Finale

Portland to Pacific Ocean...2 days

132 miles..4,185 feet climb

5,460 miles total...203,014 feet climb total

VICTORY!!

 

A friend, Jerry, from Portland will join me to make the last 130 miles to the Pacific Ocean. This will be the final leg of this adventure.

Week Thirteen

Columbia River to Portland...3 days

212 miles..8,034 feet climb

5,326 miles total...198,134 feet climb total

 

Gotta love the gentle curves of Columbia River Highway

 

The Columbia River impoundment is huge with broad and continuous lakes the rest of my way to Portland. Crossing over at Umitilla to Highway 14 on the Washington side, the day's ride will be long with very limited services for 85 miles out of a total of 95. I make good time with little wind and good roads. I begin to look for a shady spot to take a break and have a snack. At mile 60 I spot a grove of Cottonwoods and ride down a short side drive to a level spot. I roll my bike through some scrub brush to enter the shade of the Cottonwoods. It is a pleasant place to relax and snack.

Lake Columbia...

 

An hour later I begin to mobilize myself to continue on route. As is my habit I check the tires for pressure. They are both flat! There is a single goat head thorn body the size of a small peanut with several menacing spikes radiating out...one of which is embedded in the side wall of my rear tire. Upon pulling it there is the small sound of escaping air.

Week Twelve

Missoula, MT to Columbia River...5 days

399 miles..12,680 feet climb

5114 miles total...190,105 feet climb total

I will follow Highway 12 for the better part of five days from Missoula to the Columbia River. Ten days previous while on the way to Glacier NP I was cautioned about a forest fire in the Lolo area that eventually closed Highway 12. I checked with officials in Glacier and followed web-based reports about this growing fire and was prepared to alter my route because it looked like I might not be able to pass. A cool weather front and a little rain brought the needed results and the fire fighters brought the fire into containment over the Labor Day weekend when there were no forest service offices open or updates on the web for me to confirm this result. I continued riding south from Glacier to Missoula with heavy smoke shielding the nearby mountains, not entirely sure what my chances were that the road would be open. There was not a little concern as I passed my last westward option.

Fire line in Lolo National Forest

 

Week Eleven

Emigrant, MT to Glacier NP to Missoula, MT...8 days riding & 3 days off

617 miles..21,807 feet climb

4715 miles total...177,424 feet climb total

 

Beehives to pollinate alfalfa

Very soon upon leaving Yellowstone through the north entrance the landscape opens up. The valley is edged with big mountains spreading wider as the Yellowstone River heads north to join the Missouri. The scale is impressive. To capture this in photos is difficult. This area around Emigrant, MT is not on picture post cards but I am drawn to wander further into its mountains and to know more of its people for the ones I have met intrigue me.

Week Ten

Cody, WY to Yellowstone to Emigrant, MT...5 days

235 miles..9595 feet climb

4147 miles total...157,224 feet climb total

East Entrance

I have taken up smoking.

There are forest fires all around me in the western states. New ones have emerged in Yellowstone as I approach. The air is thick and heavy with smoke. Distant views are more like a heavy, humid day in the Smokies than the quintessential western photo. Yet to be seen how this may effect my passage.

Shoshone NF...you can barely see distant mountains

Where'd this guy come from?

I leave Cody late morning since I have scheduled a short day of 35 miles to place me closer to Yellowstone. When I planned my route on MapMyRide the eastern approach to Yellowstone indicated two severe accents at over 20%. I camp in the Shoshone National Forest so not to have to ride and climb 95 miles in a single day. An easy short day dissolves in the strong 20-30 mph head winds encountered soon after noon. It's discouraging to peddle so slow on gentle hills...even more so on nearly level pavement.

I arrive at a campground where it is only me and the camp host. The host is in a hard-sided RV. I'm in a soft, thin, easily torn tent. Though I am camping below the area of more intense grizzly bear activity where the forest service says tents are okay, I look at the sturdy steel bear boxes and read the warnings about how to play dead when a grizzly chases you (yeah...right!!) and have to find my peaceful self to begin and see the beauty once again in this serene place. In the early evening I feel the coolness of a breeze that is probably typical. Then suddenly a blast of warm air displaces the coolness as if I was standing in front of a fire and the smell of wood smoke intensifies. Just before dusk the wind dies down and ash settles on me, the table, the tent. I'm told this smoke is not from Yellowstone but from Oregon and Idaho.

Week Nine

Wyoming...A short week @ 6 days

428 miles..18,694 feet climb

3912 miles total...147,630 feet climb total

Crossing the western state boundaries has more significance now. They are signs of the distance accumulated behind me and of the large state before me. I could cross three states in a week in the east, but it now takes more than a week to traverse one.

Welcome to the West

This has been a week to gain comfort with broad, open spaces. Since the Sandhills of Nebraska it seems every day presents a more vast landscape. First the towns became more remote; then even the way stations spread out farther; to 30, 40, and 50 miles separate. I stopped at The Spotted Horse Bar in the middle of nowhere, and Aladdin Store. These from outward appearance run down places are the local community center, cafe, bar, soda fountain, pit stop, watering hole. The bicyclist must stop to restore water and body.

For my cemetery seeking Jenny

Aladdin Store

Climbing Bighorn

 

All this open land gives much time for contemplation. Even though I can at times make good speed, the distances are so great that it feels as if I am moving at half the speed. The distant hills never seem to get closer. I can look seemingly forever in many directions. I am totally alone. Only the wind keeps me company. Yet there is life everywhere...plants, birds, mice, wild horses that I can not see. Wilderness, plains, and mountains instill a reverence and humility in me. The wind and the silence when there is no wind evoke that still, small voice heard by Elijah. It is indeed humbling and exhilarating.

There are many sites worth a visit...

Vore Buffalo Jump...a sink hole used by natives over a 10,000 year period to stage a coordinated stampede over the steep walls to pile up dead animals for winter rations. This wasn't discovered until construction of Interstate 90.

Archeology dig

 

Devils Tower...more appropriately named "Bear Lodge" by most native traditions. It only took some US army officer to alter centuries of native myths by succumbing to his more ominous nature and labeling it such on his map. The campground where we stayed showed the film "Close Encounters" in the evening...an appropriate location to see the film. Look for the climbers in one of the photos below to give some scale to this wonder. Hint...you will need to zoom in on the center of the picture and focus on the top of a leaning column.

Bear Lodge

Find the climbers

Blackie wasn't taking any chances after viewing the film

Prairie Dogs abound here also

 

Bighorn Mountains...the western slopes are large canyons with massive exposed sheer rock cliffs. This is the highest I have ever ridden a bike at 9,666 feet elevation. The climb is severe from either side. I camped at an altitude of 8300 feet by a clear mountain stream. Woke up to 48 degrees. Within three hours I was riding in high desert plains where the shade temperature was 97 degrees and 118 degrees on the road. There are many forest fires ablaze in the western states creating a haze over the mountains. Yesterday morning leaving Greybull I felt a slightly warmer breeze and distinctly smelled smoke for the first time. I'm told it will be thick in Yellowstone. Where usually one can see the mountains from a great distance away, I must be relatively close to make out their details. The white patches on Bighorn are glaciers above 12,000 feet.

Bighorn Mountains

Time for a breather...Blackie is hanging out too

Much cooler location at 8300'

Western canyon

20 mile descent

A sense of the loneliness...and that people still find a way to live here.

Hellooooo...

...anyone out there?

Red house in red hills

Alfalfa has strong aromatic presence

Variations in subtitle shades

Ranch sign

Ranches have a regional theme of using cut out steel plate for signs and to indicate what their ranch had to offer. There is a medieval tradition of doing something similar in France where a signpost on the edge of town would use icons or tokens to represent the services available in the village. By chance I stopped at this particular ranch before I noticed its name. Brewster is a family connection to me. See an earlier post...The Jumpoff.

For the bike traveler...

• Spearfish, Old US 15 that parallels I-90, Wyoming border, Vore Buffalo Jump historic site (sinkhole where Indians trapped buffalo), Road 111, Highway 24 (right turn 1/4 mile to visit Aladdin store), Hulett, Devils Tower (native name is "Bear Lodge"), KOA camp @ $30 but there is a NP camp inside park
• Devils Tower, Highway 24, Highway 14, Moorcroft, Highway W 14/16, Road WY 51 that parallels I-90, Gillette, commercial camp
• Gillette, Highway 14/16, Spotted Horse Bar, Clearmont, Buffalo, commercial camp
• Buffalo, Highway 16, Bighorn NF, Lakeview NF camp @ 8300 feet elevation
• Bighorn NF, Ten Sleep, Lower Norwood Road, Highway 31, Manderson, Highway 16/20, Basin, Greybull, commercial camp
• Greybull, Highway 14/16/20 (the longest yet between services @ 50 miles), Cody, Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West, commercial camp

 

Week Nine

Wyoming...A short week @ days

428 miles..18,694 feet climb

3912 miles total...147,630 feet climb total

Crossing the western state boundaries has more significance now. They are signs of the distance accumulated behind me and of the large state before me. I could cross three states in a week in the east, but it now takes more than a week to traverse one.

Welcome to the West

This has been a week to gain comfort with broad, open spaces. Since the Sandhills of Nebraska it seems every day presents a more vast landscape. First the towns became more remote; then even the way stations spread out farther; to 30, 40, and 50 miles separate. I stopped at The Spotted Horse Bar in the middle of nowhere, and Aladdin Store. These from outward appearance run down places are the local community center, cafe, bar, soda fountain, pit stop, watering hole. The bicyclist must stop to restore water and body.

For my cemetery seeking Jenny

Aladdin Store

Climbing Bighorn

 

All this open land gives much time for contemplation. Even though I can at times make good speed, the distances are so great that it feels as if I am moving at half the speed. The distant hills never seem to get closer. I can look seemingly forever in many directions. I am totally alone. Only the wind keeps me company. Yet there is life everywhere...plants, birds, mice, wild horses that I can not see. Wilderness, plains, and mountains instill a reverence and humility in me. The wind and the silence when there is no wind evoke that still, small voice heard by Elijah. It is indeed humbling and exhilarating.

There are many sites worth a visit...

Vore Buffalo Jump...a sink hole used by natives over a 10,000 year period to stage a coordinated stampede over the steep walls to pile up dead animals for winter rations. This wasn't discovered until construction of Interstate 90.

Archeology dig

 

Devils Tower...more appropriately named "Bear Lodge" by most native traditions. It only took some US army officer to alter centuries of native myths by succumbing to his more ominous nature and labeling it such on his map. The campground where we stayed showed the film "Close Encounters" in the evening...an appropriate location to see the film. Look for the climbers in one of the photos below to give some scale to this wonder. Hint...you will need to zoom in on the center of the picture and focus on the top of a leaning column.

Bear Lodge

Find the climbers

Blackie wasn't taking any chances after viewing the film

Prairie Dogs abound here also

 

Bighorn Mountains...the western slopes are large canyons with massive exposed sheer rock cliffs. This is the highest I have ever ridden a bike at 9,666 feet elevation. The climb is severe from either side. I camped at an altitude of 8300 feet by a clear mountain stream. Woke up to 48 degrees. Within three hours I was riding in high desert plains where the shade temperature was 97 degrees and 118 degrees on the road. There are many forest fires ablaze in the western states creating a haze over the mountains. Yesterday morning leaving Greybull I felt a slightly warmer breeze and distinctly smelled smoke for the first time. I'm told it will be thick in Yellowstone. Where usually one can see the mountains from a great distance away, I must be relatively close to make out their details. The white patches on Bighorn are glaciers above 12,000 feet.

Bighorn Mountains

Time for a breather...Blackie is hanging out too

Much cooler location at 8300'

Western canyon

20 mile descent

A sense of the loneliness...and that people still find a way to live here.

Hellooooo...

...anyone out there?

Red house in red hills

Alfalfa has strong aromatic presence

Variations in subtitle shades

Ranch sign

Ranches have a regional theme of using cut out steel plate for signs and to indicate what their ranch had to offer. There is a medieval tradition of doing something similar in France where a signpost on the edge of town would use icons or tokens to represent the services available in the village. By chance I stopped at this particular ranch before I noticed its name. Brewster is a family connection to me. See an earlier post...The Jumpoff.

For the bike traveler...

• Spearfish, Old US 15 that parallels I-90, Wyoming border, Vore Buffalo Jump historic site (sinkhole where Indians trapped buffalo), Road 111, Highway 24 (right turn 1/4 mile to visit Aladdin store), Hulett, Devils Tower (native name is "Bear Lodge"), KOA camp @ $30 but there is a NP camp inside park
• Devils Tower, Highway 24, Highway 14, Moorcroft, Highway W 14/16, Road WY 51 that parallels I-90, Gillette, commercial camp
• Gillette, Highway 14/16, Spotted Horse Bar, Clearmont, Buffalo, commercial camp
• Buffalo, Highway 16, Bighorn NF, Lakeview NF camp @ 8300 feet elevation
• Bighorn NF, Ten Sleep, Lower Norwood Road, Highway 31, Manderson, Highway 16/20, Basin, Greybull, commercial camp
• Greybull, Highway 14/16/20 (the longest yet between services @ 50 miles), Cody, Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West, commercial camp

 

Week Eight

South Dakota...A short week @ 6 days

312 miles..15,533 feet climb

3794 miles total...144,468 feet climb total

“When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress.”

(Mary Baker Eddy)

[I hope photos are posting. Someone comment that you can view photos. I believe the glitch is resolved.]

Badlands NP

 

Riding through the different geologic areas of Nebraska made for an interesting ride...rolling farm land, flat grass land, hilly sandhill land. I began to appreciate the vastly different landscape from that of the east. Then I entered the Badlands. Conversing with a fellow traveler from Ohio, I recognized another benefit of traveling east to west...or starting from the familiar and proceeding to the unknown. Initially, just the uniquness of bike touring is enough to energize the day. After seven weeks the daily routine is established. But now the amazing changes in the landscape draw me into levels of excitement I have not yet experienced. The Badlands, vast grassland prairies, Black Hills, Devils Tower...these propell me farther into the journey...expectations build...energy levels rise. The West is so vastly different from my eastern familiar home. I have slowed down, taking extra days to cross Nebraska and pass through the Black Hills. The result of slowing down means more opportunities to meet more kindred spirits.

Week Seven

Kansas City...1 more day Missouri, 1 day Kansas, 1 day Nebreaska, 2 days Iowa, 5 more days Nebraska on boder of South Dakota

705 miles...16,287 feet climb

3170 miles total...113,402 feet climb total

There are no coincidences. (Robbie)

 

[Unfortunately there is still no fix from Blogger to be able to post photos within this text. I will try to upload to Picasa. You hopefully can view this posts photos by going to...

https://plus.google.com/photos/114335055233198183518/albums/59103]

 

This Sunday morning 8-4-13 I crawled out of my tent to find a container of fresh blueberries left by a trail angle sitting on my saddle. I am grateful. Gear was packed in an intermittent light sprinkle. I rode to and was the first customer of the restaurant just as it opened at 8:00. Checking my emails and Facebook I came upon a posting of the author George Saunder's convocation speech addressing kindness. There are no coincidences.

This speech is copied below for you to read. It is a good point to ponder.

Mid-Way...Week 6.5

Rulo, Nebraska

2600 miles total...101,385 feet climb total...July 29/30, 102013

In some ways, the first mile of the second half is more crucial because it's the one that propels the traveler down the slope of endurance to destination. (The River Horse, William Least-Heat Moon)

[This is an update with photos.]

Awoke this morning July 29 to rain. Packed up the gear and sat reading. As I finished, so did the rain. Leaving Weston Bend SP I took a walk along the bluff that overlooks the Missouri River into Kansas. Packed, dense clayey soil. There was a paved bike trail down by the river that took me into the charming village of Weston, childhood home of Buffalo Bill Cody, and breakfast at Subway since the local restaurants are closed on Monday mornings...another traveling point to remember. It commences to lightly rain again.

Looking out across the Missouri River

Weston

[Weston, the childhood home of Buffalo Bill Cody. I'm posting this on 8-18-13 as I sit in Cody, WY and after visiting the museum bearing his name.]

My celebratory day is going to be a wet one...but will not dampen my spirits. It's interesting how I have been anticipating this point for several days. It's like reaching the top of a long climb and anticipating the thrill of a long descent. Of course it also means that I have just as far as I have come to yet complete and I have no expectation that I will be able to coast.

Rainy days can only mean one thing...flats. Mine came after two hours on the road as I approach the crossing of the Missouri River into Kansas. This time the culprit is a metal wire staple. It takes 30 minutes to change the front tube...in the rain, since the barn I sighted as a covered refuge was in a state of collapse.

I'm pretty wet after bending over in the rain for 30 minutes. The next town, just over the bridge in Kansas, is Atchison, KS. Mexican for lunch, and lots of hot coffee.

Entering Kansas, the cornfields celebrate our halfway accomplishment with the applause of their green leaves thrashing in the wind. Confetti in the form of water droplets is cast in our direction from the waving stalks.

Very soon open arrival in Kansas the topography flattens..mostly due to the road hugging the Missouri River flood plain. Later when there are hills, I climb them at 9 mph, but only descend at 24. This compares to the Pennsylvania and Missouri hills where I climbed with effort at 4 mph and descended at 35.

Wet Kansas

Perceptions change with the landscape. I have been trying to judge distances. East of the big rivers I would guess one mile and it would actually only be 0.75 mile. Now in the beginning of the plains, I estimate the distant peak of a hill as 1.5 miles and it takes 2 miles of pedaling to arrive there.

A break in the rain comes late in the afternoon as we enter the pitiful little town of White Cloud...but it has two parks that welcome overnight campers. The great benefit of these city parks over stealth camping is the public restroom available...though very rustic. I am graciously helped to confirm the camping status with a call to the Madame Mayor by a local native...a true native. I do not know his tribe. Federal authorities moved the Kansa tribes to Indiana, and then we name the territory and state after them...go figure. There are Fox and Sac tribal reservations nearby. My new friend works at the casino on one of the reservations.

Industrial castle

The hearty bicycling trio doesn't actually make the 2600 mile mark until early Tuesday morning, 8:15 just to the north of Rulo, Nebraska. We stop and do a little jig on the yellow centerline stripe.

A very small town but it does have a library

Rulo, NE...mid way

Blackie celebrates

L

What a saddle looks like after many miles

What the legs look like after 2600 miles

 

 

Summary...

Lou, Blackie, and I have been on the road now for 45 days out of a 90 day adventure, and have just passed the 2600 mil point of a 5200 mile ride. It might be an appropriate time to summarize a typical excursion day...

• 6:30 wake up, dress, pack gear
• 7:00 strike tent and load bike
• 7:30-8:00 depart camp
• Ride 20-30 miles to town for breakfast, unless I had a big dinner the previous night; figure out where I'm going for the day
• Ride 20-40 miles to lunch
• Ride 20-40 miles to camp; restaurant dinner perhaps, or grocery stop; my favorite snack is fresh, cold, sliced watermelon and cold chocolate milk.
• 6:00 to 8:00 set camp, shower if available, camp dinner maybe
• 10:00 sleep
• During the day there may be a point of interest, a historic site, historic markers, an interesting side road, a river to look at, someone to meet and talk too, a photo to take that enliven the day.

This routine gets broken almost weekly when I stay with a friend, meet family, take advantage of WarmShower hosts, or give in to a motel. Rain, very long days, difficult detours, weariness, lack of accommodating options shape the end-of-day events.

After 45 days I have taken ten off days (including those days I rode less than 24 miles). This means my average ride day had been 74 miles. The shortest at 40 miles, the longest at 115. I have broken 100 mile days three times. I have climbed an incredible 101,385 accumulative feet...3.5 Mt. Everests...and without the aid of supplemental oxygen.

There have been seven days of rain...only three days where I wear my rain jacket for more than two hours.

There have not been as many other bicyclists on the road as I expected. I have meet riders from Australia, Sweden, Baltimore, San Francisco.

I have taken to always having English muffins (which are essentially already squished), peanut or almond butter, canned sardines, mackerel, or tuna, and a constant bag of gorp for my emergency meal stash. This gets supplemented with a bag of sliced turkey and ripe avacado for a dinner sandwich, with fruit and yogurt, and occasionally some cheese.