Life Begins at … 21?

Today was Kat’s 40^th birthday, and we have been celebrating in style! Kat has been treated like a princess: breakfast in bed, roses, champagne, cake, massage … and tonight, we are going to a sushi restaurant recommended by our friend JB (from Royers in Round Top TX – see Thursday’s blog). More of that tomorrow. Meanwhile, Anthony has also been extra-attentive, and has been pandering to Kat’s every need .. “peel me another grape would you sweetest heart...”

Anyway… Today was ch-ch-ch-chilly. Brrrrr. But we made it out for a quick jaunt down Austin’s 6^th Street to a nearby bike shop, and spotted the Capitol Building on the way back, which was suitably grand and imposing (we are hoping that it will be sunnier and warmer tomorrow, and we will be able to wander around a little more, and perhaps take a few photos). Grabbing a Starbucks, we made it back to the room just in time to tuck into the fabulous chocolate cake before Kat staggered out for her massage. Now we’re sipping champers… and thinking about sushi. Well, it only happens once in life.

Kat would like to say a huge THANK YOU for all of the thoughtful and generous cards, presents, emails, phone calls, and messages that she has received today.

Us x

Yeah Baby!

Finally we have arrived in Austin, Texas. We left Bastrop this morning with temperatures at 0°C and an evil 15mph headwind. Fortunately, we were suitably dressed to prevent any bodily parts involuntarily snapping off like icicles hanging off a garden water fountain.

Unfortunately, that’s about it folks! It was quite an uneventfully pleasant ride today; nothing crazy like landslides, bald eagles, 22-wheelers passing by at 60mph or packs of hellish hounds… just your normal energy sapping 35½ mile short hop into the capital of Texas, baby! There is however, one change to the norm. We’re back in hilly territory! After ascending what seemed to be an insignificant hillock 10 miles outside of Austin, we checked our Gamines’ elevation readings and were astounded to find ourselves back in the dizzy heights, 650ft above sea level! So, great news for all of you followers who are fed up with viewing our beachy photos whilst you sit in your office sipping coffee during that brief respite at work… no more glorious shots of sand, sea, sun and pecs for the next 2 months.

We’re now at our hotel “sipping on Gin and Juice”, looking forward to our long weekend break.

Us x

A River Runs Through It

As predicted in yesterday’s blog, there was an almighty thunderstorm last night. Luckily, we were safely ensconced in our extremely comfortable cabin at Marilyn and Bernard’s Tillworth Retreat. That didn’t stop us waking up, however, every time there was a crack of thunder and wind howling so loudly that we were convinced the roof was going to blow off … though we did take some comfort from the fact that the building had clearly been there for a very long time, and weathered many a storm before this.

It was still raining when we woke up this morning, and ate a huge, healthy and very tasty breakfast … but no tornado warnings. Every bone in our bodies wanted to be able to crawl back into the cosy bed and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, we felt that we had cycled in much worse conditions earlier in the trip and survived, and therefore reluctantly set off into the cold.

The first few miles didn’t seem too bad, as they took us South West, and the wind was very definitely blowing from the North. Sadly, you guessed it, the rest of the trip involved us going in a North Westerly direction. And what a wind it was. Cycling into it made us feel at times like we were in a spinning class and were failing to move forward at all. The combination of wind, bad road surface and hills took our speed right down to new lows. So, we breathed a sigh of relief when we took ourselves off the wide-open main drag and into the relative shelter of the Buescher State Park.

The park was beautiful (see photos), and the road meandered gently through the trees. However, our joy was short-lived as we encountered some of the steepest climbs and descents so far in the whole trip. Getting a little blasé about some of the descents and trying to make the most of them to get some momentum to get up the hills, we started to hurtle down them at full speed until … Eek Squeak … Anthony found himself screeching to a halt in what can only be described as a landslide…with a fast-flowing river running through it! Faced with the alternative of retracing our (painful) steps, we somehow found a route through the water with which Trusty and Steed could cope and without us getting swept away. A bit of true adventure cycling…

Tomorrow, we have a short, but cold, hop into Austin.

Us x

'night Jon Boy

The ride today was eclipsed by the gastronomic, euphoric and mind blowing brilliant experience of eating at ROYERS ROUND TOP CAFE, courtesy of Jon Boy (JB) and Bud Royer… but more of that later.

As time passes by, we are becoming masters of bike ride planning! Religiously checking the weather.com website the night before setting out on our incremental reduction of the remaining 10,000 miles and taking the wind direction, speed and distance into consideration, we are now able to successfully and with military precision calculate the exact time at which we need to eject ourselves from bed, get ready, have breakfast, execute a limbering stretch, mount panniers on bikes, switch on Audrey and Margaret and begin cycling. It’s a complicated equation which is simplified thus: ∑Alarm sounds at 6:30am = [(Anthony gets out of bed) - (Kat remains in bed)] + √ Anthony gets everything prepared before waking Kat.

So this morning we began cycling at 11:00am knowing that we only had 52 miles to complete before reaching Tillworth Inn. Problem was we made the schoolboy error of excluding “TERRAIN” from the equation. Our expectation of a slow and steady pootle into Round Top, TX turned out to be a mammoth calorie burning, Jack Rabbit hill conquering and energy sapping exercise. For those of you who have no idea of what Jack Rabbit Hills are, it’s when the road decides to cram in a series of high frequency sinusoidal waves over a distance no more than 1 mile with wave heights of 30ft. Trust us, this is the worst type of cycling terrain you can experience, especially when it lasts for the entire 50+ mile journey. We didn’t speak much on this journey as most of our time was spent cursing every revolution of those damn pedals as we crested each wave … add an extremely strong cross wind, and a dash of bad road surface, and you’ve got the dish du jour.

Of course, we got to our destination just as the light was fading, and the black clouds were threatening to release a deluge. And what a destination it is! A big Thank You to Marilyn and Bernard, who are truly wonderful hosts. Not only did they make our stay the most comfortable we have had for a very long while, but Bernard drove us 2 miles to the greatest restaurant ever (ROYERS) and picked us up at the end of the evening after we had finished consuming Texan Viognier (lovely) and a selection of the best cooked food we’ve had for ages.

ROYERS is a small town restaurant with big style food. So big in fact that they have been featured on CBS News and the Food Network for their orgasmic pies, glorious cooking and hospitality second to none. JB the son of the owner Bud was our server for the night and before long we had sampled Shrimp BLT, Stuffed Quail, Red Snapper and Salmon and of course Apple Pie…if y’all are ever in Texas make sure you make your way to Round Top and visit ROYERS, you won’t be disappointed.

Weather looks pretty scary tomorrow…we may have to apply the equation: Tornedo Warning = no cycling today! But we’ll see what the morning brings.

Us x

Not the only cyclists in the Village

As promised, tales from yesterday…

Realising that we had a 77-mile day of “rolling” hills ahead of us, we made an early start. We had the feeling that it was a tad chilly, which was confirmed when we gingerly drew back the curtain to our hotel room and saw one of the other guests scraping ice off her windscreen. However, the sun soon burned through, and we were quite toasty as we made our way out along a road with the widest shoulder we have ever come across…so wide in fact that we (1) wondered if it was actually supposed to be an extra lane but the white-lane painter had forgotten to put the spaces in; and (2) were aware that we couldn’t think of anyone with shoulders wider than LeBron James, and felt that we might therefore have peaked too early in describing shoulders earlier in the trip in this way. So, let’s just call this one a “LeBron Plus”.

We rolled the first 25 or so miles through the beautiful Sam Houston National Forest, with a clear blue sky, and thought again how different this was to what we had expected of Texas. And then, emerging from the distant heat haze, we saw it…another cyclist, with panniers! Stopping to have a quick chat, we soon realised that we were dealing with another Brit. Dave, who had cycled all the way from Argentina (!) was on his way to Florida to complete his trip. It was a mutually beneficial exchange, as he was able to give us tips about what we had ahead, and to reassure us that he had just ridden the route from El Paso to Del Rio and on (i.e. near the Mexican border) with no problems whatsoever. We were able to offer routes into New Orleans and out again, a route not covered by the Adventure Cycling Association maps that both he and we are following.

On our way again, we had more perfect views (though not so perfect shoulders or road surface) and even more rolling hills. After climbing more than 2,700 ft, we were ready to get to our hotel, which we did with a good margin before sundown. Logging into the internet when we got in, we were fascinated to see some of the expeditions which are recorded on the crazyguyonabike website, where Dave has his blog. We have to say that there are people out there who are a lot more intrepid than us, who promote the fact that they have to wash and dry themselves with a Chamois as it takes up less space than a towel. We did chuckle at some of the photos that people have taken of the contents of their panniers together with Laundry Lists of all (and we mean all) the items they are carrying. We were thinking of laying out Kat’s hair straighteners, eyelash curlers, black patent spiky heels and Anthony’s miu miu loafers (similar to those worn by Nigerian airline pilots) for the delight of all of our followers…

Anyway, we spent so long glued to the site and its illuminating facts that we were too tired to write the blog! But what it did do was convince us that we should stick with the original route through Texas and New Mexico as recommended by the ACA maps. Hopefully, that way we’ll avoid some of the colder weather which is forecast for the more Northern part of TX/NM, and allow us to take advantage of the work that we put in before the trip in terms of accommodation planning etc.

Today was a typical rest day. The most exciting thing that happened was that Kat bit the bullet and dyed her hair dark brown…photos to follow over the coming days…

Us x

Holding Blog

Hey all - just to let you know that we're safely in Navasota, TX, our destination today and for our rest day tomorrow. A good day today, went 77 miles and climbed 2,700 ft - we're back in rolling hills territory again. We'll take advantage of our rest day tomorrow to post a proper blog about today.

Us x

In a big country, dreams stay with you

Yes the US is a very big country and don’t we just know it! Mounting our bikes in Newark on October the 25^th 2009 doesn’t seem that long ago. Hell, we can still recall our first holler from two street guys who yelled “nice bikes, how much did they cost, where you two going?” Well ‘random New Jersey street guys’, we’re in Shepherd, Texas, 3590 miles and exactly 3 months later. We can’t quite believe we have come so far but are still far from finished. Only another 10,000 miles, 9 months and 20 states remaining… enough said!

Rather than focus on the long road ahead, let us tell you about today. Today being the day after yesterday, and yesterday being that day we pushed our bikes for 85 miles against a ferocious headwind, you can guess how we were feeling this morning? Every single muscle in our bodies was tired. It’s no surprise, then, that we had an extended lie in this morning. Even after a healthy cereal and banana breakfast with fresh orange juice and coffee, we just weren’t looking forward to the short 50-mile hop to our next Motel. We did eventually get on the road by 10:30am, and it didn’t take long for us to assume our normal westerly orientation and meet face to face with ‘Edwin… how many expletives can we use *&?@! and *&?@! and *&?@! again’. To make things worse, the ‘Hounds of Hell’ have returned, only now they’re bigger and meaner and come in packs of 3. Fortunately, Anthony has been religiously studying the Animal Planet channel and has equipped himself with the instinctive skills necessary to let the dogs know he’s no push over. Kat can see he’s getting pretty good at the dog whispering thing; she swears he’s looking more like a little Mexican-American day by day.

Despite all the winds and woofs, today’s bike ride was wonderful. Texas holds a beauty that’s very hard to describe in words. With its open roads that run through an endless landscape of pine forests, rivers and wide plains of scorched earth revealing the occasional homestead bearing an uncanny resemblance to South Fork Ranch, everything about Texas is just bigger than usual… we love it, and look forward to spending the next 4 weeks in this great State. Surprisingly, we averaged 13.1mph today and arrived at the Motel with bags of time to spare, so we hosed down Trusty and Steed, bought some beers and sat down with some foot long Subways for the evening.

Tomorrow is another 80+ miler … this time with hills … grrrreeeeat!

Us x

Memories of East Texas

Today, we have decided to give you the blog in bullet-point format. We like to mix it up a bit…and we’re trying to keep it short!

• Start: De Ridder, LA; Finish: Kountze [coōn-tz], TX
• Distance: 85 miles
• Weather: Sunny, 70s
• Wind: Evil Edwin of 10 – 20 mph
• Average Speed: 13.2 mph
• Calories burned: 5468
• Calories consumed: well, we don’t really know that, but we cycled to Sonic tonight for our evening meal, and ate a SuperSonic Jalapeno burger, fries, and 2 chicken strips…OK, MG, we know that’s not really very healthy, but we’re limited for choice…
• Gamine performance: atrocious
• High point of the Day: We’ve made it to Texas – YEE-HA!!!
• Low point of the Day: 85 miles into a ridiculously strong headwind. Need we say more.
• Top sighting of the Day: A Bald Eagle taking off from the side of the road just around the LA/TX border…they are huge, and it was awesome.
• Joke of the day: anything to do with the pronunciation of the town in which we are staying tonight. Yes, you do say it like that.

Us x

Au Revoir Louisiana

A short blog today! We had at ‘true’ rest day today. Didn’t do much other than cleaning clothes and watching TV. A quick note to MG to say she’s right to notice that we’re moving a little faster than when we first started. Firstly we want to arrive in Austin Texas for Kat’s birthday, and secondly we’re trying to eat as many miles as possible whilst the terrain is flat; we’re expecting significantly more hill climbs when we reach New Mexico, the Grand Canyon and the West Coast where the average daily miles will more than likely fall back down to 50 miles per day.

Us x

Heading West

Whilst you sit at your desk for 9+ hours working diligently to provide your employers with their pound of flesh, we’re out spinning the wheels through rattlesnake-infested swamps, up steep bridges, across 8 lane highways and into soupy fogs. Having knowledge of this, we’re sure you can appreciate all the expected and unexpected events that come across our paths in our working day. Unfortunately today was one of those days in our office where everything was just fine and dandy without anything particularly exceptional happening, so we apologise in advance for the lack of inspired writings. Once again however, we met yet more interesting Americans during those rare occasions when we stopped for refreshments. The majority of today was a dedication to pure and beautiful cycling from Ville Platte, LA to De Ridder, LA. We completed the 77 miles in great weather, averaging 15.4 mph with an ESE wind. We’re very pleased with ourselves after checking the stats and learning that we stopped for a total of 60 minutes including all breaks, which isn’t half bad when you consider our 6-hour day in the office.

Us x

Back on Track

It was one of those days. When Kat woke up she just felt like staying in bed for the whole day rather than getting on her bike and riding 70 miles. Luckily, Anthony was feeling a bit more motivated… which was a good job, since it turned out to be a beautiful day. So beautiful in fact that Anthony’s getting his Lt Cmdr Worf-like markings back, and Kat has some very strange stripes…strictly on the left-side of her body you’ll understand i.e. the one that always seems to be facing the sun. Yes, after so many days of cold, frost, rain and wind, we were rather caught out by the sun today. But we’re not complaining.

The day was supposed to be one where we could pootle along and still make the 70-mile ride from St Francisville to Ville Platte, in the middle of Louisiana, well before dark. But that wasn’t quite how the day started. After a leisurely breakfast, including caramelised banana to die for (yes, for breakfast, really), we realised that we were running late for the ferry, even though it was only about 3 miles down the road from the B&B. Gulping back our last mouthfuls of coffee while jumping on the bikes, we sped Cavendish style through the streets of St Francisville and arrived just as the cars were loading on the ferry...phew. A very different picture to the one we had witnessed yesterday.

As we departed the ferry, we were slightly dismayed to find that we had our friend “Edwin” the headwind back. However, Anthony soldiered on and shouldered the headwind, allowing Kat to wake up slowly. By the time we had stopped part way to eat the corn bread that we saved from our mammoth southern-style dinner last night, and washed it down with another coffee, we were rolling.

It never ceases to amaze us how many wonderful, friendly and generous people we meet along the way. With a further stop a few miles from the end, we met a lovely guy at a gas station, who wanted to make a cash donation to MS – we gave him a business card, and hope that he will get online and donate, but whatever happens, it was uplifting to meet someone who was so interested in what we are doing and so willing to be a part of it. Tonight at the hotel, we had a great chat with a couple of guys, Eddie and Tyler from Houston, who are working here in Ville Platte for the next few months. Eddie drives a 22-wheeler, and promises us that he is the type of truck driver who is kind to cyclists. We believe him…and, of course, now all Anthony wants is “one of those”, or at least to take a photo of it…

Tomorrow we have another 75-miler to our last stop in Louisiana, and a rest day. After that, we’ll be in Texas…yee-ha!!!

Us x

Ferry Foggy

We were supposed to cycle 91 miles into Simmesport today! You remember, we mentioned it on yesterday’s blog and explained that if we didn’t post a blog today there would be no need to panic. We, on the other hand, were slightly panicked about what we might find in Simmesport after last night, when (i) Leroy, South Louisiana’s very own version of Crocodile Dundee, insisted on giving us four separate phones numbers of his friends and family just in case anything happened; (ii) Garrett, who has lived in Louisiana for over 5 years, had never heard of the place; and (iii) a very friendly truck driver we met at breakfast this morning, who looked as if he could change a truck tyre just as easily and quickly as Anthony could change a bicycle tyre asked “Why would y’all want to stay in Simmesport? Be safe y’all”.

Running low on confidence, but full on determination, we finished breakfast, completed our morning stretch routines, switched on the Gamines and set off through the very heavy traffic of Baton Rouge, contending with some bizarre weather systems along the way. Crazy as it may seem, it was hot, wet and foggy all at the same time but Anthony was overjoyed to have the opportunity to utilize his brand new ‘Pimp My Ride’ features: Flashing LED Lights on his front forks… don’t ask. Thankfully, we eventually left the busy roads and made it onto the Mississippi levee route where Anthony took a photo of a supersize Meccano structure: to Kat’s surprise it was a worthy addition to the photo gallery (check it out it’s cool).

… before moving on, here are some interesting facts about Baton Rouge (i) it has the tallest state capitol building in the USA, which we saw shrouded in mist as we made our way along the levee (ii) 99% of people drive to work and the average commute is 22 minutes, which explains the ridiculous traffic (iii) Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal made his first steps at Louisiana State University (LSU) toward earning a $21 million dollar NBA salary, which bears no relevance to our ride but nonetheless is our favourite of the three facts.

So, today’s route was made up of 3 parts. Part 1: cycle 40 miles from Baton Rouge to St. Francisville, Part 2: catch a small ferry across the Mississippi to New Roads, Part 3: cycle 50 miles to Simmesport. With Part 1 completed relatively easily, we arrived at the banks of the Mississippi in fog so dense you couldn’t see the ferry just 20ft in front of you. With images of Stephen King’s novel “The Fog” in her mind, Kat ordered Anthony to walk down to the water’s edge to see if the Ferry was there. Reluctantly, Anthony tiptoed through the fog and never came back…

Kat x (please read previous blog post)

only joking!

… returning from the Fog, Anthony had a strange aura of 4^th dimensional knowledge about him, he gently hugged Kat and whispered in her ear “Elvis lives!” It took while for Anthony to make the jump back into this dimension but, when he did, he explained that Ferry service was postponed indefinitely due to thick fog. This was a problem as it was now 12:30pm and, in order to make it to Simmesport, we would have to take a 60-mile diversion as well as completing the remaining 50 miles to the Motel; that’s 110 miles in less than 5 hours of daylight. Still running 75% full on determination, we were actually considering the 110-mile option until we got chatting to another great guy sitting in his pickup waiting in line like us in the vain hope that the ferry service would be resumed. He asked us where we were heading. Upon hearing that we planned to stay in Simmesport tonight, he was concerned and suggested all sorts of other alternatives, even offering to carry our bikes and us to a closer town. When we asked why, he just said “why Simmesport?” Reading between the lines, we realised that fate was trying to prevent us from getting to our destination. Accepting the course that fate had decided for us, we turned our backs to the ferry and returned to St Francisville to regroup and consider our options.

We managed to find a lovely B&B, St Francisville Inn, just 3 miles away. The proprietor Patrick is a great guy and immediately made us feel at home. So, we decided to stay here tonight, and hotfoot it to our next destination in one day tomorrow instead of two. As the heavens opened at around 5pm this afternoon, we were pleased with our decision. And for MG’s benefit, next door was a traditional south Louisianan restaurant called Eight Sisters (run by 8 sisters) where we tucked into very large portions of Rice & Red Beans, Greens, Fried Chicken and Corn Bread… deeelicious!

Us x

Armadillos and Cottonheads

As rest days go, this was both typical and extraordinary … if that’s possible.

We started the day by making a vital trip to The Bicycle Shop a few miles away from our hotel in Baton Rouge. Trusty and Steed have been desperate for a pair of new shoes for quite a while now. Kat knows how they feel. Yes, we have finally replaced their tyres and they are now handsomely shod with armadillo tyres, promising to be not only puncture proof but also extremely hard-wearing … pretty essential when you are carrying as much weight as we are.

We also decided that it was time for Kat to replace her cycle helmet after noticing a crack down the inside, presumably from the tumble back in North Florida. After trying all of the Specialized helmets, right from $60 through to $220, Kat was still not really happy…what she really wanted was a Giro helmet exactly the same as the one she had before (see…it’s just like a good pair of shoes). And just as she was about to give up, a miracle happened. As if by magic, Anthony ambled over to see what was going on in the hood (he had been busy checking out the fancy bikes), looked up to the top shelf (no comments please), and spotted a rogue Giro helmet…the only Giro helmet in the shop, hiding on its own and not even in a box, but brand new. You guessed it…it was exactly the same model and size as Kat’s old helmet. What are the odds?

All in all, the guys in The Bicycle Shop were great…thanks to Tom, James and the rest of the crew, who replaced the tyres, brake pads, gave us route advice and even gave us a discount on the helmet (well, it was the last one).

Returning the hotel, we spent most of the afternoon looking forward to Garrett’s Gumbo extravaganza. We were not disappointed. The gumbo, a rich, spicy stew made with chicken and Andouille sausage, was delicious. Washed down with some interesting beers (a particularly good microbrew called Redhook), and some even better conversation, it was fantastic couple of hours.

First of all, a huge thank you to Garrett, not only for the wonderful hospitality, but also for the generous donation that he has made. Second, we have to tell you about the fascinating chat we had with Leroy, a proud “Coon-Ass” (a word for “Cajun” we are told), who was born on a houseboat, worked on a swampboat and went to school on a schoolboat in the swamps just west of here, and has lived and worked on the swamps since he was 7 (he is now 66). What an incredible life. He told us tales of all sorts of creatures, and adventures. We now know how to spot a Rattlesnake and Cottonhead (both to be avoided), and that we shouldn’t be afraid of Gators…really?!! And even more valuable, some contact details in case we get in trouble on our ride tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow we set off for the wilderness. It’s going to be a 90-mile ride, thunderstorms are forecast, we need to take a ferry in the middle of the ride, and when we get to the other end we are not really sure what to expect (the motel we are staying in doesn’t have a website and we couldn’t find any reviews). We like a challenge. Although we’re not sure that it sounds like much in comparison to Leroy’s tales…

Don’t worry though if we don’t blog tomorrow night, as there may not be internet access from the motel. But we’ll be back on line on Thursday.

Us x

Rice and Red Beans

As we chatted over our brunch yesterday in the French Quarter, we pondered over where all the well-heeled people in New Orleans lived. Appreciating that parts of the City are still recovering from the events of 2006, we were not that surprised that we had not seen many obvious displays of wealth as we had cycled in on Friday. And we had witnessed some gritty realities in our cab ride to the (closed) bike shop and back on Saturday … to be honest, we had been thanking our lucky stars we had taken a cab rather then tried to walk or cycle. But, we couldn’t help but wonder, where do all the Saints, Hornets and Zephyrs players have their houses? This morning, on our route out of the city towards Baton Rouge, we think we found out!!

The ride started out well. Despite leaving a little later than we had intended (ain’t it always the way), the fact that it was Martin Luther King Day did us a few favours. The streets were deserted. We cycled through the Garden District, and gasped at the size of the houses, and the intricacy of a number of them. Heading down St Charles Street alongside the streetcars, and past Audubon Park, we decided that we had found the answer to our question… And before we knew it, we were out to the bike path that runs for around 30 miles along the levee next to the Mississippi River. In our exuberance, we started singing about driving our Chevy to the Levee (sorry TMG…we claim artistic licence to mention a car other than a Ford), but stopped abruptly as we realised what the next line was… Don’t worry though. We’re both here in one piece.

After the luxury of the bike path, we had the contrast of about 50 miles riding along the US61, a 4-lane highway, with the usual suspects rearing their heads every few miles (McDonalds, BK, KFC etc etc). There were some pretty wild stages in between, though, with swamps, storks, herons, turtles, and gators (we suspect, although we still haven’t seen one). And before we knew it, we were 91 miles down, into Baton Rouge and at our hotel.

We were a little disappointed with ourselves for not taking any photos today. To be honest, other than the luxury houses, there wasn’t an awful lot to see. As always, Anthony was mustard keen to take photos of the heavy industry, but Kat was a little perplexed: why is it that men always want to take photos of super-sized meccano? However, we realise that, sometimes, we should take a few snappy snaps of the terrain, just so we can remember it, and show you guys what we are seeing. We’ll try to be a bit more diligent in future.

The best thing of the day… supper at the hotel: mmm, mmm yummy!! Yes, the hotel puts on a “Manager’s Reception” each night. We decided to give it a whirl, only to find that, not only did it have some decent wine and beer, but it also had the tastiest Louisiana rice and spicy bean stew you’ve ever had, along with some delicious corn bread. After about 3 bowls of the stuff, we were extremely contented, and definitely not in need of any further sustenance for the evening. We had a great chat with the General Manager, Garrett, who told us that, tomorrow, he is cooking Gumbo. We can’t wait…

Us x

Bâtons de cocktail

We did the tourist thing today, meandering through the latticed streets of the French Quarter, taking in all the wonderful sights, sounds and smells of pretty street-front houses intermingled with busy courtyard cafés full of happy (very drunk) faces, arrayed with ingenious street performers making sure that your lunch is washed down with a healthy portion refreshing entertainment. It’s a shame the camera couldn’t capture it all.

Some of you may be less concerned with photos on rest days and instead wondering: “how far have we gone so far?” “how we’re getting on?” “what’s the difference between Crocodiles and Alligators? Or you may not be thinking that at all and would have already realised before reaching the end of this sentence that we have very little to report on today and are merely giving ourselves a cue to present such information.

As far as distance goes, we have now completed 3,150 miles pedalling for 240 hours in our leather Brooks saddles (please refrain from posting leather saddle jokes …thank you). Concerning how we’re getting on? Considering our ‘24:7:365’ relationship coefficient ratio we would say “pretty well really!” Sometimes on those raining days when we’re confined to a 12’x14’ room it’s very easy for us to slip into a stir crazy, cabin fever state, sitting perfectly still on the bed staring at each other thinking only of where we are going to get our next meal from, and whether it will have to be pizza again. But not in N’awlins where you can, and will, find the best food you’ve ever eaten.

Shocking as it may seem to some of our seasoned followers, we weren’t able find an acceptable purveyor of laundry services today. We hope to avoid any trauma as a result of not getting our ‘coin operated laundry fix’ but Kat is a little worried that Anthony may not be able to hold out until Baton Rouge after noticing he has already turned his pants inside out… the first sign of withdrawal!

Back on the road tomorrow to complete the 90 miles into Red Stick! Our hamstrings are as tight as a fisherman’s grip so we’ll be doing some stretching tonight before bedtime.

… we’re off to have dinner now… Goodnight & Good morning… hello again! We’re back from dinner, which unfortunately didn’t live up to the high standard of previous gastronomic joys. However, we did manage to down a couple of very nice pre dinner cocktails. Kat had the ‘Katrina Rita’ for obvious reasons and Anthony had the ‘Purple Haze’, paying homage to Jimmy.

Us x

Go Saints!

Not much to report today. Got up late and went for brunch at a cute little restaurant on the edge of the French Quarter called Eat. Had the most amazing creamy grits (we’d never liked them before we tasted these), the crispiest yummiest curly fries, and huge fluffy homemade biscuits (what we would call scones). And it was a BYOB place, so we picked up a nice bottle of French champers at shop prices on the way there. Perfect.

What followed was not so good. We had been given the name of a bike shop in New Orleans to replace our tyres, which are teetering on the brink at present. Unfortunately, we took a $20 cab ride to find out that the shop had decided to close early and returned to our hotel empty handed… Oh well. Hopefully they will last the 90 miles into Baton Rouge on Monday (a holiday here), and we will be able to replace them there…fingers crossed.

Tonight, we were still a little full from our brunch-tastic experience earlier in the day, so wandered down to the restaurant in our hotel thinking of eating a salad. We were thrilled to find charcuterie and cheese plates to die for. Washed down with a good bottle of plonk it was a fabulous way to end a relaxing day.

Oh, and the local Football team, the Saints, won today. Many happy people in the party spirit tonight…

Us x

N'awlins

What we didn’t anticipate today was a stress free ride into New Orleans. So when we did a ‘time check’ after completing the 78 miles from Long Beach, Mississippi to our hotel on Camp Street, we were surprised and jubilant to see it was 3:30pm and we had plenty of time to see the sights of New Orleans…more of that later…

So, with the Gamines loaded with the route planned by Anthony the night before, we set off from Long Beach apprehensive about the volume of traffic we would have to negotiate along the busy routes into Louisiana. Even after peacefully cycling 40 miles along coastal roads and beachfront boulevards that on average serviced 4 vehicles per hour, we were determined to ‘keep it real’ and remain prepared for the tsunami of automotive mass we were likely to experience later on in the ride. Even after completing 50 miles and while passing ‘NASA’ and ‘Lockhead Martin’ industrial parks displaying their massive space shuttle rockets and state of the art technologies, we continued to remind ourselves that the 4 cars passing us each hour was just an anomaly. Unable to see the anomaly for what it was, Anthony was beginning to celebrate on the success of the trip, despite only completing ¾ of it at that point, and suggested stopping for a short while to take photos of the rockets and other stuff in the restricted areas, so we could share the experience with you guys. With a cool head on her shoulders, Kat was not fooled into thinking everything was good in the world; every truck driver loves cyclists and US security companies love people taking photos of their restricted areas. She quickly and firmly told Anthony to keep on movin’ unless he wanted to arrive in New Orleans via Guantanamo Bay!

… And then it happened! Just 12 miles left; after 66 miles of perfect cycling. The tsunami of traffic funnelled through the eye of the needle and arrived all around us. If you can imagine cycling from JFK to Columbus Circle at 8pm you now have first hand experience of what our final 12 miles of dodging traffic was like…horrendously scary. Good news is; we worked together and survived the man-made disaster, eventually arriving at the hotel just in time before the heavens opened. We’ re now in the hotel thwarted by the torrential rain. Hopefully we’ll get to see the delights of the French Quarter tomorrow.

Us x

Oh We Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Today was the type of day that we had dreamed of when we set out on this tour. It was a short hop (40 miles) from “Fast Food Kingdom” (“FFK”) down to the coast and along to Long Beach, Mississippi, our stop for the night.

The day started well. Not only were we excited to be cycling out of “FFK”, but we also found that the sun was shining, so much so that we didn’t need our winter hats and gloves. Kat even shed her legwarmers (mainly because they kept falling down rather than because she was too warm). Toasty. We had bittersweet feelings when we found Ocean Springs, a lovely little town only about 10 miles down the road, with cute cafes, restaurants, shops etc. We had been planning to stay there but had rescheduled to save a day on our route into New Orleans. Oh well…you win some, you lose some…

It was a tad early to stop, so we pedalled on, only for Kat to get a puncture just as we were about to cross over a rather long and busy bridge. However, nothing would get us down today, and we were soon on our way again. A bit later and we found ourselves in the middle of Biloxi, Mississippi’s version of Las Vegas. Rather like Vegas, Biloxi is not particularly cycle-friendly. The 6-lane highway had no shoulder at all, and unfortunately for us we had arrived just around lunchtime. After pootling along on the sidewalk, on and off the kerb, through piles of sand etc for a couple of miles, eagle-eyed Anthony spotted a great path starting on the other side of the road, right next to the beach. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The remaining 15 or so miles were spent cycling next to an expanse of white sand and clear blue sea (Mississippi - who'd have thought it), along a promenade which runs right from Biloxi through to Long Beach, with a few gaps where they are still constructing it. Yes, we should mention that this whole stretch of coastline was the worst hit when Hurricane Katrina arrived in 2006 (yes, Kat is definitely using “Kat” rather than “Katrina” for a while). While New Orleans, as we all know and as was very well publicised, met with real disaster, the cause of its suffering was flooding. This area of Mississippi was actually hit directly by the storm, and most of the bridges (including the ones that we used today) as well as many of the buildings, were razed to the ground. They are still rebuilding. And we were grateful today for the progress that they have made, even if some of the guys working on the prom did have a bit of a chuckle at us as we passed by…

Tonight, we were ecstatic to find a Chinese restaurant to get our take-out…yay, no pizza or burgers for us tonight, and even a liquor store for some wine. This evening has also involved Anthony carrying out some fairly major bike maintenance following the various punctures we have been getting, and the rate at which we are getting through our tyres. We did stop off at a bike shop earlier today, Competition Sports in Gulfport, to stock up on some supplies, and because Kat’s tyres really need to be changed. Thanks to Jeff for his recommendations and info.

Tomorrow, we’re off to the Big Easy… we can’t wait.

Us x

Pizza'd Out

Have a guess! Go on, what d’ya think we did this morning after waking from our lie-in? You guessed it …Laundry!

Not much more to report on we’re afraid.

Our motel is located a couple of miles from the coast in a small town in Mississippi, on the side of the very busy US 90, with not many options for entertainment apart from the local Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Dominos MacDonalds, Wendys, Waffle House, Checkers…the list of fast food joints goes on and on. Fortunately for us we found a Walmart and wondered around the aisles for a while…riveting! Being a sizeable distance from the heartbeat of city life, it didn’t help that our motel’s restaurant / lounge bar had a very strange policy for opening hours i.e. they closed when they felt like it or if business was slow. So you can appreciate how disappointed we were when we turned up at 8pm, starving and looking forward to some healthy food only to discover the ovens had been switched off for the night… “Dominos pizza anyone?”

Us x

Three States in Two Days

We can’t quite believe it, but we are in Mississippi already. The Beautiful Alabama (which was truly stunning) flashed before our eyes and, all of a sudden, was but a memory. But what a memory it is.

We started our day with one of the best stretches of road that we have encountered so far. Leaving Gulf Shores (you will have seen what that place looks like from our photos yesterday), we headed out along another beautiful peninsula to Fort Morgan, in order to catch the Mobile Bay ferry to Dauphin Island. The first thing we noticed was that we were travelling along a Grand Cru Classé road surface, with a LeBron James shoulder, and even strategically placed mile markers to help us keep track of our progress on our 22-mile journey to the ferry (if we missed it, we would have had to wait 90 minutes for the next…eek squeak). We held our breath without commenting to each other on this wonderful state of affairs for fear of jinxing it. But we were not disappointed.

The next thing we realised was that the scenery was getting even more spectacular. We rode through dunes, and then forests. Next, we looked to one side and were treated to a panorama of sandbanks just peeping out from the flat waters of the bay, with little clusters of birds perched on them almost like they were sitting on the water itself. A bit further on, and we cycled alongside a whole stretch of shoreline with little beach houses along the water, painted in different pastel colours, and all pristinely turned out. Then as we approached the ferry itself, wild beach again, which seemed vaguely familiar. Once we had boarded the ferry, with minutes to spare, we found out from Steven, the ferry attendant, that the beach that we had just been admiring was the one used in Sweet Home Alabama (you remember – the bit with the lightening rods and the rain etc…). How exciting!

So, we arrived safely in Dauphin Island, and then cycled across the steepest bridge yet onto the mainland (Anthony remarked as we approached that it looked like an Evil Knievel ramp…although Kat thought that he sounded a little too happy about that as he started to pedal faster and faster towards the top). Not much further on, and we were cycling through the little town of Bayou La Batre...another movie moment, as this is where Bubba’s shrimping boat was in Forrest Gump. What a day!

From there, it was a hop, skip and a jump into Mississippi, where we have stopped for the night, and a rest day tomorrow: our bodies definitely need it. On Thursday, we’ll be off again, bound for a weekend in New Orleans, and the state of Louisiana…

Us x

Sweet Home Alabama

Problem is we’re shattered AGAIN!. The weather reports that tell us each morning the sun will shine and winds will max out at 5mph with no gusts are merely fabrications of the truth, put there to lift our spirits and trick us into believing that our 45+ mile cycle ride is going to be a cinch! So as usual “Edwin”, the god of multidirectional headwinds made his presence known today, relentlessly attempting to beat us into submission. Fortunately “KatnAnt” gods of the tarmac always prevail. Unfortunately prevailing against the windy gods takes it toll and it’s now 9pm, were stuffed with Pasta from Pizza Hut and half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (screw top) and mustering up the energy to write about everything that happened today is very difficult. However, we can but only try!

Breakfast at the Hilton Pensacola beach this morning was big! Spoilt for choice we decided not to choose and instead ate everything our eyes could see. A large bowl of fresh Florida fruit with yoghurt, followed by cereal, milk and fruit, concluded with a hot plate of eggs over easy, omelettes, sausages, sausage patties and bacon, washed down with freshly brewed coffee and juice squeezed from oranges between the thighs of Floridian virgins! We ate and drank like kings on a paupers budget…sweet.

The road out from Pensacola was, not surprisingly, gorgeous. What you have to try to appreciate is that we’re cycling on a road (Gulf Beach Blvd) that on the right hand side displays images of civilisation whilst on the left; endless, undisturbed, unadulterated images of brilliant blue and glorious green waters, framed with pure white beaches and bronzed natural sunlight. We promise to change the “Scenic Beauty” record as soon as we head inland into Texas, avoiding the Mexican border of course.

Speaking of borders, we reached Alabama with a tear in our eye and a new lease of adventure pumping through our veins. Crossing USA state borders is like entering into another country. It’s hard to imagine how much an environment can change within 10 paces, so let us elaborate… “Croydon!” is it London or Surrey…London/Surrey…you get the point. After 10 miles of Alabama cycling and now fully acclimatised we were approaching the Best Western Hotel, wind-swept and freezing cold. As Margaret and Audrey told us “0.1 miles to destination” we realised there was a dearth of Liquor stores nearby and therefore decided alternate action was required. On our 3-mile excursion to locate a suitable beverage store, we stumbled across an alligator infested waterway (see photos) and “Liquid Latitude”, the best liquor store ever! Owned by a really cool guy Darren; thanks Darren for your help.

Loaded with vin blanc we got back on route and headed for our hotel, just in time to freshen up and take a sunset beach walk… very rosemantic!

Good night Y’all, next stop Mississippi

Us

Sunday Sandstorms

We’ve been thinking hard about this and we really do not know what it is that we have done to upset Aeolus, the Ruler of the Winds in Greek mythology. For the last two days in Rosemary Beach, while it would be true to say that it has been ridiculously cold, it has not really been that windy. But as soon as we set off on the bikes…WHAM. The wind starts blowing and gusting and, you guessed it, it is not a tail wind.

Today, as we made our way steadily in a Westerly direction to Pensacola Beach, our last stop in Florida, the wind was (apparently) blowing from the North at 10-20 mph. We don’t dispute this, but for some reason with a really strong wind blowing from the side, it feels almost as bad as a head wind. It saps your energy, pushes you off balance, and generally makes it feel like your wheels are running through treacle. And when it’s biting cold too, well…need we say more.

Anyway, enough of that. The scenery today was amazing, particularly at the start, coming out of Rosemary Beach through all the little towns, with the beach on one side and the bay on the other; and at the end…well, you’ll have to look at the photos to understand really. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen on earth before, and in fact it does look rather like what you might expect another planet to look like. For the last 20 miles or so today, we cycled along a peninsular with sand so white and fine that it looked like snow, and where the wind had blown it so much that it had formed itself into drifts and piles, very much like snow. The road ran right through the middle of these sand drifts and for much of the time, the drifts had found their way onto the road, or even across pretty much the whole road in places. And all of it was literally feet from the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Amazing.

Exhilarated by the experience, but totally exhausted, we retreated to our hotel room as quickly as possible after arriving and ordered room service. Looking forward to a shorter day tomorrow, just over 40 miles into Alabama, we’ll be watching The Weather Channel closely, and praying to Aeolus.

Us x

Good morning! And in case we don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Fresh from our mid-afternoon siesta, we come to you on this, our 77^th day of the Epic Journey. The significance of today is that it’s our last rest day in Florida :-(. Having spent the last 30 days enjoying this wonderful state and experiencing the many variations of Florida and the people who live in it, we’re feeling quite sad about our imminent departure from this state we have come to call home for a significant length of time. Of course we remain excited about the journeys into the colourful histories of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Not wishing to prematurely terminate the fantastic Floridian times & places from our memories, we still have 2 days left in Florida to enjoy.

Taking advantage of the extra hour in bed the CST time zone now delivers to us each morning, we awoke relatively early today, feeling relaxed and free from the stresses of doing laundry. Come to think of it, writing about our stress levels only extending to ‘doing laundry’, life can’t be all that bad!

It was easy to tell how fresh it was outside. The sky was an uninterrupted blue, clear from clouds or any other foreign object. Gazing out from the condo window onto the ‘Truman Show’ streets, we saw a light scattering of people dressed in hats, coats and scarves crossing their arms in a vain attempt to stay warm during their 5-minute walk to their next destination. If only we were able to pack extra weight into our panniers (thanks again Pat/James/Lyn for relieving us of yet more heavy non-essentials), which are already causing Trusty and Steed to struggle under the current weight of mandatory clothing items, we would have coats, scarves and woolly hats and would be venturing out today, snugly wrapped up in them. Unfortunately, optional items such as coats, gloves, scarves and hair straighteners would weigh far too much and not fit into our bags. Making best use of what we had, we went for our walk inappropriately dressed in flip-flops and v-neck jumpers.

Rosemary Beach! Wow…this place is beautiful in its simplicity. It plays on all your senses and still manages to keep you calm and peaceful. Walking along the fantastic beach, the cold soon became inconsequential as we felt the baby-powder white sand in our toes and crystal clear emerald waters brightly reflecting the stunning sunlight as each wave silently rolled onto the beach. We took lots of photos and hope you enjoy viewing them! On our way to the beach we stopped off in a local shop (for Kat to use the loo…) and met Geri, the owner of GiGi’s, with whom we had an interesting chat. By the time we had walked along the beach and back to our condo, we found that Geri had already donated to the US MS site…thanks Geri, you’re a star.

Our next big rest days will be in New Orleans next weekend and Austin, Texas two weeks after that. Any recommendations for interesting things to see and do other than laundry will be welcomed. So, we are off to Pensacola tomorrow, our last leg in Florida!

Luvin’ y’all

Us x

Weight Watchers

Another rest day, another batch of laundry. Except this time, we were thrilled to find that our condo had its own washing machine and tumble drier. Strange the things that can make us happy…

Other than that important fact, not much to report about today. Our major achievement was to lose a bit of weight. Not from ourselves (if that was our aim for the day, we probably shouldn’t have just polished off 2 large cookies each after dinner), but from our panniers, particularly Anthony’s, since the various spoke-breaking incidents that have occurred recently.

Having unpacked the entire contents of all of our panniers for the first time in a very long while, we picked through and made those difficult decisions as to what we could and couldn’t live without. Given that there really wasn’t that much in any of the panniers in the first place, it was not easy. However, we managed to cobble together a motley selection of items to send back to Anthony’s Dad for safe-keeping. Once we had put everything together, we just strolled 5 minutes down the lane to the “Village Square” and into the Post Office, where there was no queue, and the lady had everything boxed up and on its way quicker than you could say “if it fits, it ships”… Gotta love Rosemary Beach.

Another rest day tomorrow (we still feel like we need it after those head winds), and then the grand repacking of the panniers. After a whole month in Florida, another couple of days and we’ll be into Alabama, then Mississippi, then Louisiana. How time flies.

Us x

Rosemary & Time

Sitting here tonight, relaxing in a very nice rental condo in Rosemary Beach, showered and fed with a home cooked interpretation of Penne alla Campagnola, it’s hard to recall the challenges faced during yesterday’s cycle from Tallahassee to Port St Joseph let alone the 62-mile journey we’ve just completed from Port St Joe. Nonetheless, we feel compelled to tell you more about yesterday’s 115-mile endeavour and, of course, today’s short hop into paradise.

It was 8pm on Tuesday, 5 January 2010 when we started on the slippery slope to near death by exhaustion! Seated in the very cool Shula’s Grill 347, on the ground floor of Hotel Duval, and named in honor of the Hall of Fame Coach Don Shula, the most successful Coach in NFL history with 347 career victories, we were waited on by Seth who insisted on telling us about his past adventures playing soccer in England. He was especially animated when recalling his time spent partying in Newcastle; anyone who has partied in Newcastle would know it’s a place one would recall with fond memories! Riding the crest of Seth’s enthusiasm for life, we decided to join the party and ordered two pre-dinner Dirty Martinis. Now firmly embraced in the party spirit, we ordered a bottle of wine, a superb accompaniment to dinner followed by, quote: “that’s the best dessert I have ever tasted”. Kat now blissfully unaware of the 6am early start was easily convinced by Anthony that a quick visit to the rooftop bar for a little nightcap would be a good idea... 30 minutes and another glass of Martini later… we were in bed at midnight holding our heads, feeling sick and asking Whhhhyyy!

With a lot of effort we managed to get out of bed at 6:30am, spent 2 hours ineffectively packing our pannier bags in a hung over state and eventually had our wheels rolling at 8:45am (1 hour 15 minutes behind schedule). The rest is old news apart from (i) meeting a great man called Paul who donated $20 and (ii) Anthony’s spoke broke AGAIN at 99.95 miles, which meant we had to limp the remaining 15 miles into Port St Joe with the last 5 miles in the pitch black. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Riddick’s (Vin Diesel) surgically-enhanced silver eyes and therefore found cycling through cemeteries and forests riddled with Bears quite a frightening thing to do. But we’re still here, so obviously we got to Port Inn (our hotel) without being hunted by the Living Dead or flesh eating Black Bears.

After a great night’s sleep at Port Inn, we got up and had breakfast with like-minded adventurers, who preferred boats to bikes. Rachel, the daughter of The Adams Family, has already posted a blog comment …thanks Rachel. Fed and watered, feeling less hung-over, and with all four layers on (only quickly to remove a layer due to the relatively hot weather - 13°C) and extremely relaxed (despite the fact that Anthony’s rear wheel was broken and it was 40 miles to the next bike shop in Panama City), we set off for today’s ride. We reached Panama City along a beautifully planned route, where Dallas of Bay Cycle and Fitness quickly fixed Anthony’s wheel. Back on the road, with only 20 miles to go and a rear wheel that no longer wobbled like jelly on a plate, all in the world seemed good. However, when we were just 7 miles from paradise (Rosemary Beach), Kat experienced two successive punctures. Anthony, now proficient in the art of puncture repairs, got Kat back on the road with not much time to spare; the sun had nearly set and we still hadn’t visited Winn Dixie Supermarket for the compulsory wine and foodstuff needed for self catering rental condos. Weighing up the pros and cons of a night with wine & food vs. cycling again in the pitch black along a busy US Hwy, the wine and food option won the day. Quickly stopping off at Winn Dixie to buy said food items we then rode off into the darkness with bottles of wine stuffed into every free space of our panniers.

We’re now at Rosemary Beach feeling content and looking forward to two rest days. Rosemary Beach has some special memories for us because this is where our friends Dave and Fran got married in 2007. It was a wonderful ceremony, they both looked gorgeous, the backdrop was breathtaking, and we had the BEST time. We promised ourselves that we would return one day, but never really knew if we would. And now we’re here…yay! Big toast to the Andrews-Cooks.

Us x

OMG…115 miles!

Today was a very good day. You’re not going to believe it but we completed 115 miles from Tallahassee to Port St Joseph (hi Little Fella) in 8h41m. Starting quite late at 8:45am (too many Dirty Martinis last night) with ice on the road and multi directional freezing wind, we rode for two hours precariously through rush hour traffic before reaching Apalachicola National Forest. For the next 50 miles as we cycled through this beautiful wooded expanse (also passing through Tates Hell State Forest.), only 5 cars passed us. We were ecstatic, as well as being toasty warm in our new winter weather gear (photos to come later). Things got even better as we exited the forest and spent the next 45 miles cycling along the Gulf Coast with breathtaking views.

Sorry for the short blog but we are beside ourselves with tiredness. We will fill you in on tomorrow’s blog.

Us x