Port Hueneme to Los Angeles

a moment we never forget

We made it save into Santa Monica, close to Los Angeles International Airport. Our extraordinary journey of 8700 km ends here. In the remaining days before flying home for Christmas we will visit our aunt and cousins with their families, they live in Los Angeles, do some sight seeing and shopping and of course, we will pack up our bicycles into boxes and sent them home.  

Looking back we are very greatful that we made it safe without any accident or other mishap and still healthy for all we have experienced and we want to thank:

• First of all the many outstanding people we met, some of them we want to mention
  -  Patti from Great Britain whom we met the first days in St. John´s Newfoundland. She gave us the idea to cover our journey with this blog
  - Josie and Jim in Nova Scotia in their Red Roof B&B, they treated us like their family and helped us to get Katrin´s bike fixed again
  - Jim and Luanne from the Recapture Lodge in Bluff, they also helped greatly us when we were stranded with Frank´s bike broken down
  - Al Chaddick, the humorous painter from Nova Scotia, who took us on an unforgetable sailing race and saved Katrin, who had fallen overboard into the cold water
  - Esther and Rene, the Swiss family who moved to Canada and is now fabricating wonderful chairs there, for the fine barbeque with Swiss chocolate as dessert in their garden
  - Micheline and Denis from Montreal, who invited us to their home and showed us Montreal by bike
  - Faith from the King George B&B in Nova Scotia, who after a very tough and long day gave us a room with a jacuzzi and fireplace, which was a great gift for us.
  - The brave and funny Jane from the Bras dÓr Lakes Hideway in Nova Scotia for driving us at night to a good restaurant and the organizing a pickup for the bikes the next morning.
  - Eva and her family for the evening in their home in Toronto
  - Jim from Amarillo in Texas who picked us up in from a highway the night, where we had again a flat tire and could not fix it.
  - Cindy and Dee whom we met in a Mc Donald´s in the middle of the US and who just organized a journalist to make a article in the local newspaper. That was much fun.
• The Canadien and American people! They were outstanding. Always thinking we are crazy with our adventure, always incredibly open and helpful and also, a lot of fun to met and discuss with. They certainly changed the way we will ever look at these countries again. 
• And especially, our families, kids and friends with whom we mailed, skyped and enjoyed to hear, that things at home are allright.

Some things we learned and would do different though:

• Drive from West to East, less head-wind and a less blinding sun in the afternoons and evenings
• Drive without an electrical supported bike. It made the start easier for Katrin, but was difficult to get fixed when broken down. And, as we just learnt, it can´t be transported normally on a passanger plane, but needs a special transport with DHL. Very expensive and complicated.
• Have better and specialized biking clothes from the start and train more before starting

We learnt a lot on this journey. Especially what everyone can do by his own forces and will. Biking is a wonderfully slow and sometimes exhausting way of traveling, but very rewarding and not damaging the environment. It gives plenty of time to observe and think, or to just let the brain come to rest. And it is a perfect way to get fit and loose weight (Frank lost about 8-10 kg). Also we learnt how open people are here, how easy they make a contact and how welcoming they are.

Through traveling so slow we couldn´t but observe the carelessness towards nature. Trash along the way was a sad experience, traffic noise and light and air pollution an other. We hope, this journey helps us to stay aware and to try to make a difference, at least in our small world. At least, we think about to write a little book about our journey.

If anyone likes to contact us or has questions, please mail to: frank.rumpe@bluewin.ch

Our blog will be continued until we are back in Switzerland, but not daily anymore.

Thanks for sharing our journey with us!



Also here on Santa Monica piers ends Route 66 on which we often drove



along the Pacific Coast Highway towards LA