Month: September 2019

Okay, so the planning isn’t actually done, but I am done with the planning. While you might think that Route 66 is an actual route, unfortunately, you would be sadly mistaken. Route 66 was officially decommissioned in 1984, however, in the three preceding decades, since the introduction of the US Interstate Network, much of it…

What was planned as a day of final checks, including a final check at the local dentists, ended up with an unplanned day trip to the Livingston shopping mall in the hope of finding a solution to stay connected during our cycle. Having been promised by Vodafone for the past 5 weeks that upgrading Deborah’s…

Only 3 days before we will be sitting on a BA flight heading for Chicago. While the planning of the entire route is far from done, we do have at least a semblance of a plan to guide us through the first 8 days, including a place to rest our heads each night. We are…

Well, that’s a little over 24 hours since we unceremoniously piled our bikes onto the back of the hire car, reversed down our drive and headed south. After a quick stop off in the North East of England to visit family, we hammered on down the A1(M) for a late evening pizza and an overnight…

A delayed flight, lousy veggie food, a broken entertainment system, a loud group of Dutch ladies, and a chaotic immigration hall later, has us safely on US soil. While Deborah received a cheery welcome by the immigration official that stamped her passport the chap that I landed went through each page of my passport with…

As Friday the 13th’s go, today wasn’t all that bad. We started as we mean to go on, so tucked into Best Western’s free breakfast of pancakes and a rather unhealthy assortment of toppings. With breakfast done by 8am we couldn’t put the task of unpacking the bikes off any longer. In some respects, this…

We could have stayed in bed all day. Not due to being tired, but due to it being the comfiest bed we are likely to sleep in for a very long time. While I am sure there are plenty of great hotels between here and Santa Monica, the budget isn’t being stretched that far to…

1 am – I’m sure if you live here in the US Mid-West the electrical storm that is firing off all around us isn’t anything to write home about, but for the rest of us this is one almighty storm. For almost an hour the sky has been lighting up with the intensity of a…

Okay, so in daylight, the Palamar Motel maybe even less luxurious than we thought yesterday night when we first arrived. Would we book it for a Wedding Anniversary get-away? No! Would we book it for a cheap place to stay with a comfy bed and a bedroom that I can store two bikes and dry…

What better way to start a day off than share breakfast with some new found friends, Larry and Twila. Unfortunately, as is the way of this way of travelling, breakfast was also the goodbye as we had to hit the road early in order to have a leisurely cycle down to Lincoln. A final photoshoot…

I must have fallen to sleep the second my head hit the pillow, so can only guess Pickleball takes more out of you than cycling across the US. The day kicked off to the best start possible, with a magnificent breakfast of freshly made waffles with a table full of topping, from blueberries to maple…

Decision made. As we will likely never return to this city, how could we possibly leave without first immersing ourselves in the Abraham Lincoln theme park that is Springfield? The negotiation of a second night in the hotel as a slightly more challenging ordeal as it seems yesterday we were given a suite by accident….

Having spent most of the night either attempting to get through to the HSBC Expat Contact Centre or talking to them on the phone, time to get on the road came all too soon. The solution HSBC had come up with involved a ‘Visa Encashment’, which basically involves us taking dollars out of our USD…

Up early with the intention of putting in the extra miles that we didn’t do yesterday after the best night’s sleep on the trip so far. While Route 66 borders the campground and the Interstate is within sight, the campground was quiet as a quiet thing. Another reason for not getting away as soon as…

Not the best of sleep due to the campground noise. While our fellow visitors obeyed the campground rules, the locals, comprising of grasshoppers and tree frogs partied until the sun came up. While not as noisy as their pals, by early morning the mosquitos were also out in force and it wasn’t long before the…

A great night sleep on a futon in the lounge of the Byrd family home, with just a minor blip of a call from a Britsail student, but hey, we still do have a business to run. We enjoyed an amazing breakfast in the company of a family full of energy for the day. Everyone…

Well, that’s the first 10 days of cycling done and almost 500 miles under the wheels. We had planned on an average of 40 miles per day and are managing a little over 47, although the daily total varies due to the need stop somewhere we can bed down for the night, either camping, a…

A good night’s sleep interrupted only by Deborah scratching at her mosquito bites. A free breakfast buffet of yoghurt, cereal and waffles, which was as good as it gets for free. We didn’t unpack our bikes last night, apart for all our electronics for the nightly recharging ritual, which Deborah has down to a fine…

A good night’s sleep, but again a few mosquito or chigger (thanks Jim) bites made for a little restfulness. Not much packing required, as again we didn’t unpack much, and there was nobody around to chat to as we checked out after a breakfast of cold pizza resulted in a quick getaway for a change….

Another great night sleep, interrupted only by a brief but particularly heavy downpour at about 2 am, which was amplified by the tin roof of the camping trailer we were sleeping in. By the time we were fully mobilized, Cindy had unfortunately already headed to work and James was dressed in full Roman Catholic Deacon…

We woke to the sound of Miles taking the Denae and Alex to school, so we had clearly slept beyond the planned 7 am wake-up call, although as we hadn’t set an alarm it’s no surprise the plan failed miserably. It didn’t take much to pack up and pile the gear on the front steps….

It wasn’t the best of night’s sleep due to our proximity to the road. The road itself wasn’t the problem, it was the rumble strip that someone in their infinite wisdom had added to the road, resulting in every vehicle that passed us making considerably more noise than if it had just driven past. Deborah…

Okay, so clearly we were tired as I am sure our partying motel neighbours didn’t turn the music off as soon as our heads hit the pillow, but that is when it stopped for us both. We decided for a late morning start as we both had Britsail and personal admin to catch up on……

The most luxurious hotel room since the JW Marriott Chicago two weeks ago, but the worse night sleep for no obvious reason. Maybe we need the sound of the road to help us sleep these days. The advertised ‘full breakfast’ was disappointing. The only hot buffet items were a single piece of fossilized bacon and…