Portlandia

The sunny days should hold for another
week, and Portland looks lovely as usual.
Don't think I've ever spent a rainy day here.

New in transit since my last visit is Tilikum Crossing, a beautiful multi-modal people friendly bridge over the Willamette: light rail, bus, bike and pedestrian.

This evening my friends David and Kelly joined Clare, Ethan and me for a beer truck and ladder ball near the riverfront.

Portland

109 miles, mostly flat, and the great gift of a tailwind the last 30 miles or so. Plus being greeted by daughter Clare at the end of a long day.
Other highlights included a terrific diner for my 2nd breakfast, in the tiny town of Vader after 30 miles. The Little Crane Cafe was a lot of fun, featuring the cook singing along to 80's MTV hits.

Their motto? Thou shalt not whine.
Almost immediately after leaving I met a young Russian woman, Maria from St. Petersburg, who's been biking since March, Florida to California and then north.

Not so much fun was the sheer variety of roadkill today: deer, possum, raccoon, skunk. And this mummified cat someone propped up in a stormdrain. Bizarre.

Centralia WA

100 miles today, out of Seattle with Brian the first 42, partly on bike trails, then he took bus back and I rolled on. This afternoon Rainier seemed so close though I never got that good of a view.

And this odd sign on the train tracks the road paralleled approaching Centralia stumped me.

Seattle sights

Rode a bit round town today, saw Rainier radiant and
a Boeing being borne.

Earlier this morning a raccoon was removing the freshly laid sod next door to get at worms and grubs and such.

Tourist in Seattle

Saw some sights yesterday:

Seattle Public Library, with it's "spiral" bookstacks, actually ramps leading down six levels of stacks.

Then to the Frank Gehry designed EMP, shrine to music, sci fi, and pop culture. Hendrix, Nirvana/grunge, and the Seahawks reflect the Seattle bent, but other stuff, too.

Seattle

Yesterday Brian and I biked toward Seattle, near Skagit Bay passing through lush flat farmland--so much like Holland they even have a tulip festival. Mist and light rain, and of course a headwind. Then inland to pick up the Centennial bike trail, and showers and a downpour. We made it 58 miles to the trail's end in Snohomish, and decided we had a far greater need for beer than to ride the 35 miles or so into Seattle. Brian had a backup plan already in place, calling his friend Jim to drive up in Brian's pickup and rescue us.
This nicely dressed store window was next door to the pub.

Today we took my bike in to his friend Kathleen's Free Range Bicycles for new chain and tuneup. Small but great shop, and note the repurposed card catalog used to store parts and tools.

La Conner WA

Descending along the Skagit River, rain foresty-green and mossy.

Down on the plain met my old friend Brian who came up from Seattle by train, and we biked toward the coast by way of brewpubs. His friends Rob and Lisa live in La Conner, home of novelist Tom Robbins (Even cowgirls get the blues). After pub stop they drove us to their house just outside the small Swinomish Indian reservation, across from Whidbey Island. Rob's a Brit and has a fascinating collection of bikes, all-chromed frame Hetchins hanging on wall.

Newhalem

Tough day getting over the pass, fighting headwinds going up and down. Gorgeous views of course, but had to keep moving to get to store by 5pm. 84 hard miles, tenting tonight.
Note switchback in first photo, just below pass.

Breakfast in Winthrop

Thunder and rain early am, glad not in tent. Stopping in last town before mountains, very fake wild west. Eating at Three-fingered Jack's saloon, as you can imagine.

Twisp, fried to a crisp

90 miles today, warm sun and headwind for much of it. Early start, with 40 miles of prairie and canyons until first town and chance for food, at bridge crossing the Columbia.

Bridgeport featured an avenue of dead trees carved in amazing ways.

Lots of orchards on hillsides above river taking advantage of cheap hydro, cherries already ripe and being harvested.  After late lunch and siesta I turned north to follow the Metheow river for final 34 uphill miles to Twisp, with Cascades and clouds looming.

Mule deer in Twisp near my cheap motel.

Grand Coulee Dam

First day out, brother Jack giving me ride to far side of Spokane so I can begin riding up on Airway Heights across from Fairchild AFB. Sunny, cool breeze, as I ride across the prairie. Meet a father/teenage son, appropriately enough since this is Father's Day, biking from Seattle back to Minneapolis. Today 75 miles to Grand Coulee Dam,  town on lake side above dam so no view of the full dam.

On the way out the next morning got a view back to the dam as I started 5 mile climb back up to plateau.

Coeur d'Alene

Yesterday I went along with a nice group of Debi's friends to ride part of the Trail of the the Coeur d'Alene's (named after the tribe), a lovely paved former railbed which runs 70 miles from Montana through north Idaho. We rode along the south end of the lake until they stopped for an early lunch and I rode on a bit more through marsh and meadows along a slough. Saw eagle's nests, herons, turtles, snakes just along that 5 mile stretch, then back to meet the group for the ride back.

Statue commemorating the Steptoe Disaster at the start of the trail. This was a victory by the Spokane, Palouse, and Coeur d'Alene tribes over US soldiers encroaching on their land in 1858. The soldiers ran out of ammunition but managed to flee under cover of darkness, abandoning cannon and supplies. If the native Americans had pressed the attack it could have been as disastrous as Custer's. 

Bridge the trail takes over the south part of Coeur d'Alene lake, with the stepped risers making the fast downhill ride more like skiing moguls.

And later the sky was threatening and magnificent back at the ranch, and the horses bunched up obligingly for a photo.

Menagerie

I took lots of pictures of the horses last time here, so I'll feature the new kids after one obligatory equine one.

8 month old sisters Bel and Lola

Spokane

The adventure begins where I left off three years ago, in Spokane. Visiting brother Jack and his wife Debi,  and their 2 kittens, 3 goats and 8 horses. Today we went to the Bitterroot mountain range in Idaho and biked the "Trail of the Hiawatha" -- 15 miles of an old railroad line, gravel with 10 tunnels, 7 trestles and all downhill starting from4,147 ft elevation near Lookout Pass. The longest tunnel was 8,771 ft., dark, chilly and damp with water streaming down the walls and raining from the roof. The trestles were up to 800 ft long spans. Thrilling. As was the shuttle back up in a creaking ancient school bus.

Postcard retrospective

I have some of the postcards I sent my parents 40 years ago, mementos of a very different age and mode of keeping in touch from afar. Perfect professional images, and a bit embarrassing to see what I was writing at age 26: typical sanitized postcardese in excruciatingly small print. But perhaps not that different than the virtual postcards represented by blog posts.

40 years ago, again.

August, 1976, near Boulogne, France on the way to ferry.



This sign said "STOP" in English, appropriate since I was about to return to London, after biking 4,000 miles in Ireland, UK, France.

This "selfie" (who knew it would start a trend?) was taken on a subminiature Minolta 16 camera, the kind you see in spy movies with the sliding case, borrowed from my Boston roommate Ralph. I only had 2 rolls of slide film and used it sparingly, but since my trip was almost over I figured I'd waste one trying to shoot the stop sign, bike and moi. Mostly got moi, as I discovered two months later when it was developed.



And so I will soon begin another trip revisiting my past, flying from Toronto to London in August and riding from Lands End (far southwest of England) to John O Groats (north east tip of Scotland), much of which I did during my 3 months of biking in Europe in 1976. Then the Orkneys (again), but this time some new things: to the Outer Hebrides, Skye, and Northern Ireland, before crossing back to England and over to Newcastle and taking the ferry to Amsterdam with 3 weeks in the Netherlands before flying back.

But first some extended traveling to see family and friends in the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and then Ontario. I will be away a total of four months, flying to Spokane WA and biking to Seattle across the Cascades, then down to Portland, before taking the train to Chicago for a wedding. Then ride north into Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula and into Canada to Algonquin Provincial Park, Toronto and the flight to London. A mix of old and new places to bike. Should be fun.

This blog may well prove to be minimal, intermittent and idiosyncratic, so no promises about frequency or thoroughness. Sort of like that selfie above, perhaps just when I feel like it.