arrived in stump town a day ahead of schedule yesterday. i'm finally back in front of the internet, fully loaded with pictures. please allow me to illustrate the journey...
upon leaving helena, you get about 7 flat miles, then you're immediately faced with the continental divide. i remember blogging before about all this training i was going to undertake. pretty much involved a 25 mile ride once a week for three weeks.
macdonald pass and the first day totally kicked my ass. but from this point on, all my sweat was pacific-bound.
there aren't so many rules in montana, but the ones they have are fairly straightforward. this was outside of
ovando, day one.
this is inside of
ovando, day one. i was headed for a fee campsite further down the road, but after explaining to a shop keep that i was on the verge of passing out, he invited me to set up camp in the middle of town, no charge.
stayed for a night in
missoula with some of sara's buds, then finished out the rockies on day three. this is a picture of me, high atop
lolo pass. not only do you enter idaho here, but the next time zone. it was like i had a whole extra hour to ride! bombed the other side and then camped (again for free) at the
lochsa lodge. i met another cyclist here from denver. we rode together for a couple of days, hit a few hot springs, and i got him in on one of my surfin' couches.
shoreline of the selway river where we camped just outside of
lowell, id. this site was free as well. four days in and i hadn't paid for accommodations yet. sweet!
jacob takin' the point.
me, sweating.
enjoying some light breakfast reading in
kamiah, id, mid-couch surf.
i didn't fully understand this. any thoughts?
after roughly three days of winding downhill, i emerged from the woods close to
lewiston. the temperature immediately jumped about eleven degrees, as i had finally reached the ol' heat wave. hung some serious ten in this town as well. i was almost too tired to converse, and after i went to bed they made me banana bread muffins. awesome.
this is basically what life was like for lil' mikey the past couple weeks.
...and here we are outside of
lewiston. this was a sweet floating patio on the clearwater river.
ye' ol' rattler. this little son of a bitch was heavily camouflaged, as you can tell. i was pretty much just focused on climbing, and didn't see it until my front wheel trickled by. i doubled back for some pictures, unsure whether it was dead or just in a heat-soaked trance. i double-dog-dared myself to kiss it on the lips, but then i chickened out. then i went for the triple-dog-dare before convincing myself that this was no time for games. ended up seeing several more of these along the trip, although most were flat as pancakes.
the first time i had to pay to camp was outside of
dayton, at the
lewis and clark trail state park. they were all like, "thanks for the 12 bucks, now pay us more for a shower". then i was all like, "fuck that...
...i'll just hose down in that there creek, bra." good old natural soaps, shampoos, and t-pastes. don't leave home without 'em.
smoothies + sushi = teriyaki. soon after this, i got to
walla walla, where i had a badass reservation at the
marcus whitman hotel. erik's old man frequents the place for biz, so he hooked it up solid!
ze mighty columbon. this was a sure sign that i was soon leaving the desolate, windy, rolling hills of eastern washington, and entering the desolate, windy, rolling hills of eastern oregon.
boo-yow! three states down.
oregambodia. i was reminded of the time i crossed the border from vietnam on a bike just months before. everything was very straight, and people almost immediately took a shine to me. many a wave, and even a handful of hellos. i guess the main difference was in the type of challenge. in SEASIA, it was the 90+% humidity, and in oregon-shu it was the constant breeze comin at your face.
surfed it up for a night in
umatilla, then rolled smooth into
heppner the next day. immediately i honed in on a farmer's market to scarf mad fruits. some dude came right up to me and asked if i needed a place to crash. apparently the
annual oregon bike ride was taking off from town that weekend, and they had permission to camp at the high school (for free). although there were supposed to be about 250 campers on saturday night, on friday 'twas just me. pretty peaceful. a handful of kids showed up at 11:42 to get stoney-bologna and recite lines from dazed and confused, but they were only there for a bit.
to some, this may seem like any other slightly inclined stretch of road. if the camera could have captured the direction of the breeze, however, you'd see that this is in fact a solid 300 meter stretch of tail-wind! whoo!
vaguely reminiscent of the thailand motorcycle trip, the roads soon became steep and curvy. this is looking ahead to a nice bombing descent.
looking back on
condon, circa the dawn. here i stayed with anne's cuz laura and fam, who were incredible hosts. i highly recommend a visit! it's a pretty cool town and they basically know everyone. they made an ass-kickin' pie, which was coincidentally one of the foods i craved most along the trip.
cruising along the arid landscape for extended periods of time with only song and thought for company, it doesn't take much to stop and whip out the trusty camera.
nice rock formations near
fossil, or. you can find a lot of fossils there. this was during a wicked 13 mile descent toward the john day river. awesome, considering i only had to climb 8 miles back out of the canyon!
peering back on the third serious climb of the day, just past
antelope, or.
♫high......plains......drifter.♫
looking ahead to the final descent of the day into
maupin. mighty nice indeed, although as you can tell, it made for quite the breakfast climb on the other side. rounded this day out with about 95 miles.
day twelve, hunger setting in. J sealed hopelessly shut, PeeB sandies for supper.
day 13. i figured "shit, if i can do one, then i can surely do the other".
the last major obstacle.
proof positive that i was back in the land of moistness.
government camp. stopped for an over-priced lunch before brawling down into portland.
destination. the final day was the longest, 103.29 miles.
the grand total.
so anyway, i recommend some light bike touring if you ever find yourself with a bit of time to kill and a bit of gear to borrow. it's great for a little spiritual reckoning and exercise. make sure you eat a lot though. if that scale is accurate, i've managed to whittle down to like the lower 140's. i've lost the double chin, and i'm going to rely on a series of free 7-day passes at some local gyms to beef back up to my regular lower 150's.
i haven't seen it spring up in the hip crowd yet, but i can sense it on the horizon. i feel like the next time i'm in portland i'll be hard pressed to find a decent sideburn at ron tom's.
