stop at a small store, and eat lunch:

• 3 peanut butter tortilla wraps
• 4 biscuits
• 2 peanut butter cookies

2:25 pm - 101.74 km - leave from lunch break
2:45 pm - 105.75 km - pull off from highway and bushwhack through cacti to find a camp spot
2:55 pm - start setting up camp
3:20 pm - set up Thermarest chair, and write in journal for the day (also take a few pictures)
3:50 pm - start supper!

• 6 salsa tortilla wraps
• 1 nutella tortilla wrap
• 4 biscuits
• 1 litre of Coke

4:45 pm - take some sweet sunset photos of the bizarre cacti
5:25 pm - get in the tent and get ready for bed; read, upload photos, and study a little Spanish
6:45 pm - lights out, and fall asleep.

Total pictures taken today - 191
Total tortillas eaten today - 30

So this wasn't really a typical day. It started out really hilly and windy so we stopped a lot. And then it was just so beautiful that we took a lot of pictures. Maybe a little overboard, even. But we biked through cacti forests and amazing boulder fields, and just had to take it all in. We'll put up another photo album soon, and then you can see for yourselves. It's good stuff. Right now we're halfway down the Baja, at exactly the 28th parallel, the border between Baja Norte and Baja Sur. Since our last post, we found the deserted desert, and much more. It's been an amazing time riding, with incredible scenery and some of the best camp spots that we've had yet. This place is pretty amazing. And still half of it to come!

One imaginary line, and the whole world changes...

Total distance cycled to date: 4268 km
Number of "wild" dogs that have chased us in Mexico to date: 7
Number of times somebody has woken us to tell us we're sleeping on their land: 1
Nights in Mexico to date: 3

We left San Diego heading to the border with our new short term cycling team, the 5 Canadians heading to Argentina. We all had a very similar style of leaving everything to the last minute, and so all of us needed to stop at various bike shops for parts on our way out of the country. We suddenly were asking each other, "how many tubes do you have?", "have you ever replaced your brake pads?", and "oh, you got a new chain? Should I?". We finally made it to the border, and after an amusing attempt at getting our bikes through the spinning turnstyle we were in Mexico. Just like that. We stopped at an immigration desk and paid for our tourist cards to make it through the country, and started to ride, the 5 of us in single file, past all the taxi drivers calling out to us. We had a small map, and a bit of courage, and we started pedalling fast. Since reaching California we hadn't heard a single good thing about Tijuana, and those people who didn't tell us to skip the city altogether told us to get out of it as fast as possible. So, with no choice but to bike hard we simply did it, following the roads that we believed would lead us out of the city. And, with no drama whatsover we made it out of Tijuana and into the Baja.

We've realized that it's not as easy to just camp on the side of the road as we had planned. There are a lot of fences. And towns. And people. It's not the ideal deserted desert that we thought it would be (although it is very hot and dry). Our first night we pulled into a "trailer park" as the sun was setting, and paid the owner(?) 3 dollars a person to camp for the night. They even supplied us with free water, out of a garden hose into a rain barrel. Nobody even got sick from it!

The next day we found ourselves biking until the sunset again, with no options for camping along the way. Our group of 5 asked as many people as we could around the entrance to a small, dusty town, and nobody seemed to have an option for us (or perhaps, just didn't understand what we were looking for). Finally, after the sun had already set we found ourselves following a Mexican rancho down a dusty, rocky, bumpy dirt road that would have made for a decent mountain biking trail. He told us he has somewhere safe for us to camp for the night, and he seemed trustworthy, so we followed. And followed. We finally came to the land that he had for us, and we all turned after his truck, or so we thought. I (Keenan) was leading the way, along with 2 of the other Canadians. We followed the truck. Jeff and Aki, however, had fallen behind and somehow missed the turn in the dark. They kept going, and going. We sent somebody back the other way to look for them, and finally we figured they must have missed the turnoff. After spending a very long time explaining to our rancho friend the problem, he called out "Vamos!" and called me to hop in the truck with him. He revved the engine and rolled back to the road and we started after them, stopping only to search on the floor of his truck for another beer. (Don't worry mom - it wasn't that bad). He even explained to me that one or two beers made him drive better, but too many made it worse. So I hoped that this was beer number 1 or 2.

We did find Jeff and Aki quite a ways down the horrible road, and when we found them I think it was a feeling of anger and relief for them. We then threw the bikes in the back of the truck and made it back to our "campsite" for the night. He left us soon afterwards, and we settled in for the night. After all of this, the next morning we awoke to a truck honking, and a man calling out his window, asking us why we were camping on his land. Much thanks to our rancho friend.

Yesterday we parted ways with our cycling friends, deciding to make our way down the Baja in two parties. We like to get a bit earlier starts and take frequent breaks, whereas they like to take it easy off the bikes, and then go hard when they get on them. We're hoping to continue seeing them down the road, and seeing as there's only one road to take down the Baja, I'm sure if we continue our same paces our paths will be crossing again soon. Last night we also found our first true stealth camping spot, on a piece of land with no fence around it, high on a hill overlooking the highway. It was a great spot, not visible from the road, and we had a great sleep without our fly on the tent, just lying among the cactuses underneath the stars.

It's a whole new world riding in Mexico. It's actually pretty crazy. The highway is so skinny that if two big vehicles meet, we just have to get off the road. The towns are full of dusty dirt paths, and there seem to be animals all over. We haven't met a whole lot of people that speak English, and we've realized that we can't seem to remember any Spanish when we need it. That will have to improve.

We've already sampled a number of roadside taco stands, which we are loving so far. We even tried our first fish taco today. It was pretty tasty. We hope Steve in Oregon is proud. It's more difficult to find food than we had anticipated - there are no more supermarkets, even the bigger towns down the Baja seem to just have small corner stores. We've also started to drink a lot of water. Which I'm sure is good - that's what we're supposed to be doing. But since crossing that border we drink a lot of water. We even buy it sometimes - on our second day we were filling our bottles from the bathroom sink of a taco stand, and then we noticed that everybody working there was drinking bottled water... and yet - that bathroom sink water wasn't too bad at all.

We're not sure how often we'll be able to find internet here - it really is a whole new world. But a fun one, and an adventurous one. We're enjoying this. It's pretty crazy. We're biking through Mexico. That's just kind of crazy. I'm sure we'll continue to collect some interesting stories as we go. Until next time...

Overall rating of the USA: Very good.

Distance cycled to date: 3950 km
Days spent in the USA: 48
Number of times that we have been asked if we are twins: 7
Number of grocery store club cards applied for: 5

Our time spent cycling in the USA has come to a close; tomorrow morning we'll ride south across the border into Mexico. Although we never really looked to our first leg of the journey through the US as being one of our "prime" destinations, we have had a really great time here and have been constantly amazed at the breathtaking scenery, amazing people and the wonderful bike-friendly route set up along the coast. It's been a good time. We'd recommend biking across this country.

After a great sleep in the LAX airport we got back to the beaches, and eventually got a little lost in some upscale neighbourhoods. We finally emerged to our first "Ralph's" grocery store of the coast, and after becoming members of yet one more grocery store, we found our best day-old bakery section ever! Everything had been marked down to 50 cents, and so with such deals before us, we went a little crazy. One old lady looked at our mountain of baked goods and remarked that we had better have an empty freezer at home. She obviously had never been a touring cyclist. We proudly came out with 6 loaded grocery bags of day-olds, spending only $5.50 for 30 muffins, 12 bagels, 12 glazed donuts, 4 turnovers, a chocolate cake, a pudding pound cake, and even a lemon merangue pie. Even more miraculous than the deal was the fact that we fit it all on our bikes. (By the next morning, we has polished this all off.)

After packing up our bikes at the grocery store, we were waiting at a red light to turn back onto our route, and our 3 Canadian friends biking to Argentina pedalled past. We caught up to them at the next light, and spent the rest of the day biking through the urban sprawl of southern California with all 5 of us in a convoy. Speeding down city streets we felt nearly invincible in our pack, and we all had a lot of fun watching the stares as we biked by. We made it to San Diego in our planned timeline; we arrived November 1st to the marina where we were able to spend the night sleeping on a boat belonging to one of my good friend's parents. They gave us a sailing lesson around the bay - we considered trading in our bicycles for a boat to make it the rest of the way, however we soon found out that a sailboat costs a bit more than a bicycle. We're sticking to Plan A.

Over the past 3 days we've been in San Diego, and our hostel room closely resembles our living room in the days before our departure. We've sent stuff home, we've bought more stuff, and as is our style, we've waited until the last minute to do almost everything. (It's 11 pm, and we're finally doing our laundry so that we can start to pack everything back up).

We're now just over 2 months into this trip. We've cycled nearly four thousand kilometres. And still, we feel like we don't really know what we're doing or what we're getting into. It's kind of crazy that we've already made it this far, I don't really know how we've made it through this many maps already. The kilometres have flown by, and now it's time to start the next big adventure. Mexico is waiting, and we are pretty excited about everything that's still to come. We've had a lot of people ask us how much Spanish we know, and our answer usually involves a universal shrug of the shoulders, along with a very hesitant "not so much". But we'll learn. We bought ourselves a little dictionary. How hard can it be?

The adventure is about to begin; as unprepared as we are, tomorrow morning we'll be in a completely foreign land. We hope you're as excited to hear our stories as we are to tell them.

Also - we put up our Southern California photo album. Check it.

Our overall rating of the USA: Very good.

Spending the Night in the Los Angeles Airport (LAX)

This is the first installment from a new series that we will continue to write throughout the year; Tips for the Touring Cyclist.

Article #1 - Spending the Night in the Los Angeles Airport, LAX

If you are cycling the west coast of the United States, at some point you will need to get through the massive urban sprawl that we all call Los Angeles. It becomes impossible to make it between the State Parks north and south of the city - at some point you will need to sleep in LA. If you're a touring cyclist, we can already assume that you travel as cheaply as possible, where free nights of camping are the norm and hotel stays are not an option. You may have even looked at a map of Los Angeles and realized that LAX is almost half way through the city, making it an ideal place to sleep? Of course it is! Here are our tips for getting to the airport, and making your stay as comfortable as possible.

Getting to the airport - despite the rumour (that we may have started) there is no bike path leading to the airport. You will find yourself on a bike path along the ocean, and will probably see planes taking off to your left. You are getting close. Keep going along the bike path until you see a parking lot full of RVs - cut through here and up the hill making your way against the arrows on the pavement. Avoid the spike strips set up to keep vehicles from using the entrance (don't worry - you're a bicycle, you can go anywhere.) Cross the street and follow the cracked and broken bicycle lane along the Imperial Highway. Although you will see a sign saying "Bike Lane Ends", don't worry, a sidewalk will soon appear that makes for a fun ride. Keep following this until a confusing juncture of over and underpasses. Take a sharp left across 6 lanes during a lull in traffic, get onto the other sidewalk, bike underneath an overpass and come to an intersection. You may think it will be easy enough to try another manuover cutting straight across these 6 lanes, however, in the end it will be quicker and easier to make a circular pattern following the green lights, leading you eventually to the spot across the street.

Now that you're across this street, you will find that there isn't exactly a sidewalk nor room for your bike on the road. This isn't a big problem - just ride on the gravel section, dodging the lightpoles and cement pillars. This will lead to the entrance of a long dark tunnel underneath the runway. You're almost there! If you have a rear LED light you'll want to turn it on now, and then jump the curb, avoiding the cars flying beside you and quickly cut off all the cars waiting to merge onto your road. You'll now need to jump up onto another curb, and concentrate hard. You'll find yourself on a skinny curb beside the busy roadway in the dark. If you're worried that bicycles are prohibited where you are - don't fret - there's no sign that said that anywhere! You're still safe and sound. Follow this curb in the dark, dodging the hubcabs laying across it and practice distorting your body by bending to avoid hitting the water pipes sticking out of the wall. Keep following this, past 3 emergency turn-in lanes where you stay on your skinny curb. You may hear a rocket flying up behind you, but don't worry, this is just a plane taking off above you. Eventually you'll emerge victorious, but before getting too cocky you'll have to cut across two more lanes of traffic to find a "shoulder" which you can follow along until you reach Terminal 1.

Finding a place to go - Looking into Terminal 1 you may start to get worried. The lack of benches and abundance of security personnel may leave you eyeing up the parking lot as a Plan B. However, keep riding. Soon you'll reach Terminal 2, which is exactly where you want to be. Quickly dismount, grab a luggage cart and get all your luggage off your bike as soon as possible to avoid arousing suspicion. You can just lock up your bikes beside the entrance - they should be secure judging from the heavy police presence. As soon as you enter the terminal you will likely be the recipient of a lot of stares - keep your head down and keep walking to a bathroom where you can change out of your spandex attire. This will help to blend in. Once you're changed, you're free to find a place to relax!

Eating at the airport - You may get a little excited when you see that there's a McDonald's at the airport. By this point on your trip you may have indulged in the Dollar Value Menu once or twice. Don't get too excited though - this McDonald's does not have the renowned value menu, and charges about 30% more for their meals than other McDonald's that you may have come across. You are best to bring your own food. Nobody will mind you pulling out a bag of bagels and jar of peanut butter. Just make sure you've changed out of your spandex first.

Finding a place to sleep - The upper level of the departure's floor has many tables and chairs. If you go to the south end of the level the lights are kept dimmer than on the north - this is the prime sleeping area. Along the wall are a series of poles with ideal length sleeping areas between them. You may notice at your usual bedtime that everybody is still awake and moving around. You will likely have to stay up past 8 pm for this night. Eventually the area will die down, and by 10 you should feel free to stretch out on the floor with your pillow. You may notice that nobody else is laying down around you - don't let this discourage you - be a trend setter! By the time you wake up you will find that you have indeed started quite the trend.

Leaving the airport - In the morning you will want to make a pretty fast getaway. You probably have a full day of cycling ahead of you trying to get out of LA, and you just won't want to hang around and have people start asking you too many questions. Change back into your spandex, grab your luggage cart and go back to your bikes. As you're packing them up you may start to be questioned by a police officer. He may ask where you're coming from and where you're going, and if you brought your bikes on the plane with you. This will become a little awkard since your bikes have been there all night, but in this case it's best to follow our lead, and get lucky. Somebody else may come and distract the police officer, having him forget his line of questions. He will then simply wish you a safe ride, and leave. To get back to the bicycle path, simply reverse all the instructions for getting to the airport. Simple!

And there you have it, a cheap and easy way to spend the night in LA for the touring cyclist. Follow these instructions, and you are almost guaranteed to have a great, comfortable sleep in the city!

Our Race to a Better Exchange Rate

Total distance cycled to date: 3583 km

Flat tires to date: 10 (Jeff - 5, Keenan - 5)

Shortest cycling day to date: 9.65 km

Longest cycling day to date: 161.91 km

Total instant oatmeal packages eaten to date: 154

After spending our first night stuck in Carmel sleeping behind the Safeway in a true homeless fashion, we were fortunate enough to meet our new friend Simone, who not only showed us around town (in a vehicle!), but gave us a place to sleep as well.  It ended up being a great place to get stuck; after being offered our first place to stay, 2 more people offered as well - and, somebody else took us out for dinner.  It was a great town, and we had a lot of fun making new friends there.  

The road situation never really became clear (the website said closed, then open, then closed), so we set off anyway, and made slow progress along the famed Big Sur coastline.  We had heard all about this stretch of highway throughout the US, and we were very excited to be able to ride it in the beautiful weather that we had been experiencing.  Unfortunately, just after leaving Carmel in the sunshine, we became enshrouded in fog, which didn't really lift until we were completely through this renowned area.  We even camped halfway along the coast in the hopes that the fog would lift the next day - however, the only time that we saw the sun was when we reached the peak of one of the large hills along the coast - and then we would plummet back into the fog along the winding, cliff-edged highway.  It was a fun ride nonetheless.

We had been moving pretty slowly these last 2 weeks, but we've finally started to kick it into gear as we get close to the border, for two main reasons.  First, we met another group of 3 cyclists heading from Canada to Argentina.  That's right - we're not the only ones crazy enough to be doing this right now.  We met them along the road, and have leapfrogged each other a few times since.  They're making better progress than us throughout the US, and we've realized that we easily could be doing the same.  We're planning to meet with them in San Diego and have a planning session for Mexico - they are just as unorganized as we are, and don't have any information for across the border.  The second, and most important factor is that we just found out the Canadian/American exchange rate.  We thought the dollar was pretty much on par this whole time.  It is not.  With the 20% premium that we're paying on everything, we've decided that we need to get out of this country.  We're hoping that the peso/Canadian dollar exchange rate will treat us better.  We've started to put together some long days, and it's possible for us to be in San Diego in only 3 more.  

We can't really believe how fast this last section has flown by.  We also can't believe that it's the end of October - if you looked outside here, you wouldn't believe it.  Especially if you're from Canada like us.  It is hot and sunny.  Really hot.  Sometimes it makes us wonder why people ever settled in Canada, when we think back to how October usually feels up there.  

Just a few more days to the border.  We're very excited, and to be honest, a little nervous about the next 3 days of riding through what seems like one giant city, from here to San Diego.  It'll be an adventure - but we have some excellent photocopies of hand-drawn maps, so I'm sure it'll be fine.  Just wait for our next update as we try to sleep in LAX...  

Why we hate raccoons.

Distance cycled to date: 3160 km

Flat tires to date: 10 (Jeff - 5, Keenan - 5)

"Bicycles Prohibited on Freeway" signs that we've cycled past to date: 4

Number of times that somebody told us of highway closures because of wildfires in California: 0

We saw our first raccoon on our very first night in the United States.  It was in a State Park in Washington, and as the sun set, we saw two sets of glowing little eyes scampering across the path.  It was kind of exciting - neither of us had ever seen a raccoon before, and they looked like such cute little animals.  We watched them wander through the campground, and accidently scared one of them up into a tree, and we were entertained watching it - it was like a giant squirrel, climbing the tree, hiding from us.  

Later that night, after we went to bed, we heard some scratching outside - we opened our tent, and there were our cute, furry friends, climbing on a bicycle.  We shouted at them, and scared them off, and they didn't bother us again.  We still maintained our vision of a cute wild animal.  We liked raccoons.  

Fast forward to the present.  Having more and more encounters with "cute" raccoons, they have slowly driven any sort of compassion towards their species out of us.  The last few nights, camping with the raccoons have been some of our worst experiences yet.  We had been warned, north of San Francisco, that one campground was notorious for its vicious raccoons.  We still hadn't yet developed this strong of a hatred for them, but we took the warnings somewhat seriously, and like the rest of the campers sharing our site, we put our pannier with most of the food in a "raccoon-proof" wooden locker.  Not long after falling asleep, we awoke to hear a nasty scratching, scraping, hissing and growling.  I was frozen in the tent at first, almost certain it was a bear.  No small animal could be making that much noise.  However, as time passed and I lay there in silence, listening, I finally worked up the courage to open the tent and look outside - I turned on my headlamp, and peered out the tent vestibule.  It was like a scene from Jurassic Park, with the hoards of velociraptors circling a piece of prey.  An army of raccoons had descended upon our locker, and by this time, had already forced it open, and were ripping apart bags of food from one of the closed bags within it. 

I was furious.  The sight of those raccoons, eating our food, was too much.  I yelled, I tried to pick up something to throw at them, but they didn't care.  They glanced at me, their beady glowing eyes staring at me with pure evil, and then turned back to their free meal.  I grabbed the slingshot that we had kept close by, in case of an emergency like this, and frantically tried to pick up some rocks to fire at them.  By this time, Jeff woke up and looked out of the tent, and seeing me, standing in only my white underwear and biking shoes, with a slingshot in hand knew instantly that the raccoons had come out.  He jumped into action as well, and we tried to scare them off, but they would hardly move.  We found enough rocks, each of us frantically running around under the moonlight scraping up rocks from the ground to use as ammunition.  Eventually we found enough, and we fired and fired at those raccoons.  They knew no fear, nor pain, and it took what seemed like forever to fight them off, back into the woods.  

We locked everything up again, as tight as we could, and went back to bed, knowing that we had no choice but to let them come again, and just hope that our bags would withhold their assault.  We lay in our tent for hours, trying to sleep, but only hearing their hissing, growling, and scratching.  It was hard to bear, laying there doing nothing, knowing that they were getting into not only our food, but everybody else's as well.  But we couldn't sit outside shooting at them all night long.  They just persisted.  

In the morning, we surveyed the damage along with the other 3 campers at our site.  We got off the easiest, with our solid weather-proof Ortlieb's (although they still managed to get 4 packages of instant oatmeal, some pasta, and most remarkably - a container of cream cheese out of our closed dry-bag).  The others that packed their food in garbage bags were not nearly as lucky, with almost everything destroyed.  Garbage was strewn everywhere, and dirty little pawprints were found on nearly everything.

From that day on, we couldn't look at a raccoon the same way.  The last few nights have been bad, but we have learned our lesson.  Last night they managed to grab my backpack and drag it for about 30 metres before we were able to pick them off with the slingshot.  We're becoming better marksmen everyday, and never go to bed without a pile of rocks within reach.

At the moment, we're in Carmel-by-the-Sea, a 9 km ride from where we started this morning.  We thought it would be a beautiful day for our scenic ride past Big Sur on the central coast of California - but we got as far as this before seeing the giant sign flashing the message "Highway 1 Closed".  It seems that there's a wildfire where we had planned to camp tonight, and the highway is closed.  An alternate route would take us an extra 3 or 4 days of cycling, so for now, we're sitting tight, waiting for a chance to go.  It's a beautiful day outside though, so we might make a trip to the beach and relax, without any guilt about not getting enough km's today.  What can you do?  We just hope that the raccoons won't be out again tonight...

Enjoying Sunshine in California

Total distance cycled to date: 2933 km

Flat tires to date: 9 (Jeff - 4, Keenan - 5)

Most cyclists we've shared a campsite with for one night: 17

Number of days with California sunshine: 10

Days on the road to date: 47

After finishing our last post telling you all how often we check our email, we finally have internet access, 9 days later.  But what a great 9 days they have been.  We finally found the California sunshine, and have enjoyed an incredible time biking along a beautiful coastline.  Before emerging on the coast, we rode our bikes along the Avenue of the Giants, getting a chance to really appreciate the enormity of the Redwoods.  We enjoyed cycling through scenic byways with little traffic, and just had a lot of fun biking through the forest.  It's a neat place.

After climbing a few long winding hills we made a fast, brake-burning decent and emerged along an amazing coastline, with a much-appreciated tailwind.  The coast in California has been amazing so far.  I don't know that we have enough adjectives to describe how nice it's been.  Day after day we've followed Highway 1 along the coast, clinging to cliffs (often with no shoulder), and climbed and descended so much that at the end of the day our trip climb looks as if we're back in the Rockies.  It's been tiring, but it's hard to complain when the scenery around us is so beautiful.

Over the past couple of weeks we've ran into quite a few cyclists making their way down the coast.  After the massive storm in Oregon we had thought that we would have fallen behind so many of the bikers that we had met.  It turned out, however, that nobody made any progress during those days, with everybody that we met finding a motel room to weather out the storm indoors.  So, we ended up running into so many people again, and with the limited campgrounds available the closer we got to San Francisco, we all ended up cycling to the same daily destinations.  It became like "The Amazing Race", with most of us in teams of two, riding off each morning from the same starting point, and eventually meeting up that night at the checkpoint to camp out.  We would exchange stories from the day, and usually build a campfire to share.  We had a great time with all these really cool cyclists, and we're hoping to be able to stay in touch with everybody.  Jim, one of the cyclists that we met, has a website we should share: www.bigdummyproject.com.  He's a great guy, with a cool story.  He was once 420 lbs, had diabetes, but decided to do something to change his life.  Now, he's biking across America raising money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  Check it out.  He mentioned us a few times in his blog, so we thought it's about time to do the same.

Tuesday afternoon we made our way through the suburbs of Marin County, eventually making our way to the San Francisco Bay.  After navigating through residential streets, following bike signs and many helpful cyclists and motorists, we eventually caught sight of the blue ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the city of San Francisco in the distance.  It was a spectacular sight, and it really felt amazing to reach this milestone.  We know we still have a very long way to go - but we have to say, we do feel great about riding our bikes from our house to San Francisco.

We know we didn't finish a whole state, but we thought we'd give Northern California their own photo album.  We just saw too many miles of amazing sights.  Check them out here.  Also, if you're on Facebook and haven't joined our group yet ("Keenan and Jeff's - ride for HOPE"), we've been trying to update that with a few more photos that we haven't put on our online album.  A little behind the scenes look at ride for HOPE. 

Thanks for following us along, and thank you to everybody who has emailed us this past week.  We'll do our best to get on those replies.  It's so encouraging to hear from so many of you - thank you so much.  Feel free to keep them coming!  We love to hear from you!

Oregon - We like the people, but not the weather

Distance cycled to date: 2439 km

Flat tires to date: 8 (Jeff - 4, Keenan - 4)

Pictures taken to date: 1595

Home-cooked meals eaten in Oregon: 7

We can now check another state off the list.  We made it to California!  Finally.  There were 3 or 4 days where we were sure we'd make it past the border, but something always came up.  However, the weather finally died down, and we jumped on the opportunity and made our escape into sunny California - only to find that it's not so sunny.  

We had a great time in Oregon.  Even with the terrible weather, it's pretty surprising that we got through that whole state already.  It seemed like we spent all our time just hanging out at people's houses and hardly biking at all.  When we finally did get on the road, we spent our days biking along the beautiful coastline, and found ourselves repeatedly telling each other how beautiful it would be if it weren't so foggy/windy/rainy.  Although we seem to complain about the weather a lot, we have to admit we did have a few sunny days - one and a half riding days, and we took full advantage of them, drying out everything, and taking more than enough pictures to make up for the days we couldn't take out the camera.  

We've got many good memories from Oregon - most of them aren't even bicycle related.  From hiding from the weather in Cannon Beach in public restrooms where we spent the afternoon with fellow cyclists, to a beautiful hike to Cape Lookout on one of our sunny days, to a final hike down to Cape Sebastion before leaving the state, where we were able to see the full power of the sea against the rocks after the storm.  We met a lot of great people, and had a lot of fun.  

Now that we're in California, we're getting more and more excited about reaching warmer weather and hopefully even getting some sunshine!  Despite thinking that we left the fall and winter behind, we've realized that it's very difficult to get a tan in the Pacific Northwest.  We're ready for some sun (we're ready to dry out our shoes).  And we're very excited about all the new varieties of fast food chains that we're hoping to come across.  We've made decent progress so far - we're not really ahead of schedule, but definitely not behind schedule either.  We're just trucking along, plugging away...  all that kind of stuff.  

Two states down, one very big one to go.  Not to mention all those other countries below.  

By the way - feel free to email us at jeffandkeenan@rideforhope.ca.  We really do enjoy hearing back from everybody.  Anybody.  We get to check our email maybe more often than you'd guess, and we very rarely have anything in our inbox.  Don't be shy to send us an email, or even a comment.  

As we always do when we leave a place, we updated our photo album.  Take a look - we think we did alright this time.  Even with all that bad weather, Oregon's still a pretty beautiful place.

Tsumani Season in Southern Oregon?

The last two days have been two of the most difficult that we've faced. The weather has been just brutal - there's no other way to describe it. We've had to change our plans every day, cutting back our plans for the day because of the weather.

Yesterday was an awful day. The rain, the wind, the flat tire; everything combined just made it pretty tough. We thought it couldn't get too much harder here in the US. Well, today sent us a surprise, and it was worse. It passed the point of frustrating, and just became comical. The wind has been gale force - today we had 30-50 mph winds along the south coast of Oregon. It had the power to just stop you in your tracks when it hit you head on, and almost knocked us over on a few occasions when it hit us from the side. I don't even want to get into the bridge crossing. We stopped in Gold Beach, our planned destination for yesterday. We were advised by almost everybody entering the grocery store that we loitered around to get a room in town for the night. Watching the debris blowing across the parking lot, we had to agree that we couldn't go any further today.

We found the public library to pass a few hours indoors, and while we were counting down the hours until they would kick us out, we met Steve, who had seen our bikes outside. He had done some cycle touring himself, and knowing just how difficult this weather is invited us to his house for dinner and a dry, warm place to sleep. These are the kinds of days that make this trip so amazing. It has been so difficult, so trying - and so rewarding. We are about to enjoy some fresh homemade pasta before spending a dry night indoors - a thought that never would have seemed possible earlier today. Canada to Argentina by bicycle - every day is an adventure.

A Day in Our Lives

Some of you may wonder what we actually do all day.  I know that I sometimes wonder.  It's crazy how a day can just disappear.  So, we took the time to record everything that we do, in detail, to give you all a chance to see just how a somewhat typical day of cycle touring goes.  It's quite the glamourous lifestyle, as I'm sure you'll see.  

October 1st, 2008

6:30 am - alarm goes off, but decide it's still too dark, and re-set alarm

6:45 am - alarm goes off again, and this time wake up and start quickly packing up sleeping bag, and everything inside the tent, hurrying to get out of the tent to go to the bathroom

7:00 am - get out of the tent, go to the bathroom, and start packing up camp.  Eat breakfast of:

• 2 packets of oatmeal (320 calories)
• 1 honeybun pastry (220 calories)
• 1 oatmeal creme pie (170 calories)
• 2 fudge cookies (160 calories)

8:10 am - leave campground, and begin biking

8:30 am - 8.01 km - stop to take off sweater and biking tights

8:47 am - 13.05 km - stop at top of hill for a water break, and eat a granola bar (100 calories)

9:02 am - 17.57 km - stop for water

9:08 am - 18.95 km - stop to take a picture

9:21 am - 21.47 km - stop at the top of a big hill to go to the bathroom, and eat a cookie (80 calories) and take a drink of water.

9:38 am - 27.03 km - stop for a drink of water after a big downhill.  Compare scary stories of hitting drainage grates with logging trucks passing us.

9:53 am - 31.84 km - enter town of Reedsport.  Stop at Safeway and go in to buy some groceries.

10:20 am - 31.84 km - exit Safeway with groceries, put on sweater, and begin eating lunch on bench outside of it, which was:

• 8 slices of 5 seed bread (960 calories)
• 2 servings of deli turkey breast (140 calories)
• 1 bottle Powerade (240 calories)
• 1 fudge cookie (80 calories)

11:14 am - 31.84 km - finish eating lunch, and pack up bikes with the rest of the groceries.

11:30 am - 37.32 km - stop to take off sweater again, drink water and go to the bathroom

11:50 am - 42.91 km - stop to take some pictures and drink water

11:53 am - 43.17 km - stop to go the the bathroom

12:04 pm - 44.49 km - stop for water after a very steep uphill

12:10 pm - 45.36 km - stop at viewpoint, drink water

12:41 pm - 56.84 km - stop for water and a granola bar (100 calories)

1:04 pm - 62.05 km - stop to tie shoe

1:22 pm - 69.41 km - stop at viewpoint before bridge to take pictures, go to the bathroom, and eat a granola bar (100 calories) and oatmeal creme pie (170 calories).

1:36 pm - 69.41 km - finally leave after eating

2:00 pm - 75.76 km - stop at a 7-11 to fill our water bottles.  There is no washroom to do it in.

2:08 pm - 75.95 km - stop at a pharmacy and fill water bottles, and eat a granola bar (100 calories)

2:18 pm - 75.95 km - leave from pharmacy 

2:29 pm - 77.30 km - stop to check map.  Turn around.

2:34 pm - 78.68 km - stop to check map again. It's all good this time.

3:16 pm - 91.61 km - stop for 2nd lunch, which is:

• 2 onion bagels (600 calories)
• 1 serving deli turkey (50 calories)
• 5 slices of raisin bread (300 calories)
• 1 "cosmic brownie" (280 calories)

3:59 pm - 91.61 km - leave from 2nd lunch

4:09 pm - 93.55 km - stop after very steep uphill

4:26 pm - 102.55 km - stop for water after long hill

5:02 pm - 109.67 km - stop for water

5:14 pm - 112.70 km - stop for pictures

5:45 pm - 123.72 km - arrive at Bullards Beach State Park campground

5:50 pm - start unpacking, sent up tent, eat yoghurt (170 calories)

6:20 pm - go for shower

6:50 pm - get back from shower, set up clotheline, start eating supper, which is:

• onion bagel (300 calories)
• the rest of the turkey (20 calories)
• 5 slices of raisin bread (300 calories)
• yoghurt (170 calories)
• 5 fudge cookies (400 calories)
• carrots (50 calories?)
• cucumbers (20 calories?)
• brownie (140 calories)
• mixed nuts (60 calories?)

7:50 pm - keep eating, get out maps to start planning California

8:30 pm - start packing up everything in the dark, go to brush teeth, use washroom

9:05 pm - get into tent and start writing in journal for the day

9:27 pm - lights out.  Get ready for a similar day tomorrow.

Total distance for day - 123.72 km

Average riding speed - 21.61 km/h

Total elevation gain - 1107 m

Total calories consumed - 5900

It would be nice to say that's an average day, but to be more honest, that's a pretty good model day.  We knew we were on the clock all day, recording everything, so it made our breaks all a little bit shorter.  Looking over the numbers, it's pretty crazy to see how often we stop to go to the bathroom.  That one's just surprising.  We maybe ate a little more than usual this day, but not much.  We're usually over 5000 calories.  We don't always shower every day, but we try to take advantage of that whenever we have the option.  And we don't always ride that long, but try to whenever we can.

Today, if we kept the statistics, it would have been a completely different story.  We've faced an incredible headwind all day, terrible rain, and poor shoulders.  We are in a public library now, soaking wet and cold.  During the heaviest bout of rain, I got a flat tire.  Days like yesterday are fun.  Days like today, are not.  But, we just keep going, every day.

Now you've had a good look at our day.  In detail.  That's life for us on the road.  It's a pretty fun life...

One State Down - Two To Go!

Distance cycled to date: 1901 km

Flat tires to date: 6 (Jeff - 4, Keenan - 2)

Homes invited into by strangers to date - 3

Blackberry bushes spotted in the ditches since BC - incalculable

Days in the United States to date: 12

Money spent on accommodation in the United States to date: $33.50

Nearly halfway down the Oregon coast, in Newport, we have found another free Wifi signal, and so, finally, we are able to update our blog.  It's been an eventful week and a half since our last entry, with far too much to write about.  

Continuing with our theme of kind strangers - the United States has definitely shown us that kindness is alive and well with our southern neighbours.  We received our first invitation into somebody's home over the past week - and it happened as we sat outside an elementary school, trying to plan where to stay the night.  A kind teacher came out, and I'm sure wondering what we were up to in the playground, came up to us and started a conversation.  It turned out that he was an extremely well travelled gentleman, and almost immediately invited us to his house for dinner, and a clean, warm bed to sleep in.  His wife didn't even seem to mind either, and we had a great night exchanging stories with this wonderful couple after eating a delicious steak dinner, barbequed just for us.  

The next day we set out from southern Washington, and made the somewhat precarious trip across the Astoria--Megler bridge, a full 4.1 miles of white-knuckled riding, in which somehow my bike computer fell off.  We weren't too interested in risking our lives to turn around and search the bridge deck for it, and so, we pedaled our way on into Oregon, where we were greeted by more rain; the weather of this west coast.  It was great to get to the famed Oregon coast, which we had been eagerly anticipating as we rode throughout the fog-covered roads in the inland of Washington, where our scenery seemed to be either more fog, or when it finally lifted - clear cut logging.  

We took our first "weekend" of the trip, and stayed for 3 nights outside Tillamook with my friend Katherine, with whom I shared an exchange in Sweden almost 5 years ago.  It was great to spend time with an old friend, and also great to have a warm bed, and a daily shower for a change.  We were invited in to her neighbours house one night, where we were treated to another great night of conversation, food, and drinks.  It was great to meet some more interesting characters, and we certainly had a very fun night.

The weather finally changed for the better, and we saw the sun and blue sky for what seemed like the first time since entering the US.  It completely changes our outlook on this lifestyle, and just makes biking a whole lot more fun.  We suffered through a lot of rain and extremely windy days over the past 2 weeks, and while we've managed to just keep pedaling every day, the sun just makes the days so much better.

Yesterday, we finally hit the road again after our weekend and enjoyed the beautiful coastline of Oregon.  We stopped for lunch outside a Safeway in Lincoln City, and sat on a bench, eating the bagels that we had bought the day before, from a Safeway in Tillamook.  As we finished eating, a retired couple came up to us, and told us that 3 times now, they have found cyclists sitting on that same bench - and that every time, they invite them over to their house to stay.  We had only biked 50 km in the past 3 days, so we didn't think we should be stopping yet - but we couldn't say no to their enthusiastic hospitality, and so we followed them home and had a great, relaxing afternoon in their ocean front home.  After they loaded us up with as much food as we could carry, we went on our way, making our way further south.  Since we spent so much of the afternoon there, we couldn't quite race the setting sun to Newport, so we were "forced" to spend the night camped out at a highway viewpoint.  We woke up this morning to the ocean out our front door, our most beautiful camp site yet - and a park ranger walking towards us.  He let us know that camping isn't actually permitted at day-use areas here in Oregon.  Who knew?

Now that the weather has turned back to fog and rain, we know it's our cue to start moving again.  That, and the cafe that we are sitting in is putting the chairs on the tables.  So, further south we'll go, and hopefully keep you updated a bit more frequently!  We've put on our photo album from Washington.  Admittedly, it's not our best album - but that's just what we had to work with!  Until next time...

Island hopping in Washington

As it's only been 2 days since our last post, we haven't really covered a whole lot of ground yet.  Another 200 km or so.  However in that time we've cycled down small country roads, gravel roads, taken a ferry, and weaved back and forth both under and over interstates.  Yeah, so maybe not the most efficient route, but it's been fun.  

We started off in Sumas, just across the border, and hoped to cycle into Bellingham to find the REI, which we had been told by a fellow cyclist carried the new rear racks that we wanted for our bikes.  After an extremely slow start to our day leaving Canada and entering the US, we finally got into Bellingham just in time for the evening rush hour.  We made our way down city streets, back and forth over the I-5 trying to find the best way to get to the heart of the city.  We eventually made it there, and after waiting and waiting and waiting for somebody to help us, were informed that they don't carry them there.  Maybe in Seattle.  This wasn't the news we were hoping to hear, but with no real options except just to continue on with our current racks, we left the store, stopped for our first taste of some American fast food (Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers are only 99 cents here!), and made our way slowly out of the city.  We managed to pick the best route of the city, on a narrow city street that seems to have been built with the steepest grade possible.  We slowly crawled our way up the hills with lines of cars building behind us, and then zipped down the other side, only to slowly climb the next one.  Eventually the road led us out of the city, and we were able to find a very scenic road with our very first view of the coast.

With darkness setting in, we decided to abandon our ambitions of making it further down the coast and finding a free place to pitch our tent, and we pulled into a State Park campground.  There, we met another cyclist from Australia who was making his way down to San Francisco.  We split the cost of a campsite with him, and decided to spend the next day cycling together, seeing as we had the same destination in mind.  We had a good day of pedaling around Whidbey Island, taking scenic country roads, alternating between farmland, and views of the coastline.  We headed for a campground that our book had told us would be free - but when we got there we found out they now charge $10 per site.  We decided to just pay the money, but soon after arriving another cyclist, this time a young German, found us and we invited him to stay with us as well.  He was in search of the "free" campground too.  In the end, $2.50 each wasn't too bad a price to pay.

This morning we left in a convoy, with all four of us on our loaded touring bikes, making our way to the ferry that would bring us across to Port Townsend.  After a ride that would have been very beautiful had it not been so misty and overcast, we arrived in the cool little town of Port Townsend, where after buying some groceries we all split ways.  We'll see where we all end up in the next few weeks - there's a good chance we'll all cross paths again, as we're all heading for the same general destination, with similar timelines.

We're taking today to relax in the town, and get ready for our next push - maybe we'll make it to the Oregon border before our next rest day?  We're hoping to be in San Francisco in 3 weeks or so, so we'll see how well we can stick to that.  It was great to talk with other cyclists and see how none us of really have any idea when or where we'll go places on a day-to-day basis.  It seems like we are just about as unplanned as a lot of others.  Maybe a little more, but still - not too bad.  I guess we'll see how the next few weeks pan out.  We're enjoying our time here so far, that's for sure.  

Week 2 and a half - we made it through Canada!

Total distance cycled to date: 1129 km

Nights spent stealth camping to date: 12

Number of flat tires to date: 1

Number of wasp stings to date: 1

Number of blackberries picked from ditches to date: incalculable 

Just minutes ago, we crossed from our homeland of Canada into the United States of America.  After learning that bicycles are not considered vehicles, and that the phrase "we would like to go..." works better than "we are going", the border crossing went fairly smoothly.  They let us in.  They believed that we can make it all the way down.  One country down, just 14 left to go.

Our last week of riding was full of many surprises - many of them were good surprises, and a few, inevitably, were not.  

We were surprised at the generosity of strangers that we met along the way.  The response that so many people have to our trip has been very uplifting.  Before leaving a lot of people asked us about safety and security, and while we have been traveling so far only in Canada, we have been reminded countless times that there are many great people out there.  From being given leftover fruit and juice boxes from tour groups, to paying our tab at dinner, to being given more fresh fruit along the way, to giving us straight cash to buy ourselves some Argentine wine once we reach our destination - it seems that everywhere we turn, people are wanting to help us out.   We even spent our last night in Canada, in Abbotsford BC, with a relative that we had never met before.  We were treated to amazing, all-you-can eat meals, and a much needed shower and clothes washing.  (One statistic that we didn't want to mention yet is days-without-showers.  If you're interested in that one, just let us know.  We think it will be pretty impressive by the end of this trip!).

Another fun little surprise came as we pulled over on the Trans-Canada highway near Chilliwack to take a quick bathroom break.  Looking into the ditch, we discovered that it was full of blackberry bushes!  Completely full!  We initially started picking and eating, as fast as we could, devouring the delicious berries.  However we soon realized that we could be picking these for later - for lunch, and for supper!  So we emptied all of the ziplock bags that we could and went to work, battling the thistles and thorns, picking an endless amount of blackberries.  We came out of the ordeal with mountains of blackberries, and purple-stained fingers, partly from the berry juice, and partly from the blood that we shed while those thistles waged war on our fingers.

As life goes, some of our surprises weren't quite as fun.  Our first flat tire of the trip was awarded to Jeff, as he was rocketing down the Coquihalla Pass.  It came, quite luckily, just in time for a road-side pullout where we were able to unload everything, search through all of our bags for the necessary tools and parts to fix it, and load the bike back up - all under the beating sun.  (We now have repacked our bags to be a little more efficient when it comes to a flat).  I had my own surprise as I was flying down a hill earlier in the week, and felt a large bug ram into my neck and bounce off, or so I thought.  I had already forgotten the bug when a minute or two later, as I was already climbing up the next hill, I felt a sharp, painful sting in my side.  This bug had managed to bounce off my neck, into my collar - and sting me!  I wasn't too impressed as I pulled over, and looked at the very sore, swollen lump.  

Our final surprise, however, was much more slow and painful than the first two.  As we biked into Kamloops, our altimeters displayed our current altitude of just under 400 metres.  We knew that it would be a steep climb out of the city, and as we switched highways onto the Trans-Canada, and pedaled past the "Bicycles Prohibited" sign, the climb began.  It kept going, and going.  We reached the end of the city, stopped for a break to eat and drink something, and then, thinking that the hill must be over, continued on our way to find a camp site.  As it turns out, the hill didn't end where the sprawl of the city does.  It kept going, and going.  Every corner, we would think that the hill would have to end.  As we turned those pedals, crawling along at 10 km/h along the narrow, gravel filled shoulders with semi-trucks rumbling by, and cars zipping by, it became a frustrating experiment in tenacity.  But, with no real option except to keep going, we just did it.  Slowly, we rounded corner after corner, until we finally saw a sign reading "Surrey Lake Summit, 1444 m".  We didn't even realize that we had to climb a summit that day!  So much for taking an easy day before tackling the Coquihalla Pass.  Once we reached that one, at a mere 1244 m, it hardly felt like we had worked that day.  

To be completely honest, I think that it surprises both of us that we've made it this far already.  We have never had any doubt that we would make it - turning around has never crossed our minds - however, every day that we complete feels like such a milestone.  Every day leaves us feeling great.  

Now, our training period is over.  We have spent 2 and a half weeks in our own country, learning how to be touring cyclists.  We've learned a lot, we've gotten into much better shape, and I think that now, we're ready for this trip to really begin.  This morning we begin our journey in a foreign country, albeit a good starting one compared to the more-foreign countries that we will soon be encountering.  It's a big step, and it's a bit scary - but most of all, it's very exciting.  We made it to the USA!  We're looking forward to every day of it.

We hope you'll get a chance to take a look at our updated photo album.  We've got our best from British Columbia for you!

Week #1 - our arrival in Jasper!

Even with our procrastinating tendencies, we still managed to leave on our scheduled departure date - September 1st.  Six days later, we are in Jasper, having survived our first week of cycle touring.  It's been a challenging week, but a rewarding week as well.  We've woken up to frost most mornings, and biked through sunshine, wind, sleet and rain - and that's in only our first 4 days of biking!

As we wrote in our first post, 10 days before departure, we hadn't spent a whole lot of time in training, and we knew that the first few weeks would be difficult.  We knew this, and yet didn't really spend any time actually visualizing the difficulties that we would face.  This first week has really tested our resolve.  From the emotional goodbye's of leaving home for a year, to that first hill that we climbed with our loaded bikes - to the last hill that we climbed every day.  It's all been very tough, but we just keep pedaling.   And at the top of every hill, it feels worth it. 

We've had some amazing views of the Canadian Rockies, and had a chance to camp in our own private campground!  We've already slept in an empty lot, a closed campground, and a dark museum (and for those of you who really know us - they were of course, all free of charge!)  Climbing the Sunwapta Pass was an event that we had been anticipating since we started planning our route.  We knew that it would be one of the biggest climbs that we would face in North America, and the worst part was that we were tackling it with so little conditioning.  But bit by bit, metre by metre, we pedaled our bikes onward.  Every stop that we made, I was more out of breath than I ever had been before.  My heart was beating faster and harder than I think it's ever beaten before.  But eventually, with grins on our faces, we made it to the summit of the pass.  It's an amazing feeling to look back over the road that you've just ridden, and to see the progress that you've made.  Looking down at the road, so far below in a valley; it's an almost indescribable feeling.  

Our true reward for that climb came the next morning, as we left the Columbia Icefields Centre out into the drizzle.  Adorned in our full rain-gear, we mounted our bikes and started pedaling.  However, as the grade became steeper and steeper and we lost all the elevation that we had worked so hard to attain, our feet couldn't keep up with the pedals, and we flew down that windy mountain road at speeds that our mother would not like to hear, and that our bike computers couldn't calculate.  (They both topped out at 72.66 km/h).  It is such an exhilarating feeling with the wind in your face, to propel yourself at such speeds, when you've worked so hard to get there.   

We've been lucky enough to meet a number of people who have encouraged us already.  From the lunch-time conversations with fellow cyclists and travelers, to a fist-pump out a car window as you bike by, to the simplest smile and a wave from vehicles as they pass you by.  All do wonders to help you keep pedaling, keep those legs pumping, and make it up that next hill.  We'd encourage all of you, if you see a biker out there on the highway - give them a wave as you drive by.  Or even a honk, if you're coming from the opposite direction.  However if you try it as you come up behind them - well that's just dangerous, and to be honest, quite scary.  

Tomorrow morning we will pedal off, early in the morning and head west on the Yellowhead and what will most likely be our first border crossing - into British Columbia.  We are hoping to reach Kamloops after 6 or 7 nights spent camping in roadside turnouts, and mountain runaway lanes.  

We've updated our photo album, and we hope you'll take a look.  We've been lucky enough to cycle through some beautiful mountain scenery and we thought we should share at least a little bit of that with you.  

Pre-departure: 10 days to go

The countdown on our website now says 10 days remaining until departure. I just can't believe that this summer has flown by so quickly. We've been planning this trip for almost 4 years now, and it's amazing how much there still can be left to do in the last 10 days.

To be honest, I feel like we're not quite prepared in almost all areas of the trip. We've been so busy this summer, that we haven't been able to put a full effort into any part of the preparation process. Our fundraising has begun, but we are nowhere near our goal of $50,000 for HOPE International - hopefully with time over our trip we can continue to fundraise, and have friends and family at home continue to carry the workload. Our physical fitness is not where we'd like it to be either - while we have been able to ride our new touring bikes quite a bit this summer, we haven't had the chance to do very many extended trips; the effect of consecutive 100 km days will likely be quite a shock to our bodies. We have most of our equipment, but some things still require a bit of work - our front racks, for example, still don't quite fit our bikes, and we're hoping to do a bit of modifications by welding on an extension... sometime before we leave.

One thing that we have done a lot of this summer is shopping. Oh yes, we have shopped. And spent more money than in any other 4 month period of our lives. If you're interested to see what we've bought, take a look at the "equipment" link under our "trip" page at rideforhope.ca. Looking at the pile of electronics, clothing, gear, and food spread out on our living room floor, I have no idea how we are going to manage to carry it all on our bicycles. It's kind of funny for us - we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into.

Are we physically ready to ride? Not really.
Do we know where we're going? Not exactly.
Do we know how to use all of the equipment we've bought? Not yet.
Do we have any idea what we're getting ourselves into? Probably not.
Are we still excited and can't wait to go? Absolutely. We can't wait to get on our bicycles and start pedalling west, through the mountains, to the coast, and down this continent!

We are not so naive to think that it will be easy; but I think that we're stubborn enough to just keep going. While this hasn't been the easiest of summers (I've also been taking 2 university courses, one Spanish course which I still need to finish(/begin!) before we leave), it has been eye-opening in a lot of respects. If any of you out there are planning a similar trip, we have some advice. Don't do it the way we've done it. Save your money starting a little earlier, and give yourself some time off from work for the last 2 months of the summer. If you really want to fundraise, you need to invest a lot of time and effort into it. And if you really want to train, it takes the same. But really, what better way to train for us than to just start our trip? Sure, the first few weeks won't be easy, but biking across the Rocky Mountains is sure a great way to get in shape!

With 10 days to go, we are very excited. Very nervous, a little stressed - but overall, the main feeling is excitement. I know that all the little things will work themselves out, and that no matter what, September 1st we will take our bicycles out of our shed like we do every morning, but this day instead of biking to work, we will get on Highway 11, head west, and start pedalling on the trip of a lifetime. We're excited that you'll be along for the ride, and hope you enjoy hearing our tales as we ride our bikes, from Canada to Argentina.