What can I say about cycling in the United States. Well, we cycled in nine states and I can honestly say each of them were different. The people were different, the roads were different, the scenery was different, the weather was different. It is a very diverse country.

I should have written a blurb about each state after we had cycled through it as a reminder for me when I eventually wrote about the “Thoughts on the US”, but I didn’t. So here goes.

As most of you would recognize from the blog we didn’t like the southern States (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama). I think the fact that we were chased every day by dogs influenced our decision and also the weather. As we cycle along we notice things far more from the back of a bike than you would do from a car and one of those things is the amount of garbage in the ditches and along the side of the road. These three States were the dirtiest of all of the States we cycled through. There would be signs stating “Do Not Litter – fines of $250.00” Then there would be huge bags of garbage underneath the sign.

We felt as if the people in these three States had no pride in themselves or their States. They are the poorest States in the Union, but even if you are poor you can keep your ditches and yards clean.

The rest of the States we cycled in we thoroughly enjoyed.

My two favorite States were Texas and Oregon.

I really enjoyed Texas, the people were fun albeit a little fanatical about their guns, but they had a great sense of humour. We would stop at a convenience store for something to eat or a grocery store and the people would chat to us. When we told them what we were doing and what we had already accomplished the expressions they used were hilarious “Dang, that’s a long way”. One guy I spoke to just kept saying “Dang”.

The drivers in Texas were considerate, they always gave us plenty of room and would wait until the road was clear before passing. We found that to be the case in all the States we went through except California.

The scenery in Texas went from beautiful hill country to big open spaces and big cities. We really enjoyed the City of Austin.

New Mexico was an interesting State historically. It felt as if it really should belong to Mexico, as it has such a Spanish influence in the buildings and the people. Most things in New Mexico were in Spanish and English, which surprised us. We thought the US was uni-lingual, but they definitely accommodate the Spanish speakers in this area.

California was the worst state to cycle, the car drivers had no time for cyclists. They would pass on blind curves and hills. However in the cities there were a lot of cycle lanes and dedicated cycle paths.

Oregon was my other favourite state. The car drivers were patient, the roads had wide shoulders and it was clean. The people were friendly and enjoyed the outdoors. The State has an abundance of recreational facilities to encourage people to be active. Of course we loved Portland.

Washington finished on a high note. When we came into Washington there was a lot of industry, logging trucks, paper mills etc. When we left we had three days on dedicated cycle routes away from traffic and it was lovely.

The people in the US are incredibly kind, generous and considerate people. They were interested in what we were doing and what we had done. We were invited to stay in people’s homes on a number of occasions. If we looked lost, people would stop and ask if we needed help.

We met a lot of touring cyclists, both on the Southern Tier and the Pacific Coast Highway. More cyclists stopped to chat on the Southern Tier than on the PCH and that was probably due to the hills. On the Southern Tier we found that most of the cyclists were American, on the PCH most of them were from the UK, Germany, Holland and only a handful from the US.

It was great cycling through the US. We did struggle when we saw the amount of poverty and the effect the two recessions have had on a number of the States that we cycled through.

We cannot understand the gun culture, we were surprised how many churches offered gun courses, in the southern States. One fella commented “If everyone had a gun no one would get shot because you know the other person has a gun”. How about if no-one had a gun no one would be able to shoot anyone.

Surprisingly the obese American was not as rife as we thought it would be. Yes, there were a lot of chunky people, but there were also a lot of people who were fit and active.

The US has a lot of well-mapped routes. That is primarily due to the work of the Adventure Cycling Association. One of the other routes we want to cycle in the US is the Underground Railroad. This is a route from Mobile, Alabama (those dam dogs again) to Owen Sound in Canada. It follows the routes that escaped slaves took from the deep south to freedom in Canada.

Wednesday June 17, 2015

A great ride to the ferry. We were up at 5:45 and were ready to leave at 7:15 am. Our earliest start for a long time. I wanted to get to the ferry terminal to make sure we had tickets for the last crossing of the day at 2:50 pm which would arrive in Sidney at 5:00 pm.

These little drive-through coffee shops were all over Washington and Oregon.

Kit and Ralf had mapped out a great route, on quiet rural roads and then connecting to the Tommy Thompson Trail.

We did have a headwind, but it was a good ride.

We passed the biggest oil refinery that we have seen on this trip, the Shell oil refinery.

There is a very small wetland area which has red-winged blackbirds, abutting this area. Shell uses this wetland area for the advertisements that say how “clean and green” they are.

The Tommy Thompson Trail was very nice, it crossed over a wooden trestle bridge, which had lots of information plaques on it, giving information regarding the estuary and the rehabilitation of the area.

The trail followed the coast line into Anacortes.  Our last few days in Washington have been great.  The rail trails and the people.

We arrived at the ferry terminal at 10:30 – four hours to wait.

Never mind it gave me time to catch up on the blog, picking pictures, and ready to post.

We had a good ferry crossing, although where we had to tie the bikes was a little precarious. Ralf said “I have a 110 lbs, this bike will not stay on this slope”. He moved it in front of the car.

When we got to customs and immigration in Canada the border guard asked us where we were headed and how long we had been away. He was impressed, and said “Welcome Home”.

We stopped to get our bearings, and a couple who were walking towards the ferry said “Welcome to Sidney”.

We spotted a Shoppers Drugmart, a CIBC bank and a Tim Hortons – yeah we are in Canada.

Our hosts tonight are a lovely couple (Frances and Alan) who have cycled extensively in France. They are heading to Portland for a short cycling trip in a couple of weeks time.

We had a lovely meal with them – salmon, potatoes and veges, and a nice glass of wine.

Early night, we are having a rest day here tomorrow to plan a rough route across Canada, the trip up to Nanaimo and our crossing to Vancouver.

Tuesday June 16, 2015

Today is our last full day of cycling in the US and it was an excellent day. Jack had given us directions to connect to the Centennial Trail which would take us almost all the way to Mount Vernon.

Once again the rail trail was well signed and had great  information plaques along the route. This trail went one further and gave you the mileage to the next town (similar to the ones in France).

It was a very pretty route.

We stopped in Arlington to call our warmshowers host to give them an idea when we would be arriving. Surprisingly I was hungry already, but it was only 11:30 and we had cycled 40 ks.

We stopped in the Chamber of Commerce and the bike shop, which very cleverly had signs posted on the trail directing us to the shop.

We didn’t stop to eat lunch as there was no supermarkets and the café didn’t have any chairs or tables outside. Arlington was an important railway town.

We carried along the trail to the trail end, it was lovely.

Nakashima Barn is on the historic barn registry.

The family who settled here in 1908, were Japanese and originally had a lumber mill, they changed to dairy farming and imported Guernsey cows from the UK. Of course, in the 1940’s they were deemed to be enemies of the State and were moved away from the land.

By the time we left the trail, I was really hungry and getting grumpy. I had eaten all my trail mix and my two power bars – feed me.

We stopped at a little roadside cafe and checked how far we were from Mount Vernon, not far, only 8 kms – feed me.

By the time we arrived in Mount Vernon, it was 2:30 and I was ready to kill. We stopped at the first food outlet which happened to be a McDonalds, I didn’t care. It wasn’t too bad they had an artisan grilled chicken sandwich, which basically was a piece of grilled chicken on a sweet bun, added fries and an iced coffee. I was fed and happy.

Our hosts were only another couple of kilometres away. We had a great bed, lovely shower and were able to wash our sleeping bag liners and shorts, clean clothes to enter Canada tomorrow.

Ralf and Kit discussed the route. Skagit County has a great network of bike routes. The map Kit gave us indicates how busy the roads are, the width of the shoulder and off-route cycle routes. Excellent.

An early night and early start tomorrow morning. Kit and Kathy are taking the ferry to the Islands tomorrow for a few days at their cabin. They will be leaving at 8:15. We have to be ready to go at the same time. Our last few days cycling in the US have been really good. Good weather, good cycle routes and good people, what more can you ask for.

Thanks, the U.S. you have been great to cycle and great people. I will be working on my “Thoughts on America” post, over the next couple of days – Stay Tuned.

Monday June 15, 2015

We had a great ride out of Seattle, I was expecting it to be really busy. We found a street with a cycle lane on it, unfortunately it was going in the wrong direction. We headed back to First Avenue and headed up and out of Town.

We passed the Space Needle, the Space Needle was built in 1962, quite impressive.

Yesterday, these Duck Boats were doing tours of the downtown area and were really annoying. How many times those poor drivers had to sing YMCA or Night Fever and get people to do silly things on the Boat would have driven me insane.

We found the river trail which connected to the Interurban Trail. Unfortunately for us, we missed the bridge that we were supposed to take (Fremont Bridge) and had to make a U-turn, this added 4 ks to our ride.

The Interurban Trail takes you on quieter urban streets and then heads north out of the City thorough various Town’s that have connected the route through their Town. Almost 50 kms of safe cycling. The best part of the trail was after the Seattle City limits.

When we got to Everett, we couldn’t find the trail that our warmshowers host told us about, but we did see the first sign for Vancouver!

We eventually found the trail, after calling Jack for better directions and another detour of 4 kms. We had to merge with Highway 204, taking our lives and bikes in hand we waited for about 10 minutes before we could get a break in the traffic and run across the road. After surviving that crossing and heading up a hill, we realized we had to cross another busy road to get on to the street where Jack lives.

We set up the tent and then chatted to Jack and Kathy. Kathy does some wonderful quilt work. Jack and Kathy cater the Adventure Cycling Associations supported tours. They were busy getting ready for their first tour this summer. They are heading out this week-end and Kathy was busy baking, it smelled really good – lucky cyclists on that trip.

Sunday June 14, 2015

A short ride today into Seattle. We are staying in a hostel right down town.

As we were coming into the industrial side of the Town we noted a marked difference between Seattle and Portland, very few cycle lanes.

Seattle is the home of Starbucks, Microsoft and is currently building a large oil rig about to be shipped to Alaska. There are a lot of protests about this rig and a couple recently locked themselves to the rig.

The hostel is on Pike Street, opposite the famous Pike Market. After we had settled in to the hostel we went to explore the downtown area.

Seattle is a big, dirty city and a lot of panhandlers. Seattle was the city where the grunge music scene started, I can see why.

We were thinking of staying an extra night, but decided to head out tomorrow. We will see the Space Needle on the way out. We have secured warmshowers hosts for the next three nights.

This is the first hostel that we have stayed in that has Queen sized bunk beds. Our room has 2 bunk beds which could conceivably house 8 people. There were only five people in our room, the other three people had their own beds.   The showers were all newly renovated and very clean. The hostel had a free pasta dinner and free breakfast, so we had a cheap stay in Seattle. As dinner was served, they asked for volunteers to help with the clean-up. Ralf and I and two young girls volunteered, we were told we could have our dinner first, instead of having to wait in line.

We were in bed early, although tomorrows ride is only going to be about 60 ks (ish).

Sorry Seattle, you didn’t impress us.

Saturday June 13, 2015

This morning I was woken up at about 5:00 by the mourning doves, I managed to put ear plugs in and sleep for another hour. We were both away by 6:00 and ready to get moving.

We packed up the tent which was wet from the dew, and decided to go down the road for breakfast.

The Ranchman restaurant welcomed us in and our waitress knew everyone by name. We had a great “Seniors” breakfast – 55 years or older yeah we got a discount and a great breakfast.

We headed out to Seattle on a fairly busy road, but it had a wide shoulder. I spotted the first vintage car – Model T-Ford. I stopped expecting Ralf to get his camera out, but he said he had missed it, then the next one came along then a row of about 20 or more. He managed to snap a few photos.

As we came through this Town both of us had to laugh at this sign – Mixed-Use Zoning regulations in place.

We got our first view of Mount Rainier today. Mount Rainier is one in a row of volcanoes that are being monitored. Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood, Mount Rainier and Mount Baker.

I am not sure how they know which way the eruption will go if and/when it goes, but they have an evacuation route. We weren’t going in that direction.

The road didn’t start getting hilly until we got closer to the outskirts of Seattle and Burien. We arrived at Ed and Barb’s place around 3:30 pm. We set up the tent so that it could dry out and then got settled in and chatted to Ed and Barb. We went out for dinner to a really nice Thai restaurant. It was really good to have some good Thai food.

Friday June 12, 2015

A lovely ride today. Although when I woke up at 6:00 am I was still tired, I snuggled into my lovely hubby and fell straight back to sleep until 7:55!! We didn’t leave the motel until 10:00 am. The latest we have started in a very long time. We knew we had a relatively short ride to Yelm or McKenna, if the request for a warmshowers host in McKenna was successful.

We found our way out of Centralia and onto the 507 very easily, it was a flat road through farm country. We headed out to Tinonen to find the rail trail to Yelm.

When we got to Tinonen, we stopped in at the gas station for directions to the start of the rail trail.

As usual and for reasons that are beyond us, local councils do not advertise their great rail trails. You have to go in search for the trail-head. It was a great rail-trail, paved for 24 kms all the way into Yelm.

We passed through two Towns and there were directions to restrooms and restaurants if you wanted to come away from the trail.

One of the things we enjoy about being on a rail trail (apart from the peace and quiet) are the various plaques along the way giving you information on the area.

Most of the rail bridges in this area are wooden tressle bridges. There was always lots of lumber to use.

When we arrived in Yelm we headed to the library, to use the internet. No response from our warmshowers host in McKenna, it looked as though we were going to have to cycle another 20 kms to the camp-site. Then our road angel arrived – Sarah – offered us a spot to pitch our tent at her place just outside of Yelm. She has 10 acres and we could use her shower and pitch the tent. We took her up on the offer after we had been to Safeway to get groceries.

Her 10 acre small-holding is only 5 kms from Town and has a very large bull mastiff ‘guarding’ the place. Sasha is a very large, scaredy cat, she has a big woof but barks and runs away at the same time.

Sarah has four cows, two pigs, one horse, chickens, and doves and about 5 acres of woodlot. We had a lovely chat with her after we had showered, she had travelled extensively when she was younger but has been in Yelm Washington for the past 20 years and has lived at her small farm for 10 years.

I was able to check the email and our warmshowers host emailed us at 7:00 pm to say he was home and we could stay with him. He offered to give us a route for the next day, but we had everything planned and were nicely settled in at Sarah’s “farm”.

Tomorrow night we are staying near Seattle with a couple we met in Carpenteria, they had the tear-drop trailer which we really liked.

Thursday June 11, 2015

After breakfast, Art joined us and cycled out with us to Castle Rock. Art knows every stretch of the roads around here including each bump and narrow section to be aware of. He is an avid cyclist and will cycle every day in the summer. Today he rode home a different route a distance of about 40 miles.

We stopped at Vader for lunch and then carried on to Centralia. Vader was a prosperous lumber town at the turn of the 20^th Century. It met with disaster when Weyerhauser bought the mill and immediately closed it down. I guess that company hasn’t changed much in a hundred years. Although it was never proven local residents who now were unemployed bought insurance on their homes and then burned them to the ground.

The next small town we cycled through used to have a very large egg processing plant. Hence the giant egg.

Another rural day.

We couldn’t find a camp site to stay in Centralia, but we did find a Motel 6 advertising a room rate of $49.00, oops add on another $10.00 for the second person room in the and add taxes – total $69.00!!

Wednesday June 10, 2015

It was sad to leave Portland and our new friends, Lauren and David.

The people we met in Portland were very friendly and kind. We followed bike routes all the way out of Portland, it was so safe and easy. We crossed the Hawthorne Bridge and then followed the river route out of downtown Portland and away. We used the Hawthorne Bridge because it has a counter showing the number of cyclists that have crossed that day and up to date this year. We were the 2187 and 2188 cyclist to cross the bridge that morning and it was only 9:15 am.!! To date there has been over 200,000 cyclists cross that bridge.

There are four bicycle friendly bridges in Portland and a couple more that cyclists can use but do not have cycle lanes. Stephen our dinner companion on Sunday night said that there were between 10,000 and 12,000 cyclists cycling to work every day using those.

We had a lovely ride to St. Helens for lunch. The route was primarily farmland with some hilly views thrown in for good measure, it was a nice easy, flat ride.

I knew it was going to be close to 90 kms not including the ride out of Portland and to our hosts house in Longview. It was a long ride for us.

After lunch we called Art, our host for tonight, who was going to cycle out to meet us and show us the way to his home.

We met Art about 15 kms outside of Longview, he told us at this park area there used to be nuclear plant – the pond is probably toxic.

Art chatted as we cycled until we got closer to Longview. He stopped at this lookout point to give us a quick history of Longview – the timber capital of Washington.

You can just make out in this picture the different coloured water. The grey silty colour at the back is that colour because of the run-off from Mount St. Helens.

Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980 (actually it blew the side of the mountain). They had very little warning that it was going to happen, it was terrifying for them.

He warned us about the bridge that we were about to cross., the Longview Bridge.

Although it had a good shoulder, it was full of debris and sometimes you just had to run over it as a logging truck was right next to you and you could not go into the roadway.

I am so glad Art came out to meet us and also to warn us about the bridge, the shoulder was wide which is better than most of the bridges that we have crossed in Oregon, but the debris was horrendous.

This was the only \”Welcome to Washington\” sign and I couldn\’t climb up the bridge to stand next to it.

We had a great evening with Art chatting about the area and the problems with the local Council. They want to continue with the heavy industry even though it may only add a dozen jobs. Currently, the Council are in negotiations to bring in coal from Wyoming and ship it to China, they want to be the largest shipping port to ship Wyoming coal to China. The port would be close to the current Weyerhauser plant, which could be cut-off 10 times a day when these mile long trains come into the area just below the bridge we crossed.  The bridge is busy enough taking the logs from the Oregon side to the Washington side.  Effectively backing up traffic across the bridge and no access to the Weyerhauser plant in the event of an emergency. Art is not in favour of this idea as not only will it create mayhem in the bridge area it will only create 12 new jobs.

At one point Art said that he knew I had things to do on the computer and although he was enjoying the conversation he would understand if I went to update the blog. As is often the case when we are with warmshowers, it is more important to have human contact, than to spend time updating the blog. I might get a bit behind because of this, but I really enjoy chatting to our warmshowers hosts and getting to know more about the area we are staying and the people we are staying with.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday June 7, 8 and 9, 2015

As usual with a big city it was difficult to find a warmshowers host. Initially we had asked to stay for Saturday and/or Sunday. We received a response from Laura who could offer us Saturday but not Sunday – she had other cyclists coming in on Sunday. My next bunch of requests I asked for Sunday and/or Monday realizing that their was so much to see in Portland that we would need two full days, the day we arrived (Saturday) would be a travelling day.

David and Lauren responded saying we could stay Sunday and Monday and as long as we needed. I asked if we could have Saturday as well, that would mean that we didn’t have to pack and move. No problem, was David’s response. That was David – no problem. He was such a joy to meet. More about Lauren and David later.

I called Laura and told her we no longer needed her to host us, she immediately offered for us to come over for a meal as she wanted to meet us and also for her newbie touring cyclists to meet us. We accepted her offer for Sunday evening BBQ.

This was what we found all the time with the people in Portland they were incredibly kind and helpful. Todd had tried to find us a place to stay even though, he was on vacation.

The people in Portland are wonderful.

We had a lot to get done in Portland. One of them was to replace our broken down equipment. Our cycling sandals were falling to bits, Ralf’s handle bar bag was no longer waterproof, with zips that no longer closed properly and he resorted to using a Walmart bag to keep it dry, my cycling jersey I bought in Spain was past its use by date. This was going to be an expensive stopover in Portland. However, Portland has hundreds of bike shops ok a slight exaggeration but it has a lot. It also is the headquarters of Keen Sandal (our cycling sandals are Keen’s), Showerspass (our jackets and water reservoir are showerspass), it has a large REI. We were going to damage the credit card in Portland.

On Sunday our plan was to take the bus into downtown and replenish our worn out stuff and then on Monday go to the rose garden and do the tourist stuff.

We had breakfast and chatted to Lauren and David for a while and then headed downtown on the bus, a little later than anticipated.

We wanted to go to the Keen Store, the REI and a couple of bike shops and then head to Laura’s for dinner.

Our Sunday shopping for cycling sandals was not very successful, in fact we were a little disappointed. I managed to buy a new cycling jersey and gloves. Although, we visited three bike shops in the downtown core, they didn’t have what we needed.

I did chat to a lovely young woman who had a great Raleigh bicycle made in Nottingham with one of the old original metal emblems. It even had an old Brooks saddle.

We were heading to the bus stop when I spotted an old car in a warehouse which I knew Ralf would be interested in, the owner invited me in for a chat and Ralf followed. The car I had spotted was an old Cadillac. Ralf asked for permission to take a photo. Unfortunately he said no, they weren’t his cars. He had millions of dollars of cars in this warehouse. He took us around and chatted to us about the cars – Cadillacs, Bentley, porsches, a 1932 French car. It was amazing. This volksy was not in the warehouse.

We were late for dinner but Lauren and Stephen waited for us to arrive. I chatted with Lauren and Stephen about their trips, especially about their trip through Croatia and down to Montenegro, somewhere we want to go. Ralf chatted to the other touring cyclists, (Robyn and Mike) they had flown in from Philadephia and are cycling across the country.

On Sunday we decided to cycle around Portland. Portland is reputed to be the best cycling city in the US. I would totally agree. More on Portland later.

We went to more bike shops and finally got everything we needed. New shoes, new bag and a great experience cycling around Portland.

We had dinner with Lauren and David. David was five when his family escaped from Vietnam. They were on the last helicopters that left Vietnam. Lauren said they had recently watched a documentary which had live footage of the air-lift, they were trying to spot David’s family. David’s father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army and would not have survived very long under the North Vietnamese regime. Can’t imagine the parents fear of losing a child in the mayhem of getting onto the flight.

We talked about how it was for him to arrive in the US, sponsored by a church group in Minnesota. He said it was traumatic but the what was more traumatic was opening his front door in the winter and seeing snow. What a great sense of humour and an incredible attitude. We talked about the homeless in Portland. David’s opinion was that if you want to find work you can find work. His father instilled in him a strong work ethic, you work for your family.

One of the funny stories Lauren shared was after they had been dating for six years her friends were telling her to give him an ultimatum. She said that David had a plan, but forgot to share it with her. David said I had to have enough money to buy you a house and provide for you, before marrying you.

They were a lovely couple and we really enjoyed staying with them.

Portland:

I have worked with urban planning consultants for 16 years and one of the things I got from working in that environment was how do we make cities livable. I “googled” livability and here is one definition: There are five fundamental aspects of great, livable cities: robust and complete neighborhoods, accessibility and sustainable mobility, a diverse and resilient local economy, vibrant public spaces, and affordability.

In my opinion Portland has the five fundamental aspects – most of the neighbourhoods we cycled through, had independent “downtown” areas with local shops, coffee shops, open spaces, places to meet and easy to get around by walking, public transit, bicycles and cars. The problem, with having such a great city is that more people want to move to it and the housing prices go up – affordability.

This bridge will open in the fall of 2015 and will be the first bridge in Oregon, not to allow motorcars on the bridge.  Light rail, buses, pedestrians and cyclists – (accessibility and sustainable mobility).

This weekend in Portland, was the Rose festival, Fleet week and Dragon boat festival. We missed the Rose Parade, (Saturday), we missed the ships (too busy shopping) ditto with the dragon boats.

There is so much to do in this city, every other week-end throughout the summer. On Monday we visited the Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden.

Portland is known as the Rose City. The Rose Garden has 1,000 plantings with 600 varieties, in a 4.5 acres property, it was established in 1917. Can you imagine how many photos Ralf took!! Here are just a few.

The oldest Rose in the the garden was called the Grand Duchess (1943).  After the blaze of colour of the Rose Garden, we went to the peace and quiet of the Japanese Gardens.

Portland not only has lots of things happening within the City, it is close to the great outdoors, the coast is only an hour a way, the gorge is only an hour away, wineries are only an hour away.

Awesome City. Thank you David and Lauren for allowing us to stay with you so that we could experience your city.

We could live in Portland, maybe get one of these bikes to get around.