July 24: Spokane, WA

     I'd LIKE to be able to report that we blasted out a 100-mile day today in order to get here, but that would not quite be honest.  Let me go back a few hours.
     Aaron and I started early to avoid the late afternoon heat and we were making great time thanks to a favorable tailwind.  We had a delicious breakfast in the little town of Hartline.  The food wasn't fancy--just your basic omelet, hash browns, overeasy eggs, etc.--but well prepared.  But the cool thing about it was that the greeter, the server, the chef, the check out clerk and the busboy were all the same lady.  It was so quaint I almost melted.
     Back on the road, wind still mostly at our backs, cruising along through miles and miles of wheat fields to our day's destination of Davenport, WA,  Aaron pulled over to the side of the road for a water break and to wait for me to catch up. (He was almost always ahead of me.)  As he described it, he hit some loose blacktop that looked just like the regular blacktop, lost control, almost regained control, then took a nasty fall.  The bike rolled onto him and he was "flopping around like a turtle on it's back."
     I didn't see the incident, but a lady in a pickup truck did and she made her husband stop to check up on Aaron.  When I came rolling up to the scene a couple of minutes later, I was confused as to why Aaron would be talking to a middle-aged woman on the side of the road.  Then I saw the blood flowing from a wound on the side of his knee and the woman was offering to take him to the hospital--an offer that Aaron declined.  It was the kind of scrape that all bike riders get at one time or another.  The next minute, Aaron examined his bike and found that the rear derailleur was bent into the spokes.  He determined he could possibly bend it back but he would need a big wrench to do so and, of course, nobody was carrying a big wrench.  So the friendly couple offered to throw the bikes into the back of the truck and drive us to the next town where Aaron figured we could borrow a wrench at an auto repair shop.
     We had a few options at this point but we narrowed them down to these two:  A) I would finish the ride into Davenport and send Aaron off alone with two complete strangers, thereby allowing me to preserve the purity of my Seattle to Hastings ride.  B)  I would ride in the truck with Aaron to ensure that if these seemingly friendly people were actually psycho killers, we would both be murdered and buried together out in this wasteland.
     I chose option "B."  So, when all is said and done, and when I show up in Hastings somewhere around September 1, you will be able to say, "Technically, Greg, you did NOT ride all the way from Seattle to Hastings."
     To which I will reply, "But it was only a 25-mile glitch."
     And you can shrug your shoulders and say, "Sorry."

     The owner/mechanic at the repair shop in Davenport was also very friendly and after insisting that Aaron clean the blood off his leg, he was glad to share a gigantic crescent wrench and even helped hold the bike while Aaron carefully bent the derailleur almost back into place.  In first gear it still rubbed against the spokes but he felt that it was good enough to get back on the bike and ride into Spokane.  So he rode the final 50 miles of the day with no first gear.

A different kind of bike club.
 

July 23: Coulee City

     Our campsite last night was at the Wenatchee Confluence State Park.  True to it's name, the park is at the point where the Wenatchee River flows into the Columbia River.  Sadly, the confluence is not very scenic. I do like the high barren hills visible in the distant east though.  The park itself is heavily developed--more suited to RV's than small tents--and has far more luxurious accommodations than we've been accustomed to.
     The young rangerette who checked us in gave us a pretty nice deal.  "We like to get bike-riders here," she said.  "I'm not going to put you in the regular campground.  Since there are no groups coming in tonight, I'm going to put you in the group campsite."
     "Sounds good to me," I said.
     "You can just set up your tent anywhere you want," and she pointed me in the right direction.  Then she asked where we were coming from and where we were going, and sounded genuinely interested in our story--just as so many other people have been along the way.
     I rode down to the group site and found we had about four football fields worth of land to work with as well as a huge grill, a 561 square foot shelter (I stepped it off myself,) a big fire pit, a complete sink and wash station, 31 picnic tables, our own restroom, and, best of all, total privacy.
     Total privacy, that is, until a ranger came by and asked me what we were doing in the group campsite.  I explained what the young lady at the ranger station said, showed him my paid receipt and he left me alone.
     A couple of hours later, the second exception arrived.  Hank, who was a 63-year old dude riding from southern Illinois to Renton, WA.  Out of courtesy, we invited him join us for the deluxe meal Aaron prepared--grilled shrimp, a grilled vegetable medley consisting of red bell peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms, plus cheese raviolis smoked over the coals and added to an alfredo sauce.  He had ridden into town to pick up all the ingredients a little earlier.  Damn good stuff.

     Well, that was last night.  Today we started with a pleasant and scenic ride for 14 miles along the Columbia River valley, passing tempting apple and cherry orchards as we went.  Then came the brutal 7-mile, 2400' climb to the high semi-desert of eastern Washington that we had been warned about.  It took us nearly two hours to complete, but it wasn't as bad as the guys at Snoqualmie Pass made it sound.
     The plateau was not quite as desolate as the area along I-90 that I described last week but it was close. On U.S. 2, from Waterville to Coolee City (a distance of 41 miles) there was no water, no services, and no people.  There were some wheat fields but no signs of farmers or farmhouses.  There were also a few house-sized boulders randomly scattered.  I can't imagine how they got there, but I considered them to be better evidence of alien activity than crop circles.
     The afternoon became ridiculously hot and somewhere along the route the driver of a big Pepsi truck heading in the opposite direction flagged me down.
     "Do you have enough water?" he asked.
     "Yeah, I'm fine," I replied, proud of my own self-sufficiency.  "Thanks anyway."
     "No problem.  Have a safe trip."
     A few minutes later, I could have slapped myself silly.  I took a drink and discovered that my water was hot.  Not just warm, but HOT.  And sure enough, by the time we arrived in Coulee City, it was 104 degrees and I was out of water.

     Do you know what's worse than bicycling 65 miles in temperatures in the 90's and 100's?  The answer is setting up camp in that heat.  So I bought a room in a small motel on the east side of Coulee City and we took it real easy in our air-conditioned room.

The wheat fields of Eastern Washington.
 

Aaron's bike and the 104 degree desert near Coulee City.
 

Aaron repairing a flat tire in the central Washington desert.

Our road along the Columbia River.



 

July 22: Wenatchee Confluence State Park

     Our ride out of the campground began with seven and a half miles of steady uphill pedaling to Blewet Pass on Highway 97.  Once over the pass, we enjoyed an exhilerating 20 miles of downhill riding, some of it at about a 5 or 6 percent grade.  Wow!
     We stopped at a fresh fruit stand at the intersection of Highways 97 and 2, and ate a basket of fresh, delicious Rainier cherries.  Then we proceeded down U.S. 2 which again was mostly downhill to the town of Cashmere, WA for a beer and some chili.  Next we are headed to the Wenatchee Confluence State Park for the night.

The beginning of the long downhill after Blewett Pass.

July 21: The Wenatchee National Forest

    It was a cool evening and I woke up early to a heavy fog and two big slimy slugs snuggled up to my tent.  Aaron already had a fire going and Ryan cooked bacon and eggs.  When we cleaned up camp, Alex began riding back to Seattle.

     Down to three, our group proceeded up the Iron Horse Trail, surrounded by big, snow-capped mountains, deep valleys, and vast pine forests.  Then came the Snoqualmie Tunnel.  The ride through it was 2 1/2 miles of total darkness--at least when we turned our bike lights off.   Plus, it was cold with lots of dripping water.  It was not only a new bicycling experience for me but also, I cannot ever remember seeing that kind of complete darkness anywhere.  Just after the tunnel, we met two bike riders.  They were probably a little older than me and they were clearly very knowledgeable about virtually every bike route in Washington and Idaho.  One of them was an Adventure Cycling Ambassador.  They told me that my 60-70 mile-per-day goal might be a bit over-ambitious (they were right) and they told us about some of the things we would encounter up ahead with stories of big climbs and big winds.  They were interested in my ride and excited for me.  Their final bit of advice for me was "never give up.  Never give up."
     I understood what they were getting at:  There will be many challenges, both physical and emotional.  Take them in stride and do not let them get you down.  I appreciated the encouragement, but I had long ago made the personal commitment--the only reason I would ever quit would be a serious injury that caused me to be physically incapable of propelling a bicycle.  Like a broken skull, an exploded knee, or death.  Certainly I would not quit because it was too difficult, too lonely, too boring, too scary, or too uncomfortable. 
     At this point, Ryan turned back and now it will be just Aaron and I all the way to Spokane.
     On the east side of the Cascade Mountains, the climate is noticeably hotter, dryer and less scenic, in my opinion, and that opinion is validated by my son.  And, boy, it was hot all afternoon and it sucked the spirit right out of us.
     In Cle Elum we had a sandwich and a beer in air conditioning and it was hard to head back into the blazing sun, but we did it, and after about six breaks in fifteen miles we made it to the Mineral Creek campground in the Wenatchee National Forest.

Entering the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Aaron and I outside the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Resting at Keechelus Lake along the Iron Horse Trail.

 

July 20: You Probably Think I Quit Already

     The schedule was to meet at Aaron's place at 9:00 am for a 10:00 a.m. departure.  I was running a little late and I called Aaron to tell him so and he replied, "That's OK, nobody's here yet.  Take your time.  One of the guys will be here shortly with Bloody Mary mix."
     That was the beginning of a long chain of events that got us off to a very slow start.  In the end, there were six of us and we did get on the road at about 11:00,  but fifteen minutes later we just happened to run past another friend of the group named Barry.  He yelled out, "where are you going?"  and one of the guys hollered back, "We're going up into the Cascades with Tron's dad." 
     "Wait up, I'm coming."  It took only a few seconds to get rid of the girl he was with and about ten minutes to pack up and join us.
     We got onto a trail that runs alongside Interstate 90, across Lake Washington, to Mercer Island and we took some local roads to the other side of the island.  At one point a woman driving a minivan pulled over to the right and suddenly pulled a U-turn right in front of Barry.  He crashed into the car and smashed out the driver side window.  His body caved in the driver side door and you could clearly see where his head put a big dent in the metal above the door.  He suffered some very deep lacerations to his shoulder, a concussion and a broken jaw.  He was bleeding profusely.  Aaron and his friends, equipped with disposable cameras as part of a group experiment in artistic expression, took numerous pictures of one another posing with Barry.  He SEEMED lucid the entire time, but the next day we learned that he remembered nothing of the crash. 
     Of course we were delayed by police reports and the ambulance.  Then there were a couple of flat tires and some wrong turns.  There were stops at a couple of bars and at the beautiful Snoqualmie Falls. We passed a wedding party in a park and congratulated the bride and groom while speeding past at 20 m.p.h.  Late in the afternoon, two of our party turned back to Seattle.
     Finally, we made it up into the Cascade Mountains and the big climbs started.  The views were magnificent.  We set up an illegal improvised campsite (camping in designated areas only, according to signs along the trail)  in a very scenic setting along the Iron Horse Trail just before dark (9:30 p.m.)  We made a little fire, grilled some salmon, drank beer, wine, and whiskey, and enjoyed the night.

Snoqualmie Falls


The following photos were taken by Aaron & friends with their disposable cameras.

 

   

July 19: A Couple of New Developments

     Last night I joined Aaron and a few of his bike-riding buddies on a ride through Seattle to a popular party beach on the Puget Sound.  We had a few IPAs from a brewery in Portland, the name of which I don't recall, grilled some burgers and stayed to watch the big orange sun set behind the Olympic Mountains. 
     While talking about my big ride, I got some advice from one of Aaron's friends who warned, from experience, that US Highway 2 can be very dangerous in the mountains for bikers because of heavy traffic, the speed of that traffic around sharp turns, and fairly narrow shoulders.  He suggested a bike trail that parallels I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass.  Right then and there I decided to change my route that I had planned for six months.  The new route will be considerably longer, but safer and probably more scenic..
     Not only that, anywhere from four to 10 of Aaron's friends are going to join us for the first day of the ride up into the Cascade Mountains and then turn around and ride back to Seattle the next morning.  That could be interesting.

     Then there is the issue of my Blackberry device.  It seems I won't be able to post much more than a paragraph at a time using that thing.  I say "thing" because I can't think of a better epithet right now.  Memory issues I guess.  (Mine and the device's.)  Therefore I will have to stop at public libraries occasionally to write more detailed entries.  I just KNEW I should have packed a laptop.

     Anyway, tomorrow morning my ride begins.  I thought the day would never get here, and if it did, I was sure something would go wrong to totally screw it up.  Fortunately I was wrong on both counts.  Nothing can stop me now.

While on a night-time ride with Aaron & friends, I got this shot of the Seattle skyline from across a small bay.

July 7

     This is my second official day of retirement and I must say, IT'S AWESOME.  On each of my first days of the liesure life I went out on long bike rides, actually seeking out the biggest hills in the area.  I need to do some serious climbing because I am worried about the first 80 miles out of Seattle, going from sea level up into the Cascade Mountains.  Unfortunately, I know of no 30-mile sustained uphill rides in Minnesota or Wisconsin.  Nevertheless, I'll keep training the best I can.  And, yes, 50 miles on a bike is easier, more enjoyable and certainly less stressful than a ten-hour day in the paint store.
     Also, last week I got some welcome news from my son Aaron.  He has decided to ride the first five days with me from Seattle to Spokane, provided that I buy him an Amtrak ticket back.  Done!  At first he was only going to ride a day or two.  Then not at all.  Then maybe.  Then no.  But now he is back on board and I think his presence will add a whole new dimension to the first leg of this trip.