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Fri, Jul 2 @ 2:00 PM - Still Rollin'
New Meadows, ID | 46 miles since last update | 610 total so far
Well, we finally got some pictures up - see below. We ended up staying an extra day in Baker City due to a HUGE hail storm - it was cool though, since we got to spend more time with Bryan the lifetime adventurer. From Baker, we headed down to the Idaho border, which we crossed yesterday. We got pretty drunk at the bar in Council, Idaho while listening to bad versions of good Neil Diamond and Willy Nelson songs. In his inebriated state, Greg managed to lose his camelback, ruin a can of beans, and leave a pile of pop tart crumbs in the tent. We're currently breezing through Idaho, and hope to be somewhere around Lucile tonight, before we go over the next big hill. Miss you all - send us some cookies!
Tue, Jul 6 @ 00:51 AM - Montana!
missoula | 210 miles since last update | 878 total so far
1st 100 mile day. in bar/diner/casino. waitress is cute.
Tue, Jul 6 @ 4:15 PM - Movin' right along
Missoula, MT | 0 miles since last update | 878 total so far
The past few days have been interesting. We've spent a great deal of time with Bob, a 72 year-old judge from Salem, OR. We're a bit faster than he is, but since he gets up at the crack of dawn every day we've wound up riding and chatting with him through several climate- and terrain-changes. He's a history and geography buff, and very into trivia. For instance, do you know the five largest islands in the world? Deepest navigable (in the ocean-liner sense) lakes? Which states in the U.S. are the furthest North, South, East and West? Bob does. On July 3rd we were in Kooskia, ID, where we spent some time in a bar listening to Willie Nelson and talking to the natives about the next day's celebrations. We later headed to the city park to camp by the river, and were greeted with a wafting cloud from all the premature celebrators and their pyrotechnics. We enjoyed the show for a bit before we bedded down. None of them, however, remembered to tell us about the park's sprinkler the fly to the tent. Sleeping in a cold puddles is no fun. "The people of Kooskia can all rot in hell, we'll burn down their church and then we'll piss in their well, we'll smother all their children in the dead of the night, and then we'll salt their fields by the pale moonlight. Kooskia's still smoldering; it's now a crater in the ground, and when they figure out what's happened, we won't be around." The song, of course, is meant solely as catharsis; truly, we mean the fine people of Kooskia no harm. As we said in the last post, we did our first century yesterday, and are just putzing around Missoula today. Our legs are sore. We spent about an hour and a half in the Adventure Cycling headquarters earlier today; what an amazing place! They took our pictures for their log, gave us free ice cream and homemade lemon bars, and let us go through hundreds of old photos from the other people who've been thru. We may stay here tonite, though that's still up in the air. Stay tuned.
Sat, Jul 10 @ 11:40 AM - Of Mountains, Mosquitos, and Moos
Dillon,MT | 237 miles since last update | 1115 total so far
Hey All - We're in the lovely town of Dillon, Montana as we continue our eastward crawl. Let's see - what's happened since the last post... We continued to putz around Missoula, and just as we were riding out of town, we saw that the local theatre was playing Fahrenheit 911. We took the bait, and Missoula kept us for another night. We stayed at the house of a woman we met outside the theatre, but unfortunately, she and her husband went to bed as soon as we got there, so we didn't get to chat it up with them too much. One of them was definitely some sort of biologist or ecologist - it looked like they had a lab set up in their basement. On the way out (after having a delicious breakfast of milkshakes), Mike left his glasses by the roadway, causing us a 22 mile detour to go back and retrieve them (which we miraculously did!). I warded off annoyance by listening to bad techno music. We spent the night in a small (but big by this trip's standards) town called Hamilton, where we treated the patrons of the Rainbow Bar to a rousing rendition of Neil Diamond's "Forever in Blue Jeans" via the Kareoke machine. Most seemed nonplussed by the performance. The next day, we had a pretty big climb - about 4500 feet - to make it over Chief Joseph pass, elevation 7,240 feet and the Continental Divide. That's right folks - from now on our blood, sweat, and tears trickle into the Atlantic (creating a rather gooey mess along the eastern seaboard)! We spent that night just below the pass - it was pretty darn cold - frost on everything in the morning. It took me at least half an hour to thaw Mike out. Yesterday we descended into an area know as the Big Hole - a large, high prarie (around 6200 feet) completely surrounded by mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. We visited a national battlefield commerating a massacre raid of the Nez Perce at the hands of the US Army, and met a large group of other touring cyclists. In fact, we ran into at least 4 groups of tourists yesterday, including a group of kids doing the same route we are, who are about 1/2 a day behind us. Vistors to the Big Hole beware, though! Amongst its stunning beauty, the valley hides a horrific secret - it is the Mosquito Capital of the World. I know, you're saying "they can't be as bad as the bugs in xxxxx". Well, you're wrong. I've been camping a lot of places around this U. S. of A., but nowhere have i seen bloodsuckers this bad. If we slowed our cycling down to less than 15 miles an hour, we would be inundated by a swarm or ravenous insects, performing tactical maneuvers comporable only to 1950's films about the Battle of Midway. Going faster than 15 mph, and we could hold the black cloud at bay a few feet behind us, but would still be vulnerable to bugs that we hit head-on, which would occasionally find foothold enough to perform their vampiresque task. With the onset of a storm approaching (which we only narrowly averted by seeking refuge in a hotel offering a hot mineral spring), I made the tragic mistake of stopping to put the tent into a plastic bag. I was quickly overrun by flying pihranas, and within minutes, the seething cloud around my lower portions rendered my legs into useless, whithered sacs. Had it not been for Mike's bravery in circling around and throwing me a tow-line, I would have surely fallen to the greedy little buggers. Well, anyway, we limped along to Bannack State Park last night. We got up early this morning to ride down into dillon, but not without first running into a herd of about 40 cattle. We were doing about 30 mph down off this pass, when suddenly the entire width of roadway was obstructed by a literal wall of braying bovines. We could do nothing but hug the side of the ditch, as cowboys herded the unhappy heifers past us. Once that crisis was averted, we easily sailed into Dillon, where Mike is currently doing our laundry. The End.
1,000 miles, Baby! |
The Great Continental Divide |
Riding through the Big Hole (pre-mosquito attack) |
Thu, Jul 15 @ 6:00 PM - Ongoing friendships
Dubois, WY | 376 miles since last update | 1491 total so far
Well, a lot has happened since last we communicated with our eager public. I should start by saying, however, that our perspective concerning this whole endeavor has changed drastically since the trip's beginning. To illustrate, three nights ago we stayed at a hiker/biker campsite in Yellowstone and shared a campfire with five other cyclists. Three of them were from Richmond, VA, and have been our on-again/off-again traveling companions for the past several days. They're keeping a pace like ours, averaging around 65 miles a day or so. David, from Pennsylvania (or NY?) is following the trip to somewhere in Ohio, ending in upstate New York, and is doing almost 80 miles a day. Dominique, from Switzerland, is taking a year off for her trip, which includes parts of Canada, but eventually makes its way down through Mexico and ends in Brazil. She is doing between 30 and 40 miles a day. to be taken. While we were at first awed by people who were tearing out 100 mile days, we have now come only to pity them. Lycra-clad superheroes racing from Oregon to Virginia in 30 days get a hold of yourselves! See the country! Talk to people! But I digress. To any of you who feared that Greg and I might have foresaken our slacker's pace through life and subscribed to that bigger-better-faster-do-more attitude we've so often decried, fear not slumpsketeers! This may as well be cross-country slumping! (It's true, somehow we've managed to make a name for ourselves among our new and ephemeral friends as the dudes who are always napping by the roadside or ramming ice cream sandwiches down their gullets.) We stop at nearly every restaurant and roadside stand to commiserate with the locals over root beer and baby carrots. As for the nitty gritty, we're currently in Dubois, WY, and rode most of today with a group of 16 and 17 year-olds who are doing the entire TransAm (with a support van) for charity. They're raising money for a couple summer camps in Ohio, and their leaders (who are slightly older than us) seem like pretty nutty folks. I guess you'd have to be. After we left Dillon the other night we spent the night in Sheridan and ate a lousy meal at a steak house. Downstairs from the restaurant we had a drink at the most hoppin' bar we've been to all trip-- we'd forgotten it was Saturday nite. We crashed in the city park between the library and the port-a-john and listened to the pickups squealing down mainstreet until about 3am. The next day we hooked up with the kids from VA-- Glen, Shannon and Kevin-- and rode a grueling 84 miles into a fierce headwind. We ate an overpriced meal at another steak house and rode into the hills at dusk. [I'm getting kicked out of this internet cafe! More to come soon! Love and Kisses, Mike and Greg]
Mon, Jul 19 @ 12:05 AM - Hot Hot Heat!
Rawlins, WY | 221 miles since last update | 1712 total so far
Well, folks, we're nearly through Wyoming. Let's see, there's lots to catch y'all up on. From where Mike left off in the last post, we rode into Yellowstone National Park the next day. We've been through yellowstone together before on a road trip, but, again, traveling by bike makes everything different. We stayed at a special camp area just for hikers and bikers, and had a great late-night campfire swapping stories with 5 other tourists and munching on trail mix. The next day, we rode down through yellowstone, checking out some of the geothermal wonders along the way. We saw some buffalo, elk, and a grizzly cub. We also made sure to get photographs of the terrifying warning signs they employ at the park (kid falling into boiling, acidic water). We headed south, out of Yellowstone and into Grand Teton park. Along the way we were treated to some spectacular scenery, as a storm moved in over the Tetons as the sun set behind them, and then cast the most brilliant rainbow we'd ever seen. We had planned to camp at Jenny Lake in Teton park that night, but we were too tired and hungry to make it that far. We stumbled into a resort lodge for some grub, and started asking around about where we could set up our tent, as the local campground was full. The beach on Jackson lake was suggested. We headed down there, only to find a bunch of kids having a big bonfire party. They all work at the resort lodge for the summer - the pay isn't great, but there's plenty of timing for hiking and climbing - not a bad gig. Anyway, we joined in the merriment, and soon one of them offered to put us up in her dorm room. So we went from squatting on the beach to having beds, showers, and clean laundry, all whilst hanging out with hippies. We fell asleep to the sounds of Phish, and awoke to the Greatful Dead. The next day, we took a tour through Grand Teton park on a quest to get mike a new tire (unfortunately the bike shop we rode to didn't have touring tires). The ride was worth the detour though - the Tetons are probably one of the most spectacular places in the country - everywhere you turn around is another postcard picture. We camped just a bit outside the park, where we encountered our first bit of real rain, as well as the teenagers doing the cancer-camp fundraiser ride. We awoke to a drizzle as we began ascending a 9200 foot pass. Along the way, we ran into several tourists going the other way - in fact, ever since we hit yellowstone we've been running into lots of folks as crazy as we are - some even crazier. We ended that day in the town of Dubois, where we were treated to a mail drop from my mom and dad - cookies, a ton of balance bars, and roll of toilet paper which we donated to the teens, who needed it more than we. We set up camp next to the boys from Virginia, who rented a teepee at the local campground. (one of their wives had met them in their vanogen, along with his son/carnosaur, so they were traveling sans gear). From there, we rode down through countryside that more resembled arizona than wyoming - big, red rocks. We spent most of the day riding alongside the virginia boys, spending the night in the town of Lander, where we camped in a part of the city park designated for free camping. We had a nice dinner with the guys and another tourist we met heading west towards his home in California. The next day was pretty crazy. It began with us grabbing a bagel for breakfast, where we met a guy who lived in town who was training to do his own tour. It was good we met him, as he provided good conversation as we both repaired flats that mysteriously appeared while we were in the cafe (mine was my first flat for the who trip - and it was a leak from a patch i had put on the tube before we left - 1600 miles ago! I believe it was caused by my bragging that I had not yet gotten a flat.) The guy, Andy, was really cool - he currently makes a living chopping firewood, but has done everything from driving a cab to working on Jerry Brown's presidential campaign. Oh, and he's the guy who invented those plastic-bristle drumsticks that drummers use to practice or play along with acoustics. He also gave us a great recipe for eggnog. From there, we set off into the hot, grueling, desolate wyoming landscape. Lots of climbing, 100+ degree heat, and headwinds. For those of you who aren't cyclists, having a headwind is basically like riding uphill - and it's way more frustrating, because on a hill you expect to go slow. It sucks when you can't break 10 mph going downhill. Luckily, along the way, we ran came across a tourist like no other, a huge man with a flowing ponytail, who looked like he might whip out a broadsword at any moment and slay any beast or RV that came across his path. Though he was a mere grocery clerk from Loveland, CA. we dubbed him the Paladin, and he gave us relief on the baking plataeu. That day we had a pretty tough climb, and due to the delays from four flat tires, and mike missing a turn (i had to flag down a guy on a motorcycle to go up and tell him to turn around), iot was quite late when we rolled into the town of Jeffrey City, a modern-day ghost town. When the mines closed in 1979, it went from a population of over 5000 to a little over 100 in a few months. We strolled into the local bar for some relief from the heat, unaware of the situation we were getting ourselves into. At the bar were two characters - a tall, burly guy named tony, and a short, skinny cowboy named mike. Tony started talking with us, and bought us a round of beers. Tony really wanted to play a game of pool with us, and we had no choice to oblige. I've only played a few game sof pool in my life, but Tony would not accept my concessuatory attitude. "C'mon man! we're here to have a good time!" It did not take long before a I remembered my trash-talking skills I had abandoned in high-school. Tony and the cowboy were quite of few drinks ahead of us, and Mike had picked up pool-sharking skills in Cambodia, and it wasn't long before two city-slickers had schooled some good ol' boys twice at pool. Tony then insisted that darts were his game, and so we switched to the other end of the bar. This is a good story, but my library time is up - stay tuned for more...
Tue, Jul 27 @ 10:24 AM - Photos-O-Rama!
| miles since last update | total so far
Here's some pics from the last couple weeks.
A cowboy and an oil man in Jeffrey City, Wyoming "force" Mike to drink tequila. |
It just keeps gettin' easier. |
Q. Whose crotch is whose? A. !s'gerG htob er'yehT |
Just south of Breckenridge, Colorado we climbed our highest pass. At 11,542 foot, the Continental Divide couldn't be more apparent. From here our pee trickles toward the Atlantic. |
No explanation required. |
Neither of us has any recollection of this occurring. |
Some of our travel companions (Shannon, Glen and Kevin from Richmond, VA) in West Yellowstone. |
Tue, Jul 27 @ 11:31 AM - Kansas! Land of 3/2 Beer!
Tribune, KS | 572 miles since last update | 2284 total so far
Woah - a whole state and no update! Let me assure you, readers, it was not because nothing of import occured in Colorado. Ah, where to begin - well, let's finish the tale was spinning in the last post. The oilman and his skinny cowboy friend, after being doubly defeated at pool, thought they had us cornered when they challenged us to darts, it being 'their game.' Mike and I are not ones to back down from a barroom winning streak, and besides, big Tony was no man to say "no" to. Now, I've only played maybe one game of darts, but when I stepped up to that line, I turned into a natural - I may have been Mike's handicap in pool, but i was carrying us all the way when it came to hittin' the rings. Keep in mind, the whole time Tony is buying us rounds of beer and shots of tequila - I managed to keep him at bay by insisting i would only drink when he scored a point (at that point in the night, my trash talk was flowing like Shakespeare). Unfortunately, Mike was not as quick on his feet, as the photos below will show. Anyway, the evening ended with us beating them twice in darts, and then pursuading Tony that wrestling the bartender's 20 year old husband was not a good idea ("i don't wanna fight him, you know, just wrestle him a bit! He's a big guy!") (From Mike) We ate breakfast the next morning with the teenaged cancer crew, and began the ride from Jeffrey City south. It turned out to be the longest, most desolate we'd seen to date. It was also one of the first times I actually began to doubt my ability to finish the trip (at least with the same mental health I'd enterred it with). We spent that exhausted night in a motel in Rawlins, WY. Shameful? Maybe. But every now and then we've got to baby ourselves. By the way, I saw the first couple seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under, and then saw one episode the other night... what the hell happened to that show!? A couple days later we rolled into Colorado with a 109-mile momentum egging us along-- our longest day. At the top of Muddy Pass we met a couple dudes from Ohio who were on their way to L.A. by way of middle latitudes, Las Vegas, Utah and the Nevada desert. They'd been climbing some pretty gnarly mountains and one had only a double front chain ring! In Kremmling we talked to a Roger and Madison Siegrist, a father and son duo who were riding the TransAm west, in honor of Roger's dad. Their I had a peanut butter milkshake, and it was very tasty. From there we rode up to Frisco, CO, along the most beautiful bike trails I've ever seen. Frisco is at an elevation of a little more than 9,000 feet, and is where all the normal folks (who can't afford to live in the surrounding ski resort towns) live. Evidently some crackpot city council member in the late 1970s argued that the town should include plans for bike paths while they were installing normal roads. Everyone thought he was crazy, but now there are over 200 miles of lovely, wooded paths up in there. In fact, the paths themselves are as much a tourist attraction for cyclists as are the ski runs in Breckenridge and the surrounding resort towns. Anyway, enroute to the Rainbow Lake camp grounds (another supposedly beautiful stopping point) along said bike paths, we ran into none other than Roch Horton, ultra runner extraordinaire. Roch let us shower and sleep at his quiet mountain home, and shared a delicious Mexican meal with us. Ultra running is basically like running a marathon, except the marathon is 100 miles long, and in Roch's case, has an average elevation of 10,000 feet (with 5 14,000 foot passes), and is over trails and the backcountry. Roch ran his last race in a little over 33 hours. Roch is hardcore. And how do you train for ultra running? Well, Roch just runs to and from work everyday-- 26 miles roundtrip. That's an entire marathon a day. Plus he hikes, mountain bikes, kayaks, skis, and snowshoes a bunch too. From Frisco we went up to the Hoosier pass - over 11,000 feet. Not the toughest climb we've done, but you can definitly feel the thin air up there. Over the pass, we coasted down through the city of Fairplay (the town south park is supposedly based on) to a town called Hartsel. Some stuff happened there - we'll tell ya once we get it figured out. We passed the 2000 mile marker the next day, as we rolled out of the mountains and onto the plains of eastern colorado. Unfortunately, what should have been our best day (we dropped almost 4000 feet) was soured by a nasty headwind. That headwind has stayed with us since. We tangled with sprinklers again in Florence, though we had the foresight to have the rainfly on the tent. The people of FLorence are spared the hatred given to Kooskia because we met a woman in the bar who opened up her taco shop in the middle of the night to make us burritos. In Pueblo, we tried Andy's eggnog recipe, to mixed results. We also got Mike a new tire (he has no love for Specialized Armadillo tires), and were put up for the night by a cool guy and his dog, Kirk and Herb. From Pueblo, it's pretty much been flat flat flat, though the headwind makes travel above 11 mph difficult. Riding across the plains reminds me of this video game we had on our Commodore 64, where you flew this ship towards this flat horizon, blasting away and going over "ion fields" for powerups. Anyway, the objective was to blow up this tall black tower that you were flying towards, and so the tower would slowly get bigger and bigger as you got close to it. Riding across Kansas, you can see the next town's grain elevator from about 8 miles away, and it slowly gets bigger and bigger as you approach it. So, every time we come to a town, it's like a level up! Of course, Mike keeps using his raccoon tail and magic flute to skip towns. Well, we're going to have to push hard, but we should still be able to meet Erica at her drop point in Wichita on Friday. We'll try to be more on the ball about updates. Over and out!
Thu, Jul 29 @ 4:48 PM - oh,the humidity!
stafford,KS | miles since last update | 2496 total so far
In mad rush to meet erica tomorrow. holed up in fire station last might due to storm. hoping to r
Tue, Aug 3 @ 1:53 PM - Buckskins & Buckknives
| miles since last update | total so far
Allright, allright - I suppose some explanation is in order as to what exactly occured in Hartsel, CO (you know, where the photo of Mike brandishing a foot-long blade was taken). Well, we were coming down out of Fairplay, fighting a pretty steady headwind, when we came upon the town of hartsel. In the grocery shop, we noticed these delicious pastries that the shopkeep said were made by the folks from the 'rendezvous'. We took mild note of this as we rode on. Now, somehow the headwind must have changed into a pretty drastic tailwind, because the only explanation i can gather is that we somehow jumped to 88 miles an hour, causing that flex capacitor i've been hauling around to kick in (who knew that all the red bull mike has been downing allowed him to store 1.1 gigawatts of potential energy). Anyway, the next thing we knew, we were trapped in the 1840s with a bunch of trappers. We came upon a large encampment of large canvas tents, tee-pees, and port-a-potties. We ventured in cautiously, hoping not to alarm anyone with our strange bike clothing. They proved to be quite friendly, and were happy to speak with travelers from a distant land. After enjoying a bowl of home-made ice cream, we prepared to make an attempted leap back to the future, however, an oncoming storm kept us at bay. We were invited to wait it out inside the "taj mahal", the largest of the canvas tents, where everyone was chowing down on beans, rice, and green chili. Soon, we had been fed and taken to the 'olfactory assinline saloon', where jugs of who-knows-what were being passed around. There we met characters with names such as "no powder," "the preacher," "monghandi," "shadow woman," and "war eagle." We also met a kid our age from New Zealand who purported to be the next in line for chief of the Miami tribe. The next thing we knew, the head of the camp (the "booshway" as they called it) came over and said we were invited to stay the night in camp and hang out, but not dressed in our ridiculous clothing - it was either change clothes, or get out. We opted to stay and continue to sample the saloon's wares - No Powder rummaged around his tent, and found some spare clothing that was suitable for our needs, and then it was back to the saloon for a night full of singing, storytelling, and sips from the Preacher's homemade 'snake venom' as he called it. Oh, there was also a man named 'the hobbit' (although he had no idea where bagshot row was) who showed up - I believe he didn't quite make the leap to 1840 correctly, because he didn't really seem to be comepletely on the same plane as we were - a few beads short of a buckshot if you know what i mean. We bedded down late that evening, awoke to the sound of cannon fire, and made our way back to the taj mahal for breakfast. There a man by the name of hoss imformed us that he felt so bad for our ponies, them being as skinny as they were, that he shot them to put them out of their misery. Luckily, our bikes appeared okay upon inspection. Finally, we said our adieus, and rode our bikes back through the time portal into the present day, but not before No Powder presented us with satchels bearing the markings of the Bayou Salado rendezvous. So ended our adventure among 1840s fur trappers.
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