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Published: July 21st 2015
Hello folks! Today was day #1of our big ride.starting from Whitefish,MT. The day began inauspiciously, punctuated by me (Ken) showering myself with bear spray (my eyes and nostrils still sting as I write this) and ended 48 miles later in Bigfork, a pretty little town perched on a mountain lake. More on that later, but first a little bit about our trip out here:
We flew out of Norfolk on Thursday, July 16th, arriving in Chicago where we spent the nigbt before catching the Amtrak Empire Builder to Whitefish. We stumbled off of the train two days later at about 3:45 am, 6-hrs late due to some heavy weather and a freigbt train derailment in North Dakota. I don't know the extent of damage or pollution, but the tank cars tipped on tbeir sides in the dirt when our train passed the detritus (check out tbe photo) indicate tbat it was a pretty serious accident. There were about 15-20 tank cars on there sides looking pretty banged up.
We collected our bikes in their boxes from Glacier Cyclery in Whitefish, which we had shipped out via Fedex a week before. I'm not going to go on a rant against
Fedex, especially since Fi's bike arrived unscathed, but mine looked like it had been shot out of a cannon, and tben kicked the remainder of the distance to Whitefish. Luckily, the damage was limited to a bent chain ring which i easily replaced in front of the bikeshop. While I was doing this, Fi was being chatted up by a couple of ladies who saw our 100-pound bikezillas (which I had reassembled the day before from their boxes) and asked how far we were riding. When Fi told them we were off to the Mexican border, one lady insisted that she have her picture taken with Fi, as if she were a movie star. It was easy to get drawn into this sense of celebrity until we quickly remembered that we hadn't cycled a single mile yet, and were immediately deflated and overwhelmed again.
Everyone else that we talked to implored us to carry bear spray, which we regarded as sanguine advice. We bought some, realizing that we should take a few minutes to figure out how to use it, before we might NEED to use it. So in small shopping plaza, next to a UPS Store, I sterted
fiddling with it, figuring that as a former Coast Guard boarding officer, well trained in the proper use and safety procedures of OC pepper spray, that I didn't need to read the instructions. So i removed the bottle from tbe packaging, pulled the safety tab, held it at arm's length, and pressed the trigger for about a half second, discharging an impressive cloud of caustic spray... into the wind. I was equally impressed at how quickly the spray u-turned back into my face. Well, all I'll say is tbat it sucked, like rubbing my face in habanero peppers, followed by steel wool.
Enough about tbat. Once i finished drooling snot from my nose, eyes, and mouth, we hit the road. Today's ride was mostly quiet backroads with the occasional rail yard crossing. Weather was hot, in the low 90s; the sun was relentless. We did get a little rain and clouds, which cooled us off and kept the sun off our beaks for a little while. Today was suppused to be an easy 40-miles, but we're both a bit alarmed at how whipped we both are tonight. We'll need to toughen up; tomorrow we get into mountains where the
pavement ends.
PHOTO CAPTIONS:
I had trouble tagging the photos, so I'll jusr describe them here.
Photo 1: Waiting on our train in Chicago.
Photo 2: boarding the Empire Builder, lugging 110-lbs of gear tbat will keep us going for the next 5-months.
Photo 3: our coffin-sized sleeping accomodations on the train; just like a Coast Guard cutter '3-High'.
Photo 4: derailed.
Photo 5: Making heads or tails of our bike parts
Photo 6: making progress, starting to look like bikes again.
Photo 7: We're finally riding! Well, at least we will be once this train passes.
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Chris
non-member comment
Keep it coming.
Great entry, can't wait for the next one.