We finished!!

I guess we got a little busy after Lompoc and haven't had a chance to update the Blog. However, as many of you know, we finished!!

It has been an amazing summer for us. Bicycling Europe and then bicycling the Pacific coast of the US. Both were amazing and both had there good points. I don't know which one I would do first if I had to do it over again.

The last part of this trip has been spectacular. San Francisco was beautiful (although cold). We had company on this phase as Susie and Gwen join us as well as Larry for a nice stretch.

Big Sur was absolutly breathtaking! If you ever get a chance to ride this stretch of the earth, don't pass it up. It was probably the most beautiful thing we have seen this summer and at 12 mph we got to see a lot of it. We stayed in the Big Sur Campground in a tent-cabin that was wonderful. It is has wood sides for 3 feet up and the rest is tent material but then a real roof and it came with a fantastic queen size bed.

Santa Barbara was one of our favorite towns to visit. We got a hotel right in town for $99.00 and went out for an evening on the town. We heard three different musical groups with Katrina Carlson being the best. If you google her and look on her website you can see pictures of us!!! We told them we biked all the way from Seattle just to hear them play.

The town of Malibu was a dissapointment. There really isn't much there. However, there are some amazing homes there. Jennifer Aniston lives there and I am pretty sure we stopped in front of her house. There were 50 paporrozoties out there. Sherry would like to think it was Matthew McConnohey,s house.

We loved Santa Monica as well as it was 80 and sunny and beautiful beaches. Venice beach was interesting. A little run down, lot's of people living on the beach. We stopped at the muscle beach and both did a little flexing.

Getting thru LA was a bit of work as the roads didn't have shoulders and we were in some less than desirable neighborhoods. We passed Orange County choppers but didn't visit the guys.

In Long Beach we stayed at Sherry's friend Jodie and Tony's house. It was nice of them to let us stay with them as Tony had just arrived home from being out of town for the week. They have a very nice family and we enyoyed a faboulous dinner.

The next day we made it to Dana Point and ended up staying in a place called the Blue Lantern B&B. Oh my, we are talking nice. They had a free happy hour of cheese and wine which we readily joined in. There was a fireplace in the room and they actually gave us a very good price. We told them we had been sleeping in a tent for 4 months and that we wanted a deal. They bought the story and gave us the same price as the holiday inn express.

We arrived in San Diego on Sept 19th. We stayed at Amy and Rich's house for two evenings and went out to the Calypso for a wonderful dinner and great conversation. Thank you so much guys!! We owe you.

Okay, the adventure hasn't really stopped though. While in San Diego we loaded up Sherry's stuff from storage with the help of two Mexican's standing on the side of the road. (Thanks Jose and Jorge). Then we drove the U-haul to Phoenix where we had an apartment waiting for us. Upon arriving in Phoenix we didn't like the apartment! We had booked it via the internet so hadn't really seen it. We liked the complex though and after some pleading they gave us another apartment. However, the apartment wasn't ready for us so we moved our stuff into a garage. They say it will be ready by the time we get there on Friday.

We flew back to Minneapolis on Sunday (thanks Pat for picking us up at the airport) and spent two days getting our stuff together there.

Today, Sept 26th, we are on our way back to Phoenix in the car. We are actually in Lincoln, Nebraska as I write this. We plan to make it to Denver tonight where Bob's brother Jack lives and stay with him this evening. We have 457 miles down right now and it is noon!!! We left at 5:30 this morning and stopped only briefly!

There you go. Now you know what Bob and Sherry have been up to. We have had the summer we imagined and it was wonderful.

Bob and Sherry (the happy campers)!!