Learning to Swim in the Rain Forest.

Greetings from Amanda Park WA! I think that it has warmed up to about 60 degree farenhiet here , so I would consider this a warm spell. So far we have had severa things that have been consistent on this trip and thatt is unforgiving rains and mechanical difficulties.

We have been riding for two days now and Brandon has had two flats and it has seemed to be raining non-stop, but I shouldn't complain too much because I am starting to see a break in the clouds. Maybe it is just me that is still wet because the tend was not as water-tight last night as we had first thought.  our whole tent was soked and had had my taablet sitting next to me before I went to bed, but when I woke up, I pullled it out of a puddle of water next to my down sleeping bag.  luckily my tablet still works, but my sleeping bag was a bit wet and I couldn't dry it out because it was like we were in the middle of a rain cloud with all the fog /humidity/rain that was around the camp. It took us a while but we eventually  bit the bullet, packed everything up and headed out. we have gone 60 miles so far today and have about 15 left, slightly downhill too!

I want to also illustrate the resoursefullness of my good buddy brandon here. Today his clipless pedal fell apart. He had no way of keeping his foot on the pedal and he was left with just a slick plastic shoe and a a metal pedal. He ended up fixing his peda with a zip tie in a very ingenuitive fashion. He then later took a screw from a different pedal and moved it to the broken pedal and then he zip-tied both pedals.

As bleak as this post sounds we are really having a good time and we arrive in Aberdeen tomorow where we can restock on food and buy some badly needed bike parts for branndon. I think we are onlly about 35 miles away.

The even better news is that we have friends from BYU that are driving from Seattle to the Penninsula to camp with us tonight. Colin Barber and his wife Melanie are coming to see us. I am really excited and hope they brought some dry towels!

Oh Canada!

Disclaimer: i am still trying to figure out the blogging from a tablet thing. Paragraphs and spell-check have yet to be mastered. copying and pasting blogs from the word processor from when I write them offline is what I am doing at the moment.

So I  am in the ferry bulding  waiting for the 8:30 ferry to Sidney British Columbia. It took me quite some time to figure out my new Bluetooth rolling keyboard but I think I am finally figuring this thing out.  I slept for about 3.5 hours agaian last night, the second night in a row. We got to the Ferry Terminal in Anacortes last night around midnight. We assembled the bikes in the terminal and had them ready to go by 12:45. After this we had to find a spot to camp. We decided to run up by the upper parking lot to find a spot. We found one, but it was very hilly and right off of the parking lot (I don't know if they appreciated us camping there) In the morning, which at this lattitude happens around 4 AM, I woke up to find lots of wild rasppberries in the area. I tried one and it was a little more wild than I thought it would be. We had the camp up and packed before any security personnel compassed the area. I had co-workers imagining that I would get arrested in a spectacular fashion, but that hasn't happened ... Yet!  

We are on the 8:25 ferry to Sidney BC this morning and they are starting to call our  loading groups.   There are many posters here in the  station which feature orca whales (the ferry even passes Orca Island). I want to see Shamoo in the wild. I hope he remembers me! I was really friendly and waved a lot last time I saw him at Sea world.  I will blog more once I get on the Ferry.    

The ferry trip was uneventful, but beautiful. Shamoo was too afraid to show his face but maybe he will show his face tomorrow as we take the Ferry to Port Angeles. Like I just said, the ferry was amazingly beautiful. It made a quick stop at Friday Harbor on the Island of San Juan. The Ferry had special ropes for bicycles to tie up on a ramp for the voyage as well. The charge for the bicycle was $6. The Ferry had several large Korean families on it that seemed very excited to be in North America. I chatted with them for a while and they were happy that I enjoyed Seoul 4 summers ago. Being short on sleep I tried to doze off, and succeeded for about 10 minutes when a crewmember woke me up to make sure that I was not supposed to get off at Friday Harbor. I wasn't able to fall back asleep again.   Once we landed on Victoria Island, we had to go through a particularly grimm border patrol agent. We succeeded and immediately after we disembarked the Sidney Ferry Station, we found signs directing bicyclists towards Victoria on the Lochside bicycle path. It was fairly well marked for the 20 miles into town and it was absolutely georgious. We were told by locals that it followed an old rail bed so it was particularly flat as well. There were some areas that were on dirt paths, but they were really well mainttaianed and smooth. Neither Brandon or myself had bike difficulties because of it.   We easily found our hostel tonight despite both of us rejecting the huge $/mb charges on our data plans for roaming in Canada.

For lunch Brandon wanted to try what I think is spelled poutin, which is like a french canadian version of chili fries (Brandon served his mission in Belgium/France). We found a place called "The Pig" that served it, and it was delicious! This particular location was a barbeque joint that loaded fries with pulled pork, cheese and a gravy type sauce. I also tried the establishments mustard barbeque sauce and was instantly taken to another level, it was very good. I  am sure we will have further adventures with Canadian Cuisine in the next 24 hours.      

The hostel we are at is pretty nice and provided a warm shower/place for a nap that was greatly appreciated. It looks like we have one Canadian and one German roommate for the night. We need to decide what we are going to do for breakfast, but they have a full kitchen that we can use if we want to cook in the morning. I need to buy some stove fuel (TSA frowns on white gas in checked luggage)  and allergy medicine. I am absolutely dying with allergies, which is funny because when I went to seattle this time of year 3 years ago, I had absolutely no problems.   Off to explore the city!

The call of the coast!

I love Sundays because it is a great day to rest! I also love Sundays because it gives me time to procrastinate the things that I should be doing like getting ready for my amazing trip that is coming up. I have decided to get a quick blog in about the planning of the trip and how I am going to be able to use this trip and the interest that it produces for the use of good in the world. I have decided to ride later this summer in the New Mexico MS 150 "Pedal Los Pueblos" bike ride. To do this I first have an obligation to raise money to benefit the National MS society. Last year I rode in this ride and had an incredible opportunity to meet amazing people that cycled with me who not only volunteer with the MS Society but also suffer from MS. This experience has really helped me understand the good that this society does and the pains that people with MS suffer through. As you read this blog I would implore you to donate and help this good cause.

A great way to do that is to pledge money for each mile that I will ride along the Pacific Coast in the next month. My early estimates (rough estimates through Google Maps' Beta Cycling instuctions) says that I will be riding 1048 miles. This means that if you pledge to donate one dime for every mile that I will cycle, you will donate $104.80! I know that adds up to a lot of money when you are cycling these kinds of distances! This can easily be simplified to $10 for every penny/mile that one pledges to donate for my ride. I would love to raise $1000 - which would be $1 for every mile that I ride. We will  see how far I can get! If you would like to donate you can do so on my MS Society profile page Here.

Now onto cycling! Bellow is a rough map of where I predict we will be camping each night sans the discontinuous British Columbia section.


View Bicycling directions to King St in a larger map

So far I have gone slightly Henry David Thoreau and have started to plan out the cost and the Itinerary of the trip. Bellow are some grammatically emails between Brandon Robinson and myself on the plans of the trip. The links provide information on the plans so far.

Hey, I found an awesome hostel and reserved a room because I guess next week is of some Canadian Holiday. Here the hostel, it costs $33 Canadian a night: http://oceanisland.com/

My plan is to get into Seattle and if Colin Barber doesn't pick us up we can take the 9:00 shuttle to Annacortes where the ferry is. It costs $31 for a 2h45m ride. Here is the link http://www.airporter.com/schedules/schedules-rates -I plan on just finding an open field in Annacortes to sleep in as we await the Ferry the next day. 

The next morning (the 28th) we take the 8:25 ferry to Sidney BC. The cost is $24 and includes a $6 surcharge for the bike We get into Sidney at 11:05 AM. We might take the later ferry if Colin drives us. http://www.wsdot.com/ferries/schedule/ScheduleDetailByRoute.aspx?schedrouteid=1420

From Sidney we bike about 20 miles into Downtown Victoria which I hear is an absolutely incredible city. the hostel we are staying at was built in 1891. The next morning we will then take the 10:30 ferry to Port Angeles where we start the camping part of the trip. Here is a link to the Ferry ($23.50 Canadian with the bike) http://www.cohoferry.com/main/?Fares We will be biking 60 miles the first day (after arriving at noon so we will have to lunch up on the ferry) after this we will start following this map -[ https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=203101903429155817735.0004c051fc5fc1c49f42b&msa=0 ]- The first day we camp right after Forks, WA (bring Garlic). The next day is a campground just before Humptulips WA and the town has a major road called Kirkpatrick Road. Be ready for high levels of testosterone and low levels of education!

Brandon, I have just been planning, so let me know if you object to something:

His reply was this, classic Brandon:

I hate planning crap.  You do the planning and Ill let you cling on to my back hair all the way to San Fran.  The money side should be fine too.  Ive been selling crack cocaine like that guy on breaking bad to Pre-med students at BYU that cant hack it for the last six years.

Love,

Brandawg

This is going to be an amazing adventure and I am trying to make sure I go into it with the right attitude so I can make the most of the trip.