Thank you Mrs Jones!

On a cold January night, four girls from different parts of Ontario sat by the side of the road near Mittie, Louisiana. They ate canned vegetables and whole wheat pasta, prayed it would not rain and were a bit cold. Before hopping into their sleeping bags for the night, the girls drank camomile tea and laughed while thinking of where they would be spending the next night.

" Wouldn't it be great if we just happened upon the perfect host."

"Yeah, we could just pretend to be out of water and start knocking on doors until we found the ultimate person to stay with."

"She would offer us tea and scones..."

"...have warm and comfortable beds..."

"...be an amazing cook..."

"...have great stories to tell us..."

"...and kittens pulling trollies covered with pies..."

"...and her name would be Mrs Jones."

While the girls laughed at the impossibility of such a scenario, they had no idea what was to come. They thought Mrs Jones was too good to be true, but she wasn't. Magic was afoot on that January night by the highway. As Team Ontario listed dozens of charactaristics they wished to find in friends or host allong the way, they conjured Mrs Jones in dozens of incarnations.

Every person we met allong the way was a different version of Mrs Jones. Each and every individual who helped us was astounding in their generosity and openness to bring four (then two) perfect strangers into their home and treat them like a long lost friend.

Mrs Jones, thank you for showing us your town, for giving us directions and for driving us around when we were stuck by the side of the highway. Thanks for lending us your truck, your towels, your spare bedroom, your car, your computer, your phone and your shower. Thanks for feeding us birthday cake, pizza, cookies, chilli, salad, pasta and breakfast of all kinds. Thanks for visiting museums, going to movies and riding roller coasters with us. Thanks for opening your heart and home to us, for sharing stories and bits of your life with us. This trip would not have been possible or very much fun without you.

San Francisco!

The day we cycled into San Francisco was pretty amazing indeed. The wind was howling, there was construction and hills to conquer but frankly, we didn't care too much. We were hours away from reaching our destination and nothing was standing in our way. Here it was, at the top of a very steep and arduous climb in Daly City. We had cycled from New Orleans to San Francisco... Whooooooeeeeee!


In keeping with Team Ontario's tradition, we stopped for a photo shoot. Friendly motorists honked us on...



Our time in San Francisco was fun filled and exciting. On our first day, we cycle around, getting a feel for the city, checked out a farmer's market, Fisherman's Wharf and had Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista.


Uncle John arranged for many fun and exciting activities for us including an evening at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.


On the weekend, we escaped the city to visit Yosemite National Park where we hiked around the valley and played many games of scrabble. For the record: Cowpokes is not a word!




On one of our last days together, Marianne and I cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge together. She flew back to Ottawa on April 16th and I took a train to Vancouver on the 20th. Both of us will be working on our respective farms this summer. Marianne will be working at the Experimetal Farm as a camp counselor in Ottawa and I will be joining the team at Wildflight, an organic vegetable farm in Mara, BC.


We will miss traveling but will keep our bikes close at hand...

A favorite San Francisco moment for me was a pedestrian calling out: "Look at you comming up that hill like its not even there."

To which I replied: " I rode from New Orleans!"

"S#%&*!" is all he had time to reply before I was out of earshot and off to my morning yoga class...

Rain? Yes Sur.

Please forgive the cheesy pun. I couldn't help it...
Well we had seen rain forcasts before, many times before. Never had they actually resulted in any rain. That's right folks, believe it or not, Team Ontario made it across five states, cycled for three months and saw little more than a 20 minute shower on two or three ocasions...Until we got to Big Sur. Leaving San Simeon, we remained dry for the first few hours of cycling. Time enough to check out some seals lounging on the beach. Then it began to rain and did so for the rest of the day. We were pretty wet once we reached Lucia, a gas station with some rooms above it and a very expensive restauraunt. We were presented with two options: 1-camping in the rain and 2-room above the general store.

While Team Ontario is a very hardcore team which can endure physical and mental tests of every kind, they were totally unprepared for rain having never experienced it before on their trip. They opted for a lovely room with fireplace, shower and the entire thing was conveniently located very close to a source of ice cream... While it was expensive and a bit of a drag to be stuck inside for the afternoon, it made us realize just how lucky we had been for all those weeks of rain-free cycling.

Day two of Big Sur was sunny and beautiful. It was a challenging but short ride to our next hike-and-bike and we enjoyed the afternoon in Pheifer campground. We even had the oportunity to go for a hike in the afternoon.
Kit, our friend in Apache Junction cleverly nicknamed these hills the PUDS: Pointless Ups and Downs. And that they were... the elevation profile on our maps looked like a heart rate monitor compared to what we had seen in the past.
I do have to disagree with Kit about their pointlessness though...
The ups and downs were worth every grueling hill to be cycling through countryside that looked like this.
These were some of the most beautiful biking days of the trip, even with the rain.

After Big Sur, we got to stay with Juliana and Brian in Monterey where we went for delicious sushi and watched a strange but fun movie. Then we biked to Santa Cruz where we spent the evening with Ian and Christine.
This is where we had the oportunity to go on the second rollercoaster which was considerably more fun for the younger Anne than the older one... Another thrilling part of our time in Santa Cruz was a guest lecture at the university where we learned about a four-man trek through the desert in China. Very awesome indeed, suddenly our bike ride through civilized America seemed less intense.
Our last camping night was spent in Half Moon Bay. It was a gorgeous site overlooking the ocean and we were antsy and excited to reach San Francisco, Uncle John and to lay our bike trailer and paniers to rest for a while. While the touring was soon to be over, much fun was still to be had...find out more in Adventures in San Francisco and Yosemite!

The coast: Biking in Fast Forward!

As we left Jim and began to cycle north, we were awestruck by how quickly we reached other towns. We barely had to cycle five miles along Highway 1 before we reached another stretch of surf, bike, coffee, clothing shops and restaurants as far as the eye could see. This was a bit of a shock to our system having come from the land of desert, farmland and tumbleweed... It was totally fun to be surrounded with all this stuff but I definitely felt disoriented with all the action. Distances just don't seem the same when everything is scrunched together like that.

One thing that made the coast great was the hike and bike campsites. In many state parks along the coast, there are specific non-utility sites set up for people just like us. These sites don't require a reservation and cost much, much less than a site for an RV. It was quite nice to be able to count on these spots along our way.

As we neared Los Angeles, we were able to stay with Dennis and Diane in Newport Beach. We studied maps carefully with these folks to try to figure out the best way to navigate our way through Los Angeles. We left their place feeling rather nervous about the 60 mile cycle through the city that lay ahead of us.

Luckily, after only one freeway off-ramp experience, we found the L.A. River bike path which led us north for about 40 miles towards Molly, our host's house. The bike trail saved us many hours in traffic, alongside cars and trucks, not to mention that there were no traffic lights, which meant that we were able to travel much faster through the city. After a few more hours of riding, we reached Molly's, but not before a pit stop at the local gelato place...

Molly and her roommates were great hosts. She was able to drive us up to the Getty Center, a beautiful museum and garden which overlooks the city. We rode our bikes back to Molly's through Hollywood. While our bicycles would have been perfect for infiltrating celebrity homes, we opted not to stop to get star maps. Our time in L.A. was also spent cycling around and checking out the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City.




Finally, we were ready to hit the road, but we were not to go very far... We cycled a mere 20 miles to Venice Beach where we stayed in our very first hostel and rode our fisrt rollercoaster! (watch for the second comming up soon) Venice Beach was fun and pretty crazy with it's beachfront flea market and vendors. We were definetly ready for a bit of quiet time when we left though.

Two more biking days would have us in Santa Barbara where we stayed with Shauna and Rachel who, very kindly, took us in quite at the last minute. We enjoyed a great dinner with them as well as the chance to hear about the kayaking trip they are planning in Palau! In Lompoc, a couple days latter, we enjoyed an evening with Terry, who cooked for us as we listened to delightful classical music. Terry told us all about his experience of this unique town and he was surprised that we had decided to cycle northbound allong the coast as most of his other guests were going in the oposite direction. He even offered to drive us up the coast so that we could cycle back, the wind at our tail...
As we cycled through Oceano, we were reminded just how far we had come and just how close we were to reaching San Francisco...
We spend one day off in San Luis Obispo, where we got the chance to stay with Sarah and Pancho and their lovely cats. We checked out this great town, its shops and restauraunts to finally spend the evning having dinner with our hosts and Brian, a friend who had found us a place to stay.
After SLO, we cycled a short day to Morro Bay and were able to enjoy some bird and seal watching from our kayaks in the bay during the afternoon. We got to stay with Ross and Jean and hear all about their past trip to Thailand and upcomming cycling tour across the northern part of the United States.

Another short jaunt got us to San Simeon where we toured Hearst Castle. This gigantic estate, built in the 1930's by a media tycoon from Los Angeles, is located five miles from the coast and overlooks water, mountains and San Simeon Village. It is filled with antique furniture, art and sculptures which were purchased by Hearst and he hosted many guests in this lavish home. It was quite the sight to see!



The following day was threatening rain and had us beginning the PUD's portion of our trip. To find out what a PUD is and how the Anne's would fare in the rain, tune in for BIG SUR or almost there...

San Diego

Okay, so before we get too excited about the coast, we must get Team Ontario's dirty little secret out in the open... We make no excuses and will be perfectly honest with all y'all, we did not cycle all the way from New Orleans to San Francisco. And our arrival on the coast was one of the moments when we were assisted by a motorized vehicle.

As we rode away from Margarita's house it seemed forces were at work against us. We were facing a forty mile day with a 4000 foot climb during the last 16 miles and strong headwinds in the forecast. For many of you, these numbers mean nothing, be it because of the imperial-metric conversion or simply because you're not on a bicycle tour. Well, the important thing to keep in mind is that this day was not exactly our idea of a picnic. We got separated navigating around town which took about 30 minutes to sort out then we were forced to take a very bumpy road towards Ocotillo. Once on the bumpy road we were facing the most intense headwinds of the entire trip. Both Marianne and myself were in our easiest gears and going very, very slowly.

After traveling 28 miles out of El Centro, before the massive climb, we stopped at a gas station and were accosted by Sean, who gave me a sticker for my bicycle (which now is proudly displayed on my trailer). Sean and William were traveling to San Diego in a large truck, pulling a large quarter-pipe with which they did BMX bike demonstrations in high schools. Well, as things turn out, our bikes and gear fit pretty nicely into the quarter-pipe and we both fit pretty nicely in the backseat of the truck...need we say more.

Originally, we were going to get dropped off in Jacumba, where we had planned to stay that night. At this point, however, we were about 90 miles from San Diego, had been riding for 7 days straight and decided that this opportunity had likely presented itself for a reason. We rode with the boys all the way to San Diego.


We arrived in San Diego a couple days early so, instead of surprising our pre-arranged hosts, we opted to stay with William for our first night in the city. We enjoyed sushi and a rather petrifying jet ski ride in the bay with him before riding towards Jim and Julie's place on Saturday morning. The coast was a major shock for me with all its stimulation, people, water and joggers!

It was all really rather exciting though. We very much enjoyed our time in San Diego with Julie and Jim. We got to experience Balboa Park, farmers markets, great food and thrift stores (not that we could buy much), more museums than you could shake a stick at and, for Mare, the ZOO !!!



A lovely part of our time in San Diego was all the bike enthusiasm we received from our host. A typical day consisted of a leisurely breakfast at which point Jim would generally stroll in and ask: "Do you guys want to go for a bike ride? There's a really cool (insert really cool thing to bike to here) that I could show you guys." Well, inevitably we would take off and cycle around (Jim, always on a different bicycle) and check out parks, bridges and markets. We left San Diego on a misty morning and Jim lead the way to the boardwalk where we would head towards San Francisco.

"Ladies, go north" he told us. And that's just what we did.

California begins!

Okay so... apologies for the large delay in keeping the updates flowing in a timely manner. Things have been hectic and stimulating along the coast with less time for our precious friend the interweb. But enough with the excuses, where were we?
Ah yes, once upon a time, we were still in a state which begins with the letter A. This picture was taken in the vacant property of Sherri, a school administrator in Salome, Arizona. It was not vacant, however, on the night of March 11th. After a hard day of riding in the hot sun, this little orange and grapefruit grove was a lovely oasis where we got to eat, read, sit in the shade, eat citrus fruit and ultimately, hang our bike helmets for the night. And it was to be the last night we would spend in Arizona before arriving in California to the town of Blythe.

In Blythe, we scoped out the local law enforcement and asked about a good place to camp. The officer directed us to a municipal park where we spent the evening loafing and making dinner. After the sun had gone down and we were just about ready for bed, I got up and out of the tent with a hunch that the green grass we were laying on was not naturally so green... A few locals just happened to be waiting for a bus nearby and confirmed that should we sleep in the park, we would get sprinkled at roughly 4 or 5 a.m. Luckily, the fire department was across the street and they allowed us to move our camp to their un-sprinkled, if slightly crispy lawn.

Our next day of riding had us land in the dunes of Glamis. A very strange place indeed. Picture beautiful sand dunes as far as the eye can see and one store. The store closed very soon after our arrival in Glamis and luckily we were able to purchase a large bottle of water there before it did. The dunes are a big attraction for quad drivers who pour into this speck of a town on long week-ends and ride around in the sand. We were very lucky to avoid much of this insanity by being there on a Thursday.

Following Glamis, we spend an evening in El Centro, at the home of Margarita, a real-estate agent and her husband Oscar Sauza, a 90 year old heir to a Mexican tequila company. While Oscar didn't speak English, Margarita told us some stories and antics about his youth and I very much wish we could have heard more...

That's all for now but you will definitely want to find out more as the Anne's get closer and closer to the coast...