I’ve been very aloof lately as we are settling back into our (ir)regular lives. After being away for almost two years, we’ve returned to South Africa and will hopefully stick around for at least a decade or so. Going round to all the little towns we hold dear and all the dirt roads we so love, re-establishing the beautiful relationship I have with my beetle, have kept us quite busy. Wim bought a swanky Mercedes so the beetle doesn’t get all the attention it deserves, but as soon as the first rain falls, it will be the two of us (Wim can tag along if he wants to) and the nearest mud pool, getting down an’ dirty. Read more…

hanlie

It’s been a while and a lot has happened in the meanwhile, so this is getting a bit vague as it settles into memory.

The ride from Erie through Buffalo, NY was a very nice and pleasant time. For about 3 days we were just cruising on the shore of Lake Erie. There is a variety of landscapes and progression as you travel these 100 miles, from completely holiday-like houses into some parts where lots of houses are abandoned, then into very beautiful farmlands. All the more industrious towns lie about 5 or 10 miles from the shore, along the railway line and highway. So we didn’t get to see too much Read more…

Wim

That’s the name of the local paper in Erie, PA, by the way. For a little while we thought every signpost was very funny – “Erie Community…”, “Erie County” etc. “Erie Cemetery” was the best one. Every time we would read it out loud and add a “whoo, scary” or something similar. As you can imagine, the novelty wore off very quickly. Nothing was really funny any more when we started hitting some serious lake-side headwinds.

Camping on an Erie Beach

When we got to Erie City, we found a cool campsite right on the beach. Our tent was – amongst about a hundred others – right on the sand about 10 meters from the water’s edge. It reminded me of a seaside park we used to go to as a kid – Anstey’s Beach in Durban. Wim used to go there with his family too way before we met and it reminded him of the same place. It’s nice to have things verified like that.
Anyway, pretty soon people started chatting to us and I think because there was such a high concentration of tents, word got out and we had quite a few visitors. One of them, Jim, invited us over to their site for dinner. We were going to try Sarah’s, the restaurant over the street as it was recommended by people who were having a yard sale on our way to Erie. But a dinner invitation obviously over rides a dinner recommendation and freshly caught Erie fish was on the menu. Read more…

hanlie

Cincinnati

Getting into Cincinnati was pretty hectic – the road from Big Bone Lick is a single lane road with heavy traffic and a fair number of up and downhills. We didn’t follow the Adventure Cycling suggested route as we wanted to get to Donna’s house, which explains the trouble getting into town – we just followed the shortest way as suggested by Google Maps. Leaving Cincinatti and going from Tennessee into Ohio there was a definite shift in attitude toward cyclists with nicely maked Cycle Route boards next to the road leading us onto dedicated bike paths starting from about 15 miles east of Cincinnati. From Milford, OH there is a disused railway line running over 200 miles north(I don’t really know how far) toward Erie, with good paving and some very nice and friendly towns along the way. There are plenty of kayaking spots and lots of other outdoor activity going on along the route as it runs along a river some of the time, and we also found some very cool sneaky camping spots next to the route.

Being loaded up with gear is Read more…

Wim

One of the questions we often get is about the logistics of our trip. Where do we sleep, where do we shower, what do we eat etc. I thought it would be interesting to cover these, sometimes touchy subjects, in one post so everybody knows how it goes.

A pretty nice sneaky camping spot

On a regular day we would look at the map and see if there is any kind of state park or other camping facilities about 50 miles down the route. If there is, excellent! If there isn’t, the fun begins. We then see what the last town is that we will pass before our 50 mile goal. Most of the time there is some kind of civilisation about 5 or mostly 10 miles from our end goal. Under normal circumstances we would reach that goal in about 4 to 6 hours. With our extended lunches and long times spent in grocery stores included, that is between 5 and 7 o’clock in the evening (still about 2 hours of sunlight left) We would stop at the last town, fill up water bags and buy food. After we have what we need, we would scout the churches in town. What to look for is a nice patch of grass behind or next to a church where it is not visible from any of the houses. This is very difficult to find if the church is right in town, but quite easy if it is on the outskirts somewhere. If a house could see our patch of grass, we just go and ask if they think anybody would mind. Nobody wants to say it is okay because they are normally not affiliated with the church. Most of them tell us where the pastor lives or gives us a number. We then tell them that it has not been a problem so far so we’ll take our chances and they seem pretty happy with that. So now the one house that could see us are very happy cause they know what’s going on and they’ve met us and chatted to us and are fairly sure that we are harmless. If this is how it goes, we normally don’t even need the Read more…

hanlie

It’s been a while since we’ve updated and lots have happened, so look out for about 3 posts in the next few days (maybe all at once if I don’t pass out soon)

Cincinnati.

Our excellent hosts in Covington, near Cincinnati. Thanks Ecklers!

I contacted a lady from the warmshowers.org website a few weeks ago to ask if we could stay over at her house while we are in Cincinnati. Donna replied immediately and things were sorted. I couldn’t give her a date, so without intending to, we left her sort of hanging without set dates. With Wim’s derailleur hanger issues and the dry county hunt for Derek’s birthday we were a bit behind schedule. I contacted Donna a day before we were going to be in Cincinnati and not only did I give her a short notice, but I also asked if she would mind if we are four instead of two as Francis and Helene were still riding with us. Donna was kind enough to accept all these last minute changes and our visit was so nice, we stayed for 2 nights.

Before, all I knew of Cincinnati was what I remember from a television show called “WKRP in Cincinnati” when I was a kid – not much. Now I know they have quite a good baseball team called Read more…

hanlie

We’re currently camped at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky – very close to Cincinnati, and as I’m writing this it is storming like you can’t believe. The (new)tent is holding out well, the lightning is making almost permanent light outside, the wind is blowing bubbles to all sides of the tent and the rain is pouring down like there’s no tomorrow. We heard all our(unwashed) dishes being blown from the table outside but they’ll have to wait for the morning. I wonder if the bikes have been blown over yet… Read more…

Wim

1st puncture for the trip

Just before we got on the ferry to cross the Ohio river to Cave-In-Rock, IL, Wim got his very first puncture of the trip. Not bad timing, we thought as we could see the camp-site at the opposite side of the river. Little did we know that that was the first of a series of mechanical mishaps. Read more…

hanlie

Derek's Birthday!

Paducah, Kentucky is a surprisingly nice and friendly, small but sparsely spread out city that was not really on our planned route. It was named after Chief Paduc, but its main claim to fame seems to be the fact that the humorist Irvin Cobb(whom I’ve never heard of before) lived here. It is wet in way more than one way, too. The reason why we are here is a bit of a circumstantial fate driven ordeal, the kind that sometimes turn out surprisingly nice. 22 May was Derek‘s birthday, and since we were camped in a dry county on the 21st at Kentucky Damn Village RV park, we thought it might be a good idea to get a move on and find a beer to celebrate in the evening. The thing with these dry counties are that they appear without warning, and seem to border on each other in a way that creates a dry region. Most people, when asked where to get beer, will point in a direction and say “27 miles in that direction is…”. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Only problem is, riding there on a bicycle will take 3 hours if the road is not too hilly. If it is 7PM you probably don’t quite feel like doing another 3 hours of riding in the dark – after already having done 5 hours in the daytime – on a road with no shoulder and “drunken drughead drivers”(that’s a quote from most people you talk to around here: Watch out for the drunks! And the drugheads!) Read more…

Wim

You learn quite a lot about a place from Roadkill. You get to find out what kind of dangers await you when you go for a roadside lavatory break. Down here in Tennessee there are loads of brightly coloured snakes. There’s one about every 100-200 meters, so there must be at least 100 times more live ones because they move pretty fast. Armadillos seem particularly bad at successfully crossing roads. They’re worse than tortoises (which are quite bad at it too, obviously.) Armadillos are very good at hiding though, as we haven’t seen a live one yet. Read more…

hanlie