End of Segment One--Olympic Peninsula

Finished segment one yesterday: Discovery Bay to Port Townsend and ended up in Monroe WA on the mainland where I booked a room for last night and for next Sunday evening. The innkeeper has agreed to store my bicycle and trailer for a week. We have yet to negotiate a price!!

Yesterday morning's hike to Cape Flattery, west of Neah Bay, was the cap on a successful start for my  Kill my Legs to Give my Ass a Ride bicycle tour west/east. I don't know if I've raised any money for Writers @ Work and the Reeve Foundation but I'll keep plugging them as I plug along.
I wish I was a better photographer because Cape Flattery is a landscape of overwhelming beauty and complexity. Yet there is a simplicity in the raucous call of a gull parent coming back to its nest perched on a small ledge; a flock of Oyster Catchers resting on a rock between tides; red starfish clinging to cliffs at the low water line; the patience and dignity of western red cedars, hemlock, and fir, standing for centuries with fern shoes, dressed in pale gray moss and bright yellow lichens. This mood is echoed in Neah Bay by the members of the Makah Tribe on whose home-land Cape Flattery ties the mainland to the Pacific. That they choose to share this gem with the rest of the world shows trust that we, the society that gave them relatively little except centuries of misery and prejudice, will honor them and their land as we visit.

The Olympic Peninsula is rich in plant life. I know a few of the trees but I wish Fred Winkler, my mentor for all things ecologic, could be along to identify them, speak to their habit, their niche,how they function (what part they play) in the greater ecosystem of a temperate rain forest. I found a rotting trunk on the hike of a western red cedar that was at least 8 ft. in diameter when it was alive. How knows how tall or how long it lived, what it observed in humans as generations and cultures came and went.

Ending segment one of my trip, with this hike, impressed on me that regardless of how far east I travel, I should do the rest of the ride with not only my eyes and senses on full alert but also my heart. As we go about our daily business it is easy to forget to feel. We (I) tend to operate on auto pilot doing the tasks of making a living. By and large we know how to do that quite well. We know the politics and policies of our workplace, who not to test, who we can trust, how much risk we can take. But every second we operate in these systems--I would posit that we robotize our emotions and actions--we complicate our lives to the point that we come home exhausted, unable to unwind. For me this has been one of the factors that have driven depression, anxiety, fear. I have relearned what I've been sensing as I get older: I need to operate simply, work with those things I can control, plan ahead with reasonable alternatives and expectations, and quit expecting more of myself than I am capable of doing.

On the drive back to SLC I scouted the Cascade portion of Highway 2, the start of segment two.  For the better part it has fairly safe travel lanes (before I leave for this segment I will post the Pucker Factor Index spread sheet!) and lots of things to look at. It is about 50 miles from Monroe WA where I will start to the top of Stevens pass. While the road climbs it seems relatively flat until you get to the base of the pass when it climbs rather abruptly for a few miles. However, the ride on the east side will be a blast; it's all down hill to Wenatche!!

So thanks for staying with me. In the next few days I will add video to this site. If you've contributed thanks if you haven't I would encourage you to help these charities.

Cape Flattery