Road Scholars

Hey all:

I should mention in each of the blogs that if this is your first time with us, you might want to read the very first blog - as that explains what we are doing and why. I will try and repeat this message at the beginning of each blog from now on so folks can get caught up.

Jake and I have decided to give out Road Scholar Awards to individuals, companies, and states for various road-related issues. For instance, there was the waitress in Washington who was not exactly sure how to give us directions out of town on the one main road that ran through it, the map company who printed a number of errors that almost got us really lost, and the entire state of Montana for having the worst roads for riding a trike (the shoulders are either un-rideable or non-existent, and the road edges are so filled with potholes that we are at risk of having every screw rattle loose or breaking an axle). In their defense, they are in the process of re-paving a section of Highway 2 through Glacier Park, but that has only earned a number of road crew more Road Scholar awards for not knowing what to do with a bike in construction zones.

Look for more Road Scholar awards as we head into eastern Montana.

Anyway, the ride out of Idaho around the Lake and into Montana was beautiful! The prettiest stretch of road I think I have ever been on is the first twenty miles after you have left Rte 200 heading north on 56 from Bull River to Bull Lake in western Montana. You are riding by a river most of the way (which is really high due to snow melt and rain) and have the cabinet mountains on your right, as well.

With the exception of the condition of the road riding into town, we really enjoyed the town of Whitefish, MT. We had a great breakfast and got some much needed help with fixing the rack on Jake's bike (after the screws holding it on fell off due to the bumpy roads). Special thanks to Tony at a ski shop for giving us directions and giving us a detailed description of the new technology in powder skis and describing the virtues of Whitefish over Boulder, Colorado.

Had a nice ride into West Glacier, but were disappointed that we could not ride the Going to the Sun road over Logan pass. We had to settle for the lower Marias Pass (for which our legs were secretly grateful). This road skirts the edge of the National Park and misses many of the views we would have otherwise gotten, but was still beautiful. At one point, and eagle took flight next to us on the road and settled into a tree so we could get a better look at him.

Stayed last night in East Glacier, the first town heading east into the Blackfoot Reservation. We have had a lot of folks warn us about crossing through here. We are hoping that the hostility and crime they have reported to us has been exaggerated and is borne of long-standing stereotypes that have existed here for some time. We shall see.

The People Section:

We have been leap-frogging with a nice guy named Jim from Georgia who is riding the same route that we are taking who is riding for autism and asperger's (he has a son with asperger's). He has some time to kill before meeting up with some family members so is heading up to Canada. I'm sad that we may not meet up with him again. Good luck on your journey Jim.

There was Jean, a woman from Barre, VT who nicely gave up her room with two beds at the Circle R hotel, where we stayed last night, so Jake and I could have some space. She is an avid cyclist who has racked up some impressive miles over the years. She is soon heading to Alaska with her husband and three dogs. Have fun.

There was the young guy who was doing his laundry who is in the middle of hiking the 2500+ mile Continental Divide trail, after already hiking both the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails (slouch!).

We had dinner last at a Mexican restaurant next to a table consisting of a mom and daughter from Rutland, VT (Sarah is actually working in the Park this summer) and a couple (Diana and Zach) from Portland, OR, who are on a two-week trip, hiking in the Park. Nice folks all.

We head into flatter lands today. It looks as if we will be in Montana forever! We are hoping that Ted Tuner or Robert Redford will invite us to stay on their ranches as we ride through. I heard that Bob makes a great Buffalo burger.

Thanks to those of you who have left comments on the Blog or sent us an e-mail of encouragement (rdbehaviorself@yahoo.com). It's nice to know we haven't been forgotten - yet!

Take care,

Rob & Jake

Our Own Private Idaho

Well, we made it to Idaho. All in all, Washington was a mixed bag. It was beautiful and rugged, and populated with very friendly people. It was also filled with high mountain passes, cold rainy weather, and multpile mechanical problems.

We made it up and down a number of passes with varying heights and degree of steepness. One constant over them all, is that recumbent tricycles don't like steep hills. Gravity is not your friend when you are pedaling up an 8% grade with an over-sized load hanging out on the back of your trike. No matter how much momentum you get on the downhill side, it all dissipates with the first 10% of the next uphill grade and then pulls heavily at you as you grind toward the top. I equate it to jumping on that recumbent trike at your local health club, setting it to a very high level (making it hard to do more than thirty revolutions per minute), start pushing, and don't stop for five hours. Welcome to our world.

Following the Pend Oreille River, we witnessed a lot of flooding due to snow melt. Many local events have been canceled due to the high waters. We saw a large heard of bison wading through fields that were most likely dry a week before. Folks are nervous that the warm weather of the last couple of days are going to increase the volume of water flowing into the lakes and rivers.

A couple of shout-outs to folks we met along the way so far:

o There was the group of seven kids and two adults who are riding to York, Maine in support of disabled vetrans. We met them on a long uphill (of course) out of Colville where the roads were in the process of being oiled, coating Jake and I in a fine splatter the whole way up.

o There was the sweet woman who worked at Boo Boo's cafe in Usk, who fed us breakfast burritos and then gave us huckleberry pastries for the road (which then flew off of the back of Jake's bike). Boo Boo took this picture.

o There was the very nice couple, Chuck and Janet, who we met in a campground at Round Lake, who have a sweet grandson named Sebastion.

o And then there was Greg, the master mechanic at Sports Plus in Sandpoint who spent over three hours working on our trikes (especially Jake's) hopefully ending the frequent problems with tires and tubes that has been slowing us down for the last week (Jake had gone through four tires and seven tubes due to an alignment problem with his front wheels). Thanks again Greg!!

Sandpont, Id, where we are tonight, is an interesting town on the border with eastern Washington. It has the largest lake in Idaho, which is also the fifth deepest in the US. The lake has a decent beach, where we saw a number of kids and adults swimming today, but is ringed by snow-capped peaks.

We took a needed rest day today and will head into Montana tomorrow (where we will spend the next 10 days or so). There we will cross the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (in about a week).

The trip continues to be difficult and wonderful!

Into the Wild (and up a big f***ing hill)

Hey all:

The ferry from Sidney to Anacortes was delightful and free of most of the hassles of our previous ferry trip.

We then had a few mishaps, my boom twisted 90 degrees trying to disembark from the ferry, Jake's chain immediately fell off, and he then had a punctured tube and a tire that went bald in two days. Do you know how hard it is to get a 20" tube with a Presta valve in rural northwest Washington? We won't even talk about finding Ethyl alcohol for our stove. Then I thought I dropped the camera off the trike. Walked back more than a mile, against heavy traffic, on a narrow bridge, uphill, into the wind (you get the idea) with no success - only to find that it had lodged itself in the lower bars of the trike (oops). Jake went off to look for some bread for dinner and was sold 4 slices of bread from a deli for $4.50.

Nice State Park camping that night and a good start in the morning. Easy flat riding for our first full day. Overcast, but no rain until we got to the campground that late afternoon. Jake spotted an eagle during our lunch break. Camped in the rain by the Sagit River. Late start then pretty flat riding for first half of day. Once we entered the North Cascade Wilderness area, the road got rather steep. Jake kept up a litany of complaints and a running monologue on the benefits of backpacking over bike riding. Rode along a nice river, though, and had snow capped peaks on both sides of us most of the way.

Camped by Lake Diablo. Slept 11 hours. Out at @ 8:30. We then spent the next 7 hours pedaling over 32 miles up to the top of Washington Pass. I couldn't get my trike into its lowest gears, so it was not a fun ride. At least the rain held off. Freezing cold at top. Due to a heavy snowfall in late winter, and a series of avalanches, they had the second latest Pass opening on record this spring. The descent was very fast, a bit slippery, and a little scary as there were few guardrails and a precipitous drop on one side.

Made good time downhill to an Inn in Mazama, where we ate too much and soaked in their outdoor hot tub. We face a series of additional passes as we continue east through Washington. I expect the tone of the blog will be more upbeat once we get out of the mountains.

We'll blog again when we next have wireless service.

And So It Begins...

Hey all:

Jake and I took off from Bradley Airport early on Friday morning for an uneventful flight to Newark. From there it was a long and cramped flight to Seattle (one advantage of biking over 4000 miles back is not having to sit in the middle seat  of an overheated aircraft for 5 hours again).

Rented a car in Seattle to drive down to Olympia so Jake could visit Evergreen College. Arrived in the middle of graduation. Might be a good fit for Jake. Nice place- too far away for his mother's taste.

Spent some time in Olympia the next morning They were in the middle of a three day bike event. Lot of folks in tight colorful clothing,  $8,000 5lb bicycles, and Darth Vader helmets. Exactly as we were equipped for our ride.

Met some nice folks in a cafe where we were watching the racers, whose words of encouragement and excitement were able to drown out the "oh f***, what are we doing?" feelings that both Jake and I were experiencing at that time.

Back to Seattle to take a small plane to Port Angeles where we were going to pick up the trikes and  start the trip. Great flight (Thanks Scott & Nile - pilots). We were then offered a ride into town from a very nice woman who had lost her luggage in transit from Atlanta (or should I say the airline lost her luggage - good job Continental!), but got it back in time for the graduation she was supposed to be attending (Thanks GiGi and Tanya).

After checking into a great hotel (with a bad reputation), we went straight to the bike shop where our trikes had been shipped. Finally met Vicki, the owner of the shop) who had done so much for us with the trikes and our gear. The beginning of the trip would have been much more difficult without her help.

Spent the night in our spacious waterfront room trashing the place with all of our gear. We realized that we could not possibly carry all of that crap on our trikes, so we boxed up a bunch and sent it back to Vermont (Thanks again Vicki).

We woke to brilliant blue skies and discovered that our other view was of a beautiful snow-capped mountain ridge that had previously been hidden by low clouds. Breakfasted on pure sugar at the Cockle-Doodle-Do Donut shop, whose owner was as sweet as the confections - really.  Drew lots of attention on the sidewalk outside the hotel as we loaded our gear on to the trikes. John and his wife (from Kansas) took the photo below - the first official shot with all of our stuff. You may notice the helmeted wombat sitting astride my packs. That's Wilson. He decided to come along for the ride. Look for him in future photos (sort of a "Where's Wilson?" thing). I can hear Jake groaning already at the thought.

Then on to the ferry where we met Forest, a 79 year-old gentleman with far more experience on his loaded trike than we had on ours. In addition to regaling us with stories of his adventures, he was able to guide us through the treacherous process of boarding and exiting a ferry meant for skinny passengers - not unwieldy overloaded trikes.

With just a few minor mishaps, some lifting, shoving, and light swearing, we managed to get them on board. There we met Ben, who may be the most experienced bike tourer under 30 I have ever met. He is from New Zealand, now living in British Columbia, but has traveled by bike all over the world. He has created the enviable lifestyle of working 6 months out of the year and bike touring in exotic locales for the rest of the year. (Note the not insignificant trace of envy in my writing?). He was also the first person to make a donation while on the trip. To further gild the lily, I need to add that he often bikes for charitable causes and designed and built a special vehicle that converts his brothers wheelchair into a three wheeled trike that can be ridden using just one leg and one arm.

After stumbling off the ferry in Victoria (if anything a more difficult and embarrassing process than getting on the ship) we had to ride through a city crowded with Sunday revelers there for a multi-day bike event that included BMX trick riders on a barge and polo on bikes. We have never ridden our trikes in traffic and it was not a fun first experience to do it in the narrow busy streets of a capital city during a festival. More than once we had to quickly jump onto sidewalks to avoid the inevitable meeting of car and trike (ok, it was more that I was lost and couldn't see over the cars - but that isn't nearly as exciting as a near-death experience).

Once across the Blue Johnson bridge, we were instructed to take the Galloping Goose Trail to the Lochside Trail, a bike and pedestrian-only trail that goes from Victoria to Sidney. This proved to be a wonderful first ride of 18 miles, mostly on paved paths where we were able to chat with fellow riders who were interested in our odd looking and over-loaded trikes. After riding with Lisa and John for a bit, and telling them of our plans for a 70-day plan for crossing the US, she informed me that she and a relay team had crossed Canada in 19 days. I immediately stopped liking her at this point and hoped that John beat her in their upcoming tennis game.

Dinner at a Thai restaurant in Sidney and sleep at a nice waterfront hotel last night has completed the luxury portion of our trip. We head by ferry to Anacortes, WA at noon today (yes, another battle with the evil gangways and custom officers). We hope to be 20 or 30 miles east of Anacortes by nightfall and to camp for the first time. From there it will be all tents and sleeping bags, stove cooking, bugs, much used clothing, sponge baths in gas station restrooms, and polite smiles from strangers who wisely keep their distance when we pass by. Anyone want to join us?

Still not able to deposit donations or take them on this site, so either mail us a check that you don't mind us holding for a while or hold on to your donation until we get the tax exempt stuff worked out. Thanks to all who helped make this trip possible. We truly are having a great time.

Take care, be well, and keep checking back for more blogs.

Rob & Jake