The Opulence of Time

North Beach, Orcas Island. 5 August 2022. Camera: Olympus XA2/Film: Fujicolor 100 Stasia over at Carfree Rambles finished up a coast-to-coast (and Portland-to-Portland!) tour with her partner a little while ago. Like many folks who go on a big adventure like this, she's found the readjustment to "real life" a bit tough. In her latest...

Will my 2022 be like my 2012?

Myself and my loaded Surly Long Haul Trucker, ready to depart for my PDX-Oly-Astoria Tour. 30 May 2012 It's nearing the end of February. I've already done one bike camping trip, and am itching to do something soon. And like the last few years, my "work life" will be mixed between part-time stuff with Emee...

Ride Every Mile?

The loaded Bantam, "cheating" on the return from the Milo McIver overnight. 15 April 2021. Camera: Olympus Pen EES-2. Film: Kodak Pro Image 100. One of the great things about my time working at the hostel was the bike tourists. As someone who loves traveling via bike, it was always fun interacting with fellow enthusiasts....

Ten Years since my Cross-Con Tour

It's a long time ago, yet feels like yesterday: Ten years ago on this very day my then-partner April and I embarked on a cross-continent tour. Our goal was big: Ride from the Pacific Northwest eastward, with a detour into the Canadian Rockies and Prairies, then through the Midwest and Northeast, hopefully ending up in...

Can a long bike tour change you, and what kind of bike tourist are you?

An image from "Hot Dog Diary" by Nathan Tolzmann Sometime a year or so ago I came across the website of Nathan Tolzmann. Since 2018, he's been documenting a cross-country (San Francisco-Portland-Chicago) bicycle tour that he and his friend Matt Bergstrom took twenty years earlier. It's a great narrative comic, documenting every day of their...

Five years since The Big Tour

Hello folks. Today is Friday May 27. And exactly five years ago today, April and myself packed up our belongings, returned our apartment key to the property management company, and hit the road on our big Cross-Continent Bike Tour. Five years! Wow. Time does fly. At times it seems like we just got off the...

It’s been three years since the Big Tour…

I'm not always one for making a big deal about anniversaries. Half the time I even forget about them. But with summer now in effect, it made me realize that my big Cross-Continent Tour was three years ago. How time flies. Some days it feels like I just got off that tour, on others it...

Changes.

From our St Helens trip in 2010Warning: This post is definitely intensely personal in nature and lacks fun bicycle talk (for the most part). If this isn’t your bag, skip this post and read something from the past. Because there ain’t gonna be many posts in the near-term.Hello friends. Yep, haven’t posted much here lately....