6/13/98 Bryan

Today was a pretty slow day. Since Jon wasn't arriving until the afternoon, Julian and I decided to sleep in a bit. Julian was kind enough to let me use the bed last night. It was quite comfortable and I had no problems sleeping.

When we did get up, Julian prepared a sumptuous breakfast. It started with a bowl of fresh fruit. That was followed by granola with raisins, coconut, and cream. To top it off, Julian made "bird-in-the- nest", and egg and toast dish.

After breakfast, we resumed our preparations for the trip. I assembled Jon's bike, so that it would be ready when he arrived. I also started working on the data loggers for the bikes.

When Jon arrived, we rode the bikes into town to run a few errands. First, we went to a bike store to look for bike shoes for Julian, the selection was poor, but we did find a couple of bike pumps. We took a few photos outside the store then headed to Godfather's Pizza for dinner.

While eating, Julian and I decided that the fact that Jon had not seen "The Godfather" was completely unacceptable. So, we decided to rent it and take it back to the B&B. We asked the waiter how to get to the nearest Blockbuster. He said he didn't know where a Blockbuster was and directed us to a Hollywood video up the hill. After biking for a few miles without sign of the video store, we decided to stop in at Radio Shack to pick up some parts. The salesman there directed us to a Blockbuster back in the direction of the pizza place. We went back there and found that the Blockbuster was right across the parking lot from the Godfather's Pizza! argh... we picked up the movie and headed back to the B&B. We were all pretty tired when we returned and none of us stayed up to watch the entire movie. Oh well... maybe later in the trip.

6/14/98 Julian

The sleep was awesome. Bryan crashed in the bed of 13 pillows and Julian fell asleep in the three-piece wonder. Bryan woke up first getting more sleep in one night(12 hours) than he has gotten in the last week combined. We quickly prepared 'Bird-in-the-nest' egg and bread dish followed by crunchy cereal looking for news of Boston's flood only to find Middle School Girls on the cover of the Seattle Times. We ate and ate and ate and listened to Wolfie and pondered ditching the Bobs and just credit-carding from B&B to B&B.

6/15/98 Bryan

U-HAULIN' CROSS COUNTRY

This morning, Jon woke us with a breakfast of apple pancakes (along with the bowls of fruit and granola that I have discussed previously). The pancakes were quite good. After breakfast, we worked frantically to get all of our gear packed up so that we could get out of the B&B in time to catch a ferry from Seattle to Victoria.

Unfortunately, we didn't make the ferry. We didn't get packed as fast as we had hoped and we had to wait longer than expected for the FedEx package containing our Nokia cellular phones. When the package finally arrived, quickly finished packing and started pedalling for Seattle.

Our bikes were quite a sight. The BOBs were terribly overloaded. Jon had a huge box of things to be shipped back tied on top of his trailer. Julian had the laptop computer and other electronics strapped onto his BOB. The BOBs were so heavy that we could hardly control them on the descent from the B&B. We made our way into town and headed for the nearest post office to ship some things home.

The BOBs were still heavier than we expected, however, and our progress towards Seattle was very slow. We soon realized that we were not going to make the ferry to Victoria. This was pretty serious, since we needed to get La Push by Wednesday in order to meet the people from Trimble. So, we started looking for other options.

Finally, we decided to rent a truck and drive out to the coast. We called many places only to find that they were closing soon, or they didn't have anything available. Finally we fount a place that had a truck available and was open for another 45 minutes. Unfortunately, the rental place was not within biking distance and taxis in Seattle are not as available as they are in Boston. We made it there about 5 minutes after closing time. :-( Our taxi driver was eager to help, however, and he drove us to a couple of U-Haul rental stores until we found what we needed.

We rented a 14-foot U-Haul truck one-way to Aberdeen. We then went to the Dairy Queen to pick up Julian and the bikes. There, we found Julian passed out in one of the booths and our cellular phones spread out around the restaurant charging in the various outlets. After loading everything up, we hit the road for the 150 mile trip to Aberdeen.

It was dark by the time we arrived. We went to a nearby state campsite in Ocean City. Our campsite was near the ocean. For the first time, we could hear the sound of the waves rolling in. We went on a short hike to go find the source of the noise. After looking around a bit, we decided that the ocean was too far away to see that night. So, we headed back to camp for dinner. Julian cooked up some cheese enchiladas, macaroni and cheese, and pizza-bites on the backpacker stove. It was.... interesting. Not bad for our first meal on the road.

After dinner, Jon found a trail leading to the beach. We followed it and found the ocean.

Our first view of the Pacific was quite exilirating. It was completely dark outside. The beach was a long plane and it was difficult to tell where the sand ended and the water began. It was equally difficult to distinguish between the night sky and the ocean waters. The reflections of the stars on the water made it all blend together. We stood for a few moments and breathed the ocean air before heading back to camp.

6/15/98 Julian

Jon made pancakes for breakfast. Ferry arrangements are being nailed down. We are cleaning up our stuff and preparing to leave this phat B&B. Jon is packing his bike, Bryan is attaching velcro to pandora and I am thinking about the Fall(yes/no intent?) when I really should be listening to the music. OK, now I am. Bryan is conducting again. We experienced the godfather's pizza and movie last night.

Tech problems: Com port broken: no hot synch. PPP doesn't work. Battery problems with DVD camera and Thinkpad. We want cannon. Visual C++ and Photoshop would be nice. Awaiting phones. Hyperterminal doesn't work. Something else using modem.

Tech grace: Digital cameras sensors work Music and B&B Airplanes worked, got out of boston.

Seattle is awesome we are about to head to the Olympic mountains.

6/16/98 Jonathan

We woke up this morning to the sound of breaking waves. However, things weren't so pacific since we discovered a red "reserved" cone in front of our Uhaul. We were at a state park which allowed reservations and it looked like were being booted from the most glorious campsite. We moved across the street to a less desirable site and then headed into town to go the visitor center in Aberdeen.

We called Joanne and learned that Trimble decided not to come out to see our departure. We were intending on staying an additional day in Ocean State Park for their arrival but after going to the visitor center and discovering how much riding we would have to do to get around the Olympic peninsula or how difficult it is to traverse the park from the south side we decided to investigate other options. We even called a Park Ranger station and learned that the roads across the southern part of the park are gravel and very remote. We also discovered that the rainforests (as pictured in all the guides) are on the western side and that if we didn't go up along the coastal side we would miss a unique chance. Things worked out when we went to the Uhaul dealer in Aberdeen who informed us that there is a drop-off location in Forks, which is 10 miles from La Push (our original intended destination).

We headed back to camp, loaded up the Uhaul with the bikes, Bobs, and the tents (still assembled). Outside Aberdeen we stopped at a bike store to look for bike shoes for Julian.

They were very helpful and friendly but unfortunately didn't have to much in the way of selection. The owner said much of his clientele comes into his shop looking for "hunting bikes" or mountain bikes.

We drove stopping for 2 hours at a beautiful rainforest and went for a short hike. The rainforest was an old growth rainforests and had huge trees.

We had an enjoyable hacking session along the path on the backdrop of moss and luscious green growth and a waterfall nearby. We continued on to find a campsite at Rialto Beach which is a State Park 5 miles north of La Push. Along the way we visited the beach again, discovering the infamous banana slugs..."everything is bigger here" exclaimed our token Texan.

We had really good steak that night (quite a contrast to the previous evening) and after a long day of running around and 150 miles of driving we were ready to crash in our already assembled tents.

6/17/98 Jonathan

Day 4 was our starting day. Jonathan woke up earlier than all and drove the Uhaul with one unbobbed (bike without a BOB) bicycle to Forks, which was 12-15 miles east of Rialto beach. He returned the vehicle, explained the change of destination, etc and biked back. Julian and Bryan had breakfast ready and had packed up camp. Soon our adventure was underway. We biked down the road a couple of miles to the beach and carried our bikes over large trees that had washed ashore. A friendly couple from North Carolina was happy to take a picture of us dipping our tires in the Pacific. It was quite a chore to carry the bikes with the fully loaded BOB's to the beach and back over the trees. Afterwards we were off.

5 miles into the trip we had our first mishap. The rear piece that connects the BOB to the rear axle on the bike starting flopping on Jonathan's bike. A screw holding the piece to the axle had come loose and fallen out. Luckily we had a spare axle with that screw so we took it from there. After inspecting the other BOBs we found Julian was also missing that screw but his BOB was still held securely.

We continued on and stopped for lunch in bar and played shuffleboard. After doing about 50 miles total we stopped in Crescent Lake and stayed in a campsite right on the lake. The lake was a deep aqua-marine color that was spectacular under the setting sun. We walked our bikes to a site right near the lake.

The family near ours must have made 20 trips carrying stuff out their car. So much for trying to get away from home. They spent at least 4 hours moving. The next morning they were unhappy with their site so they moved.

We enjoyed the water, hacked, and slept well after our first day of biking. Bryan's system was collecting data and we spent some time after dinner epoxying by candlelight the power plugs to all 4 black boxes.

Bryan awoke in the middle of the night upon hearing some noise emanating from one our bikes. He thought there was someone going through our stuff. That someone turned out to be a chipmunk who found its way into Julian's handle bar bag. He was hanging with his left arm and his two feet dangling. His right arm was digging in the bag. When he heard Bryan move and stick his head out he looked over and got back to work in defiance. It took Bryan several yells of "get off of there" before he went on his merry way. He luckily never made it into the coveted oatmeal bars.