The by-product of "exhausting fun"

Salt and my body's unbelievable ability to percipiate it still does not cease to astound me! On extremely hot days (read "most days") I find it very difficult to drink enough water to keep up with my sweating and by the end of the day, once I dry off, I'm typically covered with an incredibly dense layer of salt.

It seems like there must be half a pound of salt on me on some days! Do I eat that much salt everyday that I can leach out so much? Does my body spontaneously generate salt? These are the burning questions I mull over every sun baked mile of my day.

Marvel at the salt deposits on my black, now salty white shorts and on my jersey. Incredible!

Where everyone knows your name

Two days ago, we entered North Dakota and stayed overnight in Williston, your quintessential small town of 12,000 where everyone knows your name (if you're from there). We stayed with Tom and Dana and their son T.C. who are all cousins of Eric's friend Erik. They are a really nice family and really treated us well.

Uncle Ernie had just celebrated his 90th birthday a few days ago, so we went out to dinner with the rest of their family to celebrate, which was really fun. Eric and I both enjoyed petting the three dogs and talking with the family about North Dakota and our adventures.

They next morning I had the opportunity to go to church, which I really enjoyed. After being on the road for nearly a month, it was very refreshing to hear the word of God and give thanks for making it safe this far. It was also great to eat some juneberry muffins afterwards during coffee hour.

After church, we were treated to a feast of french toast and sausage before heading out. It was another one of those 100 degree days and the 75 mile ride to New Town was quite exhausting, especially since we started at noon during the hottest part of the day. It was a welcome relief when T.C. drove by as we were half way to New Town with cold sports drinks - thanks man!

The unbelievable hospitality continued when we entered Minot, ND, where we're staying tonight with Barb and Tom, Barb who is the niece of my pastor's wife from the church I grew up in in Cleveland. We were greeted with cold drinks and chocolate chip cookies and were treated to an amazing lasagna dinner with peach pie for dessert!

Staying with people has really become one of the major highlights of our trip. No matter how rough or exhausting the day is, arriving "home" to friendly strangers, who treat you like a king with whom you can spend the evening chatting with is indescribably wonderful.

We've discovered that North Dakota is a pretty nice state - at least nicer than eastern Montana. Gone are the shabby bars, one room casinos, and parched prairies, and here are the rolling fields of wheat and sunflowers, oil wells and ICBM underground silos, and sparse but very pleasant, nearly stereotypical small towns.

Prevailing EAST winds and unbelievable hospitality

Did you know that the prevailing winds in Montana blow from East to West??? And at speeds averaging 15-20 mph??? It's not supposed to be this way!

For about the past three days we've been facing constant headwinds out of the East and it's a real pain in the neck. Actually, it's more of a pain in the butt, because strong headwinds equal greatly reduced speeds, which add up to significantly longer amounts of time spent on the saddle - I'm sure you can follow the logic to it's sore end.

The East wind is a really downer, because everything we had read and everything we're heard from other bikers we've run into have promised that we'd have a constant tail wind to blow us easily through the plains. And biking into a headwind is almost worse than biking up a huge hill - you're constantly getting pushed backwards and you feel like your trying to push yourself through molasses! The weather report indicates another day of 20 mph East winds for tomorrow. The cool weather over the last couple of days has been the only thing that's saved us.

In spite of the winds, we're going to try to go 110 miles tomorrow to get through some rough Indian reservation towns, namely Poplar, MT, that many locals have warned us about - "don't stop, just keep biking through!" Apparently, poverty and crime is extremely high there and isn't a good place to stay overnight.

Tonight we're camping in Glasgow, MT, the yard of a really friendly couple, Marie and John. We met Marie during the day, as she was biking in the other direction while out for a 100 mile ride. We arrived at their house in the late afternoon and knocked on the door. Marie's husband John, who had no idea who we were, invited us in without hesitation and encouraged us to make ourselves at home and use the shower. He had to leave, and just left us strangers here, told us we could let out the dogs. When Marie got back from her ride, she gave us yummy cherries and we had a great time chatting with her about our bike trip and other things.

The depth of the kindness, sympathy, generosity and hospitality of the random people we've run into on our trip continues to astound us and really strengthens my belief in the general goodness present in all people. In the more than 1,000 miles we've biked so far, we haven't come across a single malicious person. Quite the contrary - where ever we go, people offer us water, food, shelter, ask if we need help and ask if they can pray for us - all of this on their own volition, without us asking for a thing. It's really incredible when you think about it.

Smooth Sailing!

What a difference a day makes! Today was just about the polar opposite of yesterday. The devel in the sky was obscured by clouds, it was nice and cool and we had a hint of a tail wind, which was all we needed!

I felt really great this morning after having slept in a real bed. After eating a great bacon and eggs breakfast that Cindy cooked for us, we headed out and biked 104 miles to Havre, MT. Don't be fooled by the French spelling - it's pronounced about as American and unFrench as you can possibly say it. It's a great little town if you're interested in hamburgers, gambling, and/or massive road construction.

Along the way today, we stopped in the town of Rudyard, populated, according to the sign, by "596 nice people and 1 old sore head!" Talking with an old-timer, we learned that the one old sore head died a couple years back and they held a contest to appoint a new old sore head. Apparently, the guy who runs the gas station on the corner is the current old sore head.

Our main motivation for stoping in Rudyard wasn't to seek out the angst of the old sore head sage, but to visit a cool dinosaur museum there. The museum was really cool and featured dino bones you could actually touch! Behind the dinosaur museum as a town museum housed in the old train depot. My favorite artifact was the button that read:

Rudyard, Montana

Shaving Permit

50th Anniversary

According to the museum currator, when the town celebrated it's 50th anniversary, all the men stopped shaving and they sold these buttons to all the men who wanted to shave to raise money for the festivities! How funny!

We finally ended up in Havre, Montana, and are staying overnight at St. Paul's Lutheran Church. My pastor in DC, Pastor John, emailed a pastor friend of his in Williston, North Dakota, who called me before the trip and offered to put us up there. We happened to already have a place to stay there, so he gave me the name of Pastor Schultz here in Havre who I called up. It turns out Pastor Schultz is a really nice guy and let us stay over night at the church!

Breaking out of the Gulag, Take 2

So today definitely rivaled Washington Pass in the Cascade Mountains for the worst day of my life and was much more appropriate for the breaking out of the gulag analogy. First off the setting was much more appropriate - rolling, brown, sun baked hills of Alberta and Montana. Our arch enemy, the devil the sky - the sun, was back with a vengance and so were the near record highs of 40 C in Alberta and 100 F in Montana. Take the hills, incredible heat, no shade what so ever and add a 20 mph head wind, bike for 12 hours in those conditions and you have hell on earth.

I can't begin to explain how intensely terrible it was. About 20 miles out of Cut Bank, MT, I all but stopped sweating. Salt crystals covered my body like sand and my black bike shorts were white with my own salt. My heat throbbed, my legs and knees ached, and my whole body was baking from the unbearable heat. And I wasn't going anywhere because of that aweful headwind!

For those of you who know me well, you've probably noticed that I sweat a lot. I drank over 10 Liters of water today and still couldn't keep up with my sweating and still became extremely dehidrated. 7 miles out of Cut Bank, I figured I had an 80% chance of not making it there. 3 miles out, the distance of a 5K race, I put my odds of failure at 95%. Less than one mile to go, will a hill in front of me, I was convinced I would collapse over into the ditch and die, which some how seemed better than biking for 5 more minutes.

Some how we made it to Cut Bank and we ate a ton of food and drank a ton of water at a family restaurant. But we weren't finished for the day - we still needed to make it to Shelby, MT, where we were going stay the night with a ralative of Eric's friend, Erik, which was still 25 more aweful miles away.

After a long break, we headed out again in the heat. After about 15 miles, the food and water started kicking in and I felt that I would at least make it. Thankfuly, due to the grace of God, we both made it and have been enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Erik's (second?) cousin, Cindy. She made us an amazing Spaghetti dinner and we got to take showers!!!

Tomorrow we're going to shoot for Havre, MT, and pray for a tail wind!

On top of the world, among the glaciers

We entered Glacier National Park in Montana three days ago and it was absolutely incredible. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful place in the United States. Almost imediately after we entered the park, we were besieged by majestic beauty. The mountains rise up from the valleys and many still have snow and even glaciers on top. Down below the forests are dense with pines, birches, and larches, and what ground isn't taken up with trees in covered with beautiful red, blue and yellow wild flowers.

After biking around Lake McDonald, we camped at Avalanche Creek and hiked up to Avalanche Lake. The blue-green lake was rimmed with steep mountains and fed by half a dozen waterfalls from the melting snow above.

The next day, we woke up early to bike up 4,000 ft over Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. The road is very narrow and snakes up and up the mountain to the top. The view just keep getting better and better as you assend, until at the very top, 6,600 ft, you're on top of the world. Looking back from where we biked across the valley the peaks of the park are at your eye level - incredible!

We coasted down the other side and camped at St. Mary by the Johnson Family Restaurant, where we had lunch and the next day, breakfast. The food at Johnson's was the best, heaviest, greasy food I've ever had!

Glacier, as expected, has been the highlight of my trip thus far. The incredible, undescribably beauty, coupled with the serenity of the mountains, make it my favorite place to be!

Bears and Berries

A couple days ago, we entered Montana. While cruising up and down the hills in the Rocky Mountains, we came across a great sandwich shop in the middle of nowhere. We met two guys there while we were eating our sandwiches, who claimed that these were the best sandwiches in 250 miles. I've got to say that they were pretty great. I had pastrami with smoked swiss on 7-grain bread with all the fixin's!

After telling the two guys about our bike trip, the proceeded to warn us about the bears and indians. Yes, the indians. Apparently there's an indian reservation on the east side of Glacier National Park that belongs to the Blackfoot Nation. These guys said it's a really rough place and that we shouldn't even stop, not for anything, because the indians will mess with us. I understand that the reservation is probably very poor, but I find it very hard to believe that the people there are so terrible. I guess we'll see in a couple of days...

They also warned us about the bears and told us never to pick or eat any of the huckleberries, which are starting to ripen, which the bears love to eat. According to them, the bears are very protective of their fruit and might be attracted to you if you have eaten any.

Fast forwarding to 20 miles later, Eric and I were stopped in the middle of a nowhere surrounded by the mountains and trees. As walked around to loosen up my legs, I noticed some yummy looking berries on a bush beside the road. "Huckleberries!" I called out! As I was about to pick one, Eric reminded me of the warning not to pick or eat any. I reluctantly walked away.

Later in the day we took a short hike to cool waterfall outside of Libby, Montana. Eric had gotten ahead of me, and as I walked along the path, I noticed Huckleberries on all sides of me. I couldn't resist eating one! Oh they were so sweet, yet tart!!!

Then, out of the bushes, five bears jumped out and and I had to fight them - bare hands against bear claws... Just kidding, we've get to see any bears and I don't intend to tangle with them if I don't have to. I later read in a pamphlet for Glacier National Park, that it is permissible to pick huckleberries and that as long as there aren't any bears around, they probably won't eat you.

Idaho!

We're so close, I can see it! Idaho is pretty much right across the street. We're about half way through with a 90-mile day that will take us out of Washington State and deep into the Idaho panhandle.

We finally made it passed all the passes (doing one a day) and are out of the Cascades. Once over the first peak, we entered dude-ranch country, where there's a lot of scrub, dirt, and cattle. Every place we passed had "ranch" in the name and had big timber posts over the drive in.

Dude ranch country melted away into more farm land and eventually forests. We camped last night at a really nice spot along the Pend Oreille river with beautiful views of pine covered hills. We finished the day early getting a chance to jump in the river to cool down.

We're making really great time even considering the passes. In the last week we've averaged 67 miles per day, which is above our goal of 65 miles per day and really great considering this was the hardest segment of our trip.
Based on my last post, about climbing up Washington Pass, you probably all thought I was about to die. I'm feeling a lot better now, and pain levels are pretty low. My legs feel great, the palms of my hands don't hurt quite as much and the pain of my backside is sort of under control.

Again, I'm writing this from a public library and again the usb ports are disabled so I can't add photos!!! Arg! Oh well. In less than a week, we will be staying at house for the night and hopefully I can post photos then. I'm planning on posting a bit about our campsite culinary cuisine...

Breaking out of the gulag

There's a passage from the third book of the Gulag Archepelego, where two guys break out of a gulag in Kazakhstan, trek across the burning stepp for five days without food or water before reaching civilization. Right before the find a spring, the one guy says to the other - I cannot go on and am going to die, kill me and drink my blood so that you don't die here too.

We climbed the worst pass of the Cascades in near 100 degree heat yesterday and I think it was the closest I will ever come in my life to truly understand what that must have been like for those two guys. No worries though, both Eric and I are still alive. The pass we crossed was over 5,400 feet and it took us about 10 hours (with breaks) to acomplish. It helped greatly that we took a two hour break under a bridge by a mountain stream which we soaked our legs in and got a reprieve from the hot sun. The cold pure mountain water - necter from the gods - also helped greatly.

Since my last post, we left Eric's friend's parent's house and biked back toward the city. We ate a fish (smoked salmon) and chips lunch on the pier and after having spent more time eating and sleeping that biking, the bike trip was going great! That was all to change, once we ferried across the Puget Sound to the islands, where were quite hilly. I was still fresh and full of energy and burned myself out a bit on the hills, once we reached the mainland again, the land was more flat.

We road through some nice farm country up to the foothills of the Cascades were we camped at Sedro-Woolley. The next day we pushed on into the mountains and followed a beautiful winding road along a picturesque river. After a steep climb in the mountains, we camped in Diablo in a pine grove along a mountain river. We were so sore, we decided to take an ice bath in the river - it was the best thing I've ever done in my life! I cannot describe how great those numbing cold waters felt on my legs.

After our break from the 103F heat, we're going to keep going on to another, less intense pass. SOrry for the lack of photos - the library computer won't let me hook up the camara. I will add photos as soon as I can, so keep checking back!

Tag 2

Wir haben gestern Abend bei den Eltern von einem Freund Erics uebernachtet und alle schlafen noch. Die Menschen, mit dem wir uebernachtet haben, sind sehr nett und freundlich. Sie haben sich gefreut Beschucher zu haben und habne fuer uns gestern gegrillt. Heute morgen kochen sie einen grossen, dicken Fruehstueck mit Eier und Speck fuer uns. Ich hab solche Gastfreundlichkeit seit meiner Zeit in Deutschland nicht erlebt.

Die naechste ein paar Tage werden sehr schoen. Von hier, auf die Suedseite Seattle, Washingtons, gibt es wuenderschoene Blicke von Mt. Ranier, ein riesiges, schneegedecktes Vulkan! Heute und morgen fahren wir nordlich durch die Inseln im Puget Sound auf die Pazifische Kueste. Danach gibt es die Cascade Gebirge!

And we're off!

We flew into Seattle today, after barely making our 6:25 AM flight out of DCA due to TSA ineptitude, and commenced upon our bike trip across America! The most exhausting part of the day for me was spent trying to pump up my tires with a small hand pump - that was a chore! After filling the tires, reattaching the pedals, and making minor adjustments, we were off.

We biked about 20 miles south, the wrong way, to Eric's friend's, Brad's parent's house to stay over night. When we arrived, we were greeted by black and tans, crab dip, and the best ribs I've ever had in my life! I'm totally stuffed right now. As you can guess, the bike trip has been great, so far!

In addition to the wonderful hospitality of Brad's parents and their delicious food, we were awed by the view of Mt. Ranier just a couple of miles into our ride. Fortunately, we'll avoid the mountains for a couple days, as we first travel north for a couple days, island hoping in the Puget Sound. Then it's time for the Cascade Mountains! (oh no!!!)

Sei bereit, immer bereit!

Meine Lieblingsparole aus der DDR! "Bereit zu sein" erinnert mich auch auf einen tollen Song von Schleimkeim: "Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit, stellt euch zusammen, seid bereit!" Ostdeutschpunkmusik trifft mich in die Seele!

Ich bin so bereit wie möglich, glaube ich... Seit vier Wochen bin ich jedes Wochende eine lange Strecke mit Rad gefahren. Erstens 60 Km, naechstes Wochende 80 Km, naechstes mal 100 Km, usw. Inszwischen bin ich so oft wie möglich in der Arbeit hin und zurück gefahren, insgesamt 25 Km hin und zurück.

Mehr zu fahren war unmöglich, ausserhalb der Arbeit zu verlassen. Aber ich musste arbeiten und ich danke meiner Chefin sehr, dass ich beurlauben darf! Alles geht am 7. Juli los, als wir ab Seattle, Washington, am Westküste fliegen, daher wir nach Providence, Rhode Island, am Ostküste mit Fahrräder fahren. Der Weg ist ungefahr 7,000 Km lang und wird neun Wochen dauern. Ich traue mich immer noch nicht ganz, aber ich glaube, nee, ich hoffe, dass ich es leisten kann.

Manche fragen mich, warum ich was so blödes mache. Um zu sagen, dass ich so was "großes" oder "unvorstellbar" gemacht hab, lege ich nicht viel Wert darauf. Großer Wert lege ich auf die Erfahrungen zu erleben, neue, interessante Menschen kennen zu lernen, und einen der schönsten Stücken Amerikas mit eigenen Augen zu sehen. Ich weiß schon, dass es nicht immer leicht sein wird, aber ich weiß auch, dass ich irgendwas von jeder Erfahrung mitnehmen werde, und diese Eindrücke und Erfahrungen werde ich immer behalten.

Also, drei Tage weiter und gibt es keinen Rückweg mehr! Ich freue mich schon darauf!

Level of Preparedness

I'd put our level of preparedness for our bike trip somewhere near that of the Coalition Of The Willing before entering Iraq. Sure, we have lots of high-tech gear, tools, camping equipment. But no, we don't have an exit strategy - it's victory at all costs! Yes, we've trained a lot, but of course, more time and better preparation would have been helpful. You go to war with the army you have, though... and we're ready to go. What ever we lack in preparation we make up for in wishful thinking and optimism. And it's that optimism that will either make our success that much sweeter or our failure that much more bitterer...

For those of you interested in my training strategy, as of four weeks ago, I started biking one long ride every weekend, beginning with 40 miles. The next week followed with a 50 mile ride, then a 60 mile one, and so on... In between, during the work week, I biked to work as often as possible, about 14 miles there and back.

Is there any way you can prepare yourself to ride 65 miles every day? I'm not sure, but I think I'm about as prepared as I can possibly be without having quit my job to train more. And about my job - no, I'm not quitting. My boss was extremely kind and understanding, allowing me to take a two month leave of absence and promising me that I could come back once I return. I owe her a big thank you for enabling me to go!

As far as equipment goes, Eric has everything covered. He owns every tool we could possibly ever need to fix anything that could possibly go wrong with our bikes. We're bringing a three person tent, which should comfortably sleep the two of us. We have a nice compact camping stove and a matroshka-like set of pots and pans. Together with our sleeping bags, a first aid kit, a magnetic Go board, and a couple changes of high-tech clothes, that's about all we're bringing along.

As far as biking equipment goes, I started with my old GT mountain bike that I converted into a touring bike by substituting those bulky, thick mountain bike tires for thin, sleeker road bike tires, and adding handlebar extenders. I happened to find a Bob Yak trailer on craigslist that a friendly guy named Brian in Mississippi was selling. The trailer was nearly new and much cheaper than buying all the racks and bags. The trailer puts less weight and wear and tear on the bike too. I tried it out riding to and from work and I hardly notice that it's there.

You may be wondering how we're getting our bikes and gear out to Seattle. The airline we randomly picked, ATA, happens to have a really great bike policy. All we have to do is turn the handle bars side-ways and remove the pedals. I'm going to rap my bike trailer in bubble rap and toss the rest of my stuff in a dispensable cardboard box with the rest of Eric's stuff. Once we arrive in Seattle, we'll put everything back together and get rolling!

Besides gear and training, we've been working hard to organize some places to stay long the way. You, our friends, have been really helpful in identifying family and other friends who live all along our route, who we can stay with, and my pastor's wife from Trinity Lutheran Church in Willoughby, where my family still worships in Cleveland, and my pastor in DC, Pastor John at Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church, have both been really helpful in helping us find places to stay in Montana and North Dakota.

So, all in all, I think we're pretty well prepared. I'm (pretty) sure will make it!