Stuart has been riding around the north west part of Canada and around Alaska for the last 3 months. He live is Wellington New Zealand and teaches economics when he is not bike touring.

Here is he is stop to enjoy the blackberries along the side of the highway. Life really provides everything we need.

Randy rode his bike up this monsterous climb of 5000 feet in 18 miles. Nancy was very lucky and thankful to accepted a ride up by a dear man,John, a local resident. Thanks John Simmons Nancy got to ride up here in car with her luggage and Randy's! Meanwhile Randy worked his butte off as Nancy sat up at the top enjoying the views and creating watercolors. Up here can see all the way to mountains in Olympic National Park.

I must say the ride down was fantastic and worth ride up.

If there is ever a perfect place to photograph it must be Cape Kiwanda at Pacific City Beach.

We rode here on Weds with the wind at our backs and had lunch. Don't miss this one even if it is a good solid hike to here. The wind sculptures the trees, the sand dunes, the rocks into perfect photographic images. What do you think? Pretty nice. Eh? ( I am trying to learn to talk like a Canadian by saying "eh?" at the end of a sentence and making it sound like a question.)

Cape Kiwanda looking south

We're just having an amazing blast on the Oregon Coast. It has to be the most fun bike touring we've ever run into. Every day there's a new sight. Yesterday we went sandboarding on the dunes, and then Jason at Seaside Glass let Nancy help with the glassblowing and create a vase!

Every night there's another beautiful State Park, with quiet, natural hiker-biker areas, for which we pay $4 each. And that includes the unlimited hot shower. And we meet the (many) other cyclists headed our way.

We could spend a month on this coast, and the weather is just amazingly wonderful. We still have had only 1 rain in the last month, and it was one night at a rainforest in the Olympic National Park. We're getting mighty spoiled. The raingear has drifted to the bottom of the panniers.

We're also out of bear country and have gotten sloppy about our food management. Last night a raccoon got into my food pannier and made quite a mess. No harm done, though. We just have to reorganize and get more granola, bread, milk, and coffee. A wakeup call though - just because there's no bears doesn't mean you don't have to take better care of food and trash.

[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.