Author Archives: betweenstops

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About betweenstops

I am an artist and educator living and working in Oakland. I can be reached at +01-510-759-6183 and thedanazed@gmail.com

June 20,Day 2 over McKenzie pass

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There was no bus
We rode 4 miles and found a deli !!!
There I had a miraculous cappacino and after that it was 35 hard miles up a mountain!!!
There were times when we thought we couldn’t make it.most of the ride really. When we were just at the top riding wheel to wheel going soo slow a band of Mosquitos attacked us visciously. Wow! Soon After that it was down down down down into the town of Sisters Oregon which is a really nice town. We got to a bike store and realized as we pumped up our tires that we had been riding on 60 pounds of pressure instead of 100!!! AND wE DID IT!!! I’m very proud of us
After that we slept in the city campground which was nice and even had a shower

June 18th, Airplane Day, San Francisco, CA to Eugene, OR

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This is us at 5:30 in the morning. Jon took this photo after dropping us off at San Francisco Airport.
We flew to Portland and then took a tiny plane to Eugene.
In Eugene airport we put together our bikes. Which took hours. They were more taken apart to fit in the boxes than we expected. Brett at Mikes Bikes in Berkeley was fantastic in helping us over the phone. Noah’s disk brake retailer was completely detached from the bike and the chain was all twisted up. We took photos of it and sent the photos to Brett’s iPhone in the Berkeley bike shop. He recreated the situation and then sent us a video of him fixing it!!! It was mostly Sa and her physics who did this. Noah and his noticing skill figured out that the fork had been turned around and bit by bit we put the bikes back together
We left the airport and biked the wrong way 5 miles but it was so incredibly beautiful it hardly mattered. We were so happy just to be on our bikes and riding.
After about an hour we biked into Eugene and had a fantastic guy at a bike shop go over the bikes and fine tune everything for practically nothing. After that, we had dinner and went to sleep in an over priced two star hotel with a bathtub.

june 19, Day 1, Eugene OR to Rainbow OR

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Today we rode fifty miles along the McKensie river
We are camping in a nice spot by the river
We have a lovely set up with nice pads and sleeping bags in a nice tent.
We are all so tired we are going to bed at 7:30!!!
Wilderness is everywhere and there is fifty miles before food tomorrow. Nothing we’d call real food here. We are grateful for chicken pot pies for dinner. Fifty miles before food tomorrow and thirty of that is a 4,000 foot climb. Really? Really. At least that’s how it looks from the info we have. We have stocked up with power bars. Hoping to leave camp at six and be to food by lunch

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I’m no boy scout and I wasn’t prepared

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To find hotels so lifeless and expensive

as I am now researching this for the first time.

Two days before we leave,
I have changed my mind from inside to outside. . From hotel to campsite.
It’s more work, but will also be more fun and more people.

Today I got what we need to camp our way across.
I spent a lot of time in REI balancing out money and weight.
The cheap heavy tent or the expensive light one? Over The Cascades? the Rockies?
I got a solar recharger (sans hotel walls)
I bought a Solar flashlight and towels that weren’t really made of cloth.
A purple titanium spork so as not to engage in the plastic throw away kind
Etc
I was in an altered state moving through the sections of the cavernous store.
Resisting lots of etc

I was surprised when I got out to see that I’d spent almost the entire day there
And came out to a parking ticket.

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No locking mechanism

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It seemed like a miracle or at least an answer to an unasked prayer, the way friends can be.

When I decided not to go across the hot desert but to leave the west coast from farther north, my friend volunteered to drive our bikes up North for us. I was thrilled and I ordered a 3 bike bike rack online. It didn’t come in time so at the latest moment I bought another one in a store here as my friend was leaving that night

When we unboxed the rack we both saw that there was no way to securely lock the bikes on the car so she couldn’t take them.

The next day the online bike rack came in the mail.
I put it in my car to return it.

That night my car was robbed. They took the bike rack.

 

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Changing One’s Mind

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Noah has not been as committed as Sarita and I.

First he wasn’t interested and then he was.

And then he wasn’t.

He was trying to decide in an all or nothing way. We bought stuff. We returned stuff.

Recently we discovered the half-way option

He can do part of the trip.

He is starting out with us and at some point we will ship him back. This will depend on his mood and the proximity of a good airfare. Maybe Missoula Montana, maybe farther.

Changing the Route

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The route changed just a few days ago, when I realized that the western express route has

Image more than one hundred miles between grocery stores or trees.

That and the fact that the pony express used that trail, not the covered wagons.

The grade (steepness of climbing incline) in the Sierra Nevadas is twice

what it is in the Oakland Hills, our training ground.

Therefore, we start in Oregon with what we think will be

softer shade and smoother slopes.

Sarita and I

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It’s been Sarita and I from the beginning. We committed to doing this trip in December. That’s when we bought our bikes and started training.

Everyone asks us if we have a cause for our ride. We do.
Our cause is ART IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
I will tell you how to donate once I figure that out.

This is a picture of Sa as one of the winners in an art contest.
The contest was to make a poster that speaks positively to youth.
Hers says “KEEP FAITH IN YOURSELF”

So that is what we are going to do.

All the way across.