During the summer of 2004 I rode my trusty Cannondale touring bike from the Atlantic coast of North Carolina to the Pacific coast of Washington. The journey was approximately 6700 km (about 4100 miles) and took 76 total days to accomplish—58 riding days and 18 rest days.
For the moment this page is composed of the updates that I sent out while I was on the trip. Check back here for more updates, or subscribe to the mailing list if you'd like to get them as I send them.
I am chomping at the bit to get a scanner so I can put my slides up here ... but until I get a job, that will have to wait. Please bear with me a bit.
i'm convinced that the san francisco bay area is one of the prettiest places to approach in an airplane. you pass over the shimmery bay dotted with sailboats and go by the golden gate bridge, the sun descending yet again over the ocean to the west while the skylines of berkeley, san francisco, and oakland line the waters of the bay. mount tam and mount diablo stand watch over it all, sitting in their dry, mediterranean landscapes in the distance. then as you wander out of the terminal and leave the airport amid the throngs of travelers, that lovely, temperate weather is there to greet you as you head to the bart or whatever you've got going. it's a nice way to mark a transition between things.
so yesterday evening i stood in the cloud of cigarette smoke outside the oakland airport (remember, no smoking indoors in california) as brynn pulled up, ready to take me back to this pleasant city of san francisco, where i'm now dreading the jobby-job hunting process and glancing furtively about for the quickest way out of more responsibility.
it is finally done
yes, that's right : on tuesday, 27 july 2004, i rode into neah bay, washington, utterly exhausted both mentally and physically from the ride. i camped for the final night at hobuck beach, lulled by the crashing waves of the pacific ocean as i ate my two boxes of macaroni and cheese (yum, 2000 calories !) and retired before the sun set in a foggy coastline blur. in the morning i rode the final wee bit out to the cape flattery trail, which leads through a really beautiful forest over a 3/4 mile hike out to the northwest tip of the united states.
cape hatteras, where i started this ride, is basically a lucky strip of sand, floating barely above sea level some fifty miles off the coast of north carolina. cape flattery, on the other hand, is a series of rocky crags at the northwest tip of the olympic peninsula in washington, pounded by the surf and held together by a patch of spectactularly large old-growth firs, cedars, and pines. (the rest of the area around neah bay—and the entire north coast of the olympic peninsula, really—is heavily logged and really looks sad, in contrast.)
i stood for a little while amid the spray and breeze while a couple of whales swam by the cape, not 100 feet from the observation platform. (a helpful sign notes that the platform will likely fall into the ocean in the next 20 years from the action of the waves, and that if you pay attention you can feel the ground rumble from the water pounding through the caves below your feet.) the entire scene was even more surreal because of the fog that enveloped the horizons ; only the cape itself, it seemed, existed at the time, floating in a space separate from all others.
the numbers
even after a billion or trillion people asked if i was having fun on the trip, i still find it difficult to answer. it's not really what i would call fun, honestly, to hop on a bike seat day after day and churn those pedals for hours through heat, rain, and annoyed motorists. but somehow i didn't quit the trip, so something must have been there. the problem is i just don't know what it is ...
instead of simply being fun or boring, a journey like this is like anything else, really : you have your good days and your bad days, the effortless ones and the difficult. you have those days where you make it out of camp by 8 in the morning, crank out 100 km by noon, and roll into your next town in time for another lovely dinner of lentils and rice ... and then you have those terrible days where you can't convince yourself to sit down on that seat another minute, where camp just doesn't seem to break itself down til 2 in the afternoon, and where the heat and sun just beat down on you all day as the mile markers mock you at your snail's pace. some days you call in sick, and others you're the leader of the pack. all of it just blends together into a big blur of highway and experience.
so, here at the end of the voyage, i'll present a series of numbers that somehow represent the trip in an abstract way ; perhaps a bit like modern art, they could represent many things, so i leave it to you to find meaning in them.
distance and time
the ride from cape hatteras to cape flattery took me 76 days (1824 hours) and covered 6639 km. 18 of the 76 days (432 hours) were full rest days, when i didn't even get on my bike at all ; the remainder of the time, 58 days, was divided into 310 hours and 13 minutes spent on the saddle, and 1081 hours and 47 minutes spent resting or otherwise not pedaling. (all this as measured by my bicycle odometer.)
so on an average riding day i spent 5 hours and 21 minutes exercising, during which time i covered an average of 114.5 km (about 70 miles). my slowest day was at 15.3 km/h, on day number 10, when i climbed from the valley floor up to blowing rock, north carolina ; the fastest day was number 67 at 26.6 km/h, when i left whitefish and caught a blazing tailwind through the valleys that ended up pushing me 175 km that day.
for that matter, on six separate days (numbers 35, 48, 58, 67, 68, and 74) i rode a century (100 miles, or 160.1 km) or more ; more often i made it about 120 km for the day (around 80 miles), so that became my nonchalant response to, "how far you make it in a day on that thing ?" got some pretty funny looks from that response.
height and weight
the highest altitude i attained on the trip was logan pass, in glacier national park, at 2029 meters above sea level ; the lowest was sea level, which i left near washington, nc and rejoined near coupeville, wa. my weight at the start of the trip was somewhere around 70 kg, and my weight at the end of the ride is still somewhere around 70 kg. all those noodles and peanut butter for nothing.
my bike fluctuated between about 80 pounds at the beginning of the trip and perhaps 50 by the end, when i had shed most of my unnecessaries and eaten all my food. the bike itself weighs about 25 pounds, so the rest was my gear and panniers.
the future
i have to admit that it's really nice to be done with the ride, at least for now. i'm really pleased that i rode my bicycle from one end of the continent to the other, and that i was lucky enough to have a wonderful trip between those two extremes. (while attempting to play doubles disc golf one day at the new course in whitefish, my partner—who travels nationwide to play in tournaments, he's that good—observed after another beautiful drive : "lucky ... and the more you practice the luckier you get.") the trip taught me a lot about perserverance and people, among countless other things that i haven't realized yet, and i'm glad i have it to rely on for those tough times in the future.
but for now i'm pretty excited to be here among endless tasty chinese restaurants, the masses of tourists and kids trying to make things work, and whoever else ends up in this particular part of the concrete jungle. i'm looking forward to building a fixed gear bike soon for those commutes, and to riding a lot in the area as time permits. and the next adventure, whatever it may be, awaits !
apparently i get pretty lazy when i'm on rest days, so the three days that i got to spend in whitefish resulted in no update at all. instead, i'm writing today from the library in grand coulee, washington, where i've only got seven minutes of time left on the internet ... speed update !
rest days and speed
the continental divide rose in front and then fell behind me as i biked with fellow tourists james and peter from logan pass in glacier (altitude 6600 feet) down to whitefish (altitude 2500 ft ?). we sped along the road to the bulldog in town, where we gorged on mushroom and swiss burgers ... and of course lots of sour cream and chive fries !
whitefish is a beautiful place, and with my cousin jason's hospitality i found it extremely difficult to get up the motivation to head back on the road. eventually, however, i left town and found an amazing tailwind that blew me up to eureka (80 km distant) in just 2.5 hours ! that day i ended up riding over 170 km (108 miles or so), camping just outside libby, montana. the road was impressively flat, considering how it wove and dodged among some of the largest mountain ranges on the continent. a few afternoon thundershowers provided booms and flashes now and then, but i ended up staying relatively dry through the ride.
the race to central washington
the next day i was determined to make it to another cousin's place in sandpoint, idaho—another 170 km from libby ! it took me until just after sundown, but as i rolled into a gas station to use the phone in kootenai, idaho, i spotted heather as she pulled up, completely at random, to fuel up her vehicle. let's hear it for small towns.
i've had lots of luck since sandpoint, for the most part managing to avoid the potential high winds and extreme temperatures that can strike the flat wheat fields of eastern washington. a day after sandpoint i rolled into spokane, washington, with only one state left to cross ! mama and bink met me in a motel there to share pie and watch lance totally clean up in the alpe d'huez time trial—go lance ! and then yesterday i headed out west from spokane, rolling into a campground just on the south side of the grand coulee dam in central washington.
the ride ahead
the next few days are looking to be good ones, as i head north from here up to winthrop, washington, along the north cascades highway (washington route 20). in another four days i plan on seeing the pacific ocean, with the tip of cape flattery awaiting me two days after that. it's been really difficult to get up the motivation to ride these past few days, so i've solved the problem by riding so far each day that i don't have time to think about anything else. but soon enough i'll roll up to the end of the continent, and then i will be able to get yummy breakfasts and sleep as long as i want and not ride my bike if i don't want to. it's not that i haven't enjoyed the trip, but eleven weeks on a bike seat is a bit long ... :)
it's hard to believe that a week has passed already ! in the past few days i've ridden along through eastern and central montana, making it from belle fourche (pronounced "bel foosh") to great falls along some really flat, really beautiful, and really expansive terrain.
hailstorms, or just wind ?
on the second day after belle fourche, i rolled up into the custer national forest and then descended through a light wind to ashland, montana, where i angled my bike to the shady sidewalk along the front of the grocery store in town. the bank display across the street from me read 37 degrees celsius (100 fahrenheit !), so i sat there and relaxed for a bit in the hopes that things might cool down a bit.
but, as i talked with folks coming and going, it became apparent that a storm was rolling up, rumored to carry "some real pounders" (hailstones, associated with a fist-sized gesture from this fellow that i met in broadus earlier that day—he'd ridden his bike from neah bay, washington to kitty hawk, north carolina in 50 days in 1993).
hail is definitely not something i want to encounter on a bicycle, so i debated the merits of finding shelter from the storm—not yet present—and staying in shelter from the heat—ever-present—and making a bit more distance for the day—it was only 4 in the afternoon. but i found out about a shortcut up to colstrip, where i might be able to find a place to camp, so i headed out. the road quickly turned to dirt outside of town, and the next 15 miles or so were accompanied by a bone-jarring, brain-shaking washboard-and-gravel road surface that climbed up to a really pretty alpine valley, then descended to a creek (pronounced "crick" since somewhere in nebraska). the only thought i entertained most of the time was to wonder how mountain biking became popular before shocks were put on bikes ...
a bit desperate by this point, and really tired (my odometer read 145 km for the day), i turned up a wee side road and knocked on a ranch house door to ask directions. the woman knew exactly which way to point me, and then asked me in for burgers (this is one reason why i'm not a total vegetarian). as soon as i'd gotten inside the house, a wind whipped up unlike many i've seen—it almost blew the trees sideways for about half an hour while i sat and talked with dick and kay, a strip mine recovery worker (he replants trees and such once the mine is done with a piece of land) and retired teacher, respectively. i ended up staying the night on the couch in their camper trailer, a real blessing from yet another really nice family.
sights, not buildings
at any rate, the hail has threatened a couple of times here in montana, but it has thankfully never come through ... just like carrying more than enough water for those lonely forty-mile stretches of buildingless roads, it's important to be extra cautious about finding shelter out here when things are starting to look a little dodgy.
one day i rode for about two hours from forsyth up to ingomar, a stretch of us route 12 that passes through several ranches but contains no signs of human involvement other than the road and the fences lining both sides of it. i asked a ranch worker in ingomar (famous for its bean soup, for some reason) how big his ranch was, and he replied with an answer not in acres but parcels—a parcel is a square mile of land, about 350 acres or so. this fellow's ranch is somewhere around 150 parcels, if i remember right.
that night i got to sleep in a teepee in the ingomar town park, a very quality place to spend a night. the next day i topped 100 miles on the ride west to roundup and then north to grass range, and the next i met a nice fellow fixing up his haying machine as i pondered where to hide out from several oncoming storm clouds. (one of the benefits of being on the plains is the view : these clouds were probably 15 miles off, but you could see them just as though they were overhead—without the rain of course.)
the tailwinds peter out
yesterday i made it as far as belt, montana, before the road climbed up to a plateau with wheat growing as far as the eye could see ... and there the wind shifted around on me, coming in from the side on a small, shoulderless two-lane road carrying traffic from two national routes (87 and 89) and two state routes (3 and 200). the 25 miles of road from that point to great falls were a bit dicey at times, especially because the wind changes directions drastically when a truck-with-rv passes you. but i finally rolled into town, after several stops for food and to let my hatred for motor vehicles evaporate a bit onto the 30 mph gusts.
riding to the divide
well, sorry if this got a little rambling, but it's just so easy to wax poetic in a land that's so beautiful. it really is true that montana is big sky country (unlike kentucky, which isn't really that friendly), and i'm really pleased to be here riding my bike through some of it.
the next few days i'll be riding north, parallel to the continental divide, until i get to st. mary and the going to the sun road through glacier national park. then it's all downhill from logan pass—at least except for that little bump in the cascades. :)
the prairies of the middle west have streamed under our tires this past week as pete and i rode like gangbusters from sioux city, iowa up to nemo, south dakota. somehow the time (seven days) and distance (between 800 and 900 km) seem to be both long and short, but in the past few days we've covered lots of ground ... i'll try to cover the highlights here from the belle fourche public library, while i wait for my laundry to finish drying down the street.
border crossings
sometimes borders are just the lines on the map, but as pete and i crossed the missouri a week ago from iowa into nebraska, this border really did feel like the dividing line between two different places : the midwest and the west. almost as soon as we started west on nebraska highway 12, the land flattened out, the road quality improved, the vistas seemed more impressive ... and, definitely not least, the wind shifted in from the southeast, pushing us along at a mighty rate !
the wind affects a trip like this in ways that are hard to express with words. riding 60 km through some of the hilly, windy hay farms in iowa felt like riding 120 km through some of the breezy, gently rising ranches in northeastern nebraska ; the difference in the day's mileage shifts from 100 km to 140 km with a suitable wind, so the beautiful views, lucky winds, and friendly folks in nebraska really helped us out as we pedaled 180 km our first day, then averaged about 120 km a day for the next six days.
unexpected nice places
nebraska really impressed me in many ways as we pedaled on highway 12 through the northern edge of the state. the people suddenly started to wave as we passed on the road, the pie in ponca was fantastic, and the views expanded as we rode into more of the prairie proper. the land changed around us, bringing in more cattle farms and a few prickly pears here and there, and things just got a lot more spread out : a few times we missed towns marked on the map because—as far as we can figure—they were just a couple of buildings along the road.
we passed through springview, nebraska, where two experimental wind power stations generate enough electricity to run the 400 homes in the entire county. we spent one night camping between two pastures, and camped another night in south dakota between two hills near the badlands. beautiful territory out here. and luckily, the weather held out for us the entire time.
reservations and grasslands
we picked a lucky day to head north from valentine, nebraska to white river, south dakota : a beautiful wind from the south pushed us 80 km in three hours, when we finally stopped and got to use the internet at the county newspaper office. (the library was a tiny one-room building with probably 600 books total ; definitely no internet access there.) the reporter there was pretty excited about two cyclists rolling through town, so we got to sit out some of the afternoon heat in the air-conditioned office.
a lot of the land in southern south dakota is indian reservations ... and there sure isn't a lot of money flowing through these places. it was really awakening, in many ways, to ride through the reservations in the oppressive dakota heat, just looking at the land and the way the people deal with it. i'm so mad at our country for its history with the natives, and the reservations here just make it clear how little they received in the end.
we continued to roll west from white river, spending the night in a pasture surrounded (but not touched) by thunderstorms rolling off the black hills. the next day we rode up to the visitor's center in badlands national park, where we spent a few hours letting the afternoon thunderstorms pass by ... and finally we rolled past interior and scenic, south dakota into rapid city.
family reunions are the best
our day didn't end in the city, however nice it was to have a stout (lots of calories !) and a real bean burrito ... we pressed on into the black hills, climbing up some nicely paved inclines to some really beautiful alpine meadows populated by horse farms and log cabins. the road led eventually to nemo, south dakota—even though it ended up being more than twice the four miles that one driver estimated ... drivers have no idea how far things really are.
but as we headed onward, some of the afternoon thunderstorms started booming around us, and pretty soon we were riding in drizzle, then outright rain ... so when nemo finally appeared we were starting to get soaked. never in our wildest dreams, i think, could we have imagined a better group of people to occupy the "restaurant" that had a covered porch : the tail end of a family reunion, whose members asked us in for cake, invited us to dry off by the fires, and eventually let us stay in one of their empty cabins for the night ! it's really difficult to express how nice these people were to us, but such hospitality is really appreciated after riding through the rain.
parting ... for the time being
pete unfortunately couldn't take more time off work, so as we pulled out of the cabin in nemo, he headed east back to rapid city, and i pointed my handlebars west to ride up here to belle fourche, all day in the rain and gusting winds—definitely a night to hunker down in a motel !
it's going to be a different trip, once again solo—and having to carry the tent by myself. :) but thanks to pete's tenacity i've gotten a bit more acclimated to camping on the road, avoiding those expensive motel stops when i just feel like a wus ... and i might barely understand a bit more about the intricate process of cooking lentils and rice.
today's ride is getting shorter as i type, though, so i need to head out of town here and get on the road while the weather is beautiful, cool, and sunny. i hope to be in great falls, montana in about 8 days, then in whitefish three days later, then ... the last stage to the ocean !
after seven straight days of battling winds and gravity across the rolling terrain that people call iowa, pete and i have stopped for a day off just outside sioux city. i have a mere 20 minutes of internet time left so this update will have to be a quick one ...
hilly country
as we biked our way through madison county a few days ago, we didn't see any bridges at all. somewhat of a let down. but a county that's famous for its bridges must also have a considerable number of rivers ... and with rivers come hills. so on what was probably one of the most beautiful days i've seen in years, we rode up and coasted down hill after hill after hill. our daily distance ended up topping 130 km after 7 hours of time in the saddle ; two more days like that finally brought us to the gloriously flat missouri river valley, where we suddenly rode 24 km/h instead of our usual 18.
pete theorized at one point that iowa might actually be made up of one big hill, but i think it's made up of several little hills—probably something around a billion or a trillion. the difference between riding on this flat river valley floor and riding through the incessant hills is just amazing, both mentally and physically. as pete noted, someone definitely slacked off on the quality control for whatever glacier once tried to smooth out this territory.
the pies of small towns
as if trying to make up for the exceedingly difficult riding, we've encountered some really outstanding pieces of pie on our way through iowa. the best so far was a strawberry-rhubarb at the cafe in pisgah, iowa. the waitress said the pies are actually made by a woman in town, not in the cafe itself ... home made for real ! the runner-up was a raspberry pie in massena—this one impressed pete so much that he got two slices, one before and one after the meal.
for that matter, we've become quite the connoisseurs of small towns and the cafes that they support. one of the best meals i've had in a while was at a ukranian restaurant called european delight in chariton, iowa (immediately preceding the last update, actually) : borsch and vegetable-stuffed chicken with noodles. yum ! we also stopped at a pretty good danish restaurant in elk horn one afternoon. but for the most part the fare is fried : pork chops, chicken, square fish, triangle fish, freedom/american fries. all that a body needs for the next 2 hours of riding.
the road ahead
so today is a rest in sioux city : letter writing, mail sending, movie watching, clothes washing. tomorrow we'll head into northern nebraska, with a lofty goal of reaching mount rushmore by the 4th of july. we'll see how that goes. after that pete will head to new york, and i'll continue northwest to devil's tower, glacier nat'l park, and whitefish. lots of riding left, but the trip is finally half over, and i'm excited about returning home for some rest.
wow, it's been a long time since the last update-ness. i seem to get slack about it during rest days ... must have something to do with the excessive passing-out that happens then. :)
the riding so far
pete and i headed out from saint louis on schedule, more or less, inadvertently riding a century (100 miles, 160 km) our first day out on newly-tuned bikes, ending up at farmersville, illinois. since the hotel in town had closed, we lucked out and got permission to sleep in the town pavilion, heading out the next day and riding another 140 km (on lovely flat windless blacktops) before petering out in atlanta, illinois, just outside bloomington-normal.
we spent a couple days in normal with my friend grace, trying our best to dampen her culture shock of returning from the peace corps in africa to central illinois—a landscape more or less dominated by endless soybeans and corn and decorated with wal-mart, borders, and bars. in these bars (we partook of several while visiting) the music of choice hovers in the metallica-ac/dc-poison area, a stark contrast with those sweet bluegrass tunes of the carolina mountains. such changes.
so, after leaving normal, we headed west on illinois route 9, putting in another 220 km or so in two days to cross the mississippi into fort madison, iowa. many thanks to brynn, my tent and some cookies and letters were waiting there at the post office for us (yay !), in addition to some homemade granola bars from mama (yay !). we headed out once more the next day through some really beautiful country, gently rolling hills dotted with hay fields, corn, and pastures. the past couple days we've just been pushing across southern iowa, battling the winds more each day and wondering when these great plains will ever end ...
paths we've followed
i started noticing in indiana that i had been following the lincoln heritage trail from central kentucky up north into indiana, then west into illinois and north to springfield. it's interesting to think while we're out riding how many people have come and gone before us ... the road we use was laid by someone, probably on top of an old prairie trail, which in turn was probably used for centuries by people and even animals before turning into a real path.
lots of places i've ridden so far have satisfied this condition : the roads around cumberland gap were started in the early 1800s after daniel boone walked along an indian and buffalo trail in the area ; the lincoln heritage trail extends 500 miles from kentucky to illinois, tracing the path of one american family ; the route we currently follow—more or less by accident—is the same one that brigham young led the mormons down on their trek to utah.
it's also interesting to think, somewhat along these lines, that most of the area we've seen so far was once a vast forest, perhaps dotted with pasture here and there. the white settlers in the early 1800s did a bang-up job out in illinois and iowa, clearing thousands and thousands of acres of land to make way for permanent agriculture. often the only remnants of these forests are small state parks and wind breaks of trees between pastures.
the wind blows from the north
today pete and i set out from our campsite knowing that we faced a brutal wind, having battled it for 110 km yesterday across the rolling hills of southeast iowa. riding north from the honey creek state park, we were buffeted this time with a northeasterly gale, bringing down the morale and the leg power often to the 16 km/h range ... ugh ! but finally we chanced on an east-west road and profited from the slight tailwind, rejoicing in the ease of our 32 km/h ride with the transfer trucks. all hail the tailwind !
hopefully we'll continue to ride this wind west another 80 km today, aiming for a state park somewhere on us route 34 ... and also hopefully, the front that looms on the northern horizon will blow south of us tonight, leaving a few gloriously sunny and cool days for the ride to sioux falls, iowa. the plains remain an unexpected challenge, but we're plugging on as well as we can.
on friday, after spending a not-so-great night slapping at king-size skeeters, i rode through carlyle illinois and met sundance, kendra, and jim, who invited me in for coffee and pancakes ! thank goodness for nice folks. jim is a truck driver, so he gave me all kinds of recommendations for roads to use in approaching st. louis, a veritable labyrinth of freeways and river crossings.
so, revved up on syrup for the short but intense ride, i spent the afternoon slipping past transfer trucks and suvs on us highway 50 west through illinois, finally taking rapid transit from the sticks and arriving here at the 1/3 point in the trip : st. louis, missouri, 2000 km from the atlantic ! i've been staying with a very nice family of friends' friends for the past few days, resting a lot and sweating whenever i poke my head outside—it's hot here !
i suppose this update is more reflections of some thoughts than riding adventures, but i hope it's interesting anyway.
waving
you know, i apologize ahead of time—i've been trying to avoid being preachy—but for the past few days i've been waxing evangelical / dave eggers while out riding. the people driving on these roads, with some much-appreciated exceptions, just don't seem to offer any encouragement to us bikers !
some of the nicest folks i've passed on the road are the harley riders, lowering their hands in two-wheeled solidarity along the pavement. but the other drivers just seem to fart on past, boxed in with their air conditioning and 200 horsepower engines, not understanding that this hill they're being transported over is actually a large physical object, requiring lots of energy and engineering to get past. a few days ago i was riding through the indiana corn fields, waving feebly to cars every now and then ... with no response. what a damper on the spirit ! if even one car driver an hour lifts their arm to say hi, it seems to drive into the legs and knees a new life, powering along another four miles of highway.
so, what i'm saying here is if you see a cyclist on the road, be sure to wave. if you're going the same direction as them, wait till the next lane over is clear, pass (using your turn signals—bikes are vehicles too) with plenty of room for the cyclist, and then honk when you're ahead of the rider, thrusting your arm out the window with flare—this happened outside st. louis and i about fainted with delight. if space permits, pull over, get out of the car, and cheer ! raise up flags and light sparklers and fireworks ; assemble a crowd and build a water stand, so that the tourist can grab a cup on their way past and pour it down their parched gullet. hold up your babies to smile on the cyclist's effort, saving gas and working for a less obese america ! hop on a bike yourself and pace them through the next half mile. ask them where they're going and give a validating look of awe when they say they're just headed down the road to the store. assemble your neighbors and block off traffic for the next five miles, plant a row of trees along the road for a wind break, have a bbq, and gather the materials for a bike lane along the side of the road ! whoop, holler, and jump at the sight of a tired rider cresting the next hill. and watch the tour this summer so we can see lance make history. :)
these are the kinds of thoughts that creep into the amazingly tired mind of the touring cyclist, 1000 miles from their starting point and 2000 miles from their destination. but they're also the thoughts of the cycling commuter, riding three miles to work or taking the youngin out for some fresh air.
soundtrack
i was pretty curious what the trip would present in the way of tunes for the ride. i didn't bring along any kind of cd player (though i do have a minidisc recorder for taping interesting sounds—just outside crossville, illinois, i got a recording of a really cool-sounding oil pump engine). but it turns out that, so far, most of my mental effort has been devoted to the intricacies of the road : veering left for that pothole coming up on the right, checking the rear view mirror for trucks, collecting information from my spedometer, wondering where my next turn will be. so, surprisingly, i haven't had much of any music going on in the old noggin.
but there have been a few songs i've happily used to push through the tough bits : a bit of neil young, some magnetic fields (i'm the luckiest guy / on the lower east side / because i've got wheels / and you want to go for a ride), pavement every once in a while.
but when i got to st. louis i went out walking (unfortunately st. louis is not a great place for walking—too hot) and almost dropped to my knees in awe of the led zeppelin tune belting from a vw cabrio at a stoplight. music ! what rapture ! it will be a glorious event to reunite with my cds.
the road ahead
pete arrived on schedule from taipei monday afternoon, and since then we've been gathering our gear and preparing for the ride ahead (he's ptfo right now). the plan is to ride north by northeast (oh, so close ... sorry, alfred) from here to bloomington-normal, then head west by northwest through iowa to sioux city, then continue on to the badlands, devil's tower, and on into montana.
the gear
this trip has, to some extent, been all about the gear that i've taken along with me. while i'm not roughing it in the sense of sleeping on billboard ledges or in the backs of uhaul trucks, there is a certain lack of material comfort that accompanies a person riding a bicycle across a continent. the things i've chosen to push across the united states, then, each have a purpose (or, if possible, several) and are all more or less necessary for the success of the trip. i know there are many lists out there of things to pack on a bike trip ; i just want to record the particular things i've chosen to take with me this time.
the bike
first and foremost is the bicycle itself. i ride a beautiful, wonderful, excellent cannondale t700 (purchased new in 1999) : green, triple front crank. since this is my first large tour i started the trip with all stock components and parts (even the tires) and have had absolutely no problems—not even a flat—while cycling through rivers, over gravel roads, and through potholes (not recommended ; i dented my rims on the first day of riding, but impressively did not get a flat, and the bike shop in raleigh was able to get them straightened out ok).
the bike came equipped with shimano rx mountain bike components (shifters, brakes, derailleurs). the wheels are built up from 700 sun rims and shimano rx hubs, with continental top touring 2000 tires (38c, i believe). these tires are amazing : literally all the other tourists i've met or heard about have used these tires, and i have personally been consistently impressed with their performance.
bags and such
for storage on the bike i have four jandd mini mountain panniers, hanging from a jandd mountain rack in the back and a jandd rack in the front. on the top of the back i lay my blanket and my smallish timbuk2 messenger bag.
in the left rear pannier are my extra clothes :
two extra performance bike jerseys
three extra pairs of performance padded bike underwear
an extra pair of pants (i brought one cotton and one wool pair ; definitely recommend the wool only for future ventures : cotton is cold when wet)
five extra pairs of euro coolmax socks
a wool hat, gloves, and a top and bottom of patagonia capilene thermals (it's summer, but it gets really cold when it's rainy and windy out)
my sf bike coalition t-shirt, and a hawaiian shirt (for rest days)
a gill waterproof cycling jacket (also useful for keeping out skeeters)
in the right rear is my sleeping gear and some miscellaneous stuff :
sierra designs clip 3 tent (i started out with just the rain fly, but the bugs and the thunderstorms brought me to my knees)
standard 3/4 length thermarest
amazonas traveler's hammock
olympus om-1 camera (packed in the top for easier access at short rest breaks ; i have been shooting slides with kodak elite chrome 100 film)
toiletries (toothbrush, floss, sunscreen, bug repellent, nail clippers, msr packtowl, soap)
2 spare innertubes
pedro's ice wax (chain lube, highly recommended for that post-thunderstorm maintenance session)
on top of these sits a 4-foot by 5-foot fleece blanket, and my timbuk2 bag, which holds journals, books, maps, pens, letters, etc. i also carry a cell phone and a minidisc recorder for capturing interesting sounds.
the front panniers hold my food and cooking gear. because the rear of the bike supports both my weight and the weight of three bags, i wanted to shift the denser objects toward the front. fuel, then, along with pasta, tuna, oil, trail mix, fruit : these things got stuck in the front panniers. i use an msr cooking pot with lock-down handle (great for cleaning and packing), along with an msr whisperlite internationale backpacking stove. also, i've noticed that if you have trail mix with chocolate anything in it, it melts less quickly if you stick in on the side away from the sun.
everything is packed in ziploc bags for water resistance (their air-reducing quality does not really last long) ; even though i've been through a couple severe thunderstorms the gear inside the bags has stayed fairly dry as a result.
tools
under my seat i carry a small jandd wedge bag filled with tools and another spare innertube (that makes three). i carry a complete set of tools with me : 2mm through 6mm hex wrenches, tire irons, phillips screwdriver, spoke wrench, 6in crescent wrench, swiss army knife. the set only weighs a couple pounds, probably, and in my experience is worth it for its just-in-case value. if you're not into carrying all those tools, take the 5mm hex wrench (fits 85 % of the screws on a bike), a spare tube, tire irons (they're plastic anyway), and a spoke wrench.
so, so, so ... this afternoon i've stopped for a brief update in carmi, illinois, where the land is flat and the corn fields stretch as far as the eye can see. surprisingly enough, oil derricks spot the land as well, a reminder of the primordial jungle and sea that once claimed this particular spot on the globe.
i'm a few days ahead of schedule for meeting up with the illustrious pete in saint louis, so i've been spending the past few days taking it easy and enjoying the people and surroundings ... well, as much as one can enjoy corn fields and the smell of an oil field.
travels from kentucky
after the last update i aimed for a state park that lay on the transamerica bike route , the rough river lake and dam . sure enough, when i rolled into camp in the evening, i was rewarded by meeting five fellow tourists. surprisingly, four of them were recent college grads, around my age, just doing the tour for the heck of it. we swapped stories and tales (two of the travelers told of a friend who'd crossed the country sleeping on billboard ledges), and then i talked for a bit with the fifth tourist, a german grandfather from muenster who'd had a 14-day delay in virginia and was now trying to book things along to make the trip fit into his 90-day tourist visa.
the roads in indiana and illinois have been a beautiful relief after seven days of battling with pickups in kentucky. the shoulders here are the perfect size for a bike (about 1m across, as opposed to kentucky's standard 5–20cm) and have generally been clean and free of overgrown grasses and shrubs (also unlike kentucky, which grooves most of its shoulders and had quite a few gigantor grasses growing in the shoulder). the winds have been thankfully calm so far, except for a brief strong wind today on the way from crossville to carmi.
lincoln's boyhood home
one night i stopped for a campsite at lincoln state park, indiana, where i met many friendly neighbor campers and was graciously given brownies and a hot dog (thanks tim and glenda !). that night, reclining in my hammock, some critters started investigating my food bags (hanging by my bike cable from a tree), so i scared them off with my flashlight/headlight and sat back again ... only to hear a swwwwssshhhhh ... THWANG THUD squeak ... squeak ...
now i sure didn't want to investigate further, but as far as i can tell a bat had flown right smack into one of my hammock cords ! whoa. a little too much nature for one night.
so the next day i awoke in a stupor, feeling generally like a slug (not diminished by the fact that i lay in an oblong, featureless, nylon casing). after finally coaxing myself to pack up and get moving, i still felt sluggish after visiting the nearby lincoln boyhood national memorial , so i sat for a while on a picnic table and chatted with some friendly visitors.
after talking for a while i felt great, hopped on my bike, and rode like the wind (24 km/h !) for the rest of the afternoon, fueled additionally by a powerbar and some of those lovely brownies. somehow it's really the people that fuel the leg muscles.
rest in new harmony
knowing that i was a bit ahead of schedule, i stopped for the past couple days in new harmony, indiana , which is one of the most peaceful towns i've visited. i stayed in a quality boarding house , slept in a nice bed with real sheets, took two showers in two days, and generally loitered to the maximum extent possible. the owner of this particular boarding house is a real interesting fellow (he was a traveling china buyer for a long while), so one night when we got to talking he gave me a copy of blue highways (a quality travel book so far), for which i exchanged my recently finished copy of fire from the mountain.
like any small tourist town, new harmony is kind of a strange place though ... some of the town seems frozen, unable to change for fear of scaring off the folks who come by and spend their money. in this case, it's new harmony's founding history that they come to see—the city was founded by a group of germans in the early 1800s, then sold to philanthropist robert owen after 15 years or so, who tried to make it an example utopian colony. the city has remained in many ways just as it was, but in others it has tried to move on. i suppose lots of towns in this country are the same way. in its defense, however, i've found few places so far that can offer more in the way of comfortable park benches, shady parks and gardens, and quiet streets than new harmony.
the continuing voyage
so, with the hour sinking already toward five, i plan to ride about 15 km further today, where i will set up camp and prepare my daily dinner of lentils, rice, apples, peanuts, and a multivitamin. mmmm, camping. thanks to the ongoing experience and the wonderful support from you all, this trip just keeps getting better. i'll try to get another update out soon, whenever i figure out where i'm headed next. :)
today i've stopped off in leitchfield, kentucky for a wee rest and some updateitude at the grayson county public library. the land, the weather, the time, the cars ... they've all been changing these past few days as i've pedaled my way through kentucky.
landscape
the mountains of eastern tennessee and kentucky have thankfully dwindled down to rolling hills, quite similar in many ways to the hills of the north carolina piedmont ... and unfortunately subject to the same fate, it seems : once again the landscape is a mixture of hay farms, horse pastures, and those depressing "for sale" signs of developments to come. it's a shame, too : these small two-lanes are a joy to bike on, sans suv drivers and late-afternoon rush hour traffic. the roads are frequently windy (or have been the last few days), but they are also joyously unused, surprisingly dog-free, and pretty flat.
troop support and trespassing
i've also noticed an astounding number of houses in this state that bear some combination of the following signs :
yellow ribbons
"god bless america"
"united we stand"
"no trespassing"
"beware of the dog"
i find it curious that the very people who claim to be united are also the ones who apparently don't want any visitors at their places of residence. though the people i've met here have been just as nice as anywhere else, there have also been a good number of "you must be crazy" looks from folks as i ride by.
natural formations
the land now holds lots of caves and forests, so i spent the last two nights at mammoth cave national park, which was really fun to visit again. it's a beautiful place, and the cave makes it that much more interesting. as part of a rest day there, i went on two cave tours and really enjoyed both. the _making of mammoth_ tour explores some of the cave near the visitor's center, including a tour of the underground rivers in the cave—really cool. the frozen niagra tour is a bit shorter but descends an astounding stainless steel staircase through one of the most amazing underground canyons i've ever imagined ... and then you get to see the cave formations. if you ever get to visit and are short on time, i'd really recommend the niagra tour.
on the way out of the park this morning, i was amused by a sign just before the green river ferry that says, "road ends in water." sure enough, it's too deep for a ford (especially today, since the river is really high from recent rainfall), so the pavement just ducks under the water, in the path of a little 2-car (or 30-bike) ferry that runs back and forth from 6am to 9:30pm.
more weather
the thunderstorms have been relentless ! since my encounter with the tempest near natural tunnel (virginia), i've run into storms again in cumberland gap, burnside state park, and mammoth cave.
the burnside storm caught me once again ill-prepared. i had had a nice short ride that day from cumberland falls, arriving at my campsite at a record-breaking 12:45pm. the forecast had been for severe thunderstorms all day, but the looming clouds on the horizon seemed to have nothing to contribute to the accuracy of the weather people. so i set up my hammock, ingeniously rigged up my tent fly over the top of it (heh heh, stupid weather), and passed out, but i woke around 4am in a puddle amid blustery winds and sideways rain—everything was soaked, so i shivered my way over to a picnic shelter and slept another couple of fitful hours. big shout out for my patagonia capilene, it always saves me from the cold and wet.
the next night i compensated myself with a hotel room in columbia. :) but ever since then my bike chain has been frustratingly squeaky, and my axles feel like they're filled with sand ... perhaps it's just my weak legs though ? my calves are killing me today !
time and cars
on ... um, some day there a couple days ago ... i rode past a signpost that bore two signs : the top one declared entrance to russell county, and the bottom (smaller) one alerted folks that they were entering the central time zone ! i've almost reached the 1000 mile marker for the trip so far (the 1000 km marker was passed some days ago), and boy do my calves and quads feel it !
actually, here's a nice recipe for those 5-hour days of cycling through hills : leif's power macaroni.
one box of macaroni and cheese (carbohydrates)
two cheeseburger patties (donated from friendly neighbor campers, lots of protein and iron)
two tablespoons of olive oil (extra calories)
one half cup powdered milk (calcium and more protein)
just make up the macaroni, add the other ingredients, and stir. estimated nutrition contents : 80 g protein and 2000 calories.
from aspiration to pickups
the tennessee mountains, for anyone who's been lucky enough to visit, have a special kind of car that seems, for whatever reason, to grow on trees in the area. the car is based on a mid-90s ford aspire, but has rust spots on 1.6 fenders and has 65 % of its hub caps. this car, based on my observations, is often painted green or blue and nearly touches the ground as it clambers up and down the hilly terrain, packed with the extended family on the way to town for something or other.
the kentucky road—a somewhat wilder and certainly more conservative ecology—seems to have eradicated this particular genus of vehicle, replacing it with the pickup. there are several species of pickup here, but the most common is probably the dodge ram or chevy full-size variety. these are commonly decorated with large 3, 44, and/or various other nascar stickers. they are often red, and, in my experience, driven by young men on their way to ... well, wherever it is they're going at twice the speed limit.
because the aspires probably weigh in at one-third of the pickups (even with the whole extended family packed in there), and because two pickups fit to within one centimeter side by side on a kentucky road, the cycling through here has been a bit more frustrating than it was in north carolina.
oh well, in a couple days i'll be out of here, glad to move on to a state with nicer drivers. in the next few days i hope to make it to santa claus, indiana (curiousity) ; new harmony, indiana (hedge maze) ; somewhere in illinois (necessity) ; and finally ... saint louis ! tonight i'm heading for rough river dam state park, where i'll hopefully find one or two other tourers (the transamerica route goes through kentucky at this point) ... and no rain. hope you all are doing well.
here i sit in the middlesborough / bell county public library, smelling a wee bit bikeish, resting my weary legs, and dodging yet another warm summer downpour. i've holed up for the night in a motel in town, content to devote today to catching up on eating, bike repairs, email, and drying out.
this update might be of the better-sent-post-trip genre, but i just have to tell the story before it fades out. the riding since leaving blowing rock has been challenging : narrow, steep roads ; rain and storms ; dogs and blustery afternoons have all sapped the calories from me like my pack towl absorbs water. but i'm finally here in this booming metropolis of just over 12000, just on the kentucky side of cumberland gap, refueling and writing.
the ride from north carolina
after a short ride from blowing rock, i encountered my first river crossing of the trip : a new bridge is being built on winkler's creek road just outside boone, so the road was closed. not wanting to go on the detour, i just unloaded my bags, carried my bike across the river, and set up the bike again, all while the construction guys sat around and ate lunch. it's kind of fun fording rivers with a bike, and not at all possible with a car. probably saved 10 miles of really hilly detour, too. take that, suv drivers.
i set up camp at carden's bluff campground, a beautiful place on the south side of watauga lake near hampton, tennessee. i'm starting to get the hang of sleeping in a hammock (especially after trying out jon's suggestion of throwing my thermarest in there for more insulation) ... but around 5am the wind picked up, threatening an oncoming thundershower, what with the heat lightning and distant thunder.
nothing came of the wind, however, so after an hour i dragged myself out of bed, made breakfast (3 packs of instant oatmeal, peanut butter, a nouriche thing, bagel with peanut butter and a banana), and set out for the day. some nice riding brought me to johnson city, then up to kingsport on a really busy road (TN 36), where i had lunch at pal's (pronounced, to my ear, "powells" ... but not a book store). after paying $3 for my cheeseburger and gigantor iced tea, a nice fellow in the assembly line asked where i'd been riding and said he'd managed the bike shop in hampton for 30 years. unfortunately i didn't have time to get the rest of the story on that.
small roads and storms
the sky had been cloudy all afternoon, so i wasn't really surprised to see it getting darker as i headed into gate city, va, asked directions, and headed out on some really country roads to avoid the 4-lane to natural tunnel state park. this would be a memorable decision.
dogs
dogs are a natural hazard of such roads, but the only ones that really frighten me now are the ones big enough to physically knock me off my bike. thankfully, such dogs are thus far always tied up or fenced in. (and i still haven't found a dog that can run faster than 20mph.) one house i passed on this tiny road had a "warning: security dog" sign, and sure enough a silent german shepherd was on guard out back ... it's kind of scary when they're smart enough not to bark, but this one was trained well enough to know what constitutes a real threat.
folks, if you get a dog (especially a big dog), please pen/tie it up, or get it trained really well. these "well, i don't understand ... he never hurt anyone before" stories just don't cut it. i mean really.
rain and fords
from seeing the map at gate city town hall, i knew there'd be a fork in the road after the pavement stopped : the left fork followed the river, while the right clambered up among some hills, then descended back to the river. since i was tired and clearly running out of time until the thunderstorm hit (thunder was rolling about in the valley) i opted for the low road, even though a sign at the fork declared, "warning: open ford .68 miles". i'd already crossed one river, so i wasn't worried.
after passing a few small farms, the road—now a single-lane gravel trail—sure enough passed under the river, but luckily a foot bridge passed over it. handily crossed, i rode on, but then the rain started. it was real mountain storm rain, coming down so hard you could hardly see more than 10 meters. i hid out under a tree next to the river, and when it started raining even harder, i whipped out my tent rain cover and hid under it.
the rain abated a little and i hopped back on my bike, but after another ten minutes of riding came to another river crossing ... this time without a bridge. so, with no other options, i pushed my bike through the shallow river and continued on, sheltered by the trees along the road. finally i reached a pair of old railroad trestles and rounded the corner ... only to see a fallen tree blocking the road, and a swelling river just beside it. i was about to lift my bike over the tree, but the wind and rain picked up again and i had to hide under my tarp for another ten minutes, thinking all the time of into the wild and wondering how far it was to the 4-lane road.
thankfully, it was only about 500 meters, so after a few minutes when the rain abated i headed out once more, heard another falling tree, and passed under a tree that had fallen on some power lines. (maybe i should add here that as exciting as this all was, i'm being safe ... and i got photos of all this stuff !) the 4-lane road was fairly empty, but it took nearly all my remaining energy to ride up to the park, a steep climb up from the valley floor. on the final haul a concerned pickup driver motioned me over at an intersection and said, "yew awt to fahnd some shelter, they's tornayduhs in th' area." thanks buddy, i'm headed that direction.
well, the park rangers were really nice and let me stay in a picnic shelter for the night—i even got most of my stuff dried out ! and in the morning i headed out once more ...
cumberland gap
i guess i ought to wrap this up soon, so i'll skip most of the grueling, painful ride from natural tunnel to cumberland gap (via sneedville, tn). i stopped at a gas station along VA 600 with a sign outside that said, "thanks for shopping here" and got a gatorade and snickers ($1.72). a fellow outside said to me with a laugh, "awl tha way from tha oshean ? wehl, you's een scawtt counteh, vuhgeenya nayow !"
the ride—especially as TN 63 turned straight uphill after sneedville—was steep and challenging, mentally, physically, spiritually. i stopped once and got directions from a nice couple guys out fishing. stopped again at an intersection and entertained three kittens there for a bit. i finally arrived in cumberland gap, crashing at a ramada for the night after riding 120km and climbing and descending probably 1000 meters for the day ... completely, utterly exhausted.
so today i woke up late and headed out on dubiously weak knees, only to find out that i can't ride my bike through the cumberland gap tunnel. at a gas station a fellow working on a car told me about a path up over cumberland gap into middlesborough. the path was a muddy, steep, rocky swath cut into the hillside, but after pushing and grunting my muddy, rainy way up to the gap, i finally coasted downhill to the visitor center and then to a hotel in town.
thank goodness for hotels and restaurants ! i'll write again in a few days to give you all time to digest this update ; hopefully the ride to mammoth cave will be nice.
yow ! so after 9 days of pedaling, i've finally powered myself and my bicycle across 830 km (520 miles) of north carolina, starting from elevation 0 (cape hatteras) and finally reaching 1168 meters (3834 feet, at raven rocks overlook on the amazingly beautiful blue ridge parkway). the trip so far has been challenging beyond my wildest dreams, but also strangely rewarding.
i've been resting up here in blowing rock for the past couple of days, thanks to the marvelous hospitality of martha and mike, neighbors-cum-family here in this previous residence. (for those who don't know, i lived in blowing rock from 1990 til 1995, when i hauled off down the mountain to go to ncssm in durham.)
i suppose this udpate will be a bit long, because i've got a lot of thoughts to get out there. please bear with me.
developing the piedmont
the challenges outnumbered the rewards, certainly, as i finally pedaled out of raleigh on tuesday. the ride up to that point had been easy enough to pedal in my largest chainring (front gear on a bike), since the terrain was flat and fairly windless. but after leaving raleigh and cary, i crossed jordan lake and finally met my match : a hill that forced me to use that left shift lever. the traffic around chapel hill and carrboro was horrendous, and the road's complete lack of shoulder contributed nothing to the stability of my nerves.
but i made it, and after staying in carrboro for the night (thanks jenny !) i stocked up on camp fuel and got a new rear reflector light. (my other light had fallen off while riding the previous day, which in hindsight is probably why that guy honked at me while i was pedaling through cary. why can't people just pull up alongside a biker and say something ? the car horn and american flag sticker as voice and expression of america.)
outside carrboro i met up with my first real headwinds, a painful knee, and increasing hills ... not to mention missing bike route signs, narrow roads, and lots of suv drivers. the land between raleigh and winston-salem, once devoted to hay, tobacco, cattle, and horse farms, is now dominated by large colorful signs proclaiming new developments :
Rocky Springs Crossing
Luxury 4/5 Bedroom Estates
Custom Built on 5+ Acre Lots
From the $400s
of course, these places are all unfailingly 20 or 30 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, which in the next 5 years will increase traffic, drive road-widening projects, and ruin existing ecologies. i'd be surprised if one bike lane or bus line got built among all the hubbub, since there's just no money in bikes and buses.
the mental challenge
around high point the bike route turns abruptly north for a few miles to snake between greensboro, high point, and winston-salem. when i arrived at this point a huge thunderstorm dominated the northern horizon, so i took shelter from the rain, cars, and trucks for an hour or so on a crazy lady's porch. when she told me to get lost, the sun was already falling, and i had, yes, miles to go before i sleep. nerves and muscles shot, almost ready to freak out, i scoped out a city park but finally stopped at a quaker church (on wendover just outside high point) and met a really nice young couple who lived behind the church. grant and tracy let me stay in their backyard for the night, my personal saviors for the day.
because the block with the church and their house was one of the only wooded areas left in the visible area (the surrounding trees had recently been removed to build a strip mall and several of the aforementioned gated communities), grant warned me of raccoons and other small mammals that might get into my food during the night. i had no problems, but it sure must be hard for a small mammal in that area now. i'm just struggling with the idea that people go for car-dependant, suburban, clone-housing developments over high-density urban apartments and mixed-use zoning.
music in the foothills
so, after one of the worst days so far—when i seriously asked myself several times why i'm doing this trip at all—i hopped on my bike again, this time fueled with three yoplait nouriche drinks (lots of vitamins and protein, and 300 calories each, for only $ 1.50) and headed out towards the mountains. during the day i saw exactly two other cyclists—both road riders, which was infinitely many times more cyclists than i had seen the previous day—and ate at subway to dodge another afternoon thundershower. but the country west of winston-salem calms down a bit, and i passed an afternoon softball practice at a school, stopped and chatted at a really old gas station, and finally pulled into fiddler's grove campground (union grove, nc), where i slept in my hammock next to a pond with the bullfrogs and crickets singing.
the next morning i had breakfast (bbq sandwiches with coleslaw !) at the cook shack, a fantastic half-house, half-concert-hall where the likes of the krueger brothers and other local bluegrass artists come play from time to time. the refrigerator there is plastered with photos of people playing banjos, guitars, fiddles. the folks running the place were some of the nicest people i've met, and after a little while the pe teachers from the elementary school out back came in for some cheeseburgers.
that day i crossed brushy mountain, my first significant hill, and ate a really long lunch at moravian falls, nc. as the sun started sinking toward the western horizon—now higher up thanks to the appalachians—i realized that i wasn't going to make it to blowing rock that day, so i stopped, exhausted, for a while in ferguson, nc, and chatted on the porch of a run-down gas station with vicky, paul, and dennis. that night i camped at a horse resort in the elk river valley near darby, nc, where james, ashley, james, and julie kindly invited me over to their campsite for dinner. it's not really what i expected, but the further i get into the mountains the nicer the people are.
the climb
finally i was within riding distance of blowing rock. just a day later than i had thought, i started riding toward triplett, nc and then discovered my first real climb : 300 meters in the space of 3 km ! luckily the traffic was light, and the road had lots of curves and such to pull off and eat some more trail mix. as i pulled up to the top of the hill, i stopped to watch a thunderstorm amble about in the valley below, and a nice fellow stopped by in a van to ask about the ride.
the top of elk creek road joins the blue ridge parkway near parkway school. i lifted my bike over the barrier there, pushed it up a wee hill, and was finally on the blue ridge parkway ! a sign nearby validated my efforts by saying i had crossed the eastern continental divide. i powered my bike up another hill (the one between bamboo and aho ; somehow i'd always wondered whether i could do that hill on a bike, and now i know.) and waited out some lightning next to a honeysuckle under an oak, and then rode up goforth, soaking and tired ... yet energized by the surroundings and the success of my ride for the day.
return to the homeland
it's strange and nice to be back here in this town, surrounded by these beautiful, beautiful mountains and all this green and life and water. it's rained here every afternoon for the past two weeks, so i've had the opportunity to soak in the rain, the mist, the clouds, and the rolling thunder while listening to bluegrass and eating nice sandwiches and barbecue.
it's strange that i never really noticed how wonderful it is to be up here in the north carolina mountains. i guess i was younger, and distracted by school and other things. but this area has to be one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen. it's nice to be back.
the ride for the next few days will take me to watauga lake (tn), natural tunnel state park (va), and cumberland gap (ky), on the way to mammoth cave (ky). i'll try to write more frequently if i can, so these won't be so long. but hey, it's an adventure, so i hope i'll have lots of stories to tell. :) i just hope you all enjoy reading them ; let me know.
the princess bride
i'd like to close by noting that the princess bride is a fantastic movie (and the book is excellent as well). but what i didn't know until i just saw it again is that cristopher guest (spinal tap, best in show, waiting for guffman, a mighty wind) stars as count tyrone rugen, and rob reiner (also of spinal tap fame) directed the film. go figure.
whole lotta mowin' goin' on
on the morning of wednesday, 12 may, as i pretended to pack up to start this trip, jon wisely called up the swan quarter / ocracoke ferry to find out when it runs ... turns out there are just two per day, so we had to hop in the car and jet with a swiftness down 264 to catch the 4:00 boat. This also meant that jon couldn't join me all the way to cape hatteras, so i would go it alone by riding first 25 miles east from ocracoke, and then starting the actual bike trip west to cape flattery.
so as i stood there on the deck of the ferry, among a host of cars filled with drivers, i watched the shore pull away from the boat. this unbelievable sense of fear swung down upon me : what am i doing ? i'm all alone on a boat with only my bicycle and four panniers ...
but three long days later i made it back to raleigh, where i've once again been couch surfing and relaxing, restocking supplies and storing up mental and physical stamina for the next leg of the journey : 4 days of riding from raleigh to blowing rock, and my first encounter with mountains.
weather and dogs
mother nature has smiled on the ride so far, providing three beautiful (but rather hot) days of relatively low winds and no major storms. in fact, the only storms i've seen so far were two large thunderheads just outside belhaven ; luckily the stretch of 264 i was on led directly between them, so i got only 5 minutes of light rain. the storms, i later found out, had drenched washington, bath, and most of the surrounding areas, so for the following days, there was a veritable fleet of riding lawnmowers humming outside, tending to the grass as i rode past.
dogs have been one of the least pleasant parts of the trip to date—the ones you really have to watch out for are the houses without any "beware of the dog" signs, because those dogs will actually run out into the road after you. luckily, though, i can bike faster than the dogs can run, so they've mostly been amusing sources of motivation.
one classic worry that i've actually found to be quite helpful is those huge 18-wheeler transfer trucks : i keep my ears perked up for the sound of one approaching, because (a) most of them have been quite nice in terms of passing distance, and (b) a large draft of air follows those things, sometimes raising my speed by 10 km/hr. to a tired cyclist, this boost is quite the spirit-lifter. all hail the transfer truck !
the grub
being a breakfast lover, i've been looking forward to sampling north carolina's breakfast offerings ... and north carolina has not disappointed at all ! in wilson i stopped for breakfast at puddin' jac's, where for $ 7.10 i ate a three-egg breakfast (scrambled eggs, grits, biscuit, 2 sausage patties) a sausage biscuit, a sausage cheese biscuit, and a small orange juice. the waitress said, "you must be in for the long haul !"
in belhaven i stopped at farm boys, a tiny burger place with a reputation for beef barbecue sandwiches. i only had a few dollars on me, so i got a sweet tea and two cheeseburgers ... for $3.
just outside of bath, i stayed with some really nice folks along highway 99, and they graciously made breakfast with country ham (the saltiest substance on earth), grits (georgia ice cream, as merle called it), and eggs. barbecue sandwiches and coleslaw also await. i don't think i could do this trip as a vegetarian, at least not in the south.
the route
i suppose it makes some sense to put up a short list of points along the anticipated route. if you live along the route or know someone who might want a visit from a sweaty, tired biker, let me know !
of course, i haven't really planned the route too much, but i'll list the cities i know here.
buxton, nc – cape hatteras national seashore
raleigh, nc
blowing rock, nc – blue ridge parkway
hampton, tn
middlesboro, ky – cumberland gap national historic park
glasgow, ky – mammoth cave national park
new harmony, in – lincoln's boyhood national monument
saint louis, mo
bloomington, il
sioux city, ia
custer, sd – mount rushmore, badlands national park
devils tower, wy – devils tower national monument
great falls, mt
dupuyer, mt – some of this house of sky takes place here
whitefish, mt – glacier national park
sandpoint, id
spokane, wa
winthrop, wa – north cascades national park
coupeville, wa
neah bay, wa – cape flattery, olympic national park