samples of my jewelry
I think I started making hemp jewelry when I was 12. I remember doing a lot of it in Germany one summer, and purchasing about 80 Deutsche marks worth of beads and string. Well, I have kept the materials over the years and started picking it up again. There was a craft fair in Durango last weekend, and while I missed the boat on that, I was able to get a small table at the local grocery co-op, Durango Natural Foods for two hours on Sunday. I sold three things, and I have much more. I will probably continue making things until I run out of supplies before reassessing whether this is a worthwhile hobby. In the meantime, I decided I would try to sell my creations online instead of lugging everything around wherever I travel. Now is the perfect season to start selling these sorts of things, so after researching my options, I decided to use Etsy as my online jewelry selling platform.
I would also like to use this as an opportunity to raise money for a charity, since I haven’t actually done any fundraising since last summer. So, if anyone does want to buy this jewelry, I will keep track of all my sales and donate 20% of whatever I make to the National MS Society. If you would like to make a larger donation to the MS Society or are not even interested in the jewelry but still want to donate, please e-mail me and we can figure out a method via paypal or some other option. At the end of this year, I will submit my donation (and will continue to do the same thing for next year).
So, without further to write, I introduce my Etsy shop, Nomadic Jewelry by Nomadic Cycling.
While I love the way cycling through a bustling city gives me a rush of adrenaline, heightening my awareness of my surroundings, since going to Alaska I have been gravitating towards a different kind of cycling. A fellow blogger pointed out that there are many ways to enjoy exercise, and we agreed to collaborate on a post to highlight the differences. Whether you live in a city or in the middle of nowhere, exercise is a necessary outlet for most people, and it can be enjoyed at both extremes.
Teaching kids how to ride safely on city roads
When I lived in Montreal, I would regularly go running. I trained for and ran my first marathon in Montreal, and most of those miles were on busy city streets. City running (and cycling) is my favorite way to learn a new city, or get even more familiar with a city you’ve lived in for years. As I steadily increased the distance of my long runs in Montreal, I familiarized myself with more streets and parks than I ever knew existed during my first 3 years of living there. However, something can be said for escaping the city and getting out into nature.
In Alaska, nature was more accessible to me than ever before, and my love for trail running and mountain biking grew stronger. Fortunately, many cities have huge parks where you can run, safe from traffic – I have utilized many of these parks in various cities where I’ve lived or visited. If it weren’t for the noises of the city, you might actually believe that you were far from civilization while you lose yourself on their trails. In between our bike tours, stopping for a few weeks or months at a time allows us to explore and find some of our favorite ways to stay in shape while we’re not touring.
It may seem like bicycling from place to place every day is plenty of exercise, but if it weren’t for these in between times, I’m pretty sure I would be ten pounds heavier. We’re actually pretty energy efficient when touring, and our bodies quickly adapt to cycling 50-60 miles daily. These miles become predictable to our muscles and are rather slow – the miles are more of a mental challenge than a physical one after the first week or so of touring. The mental fatigue from the long hours on a bicycle prevents us from doing much of anything at the end of each day on the road, and we probably end of eating more calories than we burn. Variation is needed – whether it’s a different sport or just a different style of riding – so we don’t plateau and lose fitness. I like to run on my days off from cycling – but city commuting or mountain biking (without 40 additional pounds of gear) is a great way to mix it up.
At opposite ends of the spectrum, both city cycling and mountain biking are totally different from touring. I was surprised by how many different muscles, including upper body, that I used when I was mountain biking in Alaska. It was so different – so fun and challenging, and something I wish I could do more frequently. Likewise, city commuting really conditions your legs to accelerating from a stop after every stop sign and light (which can be quite frequent). I also enjoy the challenge of racing up hills and having my own secret races against other commuters who have no idea (or maybe are racing me in their minds). And then there’s trail running. Trail running is like playing Tetris with your feet. You have to figure out where to plant them before they hit the ground, and there are plenty of obstacles to make that challenging on your ankles. Each type of exercise comes with its own mental game, and the variation really helps me to not burn out.
While some people are able to go to the gym and run on a treadmill every day, I know I could never do that. Here in Durango, it has been incredibly cold and snowy, but I would still prefer to bundle up and go snowshoeing or ice skating outside than to concede to the gym. I will make exceptions for swimming, and I have been going to use the pool, but if it were warm enough I would choose to swim in a lake or ocean any day. The problem with winter sports for me is the cost, but many people around here ski or snowboard during the winter and there are enough professional athletes living in the area to either motivate or depress me (I haven’t decided yet). Read Bridget’s perspective, below, on exercise and cycling from a totally different city.
A Cyclist Makes Friends with Las Vegas
It’s amazing what some of us will do to get our exercise. I used to spend almost all my free time at the gym. After work, I’d head there and stay most of the evening before going home. I didn’t exactly enjoy spending so much time in that cramped space with sweaty people running nowhere like so many hamsters in a cage. Like many others, I simply hadn’t found a better way to stay fit. Sure, I knew that some folks ran outside and others would cycle around town on errands, but those options seemed unsafe. Then I moved, and my life and habits changed radically.
A move to Las Vegas seems an unlikely catalyst for becoming an outdoor enthusiast, but that’s exactly what my move became for me. Although I originally thought that outdoor exercise in Sin City likely entailed too much to drink and a faltering march along the strip, I found out that many outdoor activities lay waiting for those willing to participate here.
If you’ve seen pictures of the Las Vegas strip lit up in all its promotional glory, you may tend to forget that the city lies in the heart of the Mojave Desert. This natural landscape features miles of bike trails, and I love taking rides through the area. Of course, getting lost here would be a travesty, so I use this handy resource to help me keep my bearings.
Bridget's boyfriend helps her fix her bicycle
I also enjoy cycling in urbanized areas near my home. Las Vegas earned the designation of one of America’s Cycle-Friendly Cities from the League of American Bicyclists. In part, this has to do with the 390 miles of bike lanes located in the city. Downtown, several new bike racks and lockers have also been installed for the convenience of cyclists.
Travelers also benefit from the culture of fitness here. Hotels in Las Vegas offer a myriad of fitness amenities. In addition to well-equipped gyms, many local accommodations provide exercise sessions and outdoor fitness recommendations to guests. In order to find activities and accommodations that suit your personal fitness needs, use that link to filter pretty much every establishment in Las Vegas based on your travel and fitness preferences.
You don’t have to be a fitness nut to know that exercise is only one aspect of a healthy lifestyle. The fitness culture in Las Vegas has also given rise to a number of healthy eating and drinking establishments. Vegetarian fare isn’t hard to find, and several restaurants offer healthy menu options that accommodate those on the paleo diet or similar healthy food plans. If you find a juice bar more appealing than a tavern, you’ll easily find several from which to choose here in Vegas. I hope you have a chance to visit my city soon and experience all this for yourself.
Riding to the grocery store using my new bag as a pannier
I am writing this review on a bag that I purchased with a preconceived bias, so keep that in mind if it sounds slightly like I may be searching for a reason to love this bag. The Woodward Convertible is a bike pannier that can also be worn as a backpack. North St Bags, which is located in Portland, Oregon, was named for the street the owner grew up on in Montpelier, Vermont. Unfortunately, I left Portland just before discovering this amazing local company, and had to wait for the bag to arrive in the mail. Since I don’t remain in one place for very long, it was a bit tricky to coordinate where to have the bag shipped, and to make sure I would actually be there. Consequently, by the time I did receive the bag, I was over a thousand miles away from my bike, so I had to test it out as just a backpack first.
The bag converts easily between a pannier and backpack, with a zippered flap that contains the backpack straps while being used as a pannier and a velcro strap to secure the pannier hooks and bungee while wearing as a backpack. The bag is also waterproof, so there’s no need for rain covers if it starts to rain on you during your ride. There are good reflective stripes all over the bag, and my favorite part is that you can customize the colors of both the main bag and the reflective stripes.
Inside the main bag is a padded compartment for a laptop (or papers that you don’t want to get crinkled), and there are two velcro pockets on the outside as well as a pocket that perfectly fits a U-lock. The side velcro pocket is perfect for my water bottle when I’m walking around town or already have my coffee thermos in the water bottle cage on my bike.
I did get to try the bag out as a pannier when our friends, Dustin and Katie, from Alaska came through Durango after bicycle touring around Arizona and New Mexico. The bag fits best on a rear rack, since it would hang pretty low and may hit the ground if you were to try it out as a front pannier. There is a bungee cord with a hook that hooks onto the bottom part of the pannier rack, and two hooks at the top of the bag that hook over the top of the rack. It does allow the bag to bounce away from the rack, since there’s nothing securing the bottom of the bungee to the bag, but it seems pretty secure and I don’t think it would easily fall off of the rack.
This bag has been perfect for biking and walking around town and is wonderful for grocery shopping. I am extremely happy with it so far, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who commutes by bicycle or even occasionally would use their bicycle for a shopping excursion into town. It’s a pretty durable material, and while a bit costly for me, I think it could last a lifetime, and I feel good about supporting a local company that’s making handmade bags in the USA.
For anyone who is interested in purchasing from North St Bags, use the code “bagforlife” to receive a 20% discount on all orders over $100! This discount code is good until December 14th of this year.
Even though it may be far from cycling season where you are, it is shopping season! Whether you’re shopping for someone else or for yourself, a rack that allows you to bring your bicycle along when using your secondary mode of transportation can expand the geographic range where you cycle and encourage you to ride more when conditions outside of your immediate vicinity are not ideal. We know not everybody can quit their day job and bike around from city to city, so for those of you who have your own car, here’s a guide to shopping for the perfect bicycle rack:
Today was Thanksgiving. While most people spend the holiday with their family, the best Dallas and I could do was talk with family and friends on our phones. Traveling does cause us to miss our family and friends, and it is especially apparent during the holidays, but Dallas and I are thankful to have each other.
I started my morning off with a 5 mile running race, the Durango Turkey Trot. This was my first race since the Klondike Road Relay in September, first 5-mile race since August of 2012, and first ever race at high altitude. I didn’t do that badly, for having lived my whole life at sea level until last week, but I did feel noticeably out of breath earlier than I would have liked. Dallas couldn’t run today, but he did bring the chocolate lab, Charlie, and both of them stood around to cheered me through the race.
After the race, we cleaned ourselves up and walked over to a community Thanksgiving dinner at the Plata County Fairgrounds, where we were given a full Thanskgiving meal for free! Hundreds of people sat at long tables inside a large room, with volunteers serving food, buffet-style, from the tables along the side by the entrance. Dallas and I found two empty seats on the other side of the room, between the table with all the pies and the band (but much closer to the pies). The average age of attendees was much higher than our ages, but the people were all very friendly.
We walked back and spent the rest of the day lounging around the house, making food (including pumpkin waffles and pumpkin egg nog!), napping, playing with the pets, and studying languages on Duolingo. The house where we’re pet sitting has a trampoline in the back yard, and today the sun had finally finished melting off the last of the snow that was covering it since the first snowfall. I hope everyone else had a nice holiday, if you celebrate it – and have a great weekend!
Dallas and I decided to go to Durango, CO to visit with our friends and pet-sit for them and their friends over the holidays. In the month that we were living in the bay area, we were able to get by working random jobs found on craigslist. We also could not have stayed as long as we did without the hospitality of Dallas’s sister, Sherilyn, and step-mom, Sandra. We also were warmly welcomed by Dallas’s friend Linus and his family, his cousin Tommy and his girlfriend, and his Aunt Lisa (who makes excellent banana bread) and her husband John. I am very grateful for Dallas’s friends and family and so glad I could meet them!
Apparently, I have really nice feet. Who knew??
Dallas was lucky to find a part-time job as an assistant for a man who had just had foot surgery and needed help running errands, picking the kids up from school, and general help around the house. He was just able to start driving again the week we left California, so the timing worked out pretty well. I found gigs as a foot model for ankle jewelry being sold on Amazon, and spent another three days as a background runner for a Dick’s Sporting Goods commercial. Sandra also gave me some work, as she needed help tagging assets for one of the biotech companies that employs her as their facilities manager. For the amount of time we had in the area, we did pretty well. Living as a temporary resident of the bay area, I was able to observe and take note of a few unique characteristics.
Biking around downtown San Francisco, everyone is in a hurry. There are also lots of traffic lights (and tons of traffic). I got to practice my track stand and acceleration from a stop countless times on each commute, while other bike commuters rolled on through most of the lights. This never happened in Portland. I wonder if the difference is that there is more enforcement of traffic laws applied to cyclists in Portland, or if they are just better educated since there is a higher percentage of bike commuters there. San Francisco has more tourists, and many more people riding around on rental bikes, but it is clearly the commuters who were riding on city streets and disobeying traffic signals. I also noticed that the bike share program, which was recently initiated in the bay area and is expected to be one of the largest in the country after its planned expansions, is getting plenty of use in the city. In Redwood City, however, where there is a hub of bike share bikes, I didn’t notice anyone using them. It is definitely promising to see so many people commuting by bicycle, and so many bike lanes in the area, but it has a ways to go to catch up to Portland (which, doesn’t even have a bike share program, yet). Most of the bay area is accessible by bike, but (especially as you get further from the city) there are plenty of inconveniences and obstacles for cyclists to endure in order to avoid autocentric areas and unsafe roads, heavy with multiple lanes of fast-moving traffic.
Another noticeable thing about the bay area is the smog. We actually lucked out with pretty sunny weather every day that we were there, but some days you could see a tan haze hovering over the city. This is apparently normal, especially in the summertime. Every time I went outside, there were numerous planes in the air. Sometimes you could see ten or more planes in the sky around the airport, which wasn’t too far from where we stayed with Sandra. This, plus all of the traffic on the roads, probably leads to some pretty unhealthy air quality.
While I really enjoyed my time in the bay area, I’m glad that we didn’t stay long enough to get caught up in whatever the big hurry is around San Francisco. Everywhere we turned, everyone seemed so rushed and stressed out, and most drivers seemed angry. I’m sure it’s because the cost of living is so high, people have to work so much just to pay for their home, food and gym membership – they probably don’t have any time to spend at home, eat good food, or work out.
A view of the city from Coyote Point Park in San Mateo
On a positive note, San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in North America. There is literally anything you can imagine available at your fingertips. There are numerous selections of restaurants and markets for any kind of food you could want – plus, there are courier services that will deliver the food to you if you don’t want to leave your condo. Pretty much anywhere is accessible via public transit, and there are transportation options for everyone – trains, subways, buses, streetcars, electric trams, ferries, cars, and bikes. As for entertainment and recreation, there are museums and theaters that attracts all of the big names in art, music or acting and there are parks and gyms for any kind of activity you would ever want to do. For water sports, you can go swimming, sailing, kiteboarding, kayaking, rowing or windsurfing on the bay, along the Pacific coast or on one of the lagoons (we witnessed part of a rowing regatta in the lagoon behind Sandra’s house two days before we left). There is excellent road cycling and mountain biking just outside of the city. AND it seems there are job opportunities everywhere – San Francisco seems like the place to be if you want to start up a company or are involved with any kind of technology.
Dallas and I took a one way flight to Durango, but we left our bicycles behind so we do expect to be back in the bay area to pick up where we left off on our cycling adventures. Until then, we will definitely be borrowing mountain bikes and skis, and doing a lot of trail running with other people’s dogs!
As the holidays approach and people are scrambling to solidify travel plans to see family, an important priority for many people is finding someone to care for their home or pets while away. Then there are people like Dallas and me, who are always trying to figure out where we’re going to sleep for the next few weeks (or months) and how we’re going to afford it. Websites like trustedhousesitters.com offer a solution for both types of people. Dallas and I joined trustedhousesitters.com on November 1st this year. We have membership privileges for one year before we have to decide whether to renew or let lapse. I have formulated a rough sketch of an opinion so far, from the perspective of a house-sitter who has yet to connect with the right homeowner.
trustedhousesitters.com
First, you have to pay for a membership in order to contact homeowners, and it’s a bit pricey. This could be why most of the members are older, retired professionals. For homeowners, this filters through all the potential sitters and is MUCH better than posting an ad on craigslist. Homeowners can feel more secure knowing that their sitter will not be partying or doing drugs in their home while they’re away. However, as a younger house-sitter with no steady income or pension, it is a bit of an investment for me. That said, the costs are well worth it if it hooks us up with the right home. In most cases, the membership would pay for itself in just one sit, saving us on the costs of hotels or hostels.
Also, as a younger house sitter amongst a member base of “mature, responsible, house sitters with extensive references and resumes”, I feel at a slight disadvantage when it comes to getting chosen to be the house sitter. We need to use our age to set us apart advantageously. While many of the members advertise that they are fit, I wonder how many of them would run daily with the dogs in urban areas that have leash laws.
Most house-sitters are not expecting to be paid. This is a great benefit for homeowners, for obvious reasons. However, most people who can afford a membership can also afford to pay their sitter a little bit to reward them for doing a good job. If there is no payment at all, there may be less incentive for the house sitter to make extra efforts to keep the house clean or the garden alive. I assume that most of the members on here would go that extra mile just for the positive feedback to use a reference, but it is nice as a house-sitter to receive a little bit of compensation, not only to offset the cost of travel or the time involved in caring for pets, but as a token of appreciation for a job well done. This would still be much cheaper and less hassle than boarding pets at a kennel or hiring someone through a pet-sitting service, and it would provide homeowners some extra peace of mind. I don’t mind not being paid, but when everyone is offering their services for free, it diminishes the perceived value of all sitters.
In search results, your sitter profile is not going to show up if you say that you charge “Sometimes” unless a homeowner indicates “I don’t mind” in the search query, so if you want homeowners to be able to find you, it might be beneficial to indicate that you don’t charge at all. I don’t like this, for the reasons mentioned above. Sometimes a free place to stay is more than enough and I would not feel right charging a homeowner, but when the house-sitting job comes with responsibilities like feeding and exercising animals, keeping house plants and gardens healthy, and helping to run a farm or bed-and-breakfast, I would expect a little bit of compensation.
The reference feature allows house sitters to request references from other members or externally, and references are posted on sitters’ profiles. There’s also a feature to have a police report available, to prove that you have no criminal record. Homeowners can search for sitters based on references and police report availability. The references offer sitters great motivation to do a good job so they can earn more positive references to help them in finding future house-sitting opportunities.
The site is an excellent resource for both homeowners and house sitters. It connects people who would never have found each other and opens people’s minds up to opportunities outside of their immediate vicinity. Members are much more reliable and trustworthy than your average craigslist user, or at least the sketchy people are weeded out from the start. I have already started recommending the website to friends who may be interested in house-sitting as a way to vacation inexpensively.
Recommendations for the site:
Reach out to younger people and try to diversify the membership base. Maybe offer a Groupon or not charge a house-sitter for their membership until they have secured their first house-sitting gig through the website. OR, in addition to the membership option, allow people to join for free and pay per house-sitting gig that they obtain (members would not have to pay this fee). Also, try to attract people from other countries. Right now, the majority of homeowners are in the UK, US, Australia and western Europe. It would be nice to see an even wider range of locations, including South America and Asia.
Improve search result feedback. Allow people to sort search results in order of proximity, or other options. Your profile won’t have any priority if someone in your area searches for a house-sitter. Let the profiles of house sitters who indicate that they charge “sometimes” appear in search results for either paying or non-paying homeowners.
So far, I love the website and am excited for its potential in helping Dallas and me find places to stay while we are traveling. When we do find a house-sitting gig through here (and according to the site, 75% of members with complete profiles do), I will be sure to blog about it!
For those of you who made it through to the end of this lengthy review, Trustedhousesitters is offering a 25% discount on memberships when you enter the discount code, “nomadiccycling”!
What happened on Dallas’s last day of riding before he reached San Francisco remains a mystery for now, as I have given him ample time to update us and cannot wait any longer to update our readers on where we are and what we’re doing now! Not that it’s very exciting. We have paused our bicycle touring again to spend time with family in the bay area and to figure out our next move. We have been considering a variety of options, which I wasn’t going to reveal until we made a final decision, but maybe writing it all out and sharing the possibilities with everyone will help us come to a conclusion in a more timely manner. So, here they are:
Option 1: Go sailing!
We have been fortunate enough to meet up with David, a sailor who owns a hand built 40 foot catamaran sailboat and is looking for crew for some segments of his sail around the world. He is very much like us in that he has been traveling and working random jobs wherever he stops, literally going wherever the wind blows him. We started talking to him via e-mail after the website, findacrew.net, matched our profiles. He was in Alaska for the summer, but never made it far enough north to see us while we were in Skagway. We finally caught up to him in San Francisco where he is anchored while working on replacing the hatches, and we had the chance to go sailing with him around San Francisco Bay last week. I have to admit that sailing across the ocean would be my number one choice, since I started my journey two years ago with the hopes of combining bicycling and sailing, and still I have yet to actually sail anywhere. However, the boat is a work in progress, and David has not done an ocean crossing yet. I have no doubt that he is taking all the appropriate safety precautions and am confident in his sailing ability as a captain, but we are still not ready to trust our lives to a small sailboat that is untested on such a long journey. If David decides to head south first, to San Diego, before going west, we do want to join him. Hopefully we will know more about his plans by the end of November.
Option 2: Bike South
We can always hop back on our bikes, but it’s going to get a lot colder before it starts getting warmer. It only makes sense to go south. We could bike to San Diego, and potentially crew on a sailboat from there, or keep biking south. There are a completely different set of risks associated with this plan, but we would get to work on our Spanish. Dallas was hoping to have saved up some more money before getting into South America, since it may be hard to find legitimate work outside of the US. If we do go this route, we could spend the next year or two bicycling around South America.
Option 3: Work seasonally in Durango, CO
Out friends, Anna and Brendan, from Sockeye, live in Durango, Colorado. We really enjoyed getting to know them while we were all living in Skagway, and we even got to witness their wedding in July! They have extended an offer for us to live with them for the winter season. Durango Mountain Resort is hiring people for the ski and snowboard season, and it would be a good way for us to earn some extra income before leaving the country. It would also be cold, and would delay our departure from the US for a little bit longer. Although, we would get to be a little closer to friends and family for a little bit longer.
Option 4: House sit and work odd jobs through the holiday season, and then bike south or sail across the Pacific.
Thanksgiving is approaching quickly, and it would be nice to stay close and accessible to family throughout the holidays (and so I can attend my cousin’s wedding). While we’re already in the country, we may as well stay a little bit longer so we can afford to visit with family. House-sitting is a great way to stay somewhere, rent-free, and lots of people need house-sitters during the holidays (including our friends in Durango).
We recently discovered a very cool website that connects homeowners to trustworthy house-sitters while they are away for extended vacations or business trips. The website is called trustedhousesitters.com and we have just started exploring the possibilities of living in beautiful homes in all parts of the world, watching over the house and sometimes caring for pets and plants while the owners are away. There are several websites like this, but trustedhousesitters.com seems like the best so far. Membership is required in order to apply for house-sitting jobs, and there are ways for previous homeowners, employers, or others to leave references on the house-sitter’s character and caretaking abilities. There’s even a section for a police check, so you can show that you have no criminal record. We see the site as a great tool for helping us find places to stay without the commitment of a lease or the cost of rent, while also providing homeowners or pet owners a piece of mind, knowing their home will be in good hands. If we do land a gig through this site, I will update our readers with a more detailed review.
We have been entertaining all of these options, and are open to other wild and crazy suggestions that people may throw our way. Don’t hesitate to comment on this section! It may not affect our decision, but it’s good to hear what y’all think. While in the bay area, Dallas and I have been lucky enough to stay with his sister, Sherilyn, and her family, his friend, Linus, and his family, and his step-mom, Sandra. We are working temporary jobs until we move on to the next locale!
“A good traveler has no plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu
Tracking our ride from Portland to San Francisco
That’s a link to the map that Dallas has been using to keep track of our ride. He doesn’t have wifi tonight so cannot post a blog entry, but hopefully this will set your mind at ease in the meantime. He is almost to San Francisco! If I can figure out how, I will embed the map into this site…
Early morning sun shines through the trees
Dallas and I found that we had made a wise decision to stop where we did the night before. We packed up and were out of the campground before the sun came up, and started climbing a mountain just as the sun was rising. This climb was not as treacherous as I had feared – the guy we talked to yesterday said it took an hour and a half to ascend – but it was still grueling. We rode for maybe 4 miles up a steep, narrow, and winding road before we had any break at all. There would have been no place to camp again for the next 27 miles, and it would have taken us forever to get there yesterday evening.
We're still climbing
The worst part about climbing is temperature control. Since the sun hadn’t warmed up the road yet, it started off pretty cold, and I kept having to stop to peel off layers as I worked up a pretty good sweat. The road had warm and cold patches depending on which side of the mountain we were on, but it really felt cold as we started to coast down. With no need to pedal and our clothes drenched in sweat, the apparent wind created by our downhill speed chilled us to the bone. I put my gloves back on midway through the descent, but they were sweaty and useless. By the time we had to pedal again, my hands and feet were numb. We had another great climb closer to the coast, about 10 miles before we hit Westport.
Fog on the coast
When we finally reached the coast, it was foggy and much cooler than it had been on the other side of the mountains. We pulled into the general store in Westport around 11, having gone just under 30 miles – and it was earlier than we can usually wake up for the day! This is where we met Adam, a bicycle tourist from Nashville who had also started his tour in Portland. We talked for a few minutes before Adam continued south and we bought coffee and shared some snacks.
I struggle to steer Dallas's bike
I was anxious to get moving and be in Fort Bragg by noon to meet my dad and step-mom, Paulette, who were visiting from Rhode Island. We still had 16 miles to go, and it was after 11:30 when we left the store, so it wasn’t going to happen. To slow things down a bit more, Dallas and I switched bikes for a few miles. This confirmed our suspicions that my bike is much easier to pedal up hills, with its touring chain rings. I am impressed with Dallas’s strength and ability to grind up hills in ill-suited gears. We did make it about halfway to Fort Bragg from Westport before we saw my dad and Paulette drive by in their rental car.
My dad, Paulette, me, and Dallas before Dallas departs on his bicycle
This is where I ended my day of riding to spend the next few days sightseeing San Francisco with them. Dallas and I loaded our belongings and ourselves into the minivan and enjoyed the ride to Fort Bragg, where we ate lunch. We stopped in Mendecino for ice-cream and drove a few more miles down the coast before letting Dallas out to ride the rest of the way to San Francisco on his own. Dallas will hopefully update all of us on his solo journey from here. I certainly look forward to seeing him when he arrives in the city!
Nomadic Cycling 