Sandpoint, ID

No picture, but this was a glorious day for the riders. Wind at their backs, nice easy rolling hills, great scenery, beautiful weather - 76 miles. Temperature about 75. Everyone finished the ride in very good time, and there was time to relax in Sandpoint. Nice town of about 6,000, very touristy. We're staying at the High School on the lawn. Just had the word that the library is closing in 15 minutes. Time for Kathy to take a shower. Bill has had his and is downtown roaming around. The people on the ride are really terrific and are very good to each other. All alums of the Big Ride say that the people were the best part of the experience, and we're seeing why. Soon, probably Thursday, the weather is expected to get very hot - 101 to 105. Kathy will not fare well, but has a hat, an umbrella and wears sun screen. The water stops can take three to five hours for all the riders to pass, and by that time, Bill is in camp. First 100 miler is Monday.

Seattle to Spokane

Picture of Bill at Hurricane Ridge. Spectacular day - thank you, Gordon Tiffany for sending us up there. It's been a while since we posted because of the lack of availability of an Internet connection. This comes from the library at Gonzaga University in Spokane on our first rest day. We got to Seattle, settled up on the repairs to the air conditioning at the Audi dealer, went around Lake Washington, and arrived at the home of our hosts, Steve and Pollie McCloskey. On Friday, Bill and Steve were off on their bikes while Pollie and Kathy went downton to the American Lung Association office to get crew orientation. On the way into the city, the Audi started acting up, and it was back to the dealership. They were terrific and diagnosed and fixed the ignition coil very quickly. The orientation included the answers to big and small questions, the installation of a ham radio, and acquiring a ton of gear for the car (water containers, table, first aid kit, gear kit. etc.) We spent most of Saturday with Eric Prager, son of Carol and Rich from Holden, MA. Great time. Sunday was rider orientation at the home of Ali Spain, a former Big Rider. First chance to meet the other riders, ranging in age from 20 to 76. Wonderful people, coming together as a group very quickly. There was a lot of anxiety on the part of the riders before the first day's ride through Seattle and then up to Snoqualmie Pass. Lots of climbing, traveling on Interstate 90 (only road over the pass), through some city traffic. 77 miles later, all were in the state park by 6:30, only three not totally under their own power. Bill? Into camp five hours before Kathy, who handled two water stops. This from Kathy: Bill is consistently one of the strongest riders (Tim - you'd be proud) - getting into camp way before me and most of the youngsters. His training has really paid off. The next three days were 71, 81, and 75 miles. The riding has been very good, with lots of hills that have been difficult primarily when there were severe headwinds the third day. The tailwinds yesterday had the riders feeling that they were floating up the hills! We have stayed in a state park, a commercial campground (very nice), on an athletic field, and now in the dorms. No rain, so tenting has been pleasant. Because the rhythm of the days is so different, Bill has set up the tent every day, for which Kathy is quite grateful. The food has been catered dinners so far, with breakfast and lunch mostly prepared by the riders. We're happy to be spending a couple of nights in the same spot and have the day planned to do laundry, get our camera attended to or buy an inexpensive digital camera, and get a pedicure (Kathy, not Bill). We'd love to hear from any of you and won't likely post again until July 3rd in Missoula.

To Puget Sound

Bill rode Tuesday from Port Angeles to Puget Sound. The photo here is the Hood Canal, taken while Kathy waited for the drawbridge to come back down. Bill's ride was 62 miles in length over four hours. Kathy thought that Monday's ride was more challenging in terrain, but Bill maintained that the long, straight hills were much more daunting. At one point, there was a long, steady uphill of two miles, gaining 600 feet, where he maintained a speed of seven miles an hour. Fortunately, he then had a wonderful downhill of speeds over 30 miles an hour.

We're figuring out how to use the Garmin Edge 205, a GPS device that doesn't talk to you to let you know what the next turn is but is a bicycle computer, displaying and capturing (for downloading to the laptop) certain statistics for the ride. The version we have doesn't record the cadence or the heart beat (amazing what those little suckers can do); it measures speed, distance, grade, elevation, etc. So far, you'd think that Bill was a professional rider at the top of his form with speeds up to 70 miles an hour, since the Garmin has been in the car! His old fashioned bike computer measures distance, speed, etc, and the interesting things done by the Garmin are measuring the grade and elevation and keeping the history of daily rides. When the download is complete, you can view a map with numbered routes, bodies of water, settlements, etc. We'll be able to store the whole trip, and Bill will be able to relive it at leisure on the martini deck in Rutland.

Today, we're headed up Hurricane Ridge, which has tremendous vistas of the Olympic Peninsula. It's a beautiful day here, with none of the overcast and drizzle that the Northwest is famous for.

Cape Flattery

This was to be a challenging day for both Bill and Kathy. We have been staying at the Port Angeles Inn, situated on a hill overlooking the harbor and ferry dock (beautiful view of both harbor and snow-capped mountains of the Olympic Peninsula behind to the South). It was an hour and three-quarter drive to reach Cape Flattery, which is the Northwest-most point of the contiguous United States, and the point from which the "Big Ride" begins (for Bill).

We got all set for this photo with the Pacific in the background, and Kathy discovered her battery-gobbling camera, even though turned "off", had drained the batteries. This is very remote country--we had not seen a vehicle for about a half-hour or so. At that moment, a pick up with two young men in it happened by. Kathy asked them if they would let her use, just for the photo, a couple of AA batteries. They searched their vehicle and came up with the batteries. Kathy took the photo, but couldn't return the batteries--the men had driven off.

The ride from Cape Flattery to Port Angeles was approximately 77 miles (5 hrs.+15 min.), much of which was along the southern mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and dense, well rain-supplied forest. The terrain was a nice regular mix of uphill, downhill, and flat. The only scary part was the lumber trucks. As usual when the ride was over, Bill and his bottom were feeling thoroughly done for the day.

Meanwhile, after dropping Bill off and returning to Port Angeles, Kathy had planned an afternoon of relaxation. Instead, the Audi dealer called and the parts for the air conditioning had arrived in Seattle. To get the repair under way, she drove to Seattle, dropped off the car, picked up a rental, and drove back to Port Angeles. Since this involved a ferry each way and hellish Seattle traffic, this was a six hour round trip.

Today's ride for Bill will be shorter and go to the edge of Puget Sound. We'll take a rest day tomorrow and pick up the car Thursday. Thursday evening we join Seattle Big Ride hosts Steve and Pollie McCloskey. Pollie is ride leader, and Steve is a rider. Friday morning starts crew orientation and installation of a ham radio in the (by-then) air conditioned car.

It was terrific seeing Eileen and Bob Beban in Eugene. They were very considerate of our timetable for getting to Port Angeles and took us to a terrific breakfast at the Eugene Country Club. We watched just enough of the U.S. Open to see Tiger in the lead.

California Dreamin'

While Kathy was in Anaheim working, Bill had a nice trip out to Newport Beach, where he went for a 42 mile ride to Laguna Beach and saw good friends Sam and Inez for dinner. After leaving Anaheim, where we saw lots of colleagues from ICMA-RC and friends from GFOA, we had a delightful visit with Penny, Buzz, and Riley Abbott. Penny and Kathy worked together in '80s and have been friends ever since. She put together a bike ride in the San Gabriel Foothills for Bill that he found very challenging! Bill and seven-year old Riley really took to each other. When Bill went out to the car, Riley said, "Where's Will?" We had lunch on Wednesday with Bill's sister Heather and husband Chris. Beautiful setting - nice lunch. We arrived on Wednesday evening to stay three nights with Ken Hutton, one of Bill's oldest (in terms of tenure!) and best friends, in Palo Alto. Ken was Bill's professor when he was at San Jose State and involved him in outdoor activities that they still talk about - kayaking, backpacking, and bicycling down the northern California coast. The plan was to have Bill ride in the area, which he did. He went on a 20+ mile ride with a friend of Ken Gobalet's - see previous post - and went on a 67 mile ride from Palo Alto across Skyline, over the coast range to the coastal highway 1, and back. Very challenging terrain - for those of you who know it - Old La Honda Road, Tunitas Creek Road and King's Mountain Road. The plan to get the car fixed did not come off as well. The Audi dealership in Palo Alto had said they could take it on Thursday and get us out no later than Friday, assuming there weren't parts that they didn't have on hand. By Thursday noon, they let us know that, of course, the car required a new compressor, which they couldn't install until Monday at the earliest. Since that was the case, we contacted Seattle (our next stop) to see if they could do the work for us. They committed to having the part on Friday and doing the service on Monday. Great! When they called late Friday to confirm the service appointment, we checked on the part (expensive and already payed for), which of course was not in and won't be in until some time on Monday. This means we'll have to juggle the trip out to Cape Flattery for the start of Bill's true coast-to-coast trip. Right now the thinking is that we'll settle into a motel in Port Angeles on Sunday night, get Bill to Cape Flattery at the crack of dawn, and then Kathy will go back to P.A. to see if the part comes in. The arrival of the part will determine when we get the Audi back to Seattle - maybe pick up a rental at that point. Right now we're looking forward to seeing Kathy's close friend from Springfield, VT days, Eileen Beban, in Eugene, OR tomorrow We'll be in Seattle for crew orientation Friday for Kathy and rider orientation Sunday for Bill. Then we're off on the official ride Monday. We're still working to get the blog to accept comments. By the time we reach Minnesota, maybe we'll have it solved!

Back to Work (Temporarily!)

After spending a day at the Grand Canyon, we drove through the desert (including what we would call a sand storm in Barstow) to Bakersfield. There we stayed two nights with Ken Gobalet, a friend of Bill's from graduate school (UC Davis) and a biology professor (fish guy) at Cal State Bakersfield . Over the years Ken has done 16 double centuries (two hundred miles in a day rides) and he's still riding seriously. Ken and Bill went out for two morning rides,. He was a gracious host and we had a terrific time. Now Kathy is back to business at the Government Finance Officers Association meeting in Anaheim. She'll be tied up through Monday and then we'll head up the coast to start the ride in another two weeks. Along the way, we'll be seeing friends and family (Bill's), and Bill will be riding in the Bay Area while Kathy gets the air conditioning fixed on the Audi (her highest priority right now). We have had some advice on how to allow for comments on this blog and have followed them. The settings for comments all appear to be correct, but comments are still not allowed. If anyone thinks they can fix this, let us know!!!! bkharm@netzero.net. We welcome your emails and have enjoyed hearing words of encouragement from Rich and Carol. Got a call this morning from neighbor Nancy Brown. (Even though she's still in Worcester, she'll always be a neighbor.) Stay in touch!

It IS Grand

On Monday, Bill rode from Flagstaff, AZ about 77 miles to Grand Canyon, and Kathy practiced her water girl skills. This involved primarily finding a good parking spot with some shade, setting up a chair and waiting for Bill. The ride was a good one - rolling hills for most of the trip, although Bill says that hills on straight roads where you can see miles ahead are more discouraging than winding roads. The trip was hot (hitting 90) and at quite an altitude (up to 8,000 feet). He still had some left at the end of the trip, but we put the bike on the car at the park entrance to take advantage of Bill's Golden Age National Parks pass. Saved $25 for his (much) younger wife! We spent yesterday at the canyon, and there couldn't be a way to appreciate the grandeur without being there. It's so much bigger than I had comprehended or that a picture can portray. We're now off to somewhere in California tonight, planning to arrive in Anaheim on Friday for Kathy's conference. All goes on schedule, although there's been less opportunity for good rides than Bill had hoped.

Pedal to the Metal

The picture of the loaded car in front of the house was taken around noon on Thursday. It's now Saturday evening, and we're in Tucumcari, NM. The drive has been very easy so far, if quite long (about 1950 miles). We had planned on having Bill do some afternoon rides on the way west, but the weather so far hasn't cooperated. The thundershowers have been pretty intense. We're now headed for Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. Bill hopes that he'll get a ride in tomorrow in the Petrified Forest. If anyone knows how to allow for comments on this blog, please let us know, and we'll tell everyone else. We'd love to be hearing from you - bkharm@netzero.net.