Day 1 on the bike!

More pics from the drive

Photos from the day 1 drive!

Day 1

After all the months of thinking about it, planning it, and training for it, the first day is actually here! Lots of crazy stuff, but lots of fun stuff too. The drive up to the water was very different than excepted. According to the GPS, the trail map, and the local chamber of commerce, there is a state highway that goes all the way up to the water. That way was closed, but Alia found another route on her GPS; an hour and some scary hills later we found ourselves on top of a mountain—nowhere near the water or anywhere near the main trail. Turning around and going the south route got up to the trail that overlooks the water, so I started from there.

Very pretty biking today. I saw lots of wildlife, and got in some good miles. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow!

Unfortunately we're not immune to Murphy's law up here. The phones didn't work all day. The GPS showed roads that didn't exist and hid roads that were there. The Endomondo tracking system requires GPS, which I couldn't get on my phone. My nice camera decided that its battery was "exhausted" right when I wanted to snap some pictures of a couple of bald eagles and their babies. And now my chicklet keyboard is somehow out of juice. And there isn't any place to charge my phone. So I will keep this short and sweet.

May 21
Neah bay Washington
35.69 miles
3:25 on the bike
Pain level this morning: 0

A proposed route

(in black)

Route planning

After a yummy local Halibut dinner at the Kokopelli Grill, we're back in the "swanky" hotel room planning routes. By pure happenstance, the route goes through Snoqualmie, where Twin Peaks was filmed. Will we stay at the Great Norther or eat at the Double R diner? You bet your sweet bippie!

And also Twilight was filmed at the Chinese restaurant next to our hotel (according to the info pamphlet).

The landing

Biking tomorrow—landing today.

A video?

It's just the drive, but it's good to know that I can do videos.

The drive in is amazing

We're almost at Port Angles, which will serve as home base for this evening's planning and strategy sessions. I'm starting to get excited!

Goodnight

I am staying with Chris's brother's bunny. I don't know the name of the bunny. I will call him Foo Foo. We head for the Washington coast tomorrow morning. What mysteries await on Tatoosh island? What strange and unusual fish will I eat there? Only the shadow knows. Goodnight Foo Foo.

Stopped in Portland

We're heading for the coast tomorrow! Looking at the bike, the little red piece of tape is where REI told me the seat height should be set. I keep it on as a reminder that nobody's perfect—not even REI.

Some dude is pumping my gas

I must be in Oregon. America continues to loom. Perhaps some ceremonial biking tomorrow. Out.

I'm in Boise

Watching the sunset and eating some pizza. Day one of driving is done, so hopefully we just have two more days of driving until Olympic national park!

It begins!

The trip has officially started, and the villagers rejoiced.

The packing begins

Since we had the test trip, I have a much better sense of how to pack, what we need, and how much stuff I can actually take. Aside from the bike, this is all of my stuff. The legs in the shot are the legs of my lovely wife Megan.