A Day in The Life

Happy tax day!? Did you do your taxes yet? I had to pay and I set mine up to pay on the 14th, as I am not paying any earlier than I absolutely have to! I hope that you got money back, or did not have to pay too much! 

I know I said I was not going to just talk about the bike trip. but Nicole's post about normal every day life the other day inspired me (plus Engie asked me for the nitty gritty about every hour of my day). I love hearing about other people's different days, so I thought I would do one for my current "routine." Each day is different, but on this day (April 7, 2024), I had wild camped near Lava Bed National Monument. I am going to do this day as a 24 hour period instead of the standard "awake" hours; you will see why in a minute. 

9:30 pm: After falling asleep while reading around 6:00 pm (oops), I wake up, thinking it is morning. Realizing it is not, I puff a few puffs of air into my sleeping pad (it seems to have a very small leak) and I go back to sleep. 

11:00 pm: Wake up, roll over. 

1:00 am: Wake up, roll over. Sometimes sleeping while camping is not fun.

3:00 am: Wake up, realize it's pretty cold out, put sleeping bag over head, roll over.

4:30 am: Wake up, hear snow hitting the tent, roll over.

5:00 am: Alarm goes off, hear snow hitting the tent still, decide to not get up yet, put on a podcast.

6:45 am: After listening to several podcasts, it is still snowing. Thermometer shows that it is 31 degrees inside the tent, so I can only assume it is in the mid 20s outside. After a period of hemming and hawing, I decide to get up and face the music.

Frozen tent

7:00 am: Mobilization tasks include (in this order generally): put on contact lenses, socks (in sleeping bag so they get warm), beanie, long sleeve shirt, hydration pack, buff (on neck), wired earphones (use to save battery, better if they are under jacket) and rain jacket. Take off sleeping shorts, put on hated diaper pants (bike shorts), and long pants. Deflate sleeping pillow (this is a new luxury for me), and sleeping pad and put in bag. Put sleep liner (adds about 10-15 degrees of warmth) in bag. Stuff sleeping bag in bag, filling all cracks. Lastly, put electronics, sleeping shorts and Kindle in the bag. 

7:15 am: Put on shoes. Exit tent. There is snow on the ground and on Bob. It is very cloudy and I am hoping that it does not snow all day. Pee in bushes, which involves removing two layers of pants, peeing, pulling up two layers of pants and tucking in two shirts. Brush teeth. Put on gloves, tighten wrist Velcro on jacket. The less wind getting in, the better. Eat a granola bar and skip coffee due to cold/snow and lack of extra water. Deconstruct and pack up tent. Strap bag with sleeping items on back rack. 

7:45 am: Start Garmin Inreach (this is a satellite tracker and SOS messenger), start Garmin Edge (this is a bike computer that tells me which way to go), start Coros watch (this logs my miles, elevation, heart beat etc.) Plug headphones into phone, start audiobook. Drink water. Leave camp, start pedaling. 

7:45 am - 8:30 am: Pedal, take photos, beat my hands on my handlebars and feet on the pedals because they are cold due to snow and 28 degree temps (according to the bike computer, this may not account for the cold, cold wind though). On this day I go through Lava Bed National Monument, who most of you have probably never heard of, as it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It is full of lava and caves and is probably pretty cool to explore, but I do not do it this time, as it is very cold and I need to get a permit from the (closed) visitor center to be able to go into the caves. However, check out Skull Cave; isn't it cool? It may be worth coming back someday! 

Lava

8:30 am - 10:30 am: Pedal, take photos. Am kind of glad when there is a small (read: small!) hill as it gives me a chance to warm up a little. I go through the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, where I am sure there are normally a lot of birds, but today there is not much. It snows most of the time, but at least it is not rain! I am craving a coffee, and the road has been a bit straight and I need a break, but there is nothing! I have literally seen no services for the last ~ 80 miles. 

Still cold!

10:30 am: Finally, I get to the Oregon border and there is a liquor store/bar/market on the corner and I fling down the bike and go in! It reminds me of home; there is nobody inside but the bartender points me to the coffee machine and lets me sit in front of the fire. As I sit there, I hear the cook or someone in the back talking about his night last night and it is entertaining to say the least. I look at the map, book a room in Klamath Falls, and warm my toes. A few locals come in and sit at the bar and they start asking me where I am going, and upon learning that my next stop is KF, the proceed to give me advice on which route to take that is the most scenic (and flat, I hope!) I end up taking their advice, because why not!? 

My new favorite bar

11:00 am: I pay for my coffee and drag myself outside, where the sun has come out! It is probably still in the high 30s, but having the sun at my back is priceless. I can hear three guys in trucks admire my bike set up as I leave. I follow the route that the bar guy told me to take, and he was right! It is pretty and there are not many cars, and the ones that do come give me lots of space. 

Lower Klamath Lake Road

2:00 pm: I arrive at KF and after having a bit of a harrowing ride along the main drag in town (no bike lane, fast cars), I get to my motel and check in. They do not have a room on the first floor, or an elevator, so I drag Bob up the stairs. He probably weighs about 75 pounds without me on him. I get into my room and complete my normal room review. Does the room have: a coffee machine, a refrigerator, a microwave? In this case it has the last two, which means I can buy cold things from the grocery store! 

2:15 pm: Before leaving to get food, I do the following: remove bike shorts and wash, hang to dry (they are thick and need time), put on sleeping shorts, remove wet tent from bike and hang to dry, start charging my power bank, get my Chico bag. I walk to the grocery store and buy too much food. This is very common. I always have eyes bigger than both my stomach, and my bike bag capacity. I will figure out a way to make it work though. I do buy a salad and some frozen peas, which I will have to eat right away. The rest, even the cheese and brats, can be stored on the bike the first day, as the temps are supposed to be pretty cold the first day (25 - 45 degrees). My weakness is tortilla chips, AND they take up too much room, but I buy them anyway. I also buy ice cream, which I will eat for dinner later. :) However, to my credit, it all fits in the Chico bag! Not only that, but this food, along with a few other bars and things that I already have, need to last me for the next four days, until my next grocery store.

Grocery haul!

3:30 pm: I am back in the room. I remove all of my clothing and wash it in the sink, and hang it up in front of the heater, which I have put on full blast. Even without clothing on, I am sweating, but needs must! I need my clothes to be dry by tomorrow. I eat the salad and some peas, and repackage some of the food (rice, coffee) so that I don't have any boxes. 

Dinner #1

4:30 pm: Done eating. I swap my charging item. I only carry one square, so need to do one thing at a time unless there are USB ports in the motel. Luckily, this one has two of them, so I can charge three things at once! Yay. However, I have eleven items that need to be charged! Isn't that ridiculous? What ever happened to going out in the wild with a map and a compass and a hunk of jerky? Actually, several of these items will last a few days, or can be charged with the power bank, but I always fill them up when I do have power just in case. 

4:30 pm - 6:30 pm: I shower and put on the game show network. Who knew there were so many games that are just like Family Feud? Also, when did all of the hosts become so annoying? Also, clearly older people are watching this channel, as there are a lot of commercials for medications, some of which may give you pain or swelling in your perineum! Really? All you need for that is to ride a bike for several days in a row. I go through my route plan again for the next week, while eating ice cream. I note down where the water sources are, how far it is between towns, possible reroutes I may need or want to do. I check the weather for the next few days. It is supposed to get warmer, with highs in the 60s in a few days, but it is supposed to rain after that. I hope that the second part is wrong. 

6:30 pm - 8:30 pm: I do some administrative things (write a blog post, pay my property tax, make sure everything is running smoothly with the house etc.) since I have WiFi and probably will be camping in the wild for the next several days. I also download some new books from the library, and make sure they are usable offline, and back up my photos that I recently took. However, the WiFi is NOT fast, and it ends up taking over 12 hours to upload my recent photos to the cloud. Annoying, but at least I can get some things done. I have some nachos (tortilla chips with melted cheese - I love having a microwave!) for dessert. 

8:30 pm: Brush teeth, take out contacts, pee (in a toilet! Yay!). Get in bed to wind down. Send a few text updates to people since I may not be in service for a while. 

9:00 pm: Put on a podcast and fall asleep. 

Is your normal morning or evening routine the same every day? What is the most random national park or preserve that you have been to and loved? 

Episode One: Plan G

You know how there is plan A and then plan B etc.? The last few weeks have been a lesson in always having a backup and/or being willing to go with the flow. I feel like I am currently on plan F or G of my trip already. The original plan had been to start from Grass Valley, CA and head over the Sierra toward Klamath Falls, OR, where I would meet up with some friends for about a week near Bend, OR before heading back to Klamath Falls to start north again. 

Things were looking pretty good for a while; the snow was melting and Punxsutawney Phil had said that spring was coming early, which I was a big fan of. However, about a week before I had planned on starting, there was a big snow storm in the Sierra and things started looking bleak for me. I told my Dad that his ski season was going to need to be cut short, but in the end, he got lucky. This was not a horrible thing; it just meant that my plan to try to stay on dirt paths for the bulk of my trip just went out the window, and instead of going over the hills, I would need to take the road around through the valley. However, this did not mean I did not need to go through the mountains still; I would just do it in a lower place instead. 

Country road, take me home...(table mountain in the distance)

In the next couple of days, I got to Red Bluff via backroads, and then cut east to head up and over the mountains. Well, this day it started raining, then snowing and then I actually hit snow at about 4,200 feet, which is a bit lower than expected. So I tried to plod through it for a while, but ultimately it was very hard and it was uphill and my feet were getting cold, so I decided to head back down the hill to regroup. I was going to try to hitchhike to the town of Burney, but nobody would pick me (a very wet person) and Bob (a very wet bike) up. Luckily, I found a feed store that was on the side of the highway and I went in and begged Sonny, the owner (we became good friends), if I could use his heater to warm up and asked him if he knew anyone with a truck who would be willing to give me a ride. 

After reviewing the weather in Burney and surrounds, I determined that the upcoming snow would make this journey a bit unpleasant and possibly dangerous, so in the end, I decided to go back to Redding, which is along highway 5 and wait for my friends there instead of in Klamath Falls. Luckily Sonny's friend was headed to town and he gave me a ride right to my motel! Thank goodness for friendly folks. After a week in Oregon, I was back in Redding, but ironically, though it had been nice for the last five days, it was set to snow again in the mountains! I decided to take a bus to Burney and start from there rather than trying to go up the snowy slopes of the highway. 

Yup, those are my tracks (and a bunny)

The pass I wanted to avoid

This turned out to be a wise decision. The highway (299) to Burney was uphill, windy and had very little shoulder and there were a couple of snowy passes. In the end, I skipped about 7 miles, but I am okay with that. I started off in Burney and headed east and then north again. However, lest you think it was easy, it was uphill, snowing part of the time, and in the 20s in the mornings! But I made it to Klamath Falls safely in the end. The weather is still supposed to be a bit hit and miss, but this week's lows are supposed to be in the 30s and highs in the 50s/60s so that is much better than 20s! I have spent a lot of time looking at weather, routes, and webcams lately, but hopefully things will become more (and stay more) spring-like after this. 

View of Mt. Lassen from highway 299

A few stats --> Dead animals seen on side of the road: snakes, squirrels, cat, deer, vole, birds, lots of unidentified bones. I have also seen lots of cans (but not as many as in Washington), cigarette packets, and beer bottles. Good things I've seen: many farms/ranches/live animals including goats, donkeys, ponies, horses, sheep, ducks, geese, hawks, unidentified birds, dogs & cats, many sunrises, many empty roads, fun small towns.

Now the fun part, the Q&A! If you haven't gone and asked any questions yet, you can do it here. Don't be shy! It can even be anonymous if you want it to! I thought I would answer a few in each post, except for some of Engie's questions, for which the answers will likely be an entire post! This time, I will answer a few logistic questions that I have recently been asked. 

Where do you sleep? (Michelle and various other friends) - I am doing a mix of wild camping, established camping, motels and staying with friends. Most of this will not be planned in advance, as I will not really know how fast or how far I will go each day, but my expectation is that I will likely try to have a warm bed and a shower about once a week. If it rains or snows on me a lot, this number may increase. [edited to add: given the snowy conditions, I have so far stayed in a motel 4 nights and wild camped 2 nights, but I am hoping to do a lot more camping over the next week.]

Wild camping in Modoc County, temps around 40

What do you eat? (Michelle and various other friends) - I carry enough food to get me to the next town, which will likely mostly be only a day or two's worth of food. However, there will be sections where I will need to carry several days worth of food or several liters worth of water. What I carry will be similar to backpacking food, like rice, beans and oatmeal, but I will also be able to carry some heavier things or fresher items like peanut butter, bagged salad and fruit/veggies. I will also stop in towns and eat real food from time to time! My favorite grocery store foods in town are ice cream, cheese and meat, but I will also be splurging on an omelet or a hamburger sometimes. I also do carry a stove and so I can have hot food like instant rice, oatmeal and coffee. 

Typical snack food

Coffee maker (aka the stove)

Where do you use the bathroom? (My friend K's 10 year old daughter L) - This really depends on where I am. The first few days I was in small towns or rural roads. If there is no traffic and/or I can hide, I usually just pee in the bushes. If I am in a town, I may use a park restroom or a gas station restroom, but I don't really like leaving my bike out too long. If I am camping, I will go in the bushes. If I am in a motel, I will use a toilet! 

Will I carry a weapon? (My aunt and my friend G) - Not this time. I am going to leave my Glock at home, but will likely get bear spray when I am closer to or am in Canada. 

Progress report: 352 mi / 563 km | 7 days | 42 hours (6 per day) | gummy bears eaten: 76

How was your week last week? Did you get any snow? Is it cold where you are? What do you do to warm up when you are cold? 

Round The World (RTW) Episode Five

Over the years, I have stopped working to take various longer adventures around the world. The first was in 1999, when, after taking a semester of French, I signed up for a work abroad summer program and went to Bordeaux to work in a French supermarket. I overpacked, bungled around with the language and learned very quickly how to summon help and to be relieved to hear "j'arrive." 

Tour de France, 1999 (Lance Armstrong won that year)

In 2004, I quit my job and went to live in London. After being there for a couple of months, and doing some local traveling in Europe, I stayed in Paris for a month before moving to Istanbul. This was my first version of a round the world trip. During this trip, I did a lot of things wrong (not fully understanding the entry restrictions, running out of money WAY faster than expected, etc.) but I learned a lot and had a great time despite my trip only lasting about six months in the end. 

London 2004

Since then, I have taken a sabbatical and/or quit my job to travel the world three more times. In 2006, I spent about four months traveling in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines and Borneo. In fact, as I mentioned in this post, my first ever blog post was in April 2006 from Vietnam (how quaint it was)! That means that in just two more years I will be celebrating my 20 year blog-iversary, woof! In 2008, I spent almost a year in South America and in 2010, I did a year long round the world trip (Europe, Africa, India, Nepal, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand). 

Singapore 2006

Guatamala 2006

Australia 2006

Chili 2008

Brazil 2008

Peru 2008

South Africa 2010

Nepal 2010

Every time I have decided to do this, it has been a nervous combination of excitement and fear. Quitting your job and going off into the great unknown is scary, but also traveling to countries you have never been to is fun! However, there is always that element of the unknown and sometimes it feels a bit intimidating to be doing this every day or week or month as you move from place to place. We get so used to our daily routines, and so comfortable with them, even if we are also sometimes stuck in a rut and want change! 

Istanbul 2004

So this post is to tell you that I am ready for episode five of the RTW travel adventure. Since my last big trip in 2011, I have pretty much only gone somewhere every one or two years and I want more! So, at long last, basically 25 years since my first big adventure, I have decided once again to step out of the rut and jump back into excitement and fear...This includes quitting my job, selling my house, selling/donating/tossing all of my things, packing up my meager belongings into a backpack and/or onto a bike and hitting the road. 

This space will still be manned, and I will probably also be resurrecting my Instagram page if you want to follow along there too (the link is in my Who Am I page). 

Currently, I plan to start by doing some biking around the northern/Midwest states of the US and southern(ish) part of Canada. I know this is a bit broad, but if you are in one of these areas, and I can pedal to your house or town, I would love to meet for a coffee or a meal! Let me know if that sounds like something you would want to do (you can comment below or my email is on my Who Am I page). After that, I will likely be doing some slow travel (staying in places for ~ a month at a time) and will start in Asia (I think?) at first and then...to infinity and beyond? The world is, once again, my oyster. 

Have you ever done any extended traveling? If so, how do you keep from getting burned out? Have you ever stayed in one place for a month or more?