I’m home now. Here’s my total trip mileage:

Here’s me at Boston’s South Station with my very heavy bike box. (I seem to have snuck a bunch of bike gear in the box along with the bike.)

Here’s who picked me up at the train station. (For those of you who don’t know, it’s my sweetie, Anna.)

It’s good to be back home. I’m glad to be seeing fall in New England.

Thanks all for reading and commenting. Stay tuned for those pictures, gear reviews and a few other things to appear here.

Jon

P.S. Quite an amazing trip and I’m so glad I was able to do it. I’d been dreaming of this trip since high school and I finally did it. I’m hoping to get to see the Tetons in Wyoming sometime soon and people tell me Nova Scotia is great for a  _short_  bike tour.

Anna asked me what kind of people one meets on a long-distance train. I said “The adventurous, the bold, lovers of the life on the rails and those terrified of flying. Those are they who do accompany me on this journey. Perhaps I will learn more of their ways in the coming days.” I did end up meeting many phenomenal folks, though none ego mentioned a fear of flying. Here I will tell about some of them and share some sights I saw along the way.

I met this lovely couple in the observation car. If you have never ridden in a car like this, you have missed out on an experience. The seats are arranged for people to enjoy the views and mingle. The windows are large and wrap around to the ceiling. The people who gather here are those who truly enjoy traveling. Roger and Judy in the picture above are such people. They have traveled many places and are huge bike enthusiasts, having toured in Nova Scotia and ridden from Santa Rosa (north of San Francisco) to Mexico. They are also part of the cult of Bike Friday, a manufacturer of folding bicycles. They toured on a folding tandem bike. They were also just a delight to talk with. I was also randomly seated with them and an aspiring bike tourer the next day at lunch, where tales of travel continued.

Me in the observation car, below. (I should let everyone know that these cars are only on western trains because they are too tall for eastern tunnels.)

I had two seats to myself most of the journey. I was disappointed to see this character sitting in the seat next to mine after I took an extended trip to the cafe car which included a stop in Rochester, N.Y.

My disappointment did not last, however. Ryan, pictured above, was seriously interesting. (Terrible lighting makes him look older and much graver than the light hearted fellow I met.) He is an activist who helps prevent evictions. He works against evictions that don’t make sense for anyone, but are driven by interlocking sets of rules intended to protect banks and their loan insurers. This will probably take some research and time to explain properly. He also separately works at a homeless shelter for a pretty bad ass nun. They take folks in who can’t handle the rules of the other shelters. They don’t take government money so they don’t have to abide by federal regulations.

I should mention about a movement to change the approach to homelessness, called “housing first.” The idea is that it is a lot more sensible to address homelessness by providing homes rather than shelters and other emergency services for most homeless folks. It’s much cheaper and had much better outcomes for the folks served, since it’s much easier to get your life in order when you’re not homeless. The other thing I learned is that Boston has one of the best anti-eviction organizations in the country, who’s name I am forgetting, so put it in the comments if you know it.

I am home now, but have a few more posts for this blog. I have a bunch of pictures to share of various parts of the trip, extended gear reviews and a few other things, before I put this blog into hibernation. Perhaps it may awake later for other (shorter) bike adventures.

Well the final phase of the journey has begun. I could go no further west so now it’s time to return home. Time to be with the woman I love. Time to find employment. Yet, for now it’s just time to enjoy my ride across the country. Time to reflect. Time to connect with some folks I owe a call, email or post or even a letter. Time to watch the world go by. Time to see what happens over the next three and a half days of this train ride.

I am content.

So, after crossing the bridge to San Francisco, there was ing important task to do to mark the end of my journey: I had to go to the Pacific Ocean and dip my wheels into the Pacific Ocean. This is a bit of a tradition among cyclists and a tradition I wanted to follow. It seemed a nice way to mark the end of the journey.

I made my way to Golden Gate Park, which was oddly located a few miles from the bridge and made my way siren the concrete steps to the beach. Here I observed two things: many bonfires on the beach and the extent difficulty of pushing a loaded bike through sand. The people were mostly folks who had just been to the mostly bluegrass festival. I did find a brave volunteer to take a pictures off the dipping

Now I’m happily at my friends Helen and Meso’s place, via a bike ride to civic center Bart. These are great folks who I know from the days when I lived in Oakland. They are simply wonderful folks to be seeing again.

Well I made it to San Francisco. After spending a few wonderful days in Santa Rosa with my cousin Meredith, her awesome cousin husband Steve, two cats, three ducks, and a few chickens, it was time to hit the road. (The full Santa Rosa post will just have to wait along with a few others, as it is late and I need some sleep!)

So, after packing up it was almost tinge to get on the road, but there was one little thing to do. Steve had promised me a ride in his eclectic motorcycle. So after getting all suited up with helmet and protective (armored) clothing, we headed out. It was a total thrill! A bit scary at points, since I haven’t ridden motorcycles much, but lots of fun. So, it was a bit of a late start.

The day’s awesomeness continued with Meredith and Steve riding out with me. Meredith rode with me all the way to Petaluma. From there it was lots of fairly pleasaunt riding with some hills down towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here’s a great guy I met at the pizza shop on the way.

Lots of cyclists once I got further south, three of whom I had the pleasure of riding with a different times. They provided good company, conversation and, essentially, directions. Here’s Kid(?) from Tiburon, who rode with me quite a ways.

One guy even let me draft off him for a bunch of miles, allowing me to get to the Golden Gate Bridge before sunset. I took a bunch of pictures there and felt the thrill of accomplishment. Here’s a few.

Fellow cyclist enjoying the moment with me.

Not much to say about my first day in Tahoe. I slept in. I napped. I ate lunch and came back for a nap. It was that kind of a day. Riding in the cold definitely wiped me out. Here’s the hostel living room.

The next day was a bit more adventurous. After breakfast I was planning to take a small hike in the hills behind the hostel. That’s when Ed walked in.

Ed had been due in the same day as me, but a collision that neither the deer nor his car survived delayed him a day. He mentions a hike up Mount Rose an days “Want to come with?” So a little while later we’re riding in his rental car to the trailhead at 8,000 feet.

We see a whole bunch of water bottles and granola bars and learn just before helping ourselves to what we thought we leftovers that they were for a group of fourth graders that were hiking the mountain that day. We started  the trail.

That’s Ed and some scenery. And that’s all for now. I’m eager to  get on the road to Santa Rosa, where I’ll see my cousin Meredith and her husband Steve. Upcoming posts: up the mountain, Donnor pass, the Sierras, and music in Davis. Yep, im a bit behind in this blog, but be assured that I am safely in California’s central valley and that there are plenty of tomatoes for everyone.