We simply enjoyed our last day. It was 67 miles, beautiful weather and nearly half the ride was on the Centennial trail, a paved rail-to-trail path. Julie, Mei and Emily met us at the finish and cheered and celebrated like we had won the world series :)
This was an astounding adventure and I especially thank Jake for sharing it with me. He is a fantastic partner and strong, durable rider. An adventure like this brings daily problems that need to be solved with calm planning and execution where everything falls on our shoulders. I'm sure we weren't perfect, but I know we made it through this journey safely and stronger than the day we started and we built a lot of memories.
We started the day escaping the fires that were burning just outside of town. During the evening before, several warning messages came on the television about a Warning '2' status for the town that basically means ' be ready to evacuate'. Anyhow, it was already hot - 101 deg and add a range/forest fire on top of that! We got up super early - about 5am to start pedaling and already it was in the 80's deg range.
Once we got out of town just a few miles, the air cleared up and since we had a long, slow ascent to Steven's pass, the temperatures got cooler the further we went. Steven's pass wasn't too difficult of a climb and afterwards, we enjoyed at least 20 miles of coasting. Probably it was the long break from coasting in combination with the cooler air, which stayed cool as we approached the coast, but whatever the case, we felt strong and made today our longest ride yet - 111 miles. Super pretty ride on highway 2, but at times a bit crowded with cars.
Sorry for the 'zero' blogging for the last 2 weeks. I'm going to summarize and post videos and pictures up to July 13.
June 28-July2 Fargo, ND. Basically we got here earlier than we'd expected. Since we already had train tickets for July 3 and we had sequential plans after that, we basically spent 4 days relaxing and waiting for our train. The train experience was interesting. It leaves (normally at about 3:30AM), but ours was about 2 hours late. We didn't sleep much at all.
July 3 arrived at Havre, MT where Julie, Mei and Emily picked us up. We then drove to Whitefish, MT to enjoy Glacier for a few days.
Trains in Taiwan and Japan clock in around 220 miles per hour. We maxed out at 81 on our AMTRAK passenger train - bummer.
July 4 relaxed in Whitefish - hit the beach for a while.
July 5 hiked 'Many Glaciers' which comprised several short hikes. During the second hike, I chose to turn around early (I was hiking in my cycling shoes and they started to get uncomfortable). I gave the bear spray to Julie, Mei and Emily and I turned back toward the car by myself. Within about a half mile, a couple of other hikers said that a grizzly had been sighted crossing the path (yikes). Anyhow, I continued cautiously and saw that there were other people ahead. It turns out the grizzly was about 30 yards off the trail and really uninterested in people. He was scavenging for food. I just quickly moved along to the car but it was my first experience seeing a grizzly in the wild. You really can't see the grizzly well in the video, but you can hear people talking about it. I saw it clearly, but didn't want to show up on darwin awards just to get good video.
July 6 - Going to the Sun. Threw the bikes on the car and drove to Logan Pass. Jake and I coasted to East Glacier, turned around and climbed back to the pass. Then we coasted down to West Glacier. about 55 mile trip in total. We saw mountain goats, bighorn sheep and very spectacular, majestic scenery.
July 7 - Whitefish to Eureka, MT. First 15 miles were great, but then we had to ride the highway which had basically no shoulder. Kinda scary. But we arrived in Eureka just fine after about 75 miles.
July 8 - Eureka to Sandpoint, ID. Basically, we did our second century (98 miles, which I'll round up to 100 :). Ran into a couple of others going in the opposite direction. One gentleman was from JEROME, transplanted to Boston. He was 61 years old, so not surprisingly, I didn't recognize his name. But he grew up at about 5 miles north 1/4 mile east, if I remember correctly. He was in a group of about 6-7 riders on their way from Bellingham, WA to NYC, NY. They will face some interesting humidity along their journey, me predicts. But, a nice group of people and in great spirits after conquering the Cascades!
July 9 - Sandpoint to Skookum Campground.
July 10 - Skookum to Beaver Lodge Resort Campground. First of 5 climbs in the books.
July 11 - Beaver Lodge Resort to Colville, WA
July 12 - Coville to Tonasket, Wa - conquered 2 summits today.
July 13 - rest and trying to figure out what to do next. There are fires in the Cascades that have forced road closures. So, at about 225 miles to go, we are forced to change course. Our plan is to head South on highway 2 and then turn north around Everett and either take the Centennial trail as far north as we can and connect back up to the route, or take the ferry to Whitby Island and then just ride the island roads up to Anacortes. We will probably make that decision another day.
I've got a ton of pictures and videos to upload, but it will have to wait. Also, we can check off North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho! We expect to finish in 3-4 days from now.
