Pictures!

So here are some photos. Thank you Kodak Funsaver!

Amanda and Christina depart for their adventure!
Vancouver, British Columbia, Tuesday August 21st, 2007

Us on one of the numerous ferry rides through British Columbia

The Sunshine Coast, British Columbia



Amanda relaxing on another B.C. ferry




Matching grease tattoos

Cyclist? Really?

Oh wow. Oregon is beautiful. I feel like every time we climb a mountain or go around a corner I should see a pirate ship sailing on the horizon and I am in a scene from Peter Pan or something. Rocky cliffs, green conifers, huge ocean, the sky tossing clouds and fog and sun all down the coast... I have been down the 101 through this area before, but it feels a lot different this time around.

But enough of the touchy- feely stuff. Today I would like to address the topic of what makes a cyclist a cyclist. I am wondering because I do not feel like a cyclist, but I am constantly being referred to as one in street signs, our route guide, and by other bike riders. Is it our spandex? Is it the clipless pedal thing? Is it because we look like huge idiots in our helmets? For the record, I would like to say I do not consider myself a cyclist because in my expert non-cyclist opinion a true cyclist would

• not be too lazy to change gears
• be able to successfully blow a snot rocket while riding and avoid splattering snot all over their own thigh, cheek, or shoulder
• be able to drink water through a camel back hose and breathe simultaneously without, again, splattering snot all over their own thigh, cheek, or shoulder
• take their fingerless gloves off while not riding instead of keeping them on because when else, aside from being Cyndi Lauper for Halloween, do you get to wear fingerless gloves?
  

• never look like I do in this photo

• probably not talk to themselves on long downhills

• have used their clipless pedals for longer than a week before they embarked on a 2,000 mile tour of the Pacific Coast
• most likely not eat sour patch kids at every possible break in a day

Don't get me wrong, I would like to one day be able to call myself a cyclist, but for now I prefer... bike rider? Yeah, Christina the bike rider. Glad we cleared that up.

Oregon = Epic

So we have finished Washington... blew through it in about two days?! And entered Oregon via the Astoria bridge the day before yesterday.
Which marks the first official time I have been truly scared on this trip thus far. The journey across this monster of human ingenuity (in bridge building), was harrowing... and cannot be described to it's fullest by a mere blog.
I will try to give you highlights:
You have about two feet of shoulder, barred on one side by a concrete wall and the other by incredibly fast cars AND semis (often towing trees of awe-inspiring sizes). The bridge is 4.2 miles long, and stopping is not an option (unless you are fucking crazy and your name is Diego). The last mile or so of this crazy adventure is a straight uphill test of your endurance with your two foot space strewn with dead seagulls who look up at you and plead for you not to run over their carcasses and instead risk your life by swerving into traffic every time. At the end of the uphill ride of possible death, you are rewarded by a rollercoaster-esque downhill curving off ramp that towers over the town of Astoria and is not as fun as it should be.
My hands were killing me at the end from having gripped my handlebars till my knuckles were white for the entirety of those 4.2 miles. At the bottom, Tina was waiting patiently, with the same look of "oh my god i can't believe we just did that i'm so glad we're alive and i'm pumped up with adrenaline" I most surely had on my face.
So we treated ourselves to a motel and a mexican dinner. The motel being a place where "sleeping under the bridge is not a bad thing". We got to wash our clothes (thank god, we STANK), and watch a relaxing "Top Chef" marathon as we laid there in a sort of comatose exhaustion.
(This is similar to many scenes of the two of us from the PCT... watching shows about either food or nature every time there was a t.v. in our midst.)

Now we are in Nehalem, Oregon... staying at our first "road angel's" house. He (his name is David) found us in Cannon Beach, outside the bike shop where he works, and invited us to stay with him when we felt up to the 16 mile mountainous terrain between Cannon and Nehalem.
The kindness of strangers we encounter on these journeys is so inspiring. I love it.

Squatch, of PCT documentary film making fame, joined us for lunch and ice cream on the beach in Cannon and sat across from me as I chipped a large chunk of one of my molars whilst biting down agressively on a rock in my salad. FUCK. Hope that doesn't become a problem. Eating is important on excursions such as these.

Anyways... the Oregon coast is too beautiful to describe, so just visit it. Especially the stretch we did yesterday. Literally awe-inspiring... i kid you not. Apocalyptic beauty.

Diego is riding with us to California, and is a welcome addition to our tour. The three of us conquered our first tunnel together yesterday with Diego leading the charge singing loud Spanish songs that echoed off the rocky ceiling. It was pretty cute. Slightly scary, but i am hoping that my scary level as reached it's peak with the above mentioned bridge crossing experience.

Things are good. I am still sick, but it doesn't seem to matter. As long as Diego keeps giving me those weird Spanish drugs.

Can't wait to see what is around the next corner or over the next mountain.

my mouth is full of chocolateness so i don't want to put it on your hose...

I can't remember all of the brilliant things we've said in the past couple of days that makes us laugh in the midst of our exhaustion and endless hunger... but i believe the above was one of them. You wish you were a fly in the air on this trip... we are funny.

Anyways... so much happens in a day on this trip (i think) that i am completely overwhelmed to try to sum up the last day and a half.

We got lost... i cried. a little bit. (i though i was lost alone, but thank god tina was the one who messed up and was lost too.)

The falling stories i think tina has covered.

We have also entered into a race with too very intense looking German women. After a long day of leap-frogging each other, we joined them last night at a campsite when a Spanish man also rolled in on a bike and suddenly we were an international crew. Amazing conversations are always had with people who don't completely know your language. As i was describing my sick symptoms (oh yeah, i'm sick... it sucks) Diego, the Spanish man, asked "what is the green that come out of your nose?" My response: "Booger." Laughter all around. We also learned that the Spanish term for a nutmeg in soccer is a "tricky". Apparently in German it is maybe something called "mine-shoe"?

Now we are headed towards the Oregon coast at a break-neck speed and hopefully will be there tomorrow night. Another section bites the dust!

And, it is possible that old buddies might meet us at the border. Fireworks!!!!

I will finish this entry with my top five signs so far:
1. Never Give Up Rd.

2. Lois Lane

3. Nip Lee Rd.

4. "drive hammered, get nailed."

5. Boys (rd.) Ahead (the rd. part was obscured by trees.)

Falling is Funny

Hi!
Amanda and I are taking a break from the heat of the highway in a place called Montesano off highway 12 in Washington, at the public library of course. Despite the fact that we finally showered on Sunday night, our clothes weren't so lucky, so unfortunately we still stink. We stink a stink that even the weird old lady smell of old books cannot cover up. In fact our stink blasts right through that old lady/book smell and rips it to peices. My apologies to the 13 year old girl next to me.

Anyway, two very amazing things happened in the last three days since we've been able to update the blog. Both Amanda and myself fell. Don't worry, we didn't trip while walking or crash on our bikes or anything. We just fell. Upright on the bike one second to horizontal, on the road, underneath the bike the next. The culprit both times: clipless pedals. They do help me feel connected to my bike in a good way most days. I know the transfer of energy from my legs to my pedals is more efficient with a rigid sole...blah blah blah. But there are moments of extreme fatigue, for example, when I wish my feet were not connected to my pedals. Or maybe when I drop my camera while trying to take pictures and ride simultaneously and I want to turn around and pick it up and I can't un-clip in time and I know I am about to fall on the road and my bike is going to fall on top of me in slow motion, in that moment, I don't want clipless pedals anymore. Or when Amanda is on the sidewalk, not even moving, and she clips in and her pannier hits a beautifully maintained planter box full of flowers and she falls over, bike coming down on top of her... At that moment, I am thankful Amanda has clipless pedal because I am laughing so hard I am crying. But really, it's quite humiliating.

So I am considering this another right of passage for this trip. The first being changing a tire. The second, totally eating it when not even moving because of your stupid clipless pedals. PS we totally have pictures.

We're comin' to America!

holy crap i have 13 minutes to write something!
phew...
in honor of thomas wolfe and his aversion to reading long blogs (we can't do pics yet because we don't have a stupid digital camera, bogus... but we are working on that for sure), i think i will provide some top 5 lists:

top 5 things i love on this trip so far:
1. bombing huge hills... no brakes!
2. eating ice cream... no guilt! (it's no mocha chip, but it'll suffice, for now.)
3. looking so f-ing cool all the time... helmets and spandex!
4. canadians... the rumors are true!
5. the romantic walks on the beach with christanka.

top 5 things i hate on this trip so far:
1. the pain in my upper left shoulder blade that won't go away.
2. nervousness about the health of my vagina.
3. semi trucks on highways.
4. flat tires + shards of glass.
5. every time stanka denies my advances on our beach walks.

top 5 thoughts i think while riding:
1. "gonna make it, gonna make it..."
2. "ow ow ow ow"
3. justin timberlake songs
4. playing the pebble dodge game
5. "hello christina's ass!"

top 5 people we've met so far:
1. giovanni the mexican dude with the italian name who lives in vancouver but has carried a backpack everywhere you wish you could go. i wish we were still in a hitchhike vs. bike race with him.
2. thomas the desk guy at the cambie
3. the newfindland lady from denman island
4. the guy who rode next to us on a busy highway for about 5-10 minutes about an hour ago and freaked me out really bad. what the fuck is he thinking? (i'm glad he didn't die.)
5. all the 12 year olds who have jobs already in Canada. it's good for them.

We'll be in America tomorrow night!!!
Thank you everyone so much for the comments and encouragement... it's awesome to take these little breaks and get sweet little messages. Hopefully pics will be coming along shortly...

my 10 reasons

Amanda and I are in a library in the lovely town of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island B.C. She is typing furiously to my right to publish a post on our blog and I guess I am doing the same (but I will say somewhat less furiously). What is she typing? I have no idea but we have gotten into this habit of not telling the other person what we are typing and then just reading the other person's post after they have published it. We like to keep things interesting. Or I think Amanda just gets annoyed when I ask so I have stopped asking. I will try to peer over and read what she is writing... that doesn't work either! Library partitions sure are efficient at maintaining your privacy. Anyway, things are awesome and here are 10 reasons why:

1. My bike is amazing and named her My Pony,
   
2. Amanda is a stupendous traveling partner, mostly because her sunglasses change color in sun and shade and her helmet hair never ceases to amaze me,
   
3. Canadians are still awesome,
4. Our legs are so dirty we look like we've been in Cancun the last week,
5. Amanda can't finish any of her food so that means more for me,
   
6. My shirt matches my earrings which match my pants which match my socks which match my grip tape,
7. This internet time is free,
8. Despite the incredibley loud and long horn, that logging truck didn't hit me and thanks to Amanda's cat-like reflexes, she was successfully able to avoid running into that dumb lady that pulled out in front of her,
9. Sleeping bag dance parties to Justin Timberlake in the morning make anyday a great one, and
10. I think I get to eat again really soon.

We are headed to McDonald Provincial Park tonight, about 20 miles away from where we are right now. Amanda and I have already gone 35 miles today and its not even 1 pm. This, my friends, is a new personal best. We plan on heading back to the U.S. tomorrow via ferry from Sidney B.C. to Anacortes. Then it's 101 all the way to Mexico! Hurray!
p.s. we still have not showered...

Canadians are awesome

Amanda and I are in a library in Courtenay on Vancouver Island B.C. We finally made it to an island! Why is this a significant feat you ask? Well, yesterday while we were blogging ( I really do hate using blog as a verb. In fact I think I just plain hate the term altogether. Someone come up with a less lame term for what I am doing right now and I will give you a dollar.) Amanda, wondering where exactly we were in B.C., peered over to a woman at a table next to us and sincerely asked, 'Excuse me. What island are we on?'. To this the woman replied, ' We are not on an island. This is the Sunshine Coast.' Those tricky Canadians had us thinking we were on an island! Can you imagine that! So really it is very exciting that we have made it to an island so as not to be completely embarrassed and humiliated in a coffee shop full of locals this time around. I can feel you all patting us on the back.

Yesterday was beautiful and we made it to camp at the Saltery Bay Provincial Park in one piece. Some highlights of the day include:

• wishing our spandex weren't spandex,
  
• Amanda being stalked up a narrow incline by a large semi-truck waiting to pass,
• seeing roadkill, like really too close (even though we only saw dead snakes, they were still pretty gross),
• having a mid-ascent pow-wow to pee, talk about our crotches, and pump ourselves up for the remainder of the gnarly ascent only to quickly learn that it was pretty much over a minute after we hit the road again,
• meeting nice Canadians on the ferry (surprise surprise!),
  
• watching Amanda eat her dinner in the tent like a prisoner because she hates mosquitoes like I hate the word blog.

Today has been quite the adventure as well. We had to get up at 6 am and race 19 miles to the ferry this morning and just as we are about to shoot down the hill to catch it, Amanda's back tire goes flat. Luckily the ferry was 15 minutes late and we were able to go aboard. On the ferry we met more nice Canadians (!?!?) who were extremely interested in our trip. One even requested our blog address and I tried to keep a straight face writing down the url for him... Another woman told us about a bike shop and a great place to get a bite on the other side of the passage. So here we are, in a library, bellies full with abnormally tight spandex cutting off the circulation around our waists , the tire is fixed and now we want ice cream. Did I mention I am wearing spandex? Ok good.
PS. The picture is just to give you all a rough idea of what I look like in my sweet gear. It's not exactly that awesome, but definitely yellow and I definitely blend in with people here. They are Canadian after all.

Official Day 3...

So now we find ourselves on the brink of actually heading south... in our intended direction! It will be a relief to not tell people we are trying to go to Mexico and have to answer to why we are biking north anymore.
I believe there were jokes made before our departure of the nature of our journey being a race of some sorts, and that Christina would try such dasterdly means to beat me as throw banana peels behind her as she rode. So I just wanted to state, for the record, that while tailing Tina I have had to dodge 3 banana peels thus far. This is no joke.

I'm not sure we've done a very good job of logging our mileage or location thus far... So for those of you who care, we are now in the town of Courtenay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. We are (supposedly) riding 55 more miles today?
This morning began with a crazy 18 mile race to catch an 8:00 ferry , ending in barely making the damn boat and a flat tire about a 1/4 mile before the dock.
According to the ticket man we "were lucky".
After arriving at the ferry dock for Comox, we were forced to take a bus into town as we assumed our bike pump was too big a piece of shit to do the job. (We were wrong... sorry bike pump.)
Now we have been well fed, gotten the flat tire fixed, found us a nice little library, and have an ice cream sundae plus a lot more riding left on our agenda.

The days are already blending together. (And it's been three!?) When I mentioned that the phenomenon of days being really long again (like on the trail), christina looked up at me with glazed eyes and said "why is that again?"
It was amazing.
Where has she been?

There are so many stupid questions that goes through ones head while totally physically exhausted. Like: "why do slugs insist on travelling out into the road, only to get turned to yellow goo?"
"what would make a christmas tree farm smell like a pot field was on fire?" "Can I make it up this hill without being a wuss and changing gears again?" "If I ride in the middle of the rode for a little while will it be more fun because of the adrenaline rush?" "Will my vagina look the same when this is all over?" "Will my quads be too big for my jeans?"

You get the picture... hours and hours of soothing intellectual searching. Deep into the soul.
A meditation on wheels.

If we don't get going soon we might have to ride 150 miles tomorrow... so until the next computer...

I'll tell you what happened yesterday...

First, hello everybody. My name is Christina and I haven't contributed anything to this blog yet so I feel the need to introduce myself. And, for the record, my real spirit animal is actually a unicorn but fearing relentless scrutiny over the legitimacy of this amazing creature, I am channeling my spirit animal chi with my other good friend, the wolf. For those of you doubting that unicorns do in fact bless us with their presence on this planet, I urge you to check out www.unicornmuseum.org.
Now that we cleared that up, on to the minutes:
Yesterday, Tuesday August 21, 2007
8:30 wake up. alone. sniff.
10:00 enjoy scrambled eggs and potatoes with some English boys who thought we would be cooler if we were riding motorcycles down to Mexico and who think soccer is gay and curiously become embarrassed and quiet when Amanda and I reveal that we play soccer. Awesome.
11:30 ride down to bike shop to get extra clips for shoes.
12:30 load up and employ friendly Cambie Hostel line cook to take pictures of us in a dirty and smelly alley that is sparkling with shards of glass. He then invites us to stay at his mother's B&B in Banff next summer. Then he gave us oranges. A truly Canadian experience.
1:00 the journey begins!
1:01 we get honked at.
1:15 ride through Stanley Park (awesome) and over Lions Gate Bridge (totally awesome).
2:00 one of Amanda's panniers comes loose and starts dragging on the ground. She unknowingy donates her wallet to the streets of North Vancouver.
3:00 Marine Drive becomes increasingly narrow but is beautiful and smells like blackberries.
3:10 arrive at Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal and Amanda realizes her wallet fell out of the outside pocket of her road worn pannier. Minor freak out ensues.
3:20 Baskin Robbins 14 year olds have never seen a Camelback and it takes three of them to fill one up.
3:30 Amanda finds wallet. Crisis averted. Apparently she put it in the small pocket of her Camelback... who ever uses that pocket?! Assholes. That's who.
4:10 luxurious ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale. B.C. Ferries have a gift shop, like with perfume and back massagey-thingys?! Who knew? Amanda begins to read Harry Potter.
5:20 exit ferry. Someone has already died in Harry Potter.
5:30 begin the most epic uphill we encountered all day where I realize I left my sweet royal blue fingerless gloves on the ferry. Sweaty hands and all, we make it up (but we took a break halfway, shhh).
7:00 wind up at Roberts Creek Campground where we enjoy numerous hi-fives and bellyrubs, set up the tent for the first time, force down some less than appetizing navy bean soup, compare injuries given to ourselves by our bikes, and re-enact noises we made while getting up the last hill.
8:00 totally gay stretching session.
9:00 it's dark. That means it's bedtime.

What HAPPENED yesterday?

ummm... so i think tina is going to blog the minutes of yesterday, for you avid fans of ours who want to know where we pee and how often, which means i am going to recount a stream of conciousness of general impressions:
finally leave the city at 1:00pm
(after learning from two british boys at breakfast- who don't play soccer?- that there is a law in their town still in the books from the old days that at a certain time of day if you catch a welsh man within the city walls you can legally kill him with a crossbow. not a regular bow and arrow mind you. solomente a crossbow. wow.)
kelly green golden gate bridge
gorgeous goodbye views of vancouver
panniers create terrifying speed wobbles
marine drive = totally scary and totally sweet views
the ferry ride = first harry potter death and quick nap
post ferry hill was like riding heavy bikes up everest (holy shit i can't believe my legs did that)
my crotch hurts a bit
my back hurts the most? (what's up with that?!)
somebody at our campsite had a bass guitar and sent us to sleep with "sweet chid o mine"

today we have twice as many miles to cover and three times as many ugly hills... it's a race to a ferry as well.
i'm stoked about how positive i am this is going to whip me into the best shape of my life in no time. faster than that wussy pct.

you are all still jealous.

i miss everyone!
till next time...

We made it to Canada... barely.

It's been a rough start. And by rough, i mean that the universe is totally on our side.
A quick synopses of the day:
11:28 spraypainted my helmet gold.
12:00 christina locks us out of her apartment.
12:30 we make it out of tina's apartment under the gun and almost leaving behind such insignificant things as... my passport.
12:46 my shoe breaks in the middle of downtown seattle, in the rain, in the middle of a business day, and i am now stuck to my bike with 60 + lbs strapped on the back.
1:08 we arrive at the bus station where we are told that there are, in fact, no bike racks on amtrack buses. (this feature has not been offered in the last decade.) bus is to depart at 1:15.
2:02 we make the bus driver, and everyone on it the bus, wait for us while we are forced to pack our bikes into boxes. in a hurry. aaahhh!
4:10 christina coaxes me into saying "tricky jesus" somehow. i will not recount the conversation here.
5:34 we arrive in vancouver. assemble our bikes. buy some gold medal winning maple syrup and postcards with wolves on the front (spirit animal!) and leave the bus station.
5:55 asked by two boys to hang out on the waterfront and smoke a fatty blunt. (denied.)
5:58 welcomed to canada by a boy on a black and white striped bike.
6:04 asked where we're going on our bikes and have our breaks checked by a canadian man who likes bikes.
6:20 meet thomas (the desk guy at the cambie hostel where we are now interwebbing and staying in top bunks in separate rooms on different floors) who puts our bikes in a secret bike storage room and points us in the direction of the towns best bike shop.
7:30 we find the coin operated interweb station!

who knows what shenanigry we will encounter tonight!
canada is awesome.

things to do:
find a camera (for blogging! thanks for nothing ginny)
fix my shoe
go to a hockey game
drink lots of molson ice
kiss boys with accents
treat hangovers with kraft dinner and ketchup chips

tomorrow we ride!!!!!

Amtrak Tickets: arriving in Vancouver B.C. Aug 20th

who knows if we'll actually get on our bikes on monday... but i'd still say this journey officially begins then. we are going to have little to no cell phone contact with all you americans we know and love for our first couple weeks, but i'm pretty sure the canucks will live up to their reputation and we'll be in good hands.
welcome to tina and amanda's crazy journey take 2. (four times as fast this time?)
i've never ridden on a bike with clipless pedals before. hooray! i'm going to fall down a lot!