surprise!

Well, I like surprises. I like gifts that I am not expecting, seeing people randomly that I haven't seen in a while, or class getting canceled out of the blue. Unfortunately, my most recent surprise was a bad surprise, and one that I have experienced once already. After wheeling my bike out the front door yesterday morning I looked up to an empty street. Well, it wasn't quite empty, empty. In fact it was quite full except for an elise's-car-shaped spot right at the end of the curb. My car was stolen! Yanked! Snatched! Borrowed indefinitely! Sad day. Some of you might remember back in 2003 when the same thing happened to my trusty old Buick Century that I inherited from my grandmother. This was back in the days of my culinary career and among the more frustrating things to be stolen with the car were my knives and some irreplaceable photos and letters. It was an irritating ordeal, and even though the car was finally recovered everything in it was wrecked when the thief decided to christen the by then ripped up upholstery with urine and beer and who knows what else. In the middle of a hot August. With all the windows shut for days. It was pretty gross. This time around I knew what to do and after a brief moment of brow furrowing and disappointment in humanity, I called the police to file a report, my insurance to file a claim and my sister for some indignant outrage. I'm not really sure why I haven't been more upset about the whole thing. Maybe it's because this summer I had so few possessions, and even those I did have weren't too relevant when I was reduced to the basic needs of simply eating and sleeping through ridiculous exhaustion. Maybe it's because I didn't have many things in my car that aren't replaceable, and I am so glad that was the case. I mostly just feel weirded out picturing other people in my car, probably drinking in it, hopefully not peeing in it, and generally being in my space. It's a disconcerting feeling. I suppose I will just have to wait and see how it all pans out.

home again, home again

I am back in Denver, back to the ol' real life again! It's been chaotic learning how to transition out of b&b mode and back into other things, odd to be able to get so much sleep and pick out what clothes I am going to wear that aren't the same clothes I wore the day before! Everything kind of happened at once when I got back. I missed the first week of school while I was in San Francisco, so I jumped into that pretty behind and confused. I forgot how much ground can be covered in a few lectures! I took some time this weekend to slowly catch back up and am starting to feel confident that I won't entirely bomb my exam tomorrow. I'm working on finding work again, trying to get my foot in the door at one of the hospitals in the area. In the meantime I've been babysitting for a few of the families I used to help out, and it's been nice to be back in the baby section of life again. All the kids grew so much while I was gone!

School stresses aside, things have been really busy but great! JP and I moved in together, which is a big step for both of us, and it's been fun! Well, the packing/moving/cleaning/scouring/driving all over portion wasn't fun, but that is all over and we now have so much space we can barely fill it up! I don't have many belongings with me in Colorado, as you might remember I moved here with just a car load of things last fall, and both JP and I were living in studios that didn't exactly leave much room for extraneous possessions. We are now in a 2 bedroom house and are gradually finding chairs to sit on (previous count = 1 computer chair from JP's desk), a table to eat at, and other necessities at the many thrift stores in the metro area. We've even got a yard now, which Yin is beyond excited about. She spends most of the day moving from sun patch to sun patch, just lounging about taking in the scenery. It's a pretty hard life.

One of the first things to unpack was my Grandma's owl that always hung in her kitchen and now hangs in mine.

My bike arrived shortly after I did, a little worse for the wear, but mostly fine.

Transition-wise, I think I am doing alright. I miss everyone, and am constantly reminded of the trip everyday, but I think it was the exact right amount of time and I was ready for the end when it came. We e-mail each other multiple times a day, are busy uploading pictures to facebook and are planning the reunions to come. It should be good.

San Francisco

After having San Francisco in the back of my mind for months on end, one would think that I would have been better prepared for the actual city upon arrival. While it is true to my nature to have planned things out way in advance, I left this one up to everyone else. I had no time or energy to really think about what I would do in San Francisco, but luckily my family had a lot of things they were looking forward to doing and so I got to tag along without having to put out much energy at all. This was also a fortunate plan of attack, as I was exhausted the whole time I was there! Guess that's what biking over 4,000 miles will do to you. We got out to the science museum and to a They Might Be Giants concert in the park, we ate lots of great food, strolled around a few different neighborhoods and drank copious amounts of coffee. It was a great vacation, with great people. It's pretty rare that we can all get together more then once a year, so it was extra nice that our schedules all lined up to be able to hang out for a few days!

VIP seating on a tree stump at the concert!

Packing her up definitely brought home the reality of the end of the summer..

After so much time picturing their faces to help me keep going, it was really odd to have them leave already!

WE DID IT!

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and dipped our tires in the ocean! 4,200 some odd miles later our trip is finally completed! I don't really know how to describe what it felt like to see the bridge for the first time, and cross it all together. So many friends and family members were waiting on the other side to celebrate with us...it was absolutely amazing! What an overwhelming feeling, on so many levels, to have biked across the country and to end that trip in such a beautiful place. I was so lucky to have my whole family waiting for me on the beach, along with JP, the entire Altman family and an aunt and uncle! The thought of them being there really helped me push through the last week of riding, and I am so grateful they could all be there to help celebrate! I feel like anything I could write would just be inadequate so I will leave you with a couple pictures of the big day. Hopefully that will suffice!

That sign says "Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco"!

We almost never got to ride together in a big group, but on the last day we all waited for each other, and it was such a great feeling to see everyone all lined up together.

The bridge! We waited for everyone to arrive before crossing all together.



After our triumphant entrance, we dipped our tires, jumped in the freezing cold ocean, drank some champagne and promptly fell asleep on the grass.

So glad to see everyone and so happy to have finished such a challenging journey!

just rolling on through

I can't tell you how great it feels to be riding in California after slogging across Nevada. Yes the drivers are horrible, and the shoulders are still quite decorated with broken glass, but the energy is different, and the scenery is beautiful! We've been passing through wine country, seeing lots of vineyards and rolling hills. Climbing still, and taking some amazing descents, one of them was even a 13% grade! It's nice to not feel intimidated by whatever is ahead of us. We've got strength and endurance and resolve, even when it's really hard, we know we can do it and that's a really empowering feeling.

It's hot here! We took a break just outside a vineyard to catch some shade and eat a snack under a palm tree.

We have had some incredible lunch spots recently. The day we rode into Auburn we had two lunches, both at beautiful swimming spots. That almost never happens!

Spring Mountain, coming into Santa Rosa, was arguably the hardest climb we had all trip. It just kept going, with maybe an 11% grade sprinkled with turns that hit around 13%...it was insane, but getting to the top felt amazing. We waited in groups to cheer people up the last little bit.

Most of us drink a lot of coffee, but in CA we stopped often and lingered more then usual. Here's Robby and I outside a french cafe about 15 miles into the day.

californ-i-a!

We made it to CALIFORNIA!! We were welcomed to the state with the most anticlimactic sign that could ever be, but even that did little to take away from such a momentous occasion. California! The last state line! We made it all the way to California!! I think it was a little bit of a shock for all of us to see that sign. When you are on the road, it's really hard to think more then a few hours ahead and have those thoughts be very concrete. You just do it, and then do it, and then all of a sudden you're crossing into your last state. South Lake Tahoe is a beautiful place, and not only are we in California, we are also on the heels of our third and final day off. Spirits are definitely high. Here are a few pictures:

Nevada gave us one more long, hot climb as a going away present, but we handled it just fine.

Melon, Joel and I at the state line. If you squint a little you can see it!

Our day off was spent lazing about. We went to the beach, ate good food, watched the sunset and rocked some karaoke. I also got my bike fixed, and after crossing almost all of Nevada in granny gears it's amazing to be able to shift again! Only four days left until the trip is over, and I still can't believe how fast it's all gone! San Francisco, here we come!

b&b does prom

One of the ways we broke up the monotony that is Nevada was by having prom in an elementary school gymnasium in the small town of Eureka. The build up to the big event was arguably as much fun as prom itself. We held a competition to determine who would be elected to prom committee, which was more just people competing for the sake of competing and less because they actually wanted to do anything with the committee. Nonetheless, people partnered up as potential presidents and running mates. The competition was a three-parter: First came the granny gear race, which is exactly what it sounds like. Participants raced each other in their smallest gear, spinning wildly and not moving very fast, in short a ridiculous amount of hilarity to watch. Here's a shot of the finish line, and some of the spectators:


The second phase of the competition was cut short because of an accident, in which Drew was a bit overzealous in his attempt to secure the position of president of prom committee and managed to shove his leg directly into his spokes, causing him to flip over the front of his bike. The video clip of this fall is absolutely amazing, which I can say now because Drew was relatively fine except for some bumps and bruises and the need for a new wheel. After a day in the van he was back on the bike using a temporary wheel that was mysteriously in the trailer with no one claiming ownership. In any case, the second phase in the competition was a trackstand-off, in which participants were timed doing track stands, and the third phase was a no pedal race in which participants competed to go the furthest from a slight incline without pedaling. This is how we entertain ourselves, and even though I'd like to blame Nevada, it's really something we would have done anywhere...

Another great part about prom was the creative ways people asked each other. People used chalk, wrote poems, took pictures and made prank phone calls. It was so much fun to hear people scheming and devising ways to ask each other, everyday at lunch there was a new story to hear! We voted on a theme which turned out to be ABC, Anything But Clothes, and that provided entertainment as well while we all plotted our outfits. I wish I could post more pictures to show you the creative costumes that people came up with, but I've only got this one for right now:

Some people went as the lunch tarp, cutting up and duct taping dresses together, people wore old tubes, bike parts, flip flops, ect. Robby and I went as the Med Kit and wore ace bandages and plastic bags. It was so ridiculous and amazing. We had the coolers as decorations and made an aisle out of our bike shoes. It was so much fun, dancing in a gymnasium in the middle of Nevada after really tiring days of non stop mountain passes and endless valleys.