August 5 — the beginning

I woke up already packed and ready to go. All I had to do this morning was get to the ferry and figure out how to add those three little ellipses things between paragraphs. Done and done. I can also make lists.

• Like this one. Might as well use this to opportunity to spell out my goals here while I’m listing things
• If you’re reading this, you know I’m spending the next month biking from Seattle to San Diego with BikeTheUSforMS (btus4ms). If you are one of the amazing 36 people who donated to my ride at some point in the last few months, I want to say thank you a million times over. You didn’t crowdfund a vacation. These guys fund research and outreach and they do a damn good job from what I can tell. Thank you again.
• If you’re Canadian you probably know someone who has MS, like I do (shoutout to Patricia, who inspired me to take on this challenge but also told me to go into neuroscience so you know one for one isn’t bad). I have no authority to tell you that these people and their families are the best and you should go do something for then right now but you should and they are. Like the donors did. Thank you donors another time.
• Because it’s a long ride, through a foreign country, I don’t have a great way to stay in touch with all of you (other than text, email, facebook, instagram, and twitter). That means these posts will be my way of keeping the curious updated on my ride. I’ll try to post where I am and what I’m eating and what I’m thinking all day. If you follow my wonderful girlfriend Amanda on facebook you know that I just defended a thesis and wrote an MCAT and had a job interview and I’m starting a new job and I’m moving and my life is in shambles in a good way (This can be strongly contrasted with my life being in shambles in a bad way, which was a few months ago). I’ll try to write about that at the same speed that it all starts to register internally. I’ve never self-reflected in public so I’m really sorry if it’s weird. I’m also just as likely to write about fantasy football or not post at all. We’ll see how it goes.

As I write this, I have just boarded the ferry. After I dock in Seattle I have a long (100 metres) trip to the team’s hotel, where I’ll be oriented. I need to prove that I can change a bike tube, which is good because I already have a flat bike tube on my front wheel. After that it’s bike, eat, camp, repeat until I see more border agents (these ones were great). I’m excited to get going. On to San Diego — https://youtu.be/AREppyQf5uw

The bike.

August 5, part 2

What a great ferry the clipper is. If you buy one coffee you get unlimited free refills. That’s a really great thing to provide to sleepy cyclists who didn’t sleep much due to panic about forgetting to pack things (for the record, so far I know I forgot a lighter and swim shorts. I only know that because at some point today I saw the blue angels (yup, hilarious) and a swimming pool. I’ll probably see someone eating tomorrow and realise I forgot food). Anyway I also threw out my coffee cup immediately without thinking instead of getting refills. I’m a moron. I didn’t get a picture of either the blue angels or the really great view of mount baker or the sick Seattle skyline. Just one of the wake.

Way back that way is Vancouver island

So I got to the hotel while orientation was going on. I managed to make it to the communication info session (how to use twitter #easypeasy) and the trailer info sesh (good info about where to put my things and how to get them out when I need them). But I totally missed the how-to-read-the-maps session. I’m sure that is going to end up being foreshadowing for a later post. But it was a fun and informative afternoon.

Once orientation was done and I changed a tire to prove I could. But it had to be the rear tire. So I had to change both because of that afformentioned flat in my front tire. Also I had to change the rear twice because I popped the intact tube while proving I could change them. Fun stuff.

The last ten hotels I’ve been in have had no bathrobes. Now that Amanda isn’t around to wear one, bathrobes everywhere. The stumps make my stump look like child’s play.

This hotel is really nice. It has bath robes and is crushing the stump game. While it would be nice to change into a robe and take pictures of more furniture, I instead decided to give my bike a nice wash with a fancy hand towel (to get rid of the salt water from the ferry) and hit the road on a fact finding mission. Seattle is the one stop on the trip that actually really matters (other than San Fran when Amanda joins the ride). I have to decide while I’m here where I’m going to live, and find a place before I get back. I can look up neighbourhoods on wikipedia all day, but without ever going there it’s really hard to tell how I’m going to like it. So I set out from the hotel to essentially get lost on purpose, following the bike signs (really nice signage in Seattle) to places I’ve looked at. Long story short, I know way more now than I did when I started. Such as there are an impossible number of hills in this city. I biked up more hills than makes sense for a journey that ended at the same place it started. I must have gone down at some point but I certainly don’t recall it. It could have been around the time I was awed by the beautiful public library. I also really liked a certain neighbourhood, and now I know I can bike from there to where I’ll be working in like 15 minutes and it’s only another 10 into downtown. I can dig it.

The Seattle public library from a bike on a sidewalk parked on a hill trying not to slide backwards

So much for a rest day though. I’ve got a nice little 60 km day and another ferry ride tomorrow. That’s it for now.

August 6 — “map dammid racecar” backwards is “race card I’m mad, Pam.”

This is a map

First day of real biking. I boarded a ferry from the Seattle waterfront to beautiful Bremerton WA. From there I had a nice short ride to Shelton. For the first few days our goal is just to get to the coast at Astoria, then it's easy to just follow the Pacific Coast highway.

The ferry provided a chance to get to know the team a little better. Included below are some sample conversations (--me).

--Oh cool where are you from

-Oklahoma

--Yo fuck KD.

-what do you do?

--just finished grad school but soon I’m gonna start a job doing research

-like with your PhD?

--......do you follow sports?

But it's cool I made friends. Looks like it's going to be a cool group. Assuming I don't sit around off on my own writing these posts about the day instead of getting to know them.

You can see the ghost of the coffee I drank while making small talk about politics and the Olympics (both Canadian-related only).

The route today was about 65 km. I travelled substantially more than that. Or less, I really have no idea. At the first chance I got, I failed to follow the map, and instead of taking the scenic bike route myself and three other cyclists took the heavier trafficked highway 3. Luckily these routes both led to the same place. I am pretty sure not every wrong turn will lead to a perfectly parallel route unless the US was designed with extreme redundancy in mind. I’ll have to do better with the maps.

The ride itself was fun and not too challenging. The highlight was definitely Klay’s Burger Shack, a trailer that serves up delicious burgers to travellers off the beaten path near Oakland Bay. I strongly recommend the Maui burger. This meal was quite a relief, since I was on the wrong route it meant I also missed the supply van with the lunch I had packed.

Probably my new favourite restaurant, Klays burger shack.

We did eventually get on course and make it to our first rest stop - the home of our awesome host Donna. We’ll camp out in the backyard (and make smores). Not much else to report, other than a much needed shower and some map study. It’s really starting to settle in that I have a looong way to go. I’ve barely dented these maps. As Trent would say, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Tomorrow I’m going to try to make some progress on the audio book I brought. Anyway that’s all for today.

Fun fact of the day: the highway markers in Washington state are in the shape of George Washington’s head. They also don’t tell you when you’re on the wrong road.

Smores

August 7 — rain

Today was the second biking day, and a lot longer than the first. It also rained. I rolled out of my tent at around 630 for an 8 am departure. This was plenty of time to grab breakfast and get packed, but it apparently wasn’t enough to catch my teammates, practically everyone had already packed up their tents and started riding already. I guess I’ll be the late riser, which I actually don’t mind. I had the place to myself while making oatmeal and coffee. I hit the road around 7:30 and by about 7:35 had passed the group of bikers I thought had long gone. It seems they went to Denny’s. Good start, I already wasn’t last. I was biking alone today (save for a stretch where I chatted with a nice guy from Reno named Jeff) so I threw in a podcast, which made the miles fly by (yes a podcast. Instead of the elitist academic stylings of my Chuck Klosterman audiobook, I opted for Bill Simmons interviewing Johnny Banana of MTVs the real world fame. Oh well).

Made it to my first rest stop today. Rest stops are the best.

I should be writing about the horses and cows and alpacas I saw and the hills I climbed and the first genuine Trump lawn signs I saw. However, the only thing in my immediate memory is how rainy it was. I was completely soaked, and failed to take many pictures in fear of ruining my phone. Thank goodness for waterproof maps (which I managed to follow without a hitch today).

Thankfully, we’re being hosted tonight at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Centralia Washington, which means we had laundry available. And not just laundry, but also a full cooked meal and couches to crash on and good conversation. Shout out to Scott and his wife for letting us stay. They honeymooned in Victoria, so we talked about the empress and how nice it is up there. I do miss it. It’s also getting to be pretty obvious that being a Canadian is a huge novelty for a lot of people, both hosts and riders. I thought there were more of us around. I joked that Canadian health care helicopters would fly down and pick me up for free if anything went wrong.. and had to explain afterwards that yes I was kidding. When I move to the states, I am going to have so much to learn. Miles are hard enough to convert in my head, and I haven’t even gotten started on Fahrenheit, so if I need to translate my humour it’s going to be rough.

Letting my wet laundry air out and claiming a place to sleep in one swift move

Tomorrow is another short one, but we are expecting rain again. I’m feeling good and ready to tackle it.

August 8 - happy anniversary David and Sharon

I'm exhausted. I'm writing this from my tent after sundown with almost no WiFi while fighting the inevitably of sleep and stretching out my groin. I need to start writing down what I'm doing as I do it because there's no way this is going to be coherent. Seriously, stop reading now if you appreciate narrative flow.

This is a picture of the inside of my bike jersey. Honestly this post is all downhill from here.

It was a relatively short day in terms of kilometres. However, it was a very long day in terms of hills. The first half of the day out of Centralia was practically a roller coaster, with long slow climbs culminating with a 16% decent that was over way too fast. I left the church this morning at around 730, with the goal of polishing off most of today’s 64ish km before the thunderstorms were predicted to roll in (around 11). This didn’t happen, one because one member of my group had to pause and change a flat, two because we took a wrong turn before that flat occurred, and three because it never thunderstormed anyway. I rolled into the first rest stop around the middle of the pack. I love rest stops. I made a coffee using my french press travel mug (which has been a complete life saver. Seriously, I’d rather have that coffee mug and my two ziploc bags of coffee than any other two things in my bags).

So tired from riding it can’t even stay upright. Because it’s two tired.

After the rest stop things got interesting. We took back roads along the I5 heading to castle rock, and not a kilometre went by without something interesting to look at. Riding under bridges, along a river, by farmland and past literally a thousand cows, I thoroughly enjoyed today’s scenery.

There were cows

After making it to camp, setting up my tent and having a shower (around 4 pm by now) I had a snack and had some delicious beer from deschutes brewed in Bend, Oregon. After one beer I started wondering - who’s the best basketball player in Castle Rock WA? There can’t be that many people arpund (population around 1000) and of those who even plays basketball? This is ultimate fighting country as evidenced by all the Trump signs.

Bike fuel

After three beers I knew the answer - his name rhymes with Shmalex Smoggarth and his game rhymes with Schlebron Shames. Luckily I had the opportunity to test this theory, as our campground has a basketball hoop. They don’t call me the little fundamental (rip Tim Duncan) for nothing, I killed it at both 21 and some 2 on 2 with other cyclists. I didn’t win, mind you, because one guy was from Indiana where they don’t even have to teach you to shoot you are just born with Larry bird’s game and also apparently biking the Transamerica route gives you ultimate chemistry powers and a sick giveandgo game. Anyway. It was great. I showered again why not, ate some pizza, and that’s pretty much it. I did manage to sneak away and deal with some work emails, so I feel it was a productive day all around. I also now have to schedule time to draft 2 fantasy teams while I’m away. I don’t know who to draft at pick number 11. If I make it through Washington alive I’ll probably take Russell Wilson.

I should probably reflect on the fact that one year ago today I was the best man in my brother Dave’s wedding. I remember writing and giving that speech so vividly. I thought my job was hard…but I didn’t have to spend the last year being married. On a crazy note, I think this might have been the first full year they’ve spent together both a) in the same city and b) not planning a wedding. You don’t get a big speech or a party or a choreographed dance on the one year mark (apparently you do get a puppy, and more notably a mention in the dedication section of your brother’s master’s thesis). But it’s just as big of an accomplishment and it should be noted. Congrats to Dave and Sharon, who visited me recently and are somehow mature adults with their lives in order. They are getting puppies and owning houses and what am I even doing...

Oh yeah this

Things I love:

• Long country roads
• Moo cows (the kind that moo across a long country road at the bull over there looking all sexy)
• Rest stops
• Grad school (sike caught you skimming)
• 7 foot basketball rims
• Selfies from Amanda
• My bike. It hasn't even whined once yet. Keep it up.
• Coffee made from free gas station hot water
• The Spanish men’s Olympic basketball team. Specifically Rudy Fernandez
• You if you read this whole thing

August 9 — finally getting the hang of biking in Washingto - it’s over

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

I am starting to get the hang of this. And by this I mean having amazing wonderful sensational and challenging days like this one. I was awoken by a train passing directly beneath my tent while sounding it’s whistle of bottled Zeus-thunder. At least I got up on time today.

The morning ride was wet again, but wasn’t terrible. I would say refreshing. The route from Castle rock to Longview was hilly and tree lined on both sides, but there are starting to be little hints that we’re getting close to the coast. Like a sign for Long Beach (not that Long Beach). I ate some regional cuisine for lunch (jalapeño and cheddar corn dog from a gas station).

I really hope lunch is not one of the three most important meals of the day

Long beach that way. Maybe it’s not raining there

After making the next turn, all of a sudden I was on Coastal Beach Road. Now we’re talking. Also it meant around 40 km without having to worry about turning, even better. This route was heavy with truck traffic, but had a decent enough shoulder. It also meant that finally I was on a coast. Not the coast, but the coast of the Columbian river, which separates Washington and Oregon. This road had really nice views and was part of the Lewis and Clark trail. There were also some more monster climbs.

Hill bottom

Hill top

On the advice of a route leader, I sprinted out of the next rest stop in order to catch the ferry on Puget Island to Oregon. I was told it was a couple miles away and that I had thirteen minutes to get there. No problem, except it was 5 miles and 10 minutes to go. I arrived just under ten minutes too late for the hourly ferry. At least there were some picnic tables so I could grab a stretch and a nap, and some really nice river views.

And wait I did.

Washington on this side, Oregon on the other

The ferry ride meant that I was done with the first state. No more Washington, only Oregon and California to go.

Oregon goes all out with its welcome signs

Oregon is quickly becoming my least favourite state. Right off the ferry there was an insane hill on the shoulder or a busy highway, with construction areas to make it even worse.

Lot of climbing in Oregon

Eventually I rolled into Astoria Oregon and the Lutheran Church that’s putting us up for the next two nights. Lutherans are the best. I still had a while evening to kill so I ventured out to the river walk to see the sights. I chatted with a lady I ran into who had MS and was pretty blown away that we were all biking and raising money for the cause.

Got out of my bike jersey and into my formal wear to hit the town

The Astoria riverwalk is great. There’s an old school trolley and lots of fisheries and canneries to compliment the many many local breweries. I went out in search if either a coffee or a beer (whichever I found first). The coffee shop was closed, but I found a nice coffee IPA at Oregon’s own Rogue brewery, so that’s two birds.

I take pictures of beer now I guess

I was still feeling adventurous, so I wandered to the other end of the river walk to find another local brewery, Buoy Beer company. They have an excellent Dunkel.

Don’t be like this guy

Didn’t bring my bike out because it can’t handlebars.

After my night out, I slept on a church pew and attoned for my sins. My legs are killing me and I think I tweaked my knee. Thank goodness tomorrow is a rest day.