Woohoo

Day 32: Inverness to Oakland. Golden Gate Bridge and the Ferry to Jack London Square.

Sausalito House Boats

Whitney House, 11-10 Ilana

Who made this world? They couldn't possibly have done a more beautiful job. We've just cycled three days through what remains of California's old growth redwood forests. I've been lucky to have spent a lot of time in the redwoods - both in the Bay Area and in Mendocino - but I'd never spent time in the old growths. I've been watching Todd ride in front of me, not even an ant, a speck of red dust at the base of a world made up of trees. They are massive holy things, redwoods. In Prairie State Park we set aside a morning for a hike. I don't think we made it more than a quarter mile. We could have stopped and spent all day with each tree we passed. The campground and trails in the redwoods, Prairie and Humboldt Redwood State Park, are quiet places. Sanctuaries. Light falls in separate, dusty, rays. The ground is soft and bare. The tree beside you has been alive and growing for over a thousand years. What was happening a thousand years ago, we tried to think. Europe was in the Dark Ages when some of these trees sprouted.

Taking this trip at a moment when California's state government is considering closing - even selling - many of its state parks has added a weight. At one campground we heard that many parks may be shutting down after Labor Day. We asked the park ranger and she replied that the state legislature was made up of "ding dongs."

In Oregon and California we've been lucky to have cycled through a few stretches where it seems one state park leads straight into the next, broken only by teeny tourist towns with an RV park, a market, and a gas station. It feels like the way things ought to be (and surely is in many places): small communities of humans sharing a much larger, wilder planet.

One of our favorite discoveries about the state parks in Oregon, California, and Washington are the hiker-biker sites. They are shared, rustic campgrounds, $3 or $4 per person normally set aside in secluded parts of campgrounds. They have firepits, water, and picnic tables, and you walk into the regular campground for the bathrooms. In the hiker-biker sites people hang around and compare stories, give advice, and share hot chocolate or microbrew. They are lovely, warm little places.

The northern stretch of Highway 1 is hilly. Beautiful, absolutely. Hilly, without a doubt. There's been a fair bit of pausing and breathing heavily after shooting down and winding up dips in the coastline where small rivers enter the sea. Recently on such a pause I tried to puff myself up a bit by reasoning that this was a true accomplishment - this biking from canada to sf - and that few brave and fit souls could do it. But then I started thinking of the women in my life - Kate would tear down the West Coast - Carly wouldn't ever get sore - Laura would breeze up the hills - Lilia would swoosh through towns pausing only for a beer at the local brewpub - even my mom, in her 60s, would probably have the time of her life heading down the coast. Was this a testament to the women that surround me or did I have no excuse to be panting and whining with the Pacific Ocean as my backdrop? I'm hopeful that it's the former and so I send out a huge cheer for all the amazing women in my life.

We've left 101 for good. The northern end of Highway 1 begins just outside Leggett, winds up and down through the hills moving west, and hits the coast suddenly, in all its golden glory. Todd and I scrambled down the side of the bluff for a picnic lunch on the beach with pelicans. We've been seeing pelicans regularly, all the way down the coast. Our friends and lovely dinner hosts in Caspar, Ray and Lorraine Duff, told us that pelicans have made a remarkable comeback from near extinction. Something about DDT damaging the strength of the walls of their eggs (is that right, Ray?). They are beautiful and charismatic birds, often sitting like stodgy old men on rocks before gliding gracefully low over the water.

We followed 1 down the coastline to Mendocino, where we've just had our first homecoming of sorts at my family's house off Comptche-Ukiah road. I'd been dreaming of it for days - the wood stove, the hot tub in the trees, vinegar in the cabinet (strange maybe, but I've been missing vinegar terribly). Darkness was settling in as we hit the gravel drive and the house emerged out of the woods like a reward for the endless hills.

Nearing Manchester Beach State Park

Day 29.

Bike Maintenance on Day Off (Mendocino)

Mendocino Coastal Trail

In the mid 1970s, California went on a buying spree, purchasing land along the coast, trying to connect parks and so forth. It was smart. Mendocino Coastal Trail is made up from land tracts that the state bought in 1974. It is gorgeous, protected, undeveloped land. Its worth is as undeniable as it is obvious. Now Arnold Schwartzenegger's administration has suggested selling some of California's State Park land, including smaller parks like this (and Mt. Diablo, the East Bay peak near where I grew up). It is a totally obscene idea.

Love

Bikers

Starting in oregon, where our route became more common and obvious (hugging the coast on 101), we met bicyclists. For three nights we camped next to Rody and Jen, a jolly rosy-cheeked couple from Vancouver who timed their bicycling to stop at every micro-brewery and ice-creamery and were fairly obsessed with campstove buttermilk pancakes, we met a couple from seattle who'd quit their jobs and planned (for their first long bike trip) to pedal the whole way to Buenos Aires, having outfitted their bikes with a hanging handlebar garden (mostly herbs but some lettuce too) and a dry erase board to deliver messages to (or occasionally solicit favors from) motorists, we met a lesbian couple from Bellingham biking along in summer dresses who, when asked where they were going, replied 'Malibu', and who biked through five South American countries last year, we met Luis, a burly latino incredible hulk bike-riding toker, at a road construction stop where he explained, shirtless and helmetless in the freezing fog, the disappearance of his riding partners (they got sent back to Texas from the Vancouver airport because of DUIs on their records) - later we saw him off the road, high as a kite, posed on a rock above the cliffs, facing the setting sun with his arms straight above his head as if the pacific ocean had just scored an eternal, unmatchable soccer goal. We met a solo reclining biker who, like some kind of novelistic ominous crow, mysteriously appeared four times in three days at precise moments of being tired and cranky (for some socially awkward but perhaps prescient reason I snapped his picture before even saying hello, see above), we met Devian, a solo mountain-biker who, in the middle of his 1000 mile trip, stayed behind in Arcata to race in a 12-hour offroad marathon and then caught back up to us doing 90-mile days, we met a strong-willed, river-swimming, early-rising couple from Seattle who, despite camping in the same location three nights in a row, never saw much of us - they went to bed, exhausted, at sundown and were consistently saddled up and gone by 8am, we met a Vietnam vet, camping with us in the rain, who was riding his weirdly hi and low tech recliner-bike north (the views are even better, he said), drank Squirt from a 2 liter bottle, and who, around his camp bonfire, got the younger biker boys riled up about how things were better in the old days of bicycling (before clif bars was one example), old days which they clearly, mathematically, hadn't experienced. We met a trio from Portland towing their samsonite luggage with special contraptions, an architect from Seattle who is disillusioned with his field, and a shoeless, white-bearded, waving bicyclist who looked like Father Time and carried a front basket full of root vegetables. We met all those, and more, but today - today was the first time we had another riding partner. We temporarily became three as Ryan rode with us from his house in Trinidad south through farm fields, over the Mad River, and onto the organically-paved streets of Arcata CA. The company was excellent and we didn't have to look at our map once. Spent the night at the Arcata Hotel to bask in a night of relative civilization, complete with a really good bookstore full of books that are too heavy for us to buy.

Old Growth

Day 23: Crescent City to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

Old Highway 1

Crescent City, CA

David and His Maps

Day 22: Brookings OR to Crescent City CA. David's House.

Mile 950 aka Road Work Ahead

Road to Extinction

Day 21: Port Orford to Harris Beach State Park, 10 miles from CA border.

Francie's House, Port Orford

Day 20: Bandon to Francie's House, Port Orford.

Foggy Bandon

Nearing Bandon

Devil #7

Seafood Festival, Charleston OR

Oregonian Dunes

Saturday 11am Feast

Day 17, Blue Sky

Bike Lane

On markets

Day 15: Touring on bike, you find yourself with few expectations. You've never heard of the towns you'll bike through nor the one you're hoping to end up in for the night. You've no idea what the road will be like - traffic, road texture, hills, views - so you take it as it comes. One exception, I'm finding, are roadside markets. I am consistently dissapointed by markets. We go through many little towns where the only business is a little market and they seem to have signed a pact to only sell god-awful food. This is probably particularly acute for me as my stomach will churn for hours if I eat anything with dairy or soy. (If ever you want a small challenge try to find processed foods without dairy and soy.) Hungry, tired, in recent days sopping wet. Candy bars have milk. Chips have soybean oil. Muffins have soy flour. We've found a few ways around this. The man who warned us of the cougar (see earlier entry) sold us a can of refried beans and some salsa. Not bad on an open porch. These markets are the center of town and the company and sightseeing they afford sometimes make up for their complete lack of edible food. Today was a case of this. Sandlake, Oregon. Small wooden building: home, market, car repair shop all rolled into one. Three ladies sitting out on the porch with room to spare. Todd and I pull up just having conquered our longest, steepest hill yet - in the pouring rain. We are drenched. Chilled from coming down the other side. One lady - girl really - squirts us out two tall styrofoam cups of coffee (coffee? warm and brownish atleast - "delightfully terrible" Todd recently called this) and Todd and I found our places on the porch to listen to the no-good, very-bad, terrible, awful year they were having. The porch was covered, the liquid hot, and the ladies seemed to almost have a perfected performance for their biker guests. I'm not convinced the coffee was worth a buck, but the company and shelter sure were. We biked through a few more hours of rain after that until somehow, halleluyah, the sun begin poking through the clouds around 6:30 just as we turned off 101 onto "old scenic 101." Old growth forest, audibly dripping. Road slowly meandering uphill, not enough to even downshift into our lowest front gear. Not a car to be found (one solo female bike tourer). Heaven. Rather than dissapointment about the rain (you weren't expecting sun, so how can you be dissapointed by rain?) you're only surprised and grateful for the sunset. You loved the misty, fog-covered road that kept you from seeing the ocean, but now you're shocked at the vastness of it, and the fact that it has been right alongside you this whole time. We pulled into Lincoln City around 8:30 or 9. We would have made it earlier but the forest, sun and ocean were so breathtaking that we had to stop every minute or so to take another picture. Our motel sits in front of the ocean with an outdoor spa. Better sign off.

2-Day Rain Breaks, Neskown Scenic Drive

Cape Meares

Day 13: Manzanita to Netarts. Rain, rain, rain. But the Three Capes Scenic Route out to Cape Meares Lighthouse was our favorite road so far.

Reincarnation

We found evidence of this railroad car's previous life. Once a NJ Transit car, it was reborn as part of the 4-car Oregon Coast Explorer, a tourist train out of Garabaldi OR. Visible through the windows are the stacked logs of Garabaldi's huge woodmill. In the reflection, the green hills that surround town.

Tillamook Cheese Tour, Free

Free shelter from the rain. Tillamook is a farmer co-op. People seemed intent on eating their ice cream at the factory. There were long lines as if it was the only place you could get ice cream on the West Coast.

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach

Tire Changing 101

Day 12: Astoria to Manzanita. We left, fresh from resting in Astoria and excited to be on the coast. But the logging trucks were close, the shoulder was filled with glass, and within ten minutes we had our first flat. A conversation from Lopez Island flashed in our memories. The owner of the local bike shop had yelled as we were pedaling away: 'you have plenty of tubes?' 'yeah we have some' 'good. you'll need em in oregon'. We patched the hole and saved our tubes. Seaside was a touristy mess, but the traffic seemed to lighten up further south. Camped in the pouring rain in Nehalem Bay State Park.

River Pilots

Took the day off in Astoria OR to watch the river pilots steer the container ships in from the Pacific to the gradually-narrower Columbia River. The phrase 'rest your bones' would apply except that our bones don't hurt. Our legs do.

Astoria OR, Day Off the Bikes

Broken Ferry, Stuck on Puget Island

Day 11: Kelso WA to Astoria OR. We avoided the Columbia River's larger, windier bridges by bicycling across Puget Island, a farming and church-going bubble of land 30 miles in from the ocean. However, we nearly got stranded, as the tiny ferry was broken with no alternative except swimming. Hikers, bikers, and a small number of drivers congregated in the drizzle. Two hours later, the mechanic prevailed. This saved us from camping on the island and gave us ample time to memorize the location of a nearby pie shop. Sugar, flour and marionberries got us over Clatsop Crest. In Astoria, we got our first true view of the Pacific Ocean.

500 mi, Columbia River

Bystander

Day 10: Centralia to Kelso. If someone wants to make a photography book of wild plants, vines, and sometimes entire trees growing up out of abandoned cars, trucks, and rusty farm equipment, they might find everything they need on these roads.

Southern Washington

Hmmm

Technical interlude

We got a request for a description of our bikes/gear (hi Bea and Marcus!). Here it is. Todd (lucky dog) is riding a handmade prototype touring bike thanks to our amazing friend Myke and his rocking bike shop Velo City in Winters, CA (www.velocitybicycles.com). The bike is Innerlight, and model called 2-Go and I like to think that it is the reason behind why Todd is always ahead of me. He's got 28 Gatorskin tires on and is struttin' Navarra panniers. My beauty is a Bianchi Volpe (it's technically a cyclocross bike I think but basically the same as a touring bike). I've got 28 Armadillo tires on and Ortleib panniers (thanks Momma) that I adore. To my novice eyes our bikes are relatively similar, they are both steel frames (tho Todd's breaks apart into two), drop-down handlebars, cantilever breaks, nicely set up for front are rear racks. Basically we each carry two rear panniers plus one thing bungeed to the top of the rack (Todd, the tent, me, the sleeping pads). I think we're each totting about 50lbs, which feels like a whole heck of a lot when you're going up hill - or for that matter when you're just trying to hold the bike up when it's stopped.

Sent Home the Chain

Day 9: Elma to Centralia. Mailed the NYC bike chain back to Oakland. It was time. There are bigger hills ahead. The post office has a flat rate box, good up to 70 lbs. As the gentleman behind the counter was stamping our chain-heavy box I caught the weight read-out on the scale. How heavy was that beast that had given me so much grief? 7 lbs, 9 oz.

Speed

Day 8: Twanoh to Elma WA. Bicycling puts you at an interesting speed. Slow enough to stop for any whim, any vista-gazing, any road kill inspection, any stranger's question, but fast enough to keep you moving through towns and counties, through hills and valleys, fast enough to avoid a sticky situation, avoid running out of food (mostly), or outrun a dog whose owner has let him loose. The worst of the last of those was today, as we rounded Mason Lake, having daydreamed our way through at least five miles of completely car-free country road. To a loose pitbull, a bicyclist must look as a gazelle does to a cheetah - something to be run down and chewed up. This dog along Mason Lake, having ignored his owner's daughter's limp pleas to stay put, looked intent to both run me down and chew. It seems there's two options in this situation. Stop and stare down the pitbull (it would usually back off as soon as you're not moving), or flee (and assume that on bike, you can outrun a dog). The second option seems more foolproof, since some dogs are freaks who might just chomp at your leg given any chance. I fled, ridiculously yelling 'chain up your dog'. As soon as he slowed to a panting trot (half mile), I switched to technique 2, so that Ilana could pedal through without a problem. It worked. Speed also helped dodge a shady black-eyed pickup driver who pulled over to leeringly ask 'can i ask you guys a question?' It was his only question. He might have delivered his follow-up but we were already around the bend. We've only broken the speed limit once - 35 downhill in a 30. Ilana recorded our violation proudly with her bike computer, a nifty contraption which measures the rotations of her front wheel. Speed wouldn't have helped us near Buck's Prarie Store. As we glided into for a late-afternoon stop, the owner squinted down the road in the direction we'd just come. A neighbor had spotted a cougar on his property which seemed headed towards the road (the one we'd just biked) and he'd phoned to tell the store-owner. Everyone seemed satisfied that we were heading off to the south, but Ilana and I later wondered whether we should have asked what to do if we had an encounter. Riding away certainly wouldn't be the answer then. We wondered but didn't see anything. Overall our day's ride was hilly, dry despite the forecast, and entirely rural. We popped out in Elma WA, a small town which we considered an unfortunate necessity so that we could stop in Twanoh the night before. But Elma surprised us with a rowdy county fair and the last hotel room in town. Huge first-place zucchinis looked across as brisket sandwiches were assembled and sold. A ferris wheel turned and the Little River Band played for a hay-bale audience of hand-clappers and slow-dancers. The Little River Band's road manager slept in a neighboring room, and the next morning I was treated to a Spinal Tap-worthy conversation about the pros and cons of fairground meet-and-greets.

Gray's Harbor County Fair

Riding Into Weather, Cloquallum Road (ahead)

Riding Into Weather, Cloquallum Road (behind)

Day 8

Asymmetry

Day 7: Bremerton to Twanoh State Park. They say that the city hurts our brains with its straight lines and clean edges. We are getting a summer dose of perfect assymetry and imperfect symmetry. The road was like a fish swimming through trees. Stopped early along the Hood Canal because it was the best camping til way past Shelton. We flipped a coin, since in the moment we couldn't decide whether to keep going, but we did the opposite of what it said. It's just a coin. A woman in town said rain tomorrow which makes us remember how lucky the weather's been.

Leaving Bremerton

Aisle 7

Hawaii?

Pastries in Port Townsend

Day 6: Port Townsend to Bremerton.

Two Eagles, a Fox, & Two Ferries

Day 5: Lopez Island WA to Port Townsend. Do you think that we love brown more because we were born in the 70s? Almost missed the morning ferry off the island, which got our blood pumping early. My bike feels good but my load is heavy. I am starting to think that we need to get rid of this ridiculous NYC urban bike chain. It must weigh 20 lbs. It's at least twice as heavy as anything else we're carrying. It's designed to be heavy, for gods sake. On steep hills I direct all of my struggle towards the bike chain. I curse its 25 or more pounds. If I got rid of it, my bags would be insanely lighter. Ilana, who very rightly is still reeling from the theft of her beloved Brava (stolen in midday Brooklyn), is slowly coming around to the idea that it might be overkill. A statistic in favor of ditching the chain - # of times so far we've locked our bikes out of sight in a public place: 0. For now, I carry the extra thirty pounds. As far as the day's bike ride, Ilana and I keep saying we would have ridden further if people hadn't helped us so much. Example. We stopped at a random house for water. In our rush off the island we hadn't packed enough. It seemed like the right house, despite the McCain/Palin bumper sticker. A kid said sure fill up. The hearty firefighter-looking man who appeared waved us away from the yard spigot and started asking us technical questions about our trip. He was a triathlete who had covered much of our WA route many times. After filling up our bottles with tasty cold filtered water that must have come out a drop at a time he showered us with generous but time-consuming advice. It was 30 minutes before we pedalled again. Sea vistas of Rosario Strait on our right, we climbed and descended. We swooped by Lake Erie. Deception Pass Bridge behind us, we stopped at a beach-side state park to check a gear problem on my bike. The chain was about to go. We didn't have a chain tool. Half mile later the chain broke completely. Before I even got off the bike, Ilana took charge, smashing the links together with a rock. Amazingly, it held. Two bald eagles, a fox leaping through a field, a big grin as we descended towards the south side of Whidbey Island to the ferry dock. Bed provided by Olympic Hostel on the old grounds of Fort Wordon, where they filmed 'officer and a gentleman'. Under the communal sink were 2 items, 25 cents each: condoms, and earplugs.

Pit Stop at Beach, Bald Eagles, Nearly Broken Chain

Deception Pass Bridge

Built 1934 for $400,000. Repainted in 1990 for $500,000.

Seals and Acrobats

Day 4: Lopez Island. Perfect weather. More food heaven. Not being dumb, we stayed. It's saturday, so farmer's market has its weekly opportunity to show that all an island needs is one of everything. One coffee roaster, one uber baker dude, one copper tinkerer, one butcher man or butcher lady. You got everything you need. We rode south to shark reef cove with local tomatoes, goat cheese, basil, and fermented rye bread. Bikes ditched, we hiked out to the reef through old growth forest and soupy 11am fog. Out at the tidepools, harbor seals rested in this weird yoga pose where their head and feet were clear off the ground, some swam, little miny harbor seals scooted about like little sea sausages, the fog waxed and waned until whole other islands appeared out of the mist, and our lunch ingredients assembled themselves into certfiable sandwiches of the gods. The Samish Indians of this area might have regarded this sandwich. Rounded out by marion berries from another organic farm along the road. (This is how it works: the cupboard is loaded, you just fill the coffee can with the appropriate amount. It's like a tip jar gig for farmers.) In the afternoon we sped up the pace, pedaled to the south-eastern tip of the island, then back in time to watch the Wanatchee Youth Circus' 6pm outside performance in Lopez village (see photo). The acrobats were 3 to 18. A four year-old walked the tightrope (with spotting). A ten year-old got her foot stuck in a looped piece of rope halfway through her routine and the pre-recorded music ended before she could be coached free. Two very long minutes elapsed. It was an instruction in grace. There were more thrills than an actual polished circus performance and this led to an exciting but perhaps more queasy and white-knuckled audience experience than normal. Afterwards I checked out the circus' unusual jerry-rigged instruments. I sounded like an accidental Ed Hamell joke when i asked if i could photograph their organ. More camping at the Spit.

Wanatchee Youth Circus, $10

Front Pack

Islands

Day 3: Anacortes WA to Lopez Island WA. Woke up to fog (and the Blaus). Our route seems meant to be broken with the San Juan islands quietly breathing in and out a short ferry ride away. We abandoned our southern route and hopped the boat. Camped on Spencer Spit, near to a mother-daughter biking duo and a dozen teenagers who'd kayaked in. They were so tired that they were falling asleep under the stars an hour before there were any stars.

Lopez Island, WA

Food

Day Two: Birch Bay WA to Anacortes WA. Unclear whether this is a bicycling trip or a gourmet food tour. Slept under the stars at our friend Karl Blau's house. Earlier we ate his family's oysters at Adrift. Before that, bread-type things from Breadfarm in Bow. Breakfast by La Vie en Rose (owner is a biker and adventurist who dished out camping tips for the san juans along with his delicious food) in Bellingham. Sign of the day: Future Home of the Fairhaven Center for Self-Reliance: Please Donate. Cascades poked up, snow-covered in the distance, as reminders of colder times. Our bike route incorporated 3 long local off-road trails. Someone hi-five the anacortes city council for the Tommy Thompson trail.

Nearing Anacortes

Fidalgo Bay