Today’s post and today’s pictures are from our Great Adventure, our bicycle tour of 1982.  I don’t know exactly where the photos are from.  The header looks to be from out west, probably British Columbia.  The photo of Anne on the park bench could be anywhere, but it looks east of the Mississippi.

Looking at the two pictures, I am surprised at our seeming youth and the seeming antiquity of our cycling equipment.  The bikes and most of our equipment were brand new when we set out.  The bikes we disposed of just a few years ago.  I set them out the night before trash day and they were gone within an hour.  The helmets have been donated to the high school for spelunking purposes.  We still have the panniers.

We biked, with occasional pauses, for over five months, starting in April and ending in September.  We were on the road for a total of 160 days, 105 of those day were actually spent biking.  We biked about 5,000 miles or about fifty miles a day.  The states and providences that we biked in include, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alberta, British Columbia and Washington state.

We mainly camped and mainly in campgrounds.  Occasionally we would stay in a motel.  In addition to clothes and personal items, we carried a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, stove, cook kit and some bike tools.  We had budgeted $10,000 for the trip, but only spent about half of that.  Anne kept a detailed log that includes notes on the sights seen, money spent and miles ridden.

The trip was brought to an abrupt conclusion when after calling in to Harry one day; he informed us that my boss wanted me to come back to work.  We had planned to take the train from Seattle to Dallas, but only got as far as Portland.  We flew back to Texas from there.  Our bikes and stuff continued on by train and despite a railway strike we were eventually able to recover them, without having to pay for the shipping.