Days 1 & 2

Days 1 & 2
Yesterday was the first day of my journey. We finally left Seattle, after what seemed like a month. Wait, I forgot to talk about Tuesday. Tuesday was our training ride. We got to ride on a velodrome, which is a giant banked cycling track. Our team cycling coach, Dean Peterson, taught us how to safely ride in a group, and afterwards we went out on the road for our training ride. The ride went pretty smoothly; it was about 26 miles round trip and no one got racked. Getting "racked" means you must get off your bike and put it on a car rack, riding in a van with the crew for the remainder of the day. It is used as punishment for unsafe behavior and is meant to ensure that everyone is conscious of their safety at all times.

Okay, so yesterday, Wednesday the 9th, was day one of the trip. We biked 70 miles, from Seattle to Skykomish, Washington. There was a net elevation change of about 900-1000 feet, starting at sea level in Seattle. Day one was not a good day for me. I started out really strong but my the end I was barely crawling along. The last few miles were one big climb, and my butt was absolutely destroyed. The bones in my pelvis that sit on the back of the seat had been in the same position all day and felt like they were bruised pretty badly. I hadn't been standing up and moving around enough to keep the blood flowing to all parts of my body. When we got to lodging I could barely walk.

Skykomish is a tiny little town of 200 nestled between some mountains in western Washington. It rains pretty much every day there. We stayed at the local church which barely had room for us to sleep on the floor where the pews usually go.


We had to shower at two separate tiny houses whose owners had been generous enough to lend us a hand. We would normally had stayed in their elementary school, but a local oil spill from a train crash caused the building to be condemned.

I woke up this morning to find my Front tire deflated. I changed out the tube and found a staple in it. I'm glad I found it then because I didn't have any problems while on the road. I felt much much bettertoday than I did yesterday. We had a huge climb to over 4000 feet in the first 16 miles, crossing over Steven's pass which separates the wet and dry parts of the state. Dave, one of the other cyclists really helped by leading Wes (another cyclist) and me up the pass, slowly but extremely steadily, so that at no point did we feel like we were working a whole lot more than before. Here's a picture of me a little way past the pass.




Coming down over the pass we had some pretty steep and fast downhills with slight rain. Everything was wet, which made the decent even more dangerous. The second half of the day was smooth sailing with about 60 miles of slight to moderate downhills and only a few minor uphills. We rode in through Wenachee where we are staying, which is a much much bigger town than Skykomish. It is situated in a valley with huge rolling hills on all sides. I had never seen such big hills with so few trees on them. Apparently the trees don't grow because of the wind and the fact that Wenachee is located in the rain shadow of the mountains. When I was riding in, looking at all these awesome hills I actually smiled, thinking about how this is "literally the only time in my life" that Mike Skalandunas will be jealous of me.

We are staying in a local church and we showered at a YMCA. We went to a really cool park by a river for our friendship visit. I don't remember the name of the organization, but there were a lot of people there. There were some really interesting people, and it went pretty smoothly, but it was at times uncomfortable, trying to have a conversation with someone with extremely severe physical and mental disabilities. I met a guy named Tony who was a huge fan of furries, Superman (he's had four parakeets named clark), and the TV show Smallville. He said that the 9th season ended with a big cliffhanger regarding how Clark Kent will get out of his predicament. He said that in the last episode when Clark opens a box from his mother you can see in his eyes the reflection of the superman suit, so something regarding that must come into play. Danny, if you're reading let me know what you think...

Now we are back, I'm still way behind on thank you notes so I might try to get some of those written. My mouth is full of canker sores, so that's not fun. I'm going to try to get to bed early, tomorrow we have a 6 am wake up and a 70 mile ride.

By the way here's a picture from the kick off breakfast sponsored by The Arc at gas works park outside Seattle.


(I'm not in this picture in case you don't know what I look like.)

Here is a picture taken from a van of Mt Ranier on the training day. It is over 14000 feet but it seems much bigger because there are no other mountains around it and it rises up alone from sea level.


Please send this link to anyone that knows me! I want as many people as can to read this. Maybe I won't have to tell the same stories 100 times when I get back...

Also, email me. It's easy for me to respond quickly to an email.

- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Spokane St,Wenatchee,United States