[There are new photos of both Oregon and California on the photos page. There are many new pictures in the Oregon section as well as the new California section. Lots of coastline and redwoods and riding pictures. We're having a great time!]

We rode over the bridge and into the city and immediately found our way across town to a dentist (Randy had a crown come off a few days ago). Then we crossed through downtown at rush hour, dodging the cars and having a grand old time, to find our friend Stuart and new friends Dave and Shelagh. It was a grand day.

The way into SF was a bit confusing, but along came Carlos and Monica, who were just out from the city for a weekend bike trip to the north. They led us all the way in through the towns to the north and we didn't have to follow the book turn-by-turn. It was a wonderful thing.

We're thinking we'll take a few rest days here and explore the city. We want to be ready for the big ride crossing the desert, and we want to make sure we're mentally ready to do it as bike tourists, rather than just rushing home just because we're on the way to Colorado.

I'm actually considering buying (and carrying) a small laptop because it's been so hard to update the site and get pictures together and support customers and the Warmshowers.org site. We'll see what happens. But if we get a computer you'll probably have to skim faster when you check the site :-)
Update: I actually bought a laptop and am going to try carrying it. Quite a radical departure from our style...

On the Pacific Coast we've been treated to great facilities for touring cyclists. And there are plenty of them! They are everywhere. This must be the most popular route we've ever done. And the facilities provided for us are incredible, and cheap. We paid $4/person for camping (with showers!) in Oregon, and it's gone down to $3/person now in California. The facilities are fantastic - beautiful, running water, hot showers.

Of course, bike touring is just a case of almost-homeless. I often say it's the last acceptable form of homelessness in the U.S. But the wonderful and cheap facilities they've provided for us are attractive to others, including *real* homeless people, people who have no home to run back to and no credit card to bail them out if things get hard.

We met Ernest in California, just two weeks out of prison and living from campground to campground as he waited to get some money together. He's from Pasadena, Texas and a fine and enjoyable fellow. And we met a legend of the coast: Duggan. He rides up and down the coast every summer, panhandling a bit from bike tourists who take pity on his latest story.

But the most interesting and admirable person we met in the "homeless" category was not truly homeless. We met Arone Garrison on the road. She was pulling a large, wide trailer loaded with her (large) cat and all her worldly possessions. She found herself homeless in Bend, Oregon, but a friend in San Francisco promised her a place to stay and a job if she could get there. With no transportation and no money, and with a cat to care for, she just loaded it all up and started riding to San Francisco. What a courageous thing to do! All these bike tourists are just recreating. And the few real "homeless" people are just passing the time. But Arone is using her bicycle to move on with her life. We're rooting for you, Arone! We think you'll be successful and it will be an incredible turning point in your life.

We decided to take a week off from our trip and play in San Francisco. We have done well as tourists visiting many fine places this great American city has to offer. The first day after walking all over the city and getting our bearings, we purchased the "CityPass" for only $50 apiece which enabled us to take the any bus, trolley, or cable car for one week and got us into six fine museums, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the De Young Art Museum, Legion of Honor Art Museum, two Aquariums, the Cable Car Museum, Cable Car rides, the hands-on Exploratorium. We stayed in the most amazing hostel called the Green Tortoise. Free breakfasts every morning, free dinner 3 nights a week, all the internet you could possible use, organized outings, and a lot of travelers from around the world. The evening life around the hostel is astonishing with a mix of music clubs, Chinese restaurants, Italian eateries, girlie strip clubs.

I got my hair cut in Chinatown by a male stylus who spoke very little English but did seem to mutter over and over as he cut my hair "too much hair". After the haircut I got a Chinese acupressure massage by a young lady, Eva, who did speak English. It was a treat for me to get the knots worked out that I had gathered after 4000 miles of riding. In the very late evening we had a small bite to eat in the Italian sections of the city at "Calzones" We sat at an outdoor table under the heated canopy watching the flood of people who crawled the evening streets looking for a life changing event. I know that most never found it that night. It made me think of how nice and full our life is by the simplicity of bicycle touring and having each other to share our adventure together.

Today we finally got on our bikes and rode over the Golden Gate bridge to the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate Recreation Area. Carlos, a wonderful new friend, showed us the city and the parks. He was a wonderful guide and companion for our biking adventure in San Francisco. As a side note: if any one wishes to go for a 400 kilometer ride in one day, contact Carlos who does these very long rides and has all the information. Does anyone find it interesting that we make friends with extreme adventurists? He can also help you with 600 and 1200 kilometer rides.

Boy, what city of life and culture and and wonderful times. We are heading out tomorrow if we can really leave this exciting place. We have decided that the coast is calling us more so we will follow the Pacific highway to the Mexico/United States border.

I went on a tour of the amazing Hearst Castle and saw the Imax movie on the building of the castle. [Pictures are here.]

From down on the Pacific highway looking up at the castle way way up on the hill, the castle looks like a Disney like icon but it is something total different when taking tour.

I was very lucky to get the last ticket of the last tour of the day. (mostly because I asked if all the sold out tickets has been picked up.)After waiting an hour I should up at 3:15 when the people on the waiting list got to buy tickets. I got the last available seat on the tour.

For those that do not know about W.R Hearst, he built an empire through publishing major Newspapers and Magazines :throughout the United States in the 1920 to 1950's. He had a dream when he was in his late 50's to build an amazing palace to house a full spectrum of art, sculptures, tapestries from all over the world that dated from around the 3rd century AD to the 21st century.

The famous movie Citizen Kane was based on Hearst's life and he attempted to quash it - with pretty significant success.

Well here we are entering the big city. We have lots of friends to see here and then we'll ride down to San Diego and the border.

We just spend the last couple of days in Oxnard with our incredible new friends Pat and Cat, who just returned from riding their bikes all over the world. Check out their website at worldriders2.com. They're the most gracious people you could imagine, treating us to warm hospitality and touring wisdom and encouragement. Pat and Cat rode not only the huge ride we have planned, but across the US, Europe, and Africa as well!

Randy is feeling better and Nancy has still not caught the cold.

Our plans are in a bit of flux, but first visit friends in LA, then ride to San Diego to visit another old friend, then go to Tijuana for a haircut for Randy, and then maybe rent a car to come home. We should be home in early November.

We made it into LA. The original plan was to ride around the city on the beach, but we really had to go visit Nancy's old friends Ildi and Paul in South Pasadena. So we took the bikes right onto the Metrolink and the Metro and made it into the city. The transport is quite friendly to bikes. (As you can see, though, I wasn't really very happy about being on the train instead of riding...)

There are lots of pictures on the Southern California section in the Photos page of Paul's incredible house, garden, and stonework. We were in awe. It was like a magic garden hidden away in the city.

There are new pictures of Southern CA on the photos page.

We had the treat in Oxnard of staying with Pat and Cat, who just got back a few months ago from a complete worldwide bicycle adventure. They rode across the US, Canada, Greenland, Europe, down through Africa, and then all the way up from South America. They shared their stories and wisdom with us and encouraged us all the way. We can tell we're going to have a wonderful trip.

Stop everything right now and go to Pat and Cat's website at www.worldriders2.com to savor their adventure. I hope we can do half as well!

The US Pacific Coast is one of the most popular tours in the world. Despite our plans, we ended up doing the whole thing (just under 2000 miles), and I wanted to write a few notes about this incredibly beautiful trip and the wonderful resources that are provided for touring cyclists.

You just can't believe how well-set-up the Pacific Coast is for the touring cyclist. There are books on how to do it, there are wonderful state parks all the way with hiker-biker sites at ridiculously cheap prices and with a shower every night. You never have to buy food ahead of time or plan your food carefully or carry any - there's another town with a nice grocery where you can buy it.

One other unique characteristic: It's so nicely set up for touring cyclists that there are an enormous number of them. And since everybody is in the hiker-biker sites, you get to meet all the touring cyclists. Whereas in the north country we might meet the occasional cyclist, and might end up camping with them, on the coast it's every night you're meeting a bunch of people. It was so intense that there was a night in California that I hid in my tent because I just couldn't seek out the stories of all those people and tell them our story. There were too many.

And it's so beautiful. Riding along the rugged coast, watching the seaside birds playing in the waves, walking along the quite giant redwood ancient forest, pedaling in the foggy morning past the working lighthouse, wandering along the tidal pools, are just a few incredible moments we enjoyed while bicycling down the Pacific Coast Bike Route. We met so many more bicycle tourists and incredible people then we could have every imagined also enjoying the magic of the Western United States Coast. We loved the ride and highly recommend this bicycle adventure.

There are 3 major guides to the coast:

• Bicycling the Pacific Coast. This is the book we used. It's useful, sometimes out of date when it shouldn't be. Tells you why you should go a particular way, and discusses the route, and alternative routes. This seems to be the most popular route book used. We found it's heavy and probably too wordy. It ignores resources they don't approve of, like campsites that don't have showers. If they don't have a shower and a hiker-biker site, they probably won't show up. We went to a few campsites which where not recommended in the book because they did not have facilities such as the inexpensive hiker/biker sites or warm showers or where just not mentioned as an option. We found that several campgrounds listed as "no hiker-biker" or "no hot showers" did have these wonderful features because of recent improvements. Also, most commercial campsites are ignored and were mentioned only if there was no other options such as State Parks, National Parks, U.S. Forest parks, County or Regional Parks.
• Lonely Planet's Cycling USA West Coast, which covers more than just the Pacific Coast route - has several other loops in it, etc. A friend used this successfully. It's a bit smaller. I think it has less info, but more density. It's older than the latest revision of Bicycling the Pacific Coast, but that didn't really get a full update on the last revision, I don't think.
• Adventure Cycling's maps. These get updated continually by comments from members and users, so they're probably the most up-to-date. They also seem to take you off a busy highway at every single opportunity. They don't tell you why, or let you think about whether it's worth it. But knowing that a detour is available is a very nice thing. Bicycling the Pacific Coast seemed to keep us on the highway a few times when it would have been better to take an odd route around.

Finally, there are a couple of simple maps that are outstanding.

• Oregon publishes a great map that shows it all - probably everything you need for that state. You can order a hard-copy of the map.
• Krebs Cycle Products has a number of maps of northern California that are concise, light, and quite excellent.

Our comments about the coast:

• The whole coast is intensely beautiful. You just can't keep riding because there's so much to see and photograph.
• We had incredibly good weather. We started down the coast from Port Angeles, Washington on August 25 and finished in San Diego on October 22. If every year is like 2006, you should try to go this time of year. We had mostly sunny days, very few rainy days, and overall delightful weather. Almost always we had a tailwind through Washington and Oregon which is why most folks cycle from the North to the South. A few days we rode into the strong Santa Anna winds in Southern California which usually pick up in the late fall
• This is not an easy ride. There are difficult places with the traffic, including tunnels and bridges in Oregon and some pretty tricky traffic spots in Washington, Oregon and California. There are plenty of logging trucks in Washington and parts of Oregon which you can hear grumbling up the hills and coming down your back. That's the bad news. The good news is, you can hear them from a long distance away and can get off the road in plenty of time if situation requires it. If you're not comfortable riding with traffic or are bothered by traffic noise, some of the sections will really irritate you. There are lots of sections that are quiet and safe, but there are a number of exceptions. You will need a mirror that works for you and if you wear obnoxiously bright clothes, to be as visible to drivers in every way.

Our stove is the wonderful MSR Whisperlite Internationale, which will burn many things besides the ordinary white gas. Most important, it burns regular unleaded gasoline, which we can get anywhere in exactly the right amount for a pittance. When we pull up to the gas pump, we pay from 25 to 75 cents to get about a 3-day supply. Our friends with white gas-based stoves sometimes have to buy a gallon of white gas for $7.00 or more and then give away (or waste) most of it.

Nancy's loves to pull into a gas station with our bikes and set up to fill the cannister. Sometimes she'll claim that I have a motor on my bike and that's what the gas is for. Other times the station will have a "free donut with fillup" or some such deal. She'll ask if we can have the free donut.