Rick's Bicycling Adventures

Day one  is done. We rode 50 miles today with 1600 ft of elevation  gain. The first 14 miles was on the "Overlander Trail. It was a backpacking trail, it was really gnarly. We ended up pushing our bikes three miles. The rest if the day was spent on pavement. The ride was a beautiful. It was nice to get to the Hinton  campground.

 I'm  sitting in our room in Jasper, Alberta tonight  anxious and excited for the start of our ride tomorrow morning. This ride is so much different  then my ride across America. The weather report  calls for a chance of rain every day for the next week. Snowfall around Banff this season was 230%. This could make  the trails we are traveling  difficult  to navigate. Only 10% of our ride is on pavement. The Adventure begins  in the morning. I'll  be looking forward to what my Dahlias look like when I get home.

Betty and I traveled to Edmonds, Wa to spend a couple of days with my riding partner Doug Hirsch and his wife Jaymie. We needed to have a group meeting  to work out logistics of the ride. Between the four of us we figured out how to get turn by turn directions loaded on our Garmins. We have the concept of a plan to get home from Antelope Wells. The plan is to fly home, the problem is we cannot make advanced reservations because we don't know when we will finish the ride. We compared what we plan to pack on the ride. We talked about food and how we need to resupply. We took a break and walked on the Kingston ferry to have lunch in Kingston on Friday. There is certainly more to get done before we roll out on June15th.

 I will be starting my next adventure, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride, with my High School friend Doug Hirsch. We are leaving Jasper, Alberta, Canada on June 15th on our way to Antelope Wells, NM on the Continental Divide. The route is 3000 miles with 200,000 vertical feet of climbing on 90% gravel and single track. I will just have turned 70 a couple of days before our adventure begins.  I hope you will follow along on this epic ride. 

 After riding 3650 miles, climbed 116,886 vertical  feet, and went from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. It is with heavy heart that this is my last post for my bicycle  ride across America. I had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful interesting people along the way. Big and little acts of kindness that lifted my spirits. Kim and his wife that offered  me shelter and food on a rainy  day in Port Angeles. The closed bicycle  shop in Okanagan, Wa that opened  on a Saturday  morning  to replace my seat post. The Lutheran church in Havillah, Wa that provided  me shelter and food. The people at the top of Boulder Pass  that give me water when I needed it. Rodney in Lolo, Mt that shared his apple crisp. The family  that gave me and my  bicycle  a ride to Gillette, wy when my rear wheel failed. Doug Hirsch that kept my ride alive when he arranged  a new wheel to be delivered  to Gillette, Wy in a timely m...

 So far I have survived going from Washington DC  to Chicago  on the Amtrak Cardinal  line. Now I'm  on the Empire  Builder from Chicago  to Spokane. Both trains I  have traveled  coach which has it's  own challenges. The seats are comfortable with lots of leg room and they recline alot. I have had someone sitting next to me some of the time. The Cardinal  train my car was 2 back from the engine and they blew the damn horn  all night. It sounded like it was right out my window. The Empire Builder I'm  in one of the last cars and I  can't  even hear the horn. Now the problem  is crying children. It's  like they feed off each other one finally stops and another starts. Allen Hubbell  supplied me with a Panera breakfast  sandwich  in Lafayette, IN  on Saturday  morning. Dennis Pedrick  and Jamie supplied me with beer, burrito, candy bars, chips, chocolate  chip banana bre...

 Day three post bicycle  ride across America.  Today I was on my own to learn the  mass transit  of Vienna as David  had to work. I managed  my way by bus and train to the National Zoo. I am not much of a zoo person because I  hate to see animals in  captivity  but this zoo was well done. I did witness  Otter Love. I could not believe  how far down i was on the Metro. After the zoo I  moved  back on to the Mall. I went back to the National  Museum of Natural History  to the Butterfly  exhibit,Amazing.  Then I  went to the National  Museum  of US History. OMG,  I could have spent three days here. I stayed until  they were  closing and made my way back to Dave's. In Vienna.