When it began

We started our trip around the US on April 23 from our home in Redlands, in southern California.  We first got the idea to ride across the country after doing a shorter trip about six years ago, from our home up to Lake Tahoe to visit our daughter. Finding that we could do that trip (about 1200 miles in three weeks), we began to think about doing some longer distances.

When the time came to plan this trip, we couldn't really decide on a single route - it seemed that we kept adding destinations and places that we would like to see - and so what we finally came up with was a big loop.  As we are both retired, we decided that we would go for it!

Our trip includes visits to our friends and family around the US, plus whatever national parks we can fit in as we go. We figure it will be around 10,000 miles before we return home this fall.  Our "deadline" is really just the reality of the weather - we want to get through the mountains on our route home before the weather gets too cold this fall.  Probably the trip will be six to seven months long.

We headed north from our home through California, Oregon and Washington before making our turn to the east from the San Juan Islands. We rode through Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan and then crossed into Canada. When we hit New York, we will be approaching our next turn: in Burlington, Vermont, we will start going south. That's probably going to be about half-way through our trip.

Our route as far as Traverse City, more or less

Our route home will take us along the Atlantic seaboard for a while, then west towards the Mississippi River. We'll go through Texas to visit my family, and then go up to Oklahoma City and follow the old Route 66 corridor back home.

We need to get through the mountains in northern New Mexico before the snow flies!

That's about it for us. Each day, I try to post something about our day on or off the bike. We invite you to ride along with us and see America from the back of a tandem bicycle - just like I do!

Kathy and Roger

When we left Redlands, many of our friends rode out with us