07.09.07July 9: Vancouver Island en route to Bellingham,WAPosted in Uncategorized at 11:37 pm by jwalters Hello everyone, not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on today. Just a lazy day of reading and watching the mountains go by. Matt and I finished our books. I was reading the story of bush pilot Don Sheldon from Talkeetna, called Wager with the Wind and Matt was reading The Last Season about Sierra mountain ranger Randy Morgenson. Today we switched books and are just enjoying the warmer weather, and the scenery. Since not much is really going on, I thought I’d show some pictures of the boat. What makes this unique, is it’s just a ferry, not a Carnival cruise ship. There are few cabins, but mostly just tent space and “coach” style airline chairs (but with much more leg room). Also many of the ferry’s that sail for the Alaskan Marine Highway have solarium’s. Here you can sleep in your sleeping bag under the heated canopy or you can set your tent up on the deck. They warn you about the winds if you choose to setup your tent. Through some of the passes where we are in open ocean, the winds can blow a tent and its contents overboard.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we’re taking advantage of the indoors for the next few days. We really lucked out, because there is relatively no travelers on the south trip back to Bellingham.
This has been home for the past 2 1/2 days. Some advice to those thinking about taking the Alaskan Marine Highway. Seasonal workers travel to Alaska in the early summer, so if you are going to choose a one way trip on the AMH, take the southern route from Alaska to Bellingham. Same is true in the fall when all the workers from Alaska are heading back to the lower 48, for travelers, that is the best time to take the ferry north. As you can see, we have tons of space, and there is still plenty of room upstairs on the solarium during the day to read. The only real interesting thing that happened today was a little game of cat and mouse with a smaller fishing boat. It was running along side of the M/V Malaspina for a few miles, the channel ahead turned to the left. The captain must have thought he was getting too close for comfort with our turn coming up and whaled four times in quick procession on the loud horn. Our ship turned in the opposite direction briefly before turning to the left to stay in the channel. Just like our fake DMZ crossing, I’ve now lived through a “Crazy Ivan”.
Other than that, we’ve seen all the typical stuff you’d expect to see sailing the Alaskan/Canadian coast. Whales, killer whales, bald eagles, and dive bombing sea gulls. Check out the view at night! You can see a whale in the second picture.
No photoshop’ing here, the sunset was unreal!
Also, we’ve past some neat fishing and sailing boats. These waters would be great for sailing because there is a constant wind, but the waters are sheltered from the sea by a string of islands. On some islands we’ve seen small tents with kayaks, others seem uninhabited. We are traveling with some folks who have their kayaks onboard, and kayaked from Juneau along the sea, before loading back up and heading back to Bellingham. That could be a fun trip too….Dad? Hows that new kayak treating you?
We should be in Bellingham tomorrow morning 07/10 at 7am. We plan on picking up some tires we ordered from a local dealership and taking them over to a friends place that lives in the area. Aaron Ray, from Univ. of Iowa, is stationed here as a Naval Intelligence Officer. The Magnum PI jokes just never get old when he’s around, but the mocking humor is all based on jealously. You see, recently he’s been taking hops off an aircraft carriers as a flight intel officer. Thanks for your service and congrats Aaron! Once at Aaron’s place, we will change tires on our bikes, and do another oil change. And if Aaron wants to pull some strings and get us a ride on a Seahawk or Hornet, that would be OK too. PS. Aaron, if I can get a ride on a F-18 Hornet, please don’t waste my time on a run-of-the-mill D model, only the F-18E/F Super Hornet will suffice. And if it helps my odds, I can provide my own full face helmet and riding gear. I am out of barf bags though, I’ll see if there are any on the ship before I get off. Finally, I wanted to say hi to my cousin Chad. Chad, buddy, I got your message, but you didn’t leave your call back number! Anyway, glad to hear you are state side, and thanks for serving in Afghanistan for all of us reading. Can’t wait to hear about those middle eastern women in a few weeks.
This ship has been great, but both Matt and I are ready to get back on the road. Until then! |
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07.12.07July 11: Concrete, WA to Spokane, WAPosted in Uncategorized at 10:58 am by jwalters We got a good start out of Concrete, WA and the sun was already starting to bake us. It hit a high of 105 yesterday, and with a black jacket and riding pants (about the same as snow pants) it was hot, really hot. Fortunately we followed the Columbia river basin much of the way. Surprisingly, the vineyard irrigation systems kept us cool as we road through them. But it was short lived and we were left in the heat. Highway 20 was some of the best road we’ve been on yet. This highway, along with the Haines highway in Alaska, the Cassier highway in the Yukon and the Lewis and Clark highway in Montana have been the most memorable on the entire trip. Highway 20 is a motorcyclist road. Good surface, and lots of curves. The north cascade mountains we traveled through weren’t the tallest we’ve been in, but you are right next to the jagged rock, and you feel real close to the mountains.
Because of the terrain, dams are a huge feature around here. Aside from the Grand Coulee dam, there are lots of smaller dams in a series all along the highway. They created really neat lakes at the base of the mountains as you can see below. The water around here was great. In the heat of the day, I was searching for a place to take a cool dip.
Not too far down the road, we saw a gravel road that led to a decent size river. This water was cold, and most likely feed by the snow melt. But what a relief, this cooled us down in a hurry. Hoped back on the bikes, and stayed cool for another hour after taking a dip here.
Once we pulled out of the river basin, it turns to semi-desert badlands. The soil here is really dry and rocky. Today’s ride really highlighted the importance of the dam systems in this region. Without them, there would be no irrigation for the farming that has cropped up (no pun intended) along the river. But as we left this area, the heat intensified and we were left with nothing but the sun hitting our backs.
We got to Spokane without any surprises. It was so hot, we didn’t want to stop the bikes, just kept on rolling. On the west side of town is Fairchild Air Force base. There we saw a C-17 Globe Master take off! Trying not to get distracted by the aircraft, we made it into the downtown area and grabbed a cheap motel. Air conditioning is a wonderful invention. That’s all for today. |
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07.15.07July 14: Missoula, MT to Forsyth, MTPosted in Uncategorized at 9:15 am by jwalters After getting kicked out of our motel room Saturday morning,we packed up our bikes and headed to Big Sky where we waited for the UPS truck. It arrived with my sprockets, and within an hour, Big Sky had us back on the road. Leaving Missoula around 2pm in the 104 degree heat, we got on I-90 and looked for the first 2 lane highway intersection. We decided to hop on highway 12 and take that clear across the state. The roads were great, but the heat was out of control. We don’t’ have many pictures from the past few days, because its just been too hot to stop. Off in the distance we could see we were riding into a heck of a thunderstorm. We pulled over and put our rain gear on. Ask anyone on a bike and they’ll agree, once you lace up your rain gear, you won’t need it. We ended up not getting very wet, only a few light sprinkles, but the wall of cool air the storm front brought was a HUGE relief. It went from 104s to mid 80s in about 20 miles! This cool air, along with a nice tail wind, helped us ride about 500 miles that day. Considering we didn’t leave town until 2pm, that wasn’t too bad. Here is a couple shots I managed to take of highway 12 as we ran through the National Forrest’s. The smoky bear fire warnings were at Very High.
That evening, we road highway 12 to Forsyth, MT. I could tell few cars traveled this highway, because the livestock in the fields on the side of the roads, were spooked at the sound of our bikes. In the Midwest, most of the animals are accustom to hearing vehicles, but up here the ranches are so large, animals must not be by highways very often. It was actually funny to see one of the small sheep, cow or horses bolt, then watch all the others take off with it. Seems like this could be a lesion in some sort of social behavior science. Sara? As the evening wore on the weather got a little hairy. We typically don’t ride at night because of all the deer, but we wanted to get somewhere with water, so we had another 50 miles to ride before Forsyth. After seeing countless deer on the road, and missing a owl sitting on the highway by a few inches, we slowed down to a snails pace. I remember thinking how calm it was outside as I road with nothing but my headlight lighting the way. Just then a lightening bolt struck, and I could see the trees around me, bent over as if I was in the middle of a hurricane. Turns out the wind was a perfect tailwind and I didn’t feel it. That is, until we came into town. At the gas station in Forsyth, I left my helmet on as I filled up with gas. The dust was blowing so hard, I thought I was in a sand blasting tank. Running in to pay for gas, I ran back outside, to hold my bike, as it almost blew over! Time to get out of that crap! We moved the bikes to the other side of the gas station, sheltered from the wind. While sitting outside waiting for the wind to die down and watching the gas station attendant hopelessly try to recover her garbage cans from the wind, when we ran into Keith. Originally from Vinton, IA, he lived in Iowa City for a while too, and seemed happy to talk about home. Keith, was up here working as a Cowboy on a ranch. He kind laughed when he said “Cowboy”, because he told us he didn’t realize that was an actual job title anymore, and didn’t really fit the part by John Wayne standards. Sounded like he liked the work though, and was planning to stick around at least for the rest of the summer. The storm we would eventually run into created a magnificent sunset.
This is Montana! Off to North and South Dakota! |
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07.17.07July 17: Wabasso, MN to Home!Posted in Uncategorized at 8:57 am by jwalters We are making our last leg home today. We will be swinging by Lamberton, MN for some free massages and then setting the compass to Coralville! We will be stopping by Guss’s Bar for a beer this evening when we pull into town. Meet us there, ~9pm! |
07.18.07July 18: ???Posted in Uncategorized at 9:52 am by jwalters The last few miles home were kind of strange. Matt and I were both thinking the same thing… what now? For the past two years this trip has consumed my spare time, looking at places to go, what to bring, how long it will take, how much money it will cost, etc. I have to admit, that’s part of the fun. In a way, this trip started 2 years ago for me, and is just now winding down. But it couldn’t have ended any better. We pulled into Gusses, up the street from our apartments, where we were greeted by a lot of friends and family. My brother, Jason and sister-in-law Becky drove down from Waterloo to spend the evening with us! Friends from my college research lab were there, and even a coworker from Intermec! Jason G, Jason W, Becky, Tom, Jen, Josh, Mel, thanks for stopping by, it was a perfect ending to a wonderful trip.
To top it off, Matt’s girlfriend Ashley, baked us a cake. It was really good too. Thanks Ash!
I have to admit, if money wasn’t an issue and I didn’t have any career goals, I could see spending a lot of time on the road. Cruising the country for 6 months at a time, would be a great way to see the world. But what I really found was that having a place you call home is just as important as traveling. Friends and family make four walls and roof a home, and it was nice coming back. And since I do have career goals, I am eager to get back to work, and excited to see where my skills take me. Matt is in a transition period , aka early retirement, but I am sure he will have no problem finding a job. Would I do this same trip again? ABSOLUTELY. I’d take the same bike, same gear, and hit the road tomorrow. My bank account says otherwise, and so does my eagerness to get back to work. But I no longer think those retired couples who sell everything and travel in an RV are quite so crazy. Hopefully in a few years I’ll be able to do something like this again, but by then, who knows. Maybe South America, maybe Labrador, or right back up the way I came, there is still so much to see! Thanks to everyone who sent us emails and posted comments. It REALLY made this site worth the effort. We had over 2,000 unique visitors to our humble website this past month! I can’t believe it! Well, that’s it! Adios! |
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