1984 Bike Tour: Day 60 — Marking time in Flagstaff
FLAGSTAFF -- We stayed here in Flagstaff another day to parcel out our time. We want to meet up with our friends from the UK in a couple of days further down the road. It's hard to do nothing. We...
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Bike Tour 1984: Day 61 – We find a leech after crossing Verde River
Cottonwood, Ariz. -- We've liked everyone who has crossed our path as we cycle cross-country. Today is the exception. The scenery here has been beautiful, though, and the terrain has been in our favor....
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 62 – Ghostly visions pedaling uphill
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- We spent much of today in the small gears, the stump-pullers, the grannies. We started our climb almost immediately after leaving Dead Horse campground. Jim had already left -- we...
View Article1984 Bike Tour: Day 63 – The toad in the desert puddle in Aguila
AGUILA, ARIZONA -- We're camping at the City Park here tonight. We've left all the cool, shady mountains behind us, and we're out where it's dry, sunny and hot. The park doesn't have much; just a...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 64 – I can feel the heat on my eyelids
Looks like most of the residents of Hope, Arizona, have given up all hope... I awoke about sunup this morning and ... no Bruce. It had been so hot and dry, we didn't see the need to pitch the tent last...
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1984 Bicycle Tour: Day 65 – We find an oasis in the desert
YUMA, ARIZONA -- There are days on this cross-country trip that I anticipated from the first time I spread out the maps on the table in my apartment in Annapolis.One was the climb up to the Blue Ridge...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 66 – Strange lights in the desert
ANZA-BORREGO STATE PARK, CALIFORNIA -- Too much heat? Not enough water? Too much pedaling through the desert? Too close to the end of the trip? I can't explain it, but I isolated myself from the group...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 67 – Final toasts in the glow of a Coleman lantern
The last full day on the road ended in warm camaraderie making toasts around a picnic table. But it began much chillier than that for me. I was slow waking up as I felt totally exhausted from the day...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 68 – End of the road
OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA -- Bruce and I achieved the goal -- to ride from coast to coast -- that we'd made up our minds to accomplish two years ago. It seems like the end arrived too soon.Fittingly, this...
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Bike Tour 1984: Postscript – TransAmerica tour comes full circle
I can't close off this cross-country bicycle trip without a postscript, because the tour really didn't end for me when we arrived in Oceanside. Still suffering from wanderlust, the trip ended for me up...
View ArticleHow bicycle travelers can pitch their tents at full WA state park campgrounds
One of the common worries of bicycle travel involves pulling into a state campground late in the day and finding out that all the campsites are taken. The prospect of heading out on a dark road or...
View Article1984 Bike Tour: Day 60 — Marking time in Flagstaff
FLAGSTAFF -- We stayed here in Flagstaff another day to parcel out our time. We want to meet up with our friends from the UK in a couple of days further down the road. It's hard to do nothing. We...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 18 – That fragrance of home cookin’ is all bourbon
HODGENVILLE, KY. -- We thought nothing could smell sweeter than the good country air of the Kentucky bluegrass country, until we left Bardstown. We had just finished an unsatisfying lunch at a shopping...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 22 – Just like cowboys after a cattle drive
CARBONDALE, ILL. -- After three weeks on the TransAmerica Route, we decided that we needed a break here in the hometown of Southern Illinois University.A bike rider out for an afternoon spin hooked up...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 26 – Ups and downs in the Ozarks
OWL'S BEND, MO. - If you could pick a time to be sick, it probably wouldn't be the day you're pedaling the rollercoaster hills of the Ozarks. We left Johnson's Shut-ins in a light drizzle and...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 27 – Beautiful scenery and never-ending hills
HOUSTON, MO. - The hills in the Ozarks are bigger, steeper, and harder to climb than I expected. At Carl's Cafe in Eminence, Carl said we'd have to walk our loaded touring bicycles up these hills. No...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 28 – Lazy Louie’s Bicycle Camp
The Ozarks are starting to level out, and we were on pace for a 90-mile day when we saw the homemade sign on Route 38 between Hartville and Marshfield: "Lazy Louie Bicycle Camp." It was only early...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 29 – Charmed by flat roads, finally
GOLDEN CITY, MO. - Was this a mirage after too many hours in the saddle? We slipped into a couple of valleys after Pennsboro and were climbing out of the second one when I saw something standing up...
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1984 Bike Tour: Day 30 – Kansas is big state to lose partner in
Tonight finds us at Bryan and Janette's apartment in Chanute. They're a wonderful couple that Bruce met at a restaurant in town where he was eating. Bryan found me a few hours later as I was riding...
View Article1984 Bike Tour: Day 31 – Shortcut proves hazardous
Tuesday, June 12, 1984Chanute to El Dorado, Kan.99 milesLocater map I’m reprinting the day-to-day journal entries of a cross-country bike tour my friend and I took in 1984. More about the TransAmerica...
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