Day 48, From Halfway to a half day

Day 48, Half.com, OR (Halfway, OR) – Baker City, OR 60 miles (3658 total)

July 28, 2008

Time on bike: 6:28:50

Avg: 9.3

Daily Ascent: 3082 ft (51 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 3500 ft

Max: 42 mph

From Halfway to a half day. Boy! Last night! What a night! I camped out in the city park at the waitresses suggestion. It was quaint. Only a playground next to a Lions Club picnic shelter. I set up the tent and crawled in. Shortly thereafter I heard a dog sniffing around and growling. It was a growl as if to say, “There’s someone here, I can smell him! Someone in MY park!” He was close and I knew that all that separated me and whatever kind of dog this was, was the thin canvas of the tent. I waited in silence for something to happen. Preferrably for the dog to move on. A few more low growls and he eventually did. That was followed by a “Hup! Hup” and a “clip-a-tee-clop, clip-a-tee-clop” as a girl on a horse meandered by the park… “Weird,” I thought. So I fell asleep. The dog came back and growled at my invisible self some more before deciding to move on for the night.

Then at around 1:30 am an ENORMOUS rain storm hit all of a sudden! No sprinkles or anything, just a pelting on my tent! I sat straight up in bed ready to hold my poor tent up if necessary, but the rain was funny. It was just on the back half of my tent and I thought in that moment that it must be a very slow moving storm system…

Then it stopped. As quickly as it started. But there was a sound left behind. The sound of water hitting the tree behind me… It wasn’t a storm! The sprinklers in the park had come on!!! I debated whether to try to just go back to sleep, but the idea of pounding ‘rain’ hitting my tent every 5 minutes wasn’t something I figured I could sleep through, so I got out and in-between showers I uprooted the stakes and moved my tent, though it wasn’t far enough. I had to do it a second time before it was just right. Ah the adventures continue!

This morning I biked 12 miles to the next town, 8 of which was up a steep incline. There I found wireless internet and a friendly waitress. I was also noticing for the first time some chaffing which I hadn’t had this whole trip. If you’re unfamiliar with the word ‘chaffing’, let me just say it’s where skin rubs together and creates a rash. I found some petroleum jelly in town and applied and continued. The next 45 miles were generally up-hill and through the dessert, sagebrush area. The chaffing, unfortunately, worsened.

Somewhere in the midst of the climbing, sun, sagebrush, and heat I decided that I was going to take a half day and stop in Baker City and then maybe even take the next day off entirely to heal up. No sense cycling in pain! I stopped at Baker City Café for a sandwich and was very warmly greeted and served by the gals working there. I had 3 servers in a sense. The first one took my drink order, the second my food order and the 3^rd got my refills. I lingered to do some computer work and before I knew it they were mopping the floor. Apparently they had closed at 3pm and it was now 3:30 and there I was working away.

I apologized for my delinquency and got to talking to Brandi, the owner of the café. She was super sweet and we chatted about the café and the town. I was asking if there was a campsite around or at least a place to get a shower and she jumped on the phone and began to make some calls. Before I knew it she had me set up at the YMCA for a shower for $6 which she insisted on paying for! She said that she wanted to leave a good impression on “small town people” as she said it. She also told me to get in touch with Bev, a local bicycle enthusiast who owned an organic market just down the street next to the Y.

I enjoyed my 1^st shower in a week, sorry to say, (I had sponge bathed between times) and then sought out a place to put up my tent for the night. Upon meeting Bev I could tell that she was an enthusiastic soul, enthusiastic about life in general and possessing a special passion for cyclists. She immediately began talking about bike racing and a race that was put on in Baker City for cyclists that was done in 3 stages (3 days) and how she wanted to compete in it sometime before she turned 50, “I’m gonna hit 48 soon, so I’d better do it straight away!” She even had a wall of fame with magazine clippings of cyclists up on the wall in her market! I grabbed an apple and a vanilla cream soda. “Those apples are a bit tart, but they are organic. I’m just warning you. They’re great in apple pies!” I then asked if she knew of a place I could camp and she merrily offered her back yard for me to camp in, so here I am, sitting on an Adirondack chair in her back yard just feet away from a bustling stream flowing into downtown.

I’d hate to take a day off tomorrow. I haven’t done so during the entire trip. But if I have to then Baker City, OR looks to be a great little “small town” to have a day off in.

Day 47, Half.com, Oregon

Day 47, New Meadows, ID Half.com, OR (Halfway, OR) 105 miles (3598 total)

July 27, 2008

Time on bike: 9:43:17

Avg: 10.7

Daily Ascent: 4213 ft (40 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 2600 ft

Max: 41 mph

No, seriously. The town’s name where I’m staying tonight is “Half.com”. They changed the name of the town a few years ago from Halfway to Half.com. They are the only .com city in the world. But nobody calls it that. And the local’s “hate” the name, or so my waitress tells me. “Tourists come in and say, ‘so, this is Half.com, eh?’ but that’s about it. I don’t know who decided to change the name to Half.com. That was so long ago. Like 2001 or something.”

Another day on the bike. Another day, another state! The 10^th state I’ve reached on my trip and most importantly the last state! Go on, say it. “The final frontier!” I’m cranking out the 100 mile days now because I want to get to the ocean so badly! Not that I want the trip to end, because it has been fantasticly superb, but I want to accomplish it. To put it in the books. I want to say, “I rode a bicycle clear across America one summer!” How cool does that sound?

Right as I crossed the state line I saw Chuck and Leah who were touring on bikes on their way to Maine. Chuck was Leah’s uncle and he was super curious about my recumbent, asking an assortment of questions. I told him that it rode great, was a little tough up hills, but otherwise I had no problems with it and would tour with it again if given the opportunity.

Day 46, DON'T TRUS THE LOCALS!

Day 46, Kooskia, ID – New Meadows, ID 108 miles (3493 total)

July 26, 2008

Time on bike: 10:56:31

Avg: 9.9

Daily Ascent: 5700 ft (53 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 3800 ft

Max: 48 mph

I wanted to do it. I thought about it all the rest of the day and it haunted me. It would have made for a fantastic story, really. Why I didn’t, I really don’t know. I had just eaten a FULL plate of sausage gravy and biscuit and as I was heading out of Kooskia I noticed people pining numbers on and stretching for a run. Looks like “Kooskia Days” involved a 5k run. I rationalized that I didn’t have my running shoes and thus I couldn’t run, but I desperately wanted to! I haven’t ‘run’ in over 2 months and I would love to know how well I can run after biking 8 hours a day for the past 45 days. I decided that I should have asked to borrow somebody’s extra shoes or even run barefoot. I’ve done it before. How cool would that have been to have run a 5k and even placed in a reasonable time and to have done it barefoot.

The landscape from Kooskia was barren and dry and rolling. It reminded me of a desert in not only the shape and color but also the heat. I was now around 1,200 feet in elevation, quite different from just a couple of days ago when I was over 6,000 feet high. My ride after lunch began an incline that would generally last the rest of the day. I began to follow the Salmon River upstream. The color of the water made me wonder if Nestle Quick chocolate milk had a factory upstream. It was chocolaty and thick in appearance. I listened to the water as I slowly passed beside it. I really saw a number of different things from it as well: bubbling, swirling, waving, foaming, rushing, babbling. Eventually I began to see rafters on the river enjoying the rapids. That gave way to more rafters. It was, after all, a Saturday afternoon and people seemed to be enjoying both the lazy parts and the swift parts of the river. I passed one pull-off where a man yelled at me, “Want some cold water?” and held up a bottle. “I’ve got beer too if you want some.” “I’d better stick with water, at least until I’m done riding for the day,” I replied. He asked me where I started from and I told him Yorktown, Virginia. “Hey kids! Come here and hear this!” and then the rest of them, family and friends, gathered around. “Tell them where you started from!” So I told them where I started and how long it had taken me to get there. They also gave me some berries they had been picking along the roadside. We talked for a while more about the bike and the trip and then I thanked them for the water and set off for the next town.

Along the way I heard a motor running across the river and I could see a generator or a pump just sitting there. I followed the line from it and then saw a man hosing off a blackened area of the hillside. Surround him were a number of other black areas, some smoldering and some still ablaze. Up the river I saw at least a half a dozen firemen fighting these brush fires. Some had the pumps and hoses and others had an ax and were fighting the fires with dirt.

Riggins was clearly a recreation town with rafting companies and RV parks set up all over town. Rafting trailers and buses buzzed around town. I stopped in at a gas station as 3 shirtless guys all walked out. Apparently they quit trying with the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” rules. That or they realized that they’d lose business if they did. I fueled up on Gatorade and Fig Newtons and asked how far the next town was. By this time it was 5:30pm. They said it was only about 35 miles away. “Isn’t it up a steep incline?” I asked. “No. It’s very gradual,” both the clerk and the firewoman behind me assured me. “You can make it by tonight.” From this I learned a VERY important lesson. DON’T TRUST NON BIKERS ABOUT THE TERRAIN! What should have been a 2 hour journey turned into a 4 hour journey and ended at 9:30pm as darkness was settling in. All along the way I was looking around for a place where I could stealth camp, but I was in a canyon with a river stream running beside me and pine forest land around me. I could scarcely find a flat piece of land and I was quite sure there may be grizzlies in these woods. Finally the “slight incline” did end and I found flat land. It’s one thing to be in a car and only have to push the gas pedal down another ½ inch to get up a hill and to be on a bicycle where your average drops from 13mph to 7mph on a ½ degree incline. Those hills really make a difference on a bike! DON’T TRUST THE LOCALS!!

Day 45, Like biking through a calendar photo

Day 45, Lolo, MT – Kooskia, ID 136 miles (3385 total)

July 25, 2008

Time on bike: 10:39:23

Avg: 12.8

Daily Ascent: 2349 ft (17 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 1400 ft

Max: 41 mph

Like I was cycling through a calendar. Last night I met Jim. A 70 year old cyclist from London (originally from Scotland) who was cycling across America going west to east. We shared a campsite outside of Lolo. It was more of an empty lot across from trailer homes, but we were able to get hot showers. He was doing about 60 miles a day and had taken the day off of cycling. He said that when he reached Missouri that his wife was going to fly over for 10 days and he would take that time off of cycling to drive around a bit. I told him I thought that he should throw his gear in the car and have her drive a support vehicle. In classic Scottish response, he said, “Well now, that wouldn’t be much of a vacation for her now, would it?” Jim and I shared an interest in running also and we talked late into the evening about marathons and triathlons.

I had breakfast #1 from McDonalds just before I set out. Breakfast #2 came 26 miles up the road at Lolo Hot Springs which was 8 miles from Lolo Pass (elevation 5,235 ft) which was also the Idaho/Montana state line. The climb up wasn’t terribly difficult or steep. The descent wasn’t steep either… just looooooonnnnngggg and gradual. Over the course of the next 100 miles I gradually descended nearly 4,000 feet and there was a 70 miles stretch without a house, gas station, restaurant, or any services whatsoever except an occasional rest area which only included an outhouse. It was highway 12 and it ran along the Lochsa River. From Lolo Pass down was just a scenic ride along a gradually widening mountain stream with old pine trees lining the mountains on each side. The road curved along the river for mile after mile after mile. The scenery never changed for the next 70+ miles but it was like I had cycled into a scenic calendar of the mountains. This isn’t what I thought Idaho was supposed to look like. Where are the potato fields, for crying out loud? Not that I’m complaining. The sun was shining and the fresh mountain water was glistening. I passed 3 cyclists peddling up the hill. Each one seemed to be cycling alone and each one had his headphones in when I passed. At one point I had to go and get into the water and splash around a bit. Man, was it cold! I saw a number of fly fishermen trying their luck.

It really was the same scenery all day. Gorgeous, but I was ready for civilization, which finally came at the end of the day. I entered the town of Lowell and the sign read “Population 24” with the 24 crossed out and 23 written in its place. I asked the clerk at the gas station what that meant and she replied, “I think it’s someone’s idea of a joke.” Since I crossed the state line into Idaho, I entered into Pacific time so I took advantage of the extra hour and added another 25 miles to my day for a total of 136. My 2^nd highest total since I entered into Mountain time when I did 175. I like high mileage days but they take their toll.

So I’m now at a Chinese Restaurant in Kooskia which is on an Indian reservation. They are having “Kooskia Days” and the locals are doing burnouts on Main Street and creating a plume of white smoke. There are a few booths set up selling knives and whatnots, but mostly people are just hanging around on Main St.

Weather permitting, I should reach Astoria, OR in 8-9 days or so. It’s difficult to believe that the trip is coming to an end, but I still have all of Idaho and Oregon yet to go, so there’s still plenty to see and do yet.

Day 44, In a roundabout way

Day 44, Hamilton, MT – Lolo, MT* 70 miles (3249 total)

July 24, 2008

Time on bike: 6:17:59

Avg: 11.2

Daily Ascent: 1145 ft (16 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 3200 ft

Max: 29.5 mph

I forgot to mention the coolest part of yesterday. I had just finished up my Poweraid and Reece Cups and crossed a river when I noticed up a head a herd of wild… something-or-another. They looked like deer but they had horns like rams. There were 35 of them and they weren’t too afraid of me. I cycled up pretty close to them and watched them graze along the side of the road and cross as traffic stopped to watch. Some of the young ones were up on the rock-face and I was amazed at their ability to climb and then to scale down the side! It was just so serene to watch them and to feel like I was just part of the scenery and that they didn’t mind me being there. Especially being on a bike and not being separated from them by a windshield and being totally vulnerable, I felt like such a part of everything around me.

Early morning today at 5am and on the bike by 5:45. The goal was to put on some MAJOR MILES. Missoula was coming up and it’s about 60,000 in population, plus it’s a college town. Missoula is also quite the bicycle town! I can’t remember seeing so many bicycles. They were parked outside of almost all of the shops in town! There were a number of marked bicycle paths on the roads for the bikes as well. I saw another recumbent as I entered the town. It seemed funny to me that Missoula would be so into bikes, being that they have summer probably only about 2 months out of the year…

As I left Missoula my rear tire went flat. Upon checking it I found a 1” sheet metal screw lodged into my tire as if someone had drilled it in there! It chewed up my innertube to the point that patiching it wouldn’t suffice. So, I put on another tube which already had a hole, patched that one, and biked back into Missoula to the bike shop to buy 2 additional tubes which I should have done in the first place. While there I figured that I’d just go ahead and do some laundry and also wash my sleeping bag which hasn’t been washed in I don’t know how many YEARS!!

To top it all off I found out that Missoula isn’t even on the route but it’s 13 miles off the rounte at which point you have to turn around and bike 13 miles back. So, all’s told I only biked about 50 miles towards my final destination but 70 in total.

Day 43, One little rain cloud

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Day 42, Mpola mpola

Day 42, Twin Bridges, MT – Jackson, MT 76 miles (3076 total)

July 22, 2008

Time on bike: 8:48:09

Avg: 8.7

Daily Ascent: 3770 ft (50 ft/mi)

Elevation at days end: 6500 ft

Max: 38.5 mph

“Mpola mpola” (“slowly by slowly” in Uganda) Montana is nicknamed “Big Sky Country” and it is that indeed! The expanse of sky from mountaintop to mountaintop is breathtaking. I’ve seen a number of log-cabin barns and other small farm structures along the way. It’s become my visual identity of Montana thus far.

I decided to cycle 25 miles before breakfast, but uphills and headwinds prevented me from getting there until 11am. Breakfast was in Dillon, MT, population 3,752. After Dillon was a long, barren stretch up 2 mountain passes. First was Badger Pass, elevation 6,760 ft and then Big Hole Pass, elevation 7,360 ft. A lot of slow climbing today, and into headwinds, not that they make much difference when you’re peddling 4 mph. Before the 2^nd climb the sky started to darken on me quickly and I could see that it was raining off to my left. Then it began to drizzle on me. I threw on my rain gear and explored my options. There was a ranch just up ahead, but the rain didn’t look to serious. I started to forge ahead when I saw a corrugated steel, cylindrical building which had sand inside. Must have been owned by the state or something. I decided to pull in there and wait to see what was to happen. Sure enough, bigger than life, it started to pour! Nasty wind and rain! It’s a good thing I stopped, too, because there wasn’t much up ahead after my little shelter I found out.

I finally made it into Jackson and found a hotel with some hot springs. After a day of climbing and rain I figured I needed a night in a warm bed!