Catching up in Santa Cruz with a Gin and Tonic

There's a ton i have to write about now but im tired so this will be pretty short. Besides i just read Shawns post and he seemed to cover all the bases. We rode into San Fran Via the golden gate bridge on Thursday. I was scared but took lots of pictures anyway. San Fran was a lot different than i thought it would be. I expected it to be much more like Olympia Wa which was very calm and relaxed but still had all the cool stuff. San Fran was loud and smelly and reminded me more of a NYC. We still had a sh*t load of fun though. We walked all of Haight street down to Ashbury and stoped at a bunch of really sweet shops including the biggest new and used record shop i've ever seen. Other that that i ate a shi*t ton of food and walked a bunch. That night we stayed in Oakland and tonight were in Santa Cruz at our good friend Dan Potthast's house. His lovely girlfriend Shannon made me a Gin and Tonic and is currently cooking up some grilled cheese.

I never thought i would say this but i might be getting sick of Mexican food. I can only eat so many barritos in a day.

Congrates Ronnie on another TV show. Love you buddy.

Eric

santa cruz (and the epic tales before)

well well well well well......im in santa cruz, ca right now at dan potthast's lovely home. there are three dogs lying around, and they loved to be pet. ive missed dogs on this trip. i dont know where eric last left off on here, and im too lazy to go back and read what he wrote, so fuckin deal or find yourself a new friend, you mother.

ok. let's start with the redwoods. they're insane. just massive. ive never really experienced anything like them. theyre not like the ocean in terms of size. standing in the ocean you get this feeling that you dont really belong there, or that you cant fully comprehend the size and complexity splashing before you. but the redwoods, despite their massive size, seem almost human. theyre big, but you can stand back and look at them and wonder how the hell they got so tall and old, and youve managed to clock in at a tiny 6 foot 1, with a lifespan of 70 years if youre lucky. it was nice to be surrounded by towers made of earth instead of towers of steel. fuck the city, im moving in with the redwoods. while seeing the redwoods i saw some elk doing their thing. they're pretty fantastic creatures. i ate blackberries while we watched them. blackberries are great and seem to grow everywhere out here. why doesnt new york have blackberries and redoods all over the place?

we had a string of rough days, goind 86 miles, 85 miles, 88 miles and 70 miles. that's a brutal four days, all without a day off. on the 88 mile day we climbed mt. legget. you can look it up on the internet or in bicycling tour books. it's an intense climb, with the summit being at around 1500 ft. but we killed it, then we had a 4 mile downhill ride of fury that was probably the most rewarding thing you couldve given us. then we hit the second big climb of the day, an 800ft beast that was as steep as a chimney. but we swept that mother fucker. when we arrived at the campground we were greeted with no food. awesome. the food was out (with the exception of the dinner food we were to eat later), and the campground was primitive (meaning no water, electric, bathrooms etc). at that point the ride was only 72 miles, but mike and crew told us of a campground that was 7 miles down the road that had electric and bathrooms and showers. we were told not to expect any more than a 10 mile ride. so with empty stomachs, sore muscles and much regret, we decided to trudge on. 7 miles turned to 16, all of which was mostly uphill. needless to say i was losing my fucking mind, but i rolled in, showered, ate some zucchini (sp?) and hotdogs and then listened to matt, dan and choi play guitar. by far the most intense day of tour, somehow nudging out the day that it rained for the entire 61 mile ride. i dont think i wrote about that story. maybe i will now....basically, we woke up and it was drizzling. by the first 1/4 mile i was already soaked. the entire ride consisted of hills. constant climbs that werent necessarily big, but were so plentiful and consistent that they just drained the life right from the heart. i had bathtub fingers the entire time. for about the last 10 miles it basically poured on us. i almost lost it a few times, and i honestly believe that for every mile we went that day we actually did 2. as dan said, the campground was there, but it seemed to keep moving slowly away from us.

ive described here the two most stressful days of tour, both mentally and physically. but it's awesome to look back and say, "hey, that was 100 miles ago and i fuckin did it." it's motivating. i never would have seen myself holding out this long. but this tour has been about limits. and i realize now that there cant be any out here. what choice do i have really? i dont think i can handle it so i sit in the van, or i go home, but id rather live with the pain in those moments of frustration and anguish than go home and sit comfortably on my couch. saying it was too intense, or that i wasnt in good enough shape is only saying that i quit. well fuck that. when choi said he couldnt ride any longer because of his knee, it really deflated me. it hurt seeing him sitting in the van while we were in the middle of climbing legget or riding along the coastline with no shoulder and no guardrails with logging trucks passing us on curves. this has become more than a tour of the west coast for me. i love seeing the coast and the beauty along the way, but ive seen myself do a lot of shit i never thought was possible. fuck, ive gone over 900 miles on a bike. i hadnt been on a bike since about 10th grade before this tour started. if you care about something enough there are no limits. there are two choices, and tho im not a star wars fan, yoda def said it best when he said, "do it or do it not, there is no try." or as ive been saying all tour, "get it and fuckin do it!" why hold back when there are 13 other people sticking it out? pain is nothing compared to that feeling you get when you see the top of the climb and you stand there waiting for your brothers and sisters. and when their helmets peak above the hill there's this feeling of accomplishment, both for you and for them, because you have done this and now so have they. and then there's that glorious ride down the hill that's as close to a victory lap as we can get. ok, im done with the motivational speach shit. as matt would say, ive been in need to drop some serious knowledge for some time now.

we rolled into san fran on thursday and eric, blake, brett and myself got a hotel. we ate some of the best pizza ever with dan, joel, matt and shannon. then we went to a bar, shot pool and then slept in a comfy bed. the next day we walked around san fran, hit up the bus and train to berkley and saw the plea for peace show at iMusicast. rx bandits headlined, with dan, mike and this band desa opening. it was an awesome show. the bandits really set it down, and i must say i'll be checking them out once i get back home. so that leads us up to now. tomorrow we ride again, doing an 80 mile day to big sur. it's going to be hilly as fuck, but with 2 days rest, i think we'll be ready.

unfortunately for now i must go. the dogs need to be pet and there are hoops to be shot. we're having a 2 on 2 basketball tourney today. with cookout and beers to boot. yay! until next time my friends....

smooches,
shawn

Last Night In Oregon

Back to a computer and clean cloths, sounds pretty damn good to me. These last few days have been a little shaky as most of you reading this already know. About three days ago i woke up with a nice soothing abrasion just below my left iris... SWEET. Needless to say that put me in a emergency room for a few hours and then the optomitrist the next day. The emergency room staff did next to nothing. The optomitrist, however, had the magic touch and before i knew it my eye was good as gold. Well not quit because my vision is still a little foggy. So anyway i spent only one miserable day riding in the van with my left eye swollen shut and a bandana wrapped around my knoggin' but i was back on the bike the next day peddeling my ass off for you kids back home.
In other news the Bills won the season opener against the sad, miserable Texans. This news was was brought to me by future sports commentator Robert DeVantier who left me a slew of voice messages depecting all the exciting play by play action that i missed while on the road. Very nice job Bob, very nice.
Today sucked. That's all i should really say about that but ill go into further detail. It rained. It was cold. The wind blew like crazy. The laws of gravity ceased to exhist and i obtained no speed going downhill. Some members in the group have decided to blame me for the lack of physics and increase of natures hatred. So It's true, i'll admit, some events that unfolded today may have been my fault. I know when to own up to my mistakes. Yesterday i said some pretty harsh stuff about mother nature and her inability to hold me back. And yes, maybe i did get to the top of a very long hill and stick out my middle finger in triumph. But who wouldn't? Should i really be blammed for this pseudo blasphamy?
Other thatn that things have be great. The coast line is incredible and tomarow we roll in Claifornia. But unfortunatly the battery on this Lap-top is runnning low so i'm going to sleep.

Don't be salty
Eric

morning! forward progresston!

boom! 6:52 here on the west coast and im up. was up an hour ago. woo! riding has been awesome. the people are amazing. this should be called "the-rad-people-riding-for-youth-centers tour" yeah. the first day of riding was smooth. a fuckin breeze, aside from the 5 mile hill we had at the end. we did 67.5 the first day. yesterday we rode into portland, or, clicking the trip counter another 77 miles in our favor. combined, we had 7 flat tires on the way here yesterday. whoa. 2 were mine (front AND back). but we got a couple of bike dudes with us who got their shit down, so we're set. i did 32 miles an hour down a soaking wet hill. scary. dont do it. today we have 80+ miles ahead of us. yikes. i didnt get to bed til like 11:30 last nite. i know, sounds early, huh? well, i went to bed at 8:30 the other nite, but thats with getting up at 6am and riding, so you know. went out, joel and i dominated a pool table for a bit, i drank $2 pints of sierra nevada pale ale. awesome. so much is happening i cant remember, so these posts mite get scattered. there are just so many laughs and small things that make this all so awesome, but i cant really track them down when i finally get to the computer. i guess youll have to wait til i get home to get the whole story, only then itll be me talking and not making sense, as opposed to this blog. nature out here dominates new york's pathetic attempt at forests. just huge trees everywhere, spiking into the sky. ive seen a lot of horses. i actually had a dialogue with one of them. it went something like this:

me: hey, horse, what's good?
horse: i'll kick you.
me: fuck off, horse. i wont get close enough to you because im smart and avoid your kind.
horse: my kind? you racist?
me: no, im horsist.
horse: (random horse noises)

shit......this update is gonna be short, because everyone is leaving without me. i'll write again soon. i'll call you guys at some point too.

kisses,
shawn

Portland, poop and Guiness

Hey everybody. Just rolled into Portland tonight where we're stayng at a really nice house that belongs to a friend of Mikes (Mikes the organizer of the tour). Anyway they have a fire place inside and gave us spagetti for dinner so again, Eric is happy. Unfortantly someone took a big poop in there bathroom and left it there, then i went into pee and flushed the toliet and now, of course, theres poop water EVERYWHERE. Luckily i was not blamed and currently the real culprit is cleaning it. We started the tour yesterday and rode 67 miles on day one and 76 miles today. Im doing pretty okay except my shoulders and neck... their very soar... very soar. Anywho were heqaded to an English pub tonight were they supposedly pour a perfect pint of guiness. Should be exciting, tomarrow might be hell. For obvious reasons. Eric + Guiness = hard day on a bike. Last night we stayed in a campground near Mt Saint Helens but never actually saw the mountain which was a huge bumber. The campground was beutiful but there is a burning banned in affect right now so we couldn't have a fire. BUT TONIGHT! OH TONIGHT WE GET TO SLEEP INDOORS, WITH A WOOD STOVE AND SHOWERS AND FRESH FLOWING WATER AND DID I MENTION WE'RE GOING TO BE DRINKING GUINESS? I hope everyone is doing well back home. Mom give Loki a big huge for me, Norene i hope you had fun at the wedding, Jenny i hope you had a good wedding, Matt behave and don't scare the Japenese. Thats it for now. Take care.

ERic

Happy Birthday Baby Shawn

It's shawns birhtday today so give him a good slap in the face if you see him. It's our last night in Olympia and im going to miss this town quit a bit. The people have been amazing and we've already had more adventures and mishapes than i expected for the entire trip. We went out to the bars for the first time last night to celebrate little boy walkers big day. Needless to say we got wasted, met some interesting people (i can't remember one of their names) and shot lots of pool. For anyone that's interested, a game of pool in Olympia is .50 cents. What a freakin' deal. We were both pretty hung over and tired this morning so all we did was eat chinese and sit in the park all day. Good day. I really can't think of too much more to tell you about. We've became very good at preparing burritos on the grill along with other tasty treats such as grilled cheese on a english muffin and of course PB&J... Toasted... Delisious. When we get back were going to have a party with nothing but the food we ate on our trip and of course our faviorite, Genny beer. I hope everyone is doing well and maybe ill hear from you soon.

Eric

Sorry about the spelling mistakes but i dont have enough time to do a spell check and i dont really care.

it's my birthday and i'll ride if i want to

today we meet mike park and gang at the camp in olympia. we're actually getting ready to leave now, and decided that since we've got the time and the technology available, we'd update the blog. last nite eric and i went out and had a few brews. it turned into a birthday celebration once i realized that it was 9:30pm here, but 12:30am in new york. we played some fifty cent pool (yes, a game for fifty (50) cents), drank a couple drafts and moved on. we did the same at the next place, but eric brought over a soco and lime shot to boot. we met these 4 girls there, one whose birthday it actually was. she turned 21, so we took some photos, had some laughs and then moved on. as it goes, we saw the same 4 at the next bar, which was a karaoke bar. by this time eric and myself were fairly intoxicated. the karoke-ers sucked, so we resorted to screaming louder than them while they were singing. it got to the point where eric and i were just yelling bear vs shark lyrics so loud that it was drowning out the karoke. we called ronnie, left him an acapella version of six bar phrase hey hey (drunken style) on his voicemail. we tried to call jenn, but she picked up and i couldnt hear her because it was so loud. but we called her back and left her a smooth rendition of the opening to ma jolie on her voicemail. awesome times. we managed to ride our bikes back to our camp site that was in the middle of nothing. we're still pretty amazed we made it back, and that the ride didnt seem so bad. waking up was brutal, but that's expected after an unexpected nite of all-out drinkery. today, we got up, made english muffins on a grill, rode into town, got chinese food because ive been craving it, bought some books (i got the odd sea by frederik reiken) and then lounged in the grass in this awesome park. i slept for a short time before we came here to do this. so i guess the tour is going to start for real tomorrow. i'll tell you one fuckin thing, i'll be glad i won't have to wear my pack. i have no doubt we'll be able to keep pace with the others. especially after the hell we've been through carrying these sacks of shit for the past 4 days. but goddamn it, we've survived, and become men in the process! real, tough, intimidating men! eric is typing away beside me, so make sure to keep scrolling on this page to see both of our posts. we'll get some pics up at some point, but that time is still TBA, and will remain so indefinitely. well, i got a minute left. time to post this. talk to you all again soon.

horray!
shawn

Eric's 15 minuets of Fame

I'm sure shawn already went through a lot of what im going to to say but oh well, suck it up and read it twice. I'm in a library in Olympia Wa and only have about 15 min to tell you about the last week or so. The trip out here was up and down the whole way. The moment we let our guard down and relaxed some a**hole bus driver was threatning to kick us of the greyhound or a baggage guy was trhopwing our bikes around like they were made from reinforced steel. The ride itself wasn't at all as bad as i expected. We mostly just ate, slept and talked to aother people on the bus. We made a few friends and saw some truely bizzar/disgusting things i cannot write about because my grandma might be reading. The first day we arrived in Olympia we biked 30 miles to a small town named Elma where we were supposed to stay in a hostel but we arrived after the check in curfew (sp?) and wound up in a $50 hotel that shawn paid for (i bought him breakfast the next day). The next night however we did make it to the hostel and to say it was a pleasant stay would prove my inabilities as a writer. The onwer had a vegtable garden and prepared fresh green beans in bacon grese and corn on the cob. Free food = happy Eric. Were back in olympia now and are headed to a laundry mat before the tour stars friday.
Everywhere smells like pine.

Fifteen minutes

so, it's been about 6 days since we left. i havent been able to update, considering i havent been next to a computer. the bus was sort of insane. we got on a bus that didnt have our bikes and packs on it, got back on the bus with our stuff but that bus was broken. somehow, it made it to the next terminal and things were good again. extreme stress. indeed. we arrived in olympia, said bye to two new road buddies sal and tim, and set off to assemble the bikes. of course mine needed some repairs, which made me stressed, but i got the front brakes fixed at no charge. booya. eric and i then decided to ride to the hostel in elma, about 30 miles, but left late and ended up traveling in the dark. on scary back roads with no streetlamps, in the cold, with 40lb packs strapped to our backs. brutal. but we made it to elma in 5 hours around 10, missed check in at the hosetl and had to settle for a shitty motel at the awesome rate of $55. fuckin a. what a deal. the next nite we went to the hostel, met and amazing woman who owned the place, she gave us fresh veggies from her garden for dinner (corn and green beans) and told of a place to pick black berries. then she gave us frozen blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. awesome. best dinner ever. then we got a 6 pack of rainier beer and watched the landscape turn dark and the sky lite up. fuckin sweet. come to washington, it's amazing. we're going to camp someplace tonite, then meet the crew tomorrow, and begin south to portland on the 9th. my birthdays tomorrow. weird. it doesnt even seem to matter compared to what im doing or where im at. but itll be fun to have some birthday beers and what have you. eric and i have been getting alone fine, which was never a worry for me, but you know how trips and cranky nites away from home can change people. there are so many of you back home that i wish were here to do this with me. id rather have a tour full of you mothers than any of the people im prejudging right now that i havent met yet. who cares, i'll take my chances with you fine folks. be looking for postcards if you gave me your addy. theyll be there. we've been taking pictures to document, but it wont do it any justice. i guess next time youll just have to cine along. so, it's on to portland in 2 days and that's the official start of the tour. i've only got about 15 minutes to type this, and i now have about 2 left. not bad, eh? pretty fast fuckin type master you know. bet youd never have guessed. eric is going to come on and post his account of the last few days, not that i have posted my account so much as rambled, but you know. well, ill type again when i can. wish you all were here.

kisses,
shawn