1 of 2

The scenery in North Washington beats any part of California...including Big Sur...any day.

On my birthday, we rode into this weird town called Newhalem, WA. Newhalem is owned by Seattle City Light and is populated entirely by employees of the company's hydroelectric plants, or are other government employees. Just a bizarre tiny 'power town' in the middle of the mountains...you're not even allowed to move there unless you work for the company. No zipcode. Good news? There was birthday ice cream at the General store. Not much else though.

Before bed, we went in search of some showers. We found a "Trail of Cedars" near our camp, and hoped it would dump us out into a campsite. It became apparent that all roads to camp had been resurfaced just hours before we got there...which made for squishy walking, but...still...maybe there were showers back through the squishyness. We hadn't showered in 3 days; we were desperate. When you're biking, there is only so much that baby wipes can do. Unfortunately, there were no showers, but there WERE bathrooms. Since the camp seemed closed due to squishyness, we went on the look-out and took whatever sponge baths we could manage. Not a shower, but close enough.

We camped in a grove of trees right beside a river, and attempted to make 'popcorn' over our camp stove. Quotations because what we made didn't taste or look like popcorn. Hmm...We packed up all food before bed and threw our garbage faaaaaaaar away from camp because of the the bear signs we saw all over town. We weren't awoken by bears...just the roar of the river.

The maps give us a pretty good idea of what to expect during the ride... we went to bed knowing to expect a 42 mile climb the next day, and that's what we got. I attempted to think of about everything I could so I wouldn't watch the 100ths of a mile click up on my odometer. Singing helps. We rode so high we passed snow...David threw a snowball at me. We passed a Korean dad and daughter team on their 3rd day into their trip. They got up from beside their bikes + cheered us up, then walked their bikes the remaining 2 miles to the top. I'd feel pretty defeated if this is what we encountered on our 3rd day across the country. Thankfully, it's not. Mountains...and more mountains.

I didn't know country like this existed in the United States. The Northern Cascades are...majestic. The mountains are tightly packed together, crawling on top of each other to incredible heights. There are waterfalls + rivers that rush down from the peaks, sides, and through the valleys that have such speed and power. Whenever we passed by one, the air dropped 20+ degrees because the water was so cold. There are lakes nestled high above what feels like 'the rest of the world'. I continually thought, "this feels like something out of "Heidi"... this can't be Washington." The next day we met two bicyclists on the road, and one said, "I've traveled pretty extensively throughout the world--to the Alps--throughout Europe--the Rockies--I've never seen anything like this."

After the climb, we were rewarded with a 30 mile descent back down the other side of the pass. It was CRAZY fast. I topped out at 40 mph...it's pretty crazy when you catch up to an RV, and are going about the same speed as motorcycles. We rode a third of the day's mileage in 45 minutes. The temperature dropped over 20 degrees from the top of the pass to the bottom. Although we probably could have taken pictures every two minutes, ain't no way we were going to miss out on the most rewarding part of the day by stopping.

The downhill dumped us out into Mazama, WA, where we planned on sleeping. We stopped at 'The Store', ate some...ice cream... and decided to just go ahead and ride to the next town 13 miles down the road. One of the girls in the store invited us over to her parents place saying, "My dad's an avid cyclist. He just rode around Cuba this winter. We have a log cabin in the back you could stay in... here, let me write down the address." To which I'm thinking, "Cabin? ...wha... I don't know what to do with myself!" As we left, she picked up the phone, "Mom, I invited these bicyclists over to our house..."

Before we went to the CABIN, we stopped in Winthrop, at a bike shop. We later found out that the skinny 30-ish year old guy that helped us was the mayor of the town. Yes, really.