Cycling is really best in warm weather, and the only way to find that in the Northern Hemisphere in Winter is to go South. We thought briefly about the Southern Tier (San Diego and toward Florida), but really focussed on "nearby" Hawaii. Airflights from Seattle are not too costly, running about $600 into Kona. This is plus or minus $200, depending on the games the airlines play and of course the closeness to Christmas.

We bought "Hawaii by Bike" by Nadine Slavinski, we dug out our copy of "Hawaii the Big Island Revealed" by Andrew Doughty, and we read the encouraging CGOAB blog by Mark Mansell: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Hawaii2012

Despite all this, Hawaii held two big problems for us. For one, we are now such "pros", that even the Big Island seemed just too small for us, and the other islands are smaller yet. Next, and most telling, Hawaii seems to have a strange aversion to camping. The county, state, and national campsites are relatively few and importantly need to be reserved and prepaid. That means playing it by the book and neither trying to sneak in to a county site nor wild camp, a 30 day trip requires 30 reservations, through a county web site, and separate calls for hotels or hostels that may also be needed. With all these reservations lined up, a mechanical, health, or other problem could bring the whole house of cards down. So that made it seem very attractive to just pedal out of our driveway and head down the coast, where places to stay are many and reservations are not required.

We had already also bought the five Adventure Cycling maps for the coast, and "Bicycling the Pacific Coast" by Spring and Kirkendall.

On the other hand, we are 99% sure that it will be just too chilly and/or rainy to tent out down the Pacific coast in December. True adventurers, of course, enjoy activities like camping in the snow on mountains, and suchlike. Well guess what - that ain't us! So more than likely we will stay in motels, or maybe scuttle further South by train. If that means no camping, wouldn't it be much like the Hawaii problem? Yes, we thought, but at least no reservations will be needed. Few people are foolish enough to even stay in motels along the coast at this time!

So somehow here we are hauling out our long johns and dish washing rubber gloves (yes, rubber gloves - though we also have high tech breathable, waterproof, insulated gloves that we don't trust) and getting ready to head off to where for sure "the sun don't shine".