11/09/05 Mountain Springs We set off later than planned after an unscheduled lie-in, and headed up the 160 towards Mountain Springs. Progress was very slow, with a head/side wind all the way and 23 miles of unremitting up. The average slope was probably around 1 in 40 or 50, but there was no level and no down. About 4 miles from Mountain Springs Clare's hip started to play up, sending shooting pains up her back; we had to dismount and walk as she couldn't pedal any more. We reached the settlement of Mountain Springs at 8pm to discover that the nearest [View Full Entry]

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First of all my apologies in advance for any spelling/grammatical errors, I'm writing this on 21st Sept and if you read far enough you'll understand my woozy head - C 08/09/05 Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon Again we raced west, this time to the Grand Canyon via Monument Valley. We ate at a roadside cafe where I had tomato soup with the colour and consistency of strawberry Angel Delight. Fortunately, it tasted of tomatoes. Monument Valley was impressive, but strangely anti-climactic. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thought there would be more 'monuments' than are ac [View Full Entry]

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04/09/05 Las Vegas (no not that one) We left Amarillo via Cadillac Ranch, where 10 pink Caddies are planted bonnet deep in a row in the middle of a field, it's not at all surreal really! Many visitors have added grafitti to the cars and if you look closely you may find our own little stamp on one of them (hint: see photos). A further four hours on the road got us into New Mexico where the land became a lot more lumpy, we stopped at the Plaza hotel in Las Vegas after a recommendation from a traveller who we met [View Full Entry]

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It has very sensibly been suggested that we should put some dates into this, so here goes: 31/08/05 Memphis We're having trouble finding accommodation because of refugees from Katrina, we've ended up on a travel plaza with rigs all around and somebody has just tried to get into our room, mmmm nice. 01-02/09/05 Memphis to Tulsa We spent the morning in the Pyramid Centre at Memphis viewing "The Art of the Motorcycle", see photos for the full beauty of an Ordinary with engine. After lunch we drove past Gracelands then headed towards Tulsa, getting as far as Lake Ouchita [View Full Entry]

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Lexington to Roanoake We set off on Bike Route 76 towards Roanoake and promptly got lost again, 10 miles later we got back onto our route after a brief detour through some very picturesque (and poor) parts of Virginia. We were chased by dogs at one point, I took off up the road as fast as I could pedal, Vernon just rode along with barking dogs around him, they weren't vicious (probably just wanted some toes to lick). After lunch the weather deteriorated and we had to use our waterproofs, in the current temperatures it's a toss up between how wet [View Full Entry]

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I've already lost count of the days! Stafford to Fredericksburg It was absolutely tipping down when we woke up, so we hung around at the motel writing up the blog and generally hoping the rain would stop - it didn't. At 11 am we got on the bikes and set off to Fredericksburg in a downpour. More traffic on route 1 but we got there without incident and sat outside a cafe dripping gently on the floor. We decided to stay the night as the weather was looking set in for the day and headed downtown to the visitor centre to [View Full Entry]

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This will be a fairly simple (and boring) entry until we get the hang of this blogging lark. Day 1, Heathrow All is going well, we made it through the traffic to Terminal 3 with hours to spare; then the fun began, my left pedal wasn't coming off, not for anybody, many people offered advice - "You're tightening it, you need to go the other way " mainly, a small group of children enjoyed the show (bending spanners with Uncle Vernon), unitl we gave up and wrapped it in a sarong and lots of gaffer tape. The check in queue was [View Full Entry]

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