The Ride Itself

Thanks for your patience. I will now recount the beginning of the ride.

Day 1: Monday, June 2nd.

We planned to hit the road at 9am, to safely avoid the morning rush hour. By the time we mailed post cards and packed everything, it was more like 11am. We didn't care; we were finally on the road. It was decided that I would pull the trailer the first day, and we would alternate every other day thereafter. I was nervous as hell dragging that thing through downtown Seattle, praying we would get going without a hitch. The magnitude of the madness on which we were embarking had fully set in, and it was exciting to know we were carrying everything we needed to survive by our own power.

I stopped at a starbucks on the way out of town and picked up some grounds for my new coffee press - the dark, rich product of which has become a tenacious addiction each and every morning.

We continued north, battling construction and narrow bicycle lanes, eventually meeting highway 20 - the rode that would take us over the North Cascades and into Idaho. We made 20 miles before stopping for lunch on the lawn of some suburb. Everything was perfect. The bikes were performing well under the load, as were our legs. Our destination for the day was Sedro Woolley, 80 miles north of Seattle, where we would hook up with the Northern Tier Route that would take us to Glacier.
We set a steady pace through green, wet, rural Washington pastures and lush forests. Dense, green foothills began to spring up in front of us, and we became nervous about the days to come. We would face four mountain passes in four days - the most brutal climbing stretch of the tour. The climbing would begin on the third day, giving us little time to prepare. But the current focus was on where to spend the night once we reached Sedro Woolley. Northern Washington stays light until almost 10pm, so we had plenty of daylight if we could only find the campground. Approaching Sedro Woolley, we came to the Skagit River. There was a bridge across to get into Sedro Woolley, but our route remained South of the river, on a road that runs parallel to it. There was a campground marker on the map, but the wonderful folks at Adventure Cycling placed it at the exact center of the river, brilliantly failing to denote whether it was north or south of the river. The next bridge over the Skagit was 40 miles east, so we needed to make a crucial decision – To cross the bridge now and possibly miss the campground if it is south of the river or risk missing it by taking the south road if it was indeed north.

At this moment of momentous decision, Blair had the first of many "educated guesses," which I would soon discover are not educated at all. From what I could tell, there was no rhyme or reason for Blairman choosing one option over another, unless he is privy to some higher source of intuition to which I am unaware. So Blair guessed the campground was south of the river. "It has to be," he said. So we rode past the only bridge for 40 miles in search of our campground. After two miles of nothing, I said there's no way in hell there's a campground on this side of the river. Blair agreed and we turned around and crossed the bridge into the town of Sedro Woolley. We asked around and found the campground on the NORTH side of the river. The campground host informed us that it would cost $10 for a site for the night. In all of our packing frenzy that morning, we had completely spaced o obtaining cash from an ATM. Between the two of us we scrounged up $7.93, and she reluctantly gave us a site. Oops. We set up for our first night in the tent and everything was beautiful, until it began to pour at 4am. We stayed dry thanks to the excellent tent provided by Blair's dad - (Thanks Glen!)

It was still raining when we awoke, and we dried things as best we could on the picnic tables at the camp shelter. The sky showed no sign of letting up, so we donned our rain gear and set off for Newhalen - The base of the North Cascades Range. It rained steadily all day long, with no pause as we set up the tent in Goodell Creek Campground, just inside North Cascades National Park. Somehow Blair got a fire going, (I am repeatedly amazed by his woodsmen skills), and we attempted to dry our soggy shoes and gloves near the blaze. We eventually warmed up thanks to Blair's fire, and cooked spaghetti for the second night in a row. I was astonished at how much we were eating. We cooked everything we had and were still hungry. It was then that I realized how many calories we must be burning riding all day.


The Goodell Creek campsite was beautiful, even in the rain. Our site was on the creek, which was more like a raging river due to the influx of spring snowmelt. It was densely covered by all sorts of foliage and had a huge redwood near the back of the site.
We loved the site, but the rain was really putting a damper on things. We met a father and daughter who had been kayaking in the San Juan Islands near British Columbia, and were driving home to the Midwest through the Cascades. They were very friendly and gave each of us a beer before we retired for the night. We would see them again several times during our passage through the North Cascades. It was nice to have someone who knew we were out there and could direct rescue teams to our general vicinity if the need should present itself.