With a sad heart

As many of you know, our brother-in-law (Brent) has been battling cancer for the past year. When I called from Seattle yesterday to provide my daily check-in with my mom, she told me Brent had taken a bad turn and things did not look good. So I cancelled the remaining days of the trip, got on I90 and started East. 

Brent passed away this evening while at home with Rhoda and one of his daughters. I don't know any specifics at this point. I've covered 1,650 miles since yesterday and I'm 550 miles from South Bend and will be there in the tomorrow. From there, I'll be heading to MI.

Many of you have been following this blog and were wondering where the recent updates were. I'm sorry to have to deliver such sad news. I've so enjoyed sharing this trip with all of you and reading your comments. For now, I think this will be the last post to this blog. My only request is that you you keep my family in your thoughts and prayers. I'd like to share one of my favorite pictures of Brent as I close out this blog. 

Meeting "the Reggie!"

As most of you know, Charm and I love to watch "Diner, Drive-ins, &
Dives." Portland has been visited a number of times and I took this
chance to stop by Pine State Biscuits. "The Reggie" is their signature
item and I had to try it.

Pause for eating....

Holy cow this thing is GOOD. You should only eat one of these every
few months but they are yummy. A perfect homemade biscuit topped to
fried chicken, bacon, and sausage gravy!!!!!!!

Sinful goodness.

Change of plans...

The plan for today was to head to ID, but as luck would have it, I reconnected with a dear friend for my Univ. of AZ days and am going to head to Seattle for the night to visit Dana and Jim. I'm so excited to see them. It's been years and we have a lot to catch up about. Plus, I've never been to Seattle, so that's an added bonus. 

So it's time to clean up, pack up, and get some breakfast. Then I can pick up the bikes and get on the road.

Some comic relief

I figured this blog hasn't made enough people laugh so I thought I'd add a post that would crack some of you up. I had a great night at the White Eagle last night, slept really well and woke up rested and ready for another fun-filled day. 

As with most people do, I needed to visit the restroom, which is down the hall (no I didn't walk out in the hall naked!). I got to the bath room and needed to do something with my keycard, so I placed it on the window sill. While I was in there, the keycard blew out of the window and into a little courtyard that can only be accessed from windows of 3 rooms: my room, the restroom (little tiny window), and the window of a stranger. For a brief moment, I thought I might fit out the window, but the reality of the situation was, I was locked out of my room and didn't have a lot of options. I'm staying at a bar, not a hotel, there isn't a front desk to go to and get a new key!

I knew the bar opened at 11, so I figured the worst case would be I would take a nice long morning walk, but as fate would have it, the coffee fairy was delivering coffee to the end of the hall and she was able to get me into the bar where a new key could be made. 

Moral of the story...wear shorts with pockets so you don't have to put your keycard on the window sill. I know, I could have put it on the floor, but seriously, a public restroom floor?

I made it to Portland!

While it was hard to say goodbye to Jim and Caren (just love those two!), I was excited to get to Portland. It is a town I used to visit a lot for work, and I just really like it. So I started out on the short drive and took the scenic route. It was great. I drove though vineyards and farm land. Very relaxing. Then I got to Portland. Until today, I'd never driven in Portland. i had always flown in and taken the trains everywhere. Now I know why I did that. It was crazy. Thank goodness for my GPS. I would never find anything!

In any case, I've stopped and met Dan and Eric from Portland Design Works. They are friends of a friend and make great bike accessories! They were nice enough to store the bikes in their warehouse while I stayed the night in town. It just seemed like a safer idea than leaving them locked to the back of my car. 

So I'm staying at the White Eagle Saloon & Hotel! It's a micro brewery/restaurant/hotel. They have live music every night and I'll be heading down there for some dinner and music in a little bit. I'm staying in the "Bunk Room," which has a set of bunk beds and a sink in the corner. There are showers and rest rooms down the hall. 

It should be a fun night. They even distill their own whiskey. I'm not driving, so I'm going to try some adult beverages!

For tomorrow, I'm not sure where I'm headed. There is a chance I'll be heading to Seattle. If Seattle doesn't pan out, I'm headed to Idaho. So I guess we'll see what tomorrow bring. For now, I'm going to get a little rest, grab some food and listen to some live music!

Corvallis & OSU

Jim gave me a tour of campus at Oregon State and of Corvallis. What a nice campus. Tall beautiful old trees line the roads adding to the classic college campus feel. OSU seems like a neat place with a great line of "college" stores, bars, and eateries along the edge of campus.

Not far from campus is the downtown next to the river. It's just got a nice vibe. Funky little shops, etc.

Then I got to meet Jim & Caren's neighbors (Keri & Jepson...sorry if I spelled those wrong). There is a nice little trail between the houses. It's like taking a little hike inthe woods to go see your neighbors They have this amazing fountain that Jepson made. It's really more
like a 20' waterfall. Jepson creates some wonderful art using old barn wood. It's absolutey wondrous. It's a type of marketree (again not really sure how to spell that). It really is wonderful stuff. We're lucky to own a piece he gave Charmelle on her last visit.

Then there are the gardens! Keri has done some amazing things in their yard. Beautiful flowers all growing on the hill sides. I was just blown away. I'll try to post some pictures shortly. I've just had too much fun visiting with Jim & Caren to take my laptop out of its bag.

Day one of the return trip

OK, so heading north and west isn't really what most would consider
returning to Sourh Bend from Tahoe. However, for my trip home, the
first stop is Corvallis, OR.

Our wonderful friends, Caren & Jim, live here now and it's my first
opportunity to visit them and see their AMAZING house. Such fun!!!!!!!

Of course today started prettry early. We got up at 4 am and got
Charmelle to the airport for her flight back home. Then I headed
north. I've always read about Bend, OR being a great place to live so
I wanted to swing through there on my way to Corvallis.

The drive to Bend was pretty cool. Huge highland meadows and mountains
along the drive. Photos are coming soon. Bend itself is a pretty cool
feeling town in the middle of great outdoor adventures. All the basic
things are there even some extras like REI & Trader Joes!

The drive on US20 from Bend to Corvallis is beautiful. I followed a
ridge line up the mountain while looking at Mt Bachelor and Mt
Wasington. Once I was over the summitt I had 11 mile of a 6% grade and
lots of curves as I followed a river down the mountain. It was a
really pretty drive through national forests, more pine trees than you
can imagine and beautiful mountain scenes.

Two interesting things about OR though. 1. You are, by law, not
allowed to pump your own gas. There is no self-serve option here. 2.
Many OR roads have 55 mph speed limits. Roads that would have been 65
elsewhere are 55 here. Just something I haven't seems in a long time.
It sure boasted my mileage!

New tattoo

Ok, so most of you know I have some tattoos and I am a big cycling
advocate. I've wanted a new tattoo for a while and wasn't sure what to
get. About a month ago this idea came to me and I really thought about
it. All my tattoos mark something special in my life, a time, event,
etc.

This really connected with me. So it's on my left calf where pasing
drivers can see it. Let's hope they understand it.

As for the tattoo, it took about 2 hours which was a lot longer than I
thought it would. Because of the fine lines and symmetry Russell (the
tattooist) was really challenged. All the other tattooists loved it
and were really impressed. Some rated it as a 15 on a difficulty scale of 1 to
10. Russell rated it an 8.

In any case, I love it!

A private concert

So yesterday was pretty tame. We went down to Heavenly to take the
Gondola up and hike. After a really windy ride we got to the top and
started out to the trails. We were pretty sad to find almost all the
trails were closed for some reason. So we wandered around for a while
and finally headed back down. We went into customer service and complained a little and got our $90 back. Which made all of us a little happier. The ticket sellers didn't know the trails were closed, so when we asked them about hiking they told us all about these great trails to hike. 

The real highlight of the day was visiting with Ginger & Rachelle and
getting a private concert from Nextdoor Neighbor (Ginger & Nathan). We
had a great meal, tons of GREAT music and lots of fun.

A few bruises but worth it

This morning Charmelle wanted to do a road ride up to the Mt Rose
summitt and I wanted to do a Mt Bike ride. Where Charm was riding to
was about where my ride would start so I left the car for her and
headed out on the trail.

This was a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail. It is only open to
cyclists on even days of the month, so this was a good day to give it
a try.

The descriptions of the trail sort of under sold it. The Flume was
billed as pretty difficult and this was only tricky in a couple of
sections according to the reports.

Well here is my report: this trail rocks! In more than one way. First,
it is likely the most technical trail I've ever ridden. There is a
fair, but doable amount of climbing, countless drop-offs, and more
rocks to climb over/around/between than I've ever seen. The drops were  
pretty high and often tight quarters with a bunch of them in a row.

There were tons of rock steps to climb up or down as well. Most were
manageable, but there were some that even the really experienced riders I
saw struggled with.

As for the bruises, I had a couple crashes. Really only one crash and one
fall. The crash must have looked good to observers, it wasn't much fun from
my angle. I ended up endo-ing right over the bars still clipped into
my pedals and slide down the slope a bit. It was a nice face plant. I
sat there for a couple minutes and took inventory and things were fine.
I'll be sore tomorrow with a nice bruise on my knee and a stiff neck.
The other fall was into a boulder while I tried unsuccessfully to go
up a set of steps. I made all but the last one. My elbow and wrist
took the abuse on that one.

But it was all worth it. The views were amazing and the ride was a
blast! The photo is just one example or the great views from this trail.

Another Successful Trip on the Truckee

The day started with a walk down the hill for coffee and then back UP
the hill. Then it was off the breakfast at the Old Post Office!

After a great breakfast we headed off for a day of rafting. Last
year's rafting experience proved to be one of the most exciting and
comical moments of our trip.

This year was right up there. Of course we got stuck on the same
freakin rock near the end again! However, we didn't flip, flood, or
sink the boat this year. Also the cameras survived and no one had to
jump into some one else's raft.

Then came the big excitement! We hit Front Street Pizza and inhaled a
couple of pizzas and some other snacks.

Tahoe Rim Trail

The 4 of us went for a nice morning hike along the Tahoe Rim Trail. It
was a GREAT hike. We did about 7 miles and enjoyed every minute of it.

While we were on our return trip Angela finally arrived in Incline
Village! So we picked up the pace a little and got off the trail and
picked her up. Then it was back to the house for lunch! 

A restful day

Today we kept things pretty low key. We ran down to Reno to pick up Jo
& JJ. We sort of bumed around and ran down to Kings Beach and did some
shopping.

We cooked a great dinner and sat out on the deck enjoying great wine,
whiskey, and conversation. Isn't that a key ingredient of vacation?
Plus we were treated to a coyote trotting down the fairway (backyard).

Why we have Mt Bikes

So today we set out the ride the Flume Trail. This trail is ranked as one of the top-10 trails in the nations and it is certainly the GREATEST trail either of us have ever ridden.

The start of the

 ride is really tough. Basically, we climbed for 4 miles. We rode some and walked some. Charm is the climber, I have no problem walking the really tough hills. Once we got to the top it was all worth it.

We went to Marlette Lake (a great downhill) and it was breath taking. More photos will come soon. Then we connected to The Flume. This is an AMAZING trail ride along the edge of the mountain. The trail is great and the views are outstanding.

After riding along the edge, we dropped back into Incline Village. Litterally dropped back down! I rode my brakes the entire drop just to stay at 20mph. What a ride! Just 14 miles, but the most beautiful 14 miles we've ever ridden.

Our Good Deed

On our way he from Tahoe City an OLD yellow lab started walking across
the street! Mind you, this is a 4-lane highway that goes around the
lake and cars/trucks really fly on it. Thankfully folks stopped and
she wander across the street looking scared a lost. Of course we
scooped her up and went looking for her home. We found one of her
neighbors. Her name is Molly and she somehow got out. She was so old
and cute. We're so happy people stopped and she was friendly. We're
both such suckers for critters.

A model bike path

After a nice restful night we grabbed our bikes for a little ride. We
headed down near Tahoe City and jumped on a great bike path. It took
us through the city and then along the Truckee River all the way to
Squaw Valley Resort. The scenery was amazing. I'll put some more
photos up on Facebook once I get to a WiFi hot spot. For now, this
update from my phone will have to do.

The ride was really nice. Pretty flat to going down hill to Squaw. Of
course that means mostly up on the way back. The climb wasn't bad. The
last mile I got a little winded. I think the thin air helped that
along a bit because my heart rate really jumped the last bit of the
climb. To put it into perspective, I burned about 400 calories riding
to Squaw and about 1,100 calories riding back to the car. So I guess
we did climb a little.

Running on the salt flats

Charmelle is certain that she is faster running on the salt flats west
od SLC. it was pretty interesting walking around on all that salt.
There were people out there driving around and running around.
Charmelle asked if I wanted to take the VUE out on the salt, I passed
on that idea.

FYI: this was from Tuesday, we just hadn't pulled photos of the camera
yet.

Almost there!!!!!
At the 3rd of 3 necessary stops before heading to Incline Village: REI, Trader Joe's, and In-n-Oit Burger!!!!!!!!

Still driving

Matt is doing all of the driving...I should be well rested by the time
we arrive to Tahoe. Post submitted by Charmelle

Snowing in Utah?

Is it snow or just a whole lot of salt? Morton's got to love the great
salt lake. Post submitted by Charmelle