If you want to send a message to the cyclists, email us at biketomexicowto@lists.riseup.net.

Final Update

November 3rd, 2003 It's been some time since we parted ways in Cancun. Some of us remained in Central America, a few of us returned to Canada. Steve continued on in the spirit of the caravan, and is currently in Florida, cycling ot Miami for the November negotiations of the FTAA. Stefan, Melissa, Jean-Marc and Julie-Anne retraced our steps, following up and doing presentations in Mexico, and back up the west coast.

There is no real caravan perspective for Cancun - we all had very different experiences of the protests and ministerial. Nevertheless we'll attempt to offer some perspectives: Lindsay Telfer, our home-base caravaner, has written a day-by-day update, and also provided an article by Starhawk to supplement her update: A Rope Twined of Many Strands Can Pull Down a Wall

San Diego to Cancun (Sept. 3rd to Sept. 9th)

We trickled out of San Diego over two days, with most people leaving the first day for Mazatlan and Guadalajara, and a few of us staying to tie up loose ends such as Sally and shipping stuff home. The bus rides themselves were cheap but overwhelming - the experience not at all facilitated by a barrage of hollywood movies - in one day`s trip we were subjected to five movies back-to-back.

We were the last group to arrive in Guadalajara, and through various ways and means we somehow made our way through the city to one of our hosts James` place. There we met up with the Mazatlan crew; they had spent a glorious day drinking beers on the beach and had picked up a new addition to our motley crew: Tomate, their host in Mazatlan.

We all went to the centre of town for delicious veggie buffet and met up with the Guadalajara crew, who spent the previous day chilling and checking out the city. The rest of the day was spent exploring the city. Highlights included the huge Ozcoro murals in a museum and a public building, a pepsi-sponsored street fair where giant inflated pepsi bottles and beer kwamas dominated a huge public square, and an intriguing chair sculpture.

Eventually we all headed off to our various sleeping accomadations, the most memorable of which was the punk-squat; located in what may once have been a fairly well-kept neighbourhood, which now featured roads like off-road tracks, raw sewage in the streets and no available running water. The squat itself offered an enticing variety of bug-ridden furniture to sleep on. Left on our own in this foreign environment, we were forced to resort to strong drink and conversation until all hours of the night, many of us eventually retreating to the roof to sleep out of reach of the roaches and rats.

The following day afforded more opportunities to visit Guadalajara. The focus of the day was however to prepare for the long trip to Cancun. That evening, at the Universidad de Guadalajara, we joined La Pueblo Mobil, a small group of spaniards and a larger group of mexican anarcho-punks on a forty-one seat bus bound for Mexico City, where it would join up with a much larger caravan headed to Cancun. Ossman and Amy planned to fly to Cancun, and would meet us there monday night.

In time we were eleven buses all going to Cancun. The caravan offered the opportunity to really see mexico, making stops in several cities along the way, on occasion in the midsts of some wto activism related event. We also got to see many of the Pemex chains` lovely gas stations as we headed further south and bathroom stops became harder to organise. As we drew closer to Cancun we began to make plans - the bus broke into affinity groups, and in our own group we worked out what we would be doing in Cancun, how we would organise ourselves, and also did some basic education on big protests and what to bring.

As we travelled south the weather got more and more tropical, so that by the time we arrived in Cancun the heat and humidity were astonishing. Arrival was at 12:30am, Tuesday - so we had missed Amy`s departure. Some people settled down at the hotel for the night, and a few of us slept out at our arrival point.

Santa Barbara- Isla Vista

After saying goodbye to the dogs and goats, one group left early while the other left with Bill who accompanied us for 20 km into the foggy morning!! We biked quietly along the flat 2-lane highways towards Santa Barbara, lined with endless rows of monocultures that continued into the thick mist. It was a surreal experience, to see nothing beyond this concentration of un-natural agriculture. The region surrounding Guadalupe, where the population is almost completely Spanish speaking, grows much of the food that feeds the US and is exported to other countries like Canada. We could have potentially bought strawberries from these fields. When Bill’s 20km were up, Silvi, Rosa, and Kristen stopped to take a picture with him. Realizing that we arrived late and left early from the hostel, and apologizing for the whirlwind nature of our motley crew, I asked Bill if he’d had a chance to sit down with anyone and talk more about what we were doing and trying to be doing with this caravan. Bill hopped back onto his bike, looked up at me and said: “Well, not really. But you’re participating in your future, that’s what matters.” And then he biked back into the fog, home to Nipomo. Our fantastic hosts in Isla Vista had soup and cornbread waiting for us, and kindly endured the outbursts of our crew that had just emerged from the woods.

25/08 Isla Vista- Somis

The morning in Isla Vista found us sleepy after a late night in this student town. Some amazing improve jamming at the beach under the stars, and relaxing to had by all. For some, this morning was the biggest test for biking: injuries, bike problems, 10 unanticipated miles, and enormous hills in the relentless heat as we turned slightly inland. It was like a giant hair dryer was blowing at us all morning. The afternoon was cooler, however the landscape left much to be desired: industrial agriculture crops growing right beside major traffic areas, and sod farms. I think we still haven’t seen any white workers in the fields. However, we found relief at the farm of Betty Pajka in the rural hamlet of Somis. She fed us well and hosted our goodbyes to farmer Bill (“I’m only going to Crescent City”), and Kristen’s birthday.

26/08 Somis-Los Angeles

From here in there were no breaks between the cities, no more rural areas buffering the concrete and crowds. The bikers endured the sprawling metropolis of “Hell. A.” and recorded the longest amount of time per distance traveled. We stayed at the beautiful Eco-Village complex, run by a collective committed to living with less impact on their environment. We headed over to the home of our LA contact, Kelly McGee, and talked to her about what we’d done and seen through mouthfuls of amazing food that she cooked up.

27/08 Hell-A

The highlight of our stay was the LA farmer’s market- a few blocks of organic substance within the never-ending people-made matrix of LA. We did many versions of the puppet show, handed out our ‘deconstruct your dinner’ literature, and chatted with farmers and passing shoppers from our table in the middle of the market. It was also Liming’s last night with the caravan, and an atmosphere of reflection started up a round of “highs and lows” of the trip as we packed up for the morning. Bikers have joined and left, and the cycling part of our trip is practically over.

28/08 LA-San Clemente

By suburbs, inner city, industrial blocks, highways under construction, or along the city gutter (“LA River”), we eventually make it out of LA. Covering the equivalent distance of at least 3 average sized cities, the tentacles of LA come close to sapping our sanity— but we survive, and end up with hours of engaging stories about the bowels of LA from Steve for the next few days. And Carolyn finally had to fix her first flat tire (while fellow bikers fell asleep on side of road). No agriculture in our landscape today, but we did make it to the beach, to sleep by the ocean at San Clemente State Park. Towns are increasingly Spanish-sounding, but along the water they just seem to be empty vacation destinations. By now we just want to do the teach-in in San Diego and then hit the boarder. Stefan is also missing from the group, he decided to stay in LA for an extra day, and do a marathon bike to meet up with us in San Diego.

29/08 San Clemente-San Diego.

We woke up to yet another tasty pot of oatmeal, and hit the road to San Diego, our last planned stay on the way to Cancun. People are starting to plan for Cancun: puppets, costumes of giant tomatoes, teach-ins, also how to get to Cancun from Mexico city- meet up with other bus caravans? Argentina, Canada, and the US are formally challenging the EU on their GMO-labeling policies, and the WTO ministerial is becoming our main focus. We boot it to try and make the San Diego critical mass, the date being the last Friday of the month, however San Diego doesn’t have one at the moment (but we hope it’s in the works!), so once again we are the critical mass. We arrive at the house of our contact, Michael Cardenas, which is also a community center and soon-to-be Independent Media Center, where all of us are welcomed to stay and plan relax for the next couple of days- THANK YOU!!

30/08 San Diego

We had one of our most engaging teach-ins as part of the Revolution Summer events in San Diego. There were fantastic questions and stories from the people attending, and the presentation was thorough and well spread out among us. Could we finally be getting the hang of this?? We did the puppet show, talked about the caravan, the WTO, the impacts that it has on all facets of life, and about alternatives talked about and seen on the trip.

031/09 San Diego

We made it. Vancouver to Tijuana. Over 3000km. Today we finished off our ride to the Mexican boarder along with 3 hardcore day bikers from San Diego, Michelle, Fernando, and Michael. It was quite an event to finally see the boarder, the psychological and physical obstacle that we have heard so much about from the migrant farm workers that we’ve met along the way. Michael was explaining the continual re-enforcement of the physical boarder (now 3 walls wide), and the deaths of the many Mexicans killed by boarder patrol as they tried to cross illegally. The security continues to be heightened, yet somehow millions of illegal migrant workers are still available to harvest US crops….

We leisurely rode back to San Diego and were well fed by Judy the Beauty at her wonderful Big Kitchen restaurant- twice!! What a woman. Now we’re into logistics. Packing and re-packing, comparing prices, destinations and distances for the travel through Mexico, running errands, and trying to purge our collected ‘stuff’ and clean out Sally.

01/09 San Diego

Today most of the bikers were dropped off at the boarder. We said goodbye to Michael and his amazing housemates, and Amy and Julie Anne emceed the Deconstructing Dinner Caravan Awards ceremony on the front steps of the house. There was no effort, accident, or idiosyncrasy left unmentioned, and as usual Sof was MIA. Then we piled into Sally one last time, and drove south on the I-5, once we found it, to Tijuana. I was glad to be able to drive empty Sally back with Stefan, to our small crew of left-over bikers, so that I didn’t have to say goodbye to everyone at once. note to protesters from the caravan: you’re not in the way, you are the way.

Scattered into Mexico without our bikes, the caravaners will meet up in Mexico City on the 6th, to ride with an anarchist bus caravan that is heading to Cancun.

The next update will probably be from Cancun……..

Santa Cruz, Monterey via Selinas, Cambria, Nipomo, and Isla Vista

"OK everybody, let's just keep moving, 'cause we don't wanna get busted by the cops tonight."

-Aeon, to eighteen tired cyclists, late at night, in the woods.

BARTed out of San Fran, fresh off of three days of city living, in the company of two new deconstructors, Sonia and Steve. By the end of the day we had also picked up Stone, an ex-Monsanto exec who had decided to spend his severance package biking around the States, and Valgier, a brazilian biodiesel guru and a master of the free lunch.

Santa Cruz was a beautiful city - we met Cat, a volunteer for the homeless garden project there - she gave us veggies and the garden low-down: CSA, skillshare, education and experience for participants. We hear the cost of living in /santa Cruz is possibly the highest in the US - she lives with her family in an RV behind the garden. We also had a half-hour radio show with Vinnie on his pirate station - freak radio - a call-in show. Mel's favorite call: "Do you have anything you'd like to say about being a vegetarian?" We spent the niught never-you-mind exactly where, in the open air by the fire with some really beautiful folks singing and chatting.

In Santa Cruz we temporarily lost Jean-Marc and Jen, who stayed with Valgier to check out the farmer's market. All three would later go to Selinas, and eventually they all met up with us at Kirk Creek campground.

The next couple of days were absolutely crazy. While one group of dedicated cyclists made their way along the coast to Monterey, a few of us piled into Sally and drove inland to Selinas to check out ¡Vote! - an organisation dedicated to the support and organisation of the migrant farm workers in the area. The place was inspiring; and we learned some of the ins and outs of the business. What was most revelatory was the discovery of the contractors - farmers and agribusinesses don't hire illegal workers directly, instead they let a contractor, often a former migrant worker himself, take the risk and they hire him to provide their workforce. Of course this opens up all kinds of possibilities for abuse and complications.

We were especially excited to learn that every morning, thousands of workers converged on the local safeway parking at 4am lot to pile into the contractors buses and headout to the fields. So we formulated a plan. The next morning we woke up at (ugh) five in the morning - late! and rushed out down the street. There were still the last, most senior workers there, sipping coffee from vendors and chatting. Many of the woman wore head coverings, gloves, and masks to protect themselves. We distributed flyers for ¡Vote!; the responses surprised us - many people didn't know about ¡Vote! but also weren't interested - they didn't want to pay union dues and didn;t have the time or interest to get involved.

We weren't satisfied with merely talking to the workers in the lot and filming them. Together we piled into Sally, and chased one of the busses out of the lot and for a half-hour down the freeway and into the strawberry fields. We filmed the workers and talked to them here, checked out the pesticide spraying apparatus, and discovered that the strawberries were being packaged with french/english labels - clearly destined for Canada.

Meanwhile the crew at Monterey whiled their way down the coast. We eventually all converged at Kirk Creek campground for the night - where some very generous folks shared there site with us when we discovered the place was full up. The next couple days proceeded at a more relaxed pace. We stopped in Cambria and had an excellent meal provided by our host, Sandi, and stayed in a nice little place up the road called Ocean Pines - where we debriefed and showed some of the video from Selinas. The next day took us to Nipomo, where we stayed at Bill's Farm Hostel (Definitely the most eccentric hostel I've ever stayed at). Here we began to lay down the groundwork for Mexico.

The departure from Nipomo was a mist-laden ride through mono-culture farms. We in Sally were fortunate enough to be able to film a helicopter dusting the fields, as is it zoomed in and out over the road, swept under the powerlines, and vanished into the mists where it's thumping could still be heard. It was a long, hill-laden morning, but an easy-going afternoon that included a relaxing beach stop and a "shark" attack when a pod of dolphin's targetted Rosa. Here we are now in Isla Vista, about ten miles out of Santa Cruz, in the college ghetto, relaxing and chilling at the local food co-op and generally having a hell of a good time. Tomorrow we ride to Thousand Oaks, and on Tuesday we arrive in La - only five riding days left to the border!

Point Arena, Bodega, and San Francisco - August 14th to 18th

Fortune favoured us in Point Arena, where we got a last minute billet at the Youth at Risk Center there. The next morning brought breakfast at our host Lauren's (the artgoddess) We supplemented our breakfast by heading over the the "world's greatest bakery" which fully lived up to it's name.

A few of us descended on Gualala for a supermarket action. We spoke to shoppers about the apples and oranges coming from Australia and New Zealand; responses were typically of the "of course we import it, it's out of season" formula. The produce manager was a farmer himself; he was into what we were doing and was straight-up. He told us local farmers sold their stuff at the farmer's market - they didn't have the production levels and storage capacity to supply a supermarket. All their produce came from one distribution company - NorCal or CalNor in Sacremento. He was clear that consumers would go shop elsewhere if they didn't carry imported fruits and veggies.

We were a long time finding our destination in Bodega, but it was worth it. We stayed on a piece of communal land, that had begun life as a commune in the sixties and had settled in over the decades. Several families lived on the land, which was freely roamed by a large flock of sheep, numerous goats, and at least one donkey. Mostly people worked off the land as well as on - Hazel, our contact ran a small school and "freestore" on the property. Another cool discovery was a permaculture garden tended to by Anne. After a copious dinner attended by numerous folks from the community and numerous hungry cyclists, we stayed at several different houses, the schoolhouse and under the stars. The sky treated us to a show this night, being exceptionally clear and unpolluted, and populated by spectatcular shooting stars.

Next day we headed out for San Francisco. Half the route was urban cycling through the outlying suburbs, where we rediscovered the fun of riding in a large pack - and Sofian rediscovered the pavement, interfacing with it not once, nor twice, but three times over the course of the afternoon ride. We met up with Sally just before the Golden Gate bridge, and donned our dinner-wear, an assortment of suits, dresses, flowers and hats. Then off we went across the bridge and over to the pier for the friday critical mass. Much to our surprise, there was no such mass - We were the critical mass! We did manage to find a mini-mass of beer-swilling urbanites too cool to actually ride their overpriced bicycles.

We spent the night in the Green Tortoise hostel, and the following day chilling in San Fran before heading over to Berkley for an excellent dinner in a stunning communal warehouse living space by the railroad tracks. On the way we stopped at the Golden Gate again for a photoshoot. The next few nights included dancing, drinking, dumpster diving, an evening at the local anarchist infoshop, a teach-in at the huge San Fran sierra club offices, a highly successful fundraising auction, the mass consumption of Clif bar products, trips to see Ben Harper... We were reeling for three days at all the urbanness (or was it the cider?) - but what a cool city to reel in!

Webnotes! Lauren's art is truly worth a look - www.artgoddess.com. Also, a pictures update, new sponsors, and Stefan's Bio are now available on the site.

General update:

Today we are 16 cyclists. We have cycled 1100 miles (about 1600km) so far. We are in California, two days out of San Francisco. Our ages range from 16 to 50-something. We come from Canada, Australia, Nicaragua, China and the USA. We are 7 men and 9 women. Three of us are parents. One of us is a physiotherapist and we are all becoming expert bike mechanics. There have been many sore knees, ankles, backs, necks and a few minor-to-moderate spills resulting in bruising, scraps and impact soreness. Allergies, on the other hand, have been an unwelcomed nuisance (new allergy triggers everywhere along the coast!! Some of us city slickers can't hack being in nature!). We are happy, though some of our bikes are not. Out meetings are chaotic, but we enjoy each other endlessly. Oh, and our tan lives are ridiculous.

August 06-13

What a week! Our update picks up after having left Waldport and the comfort of Ginger and Mark's homes during our first real rest day. Good thing we were charged, because the day's ride proves adventurous! Lucky for us, that region of Oregon experienced its first thunder and lightning storm in seven years, and we got to ride through it! The terrain took us through hilly coastal mountains lined thick with evergreens (except in the clear cut areas). We made it through the rain relatively unscathed and hauled over to Florence for an afternoon lunch with some of the locals who are involved in social justice issues. The health food store in Florence donated lunch food, and Joanne and Stew hosted a lovely afternoon siesta. We still can't get over how nice people are. It certainly does wonders to debunk the accumulated stereotype of war-loving-gun-toting-freedom-fry-eating usa-ers that the media enjoys to paint. After contemplating taking another rest night in Florence to indulge in the company of our charismatic hosts, we elected to continue on schedule with our journey, which brought us to the heartland of the Oregon sand dunes. Yes, sand dunes. Oregon is the most beautiful state! It has ocean, forest, and desert like sand dunes for miles on end - and sometimes all in the same eyeful! We engage in a little guerrilla beach camping and set up the tents nestled among the sand dunes (used by all-terrain vehicle madness!) along the water line and hoped not to be run over. It was a lovely night, topped off by a delicious Chinese dinner cooked by Liming.

Next stop was the Cedar Grove farm in Port Orford. We were hosted by the amazing Rick and Cathy (and Jake the eleven year old bundle of farm-hand energy!!). The Grove is an amazing animal farm with horses, goats, a pig, chickens, dogs, cats, a duck, an orchard and other fruit and veggie areas. It has a cob house in-process, and an overall home-like feeling. Cathy had prepared a fest for us, and we feasted after an 85 mile cycle. The next morning we took off for California and the Redwoods!

Ode to the Redwoods

Oh how lovely these magnificent giants are! Up to 12,000 years old (though most of the oldgrowth are in the 1000 year range) 21 feet in diametre and 300 feet tall with a deep red bark and deeper ridges running vertically up and up and up the trunks. There are no words to describe the feeling of standing amidst these beauties…I understand why some people spend years sitting in them to save them from being logged.

The Redwoods took us into Crescent City California, where we camped out after a potluck organized by Ted and Rick. Several folks from town came to greet and feed us, and we has the opportunity to test our new and improved presentation on them (we had worked on it in Waldsport during a rest day). Our multiple choice questions proved a good way to kick off the talk, throwing out stats like 1000 farm workers die each year in the US due to pesticide poisoning or 85% of produce in the US is hand picked or 87% of water consumption in the US is for irrigation or 7% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from agricultural practices…etc. The next day in Crescent City afforded us a rest day and we all headed to the forest to meander about the redwoods! Breath taking. We were also able to pack in an afternoon swim in a beautiful river - the only remaining undamned river in California- complete with cliff jumping by the dare devils in the group. The day topped off with pizza and beer courtesy of Jill, Kevin and Tim and we camped on Jill and Kevin's land amide their strawberry patches.

On to Arcata! The only town to pass legislation making the patriot act illegal. We stayed in this coolest of cool hippie town for two nights, hosted by the mayor Bob and his wife Susan. Both are remarkable individuals. Bob is serving his third consecutive term and won the first with a majority for the Green party - a first internationally - in the mid 1990s. The town has a population of 16,000 and 10,000 are members to the local organic food coop. This coop was unbelievable! It had the biggest selection of organic food I have ever seen! We piloted our migrant farm worker puppet show at the town plaza on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and ended to rest day with a tummy full of delicious food not bomb dinner. We were sad to leave, but anxious to get back cycling through the redwoods!

Leaving Arcata en route to Myers Flat, we were spoiled with a 40 mile stretch along the 'avenue of giants'. Guess what the giants were… These trees can make an environmentalist our of nearly anyone (minus the loggers, of course). We had the ultimate good fortune of scoring a camp site in right in the forest, surrounded by the giants. Incidentally, these forests are where the Ewok villages were built and shot for the Star Wars movie. I kept belting out "Eeee-cheee-wah-wah!". We were able to catch a quick swim in the depleted Eel River -depleted because way too much water is being pumped out for irrigation, in fact it is more like a stream these days and the water only goes knee deep in many places were it once ran deeply and wildly. The next morning we headed out for Westport.

The ride to Westport was our most adventurous yet. The afternoon leg of the journey was supposed to be a short 30 mile jaunt to our destination. It was 30 miles, but half of them were uphill with inclination grades of 7-9%!!! At one point we climbed a hill for 40 minutes straight! In total we did 2000ft in one climb. Then we rode down the hill for 15 minute, only to have to climb another! I don't know who thought up these roads…The twisting turns made for a nervous ride some of the time, as the shoulder is pretty non-existent on highway 1 (normally we have been on the 101, but we have hopped over to the 1 for a spell…). Despite the physically gruelling ride, we were well rewarded at our host, Kay's, home nestled in the forest along the picture perfect California coastline. Delicious food was prepared, and our energetic host and long time video activist was full of entertainment for our weary troop. It also happened to be Rosa's 20th birthday, so the night ended with a delicious chocolate cake with fresh blackberry sauce (made by Will and Zeneith) and some yummy chocolate ice cream - locally made! The morning saw a departure toward Point Arena. The ride was a beautiful scenic pedal along the coast. The waters are so blue, and huge rocks dot the coast. Tonight the kindness of strangers has once again come through, and we are put up at a local youth organization office and one of the local's home. Sleep time.

Astoria to Newport (Aug 02-04)

The road from Astoria was long and hard, but the beautiful scenery made it all worth while. We left the comfort of Sue and Tom’s home around noon, and took off for the first 60km of the days ride, destination Oswald beach for the mid-ride siesta. Fritha from Astoria joined for this leg of the trip and was able to point out that the huge rock formations bulging out of the ocean side were the same formations featured in the Goonies! Yes the 1980s cult classic the Goonies! The rest of the ride to Oswald was lined by the ocean on the right and the forest on the left. Oswald beach was a rewarding treat, after a long hike down to the beach from the road side. The area was buzzing with surfer dudes, and dogs, among some other typical sights one would imagine to be found at the beach. A funny encounter with an American family saw a woman chasing Geneva out of the restrooms screaming that she had not flushed the toilet (it was a number one: if it’s yellow let it mellow…). Geneva ignored her, but the woman persisted shouting that it was so gross!! She replied that she thought wasting water was gross and the woman jumped into her minivan and speed off with the whole family shaking fists at the conservation conscious canucks. It would be interesting to see how they would fair in Bolivia… The rest of the ride to Bay City was long and hilly. Definitely a building-the-leg-muscles kind of day. Bay City provided a bit of a rest night for the group, and left the locals at the town pub asking the cyclists for id when we asked if there was somewhere we could get some desert…

Bay City to Newport was a gruelling 125km day, made harder by the previous day’s 100km. The hills reached 1000 feet, but the group is becoming quite skilled at draft cycling to conserve energy (except for the sacrificial lamb at the front pulling everyone up!!). Siesta break was at a lovely Oregon state park, ocean side, but the weather was grey and quite cold, so lunch took place in Sally. Oh yeah, Sally is doing quite well these days. Since her check up in Seattle, she’s been rolling pretty smoothly – though we have been advised to have her breaks checked (another $150 american!!!). On the morning half of the trip Julie Ann met Bill, who was selling apple dumplings. She stopped to try and convince him to donate some day olds to a motley crew of crazy cyclists. He couldn’t offer any dumplings, but he loaded her up with sweet peas and peaches and agreed to meet us at Beverly beach in Newport to join the ride for a few days. Welcome Bill! He just finished cycling the Rockies with his son and he is an artichoke farmer. He met us at the Beverly beach camp site equipped with homemade guacamole and salsa for 14! We also hooked up with Chuck Miller, who was kind enough to arrange a potluck dinner at the camp site he rented for us (thanks Chuck!). Through his email announcement of our arrival we met Ginger, who came down with a delicious quiche and a keen interest in our campaign. Now retired, Ginger had travelled to Seattle for the 1999 protests. She ended up billeting ten of us at her beautiful beach side home over looking the ocean, and allowing us to spend our rest day at her place doing workshops on the WTO, the Agreement on Agriculture and our community presentations. The remaining members of our group were billeted at Chuck’s friend Mark’s place. He was equally gracious in allowing stinky, tired, sick and cranky cyclists invade his space for two nights. Okay, we weren’t that bad : )

Notes notes notes: The big addition for today: Pictures! Yes, now you too can thrill at the gorgeous visuals and participate in our campaign of campaigns: the quest for a good group shot!

01 August Olympia - Astoria

Astoria was a blast. Our host, Sue, had organized a potluck dinner at the local Yacht Club where we presented our project and discussed local initiatives, international trade and strategies which have been successful in the communities we have visited thus far. Robin, a friend of Sue, had two of us participate in her community radio show, this helped to attract more people to the dinner. A band played (fiddle, bass, guitar, mandolin) a fun variety of folk music. We sang, We danced. We were merry. In the afternoon, we participated in a peace rally at a busy intersection. Honk for Peace! This allowed us to meet some of the city's activist community. The pro-war hawks were at an opposite street corner waving flags and a single placard "Freedom is not Free". We finally got a hold of our promotional handbills and stickers, which were mailed in from Vancouver. Youppiii!

Webnote: The Natural Foods Grocery in Astoria was very generous to us, giving lots of food on the house - they know what's going on, almost all of their food is local and they'll be able to tell you where everything in the store comes from. Check them out at the corner of 14th and Dwayne.

31st July Bremerton - Olympia

We left very early (5:45) from the drive-in to make it in time for a potluck at Evergreen State College. Upon arrival, we were amazed by how organised the campus is in terms of sustainability and organic agriculture. The college has a farm on campus, where students and professors are innovating on composting techniques and forest-type gardening. The produce is used by the cafeteria on campus (70% of the salads and greens come from the organic garden) and all leftovers are returned for composting. Even the plates are composted as the paper has been replaced with potato-based product. We were treated to a great lunch provided by the students of the department. Our hosts gave us a guided tour of the premises and were more than happy to answer the questions we had about their worm-farm, compost-aerators, greenhouse techniques, etc. We spent the evening/night at a the Common Grounds farm, which sells organic produce to the community. Friends of the owners came by for an evening of feasting and passionate discussions on activism, agriculture, technology, communications and community empowerment.

Webnote: The Evergreen State College Organic Farm offers programs in sustainable and ecological agriculture. Also a big thanks to the Common Grounds farm for billeting and feeding us.

30th July Seattle - Bremerton

Mileage today was a bit shorter than usual, we had to ride with all our camping gear while we wait to meet up with "Psychedelic Sally", who has undergone serious surgery. Her medical costs for fixing the fuel conduits have cost us a whopping 300$ American. We invite people everywhere to organize "Save Sally" initiatives, telethons and so forth. We noticed that Bremerton is heavily docked with warships and airplane carriers. We received many heckles (the only place this has happened) from cars driving by, but we remain unsure of what was being yelled out.

Otherwise, our stay at Bremerton was really great, about a half hour before sunset, we came upon a drive-in movie theatre after biking up an endless hill, everyone's faces lighted up like children. The family-owned business was full of truly sympathetic people, they loved our project, charged us half-price for the double feature, gave us a tons of popcorn and let us pitch our tents on the site. Great fun.

Webnote: The drive-in in question is located on the #3 just south of Bremerton - They were really good to us and we'd like to say thanks.

July 26th-29th, 2003

After a whirlwind of last minute this-and-that’s, we finally left Vancouver around eight in the morning to ride through the city and out into industrial suburbia and farm lands. There were some beautiful coating hills and a long stretch of road running between farmlands. The momentous challenge of the day was Heritage Hill out in Surrey. It stretched up and up and up and up for kilometres. Some people were left in Vancouver to deal with some RV issues and last-minute packing. We planned on meeting them at the border, but this did not happen. They were busy getting a notary filed so we could drive the vehicle without her owner, John. Yes it is a she. Her name is psychedelic Sally and she’s quite the character. We rolled into Bellingham, WA around the supper hour and down into the gravel pit/garden/performance space in front of The Hub, a brilliant community bike co-op. Their first-annual weenie roast was in session, but people come around all the time to use tools and space and get help with fixing their bike. Those cool kids also are into the bizarre bike modification, building custom frames of stacked used parts and welded metal art. They call them tall bikes (ten feet tall) and we think they have put Bellingham on the map. Brilliant! After the two musical acts, we all sat down and had a community discussion about what our caravan is doing. We learned about a thriving local and organic food network in Bellingham called Whotcom Fresh Produce. They have a labelling system in place so you can see if what you are buying at the market is local or not. Everyone at the repair shop was gracious and hospitable, setting the standard for our trip (with any luck!) Our rock n roll superstar RV, Psychedelic Sally, arrived at the Hub long after night fell.

In the morning our hosts made us blueberry pancakes and we juggled, stretched, and did yoga on the lawn, then were accompanied for the first stretch of our journey by one of the Hub’s 'tall bikes'. He dropped us off at the pick up to Chuckanut Drive, a winding, smooth highway running through the forest. The hills were gentle and shaded by evergreens and Arbutus trees. We were then spat out onto another long, flat road running through fields of cattle and crops. I fell into a ditch looking at some interesting road kill, but without malady. All the problems seemed to be with the RV. It broke down again and Melissa and Lee-Ming biked into town to find a mechanic. Sigh. (A story only just beginning, I suspect!)

In late afternoon we arrived at the Tierra Nueva immigrant farm worker centre in Burlington, a place frequented by many of the migrant farm workers who find employment in that community. Two men shared their amazing stories with us and many tears were shed.. Our group then gave a presentation about issues the WTO is working on that would affect these people’s lives. The evening was translated into both English and Spanish for the cultural diversity present in the room. Then we were invited to take part in the church service. We sang songs of worship in Spanish and talked about Jesus feeding the people with bread and fish. Despite the varying religious tendencies (or lack thereof) within our group, the event felt pertinent to our journey. Next stop, Seattle.

Seattle was a mere 130km ride from Burlington, meriting a 6am wake up and 7am departure time for half the group. The other half caught a ride in Sally for the first 70km to ensure that everyone would arrive at our Seattle destination on time by 4pm. The ride was gruelling. Blazing sun, never-ending hills, and busy transport traffic along side (yuk!). We were able, however, to find time to stop and play in the corn fields. We made it to Seattle physically drained and experiencing heat exhaustion, but met up with our super cool host, Tim, who escorted us to a presentation by APEX – a group working on ecological economics. The presentation sparked a great conversation for our group, giving us an opportunity to learn about each others views on change, how it is effected, different strategies, and so on. Very diverse opinions expressed in respectful exchanges. Diversity really is beautiful. The night ended with a yummy dinner at Tim’s, and a decision to extend our stay in beautiful Seattle to have Sally looked at. She did not fare as well as the cyclists on this leg of the trip. As it stands, we are supporting the supporting vehicle. Hmmm. Hopefully it doesn’t cost too much….

Webnotes: nothing really new for the site today - expect Carolyn's bio by the end of the day. Tierra Nueva & The People's Seminary in Burlington can be found here, and Apex has a great site here. For a more on weird bikes, my personal bible is C.H.U.N.K. 666 - these guys are in New York - unfortunately, I couldn't find a webpage for the Hub. I do encourage you to go check them out if you're ever in Bellingham - they're located at 903 North State Street, in behind Washington Divers.

July 25th, 2003

This is the day! Departure is still 18:30 today. We'll be crossing the border tomorrow and from there... Anyway, the site just got a contacts update and a bunch of files available on the resources page.

July 24th, 2003

Days of madness. We're all working really hard to get this caravan off the ground. Departure time is now 18:30 pacific time, friday, July 25th, from the Vancouver critical mass. Lots of updates to the site today, including new bios, sponsors, links and stay tuned...

July 22nd, 2003

We've arrived, healthy, whole and slightly frayed, in Vancouver today; now begins a crazy rush towards the departure on the twenty-sixth.

July 18th, 2003

Exciting news today: I'm leaving. Tonight I'm getting on the train for Vancouver with a small contingent of Montrealers. This is it - Only eight days left before we start the caravan. Anyway - it's highly unlikely this site will be updated over the next four days, while I'm on the train.

July 17th, 2003

A few aesthetic tweaks, and some updates to the schedule today.

July 15th, 2003

At long last, an updated webpage!

This includes major changes to the look of the site, plus updates to our sponsors pages, posted bios for the cyclists, and other general housekeeping. Future updates to the sponsors page and schedule page will come with patience.