Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

Such an iconic image marks the end of the trip. Yesterday afternoon Jaclyn and I rolled across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco.

Since the last post, we've had amazing weather and met some wonderful people. We'll fill you in on the details with later posts, but wanted to let everyone know we made it!

San Juans to Portland

Guest Blogger: Jaclyn

After leaving the San Juan Islands, we biked down the easy coastal route to the Keystone-Port Townsend Ferry. We decided to take the inland peninsula route, because it was drier, though we did miss touring the towns of Twilight :(

We had some great sunshine and biking.

Then the rain started and we haven't had a full day of sun since.


We sprinted across the 4 mi Astoria Bridge, which spans the Columbia River and connects Washington and Oregon. The shoulder was recently widened so it wasn't as terrifying as we thought. The long, steep incline at the end was much, much worse.

Finally, we were in Oregon and onto Portland.

But first, a stop in Scappoose for their annual sauerkraut festival and the fantastic sauerkraut sandwich.

Riding on Down the Coast, Well Eventually

My sister flew in to Seattle on Labor Day and we spent a couple of days exploring the city while waiting for her bike to arrive. Highlights include: Science Fiction Museum/Experience Music Project, Olympia Sculpture Park, Pike Place Market, and Salumi. Thanks to Peter and Eddie for being great hosts!
Steffany at the Olympic Sculpture Park
Our hosts

Eddie joined us for the next part, the San Juan Islands. We went to San Juan Island. We stopped in the Whale Museum and biked to Lime Kiln State Park, in hopes of seeing some orcas. No luck but there were some beautiful views! We saw some porpoise and dolphins. We camped at San Juan County Park with a great view of the Strait.

Eddie returned to Seattle and Jaclyn and I went on to Lopez Island for a relaxing day. Wandering around Lopez Village and bicycling the rolling hills of the island.
Jac and the seals on Lopez Island

Now we're in Port Townsend ready to set off down the Olympic Peninsula, along Hood Canal, out to the coast and then from Astoria in to Portland. We're hoping for some sunny weather to dry us out from the rain on the San Juans, but we've got some intense fog.

Pictures and more updates are to come.

Onward! Towards the coast.

So I'm sitting in Missoula, taking a couple of days off. The whirlwind tour of the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier was awesome yet short. Here in Missoula it's like late Autumn, highs in the 60s and cloudy. I'm not prepared for this weather and I'm missing the summer weather of the east coast.

I don't have enough time to bicycle all the way to Seattle. My sister is flying in on September 6th to join me in bicycling around the San Juan Islands for a couple of days and then down the coast to San Francisco. What I'm going to do is catch a ride to Wallace, ID, ride the Coeur d'Alene rail trail (max 2% grade), head to Spokane and then up towards Kettle Falls and further if possible. Peter and possibly Eddie are going to drive out from Seattle and pick me up for a short road trip.

I should be able to work on my blog as I ride down the coast because my sister is bringing her computer. No promises though, but you should know that by now.

Happy September!

Another apology, another section

I'm finding it hard to sit in front of a computer and get everything I have on my to-do list done. Planning for the next part of my trip takes precedence over my blog, so I am getting further and further behind on my blog. I'm sorry for not keeping my promises to update it. I do want to share the trip with you and I will eventually get to all the posts.

Of course, I'm writing this because I'm off on the next portion of my trip from Arvada, visiting my brother and his fiancee, up to Glacier National Park. This portion is making me really nervous because I'm entering into bear country, hopefully avoiding the goathead thorns and climbing high passes. Tomorrow I head west from Arvada along the I-70 corridor over Loveland Pass to Silverthorne. Loveland Pass will be my highest pass at 11,990 feet. Luckily I have seen the route from going to a BBQ festival in Dillon with my brother. It's long but not as steep as some of those Appalachian hills.

I hope everyone's summer is going well.

Off on a Glacial Experience

I continued on the journey of Rail Trails and picked up one on the outskirts of the Milwaukee metro area. Did you know that Allis Chalmers were made in Wisconsin? I passed through a town called West Allis.

New Berlin Trail, then through Kenosha, and on to the Glacial Drumlin Trail. I met up with Scott at the start of the Glacial Drumlin. I had met him at the Downer Ave bicycle races, where he was selling his book, Falling Uphill: 25,742 Miles, 1,461 Days, 50 Countries, 6 Continents & 4 Moments of Enlightenment on a Bicycle, about his bicycle journey around the world. We bicycled to Dousman and the Coffee Vault Cafe, a former bank converted to a cafe (The vault is a supply closet.).

Scott headed back to Kenosha, as I headed on towards Madison and had a flat and mostly lonely ride. The hills (drumlins) were all to the north, left there from the glaciers. Corn and soybeans. Have I told you how boring it is to pass those fields for miles at a time? Luckily the trail was lined with trees, except for the hordes of mosquitoes that surrounded me when I stopped.

I made it to Madison and was greeted by a note left by Shaili and Keith, friends of Rachel and Eric from college. I hadn't read much since beginning the trip, and I relaxed and read the free weekly on the front porch. Keith came home from ultimate frisbee with the kids asleep, and Shaili arrived a bit later from a work meeting. Very friendly and generous people. I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone as quiet and reserved as Eric but Keith gives Eric a run for the title.

So I failed at my goal...

I am off from Minneapolis tomorrow (Monday) morning, and I have not updated my blog. I think this will be a perpetual problem, but I'm okay with that.

I'm headed across western Minnesota to South Dakota where I'll see the Badlands and the Black Hills and south to Denver. I'm hoping that the thunderstorms will be mild and there will be no tornadoes.

Milwaukee where those who aren't from the city pronounce it with an L

Sorry this post doesn't contain many pictures and the next one contains zero currently. Hopefully I'll get around to it before my trip ends.












My stay in Milwaukee was with Nathaniel and Sean in the Riverwest neighborhood. Great couchsurfing hosts, as well as amazing artists! The other person is the picture is Stephanie (Stefanie, Stephany, spelling???).

The Riverwest neighborhood is great with a food coop, a local bike shop, a local handmade clothing store, good restaurants, etc. I wandered part of the neighborhood with Nathaniel. They were having Power Down Week, where they thought about and lessened their consumption and held various workshops and events. I only made it to the end of the week party where I saw and helped cook in the earthen oven they built and met a bunch of great people.

They have this great race, Riverwest24, a 24-hour bicycle race, with solo riders, tandems and teams. I felt like there was a sense of community there.

Aside from that I met up with Paula (one of the warmshowers hosts from Racine) at the Historic Downer Ave bicycle race and learned about road racing. I really wished that I could have gotten a massage like those bicycle racers.

I volunteered at Growing Power, one of the most well-known urban agriculture projects in the US. It is composed of primarily greenhouses (They are so hot!) with aquaponics, a combination of hydroponics and aquaculture (raising fish). They raise mostly watercress and a bit of tomatoes in the hydroponics. Tilapia is the standard for aquaculture and they have a partnership with the Great Lakes Water Institute to raise lake perch, preserving the population and offering a product without the contaminants. Aside from aquaponics, they grow sunflower sprouts and wheatgrass to raise money for their education programs, and have lots of worm composting. They also have some chickens and turkeys in hoophouses and some goats in a pen. A number of beehives are at the corner of the property. This is all on 2 acres. 31 staff and at the time I visited 10 interns.

The journey from Chicago to Milwaukee, a stop in between of Racine

Bike trails are my friends. I really enjoy them for the lack of vehicular traffic, the good surfaces they have and the other cyclists I get to see when I see anyone. I get a bit frustrated with the lack of signs leading a rider between trails, even when the two ends are in the same town. They do lack the great welcome signs that the roads have. Here are the signs that signifies the Illinois/Wisconsin state lines. No warm welcome.









It was a pretty much uneventful time going from Chicago to Racine. I rode through a sculpture park in the 'burbs north of Chicago. Interesting sculptures but nothing that made me stop my bike to take a picture.




















Racine was the first time I used the warmshowers website to find a host and it was amazing. John and Paula are a great couple that fed me a delicious dinner and breakfast. Paula helped me with my route to Milwaukee. They told me about the other bicyclists they hosted (Bikeloc, 2 guys bicycling across the country setting up potlucks at different communities and asking people about local foods, eventually creating a documentary,and Bike and Brew, a tour of microbreweries).












It was a good day to ride to Milwaukee. I had a snack near an overpass, the only shade I could find and noticed a nest on the top corner of the tunnel.















Of course, I didn't follow the directions and ended up on a nice ride of the lake shore before heading in the right direction.

Chicago, eating well and getting rained on

I ended up meeting James awhile after I said I would be there. He is a very gracious person and directed me to a good restaurant to get large amounts of yummy, filling food. I crashed quickly after eating, not even noticing when they came back from the bar. It was a crazy, long day of riding (90 miles) and hiking (at least 5 1/2).

The next day I met up with my sister Jaclyn for brunch. She had chosen Orange, the home of the Frushi, and she had to order it just to try it.








Coconut rice and fruit. Okay but pretty ridiculous.




Jaclyn was worried about my weight. I looked a little skinnier to her, so she made sure I got enough to eat. She even took me out to eat for dinner at Publican, a local food restaurant specializing in pork. Delicious!

I went to the Art Institute, where I ran into Heather Self and got an update about some people back in Virginia. It was pretty crazy running into someone I knew. It made my hazy day seem even more surrealistic.
















Of course, we walked around a bit of Millenium Park. I had a lesson about taking a picture without having the camera in the picture.














Can you spot us? In the bean, not at the Bollywood-style music video shooting down by the riverfront.













In general, Chicago was about wandering, but not too far because the city is just so sprawling.














I went to the midweek Green City Market in Lincoln Park, where it rained and some vendors didn't show, but I got to see a cooking demonstration by Rick Bayless.











I ended up volunteering at City Farm, an urban farm that sells to restaurants, local residents and at a farmers market. They had insane germination in the beet beds, so we took some time to thin it out.

The last evening I was there a storm rolled through. I ended up being drenched by it. A textured yellow sky with purple and green streaks. It was amazing to see. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but maybe I'll get one from James to put up. Plus I need a photo of James and Caitlin because I'm a bad blogger and didn't take one.

I promise to try to catch up on the blog.

As you all can tell, I keep getting further behind on the blog. I'm about to enter the Mississippi River area and head towards the headwaters. I promise to try to catch up on the blog when I am in Minneapolis. It would be much easier if there was a heat wave or a lot of rain, but I'm not hoping for that. I hope everyone on the East Coast gets some much needed relief from the heat with some rain and the Midwest gets no more rain for a while.

Indiana Dunes and beyond

I had to be out of the firehouse before shift change at 7am. I woke up and my cell phone said 7:11am. I freaked, tried to figure out why the guys didn't wake me up, and got packed quickly. I left the room and they informed me that it was really 6:11am. A relief but have I said how much I dislike AT&T?

Kroger was still closed, so I went to another grocery store on my way out of town. The grocery store workers thought that it was really far away for a bicyclist. I think it was about 2 miles. Lesson learned: Don't trust advice, especially estimated distances, from people that don't bicycle.

I was glad that I hadn't tried to make it anywhere else because there were remnants of debris that had been cleaned up during the night.














I kept looking at it, doubting its existence. It's real.

I rolled into the Indiana Dunes State Park and there were signs stating that the campgrounds were full. I decided to take a hike and figure out what I was going to do. A relaxing but quite strenuous (sand is hard to hike in, especially up hill) hike through the oak forest and then along the beach.




A view from the beach to the dunes. Those hills are all sand.



The dunes move and cover up a forest. Sometimes the sands move and the former forest is revealed.





Chicago in the distance.











I decided that I had enough time and energy to make it to Chicago, so I headed out. The visitors center gave me a bicycling map of northern Indiana that gave me a visual to my Google directions. Bike paths from the Indiana Dunes to South Chicago and then a short road ride to the Lakefront Trail. I got to Chicago by the time that I said I would.
















I passed a 15.5 mile marker and thought "This city is massive."

Trying to keep up with the blog

Tomorrow I go to Madison. I have a hard time sitting down and working on the computer when it's nice outside. I'm having fun exploring.

More of Indiana than I've seen before

I don't think I really ever stopped in Indiana (except possibly a rest area) before this trip.

After a good night in Monroeville, I headed in to Fort Wayne to see about my bottom bracket, which had started making some noise the day before and I assumed was a little loose. I was excited to ride the Rivergreenway bike paths into downtown, but about 2 miles in the trail was closed for another year to expand the path network. Unfortunately I had to ride along the roads. Quickly I understood why the bike paths were necessary, no berms, skinny roads with no place for bicycles and slightly impatient automobile drivers. Fort Wayne is not a bike friendly place.

Bottom bracket declared DOA and was replaced. Thanks to the Summit City Cycles mechanics for changing out the BB and letting me hang out and learn.

A few more errands, including a jaunt to strip mall land to replace my cell phone, which stopped holding a charge a few days before. I have to say that I'm not a fan of AT&T, not only for their strip mall stores, but also because I've gone through many dead zones already.

A late start out of town and then a flat tire (3rd one), and finally when I really started bicycling I made good time but there wasn't much time left in the day and I was trying to make it as far as possible before the dark descended. A little more than an hour before the sun we went down I stopped into a gas station along the road and asked about camping possibilities. They suggested the state park. As I was finishing my snack, a woman stopped, having overheard my asking about camping, and suggested another possibility. It was close to the state park, so I headed off to see if it would work out. I had just started up the road when she came back and said that I could camp in her side yard, drew me a map to her house and formally introduced herself. I ended up spending a lovely evening with Anita and Jeff Krider.














Thank you, Jeff and Anita, for your wonderful hospitality!

A bit of garden meditation (weeding) in the morning and then off towards the Indiana Dunes. A hot, humid and sunny day, corn, soy and wheat fields, a few more hills than I thought Indiana had, and Amish and Mennonite farmers.



A sight I had never seen, really large green bales. Later I passed a flat bed truck with some stacked on the back.
















A really random sight near a grain elevator.






Some other highlights from the road: A random Amish or Mennonite produce farm from which I bought some green beans and fields of mint among corn fields (Just imagine the scent on the wind. I couldn't convert it to a picture.)

I was racing against a front coming from the west. A few miles outside of La Porte, someone stopped by and told me that the front was coming in less than an hour, enough for me to get to La Porte but not to the Indiana Dunes.

I got to the library right when the storm hit. I guess the tornado sirens had just gone off so we sat in the basement and waited for the storm to pass. Thanks to the librarians who allowed my bike to come inside.

As we were waiting, I was figuring that I would be stuck in La Porte for the night. I talked with some of the librarians and they said that a second storm was coming. They suggested for me to spend the night at the Relay for Life.

After the storm passed, I wandered around trying to get some groceries, but the Kroger was closed from a power outage. I had passed a Chinese buffet a couple of doors down, so I went back. I really wanted to write a twitt at that time "eating lukewarm food in a dark chinese buffet, stuck in la porte, hmm what to do".

I ended up at Relay for Life, which had moved from the track into the high school. Quite a carnival atmosphere. Another crazy moment: Watching cloggers in khaki shorts and dark purple t-shirts tap dance to pop songs like Beyonce's Single Ladies. Not so smooth.

I went down to the fire station right when the second storm hit. They had no power but they put me up in a room.

Goodbye to Ohio. Hello to Indiana.

The last leg of Ohio was the hardest. I encountered my first serious headwinds.
I started singing to the wind.

W-I-N-D
You're blowing at me
pushing me in the wrong direction...

I felt like I would stop and then start moving backwards if I stopped pedaling. I questioned my choice of a westerly route, but really I had to just keep pedaling.


















A celebratory snack at the state line. I thought Indiana didn't know how to welcome people into their state. I just had to go a bit further.


















A couple of miles outside of Monroeville, IN, my destination for the night. I hit 1,000 miles of bicycling!!!














Monroeville, IN. I had to stop there because I had read about the city park pavilion being available for cross-country bicycle tourists. It's true! Warren met me there after I checked in at the library. A couple from Chicago was staying over on their 2nd day of a trip from Indiana to the east, possibly Vermont or beyond. A German guy was also staying over on his 3-month cross country trip. It was great to connect with other bicycle tourists since I haven't passed another bicycle tourist since the Great Allegheny Passage.

Go West through Ohio

From the Hocking Hills, I went northwest to Columbus. The relative flat land was a welcome respite from the up and down.







Unfortunately I missed the sermon.








It was also my introduction to fields of wheat, corn and soy.







Columbus offered a day of respite and a brief visit with friends, Beth, Aaron and Dustin. Forecasts of serious thunderstorms made me question going on, but alas I rode out to under cloudy skies with a brief visit to the Park of Roses.














Some great people at the Rushsylvania Volunteer Fire Department let me fill up my water bottles and advised me on a more bicycle friendly route, not through Lima.








I ended up at Indian Lake State Park for the night.

Hocking Hills

As I was biking through the Hocking Hills, I ran across Etta's Lunchbox Cafe and Museum. Yep, a lunchbox museum, a pretty fascinating display of lunchboxes through time. I learned that in the early 1980s the Reagan administration declared metal lunchboxes weapons and that's when the plastic ones started coming out. The cafe and museum are in this old building that has a grain elevator from when it was along the railroad. It had a roller skating rink and a movie theater. It was the gathering place for the area when it was a bustling coal area. The proprietor used to undercut coal company store prices and would gather groceries while the customers watched a movie.

The Hocking Hills kicked my butt. I had to walk up 2 hills. The place is amazing. It definitely made me feel like a small part of the world (a good thing), with the cliffs and hemlocks towering above me. Such beautiful rock formations and waterfalls.










One waterfall consumed one of my water bottles. I was attaching it to my camera bag and accidentally dropped it. It rolled down the path, over the side and into the water. The bottle went through a hole in the rock. The water was moving rapidly, so I thought I had lost my water bottle, but when I climbed down to the river, it was bobbing in the shallows.

West Virginia to Ohio

I rode on the bike path that runs from Wellsburg to south of Wheeling, well most of it because the bike path disappeared in some overgrowth for a short while. Did you know that Wheeling is the home of Mail Pouch tobacco (those advertisements that are mostly fading from the side of barns.)? Wheeling also has one of the most helpful and most enthusiastic visitor center staffperson ever.



Random roadside structure: a post marking the Mason-Dixon line







Of course, my love of bicycling in West Virginia didn't last too long because construction brought two lanes with a berm to one lane, my first flat tire and then an industrial area with two-lane road with no berm and 16-wheelers (hold breath and brace for wind). I finally came to New Martinsville and a motorcyclist who is part of a bicycling club directed me across the river to OH 7. Oh how my heart can get uplifted by a newly paved, smooth wide shoulder.

An overnight stop at Leith Run Campground in the Wayne National Forest (thanks to the motorcyclist/bicyclist) and a morning that I planned on getting up and doing some hiking but I chose my warm sleeping bag over a foggy, chilly morning. Thanks to incorrect math, I thought my day was going to be about 50 miles but it ended up with around 80 by the time I rolled in to the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary in Rutland, OH. The day also introduced me to the hills of southeastern Ohio.



I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in botanical medicine to visit the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary in Rutland, OH. It is an amazing place, not only for the botanical diversity but also for the community that is protecting the land (the sanctuary is somewhere around 300 acres but the community has around 3000 contiguous acres that are preserving the rich heritage).

Painting and posting signs, hiking, and making some mullein and garlic ear oil with Paul Strauss.




Off to Athens on Friday. I left a bit later than I wanted and was trying to make it to Athens before the incoming storm. Again hot and humid. I rolled into town and the amount of people overwhelmed me. It was graduation weekend, not only students but their families were all over uptown. I wandered a bit and someone on the street asked if I needed any help, which helped me refocus. The storm rolled in as I carried my things up to Sara and Piper's apartment. Saturday came and off to the Athens Farmers Market. I've been told it is the second oldest in the US after the Ferry Building Market in San Francisco. I picked up some veggies, bread and cured beef bologna for the road. I loaded up my stuff and headed out to Nate's land to check it out. The humidity opened up to a rain storm and I learned how to play euchre. The storm let up and being antsy I headed out to the Hocking Hills. It was probably not the best choice, since it was like biking through a sauna.

Da 'Burgh

Tuesday afternoon greeted me with an afternoon thundershower, reminding me of Pittsburgh's ability to rain at any time. A rain jacket was useless in the refreshing rain. By the time I got to Brian's house, I was soaked through and excited that I had somewhere dry to be. That rain shower set the precedent for the rest of my stay in Pittsburgh, rain everyday.

I visited Healcrest Urban Farm, a project headed by Maria. It's still in the development stage, but it has greatly expanded since I last saw it a couple of years ago. Maria is continuing the farm but in a lower capacity (no interns) since she had Savitur Negus on my birthday (Sept. 26) last year (Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them.).























I also visited Braddock Farms, a project of Grow Pittsburgh. Marshall is going into his 2nd year of managing the farm and it is the 3rd year of the farm. It is still in its infancy, so it will be interesting to see how the community plugs in to the farm as well as how Marshall balances the mission of providing food for the community as well as marketing food to restaurants.




I was planning on leaving Friday, but the opportunity to be a part of a try at the world's largest non-motorized flotilla sounded great, as well as hanging out with more people. The event was planned for World Environment Day (Saturday June 5) by Venture Outdoors.

The group I was going with decided to put in early in the morning at Duck Hollow and paddle down the Monongahela River to the point, where the Allegheny and Monongahela come together to form the Ohio. They had estimated that the distance was about 5 miles, but it turned out to be 9 (There's a reason that Nine Mile Run is called that!). We had left early enough to make it to the registration and back out towards the flotilla by 11:45am. The established time of the flotilla was supposed to be noon, but as we passed under the West End Bridge, the flotilla started breaking apart and the dark clouds released a torrential downpour. We had been registered but not in the picture. Why did they not wait for everyone to gather? The rain only lasted about 5 minutes and then the sky opened up to have a beautiful day. We had a little picnic and paddled up river a few miles to the southside and the Hofbrauhaus (German beer brewed in Pittsburgh). A bit disappointing but a fun day.




Saturday night I watched Gasland, a documentary about the natural gas industry, especially the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of natural gas from shale deposits. They visit 24 states with current practices and talks with residents of the areas as well as some health professionals and scientists studying the impacts. There have been natural gas seepages into ground water sources causing massive die-offs in streams. The water from fracturing is in open-air lined or unlined ponds with volatile organic compounds and other carcinogens vaporizing (sometimes intentionally to evaporate more water so the company has to pay less for shipping the waste water). People are having health issues anywhere from headaches to asthma to lesions in the brain and cancer. The wells, condensation tanks and associated equipment and operations do not fall under regulations for the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act because they are dispersed and not one point source and no Environmental Impact Studies have been done, but in the area around Ft Worth, Texas, the natural gas operations are emitting the same amount of pollution as all the vehicular traffic in the area daily. Currently there is organizing against natural gas drilling, specifically the Marcellus Shale. There are leases signed for the Delaware River (affecting Philadelphia), the area containing the drinking water for New York City and even places within Pittsburgh. More could be said, but I highly recommend seeing it. They have a few more tour dates but it is going to be shown on HBO on June 21st, so try to find someone with HBO and make it a house party.

Sunday was the day to depart Pittsburgh. A cloudy morning opened up to a downpour. Brian and I waited it out and started out a bit after noon towards West Virginia. It was a beautiful biking day. We picked up the Panhandle Trail a little west of Pittsburgh. Brian turned around in Burgettstown, as I continued on. He picked a good place because the trail turned into a muddy mess and I was scraping the fenders about 15 minutes later. The trail improved towards the endpoint of Colliers, WV.



I made it out to about 8 miles above Wheeling before setting up camp for the night.