Missoula MT and the Idaho Beneath it...

Well rested after a night in a ritzy hotel, you might think, eh? Well, you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. I got caught up in television- not even cable/satellite television, just good, old fashioned PBS, which was running a documentary on a "Prison Town" in California. It was danged heartwrenching... shoplifting and broken families and law enforcement school and prison life and one milk man's struggle to keep his contract with the pen... so I stayed up til 2 a.m. watching PBfreekin'S. Does this make me a loser? Yes, yes it does.

Woke early to capitalize on the breakfast buffet, and capitalize I did. I musta crammed 2000 calories worth of biscuits, scrambied eggs, Total and Cocoa Puffs (the kid in me likes the chocolatey-ness, the adult in me likes the complete nutrition), and scone after nasty little scone, down the hatch and into the boiler room.

After about 16 or 18 additional cups of crappy in house coffee, I hit the streets. Stopped in at the Lolo Forest Ranger station to talk about bears, coyotes, and fires (oh my) and got some hot leads on free camping towards the top of Lost Trail Pass. Then, it was off to downtown, by way of about 4 nifty little independent bike shops. I had missed downtown on my little twilight ride the night before, but glad I didn't haul out of Missoula after judging it solely on the suburbs. The place is bike crazy! Imagine a little denser, slightly-larger than Moorhead-sized downtown, with shopfronts from the Fargo-downtown era and design school, add a tube-, kayak,- and raft-able version of the Red River (and rename it the Clark Fork), then place the MSUM campus next to this fine waterway (and replace Dragons with Grizzlies), srout mountains to about 2300 ft and dry the landscape a bit, add a brewery, several additional bike shops, and independent bakeries, subtract a few coffee shops and tuck away some of the banks, and there you have it: Missoula, the beautiful, the bike friendly, the cosmo city of hicksville proper. Crazy. I may well settle down there someday.

The bike shops are 'cross crazy, and I hear that 29ers and hardtails are pretty much all the rage there too (odd, coming from the NW where you're either a spandexed-to-the-maxxx roadie, a safety yellow commuter, or a 8 inches of travel, full-body-armor-bombadier), beings that the surrounding countryside is laced with forest service roads that are easy up (I mean, relatively easy up) and screaming down. Fun folks at the shops, too.

I hop into the bank to change my permanent mailing address (whoops... yeah, my ex-roommates are gonna get real used to my mail in their box for a month or so...) and got pointed to the Karbala of all cyclo tourists: Adventure Cycling's World Headquarters... that's right, the folks who make all the sweet, uber-detailed trans-america bike maps are hunkered down, busy cartographer-ing and magazine-ing there in the middle of Missoula, MT. I can't believe I hadn't remembered that.

So I bolt to HQ. There's a sign on the door (whose doorknobs are a pair of drop bars wrapped in orange tape) that says a staff meeting is just about to close down the operation for an hour or two. I rush inside, asking for quick directions on easier routes south of the city and or favorite camp spots, etc... Calm down, they tell me, share some info, and then INVITE ME TO THE FRIGGIN' STAFF MEETING.

I was like, "Wha?"

And they're all like "It's really more of a presentation than a meeting. Other tourists are coming. too." [translation: don't be so weirded out, dude. you didn't win the publisher's clearinghouse, dude. dude.]

And so I wheel my bike (which I'm sorta calling Kanker-Sore-Ass-Rex, have I mentioned that? I don't talk to it constantly, but dang if she ain't a good listener...) into the courtyard, where it is free to rest with all the other cool bikes (some japanese guy named Poi has been rolling around the world with a 20" foldalble loaded with what looks like 600 pounds of gear) and then into the conference room.

Apparently, some young fella from one of them Bay Area colleges took off after his grad-gee-ation to spread the [false] gospel of climate change to the ign'ant masses of 'Merica and South 'Merica, logging 16,000 miles (yeah, the comma is in the right place- 16mo-foinK) on bike. On BIKE. With a powerpoint presentation and a list of schools, public and private, to show it off to. I have to say, the journey was impressive, but the information he doled out was less than impressive (And I'm not just saying that because global warming is a commie-pinko-muslim-ec0-weirdo conspiracy to make me feel guilty about my pickup truck). Still, it was quite the show.

Afterwards, the Adventure Cycling folks put on a little barbeque in the courtyard, and I again shamelessly carbo-loaded to my gut's content. After posing with Kankasaurus for Greg Siple's (the founder of AC) permanent collection, I thanked 'em all and moseyed.

What a day, what a welcoming little town.

Then, Karma balanced itself by giving me 2 flat tires in 5 miles, riding on the glass riddled HWY-93.

Down to a campsite not too far away (I was moving slow- forgot to mention I stopped at the Kettle House brewery for a pint of IPA after the BBQ), and then to Sula, MT (a little crossroads further on with a nice lady clerk who called me "hon" and even "baby" in what a think was a southern drawl, though it was muddled by her bullfroggish emphysema croakyness) to camp again before the pass.

Lost Trail is apparently a pass surrounded by much controversy in the world of Lewis and Clark sholarship and lore: where and when did they actually swing through here? Which creek were they describing in this passage? Which rock did they think looked like a castle here? But it's a breeze of a climb (I was panting and beat toward the top, don't get me wrong. I'm still a pansy- a pansy with 50-odd lbs. of CRAP behind him). At the top I met a family of nomadic, methed-out skateboarders. Yeah. I was weirded out too when the young mother says, between sips of Coors in a 32 oz. can "Hold on, let me get my board from the camper." "Yer headed where? Shoot, we're just goin' up to Missoula to do some boardin'." But they were friendly enough and wished me luck. I did the same.

Then down to Idaho, where the climate turns arid again and smoke hangs thick in the air. It keeps on faking like it wants to rain, so I'll haul tail and set up my tent; throw everything in and then follow after it; there I'll sit, mostly naked and sweating like a banshee, waiting for the clouds to let loose, and they never do.

Two days I've been here now, lollygagging until tomorrow, when I head back to North Fork to hook up with the work crew for the Continental Divide Trail, and it finally rains- thankfully after I portion out 35 bucks worth of dehydrated mashed potatoes, oatmeal, cous cous and trail mix into heavy duty ziploc bags and bolt to the dry comfort of the local Library. Now it's time to read the paper- (ooh, the local weekly is an editors nightmare- Kim, you'd shudder at the shoddy attempt at AP style, and Katie, you'd cringe at the grammar. Dr. Sprunger, if you're reading this (you're probably wringing your hands with disgust at my own prose, and I do apologize, I do, but I warn you against the Salmon Register and Record) and then off to the laundromat.

Take care of yourselves... and peace... pics to come soon, but I'm pushing my 1 hr. limit here, so I best skeedaddle...

Over the Panhandle and Into the Fire

Well kiddos, it's 3 states into the mix and just over five-hondo miles - well, to be exact 591 miles- covered to date. Yeah, my bum is sore. Sure, my legs are a bit sleepy... Pics to see, anyone?

See now, there are wonderful things in Spokane, not just the people. It's much bigger than I expected it to be (quarter million or so, I've been told) and full of great old buildings. This is the Newspaper, and it's surrounded by a bunch of Mason-approved stone-chitecture.

The heavy, heavy necking and petting between WA State Utilities and the power generating capacity of her rivers has reached sweaty, third-base levels. They are so in love, and it's gonna last. This little damsy-doozy's been around awhile (as have most of the Spokane buildings, the rusting, rustling, semi-rural city of when- see my previous post if you think this sounds patronizing...) and serves as a cornerstone of a beautiful riverfront- no foolin', it is the pretty.

Who knew that the bookstore sells Temporary, Olde-Tymey tattoos? Well, they do. That's my boob and Mandy-Jo's wicked pipe- she's got a serpent and swashbuckling sword, I've got the "Homeward" ship that sweated off in the first day. (Also, sorry for the nipple shot. I'll try and keep 'er PG13, for the kiddies, you know...)

There are eco-terrorists in Spokane, too. Hmm. Contact Homeland Security.

\

Speaking of Homeland Security, the terror alert matches my sunburn pattern, sorta: this year's hot new colors range from Pale and Pimply to Pink and Puffy to Reddish Brownish almost Tannish and then to a shade I couldn't include for lack of a good nose close-up: we have Blistery! (Mom, I'll wear sunscreen from now on, I swear). The Canoes at Katie's Camp Sweyolaken are as old as the camp itself. They are in amazingly great shape (continuously patched, varnished and repainted, I assume) for being (drumroll) friggin' Eighty or Ninety years old. Who wants to drop everything and devote their LIVES to building wooden watercraft? Check out the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle or Port Townsend, if you're serious about this...

"Miss Katie," the lovely camp counselor and star of Sweyolaken. I did my damndest to get her to cry on departure, but she is like a rock... Besides, summer camp is a continual series of hellos and goodbyes, she's used to it. She's got the best friend/drill sargeant/teacher/songstress thing down, and her campers love/fear/adore and are shaped by her steady guiding hand. That's water in the "Five Years of Service" stein, by the way.

The Sweyolakenites were kind enough to hoist me up on the giant swing and let her rip. Somewhat less comfortable than a roofers harness, but the odd pressure in odd places reminded me of days spent with a nail gun on the third floor of Patterson Park. I also managed to get some archery in, and some snack, but no arts and crafts, unfortunately, because of the fire drill. Katie's and my strategy for survival? Escape the blaze by jumping in the lake fully clothed. Bonsai.

Thirty miles south of Coeur d'Alene lies Plummer, ID and the start of the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes (am I spelling that right? irritating. am I spelling that right?). It's a beautifully re-surfaced rail to trail system, spans about 70 miles, and is full of cool features like this bridge across the lake...
...And this stretch of blacktop, which is in part to encourage bike tourism, part to cover up Super-Fund levels of soil toxicity. Apparently the old railbed was built up with mine tailings that contain heavy metals, mercury, and lead. Of course I only read this after I pumped a few bottles worth of water from the creeks... my filter don't do shit for lead, I'm afraid. Luckily Tom, owner of the Snakepit B&G (best damn $4.50 salad bar I've ever exploited. Potato salad and macaroni salad? Carbo-loading on the cheap) refilled my tainted containers and pointed me toward a nice campspot in the bushes...
And this nifty little bike shop in Kellogg, ID. It was the old railroad warehouse, but it has a loading platform (the overhang on the right) now filled with the used stock, and a nice little interior with some no-nonsense merchandise. Wormwood trimwork, too... real classy. Mike, the amiable owner, hooked me up with some trail info, including the final act to the Panhandle drama...
This snotty little stretch of ATV track that put me up and over Lookout Pass in about 11 miles of shale-n-washout ecstasy. It's a curvy little passage, but hard-packed enough to be do-able, and much more scenic than the slow, upward grind of I-90. I was about to try the gravel on the east side of the pass, but was unsure of how far it paralleled 90 (it seems like it does, but there may have been some creek fording involved, perhaps a rail bridge or too... worth investigating, because 90 was a beat up mess of a road. When you can feel the sidepanels of a 53' tractor-trailer with your ear hairs, the shoulder is a bit narrow for bikin', methinks).

I descended 33 miles (safely, mom, that ear-hair stuff was a slight exaggeration) to St. Regis, where MT-HWY 135 rakes NE along the River Runs Through It-esque Regis River. I camped at a little USFS pullout underneath this trestle. First order of business was a swim, which was refreshing and relaxing, until I swam a few feet over the back of a snapping turtle. That was, well, butt-clenchingly freaky. He wasn't interested in what I had to offer, nutritionally, however. Then, I watched a half dozen crayfish fight over the heads and tails of some trout that a fisherperson had left bobbing in the shallows. They're stupid and relentless, pinching each others' noses and whatnot... Next morning, er, ah- this morning I guess it was, I rolled up 135 for a couple of miles until I came on a fairly tame looking gravel road: USFS 412. I was only 2 miles into my climb and ready to turn back to the highway when a USFS truck sidled up longside me. "This should hook up with I-90, right? Maybe 30 miles on?" I ask. "Yeah, yeah, it will, but I don't think it's that far. You've got about five, six miles to the saddle, but after that it's pretty much downhill." I watch him drive away at a pace that ruins my 3 mph slug, with an empty pickup bed. I could've punched myself for being so stupid... ask him for a lift, you idiot. Seven miles, thousands of vertical feet, one lynx sighting (I thought it was a bobcat at first, though this is cougar country, too, I reckon- goodness knows I'da been toast had mama cougs decided sweaty bicyclist looked tasty or cub-threatening... mom, relax), and countless, breathless bike-pushing sessions later, I summit......And what do I see? Forty freegin' miles total (yeah, that's a 6 behind that 2 that somebody used for sighting in his or her elk rifle. "Oh, I don't think it's that far" says mr. forest ranger, that liar...) It starts cooking pretty good, and the view from the top is pretty sweet, though none of my pics do it any justice. I slap on my shades and ride the roller-coaster of gnarly-assed pits and gullies downhill at a slightly less than suicidal rate. I haven't checked my poor, poor wheels for trueness yet, but I'm not holding out much hope.

So, the journey ends, right? Well, no. After riding another some-odd-teen miles of gravel, passing by big old ranch houses and herds of cattle and horses who spook then gawk then spook then gawk as I pass, I wind up at Nine-Mile township. (It should be noted here that Washington state has a charming habit of naming roads for their endpoints, Carnation-Redmond Road, for example. This makes navigation a snap. I'm here, I'd like to go here. Done. Montana, I had wrongly assumed by some of it's place names has a similar habit of naming creeks and townships and other little landmarks by their proximity to other, larger landmarks. By this logic then, I assumed I'd be just a hop away from Missoula, but no). I finished a cheese sandwich and a beer and an Almond Joy at the Nine Mile House B&G (see? see the name?) when the waitress informs me that I'm 28, maybe 32 miles out. What the hell, right?

So it's ninety-five damned degrees out; not a shade tree to save my life- danged, spindly-assed ponderosas can't cast a shadow for nothin'; I had just read the house copy of the Missoulian Newspaper over lunch, which highlighted the fish kill in a nearby lake that had been happening steadily since Friday the Thirteenth (turns out the Artic Char couldn't handle the unprecedentedly hot, "bath-water warm" lake, thank you heat wave), and the heat-lighting-initiated string of forest fires raging in the W.MT woods (the moisture content of the ground cover and forest litter was "at about 2 to 3 percent. Now, to my way of thinking, that means a 97% chance of forest fires" a ranger was quoted as saying (but what do they know, am I right?)). So I'm mulling over all of that information, sweating like a banshee (and kinda sorta regretting that rich, refreshing, effervescent Moose Drool beer that really tied my lunch together) and thinking "Shit, I could concievably keel over and die out here. I'm getting a damned hotel room."

And this thought goes cycling through my head, and I think "when I get to Missoula I'll change my tune. I'm not that much of a pansy, am I?"

Before I know it, I'm waltzing up to the front desk of every hotel off of Exit 104. I promise myself I'll not pay more than 50 bucks. Maybe I'll just catch the KOA down the road. Maybe I can make it to the river outside of town and squat there...

Then there I am, swiping my credit card at Rubies Inn for a double-bed smoking at the sympathetic corporate rate of 64.99, tax incl.

How have I stooped so low?

But this is gonna be a "working vacation," and I'm wringing my money's worth outta this dive, baby. I wash my clothes in the bathtub, smear the complementary lotion all over my sunburnt self, make the pot of in-room Farmer Bros. Decaf, then watch TV and make the Caffeinated version, then run clean water through the coffee pot and rehydrate some lentil stew, then watch TV, use the hotel towels to wipe down my embarrassingly dusty ride and dirty saddlebags, lube every link and squeaky, grindy pivot on the bike, right there in the room, poop in a real toilet, and take full advantage of the security of a lockable door: I unhook the wagon and go for a ride (this is after the sun sinks plenty low and the temp dips to 85, mind you. I'm still a big pansy).

My Surly Cross-Check, which I've now dubbed "Kanka-Sore-Ass-Rex", or just "Kanks", for short, is as squirrely as a Missoula meth-head when I first get cranking. It's amazing how nimble the thing is when the 60 pounds of crap are offloaded. I blaze a ten mile loop around Missoula without dropping out of my big ring- but can't find downtown to save my life. I do find historic Fort Missoula, a pretty little collection of Military buildings and timber-industry memerobilia, so I mill around, then head hotel ward for snacks and free interned access (milking it, milking it...)

Tomorrow is continental breakfast at 6. It goes til 9, and I plan on doing nothing else for those three hours. Living the high life in Missoula, MT.

Peace.

The E.WA Retraction

First and Foremost: A Retraction, of sorts...

It has been politely brought to my attention that I spent a lot of time and energy diggin' and rippin' on the old E.WA in my last post.

Allow me to clear the air: I've never been treated so well and respectfully as a stranger in a strange land. In chronological order: Carl and the cute waitress at the biker bar in Bridgeport; the truckers 'long the gravel path who durn near bent backwards to see that I had some fresh water for my empty bottles (and offered to use their nifty trucking software to print me up a "delivery route" of sorts, an offer which I declined, so as not to interrupt the game of Warcraft that the operations manager seemed fully engaged in- hospitable, nerdy, responsibility- and paper-work-shirking, but hospitable none the less); The Woman at the Gas Stop near Dry Falls who directed me, kindly, to the camp host in Coulee City park, and when I couldn't find her, the shirtless, mulleted, beer-drinking man in an RV who told me to "go ahead and pick a spot and pitch yer tent- she'll never check on ya," (and then, when she did, in fact, check on me, waived the fee when she learned of my limited budget and long road ahead); Rick, who, at the FREE DNR campground at Long Lake satisfied my curiousity about Alaska, commercial fishing, being a grandparent, opening a floating, fast-food pontoon restaurant/RV with government grant money, spousal abuse, drug abuse, and living on "a bit of a, well, a kind of a limited income..."; and then, of course my Spokanian brethren and sisterthen, Mandy's MFA mates who are nothing if not hospitable (Michelle and Nick generously opened their homes to us, and entertained us with smooth LP favorites, homespun YouTube videos, an endless string of snapshots, a giant bunny, a hookah, and a breakneck game of Backgammon); all of the aforementioned, honestly, my hosts and heroes.

In fact, the only person- the ONLY person who gave me any guff was a cordial Park Ranger, who stamped out our riverside BBQ when he sauntered on up, saying: "Now, the reason for the contact is, of course, your campfire... perhaps you didn't see the giant "NO CAMPFIRES" signs on the way in, but we are under a burn ban, and I'd hate to have you be responsible for a forest fire here..." We honestly hadn't noticed the giant signs. And he gave us a good half hour to finish cooking our burgers, brats, mushrooms and corn, wolf them, and head out.

So, Eastern Washington, your streets may have maneating potholes, and your buildings may sag grumpily with age, heat, and neglect. You may not be the shining star you once were, but you are, as Spokane's slogan surlily states: "Near Nature, Near Perfect."

Still not convinced? I'll try to post some photos that'll do it justice.

The First Days are the Hardest Days...

1 and 2



3 and 4




5 and 6

7 and 8

9 and 10

11 and 12

13 and 14

15

I should've done a lot of things before this trip: paid my cellphone bill, my student loans, shoulda shipped some (more) crap homeward, taken a day to say goodbye to Seattle (by eating a ton of Thai Tom and Cedars and riding the Space Needle up and down for an entire day), shoulda changed my forwarding address and all of that minutiae that responsible adults ought do when the time comes. Responsible. Adults. I'm twenty five danged years old and I can't balance a checkbook (well, I mean, I can, thank you third grade math with Mrs. Pearson, but why balance when you can get that old casino thrill everytime you buy coffee?). But no regrets, right? Got to start out this little journey the best way possible, with a couple of nights in the woods with my Americopsmates, and up and over the Cascades on a road half-tarred and half gravel and all chewed up with road construction. Outside of that, the climb was nice, and it really is true what they say: what goes up, well...

So I've managed to do a lot of cheap eating (thank you, State of Washington for not paying a living wage and feeding me with stamps, suckers) and cheap camping (thank you National Forest Service for your mismanagement of our shared resources, your large tracts of very disturbed, and totally free, scrublands), and have worked a fine set of saddle sores into my comparatively pasty hind end. Enough talk... let's go to the pics, shall we?

My sister warned me that this shit would be tricksy, and I've managed to hose it up- I'll do better next time, promise, but for now, here goes:

1 a welcome sign just outta Spokanistan, after a sea of SUVs and W04 stickers

2 Mando-cammando and her rocking MFA mates party down with Moh-Hee-Toes.

3 WA loves hydro-power, a dang, dang lot. This is the second biggest HP plant in the nation.

4 Middle WA is diamondback country, er, rattler country. It wasn't decayed enough to steal the skull, c'est l vie.

5 Outside of Coulee City, the Dry Falls used to be 10 times bigger than Niagara (yeah, Niagara. yeah), but the Columbia decided to move on over. (into a giant reservoir powering a dam... I think it happened before that, but who's o say what the Army Corps is capable of).

6 Kim. See this? Love it.

7 Free camping next to the Wenatchee R. outside of Leavenworth, the crazy Bavarian City.

8 Good to see that the inmates found it in their cold black hearts to take a stand, united, against litter.

9 Is this Mississippi circa 1856, or Columbia Valley, 20-aught-7? I sure hope the 700 mile border fence works, so I can go back to 4 bucks an hour and a shack and the hot sun and a rickety ladder and all the other glorious stuff I did in Apple country.

10 When it rains, it pours, and so I snuck into this (meth?) shack full of rat poo and broken tvs, and snapped some glamour shots. nice.

11 ...is what I am. I'll miss the soft glow of the Desperado house. and Vincent's ghost.

12 Speaking of, here are the roomies now. Wallace Falls S.P. is a pretty little hike...

13 the Americorpspeople, minus Michelle, Maggie, and Katie, at our sneaky little campsite on the Skykomish.

14 Mikey rocking the Power Lunge on the way up to...

15 Stevens Pass, with D-rock, Ron and Mikey perched up. Helluva way to start a trip, eh?