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...