Gig Harbor Washington to Bar Harbor Maine 2001

We had this great idea. The past two days it's started out beautiful and clouded up, or worse. So we'd get up today at 5am and be done before it gets nasty. I woke up about 6 and looked out at endless soggy mist. I went back to bed. I walked across the street for breakfast and read a few chapters of my book waiting for the fog to lift. We gave up waiting at about 9:30 and rode into the cold.

It's from last night. I didn't take any pictures today.

I was pretty miserable. The route took some beautiful, but hilly, backroads. It always takes my knee awhile to warm up in the morning and much longer when it's cold. I stopped at a pond filled with ducks and birds and some sort of swimming rodent. Maybe an otter? I helped a turtle get across the road.

Kathryn and Garcia left a few minutes before Gridley and I. We caught them at a store briefly. After they took off we ate and talked with Sean who is riding from San Diego. Sean clued us in on the vegetable beef soup at the back of the store. Mmmm. The clouds vaporized by the time we left and we began shedding layers.

Gridley and I kept alternating stops, passing each other instead of riding together. The road was a little public to shed my tights so I took a detour into Olney. Olney is a perfect little Mayberry, but smaller. I stopped on the way in to buy a glass of iced tea from a pack of kids in the Volunteer Fire Department driveway. Who knows what used to be in the old store, but they were happy to let me creak across the warped plank floor to the restroom in the back. I bought an ice cream bar just to be neighborly and ate it on the front porch with Sean, who had just ridden up. The kids offered me a free glass of tea on my ride back out since I had been their first customer.

I had a few miles of riding alone on brand new asphalt while gas-burners had to wait for a pilot car. Then I turned off on another great backroad full of cows and big new houses. The beginning of Californication. My maps are a couple of years old and didn't include this backroad. I read it from Sean's map. I was pretty sure I remembered the route right until it started backtracking and climbing and getting busy with no shoulder. It finally did lead back to 93, which had also become twisty and hilly and busy. It was still a nice ride. Montana has been beautiful, the weather was perfect and we were only riding 60 miles today.

I looked for them when I got into Whitefish and finally saw waving arms in the distance. As soon as I fought my way through traffic toward them, they turned around and came back my way. I eventually doubled back and we all met at Glacier Cyclery. I'd read about the shop in Adventure Cycling's magazine and it was a great one. They have everything that's advertised in the magazine, including the famous Burley rainpants, which I now own - as insurance that it will never rain on us again.

We found the RV park and paid $16 per tent! Thieves! Kathryn and Garcia went to the store to get dinner while Gridley and I worked on our bikes. I had to fix a flat on BOB. My first flat of the trip.

Garcia prepared shrimp with marinara sauce and tons of fettuccini. Gridley made trash bag spinach salad. Awesome dinner.