Like the moon, phases come and go. And so it seems, another doth gone for me. Yes, twas a long time ago that I was declaring Phase 1 complete. Well sir, seems yet another phase has come to an end, the infamous, mysterious, the fabled Phase 2.
Starting from Portland, Oregon on September 8th, I ventured forth with many. We two quickly became three (that same day I became 2) and even quicker became four. We traveled the well trodden coasts of Oregon and California. At San Francisco, we lost half our troupe, and Eddy and Dog were left to their own devices. We continued south, seeing just how big Big Sur was (pretty big). Tearing ourselves form the big rock in the bay in Morro Bay, we crossed the great irrigated, monotonous valley of California before heading into Yosemite to cross the Sierra Nevada and wham bam, we were in desert country. Feeling a bit spicy, we headed to Death Valley, crossing the basins and ranges at 3am moon riding and entered into the city of demise, Las Vegas. We left the crazy state of Nevada only to enter the crazy state of Utah, where those LDS'ers went above and beyond trying to be nice to us. Weird. Seeing amazing landscape after amazing landscape (Zion, Grand Staircase, Glen Canyon), we traversed north to south of Arizona, seeing big gaping holes (Grand Canyon), getting snow, rain, cold, suns and guns, and everything in between. Big old cactus, old west graveyards, and a taste of old Mexico. New Mexico was next, promised enchantment, we felt much was to be desired. A few moments of bliss (Black Mountains, Hillsboro, White Sands, the climb to Cloudcroft), a few of not as much bliss, one hell of a cavern (Carlsbad), and we entered the grand daddy of them all, Texas. And that's where I am now. 89 days after leaving Portland, 219 days since Burlington. Let's look back on some Phase 2 stats with a little bit of total stats thrown in helter skelter style:- Miles Cycled: 4, 210 (11,230 total)
- Average miles/day: 54 (61 prior)
- Days Cycling: 89 (217 total)
- Zero mile days: 1 (8 total)
Naturally, with Phase 2 ending, many would assume Phase 3 would begin. Well, your right. Phase 3 begins as of December 6th, 2011 in Alpine, Texas. Where it ends though is still up for debate, but probably somewhere in Florida. Our great Texas adventure has us heading south to Big Bend, our last national park for a long long time, and then coming back from there in an eastward setting to San Antonio, then north to Austin, and then sorta diagonal towards Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico before hugging the warm waters into Louisiana. Keep checking out the growing pictures at picasaweb.google.com/bingleadventure, be sure to read the lies and exaggerations at Chris's blog (reallylongbiketrip.blogspot.com), get your copy of the best book ever written since the beginning of written language ( http://www.blurb.com/
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