Kinda Crap First 2 Days

Today I'm sitting here in a hotel in Sedro-Woolley, WA typing out this very blog post on Michelle's bluetooth keyboard. It's kinda untinutive, as there's a notable lag between my input on the keyboard and when I see the letter appear on the screen of my phone. This wouldn't be a huge problem, except that every so often, I get two of the same letter in a row but often don't notice until I'm on a different word. Groan.
So here's how the first 2 days of this tour thing have gone, in brief terms because this keyboard is a bit of a pain.
Day 1: We made it from Squamish, BC to a town called Mission, BC. Navigating through Vancouver on a bike is the worst thing I've ever done on a bike, and something I will never repeat ever again if possible. It was so frustrating that I'm still upset about it even now. Even more than the rain (more on that later). Because Vancouver made it so that covering 60 km took 5 hours, we were both emotionally and physically toasted, and since there was no real place to camp, so we stayed in a hotel instead. This was great, because we could do laundry, as well as take showers and be comfortable and warm for the evening.
Day 2: The day started out rainy, and remained rainy for the entire day. Today was a hotel-to-hotel jog since the rain soaked through every single thing I've got. Camping in this state would be all kinds of miserable and soggy, so to hell with that.
This blog post has sucked, but I'm ending it here anyway and blaming my emotional state and this keyboard, so deal with it. A more in-depth post of all this stuff will come hopefully when I get to Steamboat. Bwuh...

Lat5,

Comments

The Deets: Part 7: Ellensburg, WA to Toppenish, WA (Day 9)

The next morning, Michelle and I spent almost all of our free time examining the map and trying to find a way south that didn't involve riding on the freeway. Our map wasn't very good, though, and so we eventually put our trust in Google and went to breakfast. It was a pretty tasty breakfast, mostly pastries and chocolate, and after that we fueled up at the Safeway or City Market or whatever before taking off down the road towards Oregon. The ride out of town was mild and easy, and the weather was sunny but not yet hot. The streets were effectively empty as well, and so the spin to the edge of Ellensburg and off into the wilds of Eastern Washington was a fairly easy one. One thing our map did have was an alt-route of sorts for highway 97: it was a twisty little piece of tarmac that wound its way through a canyon along a river. Everything we had learned about touring told us that that would be the best way to go, not only because it wasn't a freeway, but because it was a...

The Deets: Part 5; Mazama, WA to Chelan, WA (Day 5-6)

For the second morning in a row, the room was frigid when we awoke. This time it was probably even colder since the window that we had left open was bigger, and overnight the temperature had dropped below zero (that's below 32 for you weirdos who can't handle Celsius). Michelle and I had a small breakfast prepared by Nate, who I really can't thank enough for letting us stay at his place, which consisted of oatmeal and eggs. Due to my weird breakfast/morning food problem, I was unable to eat much, and did my best to eat a few Clif Bars and some cold cereal. I knew that, with my knee as it was, we wouldn't be riding that far anyway. Our view from the morning. (Michelle: "That's a crappy photo, are you gonna use it?") As we were leaving we continued to profusely thank Nate every chance we got until he was out of earshot, and then we rode down the sharp-gravel road back to the main highway. I was concerned because of the state of my knee, but at the begin...

The Deets: Part 3; Sedro-Woolley, WA to Marblemount, WA (Day 3)

The morning of day 3 came just as the morning of day 2 had: the same feeling in my gut and the same reluctance to continue with the tour. One plus, though, was that it was a pleasantly sunny morning, and at least we wouldn't have to ride in the rain again. At least, not all day. I had left my wet clothing out to dry overnight, and I found that it was still somewhat wet that morning. For breakfast, Michelle and I feasted on some of the leftover pizza from the night before. Now, I have a thing about eating solid food in the morning. For some reason if I try to choke down any non-liquids within an hour or so of waking up, I almost always end up feeling nauseous. It's weird and annoying, and it makes it so that the only things I can put down in the mornings are 1) Instant Breakfast, 2) Smoothies, 3) Soylent, and 4) Greasy Diner Food. It's a weird problem. It tastes kinda like gritty cake mix. I struggled through a piece of pizza anyway, somehow managing to not vomit all ...

Safety Third

Search This Blog