South Lake Tahoe

JOE from the Ice Cream Shop. He's a fix-gear biker in the mountains!




The Sierra Nevada's are OVER! its now a 3000 foot, 137 mile downward road to the sea level coast. We are in California, at last. There are actually people around!

Last night we stayed with two really fun people in South Lake Tahoe. We met them with Chadwick at Camp Richardson, eating ice cream. Joe and Lindsay served us our ice cream and then were nice enough to invite us to sleep on their couch. Joe really inspired me to try new food combinations like a burrito he made recently:
oatmeal
olives
egg salad
(there were more things but I cant remember)

and then there is the sandwich recipe:
peanut butter
butter pecan ice cream

He was really cool, to say the least. Lindsay was a tough lady, with the coolest tattoos! And kept using fun phrases that I had never even thought about using. I can't remember any of them...

We hung out, watched a movie called "Love, Ludlow" which they were obsessed with!! Played Exquisite Corpse, AND HAD A BRUSHING TEETH PARTY! we all clustered around the kitchen sink and brushed our teeth together! And then we went to sleep.

We went to the "Gross Out" (grocery outlet) the next morning and bought:
-a bag of nectarines
-toothbrushes
-yogurt
-bread
-a reeses candy bar

Don't forget EUREKA!

petroglyphs
reservation


Eureka Nevada is about the cutest Frontiers town nestled right against a Sierra mountain side. There was an old saloon, several cafes, and ice cream bar, a 1920's opera house, and this really weird rock formation with holes and openings in it. Inside these openings, there were hundred year-old glass bottles, old windows stacked on top of each other, and other artifacts of a time gone by. Why were these things lying around in holes and caves in the rock? Jocelyn's hypothesis: this is how they kept beverages cold back then- it's essentially a root cellar.I think it's a good one- those shadowy parts of the rock are very cool even in the desert heat. We ate delicious strawberry rhubarb pie at the casino. Unfortunately the waitress just did not like us (even though we tried to be extra nice). Apparently we didn't really fit into that scene (possibly due to chamois, reflective vest, clip clop biker shoes, WATER BOTTLES everywhere...).

We slept in the town park. This time we knew to avoid the sprinkler system. We had learned that lesson from our night in Ely. There we had slept at a Morgue, behind a clump of pine trees. In the middle of the night drunk kids hit the streets playing loud music, speeding around on their motorcycles, yelling things. As if that weren't enough, around midnight several lights inside the morgue suddenly turned on, illuminating our tent. Terrifying. Then to top it off, the feisty sprinkler system sprang to life at 4 in the morning, attacking us in our tent with a jet stream of water. Soaking wet, exhausted, and ready to get out of town, we decided we would never fall for a nice green patch of grass in the desert without inspecting the ground for lurking sprinkler valves. So the morning in Eureka was pleasant.

We set off for Austin with a terrible thermal head wind.

addresses please!

I am getting really sad that this trip is almost over. I can't believe that California is so close.

There are a few addresses that we would like for post-card purposes. So if your name is on this list, or if you want a post card, please email us at danielarose89@gmail.com or leave a comment on this post with your address!
from the top of my head:
Dennise and Craig
Buck
the Greens
Allison and family

I am going to add to this later. We made a whole list and everything but its so far away... Just make sure that we have your address!

The Desert Ride

Mysterious tree of shoes








We headed out of Austin, Nevada at 8pm. We could not handle another mid-day desert headwind. We left, coasting downhill into the sunset, peaking over the Sierra Nevadas. We took highway 50 all the way through Nevada. It is nicknamed "The Loneliest Road in America". During the day, it was frustrating because the road wasn't lonely at all, but full of loud motorcyclists and trucks carrying hay and dropping hay into your eye balls.
However, night time transforms the highway into the quietest, most beautiful, lonely place I've ever been. We zoomed up mountains, unaware that they were there, just changing the gears. Then down down down through the most amazing looming mountains!!!! Curving around the dark, shadowy cliffs, I felt like I was traveling into Mordor. The mountains opened up into an enormous valley. You could see the mountains far away, the next pass, but the actual distance was impossible to gauge.
After a few hours, we began to get sleepy, it is hard to stay up all night, even if your body can handle the ride.
We pulled over, 60 miles away from Austin, next to a tree that has been covered head to toe in shoes. Apparently it started years and year ago when a couple threw their shoes up into the tree after they got married. Now it is completely covered. Even the surrounding ground is feet deep in tennis shoes.
So we slept under this bizarre tree, woke up at 9 am to some truckers stopping at the tree and talking about the days route.

Biking through the Nevada desert at night is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.

Jocelyn

bad diet ideas

ugh. Let me tell you about one day in Cedar City Utah that I just remembered. We woke up in the sweet holiday inn (special case, we never hotel it) (butt cyst) and ate the continental breakfast. Then we ate 12 cookies that the nice ladies at the holiday inn made us. Then we ate a bag full of doughnuts.
I felt really sick at the end of the day.

Ely, Nevada

So yesterday we were getting some serious cabin fever in Cedar City (we had been there way too long!). Yesterday afternoon we ended up meeting the only hippies in the Mormon town and ended up chilling at their place all afternoon. They had so many great books on their shelves- Michael Pollan, Snow Leopard, Ishmael, etc. It was great!

We then cruised around town somewhat creepily, looking for this lady who allegedly hosts cyclists: Celine Dion.
Just kidding- it's Celine something. She's not in the yellow pages so don't try looking her up. So after a long and unsuccessful search involving questions at the gas station like "excuse me, do you know where Celine the cyclist hostess lives?"... blank stares, we went to the deputy Sheriff. He was terse but helpful. He said he was not allowed to snoop in the secret police "yellow pages" but disappeared into the office anyways. He came back and told us he had spoken with Celine on the phone and she welcomed us to join them for dinner (they were just sitting down to eat). Thank you Mr. Sheriff!

So we biked up the steep canyon hill to her cookie cutter house. At first everything seemed typical, but soon we were exposed to some unfamiliar Mormon culture. The son had a fantastic mullet though- it was pretty legit. It was important for us to experience Utah LDS family life before we left the state. Accomplished!


So this morning we wanted to get out of town asap but first Jocelyn had her final Instacare visit. She is allowed to ride in 48 hours! YippY! best news all trip!


We got a ride to Milford with a very nice lady and her daughter. There we ate an entire head of lettuce and some beans and salsa. We got two vanilla milkshakes and thumbed it. (We really wanted to make it to Ely because Jocey can't bike yet). So this guy in a mini van pulls over. We didn't think he seemed sketchy at first, so we put our bikes on the rack and piled in. We were paranoid hitch hikers, not having had very much experience...the whole time each of us was planning defence and escape. Nothing happened and now we are in Ely, Nevada- YAY!


Will post tomorrow

Shout out to Jocelyn

Ok last post.

I wanted to say how AWESOME jocelyn has been despite the terrible pain she's been experiencing.
It is no fun to be away from home and your own doctor when you have a medical problem. Let alone be on the road in the most remote part of the country. So props to Jocey for sticking to it, being brave, and still cracking jokes and being a goof ball.

This was the crux jocelyn and you made it!

Liminal.

Thinking of Nepal

Right now, Krishna, Leela, other permanent staff, foreign volunteers, local villagers, and leprosy patients are working to build the Kevin Rohan eco village in Kathmandu, Nepal. This summer, as we are on our bikes, members of the Bard Leprosy Relief Project traveled to Nepal to participate in the development of the eco village. Christeena, a junior at Bard College, will return in the fall with handicrafts made by eco village members and people suffering from leprosy. We will sell these goods on campus as we did last semester, raising funds and community awareness.

I wanted to talk a bit about our project on campus in this post because I have learned this summer that people who may have no relationship with the cause have really good ideas about fund raising, participating in development, networking, grant-proposing, and raising awareness. Can anyone suggest productive ways for our group at Bard to support the Kevin Rohan Eco Village this fall?
We have 13 members, financial resources, and lots of energy. What can we do beyond what we've been doing?


All ideas, no matter how far-fetched are welcome! We made it to Utah on bicycles- we can do anything!

Thank you for your support:)


Today we will remain in Cedar City, hanging out with some improv kids we met and buying Jocey paints and canvas.

Powell Lake, UT

Super man. Cool Canyon we climbed

Powell Lake (hottie!)

Bryce Canyon

Watch out.
We went to Bryce Point to watch the sunset. From left to right: Jocelyn, Peter, Alyssa, Joe, Daniela, Andreas. It was a great group. We had a huge feast that night, cooking all the strange random foods we had all brought.

the CYST

Its been a traumatic few days here in dry Utah country.

My butt cyst came back. Scientific name, pilonidal cyst. It is not a glamorous or 'cool' injury. Well it kept getting worse and worse until we were camping at Bryce Canyon (beautiful) with Andreas, Peter and Joe. By then it hurt so bad that I was popping Daniela's Oxy just to go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning by the posterior throbbing, I was relieved to know it was the day of my doctors visit.

I got a ride into Penguitch, 25 miles away, hugged Peter and Andreas goodbye and went to see the doctor. The next few hours were the most painful few I've ever experienced. Doctor Tim was a huge jerk and had the guts to ask me "whats your name again" in the middle of the procedure. Lets just say he put a scalpel to my rear and incised. It was a quick procedure but felt like forever. I left the office, crying like a baby, prescriptions in my hands for painkillers and antibiotics.

One of the nurses felt sorry for me because I was bawling my eyes out and all alone in this dinky town so she drove me to the pharmacy. Daniela rode in, looking fly on her wheels .
quote from Daniela : "I was sad because she was crumpled on the sidewalk"

we watched Harry Potter in our motel room, slept for a few hours and then saw a fiddle concert. That night we were visited by a stranger in the night with a little tap tap on the door. It was a man with a beard named BEN! And he was SO liminal, thresh, dynospit, cerebral, just to name a few.

We've been hanging out in Cedar city in the Holiday Inn X-Press, seeing the doctor every day, getting better slowly.

Ben set up this thing called the 'slack line' AKA the 'shag line'. We played on that for a while. Daniela beasted at it, she was the best. Better than the professionals. Except for Ben, who could 'surf'. We had a movie night, made fajitas in our room, ordered a dozen cookies from our Phil downstairs. Ate a lot of ice cream, etc etc.

Last night we went to a renaissance fest and got yelled at for trying to photograph copyrighted costumes. Then we went to an all you can eat buffet (gross). They we went to an improv show.

Utah: Moab and west

Friday Alicia and Albey had to go to grand junction, but we ended up staying at the house because we needed to repair our bikes and just didn't want to leave yet. We had the most relaxing of mornings.

In Moab we got to pick apricots from Alicia and Albey's friend's tree. we would tap the branches and little orange juicy orbs would rain down on us like a thunderstorm. We collected and ate what seemed like hundreds. Later we would make apricot juice, muffins, and apricot tofu salad. In town we went to FOUR bike shops. very annoying. I really don't like bike shops because there is no standard bike knowledge. IT's all opinion. I needed a new chain and Jocelyn needed both a new chain and cassette. PHEW.
Done with bike repairs and ready to cook up a healthy feast. We got veggies and cheese from the market and headed back to the desert house. We made veggie pizzas (home-made crust), tofu salad, and apricot muffins. YUMM

It was so much fun cooking and listening to the Beatles.

We stayed up late writing and reading (a rare treat on this trip- usually we pass out around 9pm).


Alicia and Albey were so nice to bring us to Montecello so we wouldn't have to back track (that's the worst!). We were sad to part with the two of them because we had been having the most incredible esoteric/ philosophical conversations. It really got us thinking about things beyond cadence, gears, hills, WATER, lunch, soar elbows (jocelyn) and knees (me).

HEAD WIND all the way to bridges national park. It was rough. But the landscape was sooo beautiful it was almost nice we had to bike so slowly.
We were caught in the only thunderstorm that made it to the desert ground. Sheets of rain were pouring down in front of us. We couldn't see ANYTHING except the white line on the side of the road that we desperately tried to follow. drenched and actually cold, we rounded a canyon and suddenly the storm was gone. It disappeared just as quickly as it arrived. We dried off in two seconds and found a great cliff to climb.


When we finally made it to Bridges we were incredibly winy and irritable. We annoyed the park rangers for a while, watched a wilderness 16 min movie for kids and became junior rangers.
Ranger Dale swore us in and issued our badges. Although he was kind of creepy like the park ranger in Kentucky who ate ALL our fig Newtons, he was nice and concerned about our water supply. He ended up giving us 17 bottles of water and powerade for the next day (100 mile stretch without water).


We went to ranger Dale's outdoor lecture on how to take pictures in national parks (not that it would be of any use because we don't have a real camera, but we wanted to be nice). TIPS: dont put the horizon line in the middle of the frame, use the golden rule of 3rds, vary focus, texture, tone... blah blahblah. I don't even look through a lens when I snap a photo. I just hold up the phone, point it in the right direction and click. By the way, the above pictures are in no order and we will organize them when/if we get a chance.



OK so we left bridges with 8.5 liters of water each, thinking we had to bike 100 miles through the desert with no place to refill. Hite park, however, had a beautiful lake and a general store WITH WATER!
this was 50 miles into the ride. We spent the whole afternoon swimming and sunning on the rocks siren style as our chamois dried.

The water was amazing. Here we were in a LAKE in the middle of this dry, desert earth. it was certainly an oasis.

We met Joe, another west-bounder, and sufficiently creeped him out. I love it when we do that. he thought we were crazy, but really we were just loopy from too much sun.

we said goodbye to Joe, who was also pretty out of it, and set off on the next 50 miles to Hanksville. This is when things got a little rough. We had a terrible head wind. we were tired. Jocelyn had cyst pain and was quite upset. I was concerned there was no skin left on my bottom from the chamois and friction. We rode into the sunset as it dipped behind a row of blue and grey canyons. The night dawned. Stars filled the sky, but without a moon, so darkness everywhere.

We kept pushing on though. We could see headlights for miles before they got to us and im sure they could see us just as well (we ride with strobes at night).

FINALLY we made it to Hanksville (11pm). At the gas station this enthusiastic boy our age jumped off a boat and trotted over to us. We were not feeling social. He wanted to know everything about our trip and told us he talks to all the cyclists he sees. that's pretty neat, but we were so tired and bummed.
We snuck into a campsite to use the showers with the radio tuned to some oldies of course.

Then we explored the creepiest church I had ever seen. This was really scary actually. The door was unlocked so we crept inside. It was huge and had all of these passageways and closed doors. we used a red light to see, which made the whole thing feel like it was part of a horror film. THen the worst part. As we were sufficiently creeped out and leaving, jocelyn happened to see the alarm system. We had triggered a silent alarm and the control box said "trouble" and flashed. AGHHHH!

we had to get out of there!


We grabbed our bikes which were leaning against the wall behind the bushes and jumped on them. It felt too slow. everything was in slow motion and i wanted us to get away faster.

My shoe got stuck in my wheel as we peeled out of the parking lot. No time to fix it. I rode with the sole rubbing against the wheel until we were a block away and jocelyn came to the rescue to remove it. A car was following us. We sped down the rode and took the first left. The car disappeared and we raced down this road for several miles. We were exhausted.

We started looking for a place to stealth camp. I found a spot between two hills where we could pitch out tent concealed from the road.


Ahhh. Sleep.


we passed out no problem.

Colorado after Independence Day

So after the 4th we rode with John and Alex into Durango, the town everyone's been telling us to check out.

It was sweet. We ended up riding bikes on our off day with John along the river. We bought lunch at an organic shoppe (1 bag of spinach, goat cheese, and rosemary bread) and ate it with our feet in the Animas (river).
Jocelyn and I bought blue mugs at the thrift store so that we can share hot chocolate with all the bikers we see on the road (yes, we are the HOT CHOCOLATE girls!).

That night we watched 'Oh Brother Where art thou' at John's. "We're gonna RUNNOFT!"

The next morning, we enjoyed continental breakfast at the holiday, courtesy of Jonathan, who told us we ABSOLUTELY had to go to Mesa Verde.

On the way, we met the 30 bike and build cyclists for lunch. They look like a crazy army of biker chicks and dudes in their identical outfits, gear, and bikes. THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!
Well they look that way, but they are a somewhat socially diverse group.

Mesa Verde was not nearly as cool as it should have been. First of all it was about 30 miles off route, with gravel road and terrible traffic. We ditched the bikes at the bottom of the Mesa and became part of some family's vacation for the day. We saw the Ancestral Puebloan ruins at balcony House, which is a series of dwellings and kivas built into and inside of the Mesa cliffs. The architecture was amazing. The tour guide was NOT. She moved us around like sheep. All the tourists had to snap one million photos and hold up the tour. People asked the stupidest questions that the tour guide for some reason had no answers for (for example: what are the houses made of, how long did it take to build them, etc). Pretty much we didn't learn anything from the tour.

However, Mesa Verde is an amazing place to see because of the ancient architecture.


After the Mesa, we ended up in Cortez, Colorado.
I felt soooo tired and ANTI SOCIAL. I didn't think I could talk to anybody. Jocelyn luckily had it together and was on top of simple transactions like buying canned peas and spinach.

We ended up sleeping under the stars because I flooded the tent with one of my jumbo water bottles that i can never seem to close all the way. Sorry Jocelyn!

We slept next to a Catholic church and the next morning, pastor Pat prepared breakfast for us. It was really nice.

We then hopped back on the bikes we call home this summer and zoomed toward Moab Utah.

As we crossed the Colorado-Utah line, the landscape began to change (along with the laws, religious affiliations, and distribution of people). We started to see HUGE cliffs begging us to climb them. So we did. It was beautiful. we could see for dozens of miles in all directions. Jocelyn was become quite the climber. We lay on our bellies on top of the cliff with our heads sticking out over the edge so we could see the cars drive through the pass 300 feet below. We made it to the Moab rest area and met Chief. He is a Cherokee Indian who has been riding throughout the country on his wheel chair for 4 years!
He was intense. He told us that he only needs one 20 oz bottle of water for two days. He also said he can zoom at 50mph down hills on his wheel chair, passing cars and all.
He explained he had grown up on the reservation, speaking only Cherokee. He married at 13 and had children soon after. Tragically, he and his wife and kids were in a car accident 4 years ago. He was the only one to survive, but without function in his legs.
Chief told us about the power of mind over matter. He said when you're out there and you think you will die from the heat or lack of water, you control your mind and calm your breathing. You don't allow emotions to take hold of the situation. Chief made me realize how capable the human body is. How strong its potential. How amazing our bodies are in all they can do. He is pushing himself all over the US even though his body is broken.

In the winter he will be the first man in a wheel chair to ride the trail of tears, so look out for chief as he breaks world records.



Alicia and Albey, with whom we were to stay in Moab, we extraordinarily nice and picked us up from the rest stop so we wouldn't have to ride up the dangerous hill to their house.

Their desert home is beautiful. It feels like a ship with all the windows that open up to vast desert: distant islands of cliffs and canyons, expansive sunsets, star-filled skies, wandering thunderstorms. It's incredible.

Alicia and Albey cooked us yummy organic and wholesome food (much needed and appreciated on this trip:).


The next morning, Albey took us on some of his favorite secret hikes through Arches National Park. we climbed cliffs and scrambled over boulders. We crept into canyons and followed ancient river beds (dry, of course). Up on the red rocks of the canyons we felt we had been transported to another world.

It was awesome. We just stood there grocking (new word that means something like 'taking it in' but i don't think we're of the right generation to really understand the term "to grock").

We hiked up to one of the natural arches. it was HUGE. another gateway to the west, but this one was natural!

we took a somewhat sketchy shortcut back to the car (there was one traversing move that was questionable.. actually albey threw us the rope so we could spot him as he crossed this section of rock). We all made it just fine.


It is HOT in Moab. REAL desert experience. I chugged about 2 liters of car-heated water when we made it back.

We did some bike shop things in town and then went back to the house for dinner (which was amazing).

That night as the sunset left the sky and one million stars popped into sight, we watched the most incredible process in nature.

We watched the datura flower bloom. We saw 3 closed buds open to the night creatures. A plump moth came to the datura as soon as it had unfolded to drink its nectar and spread pollen from plant to plaant.
This was astounding.

I am going to sleep now, but promise to finish catching up on the Moab stories tomorrow mornign
goodnight