More than a quarter into the trip

Time has been flying by so fast that we missed our 3 months “anniversary” on September 14th: as we had previously done and enjoyed doing each month, we wanted to reflect back on our trip. So this reflection will be a little after 3 months, which means that more than a quarter of our journey is over. Again, hard to believe...time feels like it is just slipping away even if we have much more than the average vacationer.

Here is the updated snapshot of our trip summarized in a few numbers:
- 105 days into the trip
- 12,000 miles (19.200 Km) ridden on our bikes
- 2 countries visited
- 15 states and 3 provinces crossed

A hunger for bigger outdoor spaces

When we first got into Alaska and even Northern Canada, we were stunned by the amount of open space, endless nature and lack of civilization in most areas. As we drove down south and got into more densely populated areas, we realized how much we miss the space and just the freedom of being lonely and isolated. It is definitively a luxury impossible to afford in most areas of the world and getting back into big cities, we felt a little awkward. Knowing that we lived in a big city, Washington DC, over the last few years, this feeling did not make a lot of sense to us at first. But now, it just comes back to one of the reason we wanted to do this trip: freedom. Freedom of being on a bike but also far and away from our daily routine, which included urban environment, traffic jam and crowded places. Don't get us wrong, we loved our urban lifestyle but we came to appreciate and get used to the wilderness and isolation. This is really what we want to focus our trip on as much as possible and stay away from the big urban areas when we can.

Camping: a lifestyle of choice


We planned to do a lot of camping in North America in order to save money and be able to stretch these dollars before reaching the more affordable areas of Central and South America. With our compact and minimalist gear, we had it as comfortable as tent camping can be. We mentionned it also in many previous posts: we lucked out with pretty good weather and despite having to deal with the rain and cold a few times, the experience was very enjoyable to us. We adjusted our pace and routine to the sun hours, with incredibly short nights in Alaska. Up with the sun, we would also enjoy our outdoors breakfast as well as our dinners before the sun would set again. We really liked being so much outdoors, when our norm became the outside and not being under a roof. Camping offered us all these benefits and access to beautiful natural settings, especially when we were in State of Provincial Park. So we did save money but we also discovered a new way of living your daily routine that seems so natural to us and enjoyable. For security reasons, we decided to not camp south of the border and will most probably ship all our gear back home next week. We will really miss it, even if we know this is the right decision.

The last thing we thought about was how we enjoyed having guests join us on our trip, like Isabelle and Stanley. It just breaks the travel habits and brings a new flavor to our trip. Needless to say, it is also a real treat to spend time with the people we miss! Cruising with Stanley or having Isabelle on the bike were unforgetable moments and we enjoyed their perspective as it made us look at things from a different angle.
Until now, when we remember all these great moments we had, it is hard to still feel frustrated about the few hick ups we had. Going with the flow and thinking rather about the big picture than the little details seem the right way to go. One of our friends, David, has been kind enough to send us some quotes that we have been putting in the blog and we pick one that we think fits best with where we stand today.


“Our battered suitcases were piled up on the sidewalks again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”. Jack Kerouac