Post a photo you have taken.

Darn!

 

So, no pics of you with the glitter lip stuff on? You can’t tell me you denied her that pleasure!!

 

Nice waves in Pacific Grove today.

 

Cabbage anyone?

I’m standing in my garden thinking it’s past time to plow it under,? When i see this cabbage plant kicking it in January in WV.
Pretty amazing. We’ve had snow, frost and freezing temperatures many times since growing season.

 

^ yes. They like cooler weather..... but freezing, frost and snow‽

It’ll be interesting to see what happens after this week. We’ve got snow again and it’s in the forecast for several days straight.

 

I went across the country, Frisco to Barnegat Light House in NJ, in 1983. Came across these in a box in the attic. Great trip. I’m the tall skinny guy. The 2 shot of me and Kevin climbing is the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. We started in San Fransisco because Kevin’s wife’s uncle had a place there and he picked us up at the airport. It was a difficult start because we had to climb our asses off, fully loaded, just to get out of the city on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

My friends Kevin and Dan are brothers. Kevin bailed in Pittsburg because he was missing his wife, and also nursing some carpal tunnel. The pic with the three of us is Pittsburg with Kevin wearing a brace. Dan and I finished at the Atlantic Ocean three days later. I lived in Philadelphia and had a relatively new girlfriend, now my wife, who had a Philly apartment. We always planned to go ocean to ocean, but that meant that on the next to last day, when we got to Philly, we stayed with my girlfriend and got up early the next day to finish by doing a round trip to the ocean and back, about 120 miles. We did it in 30 days averaging 109 a day. I was pretty fit from just riding a lot in general. Kevin and Dan had to ride into shape and had a pretty rough first week. It’s easy when you’re young. I was 26.

 

A few more from the trip. Crossing the Rockies, and a cool basement bike shop in Oberlin Kansas where on 9-15-83 we signed our names on a cinder block wall, memorializing our trip with others who’d done the same.

 

We camped in a dome tent in Nevada and Utah because at the end of the day we were invariably in the middle of nowhere. East of the continental divide was a lot of motels.

 

We had a fair amount of mechanicals. Kevin snapped a rear pannier bolt at the dropout eyelet going over the Golden Gate on day one. In the earlier desert pics above I’m replacing rear drive side broken spokes on Dan’s new Nashbar rig in Nevada. I sent Kevin up the road to what I thought was a store, to get us some cokes while we were broken down. He came back empty handed because although you could buy something else there, the lady in the negligee on the brothel porch advised that no cokes were for sale. We lucked out in Utah and had a bike shop guy rebuild Dan’s rear wheel as he advised that Nashbar’s build utilized under gauged spokes.

 

Home stretch, Pittsburgh to Barnegat Beach. Planning the route with maps, I said MAPS, because it’s 1983. I’d love to do the trip now with all the technology. Front wheels in the Atlantic Ocean at trip’s end bookended rear wheels in the Pacific in California at the start. Dig the glove tan lines. Vials are Pacific and Atlantic sea and sand. As for gear, I had a steel Bianchi, wooden(!) soled Duegi shoes with slotted cleats, and wool jerseys and shorts with leather chamois.

 

And fast forward to the present, still riding, and still hanging with the girl that let me sleep in her apartment in 1983.

 

I’m not exactly sure, but we took in Mark Twain’s Cave in Hannibal and crossed the Missouri River there into Illinois and spent the night somewhere in Pittsfield. Those earlier motel room pics where we’re looking tired were in Pittsfield. Here’s some shots of the Cave, crossing the Missouri River, and heading east early the next morning. This was day 21, 2148 miles in.

 

My visit to Hannibal Missouri included a tornado warning.

 

What an incredible find in the attic!!! I can only imagine the memories that came flooding back as you flipped through the photographs.

What an incredible trip!!
Do you remain in contact with the brothers?

 

Yes, I still see those guys. High school friends. Kevin was my law partner for about 15 years. They still ride.