Postcard from the End

We left Algona early in the morning with the intention of making Sheridan, Wyoming for lunch. Clouds were already forming in wisps that would grow to towering cumulus later in the day. Running just above them we were able to catch some smooth air and a bit of a tailwind. Crossed the Missouri River, then the Badlands and stopped to fuel up in Rapid City before deciding how to deal with the Black Hills.

Badlands

The Black Hills are always the most challenging leg of the cross country flight. Like the Bermuda Triangle of the west, the hills make their own weather, they're turbulent, there are very few places to safely land, and unless you're flying well over 12,000' there's no real help from ATC because they can't see you on their radar and they may not hear your radio. Beyond that, the NEXRAD sattelite weather feed to the GPS is not particularly current - we found that out while dodging storm cells on our way around the Black Hills, cells that weren't showing up on radar.

My own theory is that there's a whole lot of bad karma around the Black Hills resulting from the near extermination of native americans whose souls just don't want us around there anymore. Having experienced everything from head-banging turbulence to icing to mechanical failure over the Black Hills, I for one am happy to oblige them. We flew around to the north.

Devil's Tower in the Black Hills

On the other side of the Black Hills we found Sheridan sitting right under a monster storm cell that was just about to cut loose. It was already snowing in the mountains just above the town and there was every indication that if we landed there we might not get to leave for quite some time. We decided to keep going north and about an hour later landed at Billings for lunch.

Storm cells

The weather was opening up to the west and the passes looked relatively clear, so we fueled up and started out for Sand Point Idaho. For the first part of the route we followed I-90 into the Rocky Mountains. Finally - real mountains. It'd been six weeks since I'd seen any snowcapped peaks and it made me feel like I was getting close to home.

Crazy Peak, west of Billings, MT

It felt good to be flying amid the mountains again. We passed Bozeman, Butte and Missoula. Then we turned north to follow the Clark Fork River to Lake Pend Oreille.

Along the Clark Fork River

Lake Pend Oreille

We landed at the far side of the lake at Sand Point, Idaho. We'd planned to fuel up and go to town and call it a night. But they'd run out of fuel at Sand Point. If we wanted fuel, it was another 20 minutes away at Cour d'Alene. For that matter, it was just another 2 hours to Seattle. Well, once we'd wrapped our head around going on 20 minutes for fuel, it wasn't that big of a stretch to just fuel up and go home. We felt good, and at this rate we'd be coming across the Cascades as the sun was setting behind the Olympics. That's an amazing sight to see, so that's what we did.

Rain over Ellensburg, WA


Sunset over Seattle

Home in Seattle we had dinner at our favorite restaurant down the street and slept in our own bed for the first time in a long while.

Postcard from Algona

Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air...

We had a better time in Waterloo than Napoleon did but even so we were pretty happy when the starter finally showed up. Left around noon and dodged growing cumulous clouds until we got pinched off by thunderstorms converging around us. Stopped in Algona (yep, only got 90 miles) and hangared the plane before the rain came. Took the Courtesy Vehicle out for a ride and toured the town before lunch.

One of the best things about flying cross country (and sure, sometimes the worst) is that you get to spend time in small towns that are nowhere near the interstate system. They aren’t quite the towns that time forgot, but often enough they're the towns that Wal-Mart and Starbucks haven’t gotten to yet.

We cruised along main street in the pouring rain past the old storefronts that were still filled with mom & pop stores, the post office, the bank, the three-screen cinema, the coffee shop and the local bar. Hospital's at one end of town, the jail at the other. Tidy park, lots of trees and plenty of homes with big front porches. Lots of american cars. Algona is alright.

We’re going to see StarTrek tonight. Then we’ll get an early start tomorrow and try to get out of the flatlands before the thunderboomers build up again.




Hey Megan - the courtesy car in Algona is a Buick le Sabre Limited. Maroon on Maroon. Naugahyde interior with a wraparound dash and push button controls. It also features infinitely variable seat controls conveniently located on the door just aft of the ashtray, and the Deluxe Concert Sound II stereo system (storage for your cassette tapes located in the center armrest). It’s a smooth ride and handles somewhat like a boat. Oh and the best part - it’s got official city vehicle plates.

Postcard from Waterloo

Fuel stop - Riverview, MI

Left the sunny outer banks just as the weather was moving in. Wound our way around Philly, NYC and Chicago airspace cutting through cold fronts and dodging smaller systems as we flew west.

Crossed the Mississippi and stopped in Waterloo, Iowa for fuel but then couldn't quite get going again. Turns out the starter failed on the airplane. The fuel-injected system makes hand-propping a huge chore so we asked the folks in Kamloops to ship one out to us overnight.

Unfortunately, the Men In Brown let us down and lost the package in Kentucky. On the bright side, turns out there’s lots to do in Waterloo and Cedar Falls. John Deere’s Engine Works and large tractor assembly plant are located there. It’s also home to the National Cattle Congress, the hometown of the most unfortunate Sullivan brothers as well as the home airfield of Johnathan Livingston - one of the most accomplished pilots of the golden age of aviation.

We headed off for a tour of the John Deere assembly plant. It’s the biggest assembly plant in the US after Boeing’s 747 plant in Everett, WA. They make the really big tractors there. The ones with tires 10’ tall. And the ones with tracks. It was pretty cool to tour the factory floor and see those huge chassis get turned into tractors.

New starter should show up in the morning and with any luck we’ll be headed west again before noon.

Cedar Falls, Iowa

Postcard from Nags Head

Northern Outer Banks, NC

A little yellow airplane circled over Ocracoke towards evening and I rode down to the airstrip to meet my guy. Loaded up my gear the next morning and since it was sunny, warm and a tailwind was blowing, I decided to ride back up to Salvo and meet him there later in the day. I was cruising along on my bike going 20 when he overflew me going about 140. Nice.

Took a scenic flight over the outer banks today and it’s amazing what a tiny strip of sand it is way out there in the ocean. Schools of stingrays just offshore. Dolphins too. A few too many McMansions lining the shores but a few good hurricanes will take care of them in time.

Postcard - my kind of people

Stayed a few nights in Ocracoke at the Sand Dollar motel on a tip from the old dudes on bikes. The old dudes - they were my favorite people I met on the trip. It was somewhere in northern Virginia, north of Chesapeake Bay, on a two lane road in the farm country. I crossed paths with two cyclists headed north carrying even more stuff on their bikes than mine. They were loaded down with front and rear panniers, sleeping bags and tents. They were tanned and laughing. We stopped and met in the middle of the road.

-Where you coming from?
- Boston!
-Boston! By yourself?
- Yep!
-Good for you!!
- How ‘bout you?
-We started in Key West and we’re headed for Maine.
- Holy Cow!
-Yep! been on the road about a month. Gone... 1400 miles now.
- I started the same time in Boston... gone nearly 600. You boys are making me feel like a slacker!

I’m 40, they’re both over 70 - and they were having a great time. They then proceeded to push all kinds of food on me: nutter-butters, granola bars, an orange... I told them to stop giving me more weight, I had enough to haul with this rig. We all laughed. Then we headed off in our separate directions.

It was the only time on the trip where I met folks who understood what I was doing and didn’t think it was completely nuts. Then again, they were kinda nuts themselves...

Postcard from Ocracoke

Arrived on the Outer Banks just in time for Bike Week. The other kind of bike. Not pedal-powered. And much louder. Mostly Harleys and GoldWings, though I did catch a glimpse of a few Suzukis flying by and a couple of really nice old Triumphs.

Took a ride around the Wright Brothers’s monument at Kill Devil Hills, ran into a couple of pilots and traded stories for a while. Then continued on to camp out at Oregon Inlet.

Dawn at Oregon Inlet

Woke up at dawn to cross the last big scary bridge before the winds picked up. They’d been pretty strong out here the past few days, but were light in the early morning. I rode across watching pelicans, cormorants, gulls and terns hunt for breakfast.

Wind picked up from the west over the course of the day and that brought out the windsurfers and kiteboarders. Passed a whole flock of them just south of Salvo.



Continued on to Hatteras and decided I might as well push straight on through to Ocracoke. Arrived in the late afternoon and pulled in to Howard’s pub for a well-earned beer. Have a couple days to just kick back and relax before my sweetie shows up to fly me home. So I’m going to the beach.

On the ferry to Ocracoke - 13 miles to go.

Click here for the route to Ocracoke

Postcard from Midway Marina

Oh darn, another sunny day.

Spent a couple days in Virginia Beach with my old college roommate and had a really great visit. Spent some quality time flying kites on the beach and made a visit to King Neptune on the boardwalk. Looks like I’ve finally found spring here and may even run into summertime soon.

Continuing down the coast to the Outer Banks and hope to meet my ride on Ocracoke Island next week. Rode 8 miles of sidewalk before finally escaping the Norfolk/Portsmouth suburbs. Crossed into North Carolina and back into tidelands and farms. Found a marina in Coinjock with four rooms over the store. Perfect midpoint stop between Virginia Beach and Kill Devil Hills.

Midway Marina, Coinjock NC

Click here for the route from Onancock to Coinjock

Postcard from Chesapeake Bay

Called the friendly lady at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel and arranged for a ride. The bridge itself may not be bike friendly but the folks who work there are. The guy at the toll booth told me about the time he loaded up Lance Armstrong and his bike and drove him across. Nice to know there’s one leg of this trip I can do just as fast as Lance.

A storm swept through as we crossed the 20 mile span. Waves frothed up to pound the piers. A black wall of rain came up out of the southwest. Out to sea in the east there was an angry orange band of sky squashed between the water and the storm above. We watched four funnel clouds dip down and try to grab the ocean. By the time we reached the other side the storm had blown over entirely. Crazy.

Postcard from Onancock

Loaded up on freckles walking the boardwalk in Ocean City. Took a ride on a friend’s Harley out to Assateague and checked out the wild ponies and watched the sun set over the bay.

Headed south again after a couple days rest and into quiet farm country. This looks like one of those regions where things get older instead of newer. Every now and then there’s a dilapidated farmhouse melting into the crop.

Arrived at the Spinning Wheel B&B in Onancock run by a super friendly family that escaped the LA rat race several years ago and never looked back. Nice little town and worth the visit. Ate well, slept well, and spent some time patching my leaking sleeping pad before moving on.



Click here for the route from Ocean City to Onancock, VA

Postcard from Ocean City

g'bye Jersey

Finally - a day in the sun. Two days actually. In a row!

Took the Cape May Ferry to Delaware and rode out to the coast. Camped at a park on the bayside and slept to the sounds of the surf on the ocean side. The land is narrow here. Turn your head east and see sand dunes. Look west and it's marshes.

Arrived in Ocean City and looked up old friends on the boardwalk. I'll spend a couple nights here resting up before heading south again.

Kite Loft, Ocean City

Click here for the route to Ocean City from the Cape May Ferry

Postcard from the Pine Barrens

pine barrens

Been riding through NJ for three days now. For the first time there’s a little sun overhead. Things are definitely looking up from when I entered this state...

Took the ferry from Manhattan to the north side of NJ near the coast. Got off the ferry and a bird nailed me - gross. Welcome to New Joisey.

Forgot to charge the GPS and it gave out 5 miles from the campground. Lucky me - I found it anyway. Pulled in just after dark and managed to get the tent up before it started to rain. In the middle of the night discovered that my sleeping pad has a hole in it. Very nice.

My route is between the turnpike and the coast. Nothing here but pine barrens (sandy soil, short pine trees and not much else). Carved out amid the trees there are blueberry farms and even farther looks like they're planting veggies. Who'd have imagined there could be places with so few people in New Jersey?

The campgrounds at the state parks have been very nice - deluxe even - and the folks are friendly. The drivers have been accommodating. The libraries have wi-fi. And every town it seems has at least one good ol’ east coast Italian restaurant which has become the only food group I care about anymore. What’s not to like?

blueberries

Click here for the route through New Jersey

Postcard from Manhattan

Mummatus over Manhattan

The wind shifted from the southwest to the northeast and so I packed up and headed into the city. Rode up Broadway and through Central Park to the 100’s and found my cousin Mei. Pleasantly surprised at the ease of navigating NYC by bicycle.

Spent Sunday at the MET with the original Ant ‘Tina and we just about keeled over from an overdose of art. We found the cafe just in time and revived ourselves with snacks and a glass of wine. Arrived back to a fabulous Easter dinner and just about keeled over from an overdose of excellent food. Slept very soundly after the best near-death experiences I can remember.

dinner

Postcard from Long Island

Woke up to the sound of the Atlantic ocean pounding the shore. A friend was kind enough to loan me keys to a condo on the beach in Long Island. Had planned to head straight into the city after a night, but... it’s a really nice place to sit and read a book.

Took the train into the city to visit old friends and spend an afternoon at the Guggenheim. Wandered around Central Park for a while. I’ve always been fond of Manhattan. Though it’s pretty nice to be able to take a train back out to the end of LI at the end of the day and fall asleep listening to the surf.

Central Park

Click here for the route from Madison to Long Island.

Postcard from Connecticut

one-girl camp

Having argued with the GPS all the way to Newport (I was opting for a more scenic route than it advised) I decided to let it win for a day and followed the pink line to Baltic, CT. I swear it took me the direct route over every hill in eastern CT just to get back at me.

Spitting rain, but with a tailwind so I couldn’t really complain about the weather. It is April after all. April showers bring May flowers and all of that. Except that in Seattle, the early flowers start popping up in February, blossoms in March, and by April the bulbs are all in full bloom. I had completely forgotten that March and April are the ugly months in New England when winter’s just over and spring green has barely begun. I remembered when the plane descended towards Logan and I saw frozen ponds. And again when I encountered a huge pile of filthy rotting snow decaying in the corner of a parking lot. Hmmmm. Good thing I brought warm socks and rain gear.

The trip through Connecticut was really pretty. Winding roads through small towns with large cemeteries, past family farms and steepled churches. The trees are beautiful. The one thing I miss from the east are the trees. We just don’t grow the big leafy hardwoods out west like they have here. It’s kind of nice to see them just as they’re starting to bud, before the leaves completely conceal the structure.

GPS deposited me at Annie’s front door in Madison. Out her back door is the Neck River estuary. Regardless of the season, it’s a beautiful view. I traded in the bike for a car for the weekend and proceeded to double the miles of my trip thus far tooling around visiting old friends.




Click here for the route from Westport to Madison

Postcard from the Beginning

The conductor took my ticket and asked if I was Desperate or Brave. Brave, I said. Though in reality it was more like bored and restless...

It was pouring rain when my sister dropped me off at South Station to catch the train. It was raining a little less when the train dropped me off at Plymouth. I don’t mind riding in the rain.

Turned on the GPS and cued up Westport. Thought it was going to be around 40 miles. According to the GPS it was more like 50. I started pedalling and followed the pink line on the screen. Passed the bay where the Pilgrims landed. Turned west. Followed the pink line right into a cemetery. Hmmmm. Rode on through the headstones and out the other side. Hmmmm. Not sure that me and the GPS are necessarily going to see eye to eye.

Outside Plymouth the town gives way to pine forests and cranberry bogs. Easy to tell they’re cranberry bogs because they’re cranberry colored. One of them had two turkeys in it. No joke. I started looking around for the guy with the blunderbuss and the buckle on his hat.

There was a lot of wind pushing me along. And a bunch of rain. Even so, it was really pretty countryside. Winding roads, gentle rolling hills.

Of course, as soon as I got to where I was going the rain stopped and the sun came out. I was too tired to enjoy it. But not too tired to enjoy the major dose of pasta and veggies that Julie cooked up.


Click here for the route from Boston to Westport.

Next Adventure

It's been awhile since I've spent any amount of time wandering around the other coast. Since I've got some time on my hands and I can't think of any reason not to go look up some old friends out there, I've started planning a little bike ride for the month of April. Springtime along the Atlantic.

If you're anywhere along the route below and will be around in April, drop me a line. I'd love to see you and catch up.


View Larger Map

If you've got a bicycle, a sleeping bag, some rain gear and some free time and you'd like to join in on a little springtime ride along the Atlantic - an hour, a day, a week... hey, why not? there's no time like the present - just get in touch.