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