Distance traveled: 50.65 miles
Total Distance: 452.43 miles
Average speed: 8.3 miles/hr
Time on bike: 6hrs and 3min
We planned to have a long day today... that didn't happen. Two huge
mountains decided that for us. When we woke up this morning we were all
set to have a 68 mile day and after a huge stack of pancakes we were as ready as we would ever be! We totally underestimated the size and difficulty of the mountains today. After...oh, I don't know... A LOT of miles uphill we
decided to call it quits and camp at the closest site.
We are at a local park in Council, VA staying under one of the pavilions with free bathrooms, showers, and electricity! The closest grocery store is 15 miles away so it looks like we are having rice and beans tonight for dinner, a staple we always carry.
Questions Continued...
Will you make it to the West coast?
There are only three reasons I can think of why we wouldn't make it to the West coast 1) we ran out of money 2) our parents made us come home or 3) we died on our way there. Now making it to the West coast in a reasonable amount of time is a totally different question. To be honest we have been doing relatively light days of only about 50 miles. If we continue that we won't make it to the West coast in our allotted time frame. However, if you haven't been chatting with us as we planned this adventure you may not know that we were always planning to cheat a bit! We plan to take a train through much of Missouri and Kansas (about 900 miles) in order to spend more time biking down the Pacific coast. We aren't too worried about making it to the West coast because we are cutting out a huge chunk in the middle but hopefully we will start to have higher mileage days.
Why don't you have higher mileage days?
At this point in our trip campgrounds, parks, hostels, and quite frankly populated towns are few and far between. Because of this we have a choice of either having an 80 mile day to get to a campground or a 50 mile day...tell me... what would you choose? We do feel in shape at this point and we could up the mileage but we would have to wild camp or just "wing it". We are comfortable with that so that may be what we start doing but keep in mind our main goal...to have fun. We aren't too worried about mileage because we can always just take a train across more than we expected! No use killing ourselves or having a crappy time. The goal isn't just to get across the country, it's to SEE the country! If we just worry about mileage we really won't have as much fun as possible! We're so flexible... it's whatever.
Mary and Joe
PS Mom, I'm still alive.
Total Distance: 452.43 miles
Average speed: 8.3 miles/hr
Time on bike: 6hrs and 3min
We planned to have a long day today... that didn't happen. Two huge
mountains decided that for us. When we woke up this morning we were all
set to have a 68 mile day and after a huge stack of pancakes we were as ready as we would ever be! We totally underestimated the size and difficulty of the mountains today. After...oh, I don't know... A LOT of miles uphill we
decided to call it quits and camp at the closest site.
We are at a local park in Council, VA staying under one of the pavilions with free bathrooms, showers, and electricity! The closest grocery store is 15 miles away so it looks like we are having rice and beans tonight for dinner, a staple we always carry.
Questions Continued...
Will you make it to the West coast?
There are only three reasons I can think of why we wouldn't make it to the West coast 1) we ran out of money 2) our parents made us come home or 3) we died on our way there. Now making it to the West coast in a reasonable amount of time is a totally different question. To be honest we have been doing relatively light days of only about 50 miles. If we continue that we won't make it to the West coast in our allotted time frame. However, if you haven't been chatting with us as we planned this adventure you may not know that we were always planning to cheat a bit! We plan to take a train through much of Missouri and Kansas (about 900 miles) in order to spend more time biking down the Pacific coast. We aren't too worried about making it to the West coast because we are cutting out a huge chunk in the middle but hopefully we will start to have higher mileage days.
Why don't you have higher mileage days?
At this point in our trip campgrounds, parks, hostels, and quite frankly populated towns are few and far between. Because of this we have a choice of either having an 80 mile day to get to a campground or a 50 mile day...tell me... what would you choose? We do feel in shape at this point and we could up the mileage but we would have to wild camp or just "wing it". We are comfortable with that so that may be what we start doing but keep in mind our main goal...to have fun. We aren't too worried about mileage because we can always just take a train across more than we expected! No use killing ourselves or having a crappy time. The goal isn't just to get across the country, it's to SEE the country! If we just worry about mileage we really won't have as much fun as possible! We're so flexible... it's whatever.
Mary and Joe
PS Mom, I'm still alive.