At long last... Portland!!

After: 5,000 miles, 83 days, 15 states (and 1 Canadian province), 700 granola bars, 560 bananas, 450 nectarines, untold meals of rice and beans, veggie wraps, sandwiches, tuna wraps and random other things, 500 oatmeal packets, 205 pb&j, 30-40 McDonalds apple pies, too many ice cream cones to count, 3 months of facial hair growth (for me and bruce at least, though Evie didnt shave her face either I guess) a vast range of conversations with an incredibly diverse sea of faces, and many, many memories which we will carry with us the rest of our lives, we have finally arrived in Portland, Oregon.

What a journey! Today I was looking through old pictures on my camera and a couple things came to my mind. First of all I couldn't believe how long we had been on this trip, it seems like ages ago that we were in New York, or even Yellowstone. It even feels like ages ago that we've actually consistently rode 70 miles a day (the last 2 weeks or so we've been taking it pretty easy). But it also hit me that the trip I had been looking forward to and anticipating for over a year and a half is now over. When I think about this trip I don't think of it as a difficult physical task, really after the first month or so of getting in shape it really wasn't too bad and I really think almost anyone could physically do it. But more so I think of it as a great privilege to be able to have the time and be in the position to be able to go on an adventure like this. It really was an amazing summer, one that I'm sure I will always look back on as one of the best things I ever did.

Bicycle touring has definitely gotten into my blood and hopefully this won't be the last tour I do. Though I'm sure that it will be awhile before I come close to doing one of this magnitude again. And hopefully biking will always be a heavy part of my life. It's a great way to stay in shape, and another plus for me is that its practical. It gets you somewhere. Running for the sake of running always seemed pointless to me, but biking as a form of transportation makes sense to me - especially with the cost of gas. Thats one thing about Portland. Everyone here bikes. There's bike lanes everywhere, and even where there aren't bike lanes everyone gives you plenty of space and you don't feel threatened even when biking in the city. This pic was taken our first night in the city. This is about 12 bikers stopped at a traffic light.

We got to Portland Monday night and were planning on only spending Monday night in a hotel and then head out to a campground about 30 miles outside of town and just take the train in everyday. But we found a fairly nice and decently priced hotel and just decided to avoid the hassle and stay within the city. Since we've been here we've spent a lot of time just walking around the city and enjoying the things it has to offer. Last night we went to an outdoor symphony down by the waterfront, which was really enjoyable. The first night we were riding into the city with our bikes fully loaded and a lady with a bike on top of her car pulled up beside us at an intersection and asked us about our trip. She was really excited about our trip and gave us her number and asked us to give her a call if we wanted to do something while we were in the area. So Wednesday night we went out to dinner with her and her husband and Saturday night we'll be staying with them at their house. They were a really great couple and gave us a lot of ideas about stuff to do in the city. Sunday we'll be leaving the city and spend the next couple days, until we leave on Tuesday, with some of our relatives in Salem.

Portland has been great and has been a fitting end for our trip seeings as how it is known as the biker friendly city. And more importantly, its the end!

Got Some Pics up

Just a quick post to let everyone know we finally got some pictures up in our photo album. There should be some new ones in the Montana album as well as Evie's pics as well as the new Washington album. We've had a rainy, dreary couple of days in Washington - typical weather for this area I guess - and decided to stay in a hotel tonight to dry things out, including ourselves. Should be in Portland by monday, or maybe Tuesday if the weather stays nasty like this and we have more short days. We've all seem to hit lazy mode. This morning after only 10 miles we stopped to grab some granola bars and Bruce voiced what we were all feeling when he said "I don't feel like biking today." Now that we've hit the coast and had a couple of 30 mile days it seems we've all lost motivation. But the end is in sight, and I think once we get a little closer the excitement of reaching our destination will pick our spirits up. Right now the dreary weather has just brought us down a bit it seems. Anyway, hopefully next time you hear from us it'll be from Portland!

Coast to Coast!

We've hit the Pacific!! But... still another 400 miles to Portland. Yesterday, about mid-way through the day we decided that it would be foolish to stop just 15 miles short of the coast and get there mid-morning on Saturday. So we - much to Evies dismay I think - decided to go the extra 15-20 miles and hit the coast after a long day of riding. Well, not really too long, after all was said and done (including riding around town looking for food) we had 105 miles in on Friday. But we have reached one of our goals. We've rode from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It took us 72 days and roughly 4500 miles to do it.

So now its vacation mode, sort of. Our goal is to hit Portland by the 25th (our train leaves Sept 2nd) so that gives us 10 days to go about 400-450 miles. So if you consider about 50 miles of biking a day a vacation then thats what we have in front of us. I, Shawn, for one am looking forward to staying up later at nights and being able to sleep in a little longer, at least til 6:30-7. I'm sure that we'll have a couple days where we'll do 70-80 miles, especially if there really isn't anything special to see along our route. And then, on days like today, we'll only ride about 20 miles. Our agenda for today has been: sleep in til 7:30, ride into the town - Anacortes - hit the doughnut shop, do laundry (we've gone from washing our clothes in the sink to this option as of late), go to the library, take the ferry from Anacortes over to the San Juan islands and spend the rest of the day relaxing and taking in the sites over there. Yeah, it's a rough life.

As for the last couple of days. We were slightly disappointed with our first several days in Washington. It looked much more like Wyoming then we were expecting. Brown and barren as opposed to the green that we were expecting. We had 4 mountain passes to do in the state, the Cascade Mountains. We did two in one day, then decided to slow down a bit and just tackle one a day. The last pass, Washington Pass, was by far my favorite of the whole trip. Maybe it was because I knew it was our last but I enjoyed it, even the climb up it. Once we get to a library that actually lets us put pictures on I'll show the views from the top of that mountain, it was gorgeous. And from the peak down the scenery was the best we've had the whole trip. Snow-capped mountains overshadowing vivid blue lakes surrounded by evergreens. Roads that cut through almost jungle like environments. And tons of cyclists everywhere, which is always encouraging. The last 3 days have been amazing. And from what everyone tells us, the best is yet to come. So while we're all ready to be done with: the daily biking, taking down and putting up the tent, rolling up the sleeping bags and packing up camp, hoping that the campground that we hit that night will actually have a shower, etc. I think we're all excited about what lies ahead of us.

Well its off to enjoy the San Juan Islands! Til next time...

up north

We are currently in Eureka, Montana and have been thoroughly enjoying this state. Last night we were once again spoiled w/ food, beds/couches, and the warm indoors for the night as we stayed w/ friends of Kaylene's. We were also pleasently surprised to find a friend from rosedale, Eli, living close by this area w/ his wife and were able to see them as well.

This morning we realized that we are only about 1000 miles to our destination, Portland, and that is exiting for us as well. A few days ago we ran into girl from Portland who was going east. She was so thrilled that we were going to be in portland as that is her favorite place ever and she offered us to stay at her house. Speaking for all of us, I would say that it is fun to run into other bikers and talk w/ them for a while. We have met up w/ husband/wife combos, father/son, a group of boys just out of college, and single riders out touring. It has also been surprising to me to see how many people we run into that have done tours or hope to some day.

Another highlight of our trip lately was our trip into glacier national park as we rented a car for the day. it would be great to put up the pictures from that trip, but we cannot due so at this time due to technical difficulties. hopefully they will be coming soon. but we were able to get some off bike excercise in as we did some great hikes and the scenery was beautiful! Anyway, we need to get on our way again, but hopefully we will be able to share more of our latest journey soon.

A Typical Day in the Mid-West

Although this timeline does not exemplify every day, this was our strategy for conquering the midwest:

4:00 - My alarm goes off and I begin rolling up my sleeping bag (and conveniently bump both Evie and Shawn in the process)

4:30 - Breakfast, consisting of two packets of instant oatmeal, a handful of granola, and several spoonfuls of raisins.

5:00 - The last of our items are packed up and we head out for the day. Most of the time there was a bit of light but several times we had to put on headlamps and lights in order to be visible. Don't worry, there was hardly anyone else on the road at that time of morning.

5:30 - Sunrise. Evie stops to take a couple pictures. This was our favorite time to ride - no wind and beautiful golden scenery.



7:45 - Pee break. And Shawn's coffee break. Hopefully we have 30-35 miles in by this time.

9:00 - Our goal was to have 40 miles in my nine. It was always a treat to have such a large portion of the day out of the way before the winds picked up and it got hot.

11:45 - Started looking for a shady place to enjoy our PB&J sandwiches. We learned early on that begals make a much more substantial base to the sandwich then bread does. Sometimes we would mix it up and replace the jelly with honey. Either way, we have yet to tire of this simple lunch. Hopefully we have 60-70 miles in by this point.



12:15 - Quick nap.

1:00 - We reluctanty trudge onward.

2:00 - Ice cream search begins. You would not believe the amount of ice cream we have consumed on this trip.



3:00 - We regret the ice cream and we start looking for a campground. We always enjoy pulling into camp by 3 or 4 but that is not always the case. Hopefully we have 80-90 miles in by that point.

5:00 - Set up camp. Showers

6:00 - Supper. Beans and rice, enchalatas, veggie wraps, tuna salad sandwiches, etc. Anything simple.



7:00 - Shawn calls Kaylene. Evie and I put things away for the night.

7:30 - Shawn journals. Evie and I crawl in bed and read.



8:30 - Sleep.

Ups and Downs

Posting hasn't been as easy as we thought it would be. Finding places where we have intenet access has proven to be difficult now that we're out west and things are a little more spread out. Things have been good though for us. We had a couple down days, but mostly positive days. We've discovered that we're alot farther ahead of schedule then we thought we were. We're planning on taking the train home from Portland and in order to do that we had to order our tickets well in advance. So we purchased them several weeks ago for a departure date of Sept 2 hoping that would be a good date. We just calculated our remaining miles and it looks like we only need to average about 50 miles a day from here on out in order to get to Portland by Aug 30 which is what when we were hoping to get there. So thats cheered us all up. We were hoping to push hard at the beginning/middle of our trip so that we could relax and enjoy the last couple weeks, particularly when we're riding down the coast. And it looks like that shouldn't be a problem.

Our last week has had some beautiful scenery. We spent 2 days riding through Yellowstone National Park which was a great experience. The traffic in the park was a little nerve racking at times but everyone was going slow so it didn't prove to be too much of a problem. We didn't see any bears, which was kinda good but also disappointing, but we did see alot of bison. We rode with 50 feet of at least 7 of them. One was walking right down the road towards us, but fortunately there was a bunch of cars lined up watching it and we hid behind one of them as it passed us. We had to choose between going around the northern or southern side of Yellowstone, so we avoided Old Faithful and went North. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Upper and Lower Falls were both worth the ride. They were gorgeous.

After leaving Yellowstone we hopped back on Adventure Cycling maps, which we hadnt used since Niagra Falls. In the last 2 days of riding on the trail we've 17 other bike tourers. We'll always stop and talk to them, its always interesting to hear their stories and see how their tour is going. We're discovering that everyone tours differently, some do long days, some short. Some stay in hotels while others just pitch a tent in the woods along the side of the road. So its been interesting to talk to them. We've also talked to alot of other people as well. Alot of tourists at Yellowstone came up to us and asked us about our trip, other campers will strike up a conversation with us at the camp. We've all really enjoyed the different types of people that we've gotten to meet, it's definitely a highlight of our trip.

Speaking of people we've enjoyed meeting, I think a highlight of the trip for all of us was Rapid City, SD. Thats where we met the Gareys. We had decided to spend the morning biking to Rapid City (about 80 miles away) and then use the city for internet and purchase a couple things we needed. Once we were done with that we were gonna continue on our trip for about 15 miles or so. While Bruce and Evie were at a camping store Mrs. Garey and her children came up to them and asked if we would like to stay with them. So we eagerly agreed. It turned out to be a great evening. We learned so much through their hospitality and our conversations with them and had a great time. We expected great scenery but we never expected the kindness and generousity we've experienced on this trip.

My time is up so i gotta go. Enjoy the pics and thanks for the comments

One Long Day

At the start of this trip if you would have asked me which states I was looking forward to the most, South Dakota would have been close to the bottom of the list. I imagined barren wastelands and lots of headwinds. South Dakota has been fairly empty, we'll drive for miles between towns with no signs of houses anywhere, however it has been absolutely gorgeous and by far my favorite state so far in our trip. We've been getting on our bikes just before sunrise every morning, usually around 5 am, and have seen some beautiful sunrises. For me, those mornings have been my favorite part of the trip. It's been funny to see how different life is out here though. We'll see a "town" coming up on our map and as we approach the sign welcoming us to it the population will only be 60 or 70. We took a break at one of these "towns" population 67 and turned down "Main Street" which was a dirt road. Felt kinda strange. Though it seems to be a peaceful way of life. Everyone here is really friendly and helpful.

South Dakota has also brought other suprises. We knew going into this trip that we wanted to top 100 miles at least once in this trip, and try to beat Sheldon and Sheilas record of 112 miles in a day. However, I was not expecting a day like Monday. We woke up early and got on the bikes knowing that in front of us was a whole lot of nothing. Alot of beautiful scenery, but other then that not many towns, and certainly not many campgrounds. We hit 90 miles by 3 and were in a little town, White River, that had a campground but seemed a bit sketchy. So we made the decision to keep going and see how far we could get. At 114 miles we hit another "town" that had a city park, but looked even less promising. So we made the decision to head for Interior, SD right at the entrance to The Badlands. All that was between us and Interior was an Indian Reservation so we knew it would be all or nothing. Around 9:30, as it started to get dark, we realized that what we were attempting was probably our stupidest idea on the trip so far. The night before me and Bruce had talked about riding that far and at that point is was "the macho thing to do." "Can you believe what people's reaction would be if we said we rode 160 miles in one day?!" However, those thoughts of inflated chests where long gone. Around 11 our legs were starting to give out on us and mentally we were all about to tank. We didnt know what to do because we were still 25 miles away. Bruce wanted to just throw a tent in a field along the road but me and Evie weren't keen on that idea. So we kept pushing. We could only go about 20 minutes before one of us would need to stop to eat or rest their legs so it was an extremely long and agonizing process.

Finally we saw the sign were we turned north to head up to town, still another 14 miles away. Their had been a slight south wind most of the night and as we were coming up to our turn Bruce said "now if only that wind would pick up to about 30 mph." And as almost as soon as the words came out of his mouth the wind suddenly started to get stronger. Not 30 mph stronger but a noticeable change. And as we turned to head north and felt the wind to our backs we all suddenly got a new wave of energy. It was amazing the change in our perspective. And speed for that matter. Whereas before we were struggling to go 7-10 mph we were suddenly easily going 15. And then we headed downhill. Downhill for a long time. Between the wind and the terrain I was able to coast at +30 mph for over 2 miles. It was amazing. I remember coasting up beside Bruce and just laughing. Laughing as opposed to 30 minutes ago about to break down emotionally. It was amazing. We ended up pulling into our camp around 1 am central time, which was the time zone we left in, but only midnight in the current mountain time zone. So we were on the bikes from 5 am til 1 am. Never again!

And to bring a laugh to the end of our night, as we pulled up at what we thought would be our camp (ended up being a couple miles short yet) I found Evie laughing. Apparently as she was zooming along in the dark (though we did have headlamps and tail lights) a bird flew right into her and smacked her in the face. Poor Evie. Had to tag along with our macho male egos driving us into insanity and then gets smacked in the face by a bird. No harm to her face though, she seemed to be fine.

I'm happy to be able to say that we did 167 mile in one day now in retrospect, but never again will I attempt that. I have a feeling I might have to keep reminding Bruce how miserable we were in order to keep him from wanting to try something like that again.