While we were on the Bike trip, I kept a journal
on my mother's handheld computer (which can be found at the link above),
but to keep everyone at home updated about what was happening, I updated this
website whenever I happened to have access to the internet. As a result,
there are two accounts of what happened. The web page was written more for a
general audience, while the journal was a fair amount more personal (and I spent
a fair amount of time editing until i was comfortable to put it on the internet).
Now, take your pick. Journal, or web page.
Well, it's Hannah's bike log, but Mom will do at least part of the
intro. As I mentioned on other pages, the bike ride took shape over a
period of YEARS, and it’s final form was very much a function of
timing (Hannah is thirteen this summer, old enough, and strong enough
to make the trip). It will also ensure that she doesn’t miss large
chunks of material that will be on the SAT’s, as she isn’t
starting high school until the fall of 2004. As I was planning the
trip early on, when Hannah was 11 or so, I asked her what would
convince HER to go on the trip. She was impressed with geysers, and
had done a report on them for a school project. So, her answer was
that any cross country trip had to include Yellowstone on the bike
route. It's taken some amount of rearranging to work it into the
route, but it's definitely there! Getting back to the Lewis and Clark
trail from Yellowstone will ensure we see LOTS of Montana, however.
It’s a good thing it’s a beautiful state.
I think at age 11, Hannah had NO concept that she could
actually make the trip all the way across. She had her doubts even as
we started training in March of this year (2003). I DID sit down with
her with John Forrester’s book “Effective Cycling,” and show
her how training had an effect on building muscle tissue and producing
more red blood cells to transport needed oxygen to the muscles for a
venture like this. The bottom line of the explanation was, “If you
stick to the training schedule, you WILL be ready to do the trip.”
A simple, but effective statement, apparently, because Hannah’s
done extremely well at getting in her weekly mileage, and exceeding it
some weeks. I would still consider her attitude to be “cautiously
optimistic.” She's looking forward to the trip, even as she
realizes she's also missing a summer of hanging out with her friends.
It will help that she can have phone and e-mail contact.
Hannah's intro:
Contrary to what was said earlier, I didn't say that I would go
across the country if we stopped at Yellowstone. I said that if I went
on the trip AT ALL, I would go AS FAR as Yellowstone, MAYBE more. This
was agreed, and I figured that it would be a summer trip for me. About a
year later, I was somewhere with my mom who is talking with a stranger
about the trip. In the conversation, I overheard her saying "yeah, she
thinks she is only going to Yellowstone, but she is going all the way
across with me." I have absolutely no clue when that decision was made,
but I went along with it. Now, two weeks before we leave, I am still terrified of the Rockies, but I
believe I can make it. Hopefully, we will still have enough energy to get the rest of the way after
we get through the Rockies.
THE TRIAL TRIP TO MILFORD
We had wanted to take a long trip before we actually left for THE trip to see
if our equipment worked, so we decided we would go to visit our friends in
Milford. Now, Milford is 50 miles from our house, and the farthest I have ever
biked in one day is 30 (and that was one pretty flat ground, with no weight
on the bikes, and I was pretty healthy). The trip to Milford is over 50%
uphill, we had something like 40 pounds of gear on our bikes, and I had a cold.
After the first five hills, we stop and my mom says "I just realized one of the
things I didn't bring: my athsma medication!" This was when I realized this was
going to be a pretty bad ride. About 10 miles into the ride, we had just
gotten over the hill from (insert strong word of choice here), when we stopped
for lunch. We decided to take the opportunity to call our friends and tell
them there was NO way we would make it to their house in one day. The ride
proceeded just about the same way; get up a big long hill, get maybe five seconds
of downhill. There was one point in the trip where we were going up a TINY
slope, and I had to get off the bike and walk. By the time we had gone 20
miles, I felt like I would fall over and collapse. Luckily, there was a
campground that wasn't very far away, so we decided to spend the night there.
The equipment seems to be pretty good, but I am not so sure about our muscles.
Too late now, our plane leaves in two days! Well, we have a bit of time before
we reach the Rockies anyway, we can just call the first couple of weeks on the
trip extended training!
THE FLIGHT TO OREGON AND PUTTING THE BIKES TOGETHER
whatever optimism I had earlier is just about gone now. I got up at 3:30
a.m., and was on the plane at 7:00.we flew to New Jersey, and then switched flights
to the one that would take us all the way. It was sooooo depressing to see all
of the ground beneath you and know that you would have to cross it on two wheels.
I had to pay for some headphones (that I am pretty sure are only usable on
that kind of airplane) so I could listen to the movie they were playing
(daredevil, man that is a strange movie), and I had to listen to songs that are
sung in spanish! anyway, six hours later (what would be 3:00 at home, but is
noon here) we landed, ate lunch, and then spent the next three hours putting
out bikes back together. there is one thing that I really like about Oregon
though: they have a lane on the roads JUST FOR BIKERS!!!! we only got 5 miles
today, but we were exhausted (you would be too if you had a 27-hour day!!!!!)
well, that is all I have to write for now, and I don’t know when I will be able
to write again (it was by a stroke of luck that the hotel we chose tonight had
a computer with Internet), but I will try to get back soon.
THE FIRST 2 DAYS
Just something I have to say: people out here are WAY too friendly! the
way just come up to you and start talking as if you have known each other
forever! Anyway, our first day went pretty well. The biggest problem we had was
there was a
pretty bad omen within the first 5 miles: a flat tire. It took us about 20
minutes to deal with that, and then we kept going. Our camp that night
wasn’t too great though; we were at a mobile home park, but the guy just let
us take the grassy area in front of the parking lot. The place has
definitely seen better days! the doorknobs were broken, all of the campers
seemed rather rusty, the bathroom was an outhouse, and the owner of the place
looked like one of the guys
that just gives up on living around 40 years old and wastes away in front
of the t.v. with a beer bottle in his hand (although he was pretty
friendly). there was also a cat that we kind of became friends with. I
made the mistake of petting him for awhile, and he didn't leave us alone
after that. Not to say that the place didn’t have any good qualities; the
showers were good and there was this nice mint-smelling thing growing on the
ground.
The next day wasn't so great. mom and I turned onto a road to get breakfast
(thinking dad was right behind us) and I ended up having to pedal my way up to about 20
mph to catch up with my dad to tell him that we had turned. after this,
we had three HORRIBLE hills, and they left me seriously wondering if I had made
a mistake in coming on this trip. At the top of the hill, there was a
small park with a great view of the Columbia River.
Now, picture this: a campsite
that was surrounded by trees (to block the wind), has a picnic table (a rare find
when not at a campsite), a bathroom with running water not too far off
(reeaallly a rare find when not at a campsite), and relatively flat
ground. Now, what could possibly be wrong with this campsite?
that's what!!!!!!!
We had decided that we would at least eat dinner there, and if rangers didn't
come and bust us by the time we were done, we would spend the night. They
didn’t come. We camped illegally. I woke up a bit early, so by the time my dad came
out of his tent, mine was already half-down (his face was wonderful when he
saw this!!). By the time my mom was up, I was stuffing the tent in its bag, but
she didn't notice for awhile. PS: a ranger did find us in the morning, but didn’t seem too
upset.
Today, we had a really lousy headwind, so
the hills were pretty tough. We did reach Astoria though, so now we are going
to (or at least, this is what I have been told for the past 80 miles, but I'm
not exactly convinced)have a tailwind, which will make me VERY happy (if there
aren't any hills to spoil it)! I don't know what we are going to do for camping
tonight, but tomorrow is 4th of July, so hopefully we will be somewhere with
fireworks tomorrow.
THE FIRST WEEK
The answer to what we did for camping that night: some lousy thing that doesn’t
think people in tents need picnic tables. we had to drag a table from a site
that had a CABIN! That night, one of the wires on my braces came loose, so that
is another problem we will have to deal with. As for July 4th, we could KIND OF
see the fireworks, but not really. I didn’t really enjoy that day. we went to
Fort Clatsop (the place Lewis and Clark spent the winter), so we didn’t get very far.
Then, we went the wrong way DOWN a hill for ½ a mile, so we had to go back UP
the hill to go back. Then we later came to a fork, and both roads ended up in
the same place, but one of them had a lot of traffic, so we chose the other one.
about 6 miles into that road, dad says "I think it is a good thing we came on
this road," and about five minutes later the road turned into loose gravel. All I
had to say was "are you SURE it’s a good thing we came this way?" we had to walk
our bikes most of the way through the gravel, which was about 2 miles long, and
up a hill. somewhere, the rack for my bag came loose, and almost bent the spokes
on my wheel. When we finally got off that, we got to a VERY crowed campground.
we had to squeeze in onto a patch of grass that wasn’t even a real site.
The day after that, we were at Seaside. We stayed in town for a little bit,
and then went to see Haystack Rock (note about haystack rock: there are
MULTIPLE haystack rocks. so far, we have only seen two of them, but we here they
are all up and down the coast). The next day we had a pretty good day.
riding wasn't
that bad, and we got 39 miles in (the farthest yet on the trip). I should mention
though that I got injured multiple times. first, I had the bike stopped for a
second, and the wheel turned and hit me in the knees. Then, we had stopped at a
bike store to get a new innertube (dad busted his), and as we were leaving, my
bike leaned away from me, and I couldn’t get my foot out of the toe-clip, so
the bike brought me down with it. (note about that day: it was Katie Holtgrewe's
birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) This brings us to today. We finally found a spot
to dip our wheels in the Pacific (cant say it’s a trip across the country unless
we do that), and found a place to do laundry and update this page. It has been
flat,
so riding hasn't been bad.
EVERYTHING I CAN THINK OF THAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE LAST
UPDATE
Well, a lot has happened in the past week. We took a hotel a couple nights (I
had to sleep on the floor one of them, but that is besides the point),
It rained one day (and then we went into a small-town café, and EVERYONE in the
place turned to look at us as we walked in dripping wet, but it was kinda
funny).
I have decided that one of the most depressing things there is to happen on one
of these trips is to be going on a road that looks flat, but is really going
up a hill. we have had a lot of those, and you look at the road, and think
"this is flat. I should be able to cruise down this thing at 10 mph without a
problem, but here I am wheezing up it at 6 MPH!! at the top of one of these hills
there was a farm stand that had the typical cherries, raspberries, apples, and
Marion berries (I think someone said those are a cross between raspberries
and blackberries; they are really good, and really popular out here), but we
talked with her for awhile. She was the classic, friendly person that you meet
and become friends with instantly. she started telling us about how she wants
to set up a rest place for campers and bikers down by the river, and how a
racoon that has been eating her chickens was found dead on the side of the
road, and a whole bunch of classic farmer-like things. She told us about
a campground down the road, so we went to that and met a COLOSSAL DOG named
bear. For anyone who has seen the movie Armageddon, he was almost exactly
like the Bear in that movie. Looks really tough, extremely huge, (like a
Grisly bear), but is really just a soft, lovable thing (like a teddy bear).
Bear was rather funny because on the door of the office, there is a picture
of him, and it says "guard dog on duty" and then you look right inside the
door and you see him dead asleep. the next day, it got into the 90s I think,
and we saw a lot of road kill that day. first, we saw a house-cat, the a couple
racoons, and then a skunk. the day after that, we got to Corvallis, and fixed
my braces (if you scroll up on this thing, you will eventually find where I
wrote that I broke them about a week ago, in case you forgot) then I was going
through an intersection, but the light turned yellow, so I stopped, but I had
to back up a little bit. the problem: I didn’t take my foot out of the toe clip,
so I fell over in front of about 20 drivers. we also had to
rough it for camping that night, and we chose a field with a lot of sharp
pointy things growing around there.
notice the long grass, the river that wasn't 10 FEET OFF
and yet near impossible to reach (there just so that it could taunt us in the 90+ heat)
this is a picture of where my parents tent was, but you can see a little bit
of mine in the corner behind it. The grass had seeds on it that were very sharp,
and designed to latch onto an animal (or cyclist) and spread its seeds that way.
I think that even now when we are home, we may still have some of those seeds
stuck in our socks!
one more thing I have to say about that day:
you have probably read in here somewhere that people seem really friendly out
here. well, the people aren’t the only ones. Dad came across an "overly friendly
atm" he didn’t expand much beyond that, except he did tell us that when it
asks you if you wand a receipt, in stead of having the options be yes or no,
they are "sure!" and "no thanks."
the next day, we thought we were going to get out of an extra 5 mile detour to
the town Eugene, but then someone remembered we needed stove fuel for cooking.
we spent about three hours trying to find a place that had some.
later on, we passed someone else who is doing the same route as us (well, kinda, but he is
sticking to the Transamerica, and not doing Lewis and Clark). we ended up
sharing a table with him at dinner. Now, do you remember the road I mentioned
that was loose gravel, and my front bag rack slipped off and almost killed my
wheel? well, this guy, Luke, had it a lot worse on that road.
Apparently, he got something like six flat tires on that stretch, two of them at
the same time. That made me feel much better about our experience.
The next night was interesting. we found a good place to sleep, it had running
water and a place to charge up all electronics, but as for where we slept,
we had a nice, comfortable, cozy, TEEPEE! it was pretty spacious, and a lot
better than some of the places we have had. In fact, it was so spacious we
offered some of our room to another cyclist. a girl came down to the teepee
section, and was saying how she didn’t know what she was going to do that night
(because we took the last teepee), so we decided to let her have a spot in ours.
Her name is Dana, and she apparently had been traveling with Luke for a little
bit (including the dirt road part). Now, you can not believe how creepy it is to
come across someone that you have never seen before, and you say one sentence,
and they say "oh yea, you are the family that is biking across the country!"
Dana was about the 4th person to do that. she says she heard about us from a
cashier back in Eugene, and all the others probably heard from other bikers (its
an unwritten rule that bikers are friends with all other bikers; so when they
stopped to talk, I guess they talk about the other bikers they have met, and
we were one of them)
Now we get to the "fun" part of the trip. for the past week, we have been
hearing about "McKinsey pass" and how difficult it is. well, the day we left
the teepee, we started going up it. McKinsey pass is over 5000 feet above sea
level, and we started going up it at about 1000 feet. the road is about as wide
as a one-way street should be, and yet it’s a 2-way street. this leaves just
about no room for bikers. we got 15 miles our first day (the shortest distance
so far on the trip), then we got to the top at noon the next day. THAT HILL WAS
HUGE!!!! all of the hills we have done so far this trip took us about two hours TOPS,
and this took us a day and a half. I must say though, it was reeaaaaaaalllllly
nice to come down a downhill that lasted 45 minutes w/out having to pedal!!!
we
got to the town of sisters, and poked around there for a bit. when I came back to
the bikes after looking in a store, I saw my Aunt Chris and Uncle Doug waiting for
us. They offered us a ride (in a car)!! to uncle Doug’s house in Bend, which we gladly
accepted. so now, the entire Werme family is in the same place for the first time
since 1997. we got to do laundry (YAY!!!!!! YOU CAN NOT BELIEVE HOW NICE A
THING THAT IS), and we spent about three hours talking about the Tour de France, and
how a lot of things we are carrying aren’t necessary, and how something "weighs
as much as a derailleur! you need the derailleur, but not that!!!!" (the derailleur
is what changes the gears- its pronounced
de-rail-er) Uncle Doug has gone on and on about how we have a whole bunch of
things we don’t need, and they are just slowing us down.
Anyway, while we are
here, we are going kayaking, going to see crater lake, seeing legally blonde 2
(what can I say- im a blonde, I cant miss it) and me and my cousin JJ just got
back from floating down the river on an inflatable island (complete with palm
tree!), and watching le tour de France (but we haven't seen any replay footage
of Lance's stunt where he swerved to miss the other biker, Beloki, when he fell down, went
off the road, completely skipped a switchback, and then jumped off his bike and put it on his
shoulder to
miss a ditch and got back on it at a running start and re-joined the pack w/out
missing a beat). There is also a bridge that goes over the river that a lot of
the locals like to jump off. Well, it was kinda hot out, so I just walked over,
asked someone where was it safest to jump from, found out, went over, and
jumped (its really fun to tell people you have jumped off a bridge!). turns out
the water was a lot colder than I thought, and it is a REALLY LONG wait from
the time you jump to the time you hit the water.
Anyway, we aren’t sure exactly how long we
will be here, but my mom
says we will be here until she has finished reading Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix (which might be awhile). Well, we are through the Cascades, so
that leaves the Rockies, the desert, and the great plains left! updates to come
at a later date!
note: legally blonde 1 is better than the 2nd, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and mom didn't
finish order of the phoenix- although I got to reread all of my favorite parts.
When we went up to Crater Lake, we came across someone who had a really
cool kind of bike called a recumbent. Recumbent are basically lawn chairs crossed
with bikes. This one is particularly nice (as far as I am concerned) because
the steering is down beneath the seat, so you don't have to hold your arms out,
and it s a trike, so you don't have to worry about balance. This also means that
you can be creeping along at 1 mph, and won’t fall over. on a regular bike, I
think my record low speed is 2.5 mph (but my mother might be able to pull off
something lower- it takes a long time for her to be going too slow)
Uncle Doug's to July 26
Our first day out, Uncle Doug and his friend Bill lead us to the campsite,
which happened to be at the bottom of a canyon. we filtered water from the
stream, and set up camp. well, it turns out that what everyone was telling us
at Bend was right: we were in for some hot, dry days and nights. I ended up
taking the rain fly off my tent before I went to sleep because it was so hot.
the next day we had to go up a hill to get out of the canyon, and we expected
to have our usual 2nd breakfast at the next town, Prineville. well, it was
an hours ride away, so we got there and ended up having an early lunch. on the
way there, we passed a llama farm, so I got a good close-up picture of a llama.
The next
day, we were down-right boiling (we are going through desert at this time) so
we stopped at a reservoir and took a swim. it helped A LOT! we got to Mitchell,
a town that I really hope has seen better days. it is an honest-to-god ghost-
town. the only buildings that even look USED are the post office and the hotel,
which we stayed at. the hotel manager/janitor/owner/everything else was pretty
friendly, and he described staying at the hotel "just like stayin' at
grandma's" he also stressed that we didn’t have to worry about anything getting
stolen, because "that just a bunch of big-city non-sense, and besides, I'm in
charge of security around here," and pointed to his dogs outside. there was a
kitten living at the hotel named Joey, so I quickly became friends with him (even
though he kept trying to eat all of the straps on out bikes, and thought my hair was a toy).
That
night, we stealth-camped off a logging road (we apparently weren't the first:
we found TONS of beer cans on the ground) in Ochoco national park. we got some
provisions at one of the stores there (there were 2 of them, but one of them
had eggs with an expiration date that was in may, so we decided to use the
other store). we set the alarm for 5:30, actually got up, and had breakfast in
the town park in the morning. we left pretty early, and started out with this HORRIBLE hill. we
all thought it was kind of
cool on that hill though, because someone had spray-painted words of encouragement
on the pavement, like "keep pedaling" "many have tried, few have succeeded,
but u r awesome" then there was one stretch with "your doing good (happy
face)" then you go a little farther and you see "keep on going (face w/ straight
mouth)" and the last one is "YOU CALL THIS A HILL? (a dead face, w/ its
tongue hanging out and x's as eyes). when we got to the top, we had a
really long downhill into the next town, Dayville. it was ok most of the way,
but we got into a canyon at the bottom, and that was REALLY hot so we found a
creek to fill up water and cool off in. My mom found it hysterical that I laid
down in the creek instead of just sitting in it. but personally, im
surprised she didn’t! it was really hot out, and I wanted to cool down. we
got to Dayville, and took a couple hour rest in the park. we almost spent the
night there, but we decided to press on to the next town, Mount Vernon. we took
a hotel there, because it was getting dark by that time. we were thrilled when
we got there because the room had air conditioning. my bed was right below it,
so I considered it pack-back on my parents for them getting a king-sized bed
while I was on the floor the first time we took a hotel. I got to sleep in the
next morning to, and my parents just brought be take-out from the restaurant
the went to for breakfast. (sleeping in was very attractive since we had gone
61 miles the day before, our farthest distance yet). we got to the top of
the 1st of three big hills that night, and stayed at a campground at the top
of the hill (that meant that we wouldn’t be so hot that night; we were all happy
about this). the next morning we had a downhill all the way into the next town,
Austin Junction (the whole town consists of one building), and then we had to start
the other 2 hills. the first one tired us out a lot, but it turns out it didn’t
matter too much because we had an unscheduled rest half-way up the 2nd hill:
why did we have this? BECAUSE WE GOT CAUGHT IN A RAINSTORM!!!!! (note: did
you see that Doug? a RAINSTORM! and you were saying we wouldn’t see rain until we hit the
Missouri!!!!!!!) we had to sit under a tree for an hour
to wait for the rain to lighten up. when it finally did, we were all pretty
wet, and so was all of our stuff (including the book I was using to keep
track of how far we have been getting each day, so all the ink ran). we got over
the hill, and at the bottom we had a 20 miles ride on flat ground into
the next town, Baker City. we thought we would get there pretty easily,
but I got a flat tire about 5 miles out of town. I was really mad about this,
because we were planning to take a rest day in baker city. we put in a new
inner-tube, and started to pump it up. after pumping madly for a couple minutes,
we noticed that the tire wasn’t as firm as it should be at that point. we took
the tire off AGAIN and put in ANOTHER inner-tube. luckily, this one worked. we
got to town about a ½ hour later, found a bed & breakfast that we had heard
about 2 days ago (we stopped in a store, and the guy who owned it also owns
the bed & breakfast, and the he told us about a restaurant across the street,
so we get there find that no minors are permitted inside; he seemed a bit surprised
when I told him I was a minor) so we are now staying at the bed and breakfast,
we found a library near by, and I get to update this site. we are planning on
staying in this town for the day, and tomorrow we will have to go through "hell's
canyon". from what we have heard, that place is even more hot than what we
have been through, and it involves a couple big climbs. we are expecting to
be out of Oregon within a week (I think). we have also decided that there
will be a change in our route: when we get to Missoula, montana, we will
rent a car, drive to Yellowstone, see what there is to see, drive back to
Missoula, and got straight to great falls from there. this cuts off about
500 miles of biking, and will eliminate a 7000 foot climb that we would have
to do otherwise. we are also thinking that there is a very small chance of us
getting all the way across the country, so we might just make it to St. louis
and fly back since we are going so slow. well, I guess I will bring updates
the next chance I get, but I am not really sure when that will be. well, keep
checking back here in case we do get a chance sometime soon!
as of August 1st
well, we left Baker City, and headed to Hell's Canyon. We stopped at the
Oregon trail interpretive site, which basically confirmed what I have always
thought: you either had to be mental or desperate to go on the Oregon trail.
Mom has been saying that if she was one of the women who's husband brought her
out here, she said that when she arrived she would have looked around, said
"you brought me out here for this?!?!?!?!", shot him, and called it
"justifiable homicide." we left there, and continued to the canyon. we
didn’t get there that day, but we got to a town called Richland, and spent
the night in a park. when we left, it already had promise of a really hot day.
we were right. se stopped around mid-day in a town called half-way to a: escape the heat, b: eat
something, and c: see if there was a library, but there wasn’t so I had to wait
until today. we continued on, and found the stretch of road that other bikers
told us had them delayed for 8 hours because of a mudslide. we had to be "escorted"
through the area because they weren’t quite done cleaning it up, but it wasn’t
that bad (except for the dust: that was horrible). we stopped right outside of
the town of Pine Creek. that was a DEATHLY small town. it consisted of one
building, a convenient/gas/fishing gear store. you could also just about see
both town line signs at the same time if you were in the right spot. anyway,
we stopped at an RV park, and spent the night on their front lawn. we woke
up at 4 am, and were on the road by 5:30. we wanted to beat the heat, because
canyons always reflect the sunlight and turning it basically into an oven.
this would not be helpful because it is already 100 degrees just about every day
anyway. we crossed the Oregon/Idaho state line at either 9:00 or 10:00,
depending one what time zone you are thinking about because that is also where
the time changes. we had a 2000 foot climb out of the canyon, and we stopped
3 times to swim. I swear that must be the coldest stream we have seen on the
trip!!!!!!! we got out of the canyon, and had a downhill into the next town.
we camped in the town park, but we payed $5 for a campsite at an RV park
just so we could use the showers. the next day, we had a long, steady climb,
but we had a couple towns to stop in so it wasn’t quite that bad. also, as
we were going on a little road, a black cocker spaniel came up to us. We
tried to read his tag, but it was too worn out. then we tried to lead him
up to the nearest house to see if he belonged to them, but mom didn’t stop,
and he followed her. then he just went down to a stream, and we figured we
should just go. Today, I got a flat tire when a truck went by, didn’t give me enough room, and I
had to go off the road onto a gravel turn-out. I found a staple in my tire (I have no clue how they
get there, but there are TONS of them on roadsides). we fixed it, and went on.
we have had mostly downhill, but we will pay dearly
for it over the next couple of days. tomorrow, we have to go up a huge hill, and after that hill
is Lolo pass, which is higher than McKinsey pass was.
now, it is time for the important stuff. Some people will be disappointed,
others will be thrilled. some people will be a little surprised, and others have been
expecting it since before Christmas. I have been lying to a fair
amount
of people for awhile, mostly using this website. I have been leading many
people to believe I am enjoying
this trip. well, I never wanted to be here in the first place. the only reason
I am here is because my dad said he was going to go on it, and I realized that
if he was going, there would be nowhere for me to stay for the summer. That is
the only thing that made me agree to come. I mentioned in the introduction that
the way I found out I would be going all the way is by hearing my mom tell some
stranger about it. well, with the decision being made like that, she should have been
expecting this: I have decided that I am going to come home either on or
before August 19th. Biking across the country doesn’t appeal to me, and I would
rather be home. if I go the 19th, I will have a week to get ready for school,
and get used to eastern time zone again. I will be able to see some friends
again, and a lot of what I have been dreading missing because of this trip I
will get back. Of course, I can never get my summer back: that was robbed from
me, and has now been wasted by wheezing up hills and baking in the heat.
if I leave on the 19th, that will give me time to see Yellowstone and great
falls, so everything will almost be back to the original plan that I actually
agreed to. my mom is still planning on going farther though, so there will
still be a trip to follow. to everyone back home, see you soon(er)!!!!! :-D
the next day
we slept at a little campground, and since we were at the bottom of the
canyon, we didn’t even bother with tents, and just slept on top of picnic
tables. this worked out pretty good, except that around 10 p.m., some really
loud truck towing a car came in, and circled around (and around, and
around) the camp area, with the high beams on. it stopped a couple times,
thinking they had found a good spot, but it either wasn’t satisfactory for
them, or that was the table my dad was on. then they stopped at my table.
I sat up, and they saw me, then got back in the car, and drove another 20
feet where they finally saw a free campsite, and it took them about 5 minutes
to back up into the space. now, all I have to say is this: if you ever arrive
at a campground kinda late, get OUT or the car, turn it OFF (don’t forget to
turn off the high-beams), and WALK around
to see the campsites. you will see things better (like maybe if there is a
person there), and you won’t annoy the poor other people that want nothing more
than to SLEEP. anyway, we slept in because we decided that we were only going
to make it to the next town that day, which was about 9 miles away. well,
we got there, and we found that there was a shuttle service that went from
there to the next town Grangeville(which happens to be a REAL town, not just a small
little thing w/ a store and restaurant). this turned out to be absolutely
perfect because Grangeville is where we sent our re-supply box. we load our bikes
into the back of the shuttle (what was really a pick-up truck), and they gave
us a ride tot he top of the hill. then we rode down, and found that there
was about 5 miles from the end of the downhill to town, so it wasn’t as easy
as we thought. we got there, and found a bed and breakfast that had rooms
that are more like apartments! they have kitchens, two bedrooms, a living room,
tv, and stereo. we went to the park, read our books for awhile, and then I
came to the library. o yea, we are back in pacific time zone. have you
ever looked at the line dividing pacific and mountain? it has just about no
logic in it!! Well, that is all I have to say. good bye.
MISSOULA!!!!
well, we are in Missoula, and apparently will be for a couple days. we are
having problems finding a place to rent a car, so we will either
get one tomorrow, or wait until Monday. anyway we have had great
riding since Grangeville, even though it included Lolo pass. we left
from Grangeville, and had a downhill for awhile. that was nice. we
got to a private campground that had a cabin there, so we rented
that. (note: I GOT TO WATCH ALIAS!!!!!!)they also had a pool there,
so I went down there, and met a girl named Ellen from Washington.
we talked for awhile, and she seemed pretty nice. I got to sleep in a loft in the cabin we rented, so
that
was kind of cool (there is just a general rule that lofts are
awesome- I don’t know why, but they are). we left in the morning, and
had a 60 mile stretch without any towns or stores. that was the day
we started up Lolo, but it was a real gradual grade, so it was
pretty easy riding. that was also the best country we have been in
so far! we camped on a little side road that night. it gave us
access to the river, so we had a water supply. when we woke up,
it was later than usual, so we weren't sure we would get over
Lolo pass that day. we had breakfast, and may the record stand
that ***I*** waited 15 minutes for my parents to pack up, ***not***
the other way around. Most of the day was ok riding. we got to the
town and had lunch. apparently Ellen was there, and my dad sent her
to find me, but I didn’t see her.
later on, right when we got to the bad part of the climb up Lolo, it started to rain and thunder
(yes, there was another one WEST OF THE MISSOURI DOUG!!!!). I got
to a pullout and read the historical sign. "during their journey through
the Lolo region, Lewis and Clark were caught in a lightning storm..." and I
just think "now, learning history with accuracy is nice, but it DOESN’T have to
be THIS accurate!!!!!!!!" while I was waiting for my parents to catch up, a
truck with a sleeper stopped to read this sign, so I went up to him and said
"ironic, isn’t it" and he just started laughing, and then asked if I was Lewis
or Clark. I replied I wasn’t sure. when my parents got there, they
got a picture of me under the sign dripping wet (see left)
we kept going. I stopped to rest for a second, and
a car pulled up and asked if I was ok, I assured him I was fine, and he
kept going. later, he was coming the other way, and it had just
started to rain, so he asked if I was ok again, and I said it was
alright.
my parents about 1000 feet
were in front of me, and at the next pullout the guy who asked if I was ok
had stopped to talk with them. when I get there, I realize that he was kind
of a modern hippie. he had just come from a powwow on the Indian reservation,
he had bumper stickers like "free Tibet" and "wage peace". we got to talking,
and he goes into his car and comes back with a string of red and black beads
that he says are made from seeds in Tibet. he gives them to me,
and says I deserved them "because you are awesome". a little bit later, he gives
me another necklace with the image of "blessed martin" on it, and on the back
its says "blessed martin pray for us" and he said that he had it since he
was 12, and it is supposed to ward off trucks (...?...). he ALSO gave me
a bracelet made of hematite and said he was giving it to me because "your
awesome" again, and added a side note of "and pretty darn good looking 2"
he gave us information on where to stay when we got to great falls
(he either gave us his address, or a hotel near where he lives, I cant
remember).
anyway, we did make it over Lolo pass that day. when we
did, we also crossed into montana, and into mountain time. we stayed in a
teepee again, but this one was smaller and had bark mulch for a floor
instead of a carpet. that must have been the coldest might the whole trip
so far. I was wearing just about everything I had on the trip: bike shorts,
leg warmers (those 2 things together are pretty much pants), my long pants
over that, 2 pairs of socks, one of my biking shirts, my sweatshirt, and
moms hat, and it was still freezing out. when I got into my sleeping bag
it was a lot better though.
it wasn’t really any better in the morning until
about 10:00. now, that was THE BEST DAY OF BIKING the whole trip, it was
slightly downhill, tailwind, not blistering hot, and there was
civilization around lunch time. we got to Missoula, and took a hotel.
we spent a day here, and I did back-to-school shopping (one less thing
to worry about when I get home), stopped in at adventure bicycling (the
people that made our maps, they give water and ice cream to cyclists. they
also give use of a rather lousy computer w/ a fuzzy screen, and its
macintosh so I was entirely lost w/ the keyboard, which is why the website
wasn’t updated while we were there). The next day we rented a car and went
to Yellowstone. we stayed in west Yellowstone in a hotel called "ho-hum
motel". now, why we trusted a motel w/ that kind of name in the first
place, im not really sure, but it worked out pretty well.
the next day we
saw old faithful, castle geyser, morning glory pool, sawmill geyser (I
didn’t like that one very much, it kept splashing me and it smelled more
like sulphur than most of the other things there), anenome geyser (my new
favorite geyser- it starts out empty, it fills up right before it erupts,
and THE SECOND its done, it drains out. its kinda comical, as if its saying
"see, I did it. goodbye now, Elvis has left the building!"), and pretty
much everything in the upper-geyser basin, which has most of the famous
geysers. on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the various other
basins. mom and I have decided that Sapphire pool is our favorite- the
color blue it has can not possibly be captured on film I don’t think. its
BEAUTIFUL!)
we then saw the paint pots. I would try to list everything
we saw, but im not sure I can remember it all there was so much. we ended
up getting back to the hotel around 9:00. the next day we did Mammoth
hot springs, and Norris geyser basin. we are a little nervous about Norris
because the first newspaper we saw getting into Yellowstone said "is
Yellowstone going to blow?" and it said that Norris geyser basin had had
higher ground tempatures lately (they were finding soil 1 inch below the
surface that was 200 degrees!) so part of it was closed. we got to see
most of the important stuff though, like steamboat geyser (the tallest
active geyser I think in the world, but it isn’t predictable).
I forgot to mention earlier that we had a couple traffic jams
due to bison in the middle of the road. Most of the pictures we got didn't
show how close we actually were to them (you never know, we could have used zoom!)
, so I took this one with the frame of the car in it for reference.
we left the park around 3 or so, and drove back to Missoula. we got
there around 10:30, after getting lost in the town of Butte, and going
in circles for awhile. we stayed in the same hotel as last time, but
different room. that brings us to today (finally!) we haven’t really
done anything except for get our bike back from adventure biking (they
kept them in their basement while we went to Yellowstone) and came here.
mom refuses to leave town until she gets a decent bike seat (translation:
we're gonna be her until the end of the world), and I refused to leave
town until I updated the website. I probably won’t be able to update it
again until I get home, which is 8 days from now (and I may be working
on other things; my to-do list runs about 5 pages long once I get home.
well, I guess I will see everyone at home soon! :-D :-D
ever get the feeling your going to KILL THE COMPUTER!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?
I just spent about 45 minutes typing an update for this thing, and then
somehow, im not sure how, it all DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! I guess I’ll try AGAIN.
well, pretty much the whole trip between Missoula and great falls was smoky.
mom took every allergy and athsma medication she owned every day, and either I’m
getting a cold (which is entirely likely) or I got a fair amount of ash in
my lungs (which is also likely). anyway, the first day out, we were intending to stay in a
campground
somewhere along the road, but that didn’t go too well. I got there before my
parents did, so I decided to check out the campsite, assuming they would
follow me in. well, they didn’t. by the time I got back to the road, they
were already down the road out of my site. I wait for awhile, and then
flagged down a driver to ask them if they had seen my parents. they said
no, but they also said that if they did, they would tell them to wait for
me. I got back on my bike and kept going. I caught up with them pretty
easily, because dad had turned around to look for me. because of this, we ended
up staying in the "town" of Ovando" that night. im not really convinced
it counted as a town. a concentrated area of farms maybe, but not a town.
when we first got there, the store and bed and breakfast looked absolutely
deserted, so we camped on the front lawn of the museum (which looked even more
deserted). 2 people came to talk to us, and the first thing they said was "hi,
we are on bikes too, but we are doing it in style." they were Carren and
Mark (Carren pronounced car-en, not care-en) Issacson. we found out that
they are originally from Maine, but they were staying in the bed and
breakfast that night. later, the mayor came by. now, 2 things about
that sentence puzzle me. first, that a town that small had a mayor to
begin with, and second, how HE got the job. he must have been the only
person running, I am not joking. I think he had a mental disability of
some sort, like a really, really, and I mean really, strong case of
autism. he was kinda like Forest Gump, just talking away and not
caring if anyone is listening or not. I missed most of his speech
because I was in my tent reading, but when I did come out he had brought
his horse over. I tried to ask him how many hands the horse was (for the
non horse-knowledgeable people, that is a way of measuring how tall a
horse is), but im not really sure if he answered me. he did manage to
tell me that the horse was pretty young, and that makes sense because
it was kind of jumpy, and looked pretty short (which is why I was
asking how many hands it was in the first place). we finally got him to
go away by saying we were going to go to bed. when we got up in the
morning, we found that there was some life in the town. the store was
open, and about half of the town was in there having breakfast. we went to get
some provisions, and met the local dogs. I am not kidding you, out of the
50 people living in that town, we must have seen at least 30 of them. it
is the perfect example of a sleepy little montana town where everybody
knows everybody else. the next day, it was even smokier, so when we
got to the town of Lincoln, we bought some visene (the first store
we tried was sold out, and with good reason!!). then we stopped at a
ranger station to ask if there was a good place to stealth camp,
because if we stayed at the campsite that was along the way, it would
be a pretty short day. well, there wasn’t any, so we stayed at the
campground. guess who else was there? Carren and Mark! we invited them
over for breakfast, and they gave me some of their pop tarts ( :-D ).
we had fun making fun of the RV in the campsite next to ours, that was
a: HUGE, and b: had a SATELLITE DISH out on the side. they were kinda
loud, which we didn’t like too much, but also kinda amusing. the next day we
got to a restaurant that was right at a junction. the sign at the junction
confirmed what I had been thinking for the past couple days: we were
supposed to take a completely pointless 20 mile detour. the map had
this almost right-triangle on it, and at the corner was the town of
augusta, which is where we were suppose to be spending the night. well,
the sign said augusta, go left, great falls, go straight! well, we
decided that the map-making people probably had some sort of good
reason for the detour, so we decided to take it. Augusta turned
out to be a much better town than Ovando. sure, people still knew
each other, but there was a hotel, couple restaurant, a store, and
a gas station, so it earned my respect. as we were coming out of
the store, we saw (can you guess) Mark and Carren, and they told us
that they were at the hotel in town, so we stayed there too. it was
a really dinky little hotel: some of the rooms just had one twin
bed, and I think we got one of the few with a queen AND a twin.
Other than that, there was a sink and desk in each room, and a
bathroom at each end of the hall. apparently in the middle of the
night a bunch of drunks were down on the street, and moms line of
thought was "uh oh, they are getting closer. uh oh, they are coming
up the stairs. UH OH THEY ARE TAKING THE ROOM RIGHT NEXT TO US!!!!!!!
then the owner of the hotel had to come up a couple times to quiet
them down, and the last time he said "look, I am not coming up here
again. who WILL come up here is the Sherif. now SHUT UP ALREADY!!!"
at this point one of the drunks said something about going back to
jail again, so we got in his pickup and left. finally they did quiet
down. as for me? I slept through the whole thing, and only know this
because mom relayed the whole story to me. So, this brings us to the next day.
oh my. I must warn everyone about this part. only read if you are in the
mood to here a long, sad, depressing story. so, the day starts of pretty good. easy
riding, tailwind, dead flat ground, what more can you ask for? well, then
we met 2 other cyclists and stopped to talk with them. by the time we
started riding again, a headwind had picked up. this isn’t that bad, but
hang in there. We got through a couple towns, and then at some point within
a mile of THE LAST TOWN BEFORE GREAT FALLS, I got ahead of my parents. I
stop at a store to wait for them for awhile. after a few minutes, I still
don’t see them, so I turn around. I went a little ways, and didn’t see them.
I just went back to the store, and figured they would catch up pretty soon.
well, dad apparently saw me while I was backtracking, so he came to tell
me that mom hadn’t shown up, and to wait here while he went back. the
next guy to come in the store says "are you with the guy who has a flat
tire?" and my mind flashes "I just saw dad. he cant have a flat. wait
a minute, what if mom does? YAY FINALLY ITS HER TURN HER TIRES AREN’T
INDESTRUCTIBLE AFTER ALL NOW SHE KNOWS WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GET A FLAT
WHOOOOOOOOOO
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Throughout the trip, dad and I have gotten numerous
flats, and she hasn’t gotten one, and she is usually sitting there looking
really annoyed. well, and hour later, they finally get to the store. turns
out they had some trouble fixing the flat. dad and I have a different kind
of valve on our wheel than mom (we have presta, she has shreadder), but
we only had replacement tubes for a presta valve. we put the presta in,
and mom got exactly ½ a mile with that. then we pumped it back up, and
tried to keep going. one mile later, we stop again, replace the tube AGAIN,
and try to keep going. actually got five miles on that try. now, mom just
gives up, and says she will hitch a ride into town, and dad and I go ahead
to get her a tube. dad dropped me at the first hotel he found, and he
kept going to get a tube. about an hour and ½ later, he comes back
to see if I had heard from mom. I hadn’t. he goes out again. He goes
to one of the many truck stops on the way out of town, and some trucker
made the mistake of asking him how he was. dad tells him the long sad
depressing story, and the trucker offers to give dad a ride back out to
where we left mom. he gets there, and finds that she is gone. turns out
mom walked a few miles, and then a spanish family with a van and a couple
trailers with 4-wheelers stops because they had been going the other way
about a ½ hour before, and when they saw her again figured she was in
trouble. mom put her bike in the trailer with the 4-wheeler, and gets a
ride to the hotel with them. then we call dad and tell him to come back,
its all ok now. the first thing mom does when he does get back is yells
at him for not calling her once he got the inner tube. then he said that
he was going to but then he got the ride from the trucker. by now, it is
almost dark, and we all aren’t in the mood to do anything except order a pizza.
so, we are in great falls. Today dad and I sent home our front panniers (with the
big tent and our sleeping bags, and sent home whatever else we could find that
a: we didn’t need and b: would fit in the box. then we came here, where I waited for
a ½ hour for a computer, and then right when I found a far side book (I LOVE
the far side) a computer was open. well, the bike trip is coming to and
end for me and dad (and there is much rejoicing ::little flags are waved:: if
you didn’t get that don’t worry abut it), and we fly home Tuesday. we pull into
Manchester airport around 11 p.m., and get home around one.
Contrary to what was said earlier, I didn't say that I would go
across the country if we stopped at Yellowstone. I said that if I went
on the trip AT ALL, I would go AS FAR as Yellowstone, MAYBE more. This
was agreed, and I figured that it would be a summer trip for me. About a
year later, I was somewhere with my mom who is talking with a stranger
about the trip. In the conversation, I overheard her saying "yeah, she
thinks she is only going to Yellowstone, but she is going all the way
across with me." I have absolutely no clue when that decision was made,
but I went along with it. Now, two weeks before we leave, I am still terrified of the Rockies, but I
believe I can make it. Hopefully, we will still have enough energy to get the rest of the way after
we get through the Rockies.
