And one more thing... Thanks

This whole trip was #1 on my bucket list, so there are some people I need to thank for making it happen. There is a whole lot more to the trip than just riding the bike across the country.  It took a plan and some willing participants.

First, I need to thank Nicholas for taking his summer and spending it with his crazy aunt and uncle (and their dog) in a 23' motor home rambling across the country at a blistering pace of 80 +/- 40 miles a day.  While we have joked about doing this trip with Nicholas for a couple of years, we started talking seriously with him almost a year ago before he had his drivers license.  With some help from his mom and dad, he decided he would give it a try.  Without him, the whole self-supported trip would fall apart.  I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Nicholas did a fantastic job of driving the RV and navigating the route, usually by himself.  He is an incredibly responsible 16 year old.  When we would meet people out on the road and tell them what we were doing, they would always ask "where's your stuff".  Then we would explain that our 16 year old nephew was following us with the RV and then they knew we were absolutely crazy.

I have to thank Beth for going along with such a hair-brain idea and making it happen. There was a lot of discussion about different ways to ride across the country over the past few years.  One thing was made very clear from day one.... we aren't camping in tents! There are ways to ride from motel-to-motel with a car as support, but that takes even more planning, or just sign up with a commercial tour and not worry about any of the planning.  An RV looked like a good way to go, but we have never owned one.  So making the financial commitment to buy an RV just for this trip was a huge decision on her part.

And Beth has also carried the lion's share of day-to-day support doing a lot of laundry, shopping, cooking, checking us into RV parks, and a good share of driving.  So I can't thank her enough.  The next big trip is all yours!

I really need to thank all of our friends and family that came out to meet us along the way, gave us a place to stay, had dinner with us, fed us or just said "Hi".  We really appreciated all the support.

And a special thank you to our neighbors, Clark and Judy, who took care of a problem with our rented guest house.  We had hardly left the state before the air conditioner went out on Memorial Day weekend.  But Clark had it fixed by the next Tuesday and no more problems since.

Epilogue... One more ride

The end of the road...

While we made it to our final RV park yesterday in a thunderstorm, it just didn't feel like we had reached a clear end to our trip.  While Beth was looking at some options for activities while we were here on the outer banks, she found that the road actually ended about 30 miles north of us.  That sounded like a good place to really say we were "finished" with our ride across the USA.

This morning, Beth and I on the tandem and Nicholas on his bike headed north to Corolla to find where the black top ends.  During  the ride we had it all... cool and overcast, sunny and humid, deep puddles from recent rains, heavy rain directly on us and head winds.  It was a good time and we really felt like we had finished our long trip.  4162 miles in all.

While we were in Corolla, we climbed the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.  It gave us a great view of the area and the chance to reflect on our 2 month journey across the country.

Nicholas a couple of flights below me in the lighthouse

Here are the final stats from riding across the country:

48 different RV parks or campgrounds
6977 miles on the RV since we left home
And the riding/running stats:

An epic end to our ride across the USA,

 We finished in a thunderstorm. 4097 miles

Just one more day....

Swamp land in eastern North Carolina

Today we rode a very flat 92 miles from Williamston to East Lake, NC.  The total climbing for the day was less than 400', which rivals any day in Kansas!  Much of the land we rode through was swamps.  We kept looking for the swamp loggers to pop out from from a side road.  They must be around somewhere since we passed several lumber mills along the way.

We have technically made it to the Atlantic ocean.  We passed by Albemarle Sound this afternoon before having the thrill of riding the 3 mile long, 2 lane, Alligator River bridge.  It is the primary access to this stretch of the outer banks, so there was plenty of traffic.  I rode as fast as I could after an 85 mile day into a 10mph headwind, but I wish I could have gone faster!  All of the traffic was very courteous and there was really no problem.   Here is our track for the day.

Draw bridge in the middle of the Alligator River Bridge

That leaves only 40 miles to Kitty Hawk on the outer banks of North Carolina, but two more very long bridges, each about 3 miles long as well.  We plan to get an early start to get over the bridges before the traffic gets too bad.

Personal goals are dropping like flies.  Both Beth and Nicholas have reached their mileage goals whether they ride tomorrow or not.  Nicholas wanted to ride a 1000 miles on the trip and Beth wanted to do at least half of the total mileage that I did.  Here are the current riding stats:

 

Getting close to the end

Farm Country RV Park .... in a corn field, but very nice

We are really getting close to the end now.  Only two more days of riding left and the last day is less than 40 miles.  We are still one day ahead of our original schedule that we put together back in early May. I am really impressed with the plan we put together and how well it has all gone.

The schedule called for a rest day a couple of days ago, but we decided to ride and use the rest day to make our last 3 days a little more of a relaxed pace... plus it worked out better with finding RV parks and camping.  Finding RV and camping sites in North Carolina has been challenging.  I'm not sure why they seem to be few and far between, but they are.

The weather has been holding up for us.  We had some heavy rain showers during the night before yesterday's ride.  But by morning it was slightly overcast and cool, so a good day for riding.  It was a pretty long day at 95.5 miles with only rolling hills.  We rode the tandem for the first 58 miles and then I finished up alone.  Here is the track from yesterday.  Traffic was a little heavy as we skirted north of the Durham area, but we had very quiet country roads for the most part.

Last night we were in a KOA north of Rocky Mount, NC and it could really use some TLC.  The managers seemed to be clueless about being in the service industry and they are definitely in the running for the most disgusting showers we have found in our 46 nights of camping in RV parks.

Today we rode through the farming flat lands of eastern North Carolina.  Lots of tobacco, cotton, corn, soybeans and peanuts. A scheduled 54 miles turned into 58 with a detour thrown in.  Nicholas missed us when we stopped for a late breakfast in Hobgood.  Beth's text to let him know we had stopped didn't go through because of poor cell coverage.  But we caught up with each other about 15 miles down the road as we would sporadically get messages in/out as we went into and out of cell coverage.  Here is the track for today.

Tonight we are in a family owned and operated RV park near Williamston, NC and it is very nice.  Not sure how well it is doing financially.  It is a little bit of a "Field of Dreams" situation... literally in the middle of a corn field!

Tobacco Fields

Cotton plants in bloom

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Tomorrow is another fairly long day at 89 miles, but very flat day, finishing with a 3 mile ride across a two lane bridge.... that could be exciting!  Then its only about 40 miles on in to Kitty Hawk on Sunday!

A Visit to Mayberry...well Mt Airy, NC, home of Andy Griffith

Yesterday morning saw us once again on the Blue Ridge Parkway with intermittent rain – on with the raincoats, off with the raincoats, repeat.  Leaving the Parkway we descended into the town of Mount Airy.  Mount Airy is the hometown of Andy Griffith and inspiration for everybody’s favorite small town, Mayberry.    

After a much needed stop at Walmart, Nicholas and I continued the ride into Mt. Pilot where we stopped at Greystone RV park.  They get 5 stars for the bathhouse... It would rival the bathroom in many 5 star hotels!  The park is very new and the owners are putting a lot of effort into making it a small, but top-of-the-line RV park.

 Greystone sits below Pilot Mountain and just outside the state park. Pilot Mountain rises more than 1,400 feet above the rolling countryside of the upper Piedmont plateau and has been used as a landmark for north-south travelers since the Saura and Tutelo Native Americans lived in this area.  Here is the track for the ride.

View from Greystone RV Park

Today, Beth decided to take a much needed rest day.  The riding and day-to-day logistics of doing a 9 week self-supported trip is starting to wear us all down a little.  It would be hard enough just to do the 80-100 mile a day of riding, but also having to cook, do laundry, keep the food stocked (and we are eating A LOT!), maintain the bikes, maintain the RV, modify routes based on RV accommodations, etc.  We start early and finish pretty late every day.  But we still get in the occasional game or two of Catan.  Not that we aren't having fun, but it is probably good that we are within 300 miles and 4 days of the finish.  

Today, I started the journey from Pilot Mountain alone while Nicholas followed his typical morning routine of running.  I had made it 46 miles down the road when I ran into a sign on my route that said "No Outlet" I was trying to decide what to do as they caught me in the RV.  It was going to be a 6 mile detour, but a couple of ladies out walking their kids in strollers told me the road was blocked by a gated community and I could just slip through the gate.  Beth and Nicholas took the 6 mile detour, while I risked being arrested for trespassing on the half mile of road in the gated community.  

More views from the Blue Ridge Parkway

At mile 85, we hit another little road block.  Beth had driven ahead and found our route was marked with "No Bicycles" signs.  We checked the maps on the iPad and made a quick adjustment.  Nicholas and I diverted to another nearby highway, but had to put up with significantly more traffic and no shoulder.  We made to the hotel in Hillsborough (just west of Durham) without any problem, but I know I was riding just about as fast as I could.  I logged 99.8 miles on the GPS, but I think I'll just round that up to 100.  Here is the route for today.  

  

The Blue Ridge Parkway

What a change today was.  The Blue Ridge Parkway is incredible.  Great views of the mountains (many scenic pullouts) and a great road almost totally to ourselves.   The Blue Ridge Parkway runs 469 miles from the Great Smokey Mountain National Park in the southwestern corner of North Carolina up into Virginia.  While it isn't a national park, the land on either side of the highway is owned and maintained by the National Park Service.  The road has limited access, has a 45 mph speed limit and no commercial traffic is allowed.  The few cars we encountered were all careful and courteous as they passed us.  A great change from the unbelievable amount of litter and trash we saw along the roads in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, even in Daniel Boone National Forest.

One of the viaduct stretches of the Blue Ridge Parkway

We are running into rain almost every day now.  Today we actually had to sit out the rain in the RV for a while due to the low cloud cover and steam. Visibility was less than 100 feet and it simply wasn't safe to ride.

Here is the track for today's ride - 67 miles and 6485 feet of climbing.  That averages 1000 feet of climbing for every 10 miles.  Not a cakewalk by any means. For the folks in Albuquerque, just think of riding up and down Tramway from El Pinto to the Tram stop sign and back.... 6 times in a row.

The woolly calf

Take a look at this cutie!   The parents looked like a cross between a woolly Mammoth and a long horn steer.

Only 6 more days to Kitty Hawk!

Here are the stats for each of us to date:

Panoramic view from the Blue Ridge Parkway ... and it's getting ready to rain again!