To the Coast

 Well, we survived the rest of the trip across Nevada with no more mishaps or problems and made it to Ukiah, CA where we got to have a nice long visit with daughter Rachel and her two wonderful girls, Danaya and Raegan.  It was Danaya's birthday week and we got to spend the day with her on a mini shopping spree down in Santa Rosa.  We also got to be real grandparents and attended 'Grandparents Day' at Raegans school.  Very fun.  A day trip to Ft Bragg gave us our first beach day of the trip.  The weather was lovely and Kasha enjoyed the heck out of the beach and ocean entertaining the other beachgoers with her frisbee catching skills.  Our weather timing was perfect too as we were lucky enough to hit the Ukiah area right as the trees were all fully leafing out and everything was spectacularly green.  

After taking off from Ukiah we headed a couple hours north to visit with our friends, Ed and Linda, in Redding, CA.  It was great to visit with them and we got to spend some time in the great home they fairly recently completed in Redding.  While here, we had our first experience with camping at a HipCamp site.  These are camping sites that are on people's property and this one was very nice and private in a beautiful meadow on about 5-acres.  We will be using HipCamp again.

Happy Birthday Danaya

[Rachel, Raegan, Danaya]

Raegan helping with dinner

Fort Bragg beach day

Nevada travels

 Our last couple of days in Escalante were spent with some more exploring of the area.  We did a great 6-mile hike to an easy slot canyon [Bighorn Canyon].  The coolness of the 'slot' portion was a real relief from the heat. We managed to navigate the slots with ease and despite a few snug corners in the rock trail made it out safely without having to gnaw off any limbs.  It's still snowing back in Pagosa and we are not yet used to 80-something degree heat.  Luckily, there were a few small creek crossings that allowed Kasha to cool take a dip and cool off.

Our last day in Escalante led us to a nice, easy 4-mile hike up the Escalante River to a large arch creatively named Natural Bridge.  The hike was pretty easy with a lot of creek crossings which Kasha appreciated very much.  The hike was beautiful, peaceful and I only managed to fall in the river once [even saved the cell phone in my pocket] so the day was a success.  Heading west and leaving Utah behind we went through some more spectacular red-rocks country.  The road west heads right through Bryce Canyon.  We are pretty much avoiding the national parks as they tend to be pretty crowded and are very restrictive on dogs so we didn't stop but that area is definitely on our 'future adventures' list.

The next phase of our trip was spent escaping Nevada.  Now I'm sure Nevada has some wonderful places but the beauty of it escapes us.  The mountain ranges we crossed seemed like they would be very nice but it was still to early to venture into them as they were pretty much still snow covered.  We crossed via Hwy 50 which is called 'the loneliest road in America' and for good reason as outposts of civilization are very few and far between.  Our first night camp was in an "Elk Viewing Area"

along the highway outside of Ely.  It was actually much nicer than you would think as it was A, Free and B. didn't cost anything.  Really though, it was pretty quiet and not a bad place to stay.  In the morning, I decided to be a good camper and check the tire pressure in the trailer tires.  By this time I should know that no good (or smart) deed will go unpunished, but I did it anyway.  A little air escaped one of the valves but it seemed to stop and I figured it was ok.  Five miles out of Ely I saw smoke coming out of the back of the trailer and pulled over to find a shredded tire.  We were able to successfully put the spare on, which was low in pressure too and limp back into Ely for a new tire.  If we had blown that tire in the middle of the desert life would have become a bit of an adventure so it was probably a blessing in disguise.  

On the road

 Well, we made the April 1 take-off date.  Luckily, the week before leaving was unseasonably warm and sunny which allowed us to get a lot of outside clean-up chores done so morning of April 1 we hit the road.  The morning of take-off treated us to high wind warnings [not what we were hoping for dragging a trailer behind us] but, with worse weather predicted for the week, we crossed our fingers and hit the road.  Before leaving, I thought it would be wise to sacrifice an early mistake to the travel gods so I un-ceremoniously backed the trailer into the garage.  Damage was somewhat minor, some damage to the new bike rack, a broken backup light and a hole in the garage stucco so I'd have something to fix when we get back.

Our first stop was Moab, UT  which we made with a bit of white-knuckle driving in wind and snow.  We were scheduled to camp at a dry-camping area [no water, power or sewer] south of town and it was a good place to test out the systems.  We had put solar panels on the RV and had a battery storage unit that allowed us to watch a movie on our TV and for me to be able to work a bit the next morning.  Our first full day on our trip we did some good hiking around our camp area and at Deadhorse Pt up near Canyonlands Nat Park, hiking around 10 miles for the day.  We got back to camp and found the batteries hadn't charged from the solar [I think I tried to charge too many things at once] and spent a chilly night without any heat. Not knowing what the battery problem was we wimped out and moved to a small RV camp up near the entrance to Canyonlands where we, at least, had electricity.  We were able to spend a couple more days in the Moab area and enjoyed it very much.  If you have never been to southern Utah it should be on your bucket list.  The rock formations and terrain are like no place we've ever seen.

Travel day was spent relocating to Escalante, UT, a small town near Escalante Nat Park.  The drive went well and the highway to Escalante goes right through the middle of Capital Reef Nat Park...the scenery was truly spectacular again.  The last section to Escalante goes over a section known as the Hogback.  We would have taken pictures but thought it best that we get past that section so that I might pry my fingers from the steering wheel.  I'm not a fan of heights and this narrowish road runs along a rock spine with steep and exposed drop-offs on either side and no guardrails. Yikes! 

Escalante is a nice, quiet town [population about 800] and we were again in an RV park right in town.  We are close to some really interesting areas; Capital Reef, Escalante and Bryce Canyon Nat Parks, and a lot of local hiking areas.  We hiked up to Lower Calf Creek Falls which was gorgeous and Kasha loved playing 'stick' in the pool at the bottom.  We hadn't had an off day since we left so took the day to do a short hike at a place called Devils Kitchen near town.  Beautiful hoodoos and the short day allowed us to catch up on 'administrative duties' [laundry, ignoring mail, writing blogs] back at camp.  Somehow, each day goes really fast and with several hours of exercise each day we run out of time and energy pretty early.

Ready, set...wait

Well, it's been 10 years since our last big adventure, cycling around Lake Michigan, but we have hardly been idle.  Since that time, Kelly and I have vacated California to relocate and build a new life and home in beautiful Pagosa Springs, CO.  There have been plenty of mini-adventures in the meantime but we are ready for something bigger.  To this end, we have decided to rent our Pagosa home out for a year and travel the country in a 26-ft camping trailer.  

Wow! It was a lot of work to get ready to be gone for a year...deep cleaning the house, getting the RV ready, putting stuff in storage. Kelly stopped working in mid March so she has done the lion's share of the cleaning chores and I've been working overtime [for me anyway] trying to get ahead at work.  I'll be working part time/remote during the next year from the kitchen table of the RV and, hopefully, that will work out.  We plan on taking off on April 1 and should be done by then.  We'll see.

We're off!!

We started off from a nice, but short, visit with Bob & Susan Peshel to having Bob guide us on our first ride of the trip.  The weather was perfect,  sunny, 60 degrees and a light tail wind.   There is a paved bike path most of the way from Milwaukee to Sheboygan.  A distance of about 50-mi. which we covered in record time (for old people on touring bikes) with Bob setting a blistering pace of almost 14 mph.  We passed through many lovely towns and got our first view of Lake Michigan.  We were astonished to note how beautiful the water of Lk. Mi. is...it's downright Caribbean in color.  Along the bike trail we started a conversation with a local cyclist with the greatest UP accent.  It was like being in a scene from Fargo.   "Yah, you betcha, there's a tavern up in Sheboygen wit the Paaackers game on." 

Being Sunday in football season we were eager to get to camp in time to catch some of the Green Bay Packer game.  We set up a nice camp in Kohler-Andrea State Park and rode off in search of dinner and a TV.  After 3 or 4 miles Bob says "It would be great to come across a little log tavern." when lo and behold there appeared just that.  We went in to find a bar and dining room packed with middle aged couples just having a ball, hootin and hollerin for the Pack and sipping their 'high-balls'.  They were all very friendly and we had a ball...very authentic.  Oh yeah...the Pack came back and pulled out the win.

Next morning we said goodbye to Bob and started making our way up to Door County, the 'thumb' in Lk Mi east of Green Bay.  During the night, it had turned wet on us and we took off into a light rain but were so glad to be on the road again we took it in stride.  The rain stayed with us through the day and finally cleared up a couple miles before our intended camping spot in another nice Oregon St campground.  Our readers may remember our trouble with raccoons on our last trip and how we grew to dislike them intensely.  As it was getting dark we heard a noise at the edge of camp and shined our flashlight in the eyes of a raccoon descending his tree.  We very much did not want to be dealing with a raccoon all night so I did what any animal lover would do...I pepper sprayed the bastard right in the eyes.   It didn't phase him...didn't even make him blink.  This is the dog spray that is supposed to protect us from vicious carnivores and it won't make a raccoon blink.  What is in this crap? Visine?
At any rate, he didn't come back and we had a quiet, if chilly night.  We had gotten Kelly a new sleeping bag which was rated with a 'comfort' rating of 45 degrees and a 'popsicle' rating of 35...that night pushed the popsicle limit at 36 degrees and I awoke worrying that I would have to chip her out of the bag but with some heavy socks and tights she survived the night in style.

The morning dawned beautiful with the sun coming up over the lake for a great sunrise.  The weather had gone 'blue' for us and we enjoyed a wonderful ride along the lake on great roads with little traffic through nice cornfields and cute little towns.  Sometime during the day we got news that, back home, the nearby town of Weed (yes, that's really the name) was burning (go ahead, make your joke) due to a raging forest fire started by an arsonist.  We felt a little guilty about being in such beautiful country, in such fine weather while our home county was burning up but soon recovered and addressed the important question of where to buy a bottle of wine for the evening.  After a moments  thought we remembered we were in Wisconsin, where alcohol is probably included in the school lunch program, and pulled into the next open store for our 'nourishment'.  We spent the night at a small hotel, about 100 ft from the lake and had a great dinner at Scalawags, whose motto is '5-star food in a dive bar'.  The food did not disappoint and we had a great meal and some good conversation with some interesting locals.  A great day all-round.

Heading East

Our day of departure finally arrived and, in order to be sure that we were in Sacramento (a 4-hour drive) on time we left the night before and 'moteled' it about an hour from the train station.  We arrived for our 11 AM departure in plenty of time to find out that the train would be 5-hours late due to troubles on their previous trip from Chicago to the west coast.  We had yet to discover that AMTRAK schedules are estimates at best.  Luckily the train station is within walking distance of the Sacramento "Old Town" river district and we were able to amuse ourselves with lunch and some celebratory Bloody Marys.

We were pleased to find that the train employees were all a bunch of characters.  Kammi, the attendant for our sleeper car, was a non-stop talker and very helpful and Gerald, who took dinner reservations, took one look at Kelly and declared she must be a model, then took one look at me and said "What are you doing with THIS guy?"  I made me feel homesick for NJ to be insulted by a total stranger.  He then told us how he had been asked to dinner by the fella in a sleeper at the other end of the car.  We found all the train workers to be very friendly and helpful on both legs of our trip.
One of the things we like about the train is that they seat you with other travelers for meals and seem to try to seat you with different people at each meal.  Our first dinner was spent with two very pleasant folks named Anna and Tom.  Tom is actually father-in-law to Aaron Ralston, the hiker who had to cut off his own hand when it was pinned beneath a rock in the Utah canyon country.

We found the food on the train to be surprisingly good.  I had a very credible steak for dinner both nights on the train and all the food was actually quite good.  We had reserved a "roomette" which is a  private car about 6-1/2 feet long and 3-1/2 feet wide.  Two chairs which face each other can turn down into a bed and there is a bunk above which folds down into another.  It is strongly recommended that whoever is in the upper bunk double down on their yoga stretches before attempting to put on jammies and don't forget your prostate medication because midnight bathroom runs are challenging to say the least.

Sunrise found us on a lunar landscape in the Utah desert but by late morning we had made it to the Colorado mountains and entered Glenwood Canyon, the western gateway to the Rocky Mountains.  The entire stretch through this section is quite spectacular and the train follows the Colorado River as far a somewhere about halfway across the mountains.  The leaves were just beginning to change and it was quite beautiful.  Unfortunately, darkness fell before we made our decent to Denver but we should see that portion of the mountains on the return trip.

The next morning we awoke in the green fields of Nebraska.  Not being very good at sitting with nothing much to do but look at the scenery I had been apprehensive about this section of the journey.  I had assumed that by the time we hit Indiana I would be spending quality time gnawing at the straps of my straight jacket but this was not the case.  We had been so deprived of green scenery at our home town in California that it was a pleasure to watch the green fields and puffy clouds cruising past our windows.  The trains are not like planes, where you have to stay put for your entire trip.  You can get up and go to the viewing car to visit with other travelers and watch the view out the floor to ceiling windows, go to the café car, or simply enjoy walking past the peasants in coach class and feeling superior. 

Finally, we pulled into Chicago where we were transfer to the commuter train to Milwaukee.  By this time we were still a couple hours late and we had about 10 minutes to make our connection, the last train to Milwaukee that day.  I figured there was no way our bikes would make it there with us but they surprised us by having them there waiting for us.  All in all, the train was a very pleasant experience and a good opportunity to de-compress from work, for tomorrow...We Ride.

2014 RAAM

Well, we're off again.  Kelly and I are signing up for the 2014 RAAM. No! Not the Race Across AMerica,   that is nuts.  Our RAAM is the Race Almost Around Michigan.  On Sept 11 we will be taking the train from Sacramento, CA to Milwaukee, WI and riding up and around Lk. Michigan.  The next three weeks will be spent exploring the Wisconsin coast of the lake with a nice loop through Door County, a very scenic peninsula east of Green Bay, and continuing up to the  Upper Pennisula (UP) of Michigan.  We plan to stay pretty close to the lake and will be crossing back to the Wisconsin side via the ferry in Ludington, MI.  We missed this part of the world on our cross country trip due to the fact that we didn't want to battle the summer mosquitos (they've been known to carry off small Yuppers, as the folks of the Upper Pennisula are known) and our butts were sore.

On our cross country trip we had taken the train to escape the wastelands of  N. Dakota and the madness of the fracking operations that have taken over that part of the country.  We so enjoyed that phase of our journey that we decided to include another train trip in this adventure.  It should be an interesting trip as the route goes through Nevada (ok, so I guess it's not all going to be interesting. Nevada brings to mind a futuristic penal colony...with less gentile inhabitants) Utah and Colorado before hitting the corn belt for the final leg into Chicago where we will change trains for the commuter run into Milwaukee.  We'll be staying the night with old friends from NJ, Bob & Susan Peschel, who live just north of Milwaukee.  Bob has graciously offered to guide us on our first day of cycling from the Milwaukee area to a campground near Sheboygan.

Getting in shape for 3 weeks on a bike has been a bit challenging this summer.  We seem to be situated at ground-zero for the worst wildfires in the US this summer.  We've got firefighters here from all over the country.  Just today, I saw a fire rig from NEW JERSEY...I didn't even know they had forest fire equipment.  Drought conditions were exceptionally bad to begin with and, once the fires started, they took off with a vengeance.  We have also had a very hot summer with temperatures hovering in the mid to upper 90's most days.  Usually, from our back deck we can see Mt Shasta (40 miles to our southeast) as if it were in the backyard.  This year we have had days when we couldn't see the other side of the valley, less than 1.5 miles away.  Some days, we are also treated with falling ash which rides the air currents and sifts down like snow on everything.  Riding your bike for an hour in these conditions is somewhat like smoking a pack of Camels.  Not great for long distance riding. 

Our gear for the trip will be similar to our previous trip with a few exceptions.  Kelly will switch from the BOB trailer to standard panniers.  She didn't feel the bike handled well with the trailer and that it was extra difficult on hills...like it was always pulling her backward.  We will also be carrying a much trimmed-down kitchen setup.  Instead of a Coleman backpacking stove (pretty heavy) we will be bringing a simple alcohol stove.  Not so good for cooking meals (which we ended up not doing much anyway) but plenty good enough for instant coffee (Starbucks of course....we ARE from the Northwest after all) and oatmeal.  A single pot and a plate, cup and spork for each of us rounds out the kitchen.  We'll be bringing mostly warmer clothing as temperatures should be in the 60's during the days.

We're very excited about this trip and are anxious to get on the road.  It's always great to see new country and, by all counts, this is one of the most picturesque places you can ride.  Add to that the wonderful, courteous mid-western people and it should be a great trip.  We'll take lots of pictures and will provide a full blog-report on our return.  We will not be taking our I-pad this time and will have no way to blog during the trip but will be sure to keep our journal notes to fill you all in on our trip.  So, wish us good road-vibes and we will see you on our return in early Oct.