im very tired. this will be concise. harmiston to pendleton; chilly and partly cloudy, gradual but looooong climbs, switchbacks, sidewinds making us pedal downhill. bummer. pendleton to el grande, this part is called cabbage hill. holy shit cabbage hill. 4,000 feet of elevation. more and more gradual but looooong climbs, more intense switchbacks, more intense everything basically. and to top it off it began to snow when we reached the crest and made our way back down. we didnt have any winds to fight on the descent but we had snow piercing our eyeballs. then we find out the only way to get in to el grande is the highway, not the state route we had been enjoying perfectly well for the past 90 miles. descending a 5 mile %5 grade with big rigs barreling by a couple feet away is pretty invigorating. it definitely makes you feel alive and awake. we just finished scarfing down 3 pizzas. and now im out. here are some pictures.

toby gummer

these horses ran with us for a while. then they got bored and turned around.

comforting greetings

Ken gets down with the snow.

We’re two days into our trip, and we’re about to pass out in the spare rooms of Nancy & Ken Gummer’s place in Umatilla, Oregon. The Gummer’s have toured back & forth over the Great Divide several times with several different kinds of bikes. We found them on warmshowers.com which is like couchsurfing.com specifically for touring cyclists. The Gummer’s also know how to treat their guests well. If we keep getting fed this indulgently, we’re going to come back in not nearly as good shape as you might expect us to. Either that, or this is just part of our elaborate hoax, and we’re really just staying with Jill in Portland for a few months.

And why not, really? Have you ever been out there? Have you ever seen the Columbia River Gorge? Because holy crap, it’s gorgeous! We made it well past Hood River on our first day (topping out at 95 miles), but it would’ve been entirely worth it to go back & forth over Multnomah Falls alone. There are seven spectacular falls that feed the Columbia, and Andy at one point had to remind us that if we keep stopping for all of them, we won’t make it anywhere today.

the first of seven Multnomah falls

The main fall. nearly 600 feet over two falls.

But it was so hard not to stop! There aren’t any waterfalls on a 60 mile Nyack ride or a century out to Montauk! No, there aren’t! You know what else? There aren’t any winding switchbacks that we can descend at 50mph either. Those descents are going to make the brutal climbs so entirely worth it.

A lot of people ask if I’m bringing a video camera along to document this trip. I’m not. Becuase unless I was working on something truly sprawling, it would probably be pretty boring for most of you unless I could set up some industrial strength fans on a stage and show you the videos while misting the auditorium with Pine-Sol.

the sun setting over the columbia river gorge

The first night, we slept just outside of The Dalles (pronounced “The Dals”), over the bridge in Washington, at the recommendation of the teenage girl working the drive-thru coffee hut in the strip mall leading into town. All of her other recommendations had us backtracking, and the sun was already beginning to sink in the sky as we were searching for a place to sleep. The weather was beautiful enough for us to wander around in our boxers and cook outside of the tent. We’ve been pampered, these first two days.

the view in the morning from our renegade campsite, Mount Hood in the background

our cozy abode on day 1

Our second day was generously buffeted by a benevolent tailwind. Strong enough to keep us at 20mph without hardly pedaling, and enduring enough to push us 105 miles. We hadn’t planned on making it to Umatilla in two days, but with weather like this, it’s hard not to kick ass. Windmills spiked the bluffs on either side of the river we followed in Washington. The breeze is so reliable that nature’s force is harvested here.

We stopped in the tiny town of North Roosevelt Washington, Population 100, when we first realized we weren’t kicking ass on our own. The wind there almost knocked us over. In Roosevelt, there’s a post office, a deli with a lot of hunting equipment, and a lady working there with a notebook that she gets all cyclists to sign. We were the third group of 2009. Since she’s opened the shop 6 years ago, the youngest she’s gotten was 7, and the oldest she’s gotten was 73. (On a side note, the Gummer’s know a woman who started touring at 65 and has since cycled from Florida to San Diego. The details might be off on that, but the general idea is spot-on).

A lot of Portland reminded me of Easton, PA. At least, the Northeast sections of Portland where our gracious host, Jill Meisner just moved. Jill will be excited to hear this, because she won’t stop mentioning how much she wants us all to move out here. So far, I haven’t come up with a great argument not to, except that moving really sucks.

No matter how much I knew of Portland’s much ballyhooed “bike mecca”-ness, I was still surprised at how many people ride out here. There were huge bike racks in front of every place we went to. If New York had bike parking as accessible as Portland, so many more people would be welcomed to ride. And that’s just one small aspect of the balance of car/bike/pedestrian infrastructure that makes Portland so good to ride in. The acceptance of bikes as a mode of transportation seems inculcated in everyone here. So much so that we hardly experienced a sidways glance from anyone, whereas in pretty much any other city I’ve ridden in, most people think we’re a maniacal nuisance.

There’s so much more to praise about Portland. I got in two games of Bike Polo with some of the people who can claim to have facilitated it’s current conception. We ate a delicious brunch at Tin Shed on Sunday - sure, it took us a few hours from start to finish because the place is so popular, but it’s not like we really had anything else to do. Afterwards we hit up the polo grounds in Alberta Park. Portland Bike Polo has a shed behind a house a few blocks away from the park where they keep spare bikes for out of towners. (These bikes are not really just for out of towners, but because I feel like being generous, I am going to let Portland claim that they really are that welcoming). Another note on polo: just like i noted in Seattle last summer, the general skill level out here is better than it is out East. MORE people can play very well. In the 9 months since I’ve been in Seattle though, I’ve witnessed my own gameplay and the gameplay of everyone else I play with improve enough to easily rival the West Coast. OK. Polo done until Milwaukee.

Bjorn moved back to Portland after 8 months in NYC. He & I visited Powell’s bookstore, the largest bookstore in the world. Again, this is another piece of slightly inaccurate propoganda about Portland that I’m not going to bother to correct. I picked up Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and Bjorn is going to let me borrow “Walden” by Thoreau. I was about to pick up some Emerson when I realized that might be a little bit of America overkill, so I grabbed “Lush Life” by Richard Price. I recommend Richard Price to you. All that other Americana? What better time to read it than on this trip? It never had much resonance when I was reading it from my Brooklyn apartment. And it turns out that Quinn picked up Emerson’s self reliance along with “World War Z” (about the pending zombie apocalpyse). A very apt combination.

I got to meet Steve Benoit, who owns studionumbernine.com - not to be confused with studionumbernine.net, which I own. Steve has gotten a lot of email for me over the years, and he kept on buying me beers on Saturday night. Awesome guy. We’re now following eachother on Twitter. BFF’s!

The weather was unbelievable out here, and should be for the first week of our trip. Near record high’s were reached, as we watched Portlanders stroll the waterfront. The sun set over the rail yards beautifully before we got gen-u-wine West Coast burritos (propoganda note: San Francisco has more genuine West Coast burritos than Portland.) I really wanted to go to “Stripperoke” (strippers + karaoke), but even though the concept blew my mind with it’s brilliance, I barely had the energy to do that, so we watched onDemand movies back at Jill’s place while we did our laundry. On Monday, we ate some cart food on 4th ave, got some fantastic coffee at Stumptown, and had my bike worked on at River City Bikes. Thanks again, guys, for getting this done for me today. It was the first nice weekend of the year, and everyone had been bringing their bikes in.

This relaxing life is going going to end. Real soon. But it’s going to be so worth it. Expect to hear from us less, because THINGS ARE GOING TO DIE. Particularly, cellphone & laptop batteries. But
when you do hear from us, expect to be delighted by the things we’ve seen and are showing you, and enlightened by the reflections we make on three thousand, five hundred miles of America by two wheels.

Finally, we have made it to our west coast destination.  Portland, Oregon.  The City Of Roses.  Everyone talks about how dreary and dismal Portland and Seattle are but every time I have been here the weather has been beautiful.  Now, for example, it is in the 70s and will reach the 80s by the end of the day, sunny, not much wind.  Ideal.  Hopefully we’ll take it with us when we leave.  Saturday we didn’t do much.  re-cooperated and ate.  What i wanted to eat was burritos.  All the wrong-coasters are always coming to New York raving about West Coast burritos and how superior they are to East Coast burritos.  Like the Biggie and 2 Pac wrapped in a tortilla.  So I wanted to see what all the hubub is about and Jill recommends a place called Por Que No Taqueria.  We go there and I’m immediately pissed.  With a name that translates to “Why Not Tacos?” I should have known, they don’t serve burritos.  But the tacos were good and last night she redeemed herself by taking us to Santeria? that had amazing and huge and cheap and authentic burritos.  Then Sunday was pretty much spent eating and riding places to sit.  After a couple hours at Tin Shed restaurant for “breakfast” (over here they call brunch breakfast. wierd i know.) we rode to watch some polo in Alberta Park.  Ken played a couple games and i didn’t heckle him.  Then we went to VooDoo Doughnuts where “The Magic Is In The Hole.”  Know what I found out is in the hole?  Pure deliciousness.  Bacon Maple Doughnut.  Ta Die For.  This is where we split off and Ken went with Bjorn to nerd out at a bookstore.  Quinn and i went to the waterfront with Jill to meet some of Jill’s work friends.  They played bocce ball and i ate their chips, strawberries, and drank one of their beers.  We all met up again and went to The Bluffs (aka Makeout Point according to Jill) to watch the sunset.  A fantastic end to a relaxing day.  Then we went to eat burritos and watch Baby Mama.  Pretty funny but i slept and snored through most of it.  

The Bluffs (Makeout Point)

Bacon Maple Doughnut!

Jill's beautiful new apartment

Like fat kids in a doughnut shop

pdx polo

We were never supposed to be in Sacramento. We were never supposed to cross the state of California at all. But sometimes weather does some unexpected things, and the intrepid traveler has to make do with what’s available. Lemonade can always be made from lemons. I guess Canada had some massive snowfall this year, and all that stuff’s melting down the Red River into Montana & North Dakota. Since Amtrak hasn’t yet figured out how to navigate their trains underwater, they detoured us under the flood completely.

This turned out, at points, to be massively awesome. First of all, lets recollect that the United States of America has a whole lot of nothing in the middle of it. And if it feels expansive by train, at 60-80 miles per hour, it’s immense to imagine how it’s going to feel by bike, at 60-80 miles per day.

Amtrak’s California Zephyr picks up in Chicago and terminates in San Francisco. We got off in the capital city of Sacramento with an 8 hour layover, but not before passing through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the astounding terrain of Nevada and Northern California. No doubt Minnesota and Montana are just as spectacular by rail, but everything we saw out of our window - at least westward from Denver - was phenomenal. Also, if you ever think about taking train trips, a great segment is from Reno to San Franciso. The commentary by the train staff picks up a lot after Reno, to appease the commuters, tourists, travelers, or whoever happens to have to take that route. And there’s no shortage. The coach section had something like two empty seats after we hit Reno.

like those sculptures on the L train 6th ave stop!

In Sacramento, we had 8 hours to kill. We hadn’t heard very many flattering things about the city, so we figured we’d see a movie, to sheild us from the depressing reality of a capital city rivaling Albany in lameness. Keeping with our efforts to make our trip as epic as possible at every turn, we found the IMAX theater. And we saw Monsters vs. Aliens. In 3D. On IMAX. With a large popcorn with free refills. And some twizzlers, M&M’s, and Junior Mints from the Rite Aid up the street. Epic.

Not actually the IMAX, but a far cooler looking theater

That finished up by 8pm, and we had at least three more hours to kill. It was bar time on Friday night, so we figured we might find something worthwhile. A little while ago, I had declared my interest in finding Karaoke bars in as many places we visited as possible.We asked a waitress at a local brewery to recommend something - anything - for us to do. And if it had Karaoke, all the better. She pointed us down J Street and at one point mentioned “The Streets of London Pub”. So we went there on her recommendation.

Our recommendation is this: Don’t go there. First of all, as a 32 year old man, I wasn’t in the slightest bit flattered that the bartender asked me for all three of our IDs when I ordered beers. Secondly, I was not just a little bit stunned & aggravated to find out that Andy’s passport wasn’t acceptible as a valid form of ID. This is true. In California (and Ohio, allegedly), a federally issued passport that allows you to cross international borders and get on airplanes is not legitimate enough of an ID to get a glass of beer. I’m not clear why Andy only has his passport, but I think it involves losing a billfold. Irregardless, wtf? He’s 27, and no one in their right minds would mistake him for anything under 24. Except the douchebags at The Streets of London Pub.

We sucked up their electricity to charge our phones and moved on, quickly, having given them a crappy tip. A block or so down the street, in front of “Hamburger Patties”, we heard a boisterous crowd gurgle incoherent ramblings that I was pretty sure included something about Karaoke as they debated where to spend their Friday night. Maybe it was just me who heard this, because I turned away from Andy & Quinn to ask these strangers more about this rumored Karaoke. Apparently, it was happening right there, inside Hamburger Patties. I went in to confirm, and it was true! Karaoke! There, starting in a half an hour. Sweet! But wait, second question: was this passport mumbo jumbo for reals? Yeah, it was for reals, the bartender reinforced. “But wait a second…you guys? Yeah, you’re clearly 21. Go ahead & sit down.” Yes. Thank you, Hamburger Patties. Way not to Suckramento. (see what I did there?)

Hamburger Patties redeemed Sacramento, at least a little bit. For my next cross-country bike tour, I’m going to string along a huge series of Karaoke bars and sing “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” by Neil Diamond at every place, as long as they have it. Hamburger Pattie’s version was whack. It didn’t have the middle section where Neil Diamond freaks out & preaches about raising your hand to God and what not. That’s definitely the best part of the song, and I was forced to adlib. It pretty much worked out, and was the one non-depressing song of the evening, compared to “Cry Me a River”, “Womanizer” by Britney”, and some awful song that literally encouraged you to “cry on the inside, and keep your feelings hidden, and if you fail, remember that you ALMOST had it all.” Yeah. Almost. Except you’re a total screwup and can’t do anything right. But don’t let anyone know you’re bummed about that. Just pretend everything’s alright. Just pretend everything’s alright, Sacramento. We’re outta here.

Yes!

Just to keep you abreast of things, we’re in Reno, NV right now, about 10 minutes west of Sparks, NV. In 5 hours, we’ll be in the bustling metropolis of Sacremento California,
where we hope there are some great movies playing during our 8 hour layover.

Last night, we convinced our exhausted train car coordinator lady to let Andy sleep in an unoccupied sleeping room. It was fantastic. We woke up to snow capped mountain ranges on either side of the train.

In other awesome news, there’s another group of bike tourists on this train! Ben, the fiddle-playing college sophomore who’s taking a break from school to wander aimlessly in the mountains of the west, collecting money while he strums, tipped us off to Andrew & Matt. They’re two military kids from Virginia who are riding from San Francisco to Virginia Beach. They’re also doing it for a cause. Check em’ out: pedalacross.com. ALSO, these kids got SPONSORED by some awesome solar-powered backpack company: voltaicsystems.com. This thing charges a battery which can then charge your cellphone or computer or whatever. Very convenient. Wish we had one of those.

This train has been great. It’s been a good way to ease our way into a massive trip. Realizing that we’re going to be on bikes for 90 days is going to take a little time to sink in. Taking 5 days by train to get from here to there is a good way to slow down our pace of life. There are a lot of old people here. One couple is going entirely around the country by train. Another one claims to be one of the engineers who worked on the original cell phone. Another guy was two years old when prohibition was repealed.

Many more stories to come.

So what is the “mile high club” equivalent on the train?:

okay, so yesterday before i was stowed away in the sleeper car i had to sit in coach. An Appalcahian family weren’t all sitting together so they asked a prim and proper English gentleman to sit with a young, attractive, fresh-out-of-college girl so the family could all sit together. So they sit together, get annoyed by the Appalchian family and agree to get a drink in the bar car. After ken and quinn find me we head to the same bar car. So the english gentleman (lets call him James’ nit wit half brother Jimmy Bond) and the young lady (lets call her Gail Gone Wild) are drinking beers. They are a couple deep when Ken and I notice them walk up from the lower lounge bar with an armful of beers each. Not too long after that, they move on to cocktails. Things are going nice between the two of them. They’re enjoying each other’s company and the sexual tension while watching the countryside pass them by, they have dinner together, they throw their arms around each other for warmth in the cold observation car. Our attention is distracted for about an hour by Fiddlin’ Ben but while we are walking through the dining car we see disaster struck. Gail is forcefully given water and can’t keep her head up, banging it on the table as it teeters. Jimmy is directing people by talking about bleeding his hog. First railed on rails attempt proves fruitless. Jimmy is eating breakfast alone.

okay so as ken told you, our train route got all messed up three minutes before leaving nyc. we got to chicago yesterday around 10am and did a little weather research (the red river is rising-ugh)…to find that we should take a train to sacramento that goes through the colorado rockies, salt lake city and over… then we take another train up to portland. 1 extra day on the train.

the train we’re on is called the California Zephyer. we bought one sleeper car and one coach seat. andy sat in the coach seat for approx. 5 minutes and since then, no one has seen it. our sleeper car is laughably TINY (photos to come), but somehow andy and ken managed to share the not-even-twin-sized bed and i slept in the top bunk (uncomfortably small, but great). we woke up in Denver this morning.

This is a double decker train and one part is solid windows, giant windows that line the walls and go up to the roof so we just sit in there all day long and watch. After dinner last night, we sat in the “observation car “ across from a group of older men headed to denver.. boy were they drinking! They offered me shots of something and then more of something else. They were telling each other stories from the war. ever seen that youtube video, drunk history? That was them.. then there was a kid playing the fiddle! Sweeeet!

today we went through the colorado rockies - the highest elevation travelled by an amtrak train. I’ve never seen the rockies before and where the train travels, there is little to no civilization. Many feet of snow and more falling as we went through… there were 42 tunnels, and many really incredible sights.

We’ve got nothing to do other than, read, play cards, eat and talk… so we’ve been doing a lot of it. We are sitting outside the train at Grand Junction, CO right now, enjoying the fresh air. Another night on this train and then we get to Sacramento around 2pm tomorrow. We plan to find a movie theater and maybe some good food and then board our midnight train to portland. If you know of anything great in Sacramento, please please let us know! (so far, everbody says things like… oh man, sacramento.. Ummm yeahhhhhhh)

So we’re on the LakeShore Limited Amtrak train from New York to Chicago, somewhere between Manhattan and Albany right now. In 16 hours, we’ll be in Chicago, where the “Empire Builder” line will bring us to Portland. At least, eventually it will bring us to Portland.

About 15 minutes before we were set to board our train, after we had checked our bags & boxed our bikes, I check my voicemail to find a message from Amtrak Customer Service. “Heyyyy, Mr. Stanek, we really hope you know about this, but your connecting train from Chicago to Portland has totally been cancelled due to flooding in Montana. Soooo sorry about that. Bye bye!”

In breathless panic, I held my head in my hands and stared around in circles as Penn Station revolved around me. We haven’t even gotten out of New York City, and already our trip has turned into a disaster! Our bikes were already on the train! Why didn’t anyone at the freakin TICKET desk pick up on the fact that the tickets they were giving me weren’t going to be able to be used tomorrow? Can I get some kind of sweet upgrade when I finally DO get a train to Portland? Like a whole car for just us, with a second level, gambling tables, DIRECTV, and the rest of “24″ season 1, which I just got hooked on right before we left? How’s that going to happen, and who’s going to make it happen?

When I called customer service, Andy & Quinn were getting food. This phone call totally interrupted my plan to buy Thoreau’s “Walden” for the trip. Now I’m stuck with “Foucault’s Pendulum”. Yeah, Dad, I’m finally reading it. During the call, I found out that the decision to cancel that train was made at about 3:30. Apparently, the Red River is flooding. Still. And somewhere in northern Montana, the trains can’t get across. There’s really nothing we can do, except get to Chicago, and figure out what to do from there. It’s a strong possibility that we’re gonna spend a night or two in Chi-town before heading further out west. Here’s hoping someone in the windy city reads this & can put us up for the night.

Halston took these wonderful photos of us today in McCarren Park. When we get back, we’re going to look totally different. We’re going to be like, a foot taller, each, and even the loosest pants are going to be tight around our thunderously enormous thighs.

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