I'm still riding with Patrick and Chris, up into the North Cascades National Park and scenic highway. It's a 3500-foot climb up Washington Pass, yet another of the big humps we've crossed in Washington. But glorious.

On the way up it looked like forest fires and their smoke were going to make our passage less than picturesque. It was just plain smoke as we left Winthrop; the sun was a red ball in the sky at midday. But it cleared with the afternoon, and we climbed into incredible sharp glacier-cut valleys.

The valleys are like none I've ever seen: There was no obvious pass out of the huge, jagged, glacier-cut cliffs all around us. But at the last moment the road cut up the side of one of the cliffs and over a knoll into a higher valley. The knoll was Washington Pass. It's incredible, though - the mountains were still steep on every side. It's not like the passes I've crossed before!

On Friday we spent most of the day hiking some glorious trails that gave us huge (and mostly smoke-free) views of the Cascades, incredible endless mountains. One set of peaks was completely enclosed with a glacier.

Finally we started down the mountain at about 4:45pm. We'd eaten all our food, so had to make it to the next town, 37 miles down. When we got there we found the store closed so Patrick led and we drafted and really screamed for the 15 miles to the next town as darkness closed around us. A glorious day.

Nancy got to Anacortes on Wednesday and was I ever glad to see her! We had a wonderful dinner out with Patrick and Nancy's old school friend Rainer. We stayed at the incredible Autumn Leaves B&B. What a change from camping! And when they heard Patrick was going to go camp in the park, they invited him to stay, gratis, in one of their rooms, complete with breakfast in the morning! (Thanks, Roger and Jean!)

The ferry system in both the San Juan Islands (in the US - Washington State Ferries) and in the Gulf Islands (Canada - BC Ferries) is so easy I just wanted to write a note about it.

They're both all set up for bicycles. You just show up 10 minutes or more before the scheduled departure and roll your bike on and put it where they tell you.

Schedules are published on the web and in brochures that are widely available. Once you understand where the islands are it's really easy to figure out what gives.

Schedules for the Washington Ferries are at http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/schedules/current/index.cfm?route=ana-sj&direction=west. It's pretty easy to figure out what's going on using the map. We spent about $15/person with our bikes for all the travel in the islands we wanted. Then we spent about another $15 to get over to Vancouver Island (Sidney) to get to Canada.

The Canadian ferry terminal is less than 5 miles from the Sidney terminal (on Vancouver Island) of the ferry from the San Juans, so it would be easy to just continue from the San Juans over to the Gulf Islands in one day. However, you might not want to miss Victoria and all its beautiful attractions just an easy and beautiful 20 miles south of both terminals. The BC Ferries schedule is at http://www.bcferries.com/schedules/southern/. We spent about $6/person for each ride on the BC Ferries. What a deal!

I had the great pleasure of riding with 20-something Chris through much of Waashington and out to the San Juan islands. What a delight to see an idealistic young person seeing the world, discovering himself, and actively pursuing a helping role in the world.

Chris has already finished university and done a 2-year stint in East Africa for the Peace Corps. And he's probably in Haiti right now with an open mind about staying there and working more in international development.

And he just rode all the way across the United States this summer, mostly on Adventure Cycling's Trans-America route, starting in Virginia and crossing to Colorado, then riding up to Montana and finally crossing the far northern parts of Idaho and Washington.

When you meet Chris he might give you his business card, with "Freethinking Journalist" emblazoned as his title. There's a cellphone, too, but no address because he doesn't have one right now. He's been riding across the country. But he's perhaps preparing a career as a writer. And he is in fact writing a column called "Across America" for the Fairfield (Connecticut) Citizen-News. I encourage you to check it out. The published version is still in Breckenridge, Colorado, so you can follow him through the rest of the country, just a little bit out of time. Go to www.fairfield-citizen-news.com, click on the "Living" section, and then you'll find "Across America" right on top.