I made it across the country on a bicycle, which weighed in at 111 pounds with all the personal and group gear I carried. There was an adventure every day, as you might surmise from reading my journal.

From Coast…

Mom joined me at the beginning of this adventure on my there-and-back ride from Williamsburg to Yorktown. We captured a wheel-dip photo in the Atlantic Ocean, a feature not included on her 1976 tour. How wonderful to share this experience with the person who inspired my life of bicycling!

Every Day an Adventure

A new experience greeted me daily on this epic journey, from heat and headwinds to rain and river-crossing, steep hills up and down and vicious mosquitos, long days on the road and so much more.

Above, you can see me fording a drainage creek in Kentucky, muddy and rushing that day from earlier storms, and changing my wet socks afterward. Only a couple exposed items in my panniers got damaged.

…to Coast

On August 3, I dipped in the Pacific Ocean at Beachside in Waldport, Oregon — and Mom surprised me at the campground there! Two days later, I ended my cross-country tour in Eugene, spent the weekend there with family, and took the train home.

I plan to complete my journal entries through the end of the trip over the coming weeks, so look there for more photos and stories. Additionally, I want to combine these with other anecdotes from my tour as well as Mom’s journal from 1976 into a collaborative memoir of our bicycle journeys.