Burger in the finest american style

I'm not a beef, fan, neither burgers, but I couldn't pass through States without trying 'local couisine'. That was another of my 'american dreams' - to try a geniune american burger:) A burger that would be pretty much my first burger (I ate maybe 2 burgers in my life before, both in McDonalds, when I was young and naive and don't consider them the right burger experience:))
I've been looking for the right place for the last 3 months, and 2 days before crossing the border I started to loose my hope; I wanted one of those places by the road, with these red shiny sofas that have shared back, a place with coffe and coke refill, where they have only burgers and chips in the menu, something in my opinion 'American'.
We passed this place a day before arriving to San Diego, I haven't noticed it, but Raul did and when he shouted 'Have you seen it?' and told me what he has just seen I knew that was the place! :) A burger from '40! :) And it turned to be the right timing - we found it just when we were looking for a special place to have our good-bye-America meal. We couldn't found better place! :)

Thank you our Angels!

Why you should always go to bike co-ops


We often pop to bike shops to ask for small favor - a question, advice, some screws, tightening here and there. We normally go to a community bike shops and so far we always had great experience there. |For example in Portland a guy spent half an hour or more adjusting the breaks with Raul and checking other stuff and when we wanted to pay he said 'it's OK., you are on a long trip, save your money'. Recently in Santa Cruz we spent like 4 hours working on our bikes in the local bike co-op and for all the time spent, some small parts and help (lots of help!) we were charged $5 only!
Today, a day before living US, we realized that Marta's head set wobbles, so we popped to the nearest bike shop; 5 min, and the head set was tightened - they asked us for $10!!!!
Support bike co-ops!

We just wanted to wish you all

Merry Christmas

Wesołych Świąt

Feliz Navidad

from California :)

hey,
do you want to know how did it happened that our supposed-to-be-uneventful ride to San Francisco turned into day after day surprise? Check the journal!

Heaven, we are in heaven...


Hey! We've just realized that that what California is - paradise on Earth!
The weather is perfect, it is beautiful here, there is wine, there is plenty of food (you can farm fruit and vegetables all year long) and all Saints live here (San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Santa Monica, San Jose, San Rafael, San Diego etc. etc.)!!!
Do you want a taste of the Afterlife? Come along! ;)

Cirque du Solei

Yes! We were so lucky to see Cirque du Solei Live! This was definitely the highlight of our stay in San Francisco, however beautiful and interesting this city is!
The show was amazing! Probably the best show we've ever seen. Whoever knows Cirque du Solei, can understand what we are talking about; whoever doesn't - hight time to check them out :)
Thank you Santa! ;)


That's just a taste of what we saw

On the way back to our bikes

It’s been over a month since we last pedal, seems so long ago…and it was very unlucky day; we were in a hurry to meet up with someone and Raul got a flat tire – twice! Bad luck seems to come in package…we haven’t had a single problem with bikes for over 5 months and now three punctures in less than a week! All happened to the same wheel and the last two ones without obvious reason. Faulty inner tube? We hope so, we changed it for a new one and see how it goes in a couple of days…

Now we are on the car, still a day and a half driving ahead; yellow landscape of California’s desert passing behind the widow; temperatures around 20’s C (60’s F), so difficult to imagine that Christmas are in a month time; we are stuck here in summer, for the last 5 months; summer is good, is definitely good for cycling, but it is also good when it ends…

Raul’s the driver, so I can do some catching up on our blog. We’ve done over 2000 m in the last two weeks in order  to visit the greatest, the lowest, the hottest and the craziest places in western US – Yosemite NP, Death Valley, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. It’s been very intense trip – from mountains to desert, from over 2000 m a.s.l. to nearly 100 m u.s.l. (I had my ears all the time blockedJ), from the greatest trees to places where there was no living being, from soundless desert to probably the noisiest city in US. It was intense, it was crazy, but it was worth it. I think we did the best of our time; we spent 2 full days in each park and enjoy it as much as we could; however, there are places we’d like to visit again…

Surely many will ask why by car, if we are on bike tour? Ok. So I’ll explain; we want to continue cycling along Pacific Coast and cross the Mexican border in California Baja (Baja is apparently safer and beautiful and less touristy), but we also wanted to see those Parks, who knows if we ever be back in this part of the world…  it’s November and we were already out of season, struggling with sub-zero temperatures at night, short days and cool evenings; if we cycled, places like Yosemite or Grand Canyon would be deeply buried under snow, our gears are not ready for this, and we would have to cycle back to the Pacific –it would take us 2-3 months, we are not welcome for so long in US. So, excused? ;)

And the Parks itself – stunning, breathtaking, extraordinary! Much to say, hope we will fing some time soon to share  our experienceJ