NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of the reports that I sent back from my previous PAC Tour, in 1998. We followed a southern route, although we started and finished in the same places that my 2000 tour does. In fact, the first day and the last two days of the two tours are identical. The 1998 trip also started a couple of weeks later in the year.

Well, five days and 500-some miles into the PAC Tour and I'm still feeling somewhat human, although my legs are a little tired. We've been very lucky with the weather, which has featured below-average temperatures for the most part. Of course, "below-average" is still into the 90s, and in the desert it got even a little hotter than that.

Lots of people complained that the desert was monotonous, but I found it interesting and beautiful. I was very conscious of being in an environment that was very hostile to me -- the closest comparison I can think of is scuba diving. There is all this life (well, insects, lizards, snakes, and cacti, anyway), but it was not a place where I could expect to survive for long without life support. I had two flat tires the first day (using up two of the three spare tubes I brought!), and I had to change the second one in the middle of nowhere under some grudging shade from a cactus tree. I was very glad to get rolling again.

One thing that makes this a great vacation in my opinion is that we're on the road so long that there's no time to do hardly anything other than finish the day's ride and get ready for the next one. That means no time to worry about anything non-bicycle related. Tomorrow is an easy day (only 58 miles!) so I figure if I stay up a little late writing this I won't be in too much trouble.

My fellow PAC Tour-ists are an interesting bunch. We have only two riders in their 20s. Most riders are older than me, and some of those older riders are amazingly strong. There's a skinny fellow from Oregon named Pierce (67) who flies past me on the hills. We have three Swiss gentlemen in their 50s (ditto). At least two people are updating Web pages about the trip every night from their laptops (and I thought I was so hi-tech with my Palm Pilot). Other riders hail from Sweden; Virginia; Nebraska; Kansas City; Far Rockaway, NY; Illinois; Colorado; Texas; Oklahoma; Oregon; Iowa; and Michigan.

Tonight we're in Show Low, AZ, which is at 6000+ feet. To get here, we crossed a couple of Apache Indian reservations as well as a beautiful canyon (Salt River). All day featured spectacular scenery. Of course, when I pulled out my camera at spectacular scenic spot #1, the battery was dead.

Today was my first opportunity to ride a little bit with Lon Haldeman, one of the PAC Tour operators and (for all you non-cyclists) a real legend. He and his wife Susan do a great job of making it possible for everyone to just focus on their riding and not worry about the logistics. Because of the long distances and hot temperatures, several people have had to sag (get a ride) for portions of days, and all that's been handled flawlessly.

Anyway, as I was telling some of my new friends as we walked back from dinner, I'm having the time of my life so far.

Of course, we haven't reached Texas yet....

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I'm writing from Roswell, NM, which is famous for you-know-what. Just got back from visiting the you-know-what museum, where they are showing a video that would have made me a true believer for sure if I hadn't started to fall asleep. Dark rooms with comfortable chairs have a tendency to do that these days.

I've been biking through New Mexico for several days. I don't think we've ever been at less than 4,000 ft elevation since we got to this state. The first New Mexico day was the longest one on the tour. I got the crazy idea that it would be fun to be the first rider to reach the continental divide, which I was. Then I figured that maybe this was my best chance at being the first rider to get to the motel. 149 miles later, I was. I did it by keeping my rest stop/lunch time to a minimum. There are lots of riders here who are faster than me and who can climb hills better, but I don't think anyone here can eat a tuna fish sandwich quicker than I can.

I think the second rider in was Pierce, the 67-year-old from Bend, Oregon. I feel a little better now that I've learned that when he isn't doing this he does ultra-marathons. For a while I was harboring a theory that he wasn't really a grandfatherly looking guy from Oregon but a retired Italian racer recruited by my Uncle Jim and outfitted with this phony identity just to humiliate me. He did ask for his pasta "al dente." But then he put mayonnaise on it, so I reluctantly abandoned my theory.

So, after the 149-mile day, I had to do 104 miles yesterday that featured our first foray into what I would describe as mountains. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the mountain-climbing part until about mile 77. We then climbed. And climbed. And climbed. It was 27 miles up, with lots of false summits to raise and then dash your hopes that the hotel might be in sight. Everyone was looking pretty tired after that one. Even Pierce.

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I can honestly say that, so far, Texas is ... not as bad as I had been led to believe. We rode about 130 miles of Texas road today and 140 miles of Texas and New-Mexico-That-Might-As-Well-Have-Been-Texas roads yesterday.
Here's what I like about riding in Texas:

-- So far, the roads are good, with rideable shoulders and not that much traffic.

-- No one is towing a boat anywhere around here.

-- When we had a crash in the paceline today, a guy driving a truck full of watermelons pulled over right away to point out that there was a hospital across the street.

-- I got to watch a skinny coyote leisurely cross the road until he noticed us and skidaddled.

-- When you hang your bike shorts outside the motel room to dry, it takes only an hour or so.

-- Occasionally a cloud will come along and provide some shade. One sadistic cloud threw shade on the road about 20 feet ahead of us and kept moving at our exact speed for a full minute before disappearing completely.

-- Dairy Queen!

-- Two more flat tires, which puts me well within striking distance of the lead for this tour. So far, I have had two flat tires in every state except Arizona, where I didn't have any. I've still got a way to go before beating the all-time PAC Tour record of 17 flat tires This is the longest duration PAC Tour ever, though, so who knows -- I might have a shot. I'll keep you posted on the Great Flat Tire Race. [NOTE: This record was eclipsed by the end of the tour, though not by me, thank God!].

-- Every motel in Texas so far has the Weather Channel.

-- For some reason, there are lots of cemeteries in this part of the country. Helps to keep things in perspective.

Well, I still have about 400 miles and 3 days of Texas to go, so stay tuned.
Hasta la vista (as they say on the "Leaving New Mexico" sign).

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As I begin to write this, I'm sitting in my room at the Best Western on State Line Blvd in Texarkana, Arkansas. Texas is just across the street.

I think I'll stay on this side.

Perhaps that's a bit harsh. But this was a bad time to be cycling through Texas.

Day 12 of PAC Tour was relatively uneventful. We rode from Aspermont to Jacksboro, TX. Neither town exactly had a lot to offer.

PAC Tour does strange things to your judgment -- like making you think that 150 miles isn't really that far and that it might be fun to ride a tandem from Jacksboro to Greenville, TX. So, on the morning of Oct. 2, Tracey Fawns and I saddled up Lon and Susan's Burley tandem for the day. Later, I found out that Lon had predicted we wouldn't last more than 50 miles before switching back to our single bikes.

After about 20 miles, it started to rain. Hard. We stopped at the first rest stop and watched it pour for a while before starting off again in what was turning out to be a pretty good thunderstorm. What else could we do? The day was billed as having 3,600 feet of climbing, which meant that we were constantly going up and down hills. The wind was blowing so hard (in every direction except the one we were headed in) that we couldn't get any momentum on the downhills. Lightning started striking. I don't know how close it was, but it was too close.

Finally the storm front passed through and we stopped a few miles before the second rest stop because Tracey thought she needed to go to the bathroom. When she got off the bike, her cycling cleat stayed on the pedal. Two screws were completely gone and the others were loose. I checked Lon's tool pouch but there was no Philips screwdriver -- just allen wrenches. I screwed the cleat back on loosely with my ZDNet pocket knife and we continued to the second rest stop.
By now we were running a little late.

More hills. Up and down. The wind was awful. At about mile 70 we were crossing the Ray Roberts Dam (2 miles long) when we got a flat tire. Fortunately, Lon had shown me how to take the rear wheel off. More time lost. Now we were struggling to reach the third rest stop just past the dam, where they gave us a new wheel as something was apparently wrong with the tire.

Tracey was starting to get very uncomfortable on the saddle that was on the tandem. I had moved my own saddle to the tandem, so I was fine. It wasn't until just before 3 pm that we rolled into the lunch stop at mile 94. A quick bowl of macaroni and cheese and we pulled the saddle off of Tracey's single bike (which was on one of the support vehicles) and bolted it on the tandem.
Two more hours of wind and hills and we made it to the last rest stop at mile 124. By now Tracey was very sore, but she was determined to keep going. I figured that with 27 miles and a little more than two hours of daylight left, we had a chance.

About two miles after we left the last rest stop, Tracey realized that she was in too much pain to continue. We flagged down the support van (we were at the very back of the ride with the exception of one other guy who'd had a flat tire). With the help of the support crew, I got my regular bike off the roof of the van and moved my saddle and pedals back onto it. More time lost.

Ed, the fellow who was also at the back of the ride, waited so that he could start off with me. I started riding but the cross wind was so strong that I thought something was wrong with my bike at first. The tandem is so heavy that the wind doesn't affect how it handles much, but my single bike has fancy aero wheels that caused the wind to push it all over the road.

Ed and I started heading toward Greenville. That's when the weather decided to turn really nasty.

A second storm front brought rain so hard that it felt like we were getting pelted with rice at a wedding. For an hour. Spectacular lightning strikes were coming down to the right and left of us. Friday night commute traffic and trucks were barreling down the highway beside us, adding to the spray. I couldn't see the sun, but I could tell it was rapidly disappearing.

Later, I learned that the storm was what the Weather Channel characterizes as "severe weather" and that we were right in the thick of it. Oh yeah, there was also a tornado watch.

Finally, as we reached the outskirts of Greenville, it was too dark to see the road. We stopped across from a hospital to use its bright lights to look at the route sheet. Mercifully, Susan appeared in a station wagon to follow us for the last two miles to make sure we didn't get lost in the dark.

That was Day 13. A Friday.

The next day, the weather was clear as we assembled in the parking lot for our 6:45 breakfast. As we ate, it started to rain. At 7:15, we started riding.

Again, it rained buckets, though not as bad as what Ed and I had been through the night before. After a couple of hours, it let up, and the road we were on, Highway 71, started to meander through rural countryside. Then it started to get really rough. We had to cross a huge puddle in the road from all the rain, maybe 4 inches deep and 100 feet long. We crossed another huge puddle. Then we turned the corner to see the third and final puddle. This one was about a quarter mile long and 3 1/2 feet deep. It had a strong current for the first few dozen feet as the creek crossed the road. Well, this was the route, so about six of us shouldered our bikes and started wading. Once the current let up, it wasn't too bad, and the water wasn't cold. Some other riders who got to the same spot a little later decided against wading and ended up riding an 18-mile detour, so I think ours was the right decision.

After a quick check for leeches, we all started off again. As I started up the road, a herd of seven chestnut horses suddenly started galloping across a soggy field to my left. It looked and sounded like they were running on water. From that point, the day gradually cleared until it became quite nice for the remaining 100 miles. I think my shoes and socks were nearly dry by the time we reached Texarkana.

Not all PAC Tour days are so exciting, but you never know what you're going to run into when you get up in the morning on this trip.

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Sorry, I haven't written for a while. I think that the general fatigue factor is really starting to kick in. We've covered more than 2,000 miles, though, and South Carolina is starting to look closer and closer.

I'm writing from the city of Tupelo, MS, which is famous, of course, as the birthplace of the King, Elvis Aaron Presley. They had some nice Elvis postcards in the gas station across from the Ramada Inn where we're staying, including some of the Birth Place. It's open to the public, but I doubt we'll have time to stop by.

This part of Mississippi (or the part we've just ridden through, anyway) is the heart of Faulkner country, although I doubt the old reprobate would recognize it owing to the kudzu. Kudzu, as you probably remember from your ornamental horticulture class, is the parasitic vine that is slowly strangling much of the South. It's got big bright green leaves and it will grow on anything. On trees, telephone poles, stop signs, abandoned houses, you name it. When it completely covers a stand of trees (killing them in the process) they end up looking like giant, abstract topiary.

As I'm riding along for hour upon hour, I try to think of things that might interest you about this trip. Here are a few more observations:

-- Most of the riders are obsessive about cleaning their bikes every night, which is maybe why they're in such a hurry to reach the local Days of Western Ramada Inn. As for me, I usually just wipe off the Gatorade and hope for the best, although after the four-hour soaking we got yesterday (big cold front), I did take a few more pains to get some of the mud off of me and the bike.

-- People are definitely friendlier in the South (so far, at least) and the drivers are generally courteous, especially given that they probably don't see that many pelotons passing through places like Black Zion, MS.

-- Speaking of Black Zion, that's one of the places where I noticed that the cemeteries are filled with entire families. Even passing by on the road at 17 mph, I could make out five or six headstones for the Ray family. This got me to wondering what it much be like to grow up in a small town where all your relatives, living and deceased, also reside.

-- There's nothing sadder-looking than a field of wet cotton.

-- Beavers do attempt to cross highways.

-- The only major bridge I've ever enjoyed riding a bicycle across is the Golden Gate. The bridge across the Mississippi was hair-raising, and Lon says that it's one of the safer places to cross. We spent last night next to the Mississippi River, in a bizarre casino hotel, where the casino part is nominally floating on the river. The hotel gave us all $5 in quarters to play the slots, but most of us squirreled them away for later use in laundry machines.

Well, tomorrow sounds like a pretty tough day, so I'm going to try to go to bed a little early tonight. Then on Friday I think we have one of our two remaining sub-100-mile days. Unfortunately, there are no more flat days until the final sprint into Charleston. At least the wind has finally shifted to the west and there is no rain in the forecast.

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I have only three more days of PAC Tour to ride.
I'm in Gainesville, GA, (which bills itself as the "Poultry Capital of the World" -- talk about aiming high), and tomorrow I will cross my final state line into South Carolina. Assuming that my knees hold up. Thank goodness for Ibuprofen. How did the Romans conquer the world without it?

The first week of the trip my legs were tired. The second week, I was tired. Now during the third week plus, I find that everything is falling apart. It's like trying to drive a car across country as all the nuts and bolts are working themselves loose with every mile. My solution has been to slow way down and enjoy PAC Tour from the rear of the PAC. Besides, the company is better in the back. People actually spare a little breath for things like conversation.

The countryside has been quite lovely, although Georgia seems to have an awful lot of hills. And mountains. Today featured a wonderful climb up Burnt Mountain where you turn one corner and look up into the distance and can see the rest stop where the Rider truck and trailer are parked. They are so high up and far away that you can easily blot them out with your thumb. But at the rear of the PAC we don't fret about that; we just keep plugging along.

Today's biggest disaster came while descending a steep hill and going over some obnoxious ripples in the pavement that are there to wake up drivers who might not realize that there is a stop sign at the bottom of the hill. The resulting vibration knocked my cycling computer off its mount and sent it skipping along the pavement at 30 mph and into the weeds along the side of the road. Of course I had to stop and look for it, even though I knew there wasn't much chance I'd find it. You can't imagine how much one relies on the cycling computer on a ride like this. Of course it's useful for navigation, but it also gives you something to look at between Civil War battlefields and abandoned barns covered in kudzu. I didn't find it. I'm hoping Lon will be able to install one for me tonight from his traveling bike store, but it requires a lot of fancy improvisation to make the brand he carries work with my fancy aero wheels. Oh well, let's hope that's the worst bike problem I have this week.

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Greetings from lovely Folly Beach, SC. I'm sitting by my hotel room window watching a pelican breakfasting just beyond the breakers.

The bike ride concluded without any major mishaps yesterday, apart from Pierce, the 67-year-old climbing specialist, getting lost in the last 10 miles. We all waited for him, though, and rode together into Folly Beach (which I guess is close enough to Charleston, but which no one has ever heard of so the "official" destination is Charleston).

After 25 days of cringing as every semi and SUV went flying past, we took the whole lane and backed up traffic for miles. Kind of like a Folly Beach Critical Mass.

When we reached the ocean, everyone dipped their tires in the water and went body surfing. Well, some people went body surfing.

So, now I start my first ibuprofen-free morning and begin preparing to return to real life.