We finally got internet at our place today. Its been almost a week here in Portland since the Vacation ended, school started and we both have jobs. We are bone fide Portlanders. I havnt updated as much as I’d like to but the lack of internet access throughout the whole trip has definitely added to our adventures. with just a camera and my memories i know try to divulge the experiences we have gone through. There are new pictures in the galleries of the 3 new stages of our life. Enjoy, they are from some of the best times we had.
The trip was amazing. What more can be said about 6 weeks with great people, family, girlfriends and great food. It was a trip about the experience of driving cross country, supporting juvenile diabetes, leaving a kid behind for school in Vancouver. It was also about me and Katie leaving our families for a new life in Portland, and encompasses a circle tour of the West’s wildest national parks.
August - Planning for move to Portland. I went through every single bin I had at mom & dads house in order to minimize the amount of stuff I took to Portland. Originally I was allotting 2 bins for the move. After 2 days and 13 garbage bags of clothing to Goodwill, I finally narrowed by clothing collection to 1 bin with all my cycling clothing and accessories for cold weather riding. It’s quite literally a clothing department jammed into a Rubbermaid. Another Rubbermaid was comprised of a winter clothing collection and another was packed to the rim with regular everyday clothing and would be my go-to bin for all miscellaneous daily arrangements; toothbrush, camera’s, passport, deodorant, business cards, contact cases and extra contacts, glasses and other such necessities. My final bin consisted of everything miscellaneous sporting equipment; slacklines, Frisbees, soccer balls, cleats and shin guards, dress shoes and helmets, bike tools and cups for our new apartment. Everything I wanted for 3 years of my life was in 4 bins pretty much. All except my bikes, my futon and my kayak. Those bigger pieces will have to wait until another trip to make it out to Portland. For the time being, it is all I will have in Portland until I can get my car out there.
As for Katie, she didn’t have a cycling specific bin, so her life was capable of fitting into a mere 3 bins. This of course was only possible because she also deposited many a bag at Goodwill and also sold her car in the weeks before we left for Canada.
The Plan- Monday Aug. 13th.
Katie and I drive to Jasper National Park in the Wheel & Sprocket 15 passenger Dodge Van packed to the brim with Amelia’s college stuff, Katie’s and my bins for Portland and a bin each for my Dad, Noel, Carrie, and Tessa. The 30 hour drive is followed that weekend by the first of two 100 mile bike ride fundraisers for Juvenile Diabetes.
in Jasper Alberta, and the second one was a week later in Whitefish Montana in the foothills of Glacier National Park. The bike rides are strenuous 1 day, 100 mile bike ride along the valleys of some of the most pristine alpine mountain peaks anywhere in the world.
From Jasper, our family would ride our bikes 200 miles south to Banff National Park with the van acting as a support and food wagon. From Banff we would hop in the car and drive south to Whitefish Montana in time for the other JDRF Ride. With the conclusion of the JDRF support, we would have 10 days to get Amelia to college in Vancouver by the 2nd of September. With 10 days and 700+ miles from Whitefish to Vancouver would have the option of doing as much or as little cycling as our hearts desired. Once in Vancouver, we would help Amelia get set up with her new apartment and then Dad, Tessa, Noel and Carrie would fly back home to Milwaukee. It would then be time for Katie and I to drive down to Portland in hopes of finding an apartment and registering for school. After that, we plan to head down to Yosemite National Park and visit Dan Miller for the last 10 days of summer before driving the van back to Milwaukee by September 19th. The Flight back to Portland was on the 20th of Sept which would give us 4 days in Portland to get acquainted before school starts. All in all the van would endure 5000 miles, 14 states, 3 provinces. It would be our noble steed by visiting 5 of the best national parks the world has to offer, and at least killing 1000 different species of bugs on the windshield.
-Amazing moments.
Highline Ridge Trail – Glacier National Park
After a morning of working the JDRF Whitefish ride on Friday the 24th Noel, Carrie, Amelia, Tessa, Katie and I drove to Glacier national Park and hid Katie and Tessa in the back of the van because our Pass only got 4 people into the park. We covered them in Tubes, tires, blankets and backpacks, just in case the rangers smelled something fishy and raided the van for stowaways. The drive to the top of logan pass was a long, windy, super narrow and windy as it contoured its way up the side of the mountains. Halfway up, we parked at the only switchback on the road and patiently waited for a shuttle to the top. The plan was to hike the 11 mile ridgeline trail that would eventually bring us back to the van. We reached the trailhead at the top of the mountain at 3pm with nothing more on our back that t-shirts sandals and I had packed my messenger bag with my camera 2 Nalgenes full of water and 3 powerbars. Originally we expected the hike to take 3½ to 4 hours and we would be back to dinner with JDRF around 7.
The first 3-4 miles were stunning and worry-free. Everybody was having a great time. Life couldn’t be better; had an amazing view, we stumbled upon mountain goats and marmots of epic sizes. Wildflowers were radiating purples and oranges and yellows throughout the intermitted spurts of waterfalls and among the 500 shades of green life that protruded from the wet gulches. 7 Miles into the hike, Tessa was starting to have problems with brand new pair of kicks. Earlier in the morning, she had bought a pair of keens through the recommendation that not only would they be sufficient for completing the hike, but they would also be the most comfortable sandals to own. With all the anxiety about getting to glacier we all failed to remember that it is defiantly not a smart idea to do a 12 mile hike in brand new shoes of any caliber. At first, Noel gave Tessa his pair of Thick wool socks in hope that they would cushion the blisters she was developing. To no avail, things just got worse. After about mile 8 she just couldn’t bare the pain anymore and each step she winced forward on the verge of mental breakdown. She was doing ok with just the wool socks on but then she caught a sharp rock to heel. We soon walked through a tan field of straw I had an idea. I asked Carrie for her pair of socks to help Tessa and she politely sat on a rock and took her shoes and socks off. I went off into the bush and started ripping off the stems of a yellow leafed plant and started folding them into a rectangle. I then stuffed a sock with the plant matter and then told Tessa to stick the sock under her foot but inside the wool sock. It would act as a cushioned sole.
When I finished the second sock, Tessa got up and started dancing down the trail in pure happiness because the stems prevented the rocks on the trail from getting through to her feet. She continued to stroll 4 miles down hill to the car where we all clapped and hoorayed her for being such a tough son of a bitch. We were all very happy to get to the car, as it was already sunset and the drive back took more than an hour longer than we expected. We rolled into the hotel around 10:30 with dad waiting anxiously about to call the police and send a search party out for us. The next morning we rode 100 miles with JDRF, then took apart and boxed 90 bikes with 8 people in 6 hours. Not too shabby and two hells of days.
To Portland
We left Vancouver on the 2nd of sept as we wished Amelia good luck in college and whisked everybody else to the airport that morning. It meant that me and Katie had the next 3 weeks alone together on our own adventure. Before we left I quickly sent my friend dan Murphy in Seattle a quick little blurb about how I would be driving through
Seattle the next day and if he wasn’t busy that we should meet up. Dan called me back and got us both tickets for the “Summerfest-ish” music festival called bumbershoot. He was the beer keg distributor so while he had to work, we got to enjoy a lot of free music and beer. Mmm the beer was delicious. When the festival closed, dan whisked us around Seattle to his friends birthday party at another friends bar. So we continued on our merry time and finally retired at Dan’s house on the north side of Seattle. The morning came quickly and just as soon as we woke up, Dan was up and getting ready for work and whisked us to a bagel shop for breakfast. We parted ways and started our drive to Portland. It sure is nice being a couple hours away from Seattle, Mt. rainier and St Helens. It is defiantly a beautiful part of this country. However, all is muted when arriving into Portland to see the skyscape reflected off the ice caps of Mt. Hood in the distance. It truly is a wonderfully plotted city. It’s an hour from the Hood, an hour from the coast and has the largest urban forest in the country. We rolled into the city and went right to campus. Campus is right on the south park blocks of downtown and has lots of housing complexes that we were going to start looking for a place. After striking out with campus housing we stumbled upon a flier that was for a studio-like apt for 400 bucks. Perfect, we called and went straight over. It was a 2 story house in NE owned by 2 retired librarians. It was cheap, efficient, close to school and in a great neighborhood. Perfect. That night my friend Krista, whom I’ve known for many years through Grabaawr, was in Portland for the night because of an interview with a local architecture firm. Krista and her mom joined us out for a ruckus on the town and ended up housing us for the night in their hotel room.
Yosemite-
The next morning we registered for classes, changed our addresses, got ID cards and then visited our place to be. WE signed the paperwork and dropped of our 7 bins in the corner of the room, packed for a 12 days trip to Yosemite national Park, then got back in the van and drove 12 hours down to California. We arrived in Yosemite at 5am, just in time to eat a quick bite and watch the sunrise in the Half Dome Meadows of Curry Village. Our two most excellent companions, Dan Miller and Rae Armstrong, continually offered their tent, food and yosemite valley knowledge for us to have the most excellent experience. Shortly after waking up for the first time that day, around noon, we packed for a 2 day hike up the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
to Rancharia Falls. A 7 mile hike each way but getting there was harder than coming back. Great spots like these are for the picture books. There were natural water slides, deep pools perfect for jumping into from the 40 foot cliffs up above.
Here is a picture of the Grizzly Giant, one of the worlds largest diameter Trees. Although not as tall as its relative redwoods of the Northern California Coast, These beasts grow up to 3 times thicker than the redwoods. AFter much contimplation, i have personally come to decide the redwoods are more impressive due to the awe inspiring “fairy tale” forests they create.
We ended up staying in Yosemite for 7 more days. 5 of which were spent up in the High Sierra Tent Camps.
Here is a picture of Merced Lake. Of all the high camps this one only sits at 8800 ft making it the lowest of all the high camps. Which of course means that no matter what other high camp you go to, you have to hike back up and out of its valley. Once you realize this, you ahve two options, take the trail and hike up the switchbacks, or like we did, follow the intructions for the short cut. One in particular stands out only because of the vigorous ascent we had to scramble up in order to officially make it a short cut. They kept saying, when you see the fake boobs on the right, don’t take them, take the much more ample, real look boobs that will be to the left of the trail, once you see those, head right up the middle of them and you will come to the meadow of sunrise high camp.
This is no joke, here is the picture to prove it.
All in all we hiked about 50 miles and visited 3 of the 5 high camps. All of which welcomed us “employees” to free place to stay, dinners, breakfasts and lunches for the days hike (normally costing high camp hikers up to 200 bucks a night). It was a wonderfully enjoyable experience above ten thousand feet hiking the rugged terrain
Of which came complete with real life mountain lions, bears and other creatures of the night put there by Disney to fascinate the audience.
Park City Utah- Katie Hits a dumpster while backing up in a chaotic rage to find coffee while driving. Then blames me for it, saying that I didn’t offer enough support.
Great stories…luv it
XX Miss you!