goody, will and I just had some dank beer at flathead lake brew co. bogachillm. now to west glacier.

Palouse Falls to Heyburn State Park tru Moscow

Reverse order blah blah blah... View from our campsite at Heyburn State Park in Idaho
Our first few miles on the Couer D'Alenes trail. So smooth and gradual, awesome riding

The Food Co-op in Moscow, where our gracious hosts worked, as well as Ed and Kim from back in Potsdam when they lived out here. We stocked up on healthy eats and delicious bakery products.

Shadow-Riders. We broke off from the girls at Colfax and dipped down into Moscow Idaho
We caught up with the girls on our ride from Palouse Falls to Colfax. Dan pulling the train at 24 mph helped.




A few more pics from the journey from Palouse Falls to where we camped at Heyburn State Park in Idaho. We watched the dry farm/desert landscape change back again into green grassy fields and ultimately hilly forest. The Northwest is such dynamic country. Great warm weather on these days. It went by too quickly. The morning we woke up in Heyburn to do another mountain pass it was raining and the grey cloud stuck around until today (but my sleeping bag stayed as dry as central Washington, mother). More on the epic trek into Montana later.

Photo Update 4

A few Photos between Vantage, WA and Palouse Falls, WA

Sorry, these (like in previous post) are in reverse chronological order.

Our campsite at Palouse Falls State Park.

Carrie, hiking up the crevase at the end of the trail from the bottom of the canyon.

Me, halfway up the canyon. Falls in front, we went swimming in the pool below.

Canyon at Palouse Falls. We hiked down to the bottom.

On the road to Palouse Falls State Park.

Some pictures after leaving Leavenworth up to Vantage, WA.

My campsite on the Columbia, Vantage, WA.
Will and Dan in the cold Columbia River.
Me looking real sexy


En Route to Vantage, WA.

Found a cave way up a rocky hill 10 miles west of Quincy.

Yellow Marmot on the bikepath an hour or two after leaving Leavenworth.

Videos in Steven's Pass

Part of the ascent of Steven's Pass 6/9/2010.

Descending the eastern side of the cascade mountains, about 30 miles downhill. A nice sunny cruise into Leavenworth. 6/9/2010.

Just a couple of videos from a little over a week ago from our time in the Cascades.

reverse order, sorry.

riding down out of leavenworth with Atiyeh and Kruse (the girls) with us for the first time. Nice down hill ride with rapidly changing countryside

Those who are over 21 rewarded themselves after a long day over Steven's Pass

The mountains we just came through skirted Leavenworth. Beautiful

Rolling down off the pass at an easy pace with the thundering Wenatchee River on our right. Some of my favorite riding yet.

On the top of Steven's Pass after a nicely graded climb. Just over 4000 feet. I am posing smartly

As part of the continued effort to catch up on pictures and updates here are the pics from the top of Steven's Pass and the town of Leavenworth. I have already said a bit about Leavenworth and the generosity of Luke and Stephanie in an earlier post. Beautiful area and the ride out of there the next day was great. The landscape changed so dramatically and by the time we camped that night in Vantage, Washington we were in the dry Columbia River valley. This place had western movie written all over it. Pics to follow in the next post.

Photo Post #1 from Polson

Here are the first round of photos coming from Gary's (Dan's uncle) here in Polson.
These are in reverse order so bear with me.

On the main road (route 2) with about 5 miles to Steven's Pass Miles earlier.... Old Cascade Highway provided car-free travel for a few miles during our accent

Our journey east on Route 2 begins on a rainy morning in Everett


2 days prior to leaving Everett we ride of a the Olympic Discovery Bike Path

Miles earlier we begin our journey out of Port Angeles with local guide Jay

Looking back on these earlier days is already like looking into the distant past. From Port Angeles and after our lastish start because of brief bike troubles, we met up with Jay a local from Sequim who had nighted in Port Angeles and happened to be traveling our way for the next 30 miles or so. He took us on a bike path which skirted the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We lunched in an Indian Reservation and had to pedal quickly to catch both of our respective ferries to and from Whidby Island. After a great stay Dan and Robin as described by Dan earlier we headed out to Steven's Pass, combining 2 days in to 1 for an epic 110ish mile day into Leavenworth. Photos of the pass and Leavenworth are soon to follow.

Polson

108 miles into Polson.
Wet cold hungry
Tomorrow: blog updates, bike maintainance, world cup, feed.

made it to polson

Feeding Montana style in Thompson Falls. Went over a snowy Coopers pass,5802 ft, then to the Wild Coyote Salooon in Sourdough where we were welecomed to Montana by proprieter and sage Wayne.

What is America? Cooking pancakes over an open fire? We rode from Moscow to lake Couer d'alene, tommorow over and out of Idaho to Thompson Falls, MT over 4800'

Moscow (Idaho)

We just spent a night with a friend of a friend just over the Idaho border in Moscow. Located near two 10,000 + student universities it was a last stop for us to get luxury items, which we certainly did. We picked up 100$ of groceries and amenities from the Moscow co-op, while Goody and Dan each bought ukaleles.

Some family friends from Potsdam used to live in Moscow and were able to hook us up with a back yard to crash in as well as a daughter to show is the town and teach us about Idaho. A late start today, but only 65 miles to ride. Tomorrow is Thompson's pass and Montana!

Thanks Ed and Kim for the networking!
And thanks Maryjo and Randy for the campsite!!

More from Montana and hopefully pictures soon!

Colfax, WA 6/14/2010

Rolled into Colfax at about 1:30 pm pacific time, 70 miles so far today and everyone is feeling great. We're going to hang out in town for a few hours, fuel up, and stop by the post office. We may bike into Idaho today, depending on what everyone wants to do.

The last couple days since Orthello have been beautiful, the road from Orthello to Palouse Falls State Park was shrubland-steppe/prairie ecosystem, very sunny and hot. Besides wheat fields, most of the vegetation were small bushes, predominantly sagebrush, and a bit of grass. Almost looked like a desert. Not what I had expected in eastern Washington!

It was about 100 miles from vantage to the state park, and we got there at about 7:30pm, and stayed an extra day just to check out the park. The park was a huge gorge and waterfall with tons of unprotected easy accessable trails. We hiked down to the bottom of the falls through a crevasse and a very steep trail, and went swimming. An added plus, we found a someone's wallet and called him to return it last night. He drove in 70 miles to pick it up and brought us Ice Cream and Beer. Success! The library we're in right now does not have a card reader. But we will post some pictures as soon as we find them.

Morale is high and we are ready for Idaho and Montana.

Goin' to Montana soon!

Othello, WA 6/12/2010

Rolled into Othello at around 10:30 this morning after a fast 40 mile ride. Still have about 55 miles to go before camp tonight. Camping at Palouse Falls which is supposed to be gorgeous.

Will and Dan are watching the soccer game at Wal-mart and Goody, the girls, and I are checking out the public library. We have pics to put up but haven't found a SIM card reader so those will come later.

Quint-essential buffalo burger

5-patty buffalo burger from Blustery's while we watched the World Cup on a big-screen TV. It was a scoreless draw between France and Uraguay, but was kept interesting by chatting with a two-generational family of Uraguaians who hapened to be passing throgh. Hopefully we will be able to catch the USA - England match at a Walmart tomorrow.

Luke and Stephanie

Shout out to Luke and Stephanie! Thanks so much for your hospitality
and generosity. A peaceful night and delicious doughnuts in the
morning left us ready to ride 90 miles to vantage.

Leavenworth was certainly a charming experience. It'll be a place that
sticks with us on this trip thanks to the cool people we met there and
the Bavarian flavor it had. The pic of our campsite on the backyard
has already been posted.

For now we chill in the Blustery Burger Drive-in and watch the world
cup game. The girls went on ahead about 50 miles. We will see them
again tomorrow. Ta for now.

My first text update to the blog! we are in vantage washington. resting our bodies after biking 200 miles in 2 days. all my love and strength goes out to my mom

America

After chilling at the confluence of the Wenatchee and the Columbia we are following the latter down to Gingko Petrified Forest. The gorge has been stunning.

Campsite in backyard in Leavenworth

The sun is out and looks to be here to stay for a while. We awoke to doghnuts and bannanas compliments of our gracious hosts Luke and Stephanie. Now to Gingko

We made it. 106 miles to leavenworth. The sun came out in the Wenatchee Valley on the way down providing the most bogachill and scenic ride yet.

stevens pass aint no thing chickenwing

In skykomish eating lunch. The weather is holding and it looks like were going up to stevens pass.

Today was our rest day which consisted of bike maintenance and lots of eating. After a healthy brunch of fruit salad, lasagna, toast with jam, cheese bagels, grilled cheese sandwiches, and ice cream, we cleaned our bikes and dried out our wet gear in the sun. Next we travelled to the bike store to pick up some new supplies; it was quite a treat to ride without packed panniers. Afterwords we drove (crazy I know) to REI to pick up some gear to get us through the rainy and cold mountains that lie ahead. It was a great day to reorganize and repair.

For dinner Will helped us all make some dank risotto, which complemented the cheeseburgers and salad that the Foster's prepared. Mr. Dan and Robin Foster have been extraordinary hosts and the pictures that I posted earlier were masterfully captured by Dan. The last two days hear have been wonderful and hopefully our batteries are recharged for tomorrow's rainy ride. Carrie and Ashley made it up to Deception Falls today and will tackle Steven's Pass tomorrow. We will head our early tomorrow and if we feel it, we may try to tackle the 100+ miles up and over the pass into Leavenworth. We will see how the weather and our legs respond. Now I must return to my Tillamook Ice Cream and Black Butte Porter; the fuel of the transcontinental rider.

Making mushroom risotto (aka feed)

Chillaxin' at the Foster Residence

Goody and Chad Worthington

Pete and Rhonda

Will and Shadow Fax

Dan and The H.M.S Beagle

6/7 Update/End of Olympic Peninsula Leg

Got into Everett around 7:30 today. We're staying at Dan's housemate Jordan's parent's house. They made us a delicious lasagna dinner, and having a place to stay indoors after the past couple days of rain is awesome. We made the ride to Everett today from Port Angeles, and our total mileage was just under 90 miles. We left around 11 after an interesting morning.

After waking up at our campsite right on the edge of the Juan de Fuca Strait, we biked about a mile into town and my rear derailleur seized up and bent the hanger and rear dropouts on my frame. We had to wait a couple hours for the bike shop in Port Angeles to open, and at this point I thought the whole frame was toast. The guy we talked to at Sound Bikes and Kayak checked it out and bent the hanger back into place with a special tool. He said it was about the worst bend he's seen, but since it was an older steel trek frame, it was stronger and easier to bend back into place without breaking. The derailleur is still a little bent, and also just very worn out as it's 1o years old, so I'll be picking up a new one tomorrow.

The ride today was great. We started from the bike shop where we met Jay, who lived in a town just east of Sequim. He showed us an awesome bike path which ran from Port Angeles along the strait and up into the hills east of Sequim. We ate at a deli, and then went east to the ferry which took us to Whidbey Island where we biked about 25 miles through hills to the other side where we took the ferry to Everett. It was only a few miles to where we are staying. We'll have our rest day tomorrow, and then start the long haul east with Carrie and Ashley who just arrived.

goody's bike is good to ride. we are halfway to port townsend, then ferry to whidbey island, then ferry to mukilteo

More pix

A massive piece of pie after an already massive meal. The waitress didn't know what to do with us.

Tall stack of HUGE pancakes. We managed to take them down.

The cajun chicken scramble. A rainy day's antidote

I love you Edward

Here is a video that Goody shot of us arriving at a view over our starting coast. A vista which will stand behind us over the coming weeks.

Bike Troubles and more Pix

Our first views of the unbridled Pacific

First siesta point on our leisurely 70 mile ride up the coast toward Forks

The gang so far dips their bikes into the bosom of the PacificFORKS, OMG BELLA

OMG Goody's bike is not maintaining

What appeared to be a minor problem with Goody's chain has evolved to be a debilitating issue. While rolling into Port Angeles from our coastal bivy site, Goody's derailleur seized up breaking the chain (again) and bending the frame. Spirits remain high as it is yet early in the day and tomorrow is a planned rest day anyways. 80 minutes until the first bike shop opens when we can see how bad the damage is.

We came into Port Angeles last night soaking wet and thanks to 3 hours in a laudramat, slept dry and warm. A rainless morning complete with doughnuts and beef jerky leaves us here, in a coffee shop drinking espresso and hoping for the best.

Crescent Lake Lodge

Left our campsite at bogachiel state campground this morning and biked a quick 5 miles into Forks where we ate for about 2 hours. Probably a 4000 calorie breakfast each (about 2 big breakfasts per person plus pie). After this we got hooked up with only a small percentage of Forks' great TWILIGHT gear we wanted and got on the road around noon. It's been raining all night and all today and we are soaked. We've done about 50 miles so far and have about another 20 to go today. Luckily this lodge has hot drinks and a fireplace. We plan on staying at a hostel tonight in Port Angeles to get dry and get all the sand and dirt off of us. Tomorrow will be a 70 mile day vs. the planned 50 mile day. We will take the ferry to the mainland where we'll stay in Everett. We've all been keeping the D Simms deep in our thoughts these past couple days.

Recording from 6/3 test

just got feed at forks coffee shop. Yesterday was as good as it gets. Today will be a rainy 85 miles to sequim state park through port angeles.

6/5

Relaxing near Forks, WA. Just made our official start at the Pacific with a day of ocean fun intertwined with 65 miles of riding.  To Forks tomorrow for breakfast!!!!!!!!! Then to port angeles

6/5 update

Goody's hammock at lake Quinault

Sunset at Lake Quinault

Remnants of a Double Chuckwagon Yak-burger

Beverage break on the way to Lake Quinault

D-Line from Mima Falls Campground in Capitol Forest

We had a great day on friday from mima falls to lake quinault. We started the day through the capitol forest on a great forest road thanks to the advice of a friendly prison guard. We ate lunch at the rusty tractor in Elma. We all indulged on yak burgers, it was feed. Afterwords we had a beautiful but windy ride through the wynoochee valley. The last 25 miles on 101 were a struggle, but it made the view of lake quinault that much better. We seemed to have timed our ride perfectly as the skies have broken and today we have nothing but sun for our ride on the coast to bogachiel state park (hot showers). The next day we will travel through Forks to get our Twilight fix, and then make our way through Port Angeles and camp at Sequim bay. We will post more later, we have figured out how to post legible blog posts as opposed to the gibberish that appeared before. Werk.