Jocelyn & Daniela at the Pacific

8.01.2010

best birthday ever


DAVIS CALIFORNIA! I would hate to have to drive around this town. Everyone is biking and not following the driving laws. It makes it impossible to go anywhere in a car without hitting somebody. So for us, it was fun.
This place we slept was called the "domes", and every little dorm room was a small white dome, popping out of the ground, like little UFO's. Every little dorm room was also filled with two little hippies. Pat and Chris were our hosts. Pat had a head full of dread locks and beads, and he was working towards being a math teacher. He gave us a big tour of the grounds and we ate the best plums straight off the tree. We also saw little baby pomagranets forming! Apples, peaches, tomatoes, chard, sunflowers, pumpkins, melons, etc. etc.
With the help of some of their produce, we finished off the rest of out food, all the couscous, pasta and mashed-potatoe-poweder we had left. It was a fabulous feast.

On my birthday, I woke up under a mulberry tree, to Daniela carrying a Starbucks coffee and a bag of bagels! She had woken up at 5 just to sneak out and get them for me!! Then she presented a box full of hazelnut chocolates that had somehow been preserved in her panniers without melting for a week!
On our daily bike ride, we were going through orchards and orchards of almond trees and plum trees. Around noon, we passed by a little creek called Putah Creek. We stopped, ate lunch and jumped in. The water was FREEZING becuase of run off. We climbed up to a tree hanging about 10 feet over the creek and contemplated jumping in. We were in the process of chickening out of jumping in when a motocyclist drove up to our area of creek. Since we were both in our birthday suits, we quickly held hands and made the jump, to avoid being seen.
It was AWESOME! freezing cold and the current quickly whisked us to a log and a messy bank that you had to climb up roots to get to the top.
We arrived in Napa that day, the hills were tough but the downs were soooo nice and loopy and steep. It felt like biking a roller coaster!
We walked into a place called the Genoa Delicatessen and Daniela, so pumped about making it, basically, to the coast, just announced "WE JUST BIKED ACROSS THE COUNTRY!"
I am going to stop writing right now, but I'll finish later!

7.27.2010

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

7.23.2010

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

7.20.2010

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.

7.19.2010

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

7.18.2010

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!)