Moving by Bicycle

When I quickly agreed with Daisy's idea to move across town by bicycle, I probably didn't know what I was getting myself into. However, I must say it was exciting and fun, and I didn't expect to earn 2 free massages!

One of our first loads.

Most of our trips involved Daisy's extracycle, with weight loaded as low as possible (for balance), and my commuter bike with a children's trailer attached. We borrowed the trailer from our friend Chris, who uses it for collecting random items. (We had ordered a bike trailer which could carry up to 200 lbs., but unfortunately it was on back order and didn't arrive in time.)


 Our route was about 1.5 miles long and crossed Atherton at my favorite spot: Foster Ave. This is a great spot to cross Atherton St. because there is a double crosswalk with flashing lights to gather cars' attention. What makes it my favorite spot, though, is that some drivers feel outraged that they have to slow down or stop for people walking across the street (as if they never saw the flashing lights...). Silly people.







Our new place is in a quieter section of town, and we have about 4x the space for the same price. Awesome. ... Even better: it is walking distance to Daisy's work so she can take the puppy easily. (that's another story)




Oh, and the massages! During one trip a guy ran out onto the street and asked us to stop for a minute. He said that he and his wife had been watching us and were excited about our move. So, they gave us 2 gift certificates for a 1 hour massage. Sweet. We really should schedule that appointment soon!

Futon. For the large items we needed to attach the trailer to the xtracycle
to get a larger carrying surface.

Futon frame. That is our new place in the background.

Mattress!

We ran into our friend Lori, who was conveniently riding a Brompton folding bicycle, for contrast.

Bikes Back!

Ah, finally, the bikes are all unpacked and we can take rides in State College! It took a couple weeks to ship them across the country, but last week Daisy picked them up from our local bike shop. You can see her below, riding her cargo bicycle (Xtracycle) to bring the two bikes home. Wow! (She sure knows how to haul stuff!)

Daisy transports two bicycles by bicycle!

An excellent example of 'random stuff we find' that is
then transported by bicycle.

Actually, I'm consistently impressed by the stuff Daisy hauls around -- a friend with suitcases heading to the bus stop, Jimmy's bags/boxes that he is moving across town, and random stuff we find. As she was loading the bikes on her bike a guy walked by and commented "That is what pick-up trucks are for." Well, sir, that is what cargo bicycles are for! Maybe you've seen those bumper stickers around that say 'my other x is a y,' we need one that says 'my other bike is a bike'!

Our garden in mid-July... needless to say we got a late start!

p.s.- We look forward to moving across town in two weeks - by bicycle! Maybe ~10 trips with the xtra and another bike with a trailer? We'll see!

Bonus photo: A squirrel takes a bagel from the 833 house. I've long been a promoter of
shutting the doors. Now I can add this to my list along with the skunk, possums, etc.

The victory lap - to the Peace Arch.

Yesterday Jason and I did it - we accomplished our goal of reaching the US-Canada border. Yippee!



The Peace Arch at the US-Canada border



On the 'abandoned' road

It is a little hard to believe that we really did it.  The final 35 mile ride from Bellingham to the Peace Arch was so easy - flat and beautiful along the bays of Northwest Washington.   Traffic was light, or even non-existent in portions.  We got to ride on roads that had been shut to car traffic for nearly 10 years after 9.11, as they are close to a refinery in the country.  It is amazing to see how the fields and forests are slowly reclaiming the side of the roads.  I used to love to ride out there and pretend it was the post apocalypse, and I was delivering food and medicine to isolated country communities.  Silly.



At Birch Bay

Snacktime


We made it to the Peace Arch and found my parents waiting for us... with cameras.  It was like the Paparazzi or something.  There is a great park right along the border that British Columbia and Washington State manage jointly.  It makes it possible to go see the boundary line and the monument without actually going through customs.  So we posed, of course, still a little incredulous that we had really done it.

Now we are preparing for our trip back to State College, and our re-entry into the real world.  We have learned a lot on this trip about simplicity, focus, and enjoying time together.  Also, about being nice to people.  The trip flew by as we pushed through challenging days and conditions.  Ultimately, I am thrilled that we rode border to border, but next time I am determined to schedule in more time to explore and rest and spend time with new friends we make along the road. 

Two nights ago we watched a movie called Ride the Divide (check it out on Netflix) about a race along the border to border mountain bike route available from Adventure Cycling.  I am now determined to ride the route (but not race it).   You should seriously make the time to watch this 80 minute documentary.  The goal of riding through some of the US and Canada's true wild places will keep me focused just long enough to complete my PhD. 

Thanks to all who followed along on our great adventure.  We'll probably post a few more pictures and stories as we settle back into a more stationary life over the next few weeks.  Hopefully, we'll find some adventures around State College too. 

Citrus was happy, too!

The 'Paparazzi'

  

Oh Bellingham, Oh Bellingham...



We made it to Bellingham!!  Notice... the pouring rain.  Ha!

Yesterday evening around 5 pm we made it to my home turf - Bellingham, WA.  This city's unofficial slogan is "the city of subdued excitement", and that pretty much sums up our final full day riding.  We were excited, yes, but subdued by the drenching rain.  So very different from our first full day riding in southern California!  Tomorrow we will finish the trip by riding the final 30 miles to the US-Canada border, but first I'll fill you in on what has happened since Cashmere. 

On the shore of Lake Chelan


North of Cashmere is an amazing lake called Lake Chelan, where we camped for a night.  In future years (when we live closer), I hope to return here for some backpacking trips.  You see, the lake is a filled in glacial fjord type thing.  It is about a mile wide (at its widest) and an amazing 55 miles long.  It is also the third deepest lake in the US.  Wow!  It goes from central Washington wine country to deep in the Cascade mountains.  In fact, there is a tiny town deep in the mountains called Stehekin that you can only reach via float plane, foot, or boat.  They only got land line telephones in 2007!!  You can hike into this town from the Western side of the mountains, and then take a boat out and finally a bus back around.  Someday...  There are always so many places that we find on bike tour that we want to come back to.  The list is getting longer and longer.

Rinsing of Rainier cherries makes them look like goldfish

One of the perks to riding in Central and Eastern Washington is the availability of fresh produce.  Growing up in this state, I had no idea that the inundation of incredible cherries, apples, pears, and berries was special to this region.  Luckily, we were able to catch the very beginning of fruit season here.  We saw vast fields of cherries and pears, apples and apple packing factories.  We've been eating cherries from fruit stands and strawberries from the lowlands. Yum!  When on bike tour, it's hard to not eat massive amounts of the cherries.  Trust me, as I learned on a past tour in Eastern Washington, eating more than a pound of cherries in one sitting is NOT a good idea!


Winthrop - a 1900 themed town

  After riding north for a number of days, we hit the town of Winthrop.  This is the town where my parents had their very first date!  Actually, the town is hilarious.  It's been re-done to imitate a western town at the turn of the century.  The sidewalks are really wooden boardwalks,  and all the storefronts look like the wild west.  We were lucky to hit town on a perfect day of clear blue skies.  Once we left, we headed due West to tackle the final pass of the trip - the North Cascades.




Water gushing next to the road

Even after having ridden the incredible mountains of California, I still have to say that the North Cascades is my favorite pass of the trip.  I know, I know, Yosemite was epic, but the Cascades are so incredible, and the snow and jagged peaks continue for so many miles.  Take a look at the pictures to see!

Jason on the east side of pass - the mountains are
getting closer!

Near the high point of the North Cascades Highway.  A stunning
view of the snowy mountains.

 

We were incredibly lucky to ride the pass under clear blue skies.  There was still large amounts of snow next to the road, and the streams were all gushing with the snowmelt.  There were more than a dozen waterfalls next to the road, some of them very very high and impressive.  What a fantastic pass to finish the trip with.  

We descended to the West side of the mountains and rode alongside the Skagit river for many miles.  We could tell that the ecosystem was vastly different - so much green!  In fact, Washington is home to the only temperate rainforest in the lower 48.  The next day we experienced it.  Rain!

At first it was a drizzle.  Then it was a downpour.  

Jason on the road near Concrete, WA.  Notice the water...  everywhere.

Riding through the rainforest

Taking shelter from the rain with a cup of coffee.  Yum!

Our final full day of riding was bittersweet.  I'm on familiar roads now, where I've ridden countless training rides in my racing days.  For Jason, the roads and scenery are still new and exciting.  The rain did little to dampen our spirits, as the temperature was comfortable and we had very good rain gear.  It's just strange to reach the end of a trip.  Our goal, once so lofty and distant, is within easy reach.  That is exciting, but the reality of going back to the real world is staring us in the face.  I like my work and my friends in PA, but I love this West Coast so!  It's hard to go from the unrestrained freedom and adventure of bicycle touring to a cubicle and weekend adventures.  We'll do it though, because every day I'll be putting money away for the next BIG adventure.  Yes, it's already in the planning stages.

Wet. Wet. Wet.

The strawberries are giant in the Skagit river valley!

We are resting and enjoying Bellingham today, and tomorrow we'll take a quick jaunt up to the Peace Arch at the border, completing our border to border adventure.  What remains you ask?  The coast to coast sequel!!  

Enjoying laughter with my family.

We are currently right in the middle of Washington State (well, more or less).  This afternoon we visited the Aplets and Cotlets factory in Cashmere, a sleepy little town that is 'famous' (ha!) for this little candy reminiscent of Turkish Delights.  

Let's see, last time we updated we were in Bend, OR.  I (Daisy) really liked this town, and would have loved to spend more time there.  Alas, Canada called and we headed North once again.  About 20 miles from town we stopped for dinner at a Safeway.  We had carried a ton of food, but in the middle of what seemed like endless headwinds, we decided to get the "Shanghai Tonight" special for $9.99, and remarkably it was more food than we could eat.  Ha!  While we were eating a woman offered us a ride and a camping spot in her yard.  She wanted to help us out since her son is plotting a South American bike tour.  We told her that we wanted to keep riding, but thanked her and wished her son luck.  

We ended up stopping that night at the best wild camping spot we've found yet.  There was a beautiful overlook next to the road that included a pedestrian bridge across a 300' river canyon.  Just on the other side of the bridge there was nothing but flat, sandy ground with shrubs and trees.  Taking shelter from the wind behind the trees, we were happy campers on the soft ground.

The next day was characterized by one thing:  HEADWIND.  we fought the headwind all day long.  The internet set that the wind was 20 to 25 mph, but by the end of the day it felt worse.  Eastern Oregon was beautiful, and we could see the mountains still getting snowed on, but it was really hard to fight the headwind.  At certain moments we were really discouraged, but luckily we had a fantastic diversion cheer us up:  at a rest next to the road a herd of donkeys approached and we fed them all of the carrots that were going bad in our food bag.  What fun!  

We called it quits early that night, and camped in the only place around that gave us any kind of shelter from the wind:  a giant pile of gravel.  I dug out a spot right up close and we settled in for the night.  The rain fly flapped until the morning. 

On Sunday we crossed the river into Washington.  Yippee!  I was so excited to be back in my home state.  Actually, I still am.  Even better, my parents met us in a state park next to the Columbia and are now following along with us.  During the day they slowly drive along and explore and we ride, then we meet them in a predetermined campground for the night.  My mom makes the best dinners!  It is wonderful to be greeted in camp by the screaming family dog and a lovely salad. 

Because of this luxury, we've been riding long days.  Monday was just over 100 miles through the flat and mostly featureless "Horse Heaven Viticultural Area".  Apparently the Columbia River has been siphoned off to feed grapes in what would otherwise be scrublands.  The road was in the middle of nowhere, and we almost despaired of making it back to civilization.  Little did we know that we had been gradually climbing up over 1,000'.  We thought it was flat!  And then we descended...

Yesterday, too, we road over 90 miles.  We rode through busy Yakima, stopping for ice cream, and finally got back on the Adventure Cycling route.  Yay!  We were happy to be on pretty roads again.  We spent 25 miles in a beautiful river canyon, and then emerged into the valley at Ellensburg.  The valley... and the headwind.  It was terrible.  Especially Jason, who is built like a sail to catch the wind, was suffering.  We persevered though, and made it into the mountains.  After a wonderful night with my parents in the pines, we finished a gentle Blewett Pass this morning and descended all the way to Cashmere.  If all goes well we will be on the West side of the mountains on Friday night, and in Bellingham in time to see the Farmer's Market on Saturday.  I'm soooo excited!  

 

PS - The computer I'm using won't let me arrange the pictures artfully... you'll just have to pretend!  

Feeding the donkeys!

Daisy's home state!

The Crooked River Canyon north of Bend.  Best wild camping ever!

Shelter from the wind provided by... a gravel pile!

Jason can be protective of his (many) munchies

Family Reunion!  (Except for my sister)

I love Citrus!!

Eastern Oregon

Eastern Oregon is cooler than we thought. OK, so Daisy already thinks Oregon is a really awesome state, but now the impression has improved further. We are in the library in Bend, OR, and today has been absolutely awesome so far!

Ice in the lava tube cave.

We woke to ice on our tent - it was a bit cold overnight - but no snow. We were wild camping across the street from an RV park. Ha. We biked a few miles (~10) up the road and found a lava tube cave! We arrived right as it opened for the day, so we had the cave to ourselves. (A mile long and at times 30' high.) As we were leaving two school buses full of children arrived... We continued northward and arrived at the city of Bend. As we entered downtown, we asked a random buy-on-a-bike what his recommendation was for lunch. After a few choices, we decided on Brother Jon's, a brew-pub (Deschutes Brewery). It was "sort of" on his way home, so he decided to ride us there. He was getting ahead of us a little, but then noticed that we were a little slower after we carefully went off a curb, instead of jumping into the street. The food was great, definitely filled us up.

Snowy morning... before additional snow.

So, you may be asking, why are we in Eastern Oregon? It is true that the ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) Sierra-Cascades route drops into Bend, and a few other towns on the east side of the mountains, but we have been off route for a few days. It started a few days ago when we woke up to snow on our tent, the ground, and in the trees. (It was only ~1 inch of accumulation, but it did make the trees look beautiful.) After about 8 miles, the snow storm was going quite well. Visibility was low, it was starting to stick to the roads, (we were really cold and wet,) and we decided that it might be better to head east out of the storm. (By the way, we had talked to Daisy's father the night before, who told us that there was a week-long storm coming -- low pressure [rain] all the way to Japan.) After about a mile on Rt 140 in the snow, we pulled off. It just so happened that there was a forest service guy there with an empty pick-up truck heading east! Perfect!! He gave us a ride downhill out of the mountains to Klamath Falls. In case you're keeping track, our score is two for two on hitching rides out of snowstorms.

Treating ourselves to dinner while planning a new route,
hopefully free of snowstorms.

We got stocked up at the grocery store and headed north. Unfortunately, the shortest route also happened to be heavy with trucks (Rt. 97). The shoulder narrowed, and then the road was sandwiched between a lake and a hill with a concrete barrier. We decided not to risk our lives further and head back to town to regroup. We ended up staying at a funny, "old school" hotel (it actually had real keys!) and working out a new route.



The next morning we headed east. We got into the rural part of Oregon quickly. And then we left it and entered nowhere-land. This nowhere-land happened to be along forest roads 30 and 28 between the small towns of Beatty and Silver Lake. To give you an idea, that afternoon and the next morning we saw about 10 vehicles - and four were forest service trucks. We did see a lot of trees. Thick patches as well as the "thinned" logged areas. That night we made dinner near a stream and I think I saw the most mosquitos I've ever encountered (more than Alaska). The lemon-eucalyptus bug spray worked well (no bites) but it didn't stop them from swarming.

Cooking dinner at city hall.

I enjoyed the break from traffic, but it was also nice to get back to "civilization" for a change. Our use of public spaces continues - yesterday for lunch we cooked outside the post office, and last night for dinner we cooked under an awning at the city hall building in La Pine while a windy storm rolled in.

Clouds dumping precip. on the Cascades.

When we came back in sight of the Cascade range, we could see the clouds dumping rain/snow/whatever in the mountains. (This made us feel a little more justified for leaving the route.) Earlier we were told that snow was falling down to 4500' elevation (we're at 3500' now). Our current plan is to keep heading north on the east side of the range and reconnect with the ACA route in Washington. We'll finish it to Bellingham, and catch the border, too.

On a related bike-maintenance side note, my chain has been used for almost 1900 miles of touring and is showing little sign of stretching (<0.75)!! Wow! (Usually they get replaced at 1000+ miles. I guess I've been using the 'granny gear' a lot instead of cranking up those mountains.) Today I had my rear tire trued a little, but other than that no maintenance has been necessary - that check-up at Freeze-Thaw Cycles before leaving was very effective. (Daisy did get her chain replaced and rear tire trued back in Tahoe.)

After journal-writing I always give dramatic readings to Daisy, who suggests edits.

 
Time to continue northward to the OR-WA border. Daisy's parents will be meeting us in a couple days and camping with us for the Washington section. (And Citrus the German Shepard, too!)

Welcome back to "civilization"!

From Northern California to Southern Oregon

A shot of some epic clouds - we've finally been seeing lots of them since we
left California!

We've been a bit isolated for the past week, so we've got a bit of catching up to do here on the blog.  It's my (Daisy) job to write about our on route adventures from Tahoe City, CA to Ashland, OR.  My, there is a lot to say.

For the entire week between these two places we were booking it - I think that our 'slowest' day was 68 miles, and our longest was 96.  Yikes!  After the numerous and epic mountain passes of Southern and Central California, this northern stretch was relatively mild.  We saw sooo many pine trees!  The national forests seemed to go on forever, but luckily the logging traffic was not too bad.  

There was one final big pass in California that we were really looking forward to in Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Our story of this pass is really quite a tale...

A distant view of the volcanic Mt. Lassen

We planned to ride to the base of the pass on Thursday, and then do the climb and descend on Friday.  The ride to the base was very nice, curving around a rather large Lake Almanor.  We even got to ride along a curvy bike path for quite a while right next to the water.  At the end of the road around the lake we turned to head towards the park... only to see the sign on the road declaring that the pass was still closed due to an extreme accumulation of snow and ice.  No!!  We immediately called my father to do the online detective work to make sure the sign was right.  He confirmed it.  We called the park information line.  It was after hours, so we just got the recorded message saying that the pass was closed and that it was to open sometime in the next week.  Great.  We wanted to call again in the morning, so we decided to camp nearby and try again.  We found a spot in what turned out to be the towns flood control canals, whoops!  No rain though, so we were fine until morning.

Riding in the flats.

In the morning we woke up and rode to a nearby town, Chester, where we got coffee and a cinnamon roll and checked the website.  The picture on the website showed multiple miles of unplowed road, and the message on the information line was the same.  We were sad, but decided to take the road around the park and continue north.  The new route was nice - flat and fast and nearly traffic-free.  The miles flew by, and before we knew it we were around the mountain and back on the route.  Before descending to the route though, we stopped at a beautiful overlook that gave us clear views of both Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta, two huge volcanic peaks that dominated the skylines in either directions.

At the intersection with the original route we turned to go buy chips in town and saw... a road sign saying that the pass was OPEN.  Ack!!!  Apparently they hadn't updated the message or the website, and had opened it that afternoon.  I had a little meltdown on the side of the road, and then we pulled it together and bought some ice cream as a (pathetic) consolation prize.  There was also a 'book swap' where we traded in a few of our already-read books for some new ones.  We limped on down the road for another 30ish miles,  trading extra miles for the disappointment of a missed pass.  Luckily, a wonderful surprise was waiting for us at the State Park where we were planning on staying.

Our wonderful bike touring friends in Burney Falls State Park.

The surprise was not a nice view of a waterfall, or a pleasant hiker-biker site (although both of those things were there too), it was another pair of touring cyclists!  We got to share a site and some wonderful conversation with Eric and Sophia, a Swedish couple who decided to leave their modern lives behind for a year to ride their bicycles and get a new perspective.  They were fantastic - friendly and funny and full of just the kind of cycling stories that kept us chatting into the night.  We talked about all the crazy things that happen on bike tour - it's like a special language that only people who've done it can decipher.  For example, how luxurious a picnic table can be.  The real kicker though... they had come over the pass denied to us - a whole day before it had been opened to cars!  They got a tip from a local; tour guide about sneaking past the barricades.  The video they showed us looked epic - the snow was piled at least 5' high next to the road, like they were riding through a canyon of snow.  We had such a good time talking to them though that we were ok with missing the pass.  If we had ridden it, we may never have met them!

Closed... to cars...

We continued riding north towards Oregon, into rather isolated countryside.  Finally we actually ran out of side roads and had to ride (uphill) on I-5 for 8 miles across the California - Oregon border.  For you East Coasters, I-5 is the border to border massive freeway of the West Coast.  Lots of trucks, not much fun for bikes.  Yet, we had no choice, so we did it.  We left the freeway at Oregon Exit 1.  Yay for riding across the entire state of California!  We had one more big hill to climb until descending into Ashland.  On the descent the road was closed, but emboldened by Eric and Sophias story of Lassen, we continued on.  We found that the road had been washed out by a landslide, but it was easy to walk the bikes across and snap a few pictures with the machinery parked there for cleanup.

Mt. Shasta!  Huge!

Ashland was a funny little artist's town, known for it's Shakespeare Festival, which actually runs for 8 months of the year.  Ha!  We got a room in a funny little hostel run by an artist couple.  The woman was horrified that I didn't know the name of some (apparently very famous) poet.  I should have asked her if she knew of any famous statisticians... I bet she would have not even known Gauss.  Oh well, different worlds I guess.  We met some very kind people at the local Co-op, and one man suggested a tasty Thai place for dinner.  We went there and, hungry as all get-out, ordered three entrees.  They were all delicious!  Most incredibly, another couple at the restaurant was so inspired by our bike tour that they paid for most of dinner, without even telling us! Thank you to those nameless folks, we will someday pass on the favor.

We slept in an elementary school play yard with this excellent map painted on the ground.
They were kind enough to have painted in only the states we were riding across!

Daisy is tired and cold!  Time to REST!

The next morning we climbed a pass heading north, but only 30 miles into the day I was exhausted.  We found a campground with only 6 sites that was closed, and we stopped to read for a bit.  When it started to rain we decided to stay the night and rest.  Good thing too - the rain refused to stop.  It was so insistent that when it came time to make dinner we ended up cooking in the vault toilet stall, as it was the only dry place.  After a quick call to my dad, who informed me that there was nothing but rain for the next 10 days, we fell asleep to the insistent sound of raindrops.  This is the part of the story that Jason (next to me at the library in Bend) is typing even now...