Elastic Mind Adventures: The Last Days

As we approached our destination, two things happened. One we fell further into the darkness that is an internet and cell phone signal free society belongs and second, our minds and bodies began to succumb to the seemingly endless drilling of the days. We would wake into a cold chill and begin to pack our things, as Sandra packed I would cook breakfast almost always consisting of 3 eggs and black coffee. Once done with breakfast tent and things packed and cleaned we would head off for a 5 - 7 hour bike. Time along the journey to stop and sightsee was limited to that which one could discern from the saddle of your bike. For each day we were greeted with an endless buffet of 7-8 percent grades one after the other in brutal succession, which slowed our progress to a crawl. Upon arrival at camp we would set camp, cook and have a shower if one was available. Showers came in various states of appearance, the best of which were not much different than home. The worst of the showers would fit right into a gulag in Siberia. Most took quarters to operate which was a new concept to me. So as we began to tire of the day to day rhythm of the trip we found ourselves searching desperately for any type of connection to the outside world. It was not until we were less than 20 miles from San Fran that we picked up a strong cell signal. All that taken together my blog posts came to a halt and so I end the trip with one post summarizing the whole.

The experience was a bit overwhelming in terms of the whole scale of the event. What really surprised me is not the scenery we encountered but the people. The different kinds of people doing things in wholly contrasting ways, yet achieving the same goal. I loved the non-committal flow of meeting a few people having lunch dinner or breakfast with them, then moving off...maybe you saw them again maybe not. We were not however particularly enchanted by the route, given its high accolades by so many people. We found it to be a bit monotonous with little to no culture, that is towns to stop and take a break. We spoke to a couple whom had been biking all over the world and they had the same thought, their expectations were not in line with reality. After some discussion we came to the conclusion that Europe with it many small towns each relatively close to the other with deep culture would make a much better biking destination.