Dispatch #4: Stawberry Lemonade Gatorade + Ritz + Jiff = Toxic Coctail

Hi there. Today is technically Day 3, but really it's Day 4 as I'm going to count the shakedown ride from Day 1: Clinton to Anacortes.
Total Bike Time (tbt): 3-7:30 pm, 3:52:39 to be exact
Total Distance (td): 52.37 miles
Average Speed (as): 13.5 mph, 31.2 (max)
Odometer reads: 130 miles (because I did not reset it at the start)

I rode up to Everett with the Putnams and briefly visited with Maureen's family. Chris drove me out to the ferry dock and I was on the 2:30 ferry. I suppose I should have expected a tough climb up from the ferry dock on the other side, but it really took me by surprise. Ooof! Once everything leveled out I began the chug up towards Anacortes. Whidbey is full of rollers and is relatively flat, but I had a pretty serious 10-15 mph headwind and it was raining. Ah well, this is what I signed up for.

The rain and wind persisted pretty much the whole way, but spotting a pair of bald eagles made up for it all. Almost. Made it to the northern end of Whidbey Island, Deception Pass, and I stopped to check it out. Pretty intimidating as far as natural occurrences go. Think Scylla and Charybdis and you'll start to see it. I can't post photos from this computer so you'll have to try and depend on my vast powers of description. The bridge spanning this chasm is quite beautiful, but it shakes when traffic passes over it and you are just a lowly cyclist trying to get to the other side. Also: Washington State doesn't seem to be as worried about jumpers as NYC. The railing on the walk path is barely waist high. Oh...and at the pass, the winds ramped up to gusts of 25 mph. I made it safely across, but the rain was picking up and it was starting to get dark. The rode traversing Whidbey is pretty busy and I was starting to get a little uneasy. Yes, sometimes I get a little nervous around traffic.

Instead of pitching a tent in Anacortes like I'd planned, I stayed at a nearby hotel. This allowed me to dry everything out and repack. I felt the front panniers were too heavy. Watched part of Young Frankenstein "Super Duper" and fell asleep by 10.

Day 2: Anacortes to Marblemount
tbt: 8 am to 5:30 pm, 5:34:20 in the saddle
td 78.89 miles
as 14.1
max 32
Odo 209

I rode to Washington Mountain State park in the morning to dip my rear tire in the Pacific and took a nice photo of myself doing the deed. It was one of those moments where I felt "wow" I'm really doing this all by myself, There will be lots and lots of digital self portraits as I'll have to rely on the kindness of the random stranger to help me take photos. It really won't matter anyway unless I can actually download my photos onto a computer. Oh...I only have 30 minutes on this one so I might not get to everything.

One thing I forgot to mention about Whidbey is that it appears to be horse central. Lots and lots and lots of horse farms all over the place. I guess Washington is kind of a horsey state. Wasn't that scene with the horse on the ferry in The Ring set in Washington? The ride on Day 2 was mostly excellent, even though I got rained on again. Traffic wasn't bad and I stayed on Route 20 the entire way (deviating from the Adventure Cycling maps). Route 20 had a great shoulder and stayed flat. I met my first cycling couple Mark and Cindy at a gas station outside of Burlington. They had just completed the Trans-America from the east coast to the west, and were now circling back to the east coast. And y'all think I'm crazy. Mark has his own blog (he's got these professional cards that he hands out) trailjournals.com/stumpknocker. He doesn't appear to have updated it lately, but hey, it's tough out here on the road.

My original plan for Day 2 was to make it to Marblemount and camp, but by the time I had made it to The Eatery in Rockport, I was wet, cold, and my right knee was kinda whimpering. Rockport, nay, all of the North Cascades I learned from the waitress, was originally settled by miners from North Carolina. Fancy that. This explained the Tarheel Burger, and the Carolina BBQ on the menu. Neither of which I actually had.

During my lunch I met Daniel, duly authorized representative of the Rockport Visitor Center. He wondered about my ride, where I was going, where I had been, etc. And wanted to know if I was interested in lodging info (hey Rockport Boosters, Daniel is doing his job). He told me about a $5 a night primitive campground down the road for me to check out. I did. The Rainy River campground is located next to the Cascade River and doesn't have any facilities, save outhouses. I wasn't sure and was just about to head up the road to the facility having Alpine Campground when I met Cody and Tom, my second cycling couple. These two fellas were quite nice. Turns out, they did the Continental Divide Trail last year and are seasoned "Adventurists." I decided that it would be nice to have some company (I know, I know, I've only been on the road a day or so), so I picked a nice site next to the river and started to set up. Cody and Tom set up next to me and when we were all set up we sat down and chatted for a while. Cody is from New Zealand and is a diving instructor. Tom is from Minneapolis and is in finance. Both guys were excellent company.

In bed by 10 again. Listened to shortwave radio for a few minutes.

Day 3: Marblemount to Mazama (rhymes with Alabama)
tbt: 7:30 am until 5:30/6 pm, 7:33:53
td: 77.62
as: 10.2 (felt like 3 mph)
max: 35.8
odo: 286.8

Whew! Wish someone had said that crossing the cascades would be tough. Why didn't someone try to talk me out of this crazy trip. Just kidding. But folks, the northern Cascades nearly did me in. I got up at 5:30 and started breaking down my campsite.

I boiled some water from the river for tea in the morning and boiled a little extra for bathing purposes...a genius idea I think, since the river (according to Daniel and to my feet) was barely above freezing. It's nice to have a sponge bath with warm vs. freezing water, let me tell you. No cel service at the campground.

I left camp before Cody and Tom, but they were up and so I got a photo for the journal. Again, I can't download any at the moment. I rolled down to the local convenience store and bought 1 apple, 1 jar peanut butter, and 1 roll of Ritz Crackers. I did not buy any water. I really really really should have. All I had were two bottles filled nearly to the top with diluted Gatorade.

Before taking off for the ride, I checked my phone and saw that I had service. 1 bar, but still service...and that Clete had called me. I gave him a ring and we chatted briefly. I told him about my tentative plan to change my route at the end the ride at Coney Island. I'm still debating this idea. He wished me luck and off I trucked.

The ride out of Marblemount to Newhalem was absolutely splendid. Sunny with little or no wind and the beautiful and craggy Cascades rising up in front of me like a giant in slo-mo. I cruised up the gentle slope unaware of what was ahead but in awe of the Skagit River Valley and the trees and the mountains and and and and. Since I was taking my time this morning, I half expected Tom and Cody to catch up with me and perhaps pass me. I didn't see them for the rest of the day.

In Newhalem, I passed the one general store for the next 50 miles and did not stop. Not a great idea in retrospect. I had been on the road for about 45 minutes and had gone nearly 15 miles. It took me 2 hours to bike the next 15 miles. I was averaging 18 miles per hour, for the next 5 hours, I averaged about 6 mph on the climbs. And it was mostly a day of climbing. All told, I was in the saddle for 7 hours and 33 minutes.

At Diablo Dam, I stopped on a very scary metal bridge over a pretty intense gorge. A black pick up pulls up next to me. The little old lady driving leans across the chest of the little old man next to here and yells "Yer making good time." They were beaming. This moment marked one of a relatively rare occurrence of people showing support. I got a few thumbs up, and a honk or two as well. Not a whole lot though. The old man wondered where I was headed and they both broke out laughing when I informed them of my final destination. This is the reaction I get most of the time when I tell folk where I'm headed. That plus the disbelieving shake-of-the-head. A huge yellow dump truck was rumbling up the grade behind them so our conversation was cut short. I have to admit, I nearly asked these good folk for a lift to the top. Oh, my aching legs.

During the long stretches of climbing I had 2 things (other than taking frequent breaks) to help keep me focused. One was this memory of my father and the other was playing musical ninja with myself.

I grew up on a farm in North Carolina. We raised cattle, grew hay and tobacco. So naturally, I spent a lot of time on a tractor--not as much as Perk (my pop) or my older brothers, but a significant amount of time nonetheless. One of the trickiest things to do on a tractor is to plow a straight line. "Pick a fencepost at the other end of the field and aim for that. Always keep that fencepost in at least one eye. Drive toward your fencepost and there you go, a straight line." Anyway, I found myself picking landmarks on the road in the distance as my fence posts--I found it helped take my mind of the distance yet to cross. *Now that I'm reflecting on this story, I'm thinking that it might be apocryphal--that the plowing a straight line story belongs to someone else's work of fiction...Faulkner maybe? If anyone has an idea, let me know. It may have happened with my dad or I might just be getting senile and mistaking fiction for reality. Not a bad place to be actually. It is true that we did have a farm and my dad did try to teach me to plow straight. Unfortunately, it didn't take.

Musical Ninja is a game I play with my friends, but (if I'm a good ninja) they don't realize what is happening. The musical ninja picks both song and victim well. The song needs to be annoyingly catchy. "The Day The Music Died" by Jim Croce is a good one. The victim needs to be focused on something other than the ninja or be a particularly suggestible type.

Hum or sing parts of the song near your victim in a repetitive fashion, but not so repetitive as to arouse suspicion. Minutes later (if you have been successful) your victim will start humming or singing the same song. Victory is totally achieve if said victim fails to realize that the song was planted--that the ninja has snuck into the subconscious and planted said song. One of my favorite victims (she knows who she is and if she gets around to reading this) will probably be singing "bye, bye, miss American pie..." by the time she finishes reading this. Now, I know that I'm not a very good ninja after all, because ninjas do not reveal their secrets to anyone. Oh well. The point of this story is to say that I like to ninja myself sometimes since I don't listen to music through earphones while riding. Reggae is great when biking. It provides a great cadence beat. I was humming "Buffalo Soldier" as I crossed Washington Pass.

As to the title of this post. When I stopped for lunch, I started to make peanut butter and Ritz sandwiches. After the third one, I took a nice big swig of the lemon-strawberry gatorade and immediately wished I had not. It's a lethal combination. Don't try it.

I took a brief cooling shower in a waterfall by the side of the road and filled up my water bottles with pure Cascade mountain water. I mean, how much more pure can you get than glacial? At this altitude I wasn't worried about farm waste or animal waste. 24 hours later, I'm still not sick.

During my phone conversation with Clete earlier in the morning, I had expressed concern about the climb. "Well, you know what they say about climbing hills don't you? You can look forward to going down it once you get to the top. The decent off of Washington pass was insane 7 straight miles of a 7% grade. It was kind of scary and by the time I made it to the town of Mazama around 5:30 my hands were aching from the breaking. I could have gone a lot faster than I did during the decent, but the winds were whipping and with the panniers and all I wasn't too sure about how well I could control the bike if a big gust came along. I stayed at the Mazama Mountain View in (a luxury, but my knees were both barking and my butt was aching and I needed a hot soak).

Today I'm in Winthrop, WA, using the computer at the public library to update de online journal. Once I'm finished I'm heading only 15 more miles to the town of Twisp before the next big climb. Camping tonight.

And now I'd like to turn things over to Kromwell, the Caustic Crow for the Road Kill Report. Take it away, Kromwell...

Thanks, "Ninja boy." You know ninjas are over, right? Who am I kidding? I'm talking to a guy in spandex shorts and a bandanna, who's updating his bleurg in a public library. So...the report. In the, like, 3 days we've been travelling, pickings have been awful slim. It's almost as if the"Plow Master" here is too busy waxing nostalgic than he is in finding me some good road kill, but here goes anyway.

Day 1--Clinton to Anacortes, NOTHING.

Day 2--Anacortes to Marblemount, At mile 57 on Route 20, we came across a dessicated robin's carcass. I give it one-and-a-half crow feet. At mile 68, another robing carcass, a little fresher, but it gets only 1 crow foot because of repetition.

Day 3--Marblemount to Mazama, FINALLY! At Mile 148, a green and yellow snake! Super fresh. Something you'd want to take home to mom. I would give it 5 out of 5 crow feet, but it was so fresh it was still moving, thus would require a little more work from me, so 4.5 crow feet for the snake. Mile 152, salamander jerky. .5 crow feet.

At the end of Day 3 as we cruised down to Mazama, we passed a sign warning that "year to date" there have been 141 deer/car collisions. Neither deer or car carcass (haw! car carcass!) littered the shoulders so I'm assuming there are some pretty voracious crows in these here parts.

But what about the slugs I ran over during that stretch of rain on Day 2?

Slugs?! We don'ts likes it, Precious. No We's don'ts.

Uh...O.K. Um thanks Kromell for that insightful report.

Bite me!