The five days of riding from Burton, Ohio to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania have been interesting. The last day of this stretch was the hilliest, and considered the “final exam” of the trip — we climbed around 8,000 feet in 100 miles, and the Larkins family had arranged a great party for us as we rolled into camp in Gettysburg. We’re pretty worn out today, so this is a bit thin of a journal entry.

After cycling through almost entirely farming country, we are now in a more industrial area, passing nuclear power plants, steel plants, and other industrial areas.

It wasn’t all industrial, however — we stumbled on a tea house and enjoyed high tea (Lisa in particular is a tea fanatic).

One of the highlights of this leg was the Great Alleghany Passage, a rails-to-trails effort. Although it was a bit difficult to ride on with the road bikes, the trail is very impressive, including very tall bike-only bridges that span valleys. We were also bicycling along the official Pennsylvania “S” bicycle route, which is very clearly marked on the roads.

Of course, we still fix a lot of flats.

For more photos since Burton, Ohio, click here (we put in a few more people photos this time).

Total official trip miles: 3,200

Since our last update, we’ve cycled from Wisconsin through Illinois and Indiana and across Ohio. This was the longest series of continuous riding days on this trip: seven days and over 600 miles completed, including two back to back centuries. We started the week with a rest day in Madison where we celebrated David’s 36th birthday with feastings of Thai and Afghani food (and dessert was licorice ice cream with fresh raspberries mixed in). We were excited to find some variety in culinary choices since most of our food consumption so far has revolved around burgers, pasta, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, and convenience store fare. On his actual birthday (the next day), we ate at his choice of restaurant for lunch: A McDonald’s at the Wisconsin / Illinois border. Later that day, at our campground in Belvidere, IL, the group sang happy birthday and cheered along with sparkling cider in hand. Illinois presented the big riders with some monotonous riding on flat roads with slight headwinds. We rode around Chicago, by-passing the windy city for a circuitous route through corn and soy bean fields. Our Chicago contingency was less than pleased with this choice in route. The monotony in scenery made for a struggle in completing the first century. Indiana’s highlight was our stop in LaPorte after the second century. A Big Rider Alumn organizes a yearly party with musical accompinament, massage therapists, a pig roast, roasted corn, and many side and dessert dishes. We spent the afternoon talking with Indiana locals about the mid-west lifestyle while motorized gliders flew above our heads. Our host also provided us with samplings of elk and deer meat. It was a wonderful afternoon that we will all remember as a true Big Ride experience… Thank you, Larry! The next two days were the flattest of the entire ride which lifted Lisa’s spirits. First, we rode across Indiana and back into Amish and Mennonite country to overnight in Kendallville, IN. We ate at an Amish diner where David was pleased to order Sloppy Joes (high on his list of classic comfort foods)… however, he wasn’t as pleased after consuming them. The next day we crossed the Indiana - Ohio border on a small country road (no big state sign) and the road conditions instantly improved (Most of us agree that Indiana had the worst roads with lots of bumps and potholes). We stopped for lunch in Brian, OH (home of the Etch-a-Sketch invention) where a large group of cyclists ate at a diner that promised the best milkshakes in town. Some of us consumed three milkshakes with our meal. David and Lisa both ordered the all you can eat spaghetti tuesday special, milkshakes, and pie. That night we camped at the Napolean, OH fairgrounds where a number of riders had relatives visit them. With these visits came gifts of fruit, cookies, pie, and other baked goods for the group. We love family visits. The sixth and seventh legs of the week took us to Sandusky, OH (home of Cedar Point - the largest amusement park in the country - David and Lisa opted for a less stimulating evening at an airconditioned movie theater) and Burton, OH via Cleveland. Stan and Cheryl, two riders who live in Cleveland organized a lunch stop for us outside of Cleveland. In Cleveland, David hit a bump and crashed, cracking his helment — David managed to bicycle the 45 remaining miles to Burton, Ohio. Sleeping is a bit difficult, since David seems to have bruised a rib. We’ve ridden through one Amish town after another and discovered that we can pass a one horse drawn carriage - hence, we now know that our speed exceeds one horsepower. We enjoyed going to a baseball game in Cleveland — we were driven from Burton to Cleveland in a van that normally operates shuttling around Amish folks, and the driver was able to give us interesting tidbits about the Amish.

We also stopped by Bike Man’s barn — he’s got a huge collection of bicycles, and repairs inexpensive bikes that he’s sold all over.

For more photos since Madison, Wisconsin, click here (we put in a few more people photos this time).

Total official miles: 2,851

This past week we crossed the Mississippi river into Wisconsin and passed the two thousand mile mark. It has been one of the more enjoyable biking weeks, as the terrain is changing daily through this part of the country. We rode along the west and east sides of the Missississippi, and saw beautiful marshes along the route. We are also riding through hilly corn country (versus the flat wheat fields we have been passing). Aside from corn, we’re also seeing a lot of soybean and alfalfa growing as well. We’ve also noticed signs about ethanol (which is another name for grain alcohol), although as most of you probably know there are questions about whether it takes more energy to produce ethanol than you end up getting. We researched ethanol a bit and fount that it has been used for a long time. We’re both interested in alternative energy, from both an environmental and security perspective, so we’ll see how ethanol pans out. Today we are enjoying our rest day in Madison, Wisconsin, which has very wide bicycle lanes throughout the city and a bike store (Budget Bicycle Center) with four different buildings (one for repairs, one for used bikes , one for apparrel, and one for new bikes) that take up more than a city block. It’s paradise. We had two short days this last week, which makes for a much more relaxing riding day. There’s time to take more photos and generally ride slower appreciating the sights and stops along the way. It is also always nice to get into camp earlier and not feel so rushed.

The first day out of New Ulm, MN was a 72 mile ride to Owatanna, MN. We had a nice tailwind which was a welcome treat. We rode through the city of Mankato and then back on highway 14. We arrived at Owatanna, and set up camp in the city fairgrounds. David rode with a cyclist the last couple of miles who wanted to know more about our ride. After our showers we headed across the street to a local sports bar for lunch with some of the big riders. While there we watched the final leg of the Tour de France, and managed to convince the waitress to turn up the volume for the last 5 minutes of the coverage. Later that afternoon, we went to Cabela’s, which is kind of like an REI for hunting and fishing. Lots of mounted animals, camouflage, guns, and such. It was presented to us as a “true Mid-West experience”.

The second day we rode 89 miles from Owatanna, MN to the western edge of the state to stay in Winona, MN. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that we would be staying in a dormatory that evening (a first during the riding week). The morning was rainy and generally cloudy throughout the day which made for a cooler ride. We rode through Rochester, MN and made a stop in Dover to the A&W for root beer, burger and fries. As we approached our destination, the clouds grew darker, and the roads grew hillier, and we managed to make it to the dorm just a few minutes before a major thunderstorm hit. We have been extremely fortunate so far to miss major storms while out on the road, and have only ridden through drizzly skies on three days. As we rode through Winona, we saw the great Mississippi for the first time and witnessed the industrial process of moving grain from river barges to train and truck containers — we also saw several houseboats.

Both of us agree that the last two days of this trip have been among the most beautiful. The first was a 66 mile day from Winona, across the Mississippi into Wisconsin, and finishing in a small town tucked into Amish and Mennonite country called Viroqua. We spent most of the day stopping along the route to take pictures of the river valley, and the hilly amish country. Crossing the Mississippi symbolically marked the beginning of the ride home for us. The terrain felt like home too. The temperatures significantly dropped after the storm and we were riding with leggings and jackets on. We rode into the city of Madison as a group of 8 screaming and cheering throughout the last mile. We had heard a lot about this town and the city has definitely met up to our expectations.

Although it doesn’t happen that much, our bike route goes through patches of unforeseen road construction. At those times, we have to figure out how best to cross that portion of the route — sometimes this is walking the bikes across as we did this week.

For more photos of this leg of the trip, click here.

Total official miles: 2,167

We just completed over 500 miles in six days of cycling in a row! And that isn’t as easy as it might sound . Anyway, we’re pretty worn out. Since this is the first rest day of tenting rather than staying in dorms, we decided to splurge and stay at a Holiday Inn (we actually had a hard time finding a room since there’s a Little League tournament and a polka festival in New Ulm). One of the nicest things about staying at a hotel is the private bathroom/shower. At our last camping night, we all had to share one shower room: men had from the hour to the half hour and the women from the half hour to the hour. The night before, there were only cold showers. Another recent night, people could easily see into the shower room while taking a shower (although the best part of that bathroom was the commode on a pedestal without any privacy in the middle of the men’s room).

We pretty much finished with the headwinds when we came into Minnesota, but I don’t think we’re totally clear of winds yet since we did pass a very large windmill farm in Lake Benton, Minnesota. The photo below shows windmills in the distance and spare parts in the foreground.

We started hitting humidity as well, including a very foggy morning.

Although our focus isn’t the gear (in fact, we try not to look or think about our bikes when we’re not on them!), we thought it might be interesting to mention something about the wierd bicycling clothes and the reasons for it. Obviously there’s the helmet, and the Big Ride requires using mirrors as well, which we hadn’t used before — we instantly really appreciated this, since it gives you a heads-up of what’s coming (we now miss them when we’re walking around since we can’t see what’s behind us!). Lisa wears a hat underneath the helmet, which both protects her scalp (since the helmet has large vents in them) and also shields the sun from her forehead. David wears a headband to try keeping the sweat out of his eyes (and neither of us wears sunscreen on our foreheads so that it doesn’t drip into our eyes). We both have sunglasses with swappable lenses (different shades and colors) to protect our eyes (both from the sun and physical grit). The cycling jersey wicks away sweat (for cooling), but the main advantage is the pockets in the back which become totally second-nature to use — we store light jackets, extra water bottles, money, or other items as required. The main thing about the cycling shorts is the extra padding, although the lycra also doesn’t flap in the wind and helps wick away the sweat. We’ve both started wearing cycling socks all the time now, which have little holes in the top to help cool — the critical two components of cycling shoes is a rigid sole (not easy to walk in) and the ability to have cleats. Cleats allow you to apply power to the pedals through the whole revolution of the pedal, although we don’t really have the technique down yet (Lisa and I use Look pedals, which are somewhat “classic” now — a disadvantage for David is since the cleats are plastic, he wears them out quickly). One thing that’s taken off in the group is long-sleeve white shirts, which Kyle, one of the riders, started using and now others including Lisa have started using as well — this is mostly just to keep the sun off the arms, which seem to get the most sun (surprisingly, our right calves also gets a lot of sun — the sun is usually to our right as we go East).

For more photos of this leg of the trip, click here.

Total official miles: 1,842

It is now windy! Tailwinds, crosswinds, headwinds. We’re surprised that sometimes we can barely stand up but we can somehow pedal along (although it’s definitely hard to stay upright with the winds changing rapidly).

In Rapid City on our rest day we rented a car for the first time on this trip, and went to the Crazy Horse Memorial and Badlands National Park. Going to the Crazy Horse memorial was thought-provoking. For background, it’s basically a mountain that’s being carved into a very large (many times larger than the nearby Mount Rushmore) three-dimensional sculpture of Crazy Horse, an American Indian hero. One of the strangest things is that how it doesn’t seem very Indian anymore, but really a testament to the non-Indian sculptor’s ego (for instance, before he died, he built a large tomb at the base of the mountain). It seems that the money is mostly coming from direct donations or from sales/entrance fees to the memorial, but we wondered why Indian tribes weren’t more prominently putting money into this (maybe they are — these impressions are from the information at the visitor’s center). The monument also seems to be about overpowering the environment rather than being humble within it (the introductory video emphasized all the explosions neccessary to carve the sculpture, which we felt was like showing the carcasses of animals to impress people about a large dinner you were making). Also, the scale of the project was odd — not that it was large, but that you had to be *told* how large it was — there were no obvious visual reference points, for you standing before it, to get a sense of the size. We live in DC, and in DC there are height restrictions on buildings so that the Washington Monument and other buildings seem large — but there was no reference point like that for the Crazy Horse Memorial.

We drove to Badlands National Park on our rest day, and bicycled through a different section the next day. Really, it’s just beatiful. Not much else to say.

On the way back, we drove through hail and also saw a lightening fire. You can see both in the photo below (the fire’s coming from below, and the hail is coming from above!).

For more photos from this leg of the trip, click here.

Total official miles so far: 1,598

What a week! We had the easiest and hardest days of the trip so far this last week, and we’re now 1/3 of the way through. The tour has now crossed the 1,000 mile mark and we just completed our first five days of cycling straight without a rest day. We’ve pretty much been following train lines the whole way (it seems only BNSF trains), but now we’ve seen 1.3 mile long trains (yes, we measured them) with only engines and coal cars. Everyone hears them hours before our alarm clocks ring, and all through the day. They’ve become a real nuisance to our sleeping ritual. In addition to trains, other common sightings have been apiaries, horses, cattle, elaborate ranch gates, and “casinos” (Montana has lots of places with gambling video machines). In the last few days we’ve started seeing evidence of the oil industry as well. On the wildlife side, we’ve seen prarie dogs, pronghorns, and big horn sheep.

We had our shortest ride of the trip so far - 57 miles from Billings to Hardin. It was also the most beautiful ride to date. The landscape was rolling hills and prairies and it was the kind of scenery that reaffirmed for us why we were so interested in doing this ride. As we approached our destination, we entered Crow country. Hardin is predominantly a Native American town, and we were approached by a Crow outside of the library who wanted to know about our ride and whether there were “lots of Indians where we came from”. When we tried to access our web site at the public library, we couldn’t access the site — someone who lives in the area mentioned that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) determines what sites can and cannot be seen, so perhaps our site didn’t make it on the permitted list. We ate twice at “The Fountain” in the center of town — this is one of the town’s pizza joints and coffeeshop, video rental store and movie theater — we enjoyed our lunch so much that we returned with fellow big riders that evening for dinner and a movie (Mr. and Mrs. Smith). One of the perks of having a movie theater adjoined to a restaurant is that they let you take your ice cream into the theater. David got his first on-the-road flat — the flat was a good warning sign for a worn out rear tire, so he replaced it with Panaracer’s that had been specially ordered back in DC — we’ll see how they hold out compared to the Continental Gatorskins.

The next day we rode 80+ miles crossing into Wyoming to finish the day at a KOA campground in Sheridan. We rode really well that day, starting with an early departure, and riding efficiently (stopping briefly). We left relatively early, and blasted through. We had more headwinds, and for the first time tried drafting off each other. We tried drafting with Stan and Cheryl on their tandem as well, but found that in general we prefer not drafting so we can look around and stop quickly. We felt strong and even got to the KOA before the truck did. David’s been impressing on Lisa for many years now the comforts of a KOA campground, so it was good for us to finally stay at one. Upon the group’s arrival, the majority of the big riders b-lined for the pool and jumped in with cycling clothing on. It was a welcome treat after the hot day. We also took a touristy trolley bus from the KOA to one of those restaurants with all sorts of stuff on the walls — we enjoyed watching parts of the Tour de France.

The Big Day was from Sheridan to Gillette, Wyoming. Wow. It was officially 107 degrees (although some of us debated whether it was even hotter on the pavement), and to top it off, we were faced with the strongest headwinds so far and one challenging hill after another. We are used to heat, living in Chad, Haiti, DC, and Atlanta between us. But throwing in strong headwinds in addition to hills was really, really tough. The day started at 4am, and we had breakfast duty as well. We were on the road a little before 6am. At about 70 miles into the ride (7 hours later) was the Spotted Horse Cafe, which really was an oasis for us all. Spotted Horse has a population of 2, the proprietors of the cafe. We stayed in the cafe for at least an hour and a half seeking shelter from the heat and drank one gatorade and water bottle after another. The option to take the van into town for the remaining 40 miles was given as an option for us all. Lisa was ready to “sag” in, but David wanted to continue on. We made it to the next two checkpoints at a miserable pace of about 6 miles an hour… we were stopping every couple of miles to quench our thirst with our hot water bottles. By the time we reached the second checkpoint, David was stopping every quarter mile fatigued from the challenges of the day. At that point (mile 96) the decision to sag was surprisingly easy. Although there wasn’t that much of the route left, we got tired just looking at the remaining 16 miles of the route as we drove past! 16 people sagged that day. Some folks were still riding all the way to 8:15pm (almost 15 hours later). We took absolutely no photos that day!

The last two days of this five-day strech were thankfully much less eventful. We had significant tailwinds on the fourth day from Gillette to NewCastle, Wyoming (not sure we could have made it otherwise!), with a 9:15am stop to have milkshakes in Upton. We were done by noon, and that was even taking it slow. We stayed in a senior citizen community center and opted for indoor camping. We stayed in the “pool room” with three other cyclists, Thom and Noranne, and Dr. Paul. We eached staked out some territory between the pool tables. The long afternoon gave us an opportunity for an afternoon nap.
The fifth day we crossed the state border into South Dakota and passed through Black Hills National Forest and Custer State parks (we didn’t see any buffalo) — we had heard this was some riders’ favorite day of the ride, but we were too worn out to fully appreciate to give the scenery our full appreciation. The lunch stop was in Custer, SD a quaint town tucked into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Several riders bought gold flakes as souvenirs.

David finished The Tipping Point this week — the best part of the book was the first few chapters, with the drawn-out discussions of examples in the later chapters not so interesting. Lisa finished “The Secret Life of Bees” which is now being passed around the group — a great read on both accounts.

Go to this page for more photos from this leg of the trip.

Total official miles so far: 1,326

Our rest day today is nice, cool, and rainy in Billings, Montana. This is encouraging us to do what we needed to do most: relax. We hear that our upcoming ride into Wyoming is especially tough, with hills and headwinds. Headwinds have become part of our cycling already — the century a couple days ago included lots of climbing, heat, and headwinds, and yesterday’s 90+ mile day had an unexpected long hill in 105 degree weather topped off with a headwind (the headwind was so strong we had to pedal going downhill!). We’ve reconfirmed that we’re more in the “grit” category than actually having athletic abilities. We’ve found that leaving early works best for us, so that we have time to complete the ride and still get in to camp at a reasonable hour.

The cycling tan is a noteworthy subject. In Spokane, we used our tans as a form of identification to the University cafeteria for one of our meals. We’re definitely in a lot of sun all day, and David has a pronounced cyclists’ tan, especially his arms. You can clearly see where the hole in the bicycling glove is, where he wears a watch, and where the glove ends on the fingers (see photo below). Since Lisa is so fair, we’re trying to keep a lot of sunscreen on her but we’re also sweating a lot off. Sunscreen in the eyes makes for an unpleasant ride! We’re probably drinking at least a gallon of fluids a day.

Although we’ve cycled almost a thousand miles and we’ve got the weird cyclist tans, we haven’t toned up like we thought we might. It’s difficult to gauge how much to eat, and we definitely don’t want to eat too little (”bonking”, or running out of energy, is no fun). Also, the ride only includes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, apples, and bananas for lunch (you make your own lunch the night before) — neither of us had PB&J sandwiches for over twenty years, and we don’t think we’ll be eating them again for a long time! So we end up eating a lot of fast food and local fare on the road just to keep moving. Yesterday, we stopped at Lavina Cafe (in Lavina, Montana population 151) and devoured one slice of apple pie a la mode and one piece of lemon meringue pie before our lunch course was served to us at 10:30am. We also rode through Ryegate, the home of the Testicle Festival, where Rocky Mountain Oysters are eaten.

Near the top of a long climb (20+ miles), we unexpectedly stumbled upon the Big Sky house designed by an ex-Columbia University (where Lisa went to grad school for architecture) architecture professor, William Massie (link also has information on the house).

We didn’t take many photos in the last few days, but we put a few more photos in the same album as the last journal entry.

Total official miles of the trip: 923

Today we crossed the continental divide at Macdonald Pass, with a steep climb for about four miles. Fortunately, today was a lot shorter (just over 60 miles) riding day, so we have some time to relax in Townsend, Montana. Yesterday was 99 miles, tommorrow will be 101, and the next day will be 91 miles — so we have a lot of riding to do!

We thought we’d put some more details on the logistics of the trip. Every morning, we get cue sheets, which give turn-by-turn directions. We attach these to our bikes using a simple clip and use our bicycle computers to help us determine when to turn.

Rebecca, one of the riders, leads stretching sessions which are becoming more and more popular. Although so far we have mostly stayed at high schools, sometimes we stay at parks — yesterday we stayed at Echo Valley Campground which had lots of nice trees and interesting architecture.

For more photos of this leg of the trip, click here.

Total official miles to date: 731

Here we are in Missoula, Montana on our second rest day. This is our second time in Missoula, and we really enjoy the small city. The last time we were here was for the Cycle Montana trip with Adventure Cycling in 2001. Adventure Cycling is actually based in Missoula and has been active in creating a bicycle-friendly town (although we don’t plan on bicycling on our off day!).

Since our last posting, we have crossed two state lines and one time zone — we’ve also done our first century (100+ mile day) on the Big Ride. The first day out of Spokane, we had an easier (with tailwind) ride to Sandpoint, Idaho — it was pretty, but not so pretty that we felt like stopping for a lot of pictures — we managed to get to camp a bit early (around 2:00pm). We crossed into Idaho at Newport, Washington (Old Town, Idaho) — we kept stopping to try to find the border sign, since the border runs straight through the town (Safeway is in Washington, and across the street is in Idaho).

It turns out the official sign was outside of town — someone who was working near the sign kept stopping to take photos of everyone under the sign.

After pitching our tent and showering, we stayed in our tent for a little R&R. Lisa slept and David finished The Kite Runner, which is a terrific book. That afternoon, there were several rainshowers, and a heavy hailstorm with a lot of wind — that said, it was peaceful inside the tent. At dinner, Paula, our event director, took a survey of the total number of flats that everyone had. Lisa had 5. Then she asked who hadn’t had any flats to date on the ride, and David was one of the few who raised his hand — someone mentioned that this was the “kiss of death”. After dinner, David found his rear tire was totally flat! Next, we pulled out our cribbage set, and found that there are lots of avid cribbage players in our group.

The next day we knew we’d be crossing a timezone (losing time) into Montana, but we didn’t know that lunch at Boar’s Breath Bar & Casino would take over an hour and a half! During the first half of the day, we also made lots of stops for pictures — after lunch we hightailed it to camp and made it just in time for dinner which was at Mini’s Cafe in Thompson Falls, Montana. Although the ten mile stretch through Idaho’s moose country didn’t deliver on any moose sitings, Lisa saw several wild goats and we think we saw circling bald eagles.

Since we got in relatively late Sunday, on the fourth of July we decided to leave as early as possible for the first century. David’s knee immediately was giving him problems, so we started off a bit slow. Once the ibuprofen kicked in, we managed to make good time. We tried to stop as little as possible, but stopped every once in a while for the beautiful scenery — it was hard not to stop more often. The biggest difficulty on this century was the heavy traffic (including a lot of RVs and trucks) without any shoulder on a two-lane highway for much of the second half of the ride — in addition, there was construction on fairly loose gravel for about three miles (fortunately the traffic was barely moving for that stretch!). There was also a long climb followed by a long and steep descent. We felt a sense of accomplishment as we rode into Missoula, and look forward to our rest day (the dorm we’re staying in even gave us towels and sheets!).

Click here for some more photos of this leg of our trip.

total miles: 572

We think most of the 33 riders (including us) were nervous about getting the ride started. We heard the second-hardest day of the whole cross-country trip was the first day, but actually Lisa and I felt that it wasn’t any harder than our training rides. That said, we especially felt that each of the following days was harder than the previous one, just getting more and more worn out. Today is our rest day at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington — but a rest day included a trip to the bike shop, a thorough cleaning of the bikes, doing laundry, and stocking up on supplies like sunscreen (we got pretty toasted in the sun so far!).

Our first day in Washington state was on Sunday in Seattle. We did a mini architectural tour. First we visited a new chapel at Seattle University designed by Steven Holl.

After that we, went to the new Seattle library designed by Rem Koolhas. We got there a bit before opening and were impressed by the crowd lined up to get in.

We were hosted by Charlie Vanderburg (the Big Ride event coordinator) and his wife, Mary who were gracious enough to invite us to stay with them for our stay in Seattle. Sunday afternoon included a “meet and greet” with all of the other Big Riders. We were off to bed at an early hour to prepare for our early start (6:30am at the start line) on the first ride. Here are some more photos from Seattle.

Monday greeted us with a light drizzle and cool temperatures (mid 50’s). We began the ride with the opening ceremony at a local Seattle park. We were met by a large contingency of last year’s Big Riders (who rode with us for the first 10 miles out of the city), the staff from the American Lung Association, and local media. The first 78 miles included a circuitous ride out of Seattle, about 20 miles on the shoulder of a major highway (an experience to be remembered), up the Snoqualmie pass which was a beautiful ride along a quiet road tucked into a redwood forest.

At the peak we stopped for lunch at a pancake house. The descent down was a welcome change, but given that we were soaked from the day’s rain, made for a chilly ride. We spent our first night at a state park campground where we were once again greeted by last year’s Big Riders who helped us with our luggage and prepared a bountiful meal of carbs, protein, and pie (a staple of the Big Ride).

Our second day or riding took us further west out of the pine forest and into the Columbia River Valley. The temperature quickly rose along with a surprisingly sunny day — we were caught off guard without sunscreen so got a little too much sun. Although the last few miles were downhill, there was construction on the road resulting in gravel over fresh oil which meant we had to go very slowly. The old farming equipment where we camped in Vantage, Washington was interesting to photograph. At dinner, our dinner selection was “meat or meatless”, which seemed a bit like ordering food on an airplane — the hearty spaghetti was good though.

On the third day, we climbed out of the Columbia river gorge on our way to Odessa, Washington.

The day wasn’t too eventful , but we did stop at a drive-up (there were three drive-up windows on the very small building) hamburger (and sausages and burritos etc) place called Dusty’s. We asked to go to the bathroom there — you had to move the bread cart to get in — the place must have been only 3 feet by 3 feet max, and it was difficult to figure out how to maneuver in there.

In case you’re wondering, yes this is mostly a camping trip. Many people have commented on how small our tent is, but we both think this tent is luxurious compared to the one we normally take for camping (not included in picture below).

The fourth day, riding into Spokane, was the best day so far for us. Both of our knees were hurting at various points, and we were both dragging way behind in the pack (which is our normal position). In fact, the day started with Lisa’s bike having a flat before we even started, and when we got another flat later we found out that the second spare tube we had on us had a flat too. Luckily, even after our one patch didn’t find all the holes, the event’s mechanic came by and gave us a couple tubes. Although we were very frustated at that point, everything turned around when we got into the wheat fields with the beautiful clouds. One of the advantages of being at the tail end of the group is that stopping is a bit more relaxing (very few people left to pass us anyway!), so we stopped a lot taking photos and had a good time. We also stopped at the Old Pioneer Bakery in Davenport — to go to the bathroom there, Lisa had to take off her cycling shoes (a cyclist previously fell walking to the bathroom) and get a bathroom pass — she then followed the footprints painted on the floor through the kitchen (talking to the cook on the way) to get to the bathroom.

Total official cross-USA distance travelled (”bonus” miles being lost, on side trips, finding a restroom, etc, not included): 306 miles