August 24, 2008
On the evening of August 22, 2008 a lone bike rider with a full set of panniers stopped in front of our house on Old Stage Rd and asked for directions to Weed. It was rather late and Bonnie and I asked if we could help him with food or something. He said his name was Mark and if we wanted to help him he would like to camp in our front yard and take a hot shower. He set his tent up in our back yard and took his shower and then proceeded to eat all of the left over food we had in our refrigerator. After fulfilling his needs he told us his story.
He is Mark Weslock 57 years old from St Charles Michigan. Mark is in between jobs at the moment and nearing that time in life that if he is ever to embark on this challenge now is the time. The total budget for this trip is $6,000. which translates to $28 per day. The budget includes money for food and showers but he can not pay for camping (we tried-oh well). From outward appearances Mark is just an ordinary man but he has a very extraordinary goal. He is a minimalist with just two sets of biking clothes, a camp stove, dinner ware, sleeping bag, Therm-A-Rest, tent and some cycling tools. There isn't even a spare tire on board. Besides the preceding there are six other components that he said you must have in order to consider such a grand adventure:
Mark is no newcomer to touring, in 2004 he cycled from Prudhoe Bay to Key West Florida. It was after that trip that he began dreaming about a ride that would take him from the northern most city in North America to the southern most city in South America. The total journey is over 16,500 miles though 13 different countries many of which are on the US State Department travel warnings list. Scheduling the route was limited by seasons since he is traveling to the extreme latitudes both in the north and in the south. He started the trip from Michigan via air to Anchorage. The first was a shakedown leg of 500 miles north to Fairbanks. From Fairbanks he hitched a ride with a trucker to the official start of the ride, Prudhoe Bay. Day 1 was June 17, 2008 and the first leg was the Dalton Highway which is 415 miles largely unpaved and unpopulated stretching from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Fairbanks in the south. From Fairbanks Mark rode the Alcan Highway through Alaska and the Canadian Provinces of Yukon Territories and British Columbia. Much of that part of his trip was in the rain with muddy or just dirty road surfaces. Most nights he would put his tent up in the rain and put it away again in the morning rain.
Mark entered back in the United States north of Bellingham Washington. He said that it was truly an E ticket ride through Seattle. He finally went to a bike shop and got a map of the bike routes and made his way south on them. If you will recall the week of August 10th was a scorcher and so it was for him through Washington and the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Thus far the steepest and longest climb of his ride was the Siskiyou Pass into California. Old Hwy 99 en route to Weed was a pleasure for him, thank goodness the local drivers gave him plenty of room. The only problem he had was trying to flag a driver down for directions and everyone just waved Hi back to him and kept going. Here in Weed Mark was at mile 3800 from Anchorage and 3300 from his official start at Prudhoe Bay. At San Diego, California he will be approximately 1/4 of the way through his journey. Mark is hoping that that benchmark will give him a sense of whether or not he can keep his time goal of completing the ride by the end of February.
In the end Mark said that this journey will be filled with adventure, mosquitos, hot days, rainy days, steep hills, endless long straights and propably some moments of terror but mostly this trip will be about the people that he meets and friends that he makes along the way. Any way this is most of what I remember from our conversation and I hope he updates his web site. Speaking of which he does that from the public library. Bonnie and I so enjoyed talking with Mark and helping him out that we are considering signing up on http://www.warmshowers.org/ which is an organization that helps provide hospitality to traveling cyclists.
Peter Eddy