The crew has arrived

The crew has arrived!

Rob, John, Scott and I. We took this picture at Refugio State Beach before we took off on a 80 mile ride. Scott has been in touch with me for a few months. He does Iron Man's so obviously he is a big fan of challenging rides. John is also a good friend from SF state. He just got a bike and is super eager to ride with us as well.

This is a picture of our buddy Jerome. In this picture hes stalling in his car. It was hilarious because this one one of the first times he has driven anyone around in a stick shift. Jerome attends Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo. Gerome grew up in San Francisco and is a good friend of ours. He was going to let us stay at his place on campus but we decided against it because 7 people in a dorm apartment sounded a bit to cramped!
Getting some dinner after a 80 mile ride to San Luis Obispo.

It was a long day!

The ride this day was beautiful!

Rob got a flat somewhere along our ride on day 3 three. These guys change there tires with ligtning speed! Its a bit different for me when I got to take off all my bags.

A giant hill on day 3.

Scotty and I are catching up!

Getting ready in the morning!

Grham cracker

marshmellow

choclate

God bless the USA

Having a party at Refugio State Beach. We stayed in the hiker/biker section of the park. Check out the guy on the right. His name is Trvor and he was doing a ride from Reno, Nevada to Florida. I told him about some of my stories from Mexico and I think I may have convinced him to go down to Baja. Trevor...where are you???

Scotty arrives!
Greg is making fun of my super baby alpaca hand made bolivan hat!

Id like to take this opportunity to Thank ServiceMaster of Stockton for their generous donation!

Rob had to get a loner bike because they were fixing his rack in Santa Barbra. It was absolutly hilarious watching him cruise around State Street in downtown Santa Barbra on this beach cruiser. Hey Rob...ya think that bike will make it to San Francisco?

Cynthia, Rob and I grabbing some lunch in Santa Barbra. Cynthina is another good friend of ours from San Francisco State. She heard about what we were doing and wanted to help out. So she sent out some press releases and PSA's to local rdio and TV stations. She even got me an in studio radio interview with a local radio station near Santa Barbra.

The rib injury continues!

This truck is getting a bit to close!

Aaron

Some funny Videos

Getting outta LAX

Robs biking honeymoon was over before it began. I took this picture the morning of our second day. His rack on the back left broke off. To make matters worse the screw broke off in the bike itself. Luckly I had some zip ties with me to make for a quick fix. Then Rob wanted to make sure the screw on the other side was working. As he was tightening that screw it also broke off. I kne something bad happened because Rob got instantly quiet. So...with a few more zip ties we fixed the problem and hit the road. Luckily we were about 2 hours from Santa Barbra where we could go to a shop.
Denny's breakfast!!!!

Our good buddy Greg let us stay the night at his place in Oxnard. Its always nice to have friends along the way. His wie Brenda cooked us this amazing dinner. Its like a Japanese fondu....awesome! During dinner Greg and his wife would tell us about stories from Costa Rice. They have a dream to one day get rid of all there stuff and drive down the pan american highway.
This is a typical photo. Ever since college Rob would be the one woking and I would try to look busy in the background! But thats only because Rob loves this stuff!

When Rob saw the condition of my chain he was a bit disappointed. I havent cleaned that thing off in like 2 months!

Some wild looking stuff here in America!

Ummmm...I love LA!

Rob and I at Venice Beach in LA!

This day was perfect. The weather was amazing and the route followed the ocean all the way up.

Here we are at LAX trying to figure out how to get out of the parking lot. In Mexico and Central America there is only one road and it goes North. In Los Angeles there are a ton of options but most of the options are off limits to bikers. So, luckily, Rob picked up some amazingbiker specific maps before he came down.

Whats up Joey! Thank for letting me crash at your house for the past few days.

Last minute touches to the bike. We have something like 500 miles from LA to San Francisco. For whatever reason, maybe because I have a friend to ride with, I wasnt really worries about the distance that we had to cover in 6 days.

Aaron

Rob is here

This is one of my best friends Rob. We took this picture right after he got off his plane from San Jose. Were at the baggage claim in Los Angeles Airport.

Rob was one of the first people I contacted about this ride. I was in Santiago de Chile when I called hime long distance from a small locotorio in Santiago's Providencia district. I called Rob first for a few different reasons. One, Rob is a big biker. In college he rode from San Francisco to Washington DC. He did this with our fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi, to raise money and awareness for people with disailities. I also wanted Robs advice because as a police officer I knew that he would give me a straight and truthful answer espcially if it concerned safety. Anyway....when I told Rob about the idea he was thrilled. But he also wanted to make sure that I had the proper bike and that I would take all safety precaustions. His wife, Monica, thought I was totally crazy but thats another story.

So here we are...at the Los Angeles airport. The LA to SF trip almost had a problem. A few days bfore I aggrevated an injury that I had. Im not sure how this happened but somehow I got a serious rib injury. I told Rob two days before that I wasnt sure if I would be able to ride. Rob was crushed with the news but he totally understood. But...on the morning of the day that Rob was supposed to get in I decided to chance it and see how it would go. When Rob saw me in my riding outfit he was super excited because he knew we were going to hit the rode. That day my ribs didnt hurt much so there wasnt really any need to stay longer in LA.

So here we are...the plan is to put Ros bike together in the LAX airport parking lot and ride on Oxnard, about 55 miles north. From there we have a tough 5 days of riding up the California coast to San Francisco.

Aaron

Party in LA for Plan

Allright...so here we go. On Saturday April 18th my good friend Evan hosted a party/fundraiser for Plan and the school construction project in Jalapa, Guatemala. He threw the party at a cool bar called Scorpion on Hollywood blvd in Los Angeles. This party was planned for about a month. We did a good amount of preperation for the party. Evan got the back room of the bar for our group with a DJ and a rafel to make a few bucks for the fundraiser. For the rafel Evan seriously hooked it up. He got a 2 night stay in a delux room at the Roosevelt hotel, back stage passes to the Jimmy Kemel show and a gift certificat to a super cool resturant in Hollywood.

Evan and selling some tickets!

A bunch of my college buddies from San Francisco State.

Joey and I taking a break from the party and trying to catch up. Joey is a film maker and hes always working on a ton of different projects.

Joey's brother David made it out to the party. A few nights before he threw a tribute concert where he was trying to raise money so that inner city youths could get funds to apply to and visit colleges. David is also a super talented musician.

Mike made it down to the party as well!

Mike, Greg and I. Greg offered up his place for me to crash at on my ride back to San Francisco. Greg was one of the first guys to respond to some of the emails about the Last Hill Project. He even pledged to raise $500 for the Last Hill Project. Obviously he is a big supporter!

Mike and I...from Panama to Los Angeles! Happy birthday Mike!

This is a picture of my good buddy Dan. Dan and I met a few months back in Buenor Aires. He was taking spanish school while I was travelling through. We tried to speak in spanish with eachother but that went nowhere pretty fast!
All in all we made about $500 for the school construction project in Guatemala. Thanks for making it out everyone!!! We had a great time!

Aaron