Don't sell yourself short, Boof. I enjoyed your report and in my opinion, you haven't failed in ANY way . . . so far . . .

It's an interesting concept for sure. I think you are the perfect candidate for having a nudge word for the year. Minnesotans need nudges.

Also, I thought about you a lot when Scott asked if I wanted to document the Return of the Raven. I thought that you would do it right and draw two figures, Scott and Rachael, and two bikes and pose them here and there on the way north. I tell you though, there was not a whole lot of time for anything. That coast road takes forever. I also thought about getting out their bikes and posing on them captioning something like, "Well, we rode 42 miles through the redwoods in the morning but now we have 250 miles to drive." Some people would do such things. Also, I didn't photograph any birds. I failed in so many ways.

I didn't know there were any of the corners that remain unscathed but maybe you are right, there is one left to go. I photographed each one just incase someone tried to attribute them to me! Like with a rental car.

Portland being weird, pronouncing that as cooch.

I've got several wire-bound notebooks containing words about my travels and other exploits dating back to 1979. That was well before my bike touring days though. I'm not one to brag (haha), but I must say my penmanship is better than yours. Come to think of it, is penmanship even a thing anymore?

Sort of like when people say they have a “cabin” at Whistler.

My old journals are like that too—they all end a few days before the end of the actual trip. How many days did we stay in Paris in 1992? How did we get out to the airport with our bikes? I only remember packing the bikes there…

A cabin to some is a mansion to others (like me). And Wow! A brush with Jerry Garcia is a brush with fame--even if the brush was just riding on a road that Jerry Garcia had paved.

The "nudge word" idea has got me to thinking about something like that for myself. As a fellow Minnesotan, I get not jumping into such a thing too rashly, but I hope to have one by the time you announce yours.

Untrue. This one’s Rocky’s. She clipped the corner of our Airbnb’s garage driving me to the ER. good thing it was protected by an angle iron. No, mine is on the rear right, where I backed into a camouflaged post in the Safeway parking lot in Tucson last winter. And the right front one is Elizabeth’s doing - she clipped it backing out of her parking space at her condo two years ago, and did it a second time last summer after the first was repaired, just to emphasize her point. We’re hoping Bruce and Andrea arrive in Portland with the left front one still unscarred.

Probably the result of Scott driving too close to the Saguaros in Tucson.

Thanks for the tips, Annette. It’s been on my task list to research this. I’d occasionally get shin splints in my running years but it’s been a very long time since the most recent one.

Amazing!

Roses are so brave.

Look at you two.

What a great photo! And that's a remarkably tiny clawfoot tub. We had one of those (also walled in with tile) that fit four of us at a time, efficient when there are 8 kids.