Portland Cycleacircus

As unfortunate as it may be that we haven't been doing a lot of cycling, or circus-ing, we have been up to other mischievousness and mayhem. Tomorrow being the official Stalk like a Ninja Day will be promptly celebrated as well as Santacon following this Saturday the 8th of December. http://drunkenrampage.com/event_pages/december/December.html

Other than that, I feel like a bike-touring info-dispenser lately as I've gotten quite active in Couchsurfing and constantly find people that want to know more about touring. I'll actually be a nomadic ambassador soon, yay for me! I know I'll need to get on the road again soon, but how and where I'm not sure. I've had a tempting offer to partake in some WWOOFing in Hawaii, Kauai and other paradise-like islands. Escapism? SURE! More like training, in paradise. Anyone know how I can find a boat over there? Other than that, more fixing on Pearl needs to be done, I've got a few technical questions, Muffin? JJ? Love to the crew!
JC

"Books and Bikes undermine the aspirations of dictators"

an axiom introduced to me by a kind host in santa barbara. strange place this is, officially in so cal in all it's glory. the weather is hot, sometime reaching into the nineties. life is good. bike bike bike. -jon

on the road...still

the updates are fewer and fewer as are the riders. Kaite has gone to colorado, Lilia is in the bay area and swears she'll never bike again. only Daniel and I continue on, and will soon part ways as he makes his way east to learn about blacksmithing in prescot arizona. we're having an awesome time though. big sur is almost as hilly as it is gorgeous and santa cruz was a trip(always is) met up with a bunch of old friends and was peppersprayed less than an hour later. you can read all about it at SC indymedia. that and so much more. thanks to micah for the changes to blog. i'm sure i can come up with some things to add to that list also, although i regretfully admit my beer consumption long outlasted my creativity and i mostly just use whatever's on hand these days. oh and i forgot to mention we had a great time in the bay area staying with old friends and even catching the hail seizures while they were down this way on tour.

lots of love,
-jon

scattered in sf

wow, daniel & i finally made it to spenser's pad in oakland. with lilia hitch-hiking into the city and kaite arriving in ahead of us by bike. we wandered onto haight street making expensive payphone calls and wondering how far we'd have to bike by night to get to a safe place to camp with all our gear. but at the last moment it all got worked out and here we are, minus lilia. she's off with some good friends. the ride down hwy 1 was amazing, the fog rolled in on us and stayed there for days. a few time we were able to climb high enough to get out of it and the reward was an amazing view. more to come,

-jon

Ahhhh!

I made it to the Bay! woohoo!
I temporarily abandoned the crew and rode down here by myself from Arcata. I rode across the Golden Gate bridge this morning, and now am somewhere in San Francisco. Scary riding around the city.
The ride down was beautiful, I made good time, and enjoyed the alone time, but I must admit the nights were a little lonely. No one to talk about the day with, make dinner with, play cards with.
No time now, excited to be here, now comes the tricky part of locating my friends who live here and figuring out where I'm sleeping tonight!
Love,
Kaite

Blog Update

Hey check it out I just added a new poll so ya'll can vote on it. i know it doesn't include some well deserving circus acts, acro-balance gets an honourable mention, but the poll function can't handle more than 5 choices. maybe when this one is done i'll do a follow up second string favorite circus act. and remember this is a scientific poll so to keep the results fair log on to as many computers as possible and vote as often as you can for your favorite. did you hear about the CNBC presidential poll that got pulled from their cite after ron paul won, all you crazy right-wingers fear not our poll will be fair and balanced anyway you can swing it and will problably stay up for months before we update it.

-jon

ps anyone remember this piece of blog-o-sphere history

At last...

...the long awaited blog update that our thousands of daily readers have been waiting for!
Here's my attempt at a quick synopsis of the past bit of time:
Some more rain, some more cold, some more biking south. Started to forget what dry feels like, packing up wet tents in the mornings, unpacking wet clothes, putting on wet socks and shoes. North Bend was filled with adventures: We ate the most delicious pumpkin cheesecake ever, a huge treat considering we had been living largely off of sandwiches...the easiest way to get all of our food groups without a stove...hummus avocado tomato onion sandwiches, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, salami sandwiches, tofurkey sandwiches...
I had an eye infection, for which I finally went to the doctor in North Bend, where they gave me free samples of eye drops and charged me an arm and a leg to look at it through a microscope for 30 seconds and write some stuff down.
We had our first meeting with cops, also in North Bend, since we started this time around, for sleeping in the wrong place. They ran our IDs and let us stay there and sleep. It's amazing how much traveling with bikes full of stuff allows you to get away with. What worked: us with our bikes and gear explaining that we're biking down the coast and needed a place to sleep. What wouldn't work: us without bikes and gear explaining that we just needed a place to sleep. What occasionally works: walking into restaurants, dirty and smelly with helmets on, explaining that we're on a bike trip and we're low on funds and asking for free food. What wouldn't work: someone walking into a restaurant, dirty and smelly, explaining that they are low on funds and need to feed their family and asking for free food. As if we deserve places to sleep and food to eat more than other people because we are "doing something"...
We met George around Gold Beach and caught a ride in his truck to Lilia's parents' place, which is incredibly beatiful and filled with luxuries like beds, showers, kitchen, laundry. We did a little work, a lot of reading, some playing cards, and Lilia introduced me to the joys of tea with milk and honey.
We are currently in Ashland and will be here for the weekend. Dumpstered pastries galore, 4 jars of free almond butter from the Maranatha distribution center, and hoping to hit Dagoba tonight...we also went to Red Robin in Medford, where my childhood dream of becoming the giant red bird was relived.
We saw a movie last night called "In the Valley of Elah". Depressing and powerful, well worth seeing...
After the weekend, back to Lilia's parents' place to do some work for a while before we head south.
Love,
Kaite

coming from new orleans:
we are looking into getting rides west or perhaps biking west but in an case I plan on finding a couple of volunteer opportunities here in new orleans either with some community bike shops or animal shelters or both. as far as I can tell there is a juggling club at the universities here but these are not well published and are therefore quite hard to get hold of or find anything of substance out about.
perhaps we will will make it into central america but spirits are low with JC breaking spokes and brakes and my self getting flats at a most amazing rate. Currently I am on my fourth back tire and dealing with at least one flat per day, regardless of the tire guard. we will be getting into a bike shop tomorrow and should be able to get maintenance done.
The temperature is quite overwhelmingly warm here and promises to stay so for quite some time. the cicadas are quite insistent on making as much noise as possible and the the ants are particularly aggressive.
Really I have nothing more to say and so will be getting back to my gin and vermouth. more at a future time, best of luck to all who are reading this and so forth.


micah

Clever Coons and Raging Winds

It's cold and rainy and windy outside so we're hanging out in the library in Newport, so another quick update:
We rode to Lincoln City yesterday and set up camp at a state park. The three of us cuddled up in a tent and played cards til it was too dark to see. Sometime in the middle of the night, some racoons broke into our food stash! They stole most of it...all six whole wheat bagels, the good seed bread, the last of the Poppycock, the Snickers, the sesame sticks and wasabe peas, the hot cocoa...imagining them running around mischieviously jacked up on sugar makes me feel okay about it...and at least they left the avocado and apple and nori strips.
We left a note respectfully thanking the state of Oregon for their understanding and letting us stay at their park despite our lack of funds. We made it to Newport today and it's so cold and rainy and windy and blustery out, I don't think we're leaving today. We are biking sloooow...up long hills for miles into a wind that seems in a hurry to get north!
Also, Lilia got her first flat tire today since starting in May and the waves are amazing...
Love,
Kaite

Nicest Time of the Year

On the road again! I got a ride down to Astoria on Friday where I met Jon and Lilia. Leaving Olympia was more emotional and tear-filled than expected, but this is what I want to be doing right now...
I started laughing hysterically as we were biking yesterday. In conditions that would normally lead me to put on my fuzzy red pants and torn up blue hoodie, cuddle up in blankets with someone I love, drink hot cocoa, tell stories, laugh, maybe watch a movie and make delicious lentil vegetable soup, I suddenly found myself biking up and down hills on the Oregon coast. I could barely see through the rain, the wind was nearly knocking me over. Perfect. The forecast says rain rain and rain for the next days, but yesterday was supposed to be the worst of it, and it should clear up as we get further south. Before I began this journey, Lilia assured me this is the "nicest time of the year" on the Oregon coast. We make sure to laugh about that often.
It has become clear that we will be covering ground slower than we were this summer, at least until we get a bit further south. It's cold in the mornings and hard to start early, it's quite hilly, it's rainy and windy and cold, and it gets dark early. Note to self and others it may pertain to: Biking down the Oregon coast in October=rain+wind+cold+hills.
But in all seriousness, the riding is absolutely beautiful and we continue to have fun and meet awesome people. We stopped at a favorite spot of Jon's and hung out at the beach, hiked around a bit, we stayed with some former Greeners in Astoria and at a collective house of friendly people in Nehalem. Yesterday we were teeth-chatteringly cold and wet once we stopped biking and we wanted to be warm and dry so we gave in and spent what amounted to over half of our current group funds on a hotel room...in doing so, we managed to turn off the rain and bring out the blue skies! ha, but let me tell you, we lived it up...TV, microwave dinners, hot tub, sauna, showers, heat...
We are in Tilamook now (we went to the cheese factory!) and looking forward to more biking and more beautifulness and awesomeness. I'm excited to be on the road again, having new adventures, seeing new places, meeting new people, eating bread and hummus and chips and salsa and drinking $3 wine, just like the old days...

Take care, post comments, send e-mails, etc.
Love,
Kaite

astoria oregon

lilia & i just arrived in astoria oregon, you know the cute little town where the goonies & kindergarten cop were filmed. we stayed in oly for a few days, visited with old friends, then biked to portland with tyger, who just got a job there. for folks familiar with the route; does anyone know what's up with the changes to camping spot in vader? it's been turned into a park of sorts. days spent with lilia's bro and his partner. they were excellent hosts. just to prove the crazy magnetic pull of oly we caught the dollar bus back up to oly for one night before coming back down grabbing our bikes and taking off for astoria. we've had a couple of great nights camping, we saw the full moon rise over the columbia and last night we hunkered down for a storm on our buddy weyerhauser's land. any day now kaite will be rejoining us and possibly some others? you know who you are. but for now we're going to explore this cute little coast town, maybe even hang out for a weekend beer festival that starts tonight.

-jon

Nashville and more

And so it is that the Cycle-@-Circus continues!
JC here, Micah and I on the road and going strong! We picked up Rachel, our friendly rat from Chicago, and Jimmy the professional roller-derby referree! But more on this to come...

Its been far too long since I've gotten a post off, so this may be long.
First off, leaving Tyger was far too tough for my taste, and biking solo far too familiar and isolated. As tough as traveling alone can sometimes be, it often has its benefits such as biking as fast as I'd like! Covering around 100 miles a day I soared across Ohio and into Indiana, where I met some friendly locals that (in a wonderful middle-american twang) called their own police rednecks! Got into some minor hills but nothing would stop me from reach Bloomington in a mere four days! Got into town and I could feel the lull after the storm. I was a day late, Jon-Jon and Lilia had just left with many of the other kids for the PreNC, alas Beetown treated me well. I got a place to myself for a couple of days and got to relax and keep training. Juggled at a family reunion and on the college campus; during the latter I had over a thousand people walk by and not a single one stop or say or do anything except walk along with the rest of the herd. It was such an amazing mentality to watch all of these people go by, and not a single one wanted to step out of line (this changed slightly when the crowd died down and it was just INDIVIDUALS). Beetown also had an incredibly explosive ending; if you haven't seen the pictures yet on the photobucket, I highly recommend checking them out. I jumped from an approximately 80 foot tall cliff into an old rock quarry, the same one used while filming the movie "Breaking away." It was an exhilirating, life-changing experience that I will never forget!

On the road again with a 3 pound bag of trail mix and a full stomach I ran into some problems; headwinds of up to 30 mph, steep hills, rain and humidity to the point that I was constantly wet, and the runs. Yuck. It took some willpower and medicine to get me through it, as well as a full roll of toilet paper. It got dark on the third day and I was only 40 miles to Nashville, so I decided to trek it the rest of the way there through the night (which is coming so early now!) to have a nice warm shower and place to rest.

A big shoutout to ALL of the Nashville kids, especially the Rat Patrol, and Nate & Rat, and James Smith. It was such an incredible place, and such an amazing experience; quite possibly my favorite city on the trip so far, I could definitely see myself returning there! I stayed for almost a week, met friends of T-claw's and Gene's got to work with the local Food not Bombs twice, built a bicycle for Rachel to come touring with us, and got to participate in Hank's Happy Hootenanny! There were around 60-90 of us with tall-bikes, choppers, freak-bikes, and all sorts of ordinary ones and we tore through the city! We could take over bars, we consumed a three-lane-wide street, we tore down through the Honky-Tonks with no brakes, no lights, and no helmets, dodging cars and each other with not a single person crashing! Talk about skill! And then came the jousting competition!!! (Check on youtube for videos, I know they exist, my pictures won't be up for a little while) It was such an incredible place with so much going on, so many amazing people and yeah, nothing bad to say about the place except for the amount of closed-minded folk that we challenged straight to their faces!

And now we come to the Natchez-Trace trail, a beautiful, scenic, 440 mile long path that has limited access, nothing commercial, and super bike-friendly. We're getting off in Jackson (about 70 miles away) to cut straight down to New Orleans! Fortunately there haven't been any major tropical depressions, which we've all been quite manic about. Jimmy joined us up until yesterday, we met him in Nashville and he had all his own touring stuff. The kid grew up in Kansas, and spent years in Brooklyn and Portland; but alas, he had to get to Austin for this years roller-derby finals. So its down to three, and we're not quite sure how long Rachel will be with us for, and then it'll be just Micah and I again. This leg of the trip has been pretty awesome this far, last night we stayed in Kosciusko.

I DUMPSTERED A HOTEL ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
let me repeat that...
I DUMPSTERED A HOTEL ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, while foraging for food in the friendly local Pizza hut, pulling out boxes of pizza and breadsticks a kind, Jesus-loving woman came up to me proclaiming how disgusted she was that we were pulling food and eating it out of the dumpster. Rachel was beside me with her face literally stuffed, while I was able to do the talking, thank her for the money that she wanted to give me, but tell her that it wasn't really necessary, and that I've eaten far worse than day-old pizza. However, she insisted that we come inside and feast ourselves on the all-you-can-eat salad bar (the mere words make me salivate), which we did. And then she demanded that we come back to her place, where warm showed, free food and clothes would be provided in plentiful quantities. But alas, her husband was a police officer and vetoed her kind gesture, instead suggesting that they just get us a hotel room. Pearl is now the heaviest she has ever been after gorging ourselves on food last night and cramming all the rest into my panniers. I've still got 2 full pizza boxes from the dumpster and am looking forward to some slower going with all of my newly acquired weight. But we're well-rested and had an enjoyable night just relaxing, swimming, and doing next to nothing. And then it calls...

On the road again,
Just can't wait to get,
On the road again,
Where fun and laughter never ends,
I'll always be with my friends,
On the road again.

back in cascadia

where to begin...chronologially i suppose...crammed into a van wasn't so bad with such good people...we met even more great folks along the way...layfatte indiana had a pretty good turnout for our little teach-in and were especially sweet in kicking down some bucks...the next morning we descended on an office of one of tose evil profiteering corporations pushing the i-69 highway project and we successfully delayed the one guy in the office from working for about 5 minutes before we hit the road for chicago...chicago was a smaller turnout but we did get to stay with some awesome folks 'the lowercase collective' props to them...then on to minneapolis where we participated in the pReNC weekend...lots of anarchists were present strategizing for the 2008 republican nat'l convention in st. paul...props again to our awesome hosts Julia also the Guns & Vegans house...we got to participate in fnb and a shut down of a meeting of the board of regents of the U of M...many of the workers at the U are on strike...getting back to the NW was an adventure too...we waited in a wooded area for nearly 24 hours before the right train stopped for us...then 3 days in the well of a freight train car...the first night waas the worst wind and rain with not cover excempt the tarp we struggled to keep from blowing away...there were lots of times i fought the urge to jump off the train especially in glacier national park or to visit the kids in spokane...leaving spokane we headd sw and i was convinced we were headed to portland...we slept through the mountain passes so it wasn't until i saw the sign that said everett that i knew we were headed to seattle...lilia took a little bit of a fall as the train was still moving when we got off in sodo seattle...buses then puyallup, where i write this from...lilia rode ahead and is in oly while i stay behind and help my parents out with some renovations at their house...that's the update


-jon

on the road again

well, almost...bags packed...bikes shipped....7 of us are about to pile into a van and head out north to do a little bit of a road show...while there certainly will be some performance the road show is more about doing outreach and education about i-69 and the resistance to it...the tour ends in minneapolis where we'll be attending atleast some of the pReNC convergence...folks getting ready for the republican national convention that will be held in the twin cities next year...nornc.org...check out the welcoming committee's video they seem to really have their shit together...at a recent press conference the welcoming committtee's spokesperson refused to take questions from reporters since no-one emailed their questions in advance as requested, as you must do to ask a question of most politicians/corporate industry reps...w00t for not pandering to a media that actively supresses radical voices...that's a far cry from the press conference we put on about the forest defense actions which was put on for the benefit of only one reporter...hoping we'd get good press...sad to be leaving bloomington it would have been real easy just to stay here, get a job and commit to this campaign, but that's the samething that's kept me in oly for the last 4 years and i still want to indulge my wanderlust...it's hot here and we're sweating profusely as i type this...it'll be good to get back to cooler weather where grey skies means temps in the 60's or below not 90 and crazy humidity...we'll keep ya'll posted as our journey changes course back to the coast, cooler weather, and continued adventure...

-jon

if you plan to be a vagabond

if you plan to be a vagabond the first thing you must do is throw planning out the window. sad happenings; ghost, tyger's beloved bike, was stolen and he has traveled back to the NW. lilia has, herself, become homesick and has determined to head back west also. none of this was in the plan, but how do you plan being absolutely free? i stand at a crossroads..which path do i walk? the one less traveled by? hardly, another poet speaks more to my soul on the matter:

Oh what do you do, poor Angus,
when hunger makes you cry?
"I fix myself an omelet, sir,
of fluffy clouds and sky."

Oh what do you wear, poor Angus,
when winds blow down the hills?
"I sew myself a warm cloak, sir,
of hope and daffodils."

Oh who do you love, poor Angus,
when Catherine's left the moor?
"Ah, then, sir, then's the only time
I feel I'm really poor"

-Shel Silverstein

As it is the decisions been made for me, I will begin heading west in a few days with lilia, first by car as a part of an informational tour about interstate 69 then hopping freight trains the rest of the way to the coast. though don't be fooled, it is not our intention o get bogged down, but to keep on riding possibly south along the coast, any takers?

-jon

action packed bloomington

lilia and i are staying with friends in bloomington, at first we didn't know anyone only that we were to stay with the housemates of our friend lucy who at the time was still out and about travelling...we've quickly develpoed fast friendship as you do when working for altruistic goals with people. aside from having fun sneaking into swimming pools, spinning fire, and eating good food we've been working the EarthFirst! front. lilia and i both got our names in the newspaper for doing ground support at a treesit in the state forest and we had a surprisingly easy victory the other day in shutting down a meeting of state/local government and business interests divying up "grant"(bribe) money to local politicos. since are plan has been to stay in bloomington for 3 weeks(in total) i almost got a job at a local bike shop, but wound up blowiong it off due to conflicts with the forest defense campaign. i don;t regret my decision, jobs suck, and i made almost 90 bucks in three hours at the farmers market. bloomington is full of great folks and if you don't know what you're doing nex t spring/summer consider coming to indiana to help stop the e victions of families, destruction of forests, farms and communities, and the NAFTA superhighway i-69. this road will never be built!

-jon

read the infoshop article

missive from new england

So far having a blast. Looking at grad schools and planning routes and biking on the bike trails and through the massholes in traffic. I'll leave mass probably around friday and it'll take me about a week to get to maine give or take a day or two. from there I'll head down the bike trail and meet up again with people in indiana. might be later than planned but maybe not, no stops from maine to there so we'll see.
got to go. sorry my first post is so small. but really you're lucky I wrote anything.
peace

Micah

the road to bloomington

state number 8, indiana...met an old bike mechanic along a bike path, he is currently unemployed and living in a church. speanding his days doing free bike work and workshops along the side of the bike path. he'd worked in bike and record shops his whole life, always saved up for and bought what he wanted, never used credit. was rear-ended by a drunk driver who had not license, much less insurance. he lost everything he owned dues to the medical expenses. what the fuck is wrong with our country? the memory of Bill will stay with me as i hope to see bike workers earn the wages they deserve and get some decent health care...terre haute indiana, life-long home of eugene debs was a real trip we hung out with some crazy dudes in a tattoo parlor that turned out to be real nice gave us pizza & a place to stay, but not a free tattoo...then on to bloomington where the weather has finally cooled down and the people have been nice...back in the hippy/hipster/activist bubble...more on bloomington once i've gotten a chance to get my bearings...we plan to stay here for a bit.

-jon

awesome!!!!

last night we went out for a bike ride with the fore-mentioned rat patrol. it was so much fun!!! mobbing around on freak bikes jc rode a tall bike made from a couple of little kid frames...he looked ridiculous in his tech-fab outfit pedaling like mad...tyger and i rode a tandem with only one set of handlebars...after we altered the gear ratio, no shifting either, we were faster than a bat out of hell...added bonus with tyger's hands free he was able to keep opening more beers out of my bag...there was tall bike jousting...a cop that only wanted to watch and bum a cig...an amazing dumpster buffet out behind the trader joes...and lots and lots of cheap beer...all injuries were minor...fun like that oughta be illegal..come to think of it, it already is illegal...chicago is amazing, i'm sorry to be leaving in the morning, but it's south to bloomington.

-jon

This is for Saying Yes

“Play like Saturn is on his knees, proposing with all of his 10,000 rings that we give every singe breath...This is for saying yes" -A.G.

So it's official, I am leaving this afternoon. I bought a train ticket and I'm heading back to Olympia for an undetermined amount of time...
I want to make a last blog post to reflect and say THANK YOU...
to Cycle-A-Circus for making me part of the family despite my lack of circus skills. To Saturn, Ghost, Hannibal, Pearl, Spark, and Surly Shirley Tip Tows for making this journey with us and taking us places we never would have gone otherwise...
To Lilia for being one of my favorite people ever and talking with me about everything and knowing all the sweet pop songs...I can't tell you how grateful I am you were part of this journey. To Tyger for making me laugh more than anyone besides Cameron, always finding a beautiful light to look at everything under, and incessantly reminding me how awesome life is. To JC for being so excited and enthusiastic about everything and being the master dumpsterer. To Jon Jon for having such a genuinely good heart, reminding me over the past weeks why we used to hang out all the time, and being a good bike mechanic. To Micah for being so thoughtful and observant and having an amazing ability to sleep anywhere.
To all of the people who helped us out along the way, whose generosity got us through the days. For all of the smiles and hellos, the good lucks, the interest taken in what we're doing, the advice on places to go and sleep, the food, the yards and houses to sleep in, the showers, the directions, the encouragement, the conversations...
To the farmers and workers and land who produced the food that kept me fueled. To those who made the sections of bike path we rode on possible. To the exorbitant amounts of roadkill for always reminding me how scary cars are. To the poets whose words I kept with me for constantly giving me new inspiration. To the moon for making me fall in love with you over and over again every night. To the bugs and birds and trees and other creatures, the caterpillar that shot orange things out of its head, the mountains of western MT, the rolling hills of WI and everything between and beyond, to the epic lightning and hail storms for being breathtakingly astounding, giving me a constantly renewed sense of awe, and reminding me how small I am. To the mosquitoes for showing me the power of small things, especially in mass numbers. To the frustrating headwinds for trying to teach me to accept the things I cannot change, and to be patient.
I could literally go on for pages with this...thank you to Caylan, DJ, Gabe, the people who brought us strawberries and bananas in the morning, whoever corrected the stop sign to read "Stop Voldemort" for making me laugh, the Lutherans in Kremling for their kindness and cookies and brownies, the librarians in Cut Bank for all of their help, Wendy for so much hospitality and Aloe for my sunburn, the woman at the gas station who felt bad for me so gave me free fried chicken under the pretense that I was the 50th customer, to the organizers of the block party in Minneapolis, to the workers everywhere who keep things going...
These are only snapshots of the incredible amount of generosity and amazingness I experienced all along the way. There's no way I could begin to complete this, but thank you to everyone and everything I encountered for teaching me new things and giving me new things to think about. I was amazed everyday…It didn't matter where we were...everyday brought new adventures and new lessons. I'll always have the memories we created, from the Night at the Post Office in Etheridge to the beautiful day lost in Frerret, to the rounds of Asshole, to the days of riding and riding and riding…

Thank you to Saturn, my bike and the planet, for reminding me that I am alive, to put myself into everything. To give every single breath...

And again, an especially big thank you to the bike crew, Lilia, Jon Jon, Tyger, JC, and Micah...I love you all. Thanks for everything. I may or may not rejoin you down the road, but either way know that I am leaving this feeling more in love with life than I ever have. I am so grateful for you all and grateful for this experience. Sorry for the long rambling post...

Keep taking care of yourselves and each other. Hope to see you all soon…

Big love,

Kaite

the post without a name

consistently unexpectedly awesome, that's the best i can describe our trip. the last few days have found us along beautiful bike paths...a totally new environment, we aren't in the same midwest...a gorgeous, spacious apartment in chicago...hooked up by the rat patrol...we visited an impressive ba'hai temple...experienced an urban thunderstrom complete with shocking bursts of lightning over the city's skyline at sunset...and the most random occurrence of stumbling upon a presidential debate...we (kaite, lilia, & i) actually saw all 7 of the main democratic contenders at a AFL-CIO sponsored forum that was aired live on msnbc...alas, we didn't raise a ruckus, union folks tend to be gregarious, nice folks...sadly we will be parting ways soon...temporarily...Micah is catching a train to boston to visit family...kaite a train back west to get zir commitments resolved so ze can join us down the road...tyger & jc be headed east to cleveland...and lilia & i are travelling south to bloomington indiana to pitch in with the efforts to stop i-69...all , save kaite, will be back together first week of september...

thankfully,
-jon

milwaukee

leaving madison after an evening of kickball, beer drinking, and wondering where micah is we biked along a nice path that took us most of the way to milwaukee where we made for the wisconsin state fair. while the weather has given us a slight reprieve cooling down to highs below 90 the people have also gotten condsiderably colder. in an ironic twist the police have been the friedliest folks despite swarming tyger as he juggled knives out front of the fair, they just seemed bored, and were quite chummy and were even encouraging of our trip / busking. otherwise people tend to ignore you here, even if you're just saying hi or good morning, much less perfoming for them. and the library system has some pretty exclusive policies(no free internet!). however, tyger managed to bypass the security on the card catalog computers and bam free internet. we're gonna give the fair another shot today and see if we can't make a little funds before moving on to chicago.

JC reporting for fun!

Ah but another place to post about the extravagant and highly enjoyable bike trip around the World! Its been amazing week meeting up with Cycle-@-Circus now back up to 6 members and we've been working on polishing a street performance act. Its also nice to take a little break at an Organic farm here in Madison, Wisconsin to recharge my batteries and catch up on sewing projects and whatnot. Anyway, I've also got my own livejournal which I try to keep up to date as my own travel log that dates back to when I was in Europe at:
www.livejournal.com/users/yanomamo/
and I'm uploading pictures sometime while I'm here as well (I have about 360 to go through) and I've already got some pictures from this trip as well as the one to Europe at:
http://s144.photobucket.com/albums/r182/offthegridteam/

Minnesota trapped us

Well, as Jon indicated, Tyger and JC met us in Minneapolis on Sunday. This of course required that Jon's secret army of ninja spies be executed. This, combined with the copious amounts of wine consumed Sunday night, got us off to a late start on Monday. We stayed at a park close to the Wisonsin border, and biked to a town just across the state line, Prescott, and ate breakfast at a picnic table by the Mississippi River the following morning. And then, we were lured back to the other side of the river and spent the day in a place we'll call Frerret. I spent the entire amazing day sitting in the river with water to my neck, the current running toward me, reflecting on this trip and how amazing it has been and how amazing it was that I was sitting in the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin and how beautiful and awesome life is and how beatiful and amzing people are, and how beautiful it is every time our lungs breathe this life and our hearts pump blood through our veins and how soul-squishing capitalism is. Everyone else spent the day juggling and playing music. It was a glorious day. So we slept there, then went back across the river to Prescott in the morning, and found ourselves eating breakfast at the same picnic table. Then we had a brilliant plan to build a raft but Prescott failed us with it's lack of materials. So we went back to Minnesota and hung out in the park for a few hours. I crossed the river so many times, Minnesota Wisconsin Minnesota Wisconsin Minnesota Winconsin. Anyway, we finally got on our way, and our now in Pepin, WI. We stopped here for lunch and swam in the lake and now there is a severe thunderstorm warning, so we are still here! But we are well on our way to Madison, and excited to spend some time there.
The ride today was absolutely beautiful. We finally hit some hills again, after lots of flat. Up and down is fun.
It's super fun with the new additions to the group. They bring lots of positive energy and excitement and humor and insight and free-food scoring skills.
I can't believe it's already nearing the end of July...
Also, we saw a fox and the moon has been beautiful.

Kaite

6 again

i'm still not quite sure how they did it, but tyger & jc caught up with us today. they biked 145 miles yesterday to make sure they were in minneapolis before we left. with new vigor circus practice has resumed. lillia has out done us all in busking moneys, kaite even scored more watching our fleet of heavily laiden bicycles which attract a fair bit of attention than tony did juggling knives today at the farmers market. outside the window of gabe's house i see levitating bodies and flashes of flying clubs. we're working hard on aquiring lilia an accordion within our budget, those fuckers are expensive. we'll be leaving for wisconsin in the morning.

-jon

Minneapolis

we must be in a hip town i'm blogging at a tattoo parlor at 11pm. We just had delicious Thai food and lilia's the only one who's gotten any beer. mmmmmm......
Biking in cities is scary. We were lucky to have a bike trail for a good 100 miles or so. Micah got lost one night and followed a dirt road for fifteen miles and got three flat tires.
We are expecting more bike paths out of here. yey!!! Also we got to go.
Post comments!

omg tempeh

freaking out in grand forks, an actual co-op and shit with real food! an d the internet omg i want it all!

-jon

mmmm, Spykes....

MT ended! We didn't know if it ever would but on Saturday we had our longest day yet; we started at 6am, rode 103 miles, and made it from Wolf Point, MT to Williston, ND. We are now in Minot, ND, staying at a house from the warm showers list. We were fed a delicious meal, complete with ice cream sundaes. We collided with a storm today, so it was so nice to have a house to come to.
Everything is getting greener and people have sweet accents. In MT we kept meeting people that made us say "people in MT are so nice", and now in North Dakota I keep finding myself saying "People in North Dakota are so nice." I continue to be amazed by the generosity and kindness of people, by the good intentions and the genuine desire people have to help each other out. Some days I feel like I could do this forever, like there is so much to see and learn.
So many white people in MT warned us about the reservations, in a really dehumanizing and racist way, like they are scary people and we should just pass through as quickly as we can and avoid staying there or talking to people. Despite these warnings, people were nothing but friendly and awesome and helpful. It's amazing what happens when you talk to people...
After a long run with no flats (no one has gotten one since Micah, before Seattle), between Micah and I we have gotten 4 flats in the last three days...
We should arrive in Grand Forks either Thursday or Friday, where we will hopefully pick up another rider and then on to Minnesota! Woohoo!

Take care y'all
-Kaite

...does montana ever end?

now we've made it to wolf point idaho, as of a hour ago or so it was 102 degrees and somehow the headwinds haven't gone away. we're doing great, ppl continue to be nice as all hell even though now we're on a reservation(gasp). we spent last night in a mobile home owned(?) by a local lutheran pastor that stopped on the highway to invite us to stay there, that was all we ever saw of him. looking forward to North Dakota and how it's barely over half the distance across as montana.

It seems that a lot of our new friends in spokane are feeling a different kind of heat. stay strong friends!

-jon

Pink Unicorns are the Most Real Thing on the Planet

Greetings from Wolf Point, MT. It's been a slow week, with a combination of hail storms, 100+ degree weather, and winds blowing strongly in the opposite direction of us holding us up a bit. It looks as though we will finally leave MT tomorrow! woohoo! People continue to be awesome and nice. It's been interesting to see the ways things are different and the same in different places. Businesses that want to charge you to fill up water bottles, libraries that won't let you use internet without an address, the "Real Change not Spare Change" signs that "discourage panhandling" but encourage the use of the food bank and Salvation Army...because clearly they're all about real change...the anti-meth ads all over these rural parts, the ways we are taught to fear what we don't know and dehumanize and blame others. But we continue to be helped out in amazing ways. People are awesome.
It will be so exciting to reach a new state! MT is taking forever...we are melting in the heat today.
Take care of yourselves and others. Rock on.

-Kaite

thunder storms and head winds

delays due to weather have held us up in NE montana, the ppl continue to be friendly (& a little racist). Looking forward to taking a day off, maybe tomorrow, cercumstantially on the 4th of july. my thoughts go out to those 50,000 hippies in some remote part of arkansas who will be ohm'n for peace tomorrow, take a second and listen mybe you'll feel their presence over the the typical militaristic mock war celebrations of empire.

-jon

...and then there were four...

Just a brief note to keep our legions of adoring fans up to date. Jean & Muffin have headed back to oly. It was a sudden decision that took us all by suprise, but just after we crossed the rockies they both caught the amtrak back west to olympia.

we were all shocked, but are resolute to carry on. we all cut the day short staying in east glacier for the night and collectively working through our abandonment issues with beer, mexican food, and a night in a hostel. rare luxuries on this tour. 45 miles down the road in cut back, taking our mid-day break in Cut Bank, we'll be off again soon hoping to cover another 30 miles or so this afternoon / evening.

-jon

WANTED: 1 acrobalance team flyer and base; 1 juggler passing ability a plus
actually we're always looking for more talented folks to come along

Pictures taken while busking in missoula

thanks to Robin & Bear for all the photos

Pictures taken by random greener on a field/road trip in Grand Coulee, WA

more about missoula

most pizza places per capita i've ever seen...lots of ppl biking around...great bike co-op...busking at a small downtown event and the farmers market went well...some of us pitched in and helped a renegade public works project building a bike path connection where the city won't for the next 4 years...Kaite joined us friday night just as we were about to perform some of our stuff for the house we're staying at...unexpected change of plans means we're crossing into canada later on and going southeast through the twin cities after we get jon from grand forks...if any of those million and one photograhers around missoula ever email us the pictures they've taken of us we'll post them.

-jon

Missoula some more!

Hello beautiful folks! We'll be in Missoula for the next week or so, waiting for Kaite and for a new bike for Muffin... His beautiful, new, hard-worked for surly frame and fork have been totalled in a very confusing and sudden wreck about 90 miles out of missoula. So we're figuring that out. The other four of us proceeded to bike to get to Missoula by that evening, on a really ridiculous day of biking during which we biked nearly 100 miles. I was amazed that we could all do that with relatively little difficulty. So we've had our first major mishap. But we're in a great place for it, because we were going to be here a while anyway, and there's a fee community bike shop in Missoula!

As Jon exclaimed after a cop bought us all dinner, a bike club (that just happened to be meeting at the same time we got to this little restaurant) bought us pitchers of beer, and huckleberry ice cream fell from the sky into our laps, "The universe has blessed us so much that its stopped giving excuses!" Everyone we meet sends us along with great intentions, and time and time again we meet people who insist on taking us in, feeding us, giving us money, giving us showers, or helping us out in really amazing ways. It's really restoring my faith in people.

The land is so beautiful, too. The rockies have been breathtaking, but not nearly so treacherous yet. The two passes that we've gone over have been really easy. But I doubt that that will continue. We've gone from temperate rainforest to desert to mountains, and it's really amazing to see the changes. We had a second night when a cougar came close to our camp the other night in wallace, and I saw black bears running across the highway a few days ago. (That was a little unnerving actually. They were awfully close.)

Right now we're staying at an awesome house, full of vibrant people and gardens and a library and good food and bikes. So, really, life is pretty good for all of us. Well, that's all the news that I've got.
campfires and dumpstered avocados,
Jean

Such bad bloggers

We're such bad bloggers, from the last post you might assume we've fallen apart. much to the contrary we're having a blast, now in missoula montana. i don't have much time to write but we'll fill you all in later.

-jon

Spokane

We've offically crossed the Cascades about a week ago. Steven's Pass was intense. 4,061 feet, most of which is in the last 10 miles. No wonder everyone I talked to recommended taking anything but Highway 2. But Jon wanted to go to Leavenworth for the Bavarian Bike and Brew and the only way there was over Steven's Pass. Jon didn't come with us by the way. And the Bike and Brew was pretty shitty. Oh and after Leavenworth theres another mountain pass to cross, This one was only 2800 feet, but its in the desert of Eastern washington. We ran out of water going up, and almost out of daylight before we made it to the top. I don't think i've ever been more excited then when i saw the peak.

We intened on staying with our friend Benny in Spokane but then Jon lost his contact info. Luckily there was a Crimethinc event planned in Spokane on Tuesday that i was sure we would find him at. We had to bike across Washington in 2 days to get here in time but it wasn't so bad. Just a lot hillier then expected. Spokane has been great. We met a lot of awesome people. Its a shame to leave so soon but we need to get to some barter fair in Usk, Wa to meet with Jon (who claims to have finally finished his bike he was suppose to have done over a month ago).

thats about all i got. one of these days i'll load up the pictures, theres not many. mostly just us in front of elevation signs.
-muffin

Seattle partytime

So, we've been staying at this beautiful communal house in Seattle that's been functioning for thirty years or something. The five of us were reunited for the weekend, but sadly, Jon is going back to oly for a hot minute, while the rest of us are off to Leaveworth. We were here mostly to perform at Folklife, which it turns out we were all pretty unprepared for except Jon, who managed to make something ridiculously above minimum wage contact juggling. There were way too many people at the festival, and way too many people in this city for most of us, but it did mean lots of discarded and deliciously disgusting festival food. So, we're off again... as soon as we can get ourselves and our bikes together because it's perhaps three o clock and we still have fifty miles to go...
Jean

Olympia to Bellingham

We biked up to Seattle catching the Inter-urban trail somewheres around Pullalyp. Along the way we noticed the odwalla dumpster and so decided to set up camp. It was a good first day. 78 miles.
When we got to Seattle we decided it would be best to avoid downtown as much as possible. After going straight up a hill with an angle of about 80 degrees we found a cop and asked for directions. He told us to go to downtown where we could catch a bike trail that follows the water front and avoids all the hills. So we went back down the hill, found the bike path, had a beautiful ride around south of the fremount bridge, got lost trying to find the fremount bridge, found the bridge got lost trying to find our way out, found a bike shop and a map (maps are really helpful things that we didnt think of bringing with us) and proceeded to that Sr 99 to Mukilteo. After about 5 hours we were able to cover the 20 miles from our campsite to the ferry. Caught the ferry to whidbey and bike until we were so exhausted we were about to pass the hell out on the side of the road. Luckily we met a nice man named Thom who lived on a beautiful piece of land in between the highway and the water. It was gorgeous and Thom was extremely nice and helped us out in ways i'll never express. 50 miles
This morning we biked the rest of the way to bellingham to find out Micah's cousin lives quite a ways south of the city and had to turn around. The house is again gorgeous and right on Lake Sammish so of course as soon as we got here we had to spend the rest of the day kayaking around the like. 38miles.

so there you go, 159.78 miles down. 150,089 to go.
-muffin