Jun 18 - 24, Skykomish, WA to Missoula, MT

In the past eight days I have ridden 628 miles, an average of 78.5 miles a day. On the second day, I crossed the Cascade Mountains by Stevens Pass, which rises from an elevation of 785 feet to 4,160 feet in 12 miles. From there I descended for 17 miles into "Apple Valley USA". I crossed the Columbia River above Wenatchee, and spent the night at Lincoln Rocks State Park, which is beautiful and right on the East bank of the river.

The next day, I headed upriver to Orondo and Pine Canyon Pass. This is unmarked, but rises 2,000 in 6 miles, so it is like Stevens Pass's younger brother. It is the gateway to the Eastern Washington Plateau, an underpopulated desert of wheat fields. Because the weather from Seattle to the top of Stevens Pass had been rainy and cool, I went even further than I thought I could. Meeting the Tour Group then brought out the competitive streak in me, and I was determined to outdo them.

Even though my bike was fully loaded, and all they had to carry were their "snack packs" and gatorade mix, I was going to leave them in my dust. It took a few days of trying to cross the Wheat Desert, in 90 degree heat under a cloudless sky, for me to realize that every ride has its own pace. A pace that is dictated more by the weather and the distance between towns, than by your will.

The fact that my rear tire refused to maintain its structural integrity didn't help either. I'd have a flat, repair it, and then hear the awful sound of the patch coming loose. Or, I'd be putting the tire back on, and hear the even worse sound of a self-inflicted puncture from the tire iron. Then, while pumping up the re-repaired tire under the shadeless sky, I noticed that my tire had an embolism (or was it a hernia?) At any rate, there was a rip in the tire near the rim, and the just-inflated tube was bulging out. Too exhausted to take the wheel off again, I resorted to Duct Tape.

I was walking my bike, with its now defiantly flat rear wheel, the six miles to Airline Heights, when I met two bicyclists coming towards me. They had left from the coast of Maine on May 9th, and were only a few days from Seattle and the end of their trip. Since they fancied themselves as bike mechanics, I gratefully accepted their offer of a new tube and the switching around of my tires.

They lay their bikes down right their on the side of the road, and plunged into working on mine. This gave me a second wind, and I got out one of my inventions. This is a curved oval patch cut out of a soda bottle, that I've used in the past to cover holes in the tire itself. I cut one down, sanded the edges, and duct taped it inside the tire.

After handshakes and good wishes all around, they headed west, and I headed to Spokane. Once there, I consulted the phonebook and found an REI, where I bought two spare tubes and a new tire. Naturally, since I now have a spare tire, the original tire is on its best behavior, and has not acted up since.

I am writing this from "Liquid Planet", a really nice Cafe in Missoula. Have realized that this trip will be very different from the previous two. Partly it's because I'm less willing to deprive myself, but mostly it's because the West has changed. It's still beautiful out here, but it's being changed from a self-contained and self-sufficient area to a service economy. Like Maine, Cape Cod, and Berkshire County, to name a few examples close to home. And because the vacationers will pay, it feels as though every other person has their hand out.

Jun 17 - Tukwila to Skykomish, WA

Woke up at 4:30am, too early for breakfast. Spent some time rearranging and repacking all of my gear. Earlier this Spring, I re-read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. Many of the best parts are where the Suprise is sailing by itself across some ocean vastness. Trying to pack for a trip like this reminded me of Capt. Aubrey's careful stowing of the holds and trimming of his ship.

Rode up RT 99 to E. Marginal Way past the Boeing Aircraft Plant and the new Museum of Flight. Lots of impressive aircraft parked outside, including a Concorde and a former Air Force One. Also went by Safeco Field, which has an ornately Victorian-appearing retractable roof. Then along the waterfront of Seattle and past the Edgewater Inn, which was the site of many a fabled Rock Star escapade.

Making a right-hand turn, I headed up Broad Street, right past the Space Needle, and began my Eastward journey. It was chilly and overcast, and I was able to ride along quite well, stopping only to replace my spare tube, and send 3 Lbs of gear I decided I didn't really need back home to myself via UPS. Rather than spending the night in Index, I continued on to Skykomish.
While looking for a place to camp for the night, I ran into one of those supported Tours, where they do everything for the riders except set up their tents for them. I've never had a very high opinion of that kind of Bike Touring, because having all that support makes it so easy; but since many of the riders seemed to be from England and the Netherlands, I did my best to hold back my disdain. I was unable to resist teasing the riders, however, about how elegant they looked, "strolling about in their eveningwear." This was also their first day on the road, and they had ridden about 73 miles from Bothell, with all their gear being carried for them, whereas I had gone 83.2 miles.

The European riders all headed off to find a pub (even though their breakfast was scheduled for 5:30am). There are at least 3 bars, and only about 150 people, in Skykomish, so their chances of finding a place to drink in was good. It was 9:30pm and still too light to go to sleep, so I went too, for a soda and some chitchat. Naturally, I wound up talking to the Town crazy person, a young man who had left Tidewater Virgina for San Francisco, in search of the Jack Kerouac's long-vanished Subterraneans.

Off to Seattle - Jun 16

The airplane itself was small and cramped like the Green Line at rush hour. When you get to an airport out west you see the planes from Alaska Airlines. They have a portrait of a hardy-looking Inuit on the vertical stabilizers. My plane should have had a portrait of King Olaf on the tail, because I felt like a Skydine, and the fish, I mean people, next to me felt the same way.

I got into Seattle-Tacoma Airport at 6 pm Pacific time. By the time I was able to get the bike unpacked, reassembled, and the panniers stowed on it, it was 7:30 which is 10:30 Eastern time. I headed outside into the rain, and down the airport road to Route 99, “The Alaska Way”. I turned north towards Seattle, and 1 ½ miles from the airporthad my first tire-related incident. I was trying to pump extra air into the front tire when the metal valve stem broke. This meant I had to take off the front panniers, loosen the brakes, take off the wheel, and replace the tube. At 4 miles from the airport, I was in Tukwila, which is where all the cheap motels are.

Unfortunately, they were all full. If it hadn’t been raining, and so late , I would have found a patch of trees to camp in. Instead I doubled back along the other side of the road to the ‘Jet Inn’, which at $50 a night, was neither the worst nor the cheapest motel at which I’ve ever stayed. As far as my body was concerned it was midnight and I couldn’t go any further.

Getting Ready June 12 - 15

You can’t just fly with a bicycle. You have to go to the airlinebaggage dept and get a specially designed box which costs $10. Notwanting to casually drop by Logan Airport, only to discover that thebaggage dept. was closed, or out of boxes, I tried calling ahead.Apparently the baggage department is in a hermetically sealed bubble,because no one can contact them directly. First I talked to Sally in Srinagar, who transferred me to Mumbles in Mumbai, who connected me to Karl in Kolkatta. Karl finally understood that I was flying one wayfrom Boston to Seattle with a bicycle which I was riding back, and needed to know if they actually had a box before I went to the airport. After a long time on hold, he was able to tell me that they had one box available, which they would hold until 7:30 that night. But then in conclusion, he asked me if I needed any car rental information, which is like going to McDonald’s, ordering Large Fries, and having them ask, “Would you like fries with that?”.
The box itself is huge; even when flat, folded in half, and scrunched-up a bit, it won’t really fit in your car, and of course, fills up the entire back, blocking the rear window. Putting the bicycle in the box is supposedly easy. First you lower the seat (but if you forget to mark where it was, you won’t get it back to the right height which you’ll regret for the rest of the trip). Next, you remove the pedals. This is easy, if you remember that they have a left-hand thread and you loosen them the opposite way. Otherwise, you’ll have wasted a half hour, and they’ll only be tighter. Lastly, you turn the handlebars sideways. My headset is too long to just do that, so I had to remove the handlebars, trailing the cables, and tape them to the frame. Finally, you can slide the bike into the box and tape it shut securely. Then you bring this huge box to the check-in counter at the airport, where they charge you extra because it’s a “non standard box”.

Prologue

Back in 1983, a friend of mine went cross-country on her bicycle, flying out to Seattle and riding back to Boston. She was 45 at the time, and went the whole way by herself. After she did it, I kept saying that "someday", I would do it too.
One Saturday early in 1992 (I was 39 at the time), an alert doctor at Boston City Hospital (remember "St. Elsewhere", the hospital nobody wanted to go to? That was really BCH) saved my life. He noticed I had a tumor on my left testicle. After I had an operation to remove the testicle on very short notice, the results indicated that the tumor was cancerous.
I realized that "someday" might have never come for me. Two days after the operation, I was back swimming laps in the pool at the Woburn Y. The day after that, I went out an bought a brand-new Saturn. The next week, I started radiation therapy and interviewed for a job with the State. They explained to me that the position continuing after July 1st was
dependent on the State budget being approved on time, which was unlikely to happen.
My reply was, "Fine. If the job ends, I am flying out to Seattle with my bike." I did get the job, but the budget wasn't approved. With unused Vacation and Sick time, I was able to finish on July 18th. And so I was off to Seattle, and biked home to Woburn. It took me 37 days, or just over 5 weeks. I camped almost the whole way, sleeping indoors only 4 nights.
Five years later, in the spring of 1997, I started seeing visions of lonely little towns out west and empty two-lane roads, so I became a repeat offender. This time I made it back in exactly 5 weeks, spending only 2 1/2 nights indoors (it seemed really stuffy inside, so I went outside at about 4a.m.).
It's been ten years now, and I've been getting those visions again. Can I still push a loaded touring bike across the continent at the age of 54?