Day 124 –133, 12 –21 Nov 2008: Washington State: Couchsurfing with friendly people from Seattle to …Vancouver?!?

We suddenly received an email.

Hello Harry,
Read your profile. Would love to meet if possible.
How much longer are you in the Seattle area?
Samir

We called him and found out that Samir, his wife Madalyn & daughter Danielle were living in Bellevue, 25km east of Seattle. We had actually planned to leave Seattle on the west side, but as many times before, we let chance determine our route. So on a dark & rainy afternoon we said goodbye to Andy and off we went, across the Lake Washington Bridge and ended up atop of a very steep hill, where we were welcomed by Samir and his family. He actually had 2 other guests, 2 puppeteers that would be performing in the area the next morning. It was nice to be together, Maddie cooked up a great meal and we enjoyed the fact that the Internet made it possible to meet new friends like these.

For those new to Couchsurfing, Hospitality Club & Warm Showers, they are networks of people opening their house and/or local knowledge up to other travellers, supplying them with free lodging (a ‘couch’, though it can be a spare room, a sofa or just a spot on the floor or in the garden). Currently there are more than a million members inviting strangers into their homes, following the mission of Couchsurfing:

“CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding.”

Read more about CouchSurfing, WarmShowers.org & Hospitality Club in this post here.

Samir invited us to come to his Cabin at Snoqualmie pass with him, which was perfect: fresh air, mountains, a warm cabin and a nice hike to Snow Lake nearby. It was a perfect place to relax before hitting the road again. We stayed one more night in Bellevue, did a slideshow presentation for his friends, got my iPod replaced and off we went 🙂

17 November 2008: Seattle – Tacoma, 79km

It is basically all city, all the way to Tacoma, but still there are some nice biketrails you can follow; first the lake Washington trail, then the curvy Green River trail, leading to the Interurban Trail.

I even managed to get a speeding ticket from a cop on a bike, see the image to the left! (Just kidding, officer Kyle Bear was nice and interested in our trip, see his picture here on 1000 Americans)

Ivana & I managed to lose eachother for the first time since starting the trip. I was waiting at the bottom of a long downhill, and she had left the main road somewhere halfway down, thinking it continued straight. After 20 minutes I made my way back up the steep slope and fortunately found her.

At least she had the address of the destination for tonight, so likely she would have ended up at Gerrit’s place somehow, but it is very discomforting to suddenly be apart when you send 24/7 together! Gerrit (see his picture on 100 Americans here) had prepared a wonderful meal for us, likely the tastiest we had eaten on our trip!

18 November 2008: Tacoma – Olympia, 73km

We left Tacoma on another drizzly day, but it cleared up soon and we enjoyed the ride throughSteilacoom and the forests of the Fort Lewis military zone. Unfortunately due to the zone there is no real other way out of there than to ride part of the I5, the largest highway in Washington, but that was actually better than it appeared. It is not only legal to cycle parts of it, but as the shoulders are almost 2m wide (6-7ft), it was quite safe. Still we were happy to be out of the noise and on the downhill towards Olympia.

Olympia looked like a nice town, but we had to rush to make it to Dan & Nancy’s place before dark, so we continued South right away. Dan & Nancy are inspirational in many ways, they cycle across the USA in stages (3 parts down, one to go!), spend their winters in Costa Rica and play in the sessions in the Irish pub! See more about their plans in 1000 Americans here.

We ended up staying another night with them and their cats as we felt right at home, listening to their stories and plans and of course to see them play in the pub. Ivana made more apple pies, she still finds apples everywhere, season is not over yet, and many apple trees have lost their leaves, but not their fruit and most of it is going to waste as nobody is picking them!

20/21 November 2008: Olympia – Vancouver, WA, via Castle Rock, 100 + 84km!

It was a dark and somber day. It never really cleared up and it was either raining or threatening to rain and the wind was not very helpful to get us up the steep (‘rolling’) hills… We missed our exit and again ended up at the I5, which was not so bad at all as in the dark, it is probably safe to ride the 7ft shoulder on the highway than the non-existent shoulder on a narrow and winding country road to Castle Rock.

We were welcomed by Cindy & Larry, an elderly couple who have raised 15 kids! They have 28 grandkids and 3 great grandkids. All but one of their children, in all colours and sizes, are either step or adopted.

They live in a great place with lots of farm animals around and we had the honour to be their first Couchsurfers.

We took a ‘scenic route’, which 99% of the times translates as ‘very steep hills’ and this was no exception… But the weather was nice, it was fresh and sunny and the hills green, so life was good.

Cycling relaxes your mind and you start enjoying the ‘little’ things again like smells, sounds and colours…

We were still moving South with Fall and though this meant the days were getting shorter and shorter, the colours next to the mighty Columbia River were beautiful.

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Besides the Glaciated spike of Mt Hood, we also noticed the remain sof Mount St Helens, and impressive mountain, that had erupted (exploded) in 1980.

From WikiPedia:

Mount St. Helens is most famous for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32am PDT^[1] which was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. The eruption caused a massive debris avalanche, reducing the elevation of the mountain’s summit from 9,677 feet (2,950 m) to 8,365 feet (2,550 m) and replacing it with a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater.^[2] The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km³) in volume. The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied.

So after leaving Vancouver, Canada a month ago, we arrived in Vancouver, Washington! Or, as Ivana’s mum said, when we told her we were in Vancouver: ‘Again?’.

We got confused by some of the very busy streets but made it to the home of Photography Professional Tom Hubbard & his wife Sandy (see them and their great websites here on 1000 Americans), who took us out for a great meal.

We almost made it out of Washington State, but it felt like we were about to enter yet another country: Oregon!

Kowalski, Status report!

Days go fast on a bike. Before you know it, you are one week ahead, which means that the memory of our cycle computers is overwriting itself. So one day is missing here (from Olympia to Castle Rock), which was about 100km and an estimated 750m up and down..

Our Santos bikes behaved perfectly as always, no problems whatsoever, my back was a little painful at times, but not too bad. Total distance covered so far 5700km, including 51,000 meters (167,000ft) of climbing!

1000 Americans: Tom & Sandy Hubbard, Vancouver, WA

When I found out that Tom Hubbard and his wife Sandy were living on our path, I wanted to meet them.

As a photographer, it is a pleasure to talk to Tom, who has decades of experience as a photographer and has worked with all the other great photographers during his work as Director of the Time-Life Photo and Digital Image Lab. Most recently, he was the Pro Photo Business Development Manager for Hewlett Packard’s new line of professional photographic pigment printers in North America.

Currently he is looking for new challenges. I told him that he should either start writing (e-)books or teach as he is filled with valuable information for beginning as well as professional photographers.

He has a –slightly confusing mix of- very useful websites, which are useful for BikeTravellers and other photographers:

• http://www.hubbardcamera.com/ with great tips for starting photographers,
• http://hubsidarkroom.blogspot.com/ about digital processing,
• more general photography tips in http://hubsphotographytips.blogspot.com/ &
• inspirational interviews at http://www.visionaryphotographers.com/.

And he is not finished, having many more ideas to share the wonderful world of photography.

He also finally got me to start organizing thousands of photos and was kind enough to give me a legal copy of Adobe’s LightRoom, which after some learning curve already is making my photo life much easier and my images much more interesting 🙂

Thanks Tom & Sandy, for your hospitality and sharing your knowledge!

1000 Americans: Dave & MC, Vancouver, USA

Sometimes you know people for a long time, and are friends, even though you have never met in person. MC had been a true fan of our 7summits Expeditions and even became a client, when she asked me to organize her climb to the summit of Kilimanjaro through 7summits.com.

She hikes, composes & plays music, sells art and does many other creative things; Dave likes to design and build things, which will come in handy in their new home :).

It was so nice to be able to meet her and Dave in person and spend some time together.

1000 Americans: Dan & Nancy Nelson, Olympia, USA

Dan & Nancy are a great couple who enjoy life. They live in the dark woods South of Olympia, but spend the coldest time of the year in Costa Rica. They both love cycling and almost have finished their trip across the USA, even though Nancy has lost a large part of her leg in a motorcycle accident several years ago.

They have prepared a special type of tandem, with one recumbent part and one regular part and have done 3 of the four parts so far, hoping to finish next summer!

In their spare time, they both play the ‘Irish Fiddle’, though they actually master a range of instruments. If you are ever in the Irish pubs in Olympia, check them out during one of the great ‘sessions’ they have there!

It was a pleasure to spend some time with them, thanks Dan & Nancy!

1000 Americans: Gerrit Nyland, Tacoma, USA

Gerrit Nyland has Dutch ancestors, though he does not speak the language. His wife is a doctor and Gerrit is now a full-time home-dad, creating wonderful meals (!) and taking care of the household and kids.

Thanks Gerrit!

1000 Americans: Officer Kyle Bear, Auburn, WA, USA

It was great to meet somebody who works on a bike! Officer Kyle was patrolling the interurban trail in Auburn, Washington State, South of Seattle.

He was very friendly and interested in our trip. We were jealous of his light bike, especially when he tried to lift mine and couldn’t 🙂

See also the tripreport about the speed ticket he gave me!

1000 Americans: Samir Rustagi, Bellevue, USA

Samir works in construction, designing complicated road and intersections. He is also an avid fan of Couchsurfing and loves to spend time in Snoqualmie pass, skiing with his wife and daughter and is a very hospitable and helpful man.

Thanks Samir, for your hospitality and friendship!

1000 Americans: Avalon, Seattle

When walking around Seattle, we found a strange sight: a group of people dressed up in medieval clothing, hitting eachother with weapons from the same era… (see also our picture on our Seattle tripreport).

One of them –introducing himself as ‘Avalon’ if I recall well- came up to me and explained that they were a mix of Role Playing games, warfare-re-enactments and just letting of steam. He invited me to try it, but I thought it might not be such a good idea with my back already inured and in pain…

Day 106–123, 25 Oct–12 Nov 2008: Hikes, Halloween & Hope in Seattle

First of all: did you know that if you click on the images in the posts, that a larger version will appear on top of the page, all automagically? try it, it is quite cool (pictures need some time to load as they are now 1000pixels wide!).

We had planned to stay maybe a week in Seattle, but it turned out we would stay for 2.5 weeks… Seattle is mostly known for Grunge, Microsoft, Boeing & coffee and it generally considered a nice place to live. I hade been working for a small company in Bothell, close to Seattle, about 8 years ago and had been in the area a few times. The great thing is that the city is huge, but spread out over several peninsulas and islands and that the mountains and nature are never far away…

It was great to see Andy again, after meeting in Uganda and Amsterdam before. He was very busy filming a documentary, connected to the upcoming elections, but still he took us out to see some live music and we went for a great hike up Mt Pilchuk. Not a difficult climb -though it was quite icy & slippery near the top-, but very rewarding, with nice views over the  Cascade mountains. It is wonderful to live so close to the nature and especially snow-capped mountains, something I miss in Amsterdam.

On our way out we stopped for a beer in a typical loggers bar. Neither the beer, nor the people and especially the decoration wasn’t very tasteful 🙂

Time flies when you’re having pain..

The days went passed quickly. We had a lot of rain, but also some nicer days. We walked around the neighbourhoods and went for some short rides. Only once we went out for a real ride; even though there are some biketrails, you really have to look for them and most are not so scenic, mostly just designated parts of the road.

We had been travelling in fall colours since the Yukon, 3000km north, and Seattle was no different. The shots that make up this image were shot in just one street, close to Andy’s place.

My back was starting to hurt again and as my diclophenac pills were finished and I could not get more without a prescription, I switched to an Ibuprofen-rich diet… Read more

1000 Americans: Gary Schultz, McMinnville, Oregon

Gary is an avid traveller and has seen many of the world’s nicest places.

He host people in his house through the Hospitality club and enjoys interaction with other travellers as well as introducing is big dog!

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