Photos finally

There's nothing like having nothing you have to do to make it hard to get a darn thing done - but (finally) here's a link to photos of the whole trip, Spokane to British Columbia to Missoula. Yay.

https://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/BikingSpokaneMissoulaJuly2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCNO6g-rDtsibHA

Next week I'm riding my bike around Lake Tahoe! Yay! That'll probably lend itself to some nice photos too. (I was supposed to be doing volunteer trail work in the John Muir Wilderness but my knees are not cooperating with that kind of thing...)

The week or so after that - yes, it's back to school and back to work. That's ok - it shouldn't start snowing up in the Sierra again for maybe a month, so I hope to get back up there before winter hits...

Hail Missoula

Ok, this really could be called "Dork on a Bike" (or dork on the porch?) - but I had such a great time in Missoula, and riding around was part of the fun.

Like pretty much every place I went on this trip, a river flows through town - and there are bike & walking paths on both sides of it, along with bike/ped bridges across it.

I found myself riding pretty aimlessly around, just exploring the paths and crossing the river. After two weeks of aiming pretty carefully for specific campgrounds and needing to cover a lot of miles, it was fun to just sort of ride around like I was, well, on vacation.

What's more unusual is in the few blocks of real "downtown" Missoula, the bike lanes are
completely separated from the car traffic. There isn't much traffic even - but it was nice to have the space to ride so safely.

After going back and forth across town a few time, I eventually had to drop off my bike at a bike shop to be packed up and shipped back home. I've learned for most airlines in the US, this is easier and costs the same as taking it as checked baggage on the plane. It was kind of strange to leave it behind and I'm looking forward to getting it back in my, um, hands, next week.

Then I walked back to the hostel I was staying at - pretty much just in time to hang out on the porch with my fellow hostelers and enjoy the crazy storm we'd been expecting all afternoon.

It had been really hot for a couple of days - but

after the pounding rain and pounding hailstorm the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. I always enjoy a great storm but I was really happy I wasn't out on my bike in it...

And now I'm back in San Francisco, happy to be home again but already starting to think about when I get to go bike camping again. (Next week looks pretty good for riding over to Marin...)

O Montana

The little dinger part of my bicycle bell broke off when I was in Whitefish, which meant I couldn't just ring the bell when I wanted to - for example, at exciting landscapes, deer along the road, or fields of flowers. So instead I just sort of yelled out, "Ding ding!" Yeah, the subtitle of my blog could be, "Dork on a Bike," but those bell-ringing moments are sort of why I ride, so I just had to make do...

Part of it was needing an outlet for the raucous level of joy I felt - I found myself saying out loud, "THIS is what I came here for!" Ringing the bell was such a satisfying way to express that, though yelling out "Ding ding" was pretty fun too.

I feel like this riding in a lot of places closer to SF, but there's something truly special about riding along quiet roads with mountains on the horizon, all that sky, sudden patches of flowers and fields of mustard... The joy of being in that overcame the minor hassles of mountain-sized mosquito bites, the almost-daily thunderstorms (around 6pm) and having to be creative about where to store my food away from bears (usually in the campground bathhouse or laundry room).

I still don't like packing up a wet tent, but I kind of made my peace with it so I could get on the road at a decent time in the morning -and usually by lunchtime I'd find an open patch of hot, sunny ground to spread it out to dry.

Monday as I rode towards Missoula I kept wondering why I felt so wilted by the heat, though I was having a great ride. That whole day I was following different rivers: the Clearwater, Blackfoot, and Clark Fork. In the afternoon, about 25 miles out of Missoula I decided to pull off onto a little side road (marked as a "Fishermen's Access" point) and stick my feet in the river to cool off.

Once again I had amazing luck - I found a spot with a sandy patch, a log to sit on - and some really nice people, who even offered me a cold beer and took my picture.

Oh - and once I got to town I found bank signs showing the temperature being in the range of 97-102 degrees! It made me feel better about feeling the heat on the road (ie, I'm only kind of a wus, not a total one).

Now about this Stoney's cow (steer or bull maybe - it was anatomically vague) - I actually saw this last year, when I was riding w/the Cycle America group. This is at the junction of two highways and we were going in the opposite direction, so I was delighted to find it. Though honestly, he/it doesn't look very happy... and actually, the truck stop it's advertising was pretty unhappy too (grimy, slim selection of decent juice & snacks, and sort of cranky people). It was still worth a bell - or, well, you know.

Since it's so hard for me to do written justice to the amazing sense of Place I felt so much (and why I went to Montana in the first place) here's a little video I shot standing astride my bike, with the mountains all around... (They were the Bob Marshall Wilderness, at the beginning of the video, then panning over to the Mission Mountain range, from Hwy 83 that runs north/south down from the eastern side of Flathead Lake.)

Following the River

I'm in Missoula now (yay!) but before I can say much more about getting here I have to get back to the thing about following the watershed. I made up my route by combining the eastern leg of what's called the "Selkirks Loop," that goes north out of Sandpoint, ID and circles around the Selkirks mountains and Kootenay Lake (though I didn't do the whole loop) and two sections of bike touring maps put together by the Adventure Cycling Association. It turns out I followed a good piece of the Kootenai River (called Kootenay in Canada).

I finally realized this when I saw a little placard at a scenic overlook along the road near Libby, Montana (which is also one of the country's biggest Superfund toxic cleanup sites). The Kootenai starts in the Canadian Rockies and (according to Wikipedia) runs 485 miles from there through northwestern Montana and the Idaho Panhandle, then back to Canada. It flows into and out of Kootenay Lake and then into the Columbia River - the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean.

I started south of Bonners Ferry, and rode up to the bottom of Kootenay Lake, then back down and over through Libby and near the top of Lake Koocanusa - which was created as a lake by the Libby Dam - more on that below. (Its name is a combination of KOOtenai, CANada and USA, get it?). Then my route cut east, just before the Canadian border - to head to Glacier National Park.

It rained a lot the night before I rode up along Lake Koocanusa and that morning there was mist over the water - it was really eerie and beautiful...

There's one bridge across the lake, called (of course) the Lake Koocanusa Bridge. It was built by the Army Corps of Engineers and while I think you should decide whether it deserves the award it won...

I might mock its aesthetics, but I do appreciate being able to spread out my wet tent to dry in the parking lot there while I ate my peanut butter sandwich.

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Making it to Glacier

Wow! - that's pretty much what I've been exclaiming for the past several days, generally with my mouth hanging open or a shit-eating grin on my face (which expression really makes no sense at all). I've been in Glacier National Park for a couple of days after a bunch of days riding to get here (I've kind of lost track...). It's truly awesome. I am so tired after a day of hiking, and it's so past my bedtime - since I'm riding about 60 miles out of here tomorrow - so I can't do any of this justice.



I'll just say: my birthday hike exceeded my wildest hopes. Not just in terms of being out in really wild, incredible landscape - rocks & snow & tumultuous melt - but with amazingly great company. I had hoped to sort of glom onto some hikers today, since hiking alone is discouraged (due to the grizzly bears, who it's unwise to surprise walking quietly along by yourself)... and wasn't sure how that would work, exactly... but at the shuttle stop I met a group of three women who were going to the same trail I was, and they immediately invited me to join them. They were such wonderful people, I was more than safe - it was a really delightful day. They have a standing Friday hike and had been chomping to get into the park - the road to the pass just opened a couple of days ago, historically late (about a month later than usual) due to the 400% of normal snow they got this year. (Yes, four times as much. Now it's melting - no wonder North Dakota is flooding...)

I don't know when I'll be able to really sort through all the photos and post them up - maybe not til Missoula, on Tuesday! - but here are a few teases. I know I need to catch up on several days of riding to get here, too - most of which were amazing.

I will say this: I planned this ride to be on roads that made sense to get to a couple of specific destinations, and I've been meandering a bit - but it turns out in a landform kind of way my route has made total sense: I've been following connecting watersheds. It was really exciting to realize that while reading a fairly random placard at a scenic area I stopped at - and I'll explain it better when I'm not so sleepy (and rather done in by the slab o' chocolate cake I treated myself to - or rather, shamelessly asked for, given it's my birthday - they gave it to me for free, with a candle on it even!).

Here's a short video I shot from the porch of the Glacier Park Chalet, an incredible stone building at the top of the trail we hiked to. You can stay there overnight - which I might just have to do sometime when I come back...

Dangerous for cars!

Today I rode from Creston, British Columbia (Canada) through a bit of the Idaho panhandle and then into Montana - three states and two countries, in one day! It was a longish day (60 miles) but not too hot, and not too hard, so I mostly just enjoyed myself.

I'll be riding in very remote Montana for the next few days and probably won't get an internet connection again until maybe Wednesday night, when I should get to Whitefish. That's my gateway to Glacier National Park so I am very excited. I'm also excited just to be in Montana - though yeah, I'm slightly intimidated by biking A) in the mountains, B) in bear country, while C) there's a chance of thunderstorms on most afternoons... but they tend to blow through pretty quickly.

I'm feeling fit and will be very careful about putting the food far away from my tent (in the bathrooms of the RV camps I'm staying at, is my general strategy) so I'm not letting it get to me.

Those car drivers, on the other hand, must be feeling kind of nervous...

O Canada, revisted

I apologize for my cheesy inability to resist making "O Canada" jokes, since I enjoy biking here so much... I have very limited time on the battery, not to mention an urgent need to make dinner - but this campground in the middle of nowhere actually has wi-fi so I can't resist this, either.

Here are photos from Saturday's brief joy-ride north from Creston, where I was staying. The road was very twisty-turny, not to mention rolling hills, following the woods on a ridge above a long, gorgeous lake, Kootenay Lake. I had meant to spend several days following the lake north, but ran out of time due to all those mishaps, but it was exciting to see even a little bit of it.

I really liked the ice-cream shop along the road - though I didn't actually go to it, I found it very photogenic.

Rivers, bridges & railroads

This post has a lot of photos -I'm too tired to write much but don't want to get too far behind, either. I made it to Canada today, hurray! To another RV campground with wi-fi in the tent section. I know that in fact there's a big issue of the lack of access to high-speed internet in rural areas, so it's especially strange (but useful) to find it here in my tent.

I laughed when I looked at my pictures from today, because so many of them were of rivers that I crossed over... it was a really lovely, scenic day. I found it harder to capture the presence of trains all over northern Idaho - it's really been amazing, since Coeur d'Alene I've been riding next to railroad tracks, and there are trains on them constantly, all day and all night. I didn't realize how active they were/are in these parts. (I can't tell what they're hauling, just boxcars of "freight.")

The big action of the day (well, besides riding) was watching storms pound the mountains to the north - the direction I was riding in. I was "prepared" for rain, with covers on my panniers and a clear sense of the order of things to protect (1. camera, 2. the rest of me), but I wasn't liking it, and it looked really intense. Turned out it *was* intense - pouring rain & hail - but it stayed to my north all day and by evening it cleared up quite nicely.

The small action was realizing I'd left my bank/ATM card someplace - I called the bike shop in Sandpoint and sure enough, they had it. I really liked those people but dang, I have many bad memories of needing to interact with them! Fortunately they did have it and are mailing it to me in Montana; and fortunately I have a credit card I can use to get cash... but what a pain! And how dumb! And... what next?!

Well, getting up at 6am and riding some more: a day-ride farther north, to catch sight of Kootenay Lake (and then come back to this same campground). It's nice to be able to get up & go without having to pack up (and carry) all my stuff...

This RV park has a lot of us tenting tonight, including some other folks on bikes. I had a great dinner conversation with the woman next to me, a nurse from near Edmonton who's planning to retire here and is visiting to check it out. She shared some chicken with me and we chatted about health care, retirement, and politics in general. Canada's been moving to the right along with the US and its national health plan is actually in a bit of peril right now - which I didn't know. Dang, where are we supposed to go, now?!

Well, to bed...

Remembering Why I Do This

Today was one of "those" days... again! Even while I was swearing and muttering stuff like "I'm getting tired of being a "'good sport'..." I knew it would turn out ok. I managed to get a flat tire before I even left the motel this morning - and as I began to fix it I encountered a ridiculous number of mishaps, including being unable to open the new tube of glue to put a patch on the hole (the guy at the shop eventually took an awl to it).

Just dumb stuff. But: I fixed it, went back to see my friend Mark at the bike shop (to buy a couple new tubes, so I won't need them), borrowed his good pump to get the tire fully inflated - and finally, finally hit the road. Heading north!

And within a few miles I'd put all that crap behind me... instead ringing my bell to celebrate the sky, the mountains all about (but the road being pretty flat - today, anyhow), the sense of being in the middle of nowhere and exactly where I want to be. I actually said to myself: This is why I'm doing this.

(Plus the bonus of Colleen's espresso shack at a very obscure corner, where she served me up a frozen berry smoothie - yes, it's all about the snacks. Seriously, it was about 90F so I really needed it!)

And now, Thursday night, I'm actually writing this from my tent! In a little RV campground called Blue Lake, which also has wi-fi even over here on the tent-lawn next to the lake! I came into the tent because... well... it's starting to sprinkle and the thunder & lightning are getting a little closer... But in the scheme of things this is fine. I got to swim in the lake, hang out with some really nice folks on the deck, have my dinner & even wash the dishes before it started to rain a little - and then it quit long enough for me to have dessert & brush my teeth. And it's getting dark anyhow...

Tomorrow, finally, I get to Canada, a little town called Creston, where I'm staying two nights (in Scottie's RV park - across the street from the regional brewery!). I don't have time to ride as far north as I'd planned, but I'm going to take another day-ride on Saturday without all my stuff, to get to ride along part of Kootenay Lake. Sunday I head back south and then Monday I turn east to Montana - back on track to get to Glacier National Park for my birthday.

Where it turns out winter was so intense that the road across the park still isn't open! More Plan B to come - just hiking at lower elevation, I guess. Me and a thousand other people, and a couple hundred hungry grizzly bears...

On Holiday

Wednesday in Sandpoint: amazingly complex systems of business and transportation-of-goods brought me a new wheel, and the wonderful folks at Outdoor Experience put it all back together & had me on my way by about 2pm. So I did what I had to do: go for a ride!

I'd been really disappointed I'd miss out on a section of the route I'd planned but realized I could do part of it as an afternoon joy-ride - which I definitely enjoyed.

This is part of the Pend Oreille National Scenic Byway (also known as a "super side-trip" for the International Selkirks Loop that I'm following part of). It was pretty scenic! And though these cars suddenly got into the frame, for most of the ride there wasn't any traffic on the road...

After I got back from that ride I dashed over to the Sandpoint City Beach to, as they say, go jump in the lake.

While I was there a Canadian couple approached me and asked if I was doing a tour (they noticed my bike has racks & a map holder). They're riding the Selkirks Loop on a tandem. We ended up going out for dinner and I was amazed to hear how much touring they've done - including across Canada and down the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to San Francisco. Next time I'm in Calgary (?!) I'll have to look them up!

D'oh!

I think I went through most of my spectrum of moods today, beginning and ending with being quite content. I won't describe all the stuff in between; you can use your imagination. (Included, in case it doesn't occur to you, is the slapstick scene of my falling off a curb - while walking -and landing face down on the street, while a passing teenager on a skateboard recovered the water-bottle I'd flung in the process as her friends checked to make sure I was ok. I was; just really embarrassed).

The lesson of the day seems to be: it's a good idea to get your bike tuned up right before a trip (to avoid an unexpected layover to deal with repairs); but the motto of the day was delivered by a woman at the pub where I had dinner, when while waiting for her to-go dinner order she said, "I should have a beer." I took her advice, and it helped.

I'm spending the night here in Sandpoint, Idaho, unexpectedly... but very happy they have a good bike shop (as well as a cheap motel within walking distance, and a City Beach! on gorgeous Lake Pend Oreille). That rear wheel gone slightly out of true was actually starting to crack (and would have failed completely), so I am biding my time while the wheels of commerce allow a new wheel to be shipped overnight from Seattle. I've been a pretty good sport about it - given that it's only my second day on the road, and this throws my itinerary off completely, AND I could probably have prevented it... but who knows, maybe it came on very suddenly... the folks in Spokane didn't catch it either....

And: MUCH better that this kind of thing happens on a beautiful, easy day, near a town w/all the aforementioned services, rather than, say, in the middle of nowhere...

Oh, the bike ride: I only rode about 12 miles today, from lovely Round Lake State Park up here to Sandpoint. The absolute highlight was the two-mile bridge across the Pend Oreille River (which flows into Lake Pend Oreille) - complete with a ped/bike path. And that was after a really cute (if slightly rustic) bike path for about 5 miles that got me off of Hwy 95 again.

The beach was pretty darn pretty, too... and it's such a small town that everything is within walking distance. It's nice to walk, except for the falling down part. But I can't wait to get back on my bike... (hoping that on Weds. it's done in time for me to make it to the next town over, Clark Fork...)

Bike Paths and Highways

I was having technical difficulties getting my posts posted, but the blogger help forum actually helped me figure it out. Hurray for the kindness of strangers!

Including the ones who offered to take my picture (several different people, different times). This is on the Centennial Trail - a paved, off-road bike path - between Spokane and the Idaho border. The trail follows the Spokane River for most of that way (crossing over it now & then).


On the Idaho side it runs sort of close to I-90, but that's also next to a lot of trees so it's still pretty nice. Especially since some welder-artist decorated its bridges!

After about 35 miles of nice off-road paths - which also had bathrooms & water fountains every so often - I got to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and turned north. This is where the bike tires hit the US Highway 95, which goes through a lot of really pretty countryside... and is mostly nice and flat, even. Except it is, well, a highway. With shoulders most of the time and not that many logging trucks. It was a holiday, which helped.

It was the 4th of July, and I have to be honest: I was slightly nervous about spending that day in this part of the country: Coeur d'Alene happens to be the headquarters of the Aryan Nation. Not exactly my kind of people. I think that specific group might be defunct, but I read an article recently about the re-emergence of armed militia groups in the area - their locations pretty much mapping out as the route of my ride... which is very creepy. I feel safe enough to move through, but I know that a lot of the people I love might *not be* safe in these parts. It's very strange to be on vacation in the middle of this. (Well, so was being a tourist in Colombia in 1990...)

Despite knowing the nasty hidden side of things, I'm personally finding that people are super friendly, give me & my bike plenty of room on the road, and so far I'm having a great time.

Ready to pedal!

I'm officially On an Adventure - starting in Spokane, WA of all places! I actually went to Washington State Univ., which is just about 90 miles south of here - but I never really spent time in town (just the airport). It's actually very cool, with old brick buildings and railroad tracks and this river running through the middle of everything.

I lucked out in finding a cheapish motel near downtown, just a few blocks from a bike shop where I could (and did) ship my bike - and also just a few blocks from all the stuff I needed to get to be ready to hit the road tomorrow morning.

The Spokane River is really neat; it winds all

through town, or I guess the town winds all around the river, and there are actually these turbulent tumbling falls that provide power. There's also pedestrian & bike bridges crossing over - very fun, and amusing. I was at least as excited as the average 6-year-olds I saw running around Riverside Park this afternoon...

Now I have to tumble into bed in order to get up at the crack o' dawn and hit the road, for real: starting with about 35 miles of mostly off-the-road bike paths called the Centennial Trail, running from west of Spokane all the way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Then I head north up the Idaho panhandle... eventually getting to Canada!

Next time I find an internet cafe (in about 90 miles or so!) I'll try to post a map of my route...