Lady Luck…

May 24th.

Kettle Falls was hotter than a Monday morning percolator so Janet and I got an early 6 am start; she would ride with me to Colville for breakfast then head back to Kettle Falls and grab the saggin’ wagon while I climbed up 1500 vertical to the lakes region along the Little Pend Oreille. We could not find a single breakfast place in downtown Colville so we asked a postman on his beat what was up? He said you have to go to the bars to get a full breakfast, so we did. In Colville, you drink all night, have breakfast, then sleep it off.

It was tranquil pedaling as we headed out from Kettle in the cool clear dawn. In the moment, I started thinking randomly of something I wrote for an 8th grade assignment and the memories came flooding back like the too short bell-bottom trousers I wore in those days. In junior high we had mandatory poetry writing in 8th grade English and as uncool as it was, I was a closet poet writing volumes at night in my room for a few months; until I discovered MD 20 20, pot and a girl named Penny. I hung with Penny most of that year but she liked the Boones Farm and Mogen David more than me and could often be found drinking in the park after school. One day I stumbled upon her and another boy embracing and drinking beer in the park. I realized then I was just a half-pence to Penny and approached the two of them. Penny took her full can of beer and chucked it at me grazing my head. I watch the can empty on the ground along with my feelings for her. I picked the can up and it said Ballantine Ale. Hmm… I had never seen that brand before. I thought as I was riding today, maybe this subconsciously piqued my interest in trying different beers. So…getting back to the poetry, here is the the simplistic dribble from Jr High I remembered while pedaling in the resplendent inception of daylight.

Blue Morning Road Turning

People Living Through changes

Sun Shines Light it up

Happy Bout Life Riding Lady Luck

So where am I going with this bubbling drool running down the corner of my mouth?…well, I named my bike seat “Lady Luck” today. Riding her hard and it feels good.

Ballantine upside my head…Circa 1971

Lady Luck, an English made Brooks Swift.

My other Lady Luck cranking out her own miles in the early morning fog along the Pend Oreille.

Crystal Falls along the climb up to the Little Pend Oreille basin.

Friday May 25th,

Janet and I were planning to get to my long-time Boise friends Curt and Gwen’s cabin on Diamond Lake near Newport/Sandpoint and recoup for a day over memorial weekend. I was still 55 miles away from Newport WA, our destination. Ok…once a again…just do it. After about 20 miles I felt like I was in my cycling groove. I was getting the first scabs on my shins from gravel being thrown up by logging trucks and a few pock marks on my face from bug splatter. All was good as I pushed on along the flooded Pend Oreille River cycling by riverside cabins that looked like floating docks along the overflowing banks. Destination achieved and the fine host family of Scott, Megan, the two girls and a dog named Mister welcomed us to a cabin still on dry land along Diamond Lake.

Ingenious, you can file your mail right on the curb. No need to even bring it inside. ” My baby just-a wrote me a letter”

Booze cruise, voted #1 hobby on Diamond Lake, WA.

Our decorous host family at Diamond Lake.

Sunday May 27th.

Breakfast at Audrey’s in Newport before pedaling across state lines into Idaho. Used my 60 year old senior discount for the first time. Getting old may pay off yet! Dennis and his two buddies in the restaurant said, “anyone dumb enough to pedal across America must be a Trump supporter” No clue where that came from but, the three stooges and I all busted a gut over that. They were very caffeinated, animated and likeable. Dennis did road grading part of the year, and ran a fracking crew in Williston, ND for the other 6 months. His buddies were local mechanics. I really wanted to talk with Dennis and get his true feelings on fracking as a method to extract oil and gas but it was not the right timing. I will save this issue for when I pedal through North Dakota.

Dennis to the right was a piece of work and proud of it!

Osprey and nest near Sagle, ID

City Beach in Sandpoint

More of those processed cheese, fist pumps, as I rolled into Sandpoint, Idaho and completed the 1st map set out of 12. Feeling like a Young Rascal today. ” Groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon.”

“The majority of people permit relatives, friends, and the public at large to so influence them that they cannot live their own lives, because they fear criticism.” Napoleon Hill.

Strange Days..

Monday May 21st…

The voice became vehement and I knew now he was talking to the man lying down in the upper deck of the van. “Come down here you little rich fagot”

Janet and I had met up at the visitors center in Tonasket as prearranged after I logged my daily miles and we asked about their free camping for cyclists we had read about. They said they have a courtyard for tent camping cyclists and they would be fine with us van camping in the side lot. We now had water, a gazebo, toilet, wifi, a charging station and best, a bar that serves tater tots across the street; all free of charge. It was looking to be a good day. I had pedaled an easy 40 plus miles, consumed 3 ice cream sandwiches, a double burger, a large order of fries, a large portion of tots and a pint of John Barleycorn, all by 2 pm. Healthy food pyramid? Sounds like bad Egyptian food. As we sweltered the day away in the parking lot we noticed 10 or 15 itinerant adults stopping outside the visitors center to get water, use the phone charger, etc. I found it a little strange that this number of folks was so large for a town of about 4000. No biggy, I had been around cities and homeless human beings before and usually am comfortable. It was cool the town was accommodating these folks. Night fell and Janet was lips to the thermarest. I was still awake and heard a guy mumbling nonsense about 20 yards from the van. Oh, just another vagrant with mental illness or a drunk. He paced around for about 5 minutes and I could see him occasionally look at me lying upstairs in the van. He would stare and then mumble gibberish that I could eventually make out as, “I’m gonna kick your ass, come down here you little fagot…rich little fagot, rich man, rich van, little fagot.” This went on for a while and he got louder and more clear. I considered simply driving away with the van roof popped up but I thought this would freak Janet out; she was out cold. I decided not to take the bait, to just wait him out, when he sighted a women he knew walking across the street. Hey Emily, he said in a perfectly sober voice. As he headed across the street to Emily , a second man comes out from behind the visitors center on a BMX bike and joins the other two. I realized then, I was being set up. The guy was doing a good job getting under my skin but I am glad I sat tight before they rolled and smoked me like some local homegrown weed. Janet slept through the whole thing. I stayed awake until another cyclist pulled in out of nowhere about 11:30 pm with a headlamp on his bike helmet. He set his tent up and immediately crashed out, so I took his lead. Moral.. never trust an adult who still rides a BMX bike!

“Strange days have found us Strange days have tracked us down They’re going to destroy Our casual joys We shall go on playing Or find a new town”

“Strange Days” by the Doors 1967

Have you thanked a pig today… “Pedaling Pig Valves”

Tuesday the 22nd…pass #4 of the the 5 fingers to climb. Wauconda to Republic on Highway 20 closing in on mile marker 300. Next up, 23 miles of climbing music for an audience of one. Pair that 30 tooth front ring with the 36 tooth back cog and hope you don’t have to go lower. Drop the needle on the brain membrane and start spinning the tunes in my head. “Some people call me the Space Cowboy, some call me the Gangster of Love.” Switch it up with some live Lee Morgan bopping at the Savoy…say 1957. I would have first heard that from mammies womb. Dad was a real jazz man. Major debate going on for 5 miles of the climb…should I have gone with clip-less pedals instead of these flats. But but, I don’t want to carry those extra shoes, etc…Do I really need the stove? Blah Blah Blah goes the brain and the miles melt away with the fat. Sure could use a large order of tater tots right now. I still have the sag wagon for a few more days so the decisions of what to pitch from the pre-pack is still subsequent and pending. Crest Wauconda Summit and drop the tone arm on some Curtis Mayfield. This is where the Surly Long Haul Trucker shines; fast smooth and stable at 30-40 mph like Superfly in a cushy early 70’s Cadillac cruising the strip. “Diamond in the back, Sunroof top, Digging the Scene with a Gangster Lean”

Roll into the logging town of Republic. I see signs for 6 churches while entering and immediately think the area must be depressed; people praying for jobs and salvation. I turn on to main street and am blown away by a quaint clean vibrant downtown. And…there is Janet in front of an old firehouse turned into a brew pub. So many selections but finally I decide on a triple made with a combination of Belgium yeast, Belgium sweet malt and German hops. 9.9 % ABV. After cycling all day it went to my head like Grace Slick singing “White Rabbit.”

Churches Advertising their brand outside of Republic.

Billy the brew-master.

Wed May 23rd.
Sherman pass, the highest big climb of the 5 finger summits. I call this the “rude finger”. Over 5500 feet elevation and about 2800 verts. Legs were like chopped horse meat waiting for shipment to the pet food processor before I even began. Into my lowest gearing of 30/38 and just get it done climbing for 4.5 hours. I got through today by repeating positive affirmations, “I am not a van man rich man little fagot, but it would be ok if I was”, over and over… The only time I broke concentration was when I heard a “bustle in the hedgerow”; a mountain biker was killed last week in North Bend, WA by a mountain lion and this got my attention. This sent my brain into jukebox mode again and I cued up Bruce Cockburn’s, Wondering Where the Lions Are”. One of my favorite songs… I did a few more of those super cheesy first pumps over the summit crest and thanked my pedaling pig valve for not self destructing over the past week. The Surly rocked it for 20 miles on the downgrade.

Janet found a camping spot earlier in the day on the Columbia River near Kettle Falls and met me on her bike on today’s decent. We pedaled together back to the campground and we celebrated the “passing” with a micro-brew from Spokane.

Some random notes: Thanks for all the interest in my trip. It is tough to do this blog by phone with limited time and energy. Please forgive my lack of “uninform formating, ocasionaly atrotius speling and other 5th grade gramar mystakes”. It is just someone telling a story. Does the rest really even matter……

Thanks everyone!

Ants…

The 5,000 vertical foot climb up over the Cascades from west to east was simply another tryst between mind and body. The first 32 miles were all romance. The fog lifted, Janet pedaled the first 12 with me out and back, and a few peaks showed their craggy ageless faces once again over 32 miles of elevation gain.

We arrived at a riverside camp and were rewarded for our efforts. Three Mallards over Colonial Creek, two drake’s and a hen in a courtship battle like Circue Du Soleil skating across the clouds. The smaller of the two drakes concedes at intermission and disappears into the shoreline forest.

“She’s my best friends girl, she used to be mine.” The Cars.

Day two of the climb we awoke to a sky of pigeon shit gray with chilled mist as thick as cigarette smoke in a 70’s bar. 7 miles of the creeper gear in a cold drizzle to the top of Rainy, the first pass, then 5 miles of a greater incline to the summit of Washington pass. These are not the highest passes in the west but we were just at sea level a few days past. The temp dropped as I hit the snowline but I had proper layers and the romance continued.
After a short decent, the incline increased up the final pass, and the tryst ended. ANTS on the brain; they eat away all the sugary thoughts and leave only a bitter salt coating. I rarely have ANT attacks these days since a life coach I hired back in the 90’s during one of my mid-life crises where you restore old cars and try to learn how to play guitar, identified my issue of, “Automatic Negative Thoughts”; simply horrible things like, I suck the moisture out of old sweaty socks. You know, everything in life sucks, as bad as you are sucking wind, in your lowest gear. What would my life coach say? Nothing, I could only afford her for two sessions; so I stopped on the road, let the heart rate come down, refueled the body and then sang songs in my head like a revolving jukebox all the way to the top.” Music has always gotten me through the tough stuff. Ants be damned…

“Rocky Top, you’ll always be, home sweet home to me, good ol’ Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tennessee” The Bryant’s

Saturday May 19th.

A rest day in the Methow Valley near Mazama and Winthrop WA. Kind of a Moab, Utah recreational destination but with Ponderosa Pines and other green botanical thingies and the creek beds have water year-round. Hikers, bikers, rock climbers and rv’ers all in line at the local wake and bake for a gluten free double skinny soy mocha such and such…but hold on the whip please. The Mazama store was a hip place with nice folks and I highly recommend a stop there.

Been three days since I have last seen a bar of soap. Lysichiton americanus would describe my current redolence. Is skunk cabbage poisonous? You spend quarter of an hour in the sag wagon trying to find the last clean pair of skivvies and walk for a quarter mile to the State Park shower. You turn the knob and nothing happens. Ahha…takes quarters. Walk a quarter mile back to the van and spend 15 minutes digging between the seats for what you now consider to be a valuable treasure. Walk a quarter mile back to the shower building and now all the showers are full. Walk a quarter mile back to the van.

“Walk a mile in my shoes” Elvis Presley

“Quarter of a man” David Lindley

Met Ben from Port Townsend , WA at an adjacent campsite. Ben was in his early 70’s and comes to Pearrygin Lake every year to fish for rainbow trout with relatives but said they are all dying off from various cancers. This year he was meeting his sister whose husband had recently died. Ben seemed a bit down on life and confessed he had survived cancer twice plus a couple of open heart surgeries. They recently found a spot on his wife’s lungs and were waiting for biopsy results. His wife could not make the fishing trip. Ben said she was 72 and still worked at Walmart 40 hours a week. I said to him that we must be “twin sons from different mother’s” as he had almost a genetic replica of my health history. Ben and I got on well. We both paused for a long time between speaking. I felt Ben was being wise and reflective. Me, I am just slow sometimes like the Steinbeck character Lenny with the mouse in his overcoat pocket. I told him my story and that I was trying to bike across the country. This seemed to perk him up and he said, this made him want to get his boat in the water, get out there and catch fish. I can’t get my head around a proper moral but maybe there is one here for both Ben and I? I was pleased to have met him!

Ben’s boat is a 1963 Larson Sea Lion.

Sunday May 20th, I started climbing over Loup Loup pass with a couple of cross country cyclists from New Hampshire. Keith and Anna were carrying all their own camping gear but you would have never known. They dropped me like a newbie cyclist on his first club ride. Nice folks but I could not hang. I climbed the pass like a reptile on its belly and then it got so steep that I was reduced to a snail in an aquarium climbing up the side by it’s lips.

It is Monday the 31st as I type this on my phone while taking a short break in Riverside, WA in the flooded out Okanagan River valley. About another 18 miles to Tonasket and then call it a day.

Unique mail box on a farm near Omak, WA.

A Walton brand farm trailer. My good friend Lee Walton from Boise designed and manufactured these in his prior life.

“Man who stand on hill with mouth open will wait long time for roast duck to drop in.” Confucius.

Gone to the Dogs…

May 14th, 2018
Bay View Camp Ground Near Ana Cortes.

Cerulean sky over Padilla Bay on the Pacific coast. Sitting Indian style at dusk near the water. Pedaling begins tomorrow but my mind has not yet lassoed this reality; to become one with my bike for 4000 plus miles.

Bike friendly Boise, where I spent the last 38 years, is a city of pan-cyclists. Mountain bikes, road bikes, pub cruisers, and cycle commuters are common in this all inclusive bike community. Owning a whole stable of bikes is a norm for many. I have dabbled in a variety of bike genres over the years but I always had a thing for those geeky touring bikes with the gear racks. I did a cycle tour for 25 continuous months about 30 years ago and the spark of that experience never died. Time to light the pilot and get the furnace humming again.

Cycle tourists, are the Rodney Dangerfield’s of biking. We have handlebar bells, mirrors, fenders, reflectors, lights, heavy steel bike frames, and often wear yellow reflective safety vests. Some of us even have special hubs that generate an electrical current to charge our smartphones. No carbon fiber, no titanium, no respect.

Ok, getting back to becoming one with your bike; I prefer leather bovine saddles vs. a synthetic saddle made of engineered petroleum. The leather saddle conforms to your sit bones after an excruciating break in period and then all is good for eternity. The alternative is to sit on a plastic couch in polyester pants in 98 degree heat for 5 hours a day. Wouldn’t you rather sit on a leather couch? Tomorrow I continue breaking in the steer.

May 15th,

7 am, Janet takes the obligatory photo of christening my back wheel in the Pacific Ocean.

Abby our yellow lab who I joke is driving the sag wagon has a new eye infection. Janet heads to a local vet, and I do a couple of cheesy fist pumps and begin pedaling east towards the North Cascades on a combo of farm roads and rails-to-trails. Feeling free as a bird (did someone yell play Freebird; sheesh hate that song) the first 20 miles went by quickly.

Heading through the flower farms, orchards, and potato fields of the Skagit Valley on one side and the old growth forests of red cedar, cypress and doug firs along the Skagit river on the other, I looked back and realized that I had a split second to accelerate. I had totally forgotten about this aspect of cycle touring. My heart rate jumped with the surge of adrenaline and I barely out distanced the jaws that were opening on my left foot; two farm dogs in a full sprint, racing each other for first blood. I will need to think about my defenses for the future: squirt them with water bottles, strap a whacking stick on the bars or dig around in the sag wagon for an old can of bear spray I think exists and mount it to the bars? I realize that in a few weeks when on my own and carrying full panniers, that out sprinting a pack of dogs is a no go.

Rails-to-trails from Sedro-Woolley to Concrete, WA and a farm road parallel to Hwy 20.

Janet and Abby along the Skagit river at Rasor State Park. The Skagit pours 10 billion gallons an hour into Puget Sound.

Micro Brew from Bellingham. Highly Recommended.

Wed, May 16

Janet saddled up the Palomino (musical reference) and rode with me the first 17 miles today and then backtracked to the van. The Gore Tex jackets did their duties and after an hour we hit the town of Concrete on Hwy 20 to re-breakfast and escape the drizzling heavens. I believe Gabriel has a stuck key on his horn and is weeping. We all have bad days. At the cafe in Concrete I met a new friend, Dave. 70 year old Dave has prospered from the legalization of pot in Washington State and can now afford to spend 3 months of winter in Mexico. He told me how meth had ruined many a good souls in the Skagit Valley but the pot thing was pretty benign and his business was doing well. Dave does not care for the present administration, and I told him I was trying my best to stay neutral about the current state of politics and just listen to folks on this journey and learn their views and real life concerns; not to judge. Dave and I probably have similar views, but I refrained from getting worked up. We are about 105 miles inland from the coast and marveling at the size of the old growth trees. My limited vocabulary can’t describe these 100 year old behemoths. Put the North Cascades National Park on you bucket list.
The next few days the climbs start and this may well be the hardest part of the trip; 5000 vertical feet. My ticker is like a Ford Pinto. I plan to nurse it along and not blow a gasket.

Dave from Concrete, WA.

Sag Wagon

Gregg is in trouble already!

“Be kind whenever possible.It is always possible.” Dalai Lama

Da Skinny…

60 year old bloke from Boise-wherever, has a vision quest to find that absent ideal, once simply defined as America. He hates golf, and bingo but does enjoy bicycles. Thus, he decides to take a leisurely 4 months and pedal the Northern USA from coast to coast beginning in Mid May. Expectations for himself are few. He understands that a physical suffer-fest with a loaded touring bike, could well be the daily norm, pedaling with a challenged ticker. That said, his expectations for the American people are great. He hopes to have a rebirth in the faith of his fellow countryman and countrywoman. Now stay in tune once again…
“We’ve all gone to look for America.” Simon and Garfunkel…

The Adventure Cycling map set I procured begins near Anacortes, WA and ends in Bar Harbor Maine. I will take a detour through the upper peninsula of Michigan and visit my fantastic, awesome and talented wife Janet who will be the new Engineering Dean at Michigan Tech in Houghton. She begins in July. Janet will join me for the first few weeks of the bike trip providing van support and cycling some herself. When she departs, I will then load the full array of panniers with camping gear and be self-supported the next 3 plus months. Ultimately, by fall, Janet and I will be together in our new home outside of Houghton on Portage Lake near Chassell, MI.
“Now everything is easy cause of you.” Graham Nash…

Oh Boise, thank you for 38 years of running, hiking, biking, paddling, skiing, but most of all for all of the friends who shared the passion for these pursuits with me and the folks I worked with for years, allowing me to make a living in that outdoor Mecca of Idaho.

“What would you do if I sang out of tune would you…”