Canada Big Trip Blog (In Order)
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Salmon smoking - first step - sear them
Vancouver Island touring cyclist report
Vancouver Island is about 300 miles long on the highway. We had a pleasant time touring it, but were surprised by the traffic on the narrow road up north (no surprise since we've been on the easy northern roads for so long).
The section from Port Hardy to Port McNeil was quite pleasant, and we really liked Alert Bay, and also went to Sointula. Very nice cycling.
From Port McNeil to Campbell River was quite bad - much of it has no shoulder, and there are lots of big trucks, including logging trucks.
From Campbell River to Nanaimo was rideable, but not terribly pleasant. There was a lot of traffic on a road with adequate shoulder, but certainly too much traffic.
From Nanaimo south, the roads were great, like New England. Small country roads with little traffic and nice views (and nice hills). Very pleasant. Lots of access to the various islands. We used a bicycle-specific map for this area, the "Victoria/Gulf Islands Cycling and Walking Map". It gave lots of information about the various routes and got us off the main highway.
And the Victoria area (especially Sidney) is delightful, with lots of access to everything for cyclists.
Preparing salmon rack for smoking
He has been a fisherman and a logger for most of his live but now he build boats in Vancouver but alway returns home to help his family with the yearly catching of the salmon and the canning and smoking of this wonderful wild food. Sockeye salmon is the very best. We found the people wonderfully friendly and helpful. We hope go back some day and spend some time on this incredible island. Thanks everyone at Alert Bay.
Flowers for sale - on the honor system
Canada Route
Leaving Victoria
Olympic National Park
Wow, have we had a wonderful time in Washington! We spent 5 days at various places in Olympic National Park on the west side of the Olympic Penninsula. All gorgeous. Rainforest and Beach. Lakes and beautiful sunny swimming holes. We'll try to get some pictures up for you in the next few days.
The night before last it rained for the first time in 17 days! It hadn't rained since we left Prince Rupert, not for the whole length of Vancouver Island and Washington. And then it turned sunny again in the morning. Today we're at Ocean Shores, Washington on the beach taking a rest day. I hope to buy a kite and fly it on the beach. Nancy will be drawing the sunset.
Stuart eating berries
Here is he is stop to enjoy the blackberries along the side of the highway. Life really provides everything we need.
Spruce Railroad Trail
How did I ever get myself into this? Here Nancy is doing a hikering biking around Crescent Lake. It is better to walk and be able to ride another day then to biff and slide down the gravel embankment.
Crescent lake is a 650 feet crystal clear lake with the best swimming holes we seen so far.
For those that want to avoid the traffic on the south side, try this little known trail called the Spruce RailRoad trail that follows the lake on the northside through the forest. Otherwise take the the south side but push the button at the beginning of the ride which will warn drivers there are bicylist on the road.
Hurricane Ridge
I must say the ride down was fantastic and worth ride up.
Hug Point
Here we are taking a moment to enjoy a special moment at Hug Point along the Oregon Coast as we ride up Route 101 to our campground near Ocean City. Oswald state park is a walk-in site next to premier surfing beach. The camping is an amazing experience where you haul your stuff down to the forested camp site in a wheel barrel down about a half mile to the site which is set next to the goreous surfing beaches.
Thanks to our friends Bob and Honna who drove ahead and found us a site on labor day weekend. I can not believe we even got a site her of all places on labor day weekend
Cape Kiwanda Fence
We rode here on Weds with the wind at our backs and had lunch. Don't miss this one even if it is a good solid hike to here. The wind sculptures the trees, the sand dunes, the rocks into perfect photographic images. What do you think? Pretty nice. Eh? ( I am trying to learn to talk like a Canadian by saying "eh?" at the end of a sentence and making it sound like a question.)
Cape Kiwanda
Cape Kiwanda dunes
Oregon coast
We have been riding along the Oregon Coast for the last 4 days. The big, wild Pacific coast is inspiring to experience. The beaches are nestled in between cliffs lined with towering evergreens leaning away from the oceans powerful offshore winds. Occasionally parts of towering cliffs have collapsed down to the protected beaches. The beaches are wonderful places to walk, explore tidal pools, surf or even drive cars. Every corner offers a new photograph opportunity.
We are in Lincoln City, Oregon, staying at a warmshowers.org bicycling host. Thank you Suzie and Jim. We sat in their jaccuzi and watched the sun set over the breaking waves. For almost two weeks we have been going to sleep with the sound of the ocean waves lapping at the evening darkness.
I am finding the roads in Oregon mostly great with a few sections of hell. Today was a tough climb up a windy 4 lane section of highway 101. Cars love to cut the curves which have very little shoulder on the climb up and the over grown blackberry bushes hide us around dangerous curves. Both of us nearly got taken out by a car driving on the shoulder around a right hand curve.
We are finding many bicycle tourists in Oregon, more then we have ever seen. Every day we make a ton of new friends. Our newest friend Stuart, from Wellington New Zealand, has been riding with us for the last three days. He has taken the night off to be alone. It seems all this socializing is a bit overwhelming after he has spent almost 3 months cycling alone. We love riding with him because of his fun loving adventurous spirit and the way he views the world. We laugh while we ride.
Oregon Coast is much too much fun
We're just having an amazing blast on the Oregon Coast. It has to be the most fun bike touring we've ever run into. Every day there's a new sight. Yesterday we went sandboarding on the dunes, and then Jason at Seaside Glass let Nancy help with the glassblowing and create a vase!
Every night there's another beautiful State Park, with quiet, natural hiker-biker areas, for which we pay $4 each. And that includes the unlimited hot shower. And we meet the (many) other cyclists headed our way.
We could spend a month on this coast, and the weather is just amazingly wonderful. We still have had only 1 rain in the last month, and it was one night at a rainforest in the Olympic National Park. We're getting mighty spoiled. The raingear has drifted to the bottom of the panniers.
We're also out of bear country and have gotten sloppy about our food management. Last night a raccoon got into my food pannier and made quite a mess. No harm done, though. We just have to reorganize and get more granola, bread, milk, and coffee. A wakeup call though - just because there's no bears doesn't mean you don't have to take better care of food and trash.
California Dreamin'
We haven't had much good solid internet access here in California, but we're having a fine time. In about 450 miles in California we've enjoyed many wonderful redwood forests (including a great day off hiking to Fern Canyon in the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park) and beaches and coastline galore. The coast is amazingly rough and the waves seem bigger here. Lots to watch.
It's amazing that we've ridden just almost 4000 miles on our journey - it should be over 5000 when we get home, and maybe 20,000 or more when we get to Patagonia. This ride down the Pacific Coast has been about 1200 miles of bike-touring ecstasy. Beautiful beaches, perfect weather, easy campsites, a warm shower every night. We'll have to get used to more primitive situations as we head east.
Tomorrow we ride over the Golden Gate bridge into San Francisco - it's a banner moment - the end of our southward motion for now. We'll head east from here to Sacramento and then over the Sierra Nevada and hoping to scurry home by the end of October. Wish us well with the weather in the Sierras and the high desert!
Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco
We rode over the bridge and into the city and immediately found our way across town to a dentist (Randy had a crown come off a few days ago). Then we crossed through downtown at rush hour, dodging the cars and having a grand old time, to find our friend Stuart and new friends Dave and Shelagh. It was a grand day.
The way into SF was a bit confusing, but along came Carlos and Monica, who were just out from the city for a weekend bike trip to the north. They led us all the way in through the towns to the north and we didn't have to follow the book turn-by-turn. It was a wonderful thing.
We're thinking we'll take a few rest days here and explore the city. We want to be ready for the big ride crossing the desert, and we want to make sure we're mentally ready to do it as bike tourists, rather than just rushing home just because we're on the way to Colorado.
I'm actually considering buying (and carrying) a small laptop because it's been so hard to update the site and get pictures together and support customers and the Warmshowers.org site. We'll see what happens. But if we get a computer you'll probably have to skim faster when you check the site :-)
Update: I actually bought a laptop and am going to try carrying it. Quite a radical departure from our style...
We bought a computer to use on the road
Bike tourists and the homeless
Of course, bike touring is just a case of almost-homeless. I often say it's the last acceptable form of homelessness in the U.S. But the wonderful and cheap facilities they've provided for us are attractive to others, including *real* homeless people, people who have no home to run back to and no credit card to bail them out if things get hard.
We met Ernest in California, just two weeks out of prison and living from campground to campground as he waited to get some money together. He's from Pasadena, Texas and a fine and enjoyable fellow. And we met a legend of the coast: Duggan. He rides up and down the coast every summer, panhandling a bit from bike tourists who take pity on his latest story.
But the most interesting and admirable person we met in the "homeless" category was not truly homeless. We met Arone Garrison on the road. She was pulling a large, wide trailer loaded with her (large) cat and all her worldly possessions. She found herself homeless in Bend, Oregon, but a friend in San Francisco promised her a place to stay and a job if she could get there. With no transportation and no money, and with a cat to care for, she just loaded it all up and started riding to San Francisco. What a courageous thing to do! All these bike tourists are just recreating. And the few real "homeless" people are just passing the time. But Arone is using her bicycle to move on with her life. We're rooting for you, Arone! We think you'll be successful and it will be an incredible turning point in your life.