From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

After picking up our rental car at the San José Airport, we went to Aptos to visit Thea. We had met Thea in Alaska, about a week after leaving Anchorage. She wasn’t there, and neither was her roommate, so a neighbour let us into Thea’s house. We were once again astounded by people’s hospitality and trust, especially people we met for only an hour 3½ months ago. Our bikes are resting in a warm garage, and now we are setting off for three weeks and a couple thousand kilometres.

First stage: After leaving Santa Cruz and their famous surfers, crossing San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge at sunset (this time in a car), and a wine-tasting in the Napa Valley, we found ourselves in Strawberry, a little town in the California Mountains near Take Tahoe. Thea lives here 2 weeks out of every month in a lovely little cabin in the middle of the forest. The first thing that she said to us when we arrived was “Take everything out of your car, especially anything that smells. There are bears that have smashed cars and broken into cabins to get to food.” And we thought we were finished with bears!

We stayed two days in Strawberry with Thea, and we learned a little more about life in this small town, and especially about how hard their winters are: they have to be prepared for anything since they can get up to 3 metres of snow!

We saw Lake Tahoe, Lake Angora, the Carson Pass where the leaves had turned red and yellow, Lover’s Leap, where two lovers from different tribes had jumped off because they couldn’t get married, and Wright Lake. We spent two wonderful days in this touristy region. We were lucky to get beautiful sun and not much wind, which helped a little with the chilly temperatures.

We left Thea Wednesday morning and drove through the deserts of Nevada and then Idaho to get to a place about 200 km outside of Yellowstone. We had been sleeping in the little one-box car we’d rented, but yesterday we looked for a camp site to spend the night, and especially to take a shower! The receptionist wouldn’t hear of us sleeping in the car and set us up in a rustic cabin for the same price as pitching a tent – with a little space heater that was on all night long!

Since we left Strawberry, the temperature seems to be in freefall, and doesn’t even get above 5°C during the day. Snow warnings are everywhere, especially around Yellowstone. And the police in the United States are really strict about the snow: you can’t drive around without snow tires or chains on the tires and not get stuck going up a hill. Naturally, we don’t have either snow tires or chains…

So when we found ourselves in the middle of a snow storm this morning, we decided to postpone our visit to Yellowstone (temperatures there where in the negative numbers and they were calling for snow) and we went south instead, towards Salt Lake City.

We hope to get back to Yellowstone on Monday, when they’re predicting a little warm spell.

Sara & Sébastien

Our road trip is separate from the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire, but don’t worry, we are still going to post our adventures on the website to keep you all updated.