never heard the word impossible, this time there's no stopping me! ...doin it my way!

so...yesterday we were supposed to head into big sur, i had been waiting this entire month for big sur. and brett and i were almost there, about 15 miles away, and my chain sliced three of my rear spokes. middle of nowhere, no phone service, no shoulder, and my back wheel wouldn't spin. he explained the situation as catastrophic. through a series of small miracles, i made it back to monterey and stayed in a hotel last night. needless to say, i've fallen in love with this area. my dad scored a great deal on a rental car and i'm picking some things up in town before meeting the crew in big sur.

i had to pick up a new chain for derrick and i told the mechanic at aquarium cycles about my bike troubles. i had pretty much figured fixing my wheel was a lost cause because it's so tiny and it's sunday and for all intents and purposes i'm in the middle of nowhere, but he's rebuilding my rear wheel as i sit in this cafe treating myself to lunch and coffee. i can now say i'm ready for anything. and you do catch more bees with honey. done and done.

1000 miles and still going

it turns out that there isn't wifi or phone service along the west coast, both of which i've grown strangely accustomed to. obviously so much has happened, on the road days are like weeks. today is tuesday, june 20. i've arrived at camp early (around 5pm), finished my stretches, and figured i'd take advantage of some alone time to write a bit since we have 30 miles to san fran tomorrow (where i will be reunited with the internet) and then a day off...it's been nearly 2 weeks since our last and i have big plans. anyways...

washington and oregon brought lots of rain, cold weather, and headwinds. but also the best strawberries i've ever tasted. i had no idea. the people in oregon are some of the nicest people i've ever met. at first they might be a little expressionless and talk without intonation, but they have hearts of gold, we were given produce and all kinds of things.

my right knee was giving me all sorts of trouble in washington, but then i met a man named demetri who owns a bike shop called veloce cycles in portland and i'm pretty sure he's a genius. he used lasers and wizardry in the form of a magic sizing machine, years of touring experience, and love, to help me out. my seat is 2 inches lower and i've got new pedals. i'm not sure demetri knows it yet, but we're going to be pen pals.

lorig had some bike troubles and then some motivation troubles and so she left us before we hit california. big paul williams from texas 4000 rode with us for a few days and then he dropped lorig off at a train station on his way to corvalis to work on a blueberry farm. there lorig caught a train to san fran (probably since we haven't had any means of communication) and there she will wait for us to finish the hills. this left me, brett, tina, marq, and derrick.

we met all kinds of people, farmers and such, and the horrid weather continued and so did the knee pain, for both marq and i. in eureka, cali, marq decided to bus it to san francisco to give his knee a rest and derrick decided to join him. they figured they would rejoin us after the hills. this was approximately a week ago. this left me, brett, and tina.

we met george the next day. he's from oregon and retired and he's on a year and a half bike journey. we didn't know it then, in the avenue of the giants, but george was the newest member of the team. the next day brett and i were waiting at the north coast brewery for tina. i was getting nervous. then i saw tina and george! they've been inseparable ever since, stopping in garden shops, eating ice cream, taking pictures of the coast, dining on delicacies, picking up produce. we're all gonna miss george tomorrow. but we plan on stopping in his girlfriend's bike shop in ventura.

a couple days after we met george, we met mike. mike has managed to pack only 21 lbs for his tour. i'm probably hauling about 80lbs and i bet brett has closer to 100lbs. mike's a professor from ontario and he's cycling to san francisco from vancouver after a conference. we had a long chat about socialized health care the other day. he's probably the best traveler ever and one quick rider, on a recumbent...and the newest member of the dream team. we learned just what neophytes we were once george and mike joined us. i'm going to do things differently next time.

as for me, my knee is feeling better thanks to demetri and stretching. i've fallen in love with the sights and the smells of northern california. and i've come to think of this trip as a coming of age story. i'm having a great time. miss you all.

i'm gonna make it after all!

we've just emerged from a rather remote area...the oregon coast. and into another remote area...the northern california coast.

i'm not sure what i was expecting on this trip. perhaps that since i rode from austin to anchorage i could do anything. maybe i can, but it's not really that simple. we've been riding 80 miles a day, sometimes more, through mountainous regions, in the cold and wet, carrying 80 lbs a piece. it wasn't until a few days ago that i turned to brett and told him i was "in it". my body is adjusting, my mindset is adjusting, and the scenery is beautiful. i have a lot to say, but little time and less bandwidth.

they're all troopers, right?

so, it turns out that lorig and brett stayed in seattle to deal with bike/hauling issues and took a train to portland to meet us yesterday. "us" was marq, derrick, and tina. we didn't have maps, we didn't have enough iburofen, but we did have an unbreakable spirit. when i told my mom about making it from seattle to portland in 3 days, loaded down with 80 lbs. each, she asked, they're all troopers, right? and then i knew it was all going to be okay. we are all many things, luckily being troopers is one characteristic we share.

people along the way have been awesome. riding with this much gear definitely gets one noticed, people have literally parked their cars and ran to catch us and talk to us. we made our way to portland with some notes jotted down on a few sheets of a steno notepad and with the help of strangers. everyone is so nice. unfortunately the town names are impossible to pronouce, e.g. puyallup. so sometimes asking for directions is difficult...

it's been beautiful, truly. my right knee has been giving me some trouble...80ish pounds is a lot to haul up mountains. i think some minor bike adjustments, graci tess and j, and time to strengthen the stabilizing muscles needed to balance that weight is doing wonders though. today's day off can't hurt either...i've been looking forward to portland for a while now.

here are the flickr accounts for all on the trip...

brett

derrick

i'm not sure tina has one yet and lorig hasn't posted. but i'm making marq his own folder in mine. maybe they'll post some today.

take er easy

so...we're pushing our start day off til tomorrrow. i had plane problems and arrived late, the rest of the group fell in love with seattle yesterday. so we're gonna finish prepping, deciding, and seeing our way around the city today.

upon arriving in seattle, i met the group who had already been celebrating our first day off, derrick told me...you do realize you're gonna be like my mom on this trip, i didn't eat tonight. and i told him marq would be his mom cause i'm on vacation. done and done.

ooowee it's chilly here. jessica (brett and derrick's friend whose apartment we've taken over) has been awesome and she's taking us around today. first stop breakfast! second stop fleece! third stop discovery park! i'll procure my bike and some rations along the way i suppose.

on the road again...

we leave tomorrow morning, from seattle, on our first self-contained tour. am i scared? most definitely, but that's normal right? the large bruise on my arm from hauling the bob trailer bag doesn't do much to appease my fears, but i keep thinking of the legs i'll have come july!

so...i'm reviving go libby go and i'm attempting to link flickr this time. in the event i am short on time or energy, you can see my flickr photos here. i have a feeling there'll be some good ones. soon and very soon, lib.

back in the saddle again

I've been back for over two weeks now. It still feels a bit surreal, although I am grudgingly stepping back into my former self. School has begun and my thoughts turn to final projects, Master's reports, and life after I graduate in December. I long for the summer when my worries were few, the scenery was breathtaking, and free time was spent frolicking about the countryside with friends, both on and off the bike. Luckily, I still see the T4kers quite frequently...we've had a lot of celebrating to do, especially Tess, Lorig, and Brett, they've done so much to help the transition. My friends and colleagues in Austin have also been wonderful and have made it easy to remember why I love this place. And my short stint in Chicago with my family was just what the doctor ordered.

I've been taking time to organize photos, before the chronology gets foggy. I've been sifting through my pictures as well as Tess's, Brett's, Merriweather's, and Bredt's, since they're all living on my laptop. I've pulled ones that I'm especially fond of to print. Aside from a few I've already posted, here is the last installment of my T4k pics. A couple are mine, the rest belong to the aforementioned parties.

Actually, this photo was taken by a newspaper in a town outside of Oklahoma City. Tess wrote a note in her journal about how she thought she might be featured in an article and a woman at the newspaper sent her an email with this photo attached. This was a rest stop, and we had been through a lot by this point in the day. There were about seven or eight of us that found ourselves lost on the way out of town, I think we went about 10 miles out of the way. We still had mobile phone coverage and so Lorig and Andy used a computer to chart a route for us back in the right direction as we asked locals at the McDonald's where we were. It just so happens when we reached this rest stop, in the rain, Limbo Rock came on the speakers of the van and we had an impromptu limbo party. The newspaper caught Tess rocking the limbo.

Carly, me, and Lorig braving the winds of Wyoming.

Team Friday at the lunch stop in Big Sky, Montana. Montana was easily the most beautiful state I rode through. Everyone has their favorite, but it was truly impossible to take a poor picture.

Lorig and I.

Tess was back on the bike by the time we rode through Banff. You can barely see Meg behind her. I got a flat on a sweet descent and the girls waited.

Tess and I, tiny against the mountains.

Our rest stops were strategically placed near places of interest, like this stone skipping spot. Everyone had a go, here are Carly, me, Adriano, Lorig, Andy, and Brett.

You can barely see Lorig and I on the bridge. We were all trying to watch men spearing fish in the roaring waters below.

Me, Tess, and Carly.

From the canoe in the middle of Meziadin Lake.

This is one of my favorites, Lorig and Tess, our first morning in Alaska.

It was a wild ride. Andy wrote "Don't be sorry it's over, be glad it happened." I have learned so much this summer about myself and others. I remember the weeks before leaving Austin and how worried I was to be spending perhaping the most challenging summer of my life with total strangers, those strangers became friends, and then those friends became family. I expected much from this summer, but I could never have prepared myself for the kindness of strangers, their willingness to give to us, and to share their personal experiences with cancer. I'm sure the future holds many more bike tours for me. For now, I'm content to return to my life with a fresh outlook and a brand new bike posse.

promised pics

It took some time to comb through my pictures to find ones representative of chunks of the trip. Many of these are mine, but I threw some of Tess' and Capt. Merriweather's in as well...

This photo was taken in Montana, the most beautiful state as far as I'm concerned. Every corner we turned or hill we crested presented postcard-like scenes. I'm riding on the far left with the pink tires.

This is a picture from the start of one of Rocky's notorious "nights before the day off." We're in the van at Glacier National Park. From the left is me, Brett, Lorig, and half of Tess.

In Calgary we decided to purchase roof racks for the van so that we could be self-contained through the Yukon wilderness. Bredt is making some delicate adjustments here. Calgary apparently uses a Jeffersonian grid for their street arrangement...which means there are at least 4 of every numbered street at different points in the city. I was van leader on the way into Calgary (with John and Tess), the numbering system, the fact that only highways run through Calgary, and Stampede (a huge cowboy festival that caused the normal population of Calgary to swell) gave us some trouble. We learned around 3pm that we had lost all of our riders. Skip, the documentarian, grabbed his camera and jumped in the van with Tess and I as we tried to round up the riders.

We volunteered at the Stampede marathon the morning we left Calgary. Our mission was to ensure the runners had a clear path through the fairgrounds.

I found a penny.

Tess, Brett, Merriweather, and I rode together on the way to Jasper...blue skies, pine lined streets, and mountains ahead.

This is the same day. Andy strongly suggested that Brett and I take a detour from our route to see Lake Louise. We were zamboni and Tess was with us, I convinced her to make the climb with us. Her knee was still healing from the crash in Yellowstone, but she agreed to join us...until an old man walking along the side of the road said, "You've got a long way to go." She turned around and headed toward Jasper, assuring Brett and I that we would catch up to her on the highway. The climb turned out to be pretty steep and long, but it was worth it.

This is the view to my left. The glacier and clouds blend together. We skipped some stones and then headed back down to catch Tess.

We had only been riding a few miles when a white Golf passed us and someone yelled "British Columbia!" I realized the voice was Tess' and then saw her bike on the roof rack of the car. Turns out she missed a turn, as did Brett and I. Carolyn, the friendly Canadian ranger, had seen the rest of our group at a checkpoint, but saw Tess on another road on her way home from work...in British Columbia days before we were to enter it. They caught us on their way to the checkpoint and put us on the right track.

At the end of the day, we camped at a beautiful site. Brett is the little orange spot at the bottom right. I think he's gathering skipping stones.

We had topographic maps for our routes in the US to advise us about the climbs for the day...however, Canada was a surprise. Turns out it was better we didn't know about this climb cause I think my mind would have had the best of me. We had climbed a bit to get to this spot, where mountain goats frolicked about a waterfall.

The road below is where the previous picture was taken...

At the end of the day we found ourselves at the Columbia Icefields campground. Carly, Lorig, Brett, and I braved a mountain stream to walk on the glacier.

You can see the path we took to get to the glacier behind Carly. Turns out that although Chacos are versatile, they may not be the best shoes for ice hiking...

I love Meziadin Lake. It's my favorite stop for sure. It's a glacier lake, but it was so warm out, everyone jumped off their bikes and into the water. The rangers said they had never seen so many people swimming in it. To the left is an island. The far shore was home to the best skipping stones I've seen.

We had access to the park's canoe...I'm not really a paddler, I like to be paddled around. Luckily, there are plenty of paddlers on the team. In this picture, Meg had just towed Skip, Paul, Mike, and myself from the island to the shore with the canoe's rope.

This is the view to the right of the lake. After a few trips in the canoe, I decided to chance bringing my camera along.

Team Friday (sans John who was still rounding up riders)

In Prince George we spent an enchanting day with Richard and Magee. After we cleaned up the teas, juices, and muffins from breakfast, they invited us to draw a square on their table. There were already quite a few squares drawn, I'm particularly fond of this one. I'm pretty sure their daughter, Jessie, wrote it. She was gone on a bike tour while we were there.

We rode next to mountains and lakes nearly the entire time. I still can't believe how beautiful it's all been. Tess and Lorig, my two tried and true riding partners are ahead of me here.

The 109 mile day into Yukon would have been impossible for me without Lorig, Tess, Mike, and Brett. We were about 15 miles from our destination here. It was the hardest day for most of us, but also the favorite for most too. Looking at this picture, you'd never guess we had just ridden through hail, or that Tess was stuck in her granny gear, or that we were stopped in the middle of a climb. We were almost there and it was the night before a day off.

I was wary of joining the two teams at the start, but now I can't imagine why. Here we took a little break to heckle Martina, Suchin, and Mike, who were swimming in the frigid waters below.

I've been skipping stones throughout North America. I love it. Brett and Skip are my main partners in crime. We're supposed to have a skip-off in Anchorage, but no time has been set yet. I've been collecting the perfect skipping stones along my journey. Here we're in Chistochina, an Athabascan community.

That's all I've got for now. I need to wake up some snoozers and start the day. I leave for Austin 1am tonight and will spend the next 12 hours traveling...luckily with friends. Can't wait to see everyone.

done and done

we made it. i'm sitting cozy in a hotel room in anchorage, internetting it up, still in disbelief. still letting it sink in and trying to soak up as much of the summer as i can...i return to austin on the 13th and then reality shows its ugly head.

i have a slew of pictures to put up, complete with informational asides, as i've neglected posting due to the fact that we've just emerged from the middle of nowhere...but that will have to wait until tomorrow. for now, i'd like to that everyone that made this trip a reality for me. i'm in total awe of the support system i have urging me to attempt what others might label impossible. i needed people to believe in me and they did. dear family and friends, thank you. i send my love across these thousands of miles.

and to my team, i couldn't have asked for more strength, courage, or compassion. i wouldn't be here without you, i wouldn't want to be. we did this together, it is a summer we will never forget.

i'm in anchorage...and i rode my bike here

Almost there

Hey all,

Not a lot of time to write as I have an enchilada dinner planned for this evening - TGIF, but I wanted to drop a line to let you all know I'm doing fine and feeling great. Who knew? Today is our "day off" in Whitehorse, but Tess, John, and I have been busy grocery shopping for our remaining 10 days on the road...I'm not quite sure where the summer's gone.

There have been a couple of days this summer that I've been surprised I made it through, yesterday was one of them. This week has been full of headwind and hills and we've all been feeling fatigued. Nature's force is not something to take lightly. Between the mountains and the wind, it's easy to recognize how tiny you are in the grande scheme of things. Yesterday was 109 miles, I felt like sagging at mile 40, but Tess, Lorig, Brett, and Mike kept me going. The remainder of the ride we all took turns encouraging each other to keep going...through the wind, the rain, the hail, the cold, and the hills...it just wouldn't stop. When we all arrived in Whitehorse, we celebrated, rejoiced is more like it. I love this team and I'm sad to see this all come to an end.

The Sierra team has now joined us, so we are 40 strong for the remainder of the trip. I don't really have the time to post pictures, but I promise to in the future.