Santa Rosa, CA 9/18/2011

Well, it has been a while, but our plan to circumnavigate the continental US on our bikes is back on track.
As most of you are aware we rode from San Diego to Miami in 2001 and earlier posts in this blog detail our ride from San Francisco to San Diego completing our west coast ride.

Tomorrow, we are flying to Bangor, Maine on the red eye flight from San Francisco via Philadelphia.  We have shipped our bikes to a bike shop in Bar Harbor, Maine and will be in Bar Harbor Tuesday afternoon. Our current plan, following the Adventure Cycling maps, is to ride from Bar Harbor to Washington, D.C.

Much has changed since our ride in 2001.  Mostly technical equipment.  In 2001 we had a Sony Vio computer which was the state of the art at the time. We submitted e-mails when possible and had no way to upload photos.  I used a throw away camera which I mailed home for Mary to develop. We had to depend on call up access to the internet and that was not always possible.  The Sony did not have a USB port!

Rudy has an IPad for this trip and a digital camera and Iam continuing to use my HP notebook with WiFi and access to the Verizon network.

Rudy has Weather Bug on his IPad so we will have up to date local weather. Weather has been great in Bar Harbor this week but looks like it might get a little damp later in the week. Our route takes us down some areas that were hit quite hard by Hurricane Lee but we are anticipating no major problems.

We are still riding our Bianchi Volpe bikes and I will detail our gear in a later blog.

Oh, we had planned to leave a bit earlier this year but Rudy had shoulder surgery and then he wanted to attend his 50th high school reunion held last night.  He said he had a good time and what is typical of 50th high school reunion attendees, was home by 10 pm.

Larry and Rudy in Santa Rosa, anxious to hit the road.