Tortuga Tour Comes to an End

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Well, this is it folks: the final leg of our Travels with Tortuga Tour. After a year and a half, 22,000 miles, (and only four countries visited!), Fi and I managed to limp our aging truck & camper to South Carolina, where she's safely tucked away in my parents' storage garage. It's been a wonderful trip - we've seen some incredible places, have made some lifelong friends along the way, and also found a place to call home in beautiful Ecuador. Tortuga Tour may be over, but we have a lot to look forward to in the near future...more of that later.

Since Arizona, we plodded upwards to Zion National Park, then through Utah and into Colorado, where we spent some time mountain biking in Fruita, and visiting friends in Pagosa Springs and Colorado Springs before making the eastward trek. Zion was beautiful, as usual, but we weren't really prepared for an arctic weather blast that chilled temperatures down into the nose-nipping range. Still, the days were nice enough for Fi to do some hiking, while I was able to use my gimpy leg (still bruised from a bicycle fall a few weeks prior) as the perfect excuse to sit around the campsite eating cookies and napping. In Fruita - one of the premier mountain biking destinations in North America, we coincidentally met up with Ed from Wyoming, who had bought our old pop-up camper from us in 2017! He's been living full-time in it pretty much since then; travelling through the Western U.S. at will, stopping to mountain bike, fly fish, hike and kayak along the way. It was great seeing Ed, and having a beer or two with him each night at camp in Fruita.

In Pagosa, we were disappointed that we couldn't see our friend Paula, who was back in New York settling the affairs of her late father. We are most grateful to her, though, for allowing us to stay in her house, especially as the night time temperatures in Pagosa were still below freezing. We hope that upon our next trip through town we'll be able to get together with her under happier circumstances. We were able to meet up with our other friends Gail (and four-legged companions Patty and Nicki ) and indulge in her delicious spinach quiche; and Steve and Anja for another wonderful dinner and conversation... and plenty of wine! We also got a chance to meet up with friends Mike and Rachel, the quintessential outdoor-adventuring, Colorado couple - and the gang down at the bike shop. We always enjoy getting to see Alex, Kurt, and Connie, and still laugh at Jim's corny jokes that are just as funny the 20th time as they are the first! Although we no longer call Pagosa Springs home, we are fortunate to have good friends there, and look forward to seeing each of them again soon.

In Colorado Springs, we met up with friends Andrew, Tracy, and their 16-year old son, Matthew. We had a lot of fun seeing those guys again and are happy to see them thriving in Colorado after having spent a rough two years in New Jersey, which they didn't like so much. I was once told that in New Jersey, being courteous, helpful, friendly, or even reasonable is considered a sign of weakness. I think they're finding Colorado to be much more palatable. We do regret, however that we we were on such a tight timeline through Colorado that we didn't see other friends such as Jeff and Emily whom we met at the beginning or our trip in Sedona. I had hoped that we would've been able to make it up to Denver, where they live, but had only a handful of days to make it across country, and so weren't able to carve out any additional time. We hope that they understand and also hope to see them again at our next opportunity.

We pretty much blasted across the rest of the U.S., at least as fast as a 17-year old, overloaded pick-up truck can go, with a quick stop at Kansas' Wilson State Park to sample that state's mountain biking gem. Meh! The park campground was really nice, however, and very quiet as we were there before the summer season really began. Quiet at night, but for the cretin that camped next to us, among the 100+ empty sites, and played his music well into the night. Otherwise, it was a really nice camp spot in the middle of Kansas.

Our last whistle stop was in Louisville, Kentucky to see great long-time friends Jenni, John, and ever-growing Daniel, whom we hadn't seen since 2014. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and I knew that were in for a late night when Jenni later said, "Let's crank up the margarita machine!" Those words don't typically accompany an early-to-bed night. This night was no different. We had a lot of fun, and we enjoyed hanging out with Jenni's son, Daniel, who's now thinking about colleges where he'll be headed in a little over a year. If there was an award for "Coolest, Most Fun Family in America," Jenni, John, and Daniel would definitely be in the running.

From Louisville we spent a couple of long driving days through Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, staying at one really nice campground in the Blue Ridge Mountains alongside a small river. After another quick stop in Asheville for some mountain biking on our old stomping grounds of Bent Creek, we finally arrived in Greenville, South Carolina. We met up with my dad at their storage garage where we spent an hour or so prepping Tortuga for long-term storage (I washed about four pounds of dead bugs off the front of the truck). Before we rolled out of the garage, we took a moment to offer our solemn appreciation to Tortuga for safely and reliably carrying us these past 18 months. Job well done, Tortuga! This is also a good spot for us to say hi and thanks to two of our most faithful readers: Betty and Bricelyn, from Greenville. We appreciate you keeping up with us and hope that we've provided some entertainment. We missed you at the YMCA yesterday, but hope to see you there next time we're in town!

So here we are in Greenville, turning my parents's condo into a squatters camp, organizing and packing for our much-anticipated trip to England, where we'll stay with Fi's parents and visit friends. In July, it's back to the U.S. where we'll gear up for another bicycle tour through Maine and Eastern Canada to commemorate my 50th birthday. I hear that the best way to keep the swarms of biting black flies at bay in Maine is with a shotgun. And that the weather in Maine can best be described as nine months of winter and three months of damn poor sleddin'. I hope Fi doesn't learn about that before we go.

There are a bunch more low-resolution and poorly framed photos at the bottom of this page; just scroll down past all of the junk and you'll see them there. We will almost certainly start a new blog in July once we begin our bicycle tour. Until then, cheers and thanks for checking in with us!

~ Ken and Fi

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Photos

18 Road Campground, Fruita, Colorado
Our favourite mountain biking destination in the States.

Our storage unit in Pagosa Springs
Getting our touring bikes out of storage to be shipped to Maine.

Fi, Ken, Jenni, & John
Walking along the Ohio River in Louisville. (Fi loves standing next to John, who, at 6'4" makes her feel short!)

Dinner in Louisville
Fi, Ken, John, and Daniel; out to dinner!

Washing Dead Bugs from Tortuga
The end of the trip - well done, Tortuga!

Comments

[Steve and Anja]

Always welcome.....
Always a great fun evening when we can sit around the table and break bread and share a glass of wine or 3 with you all...… We look forward to more fun reports and hope to catch up with you soon on one of your adventures..... Steve and Anja