Day 61

  

69 Miles
My alarm went off at 4:30 am. It was still dark and it was decided that the 5:30 might be better. I looked at the stars for a moment before closing my eyes for another hour. When the alarm went off again we got and ate and packed. This took a little longer than usual for some reason. But I was a little excited. The bike barn had provided a full charge to my electronics. This meant that I could ride up this mountain with music in my ears. I was pumped for this challenge. I was so ready for this. This would be my last big challenge.
We set out. Just before Lily pulled too far ahead of me I noticed it. My tire, my front tire, was a wobbly flat mess. Ha. What were the chances? I hollered out to Lily. Luckily she heard me, or she would have been up the mountain wondering why it took me six hours to climb the mountain.
I took my tire off after cutting it free from my zip tie jungle. I tried the scab patches. No luck. Lily gave me her spare tube. This made both of us nervous. We had no patches or spares between the two of us. Lily rode ahead while I reassembled my zip tie jungle and put my tire back on.
Lily had run into our Dutch friends. They gave her an extra patch. Thank goodness. We rode to a little store/cafe. It was a cute place. I couldn't resist a chocolate turnover. I treated Lily to one too. Despite the flat, it was a pretty good way to start the day.
We set out again.  It was a Saturday afternoon. The mountain was very busy. I was passed by numerous Spandex Road Jockeys. I must say I was proud of myself for keep up a pace with a few of the road cyclist, and I was fully loaded. Oh yeah! All the people coming down the mountain were smiling. There were so many cars. I had some sluggishness and muscle soreness a few miles in. I took some Tylenol. I carried on. It was mostly wooded at first. With some really great music in my ears I just kept pedaling. I was beginning to wonder why I was pedaling so hard and wasn't even going uphill yet. This is when I pulled over for a quick snack of crackers. I looked down the road I had been pedaling up. I really was pedaling up. I had been climbing very steadily. I hadn't even noticed. I stood under one of the waterfalls along the road to cool down. I kept riding. My legs were getting tired. Right around 25 miles into my days ride I approached the king of all switchbacks. That was one heck of a curve. It was also steeper than the grade I had been riding. I rested briefly before tackling this. It wasn't too bad. I stopped at the top of that part to take some pictures. A man riding his bicycle up stopped to talk to me. He talked about touring. And he gave me more good news. The pass was just up around the next bend, less than a mile. Excellent news! I rode up.
As I reached the pass Michael Franti's "Say Hey" was in my ears. I had the biggest grin. I felt so amazing.
Lily was riding up from an overlook near the sign. She had been down there for a little bit but not too long. We hung out there for a little while. There were numerous cyclists reaching the pass from the other direction. It was something like 50-70 people in the staggered group. They were riding from Seattle or some such place. We were talking to driver of one of the group's support van. They gave us cold bottled water. That was a nice treat.
The next pass was 3-4 miles away. This involved about 2.5 miles of downhill. This would be a piece of cake. I put my headphones back in my ears and off we zoomed. The stop at Rainy Pass was brief. From here on out, it was all downhill. I would be dropping from almost 5000 ft of elevation to sea level over the next day and a half. Even uphills should be fairly short and easy.
I'll describe the ride down the mountain momentarily.
Lily and I ran into the Han, Hans, and Robert on the way down the mountain. It would be a leap frog with them all the way down. They bought Lily and I ice cream when we reached the end of our day.
As for lodging for the night, it was a Saturday night. This meant all the campgrounds were full. We were contemplating wild camping. Our Dutch friends decided to take a campsite that was closed and take it up with the Ranger whenever they came through. Lily and I scoped the taken sites for non-family campers in small numbers. We approached two guys that seemed pretty cool. They were camping at a fairly large site and it was just the two of them. We straight up asked if we could camp there. They were really cool and said of course. The guys were rock climbers. Really great guys. We ate dinner with them and socialized. Lily patched my inner tube from my morning tire and I replaced it with the spare one she had given me. She got to have her spare tube back. After hanging out with the climbers I went to bed early. I was filled with accomplishment.
Okay. Now back to the ride down the mountain...
I stopped frequently. I was filled with so much adrenaline and confidence. I really felt I could accomplish anything. The view was so gorgeous. Everyone the entire trip had been telling me I should be traveling West to East. The reasons were always about traveling with the winds. Well, I don't care what anyone else says. The East coast is beautiful, especially in the autumn, but I just don't think that the beauty could match what I was seeing. It was the perfect climax to my trip. The mountains were snow capped and the run off created hundreds of waterfalls. As I zoomed down the mountain I could feel the waterfalls before i could see them. The cool air wafting from the crevices pushed against my skin and I knew the glacier waterfalls were close. Then I would see them and hear them. The sun was bright, but I rode mostly in the shade of the mountain. I took a shower beneath one of the roadside waterfalls. The lakes were a spectacular green color. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for my entire journey. Again, words cannot describe the beauty I saw. Pictures still barely capture a portion of it. Here are some pictures to fill in some of the words...

Lily!

The water really was this color.