Natophelia

I don't usually like to read these journals, but I'm liking this very much! Thanks Ino

Inoplanetyanin

Pictures:

Few cute ducks, enjoying the cool shaded water, near Marsing, Idaho.

Grapes

Another view of Marsing

Quite river that provides water for the fileds

The onion field

Peaches

More Peaches

Close up - best view

Little rivers along the way

Me near the airplane. It's an old one - from the sixties. I watched it taking off in 5 minutes. Very cool. ( I had to draw something on the left, as guy that was taking the picture, had his hand covering whole left part of the screen).

roadfix

Keep hammering on, Mr. Ino!

NuTz4BiKeZ

Hey awesome pics... Looks like the weather is great.
You must be having a great time on your trip and don't get down because you have had some repairs to make... It's what makes the adventure fun

Inoplanetyanin

Well, luckily the problems stopped for 4 days already... Not even a flat tire... Ma ybe because here in Northern Idaho there are less thorns or the thorn resistant heavy duty inner tube helps...

Here are few recent pictures, if anyone wants to look.




45 th parallel

Cool, huh! ?

This is the whitebird hill grade on 95 highway in Idaho. Untill 1975, old 95 highway that went slighly differently, at the shoe of the hill, served as the only North/ South route in Idaho. Whitebird hill is approximately 7 miles long, gaining the elevation of 2900 feet. About third of the hill, I walked...

This is right in front of the hill, cool view behind to the town Whitebird, down in the canyon.

This is a great Salmon River, also here in Idaho. The water was relatively warm, and in few steps it got deep that I could not touch the bottom anymore. The sand is also clean and warm. There were rifter boats services a little above on the river.

[Fire activity ahead

Me near Payette National Forest sign.


Green bicycle - green water.

roadfix

Mr. Ino........looks like you're having a really nice trip here......great photos too....keep 'em rolling in! Are you heading up to Canada?? I love the stem shifters on your bike. Nice and trouble free. How's the weather been? I'd love to see some stormy photos as well when you get the chance to post them. Later.... George

Inoplanetyanin

Hi George. The shifters, I thought they were called friction?
Yeah, it looks like they are harder to break than some other more complicated models. Shifters really don't cause any trouble and work quite precise.
I am in Lewiston, Idaho, right now, heading towards Spokane, and then, I guess to Glacier in Montana... don't know yet, need to f ind out more about it. Heard there are very few service between hundreed mile mountains passes. Everyboday wanrs me about grizzlies there too.

George, there were only about 3 days when it rained. One day, I was riding right under the cloud, meaning, 4 miles behind, it was sunny, and 5 miles ahead, but it was spraying right from above, and it lasted for about 2 hours. Then I finally stopped at some roadside bar and let the cloud pass.

Faering the water for the camera, in rainy weather I am going to wrap it in plastic bags, but here is the picture earlier that day when cloud chased me a while.

Clouds ahead

And another one...

roadfix

Ahhh......I love cloudy weather....
Now I have to seriously start thinking about my eventual cross country bike tour.... too much work and no play makes George a dull person......!

NuTz4BiKeZ

Dude... Great pic of the 45th parallel, I live about 45 mins drive below 45 south, half way between the equator and the south pole

chewa

Excellent journal Mr Ino.

Are you having to keep the brakes tight so that the secondary handlebar levers work well?

mdwitty

I am in admiration in what you are doing Mr. Ino. Someday I want to make the trek either cross country (east to west) or from Mexico to Canada (born in B.C.). I am enjoying your journey and keep up the good work.

To anyone reading this. In a few years I would like to make the trek with my wife. We are both in average shape. Would you suggest making the journey on two bikes or go tandem? Just curious to those who have experience. Thank you.

Mark

NuTz4BiKeZ

Tandems are the dog's bits and I think touring on one would be great.

pretty_springs

pretty_springs

Should I start bike riding Mr. Inoplanetyanin?

Inoplanetyanin

Hahahaha :-) Hello my friend. I don't know, should you?

cyclezealot

Myself, I would not take off without looking at a Adventure Cycling map. Don't have the one for crossing the northern US. Recall it does go through North Dakota. Seems the Trans Canada Hwy is reported to be good for cycling lanes all the way across.
Could not cross the US and not ride through my favvorite piece of real estate, Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Across the UP they us US HWY. 2. Love to do that. From there could cross over into Canada and rejoin the Trans Canada Hwy. ON the bike, what the heck, a couple hundred mile detour is nothing, no hurry.

pretty_springs

I wouldn't mind riding a motorcycle to the next state. All, I could think of is my sore legs.
Speak to you soon Mr. Inoplanetyanin.

roadfix

Mr. Ino.....are you in MONTANA! yet?

roadfix

Mr. Ino......if you're wondering what happened you your most recent postings......well....they're gone....
Due to BF server's glitch yesterday, a lot of postings were lost. But I did get the chance too see all of your most recent photos of Spokane and parts of Montana.

George!

NuTz4BiKeZ

Bummer I missed the pics... any chance they could be re-posted.
Thanks

Terry

Inoplanetyanin

Hello everybody, for those who would like to read another story, here is the description of the yesterday - a very big day. :-)

In the evening, I pedaled into a town called West Glacier, which is right on the border of the Glacier National Park in Montana. There were few restaurants, post office, general store, gas station and a train station, where AmTrack stops.

While heading towards the gates, which were about 2 miles into the woods, I saw an older man on a beautiful, light green older bicycle, one of those cruisers with thick tires and long, beautiful fenders. Since we both were not mind to stop and talk for a minutes, we stopped and I found out that he has an RV not far from there and is heading towards Boston, to spend a winter on one of peninsulas, where there is so much snow that people just don't even drive. He rides the bicycle around when the RV is parked. The man was really funny, even though he was in his fifties he really acted a lot more immaturely. He said that he really liked to watch the Amtrak train and that's why he was hanging around the railroad. :-) The train was suppose to come any minute. :-) We talked some more and then he suddenly raised his index finger up, made serious concentrated look and loudly , confidently announced that the train is coming. Indeed, I also heard some noise from the distance where rail tracks were coming. Not paying attention to me anymore, just quickly said something like "bye"", he quickly started to pedal away, under the bridge to get to the station. This time he definitely looked like a kid. I followed him, because it appeared curious to me to look at the train as well. But when at the station we looked passed the locomotive, it turned out to be just a freight hauling train. The guy didn't seem too disappointed though. :-)
I continued into the park. It became already dark. Near the gate, I stopped to take a look at the map showing which campgrounds were closed, and among 10, about 8 of them were closed. At that time and pick up truck stopped and a mid-aged guy yelled from the window if he could help me. I really didn't want to talk at that time, and said that I was just looking. He turned the engine off, got off his truck and said that he is a ranger, and started asking me where I was going. He brought a map and showed me that it was allowed for bicyclists to ride only to Mc Donald Lake Lodge, about 15 miles from the gate and that the road past that point was closed for bicycles. This were not good news, but I have not even had a single thought about turning back around and going onto detour south of the park, because it would take me several days.

Inoplanetyanin

I proceeded into the park. Now it was absolutely dark so I turned on my head lamp and rear red flasher. The forest on both sides of the road was very dense and absolutely black. In the dark, I happened to see a warning sign with a picture of bear, saying that all wild animals are dangerous and that it was not suggested to approach or feed them.
While slow relaxed pedaling in 10th gear, I started to look for a place to put a tent for the night. In about 20 minutes there was sign pointing towards some campground. When I turned on the road going to it, I saw some tables and obviously no one around. Going a little further I came to the shore of a huge lake, which as I realized later was Mc Donald Lake. Great, flat, leveled ground, some light reflected from the water. It was perfect to spend a night there. Since bears could be around, I decided to put a tent not far from a tree, which I could theoretically climb, if there would be a need to escape a grizzly attack at night. :-) Silly, indeed, but grizzlies can't climb trees. I set up a tent, put all the food in a backpack and put it 100 feet away, just under some bushes. Bike, that could also have some food smell, I left also a little bit away from the tent, some 50 feet, close to the water.

When I got all the necessities, a flashlight, a little knife :-), sleeping bag and got into the tent, I laid down, enjoying the quite time in the wild nature, listening to occasional fish splashing in the water.
In about 30 minutes the wind became stronger. It was blowing above the lake, so that tree tops were making a lot of loud noise, but the tent was still calm. Within next 20 minutes wind was all over, and I thought maybe the thunderstorm started, that was predicted as a possibility earlier in the day. The lake, that was so quite just not long ago, now was making a lot of noise and waves sounded like ocean waves, being very loud and powerful. It worried me, as I was afraid that the water level could change and since I was only about 15 feet away from it, I could wake up in the water. But level didn't seem to change.
Another issue was the smoke. Fires were around. Looking in 3 directions , I could see the red glow above the forest and smoke was so heavy, that it made me cough few times. I was sleeping in the smoke.
At around 2 am wind calmed down again and rest of the night went very well, not counting that it got pretty cold, even in the sleeping bag, that's designed to be comfortable down to 45 degrees F.

When I got out of the tent in the morning, I could not see the lake, nor the mountains. The smoke, probably combined with fog, was so sick. Only immediate surrounding, like trees within 100 feet, could be seen. in about 20 minutes, I ate some animal shaped crackers with COLD orange juice, loaded the bike and started riding further towards the eastern part of the park. The next city, St Mary, was about 35 miles away, and Logan Pass, the highest point in the park, was 25 miles away.

Inoplanetyanin

5 miles after I got on the road, I saw a distant cyclist about half a mile ahead. Since I am not very fast on this loaded bike, I thought that I will not catch up with him, especially because most of cyclists are trained and light racing bikes and go very fast. However, after several turns I noticed that I get closer to the cyclist. Little later I realized that it was a girl and the bike was old and not lubricated, making a lot of noise. When I rode beside the girl, we changed the greetings and started talking. Her name is Lisa, she is from Ireland, working as a secretary in the park for the summer and she rides this old Schwinn bike a lot. It is he bosses bike and that's why it's not in a very good shape. I tried to lubricate the chain with a chain lube, but it didn't help much, as the most noise was coming from the rusted bottom bracket. We pedaled for 8 miles side by side, to Mc Donald Lodge, where she stopped and I proceeded further. The scenery started to be unusual, suddenly through the smoke/fog, I saw a mountain, very high in the sky and that's when I realized where I was. In 12 miles, I PASSED through the sign that said NO BIKE beyond that point, and I kept on going. After stopping to eat a tuna sandwich, and returning to the bike, I saw that a Park Ranges's truck stopped near the bike. The ranger was tall gentleman somewhere in early 40th. He asked and told me that I was in the zone where bike were not allowed and also asked me if I saw a sign and whether I talked to another ranger last night. I admitted all that and honestly told him what my motives were and why I was riding there. Obviously, as he said, everyone has a story, but I was breaking the law and he was going to give me a ticker, the citation for riding through a no entrance zone, which is 50$ dollars, and the other ranger also came in several minutes to look at me. I never understood why he really came. He reminded me that last night he warned me about not entering zone, said that it was dangerous here, that last year they had to look for some hikers body that ended up dead, and that he warned that other hiker as well.
I didn't want to take anymore of their time, and after accepting the ticket, the first Ranger took me back to MC Donald Lodge in his truck. He said that I could try to catch a ride to Logan Pass, but my best bet, as he suggested, was to turn around and ride around the park by hwy 2. That didn't appeal to me, especially because I wanted to see the actually Logan Pass, where Continental Divide is passing, by the way, so I decided to search for a ride.

At that time, because of smoke, there were not many tourists traveling, so cars were passing in group of several, every 5-10 minutes. I went to the lodge store and asked a lady for a white sheet of paper, on which with a black marker, I wrote clearly "TO LOGAN PASS" and added a little smiley face.
In some survival techniques book, several years earlier, I read that there are much greater chances to catch a ride, standing on the shoulder of the road, if drivers see a sing with destination which you are going to. So I guess it worked, and in about 7 minutes a lady in big Ford F150 pick-up truck, stopped and picked me up. Bike went into the bed without a problem. We rode on the narrow road for approximately 30 minutes, viewing the actually flames of the fire on some mountain slopes. At Logan Pass I thanked a lady for a ride and went to look at the visitors center. There were very many tourists, hundreds of cars. All languages spoken, including russian. Some tourists were probably new to the natures, so they were taking pictures of everything. A little squirrel, stopped by, and dozens of tourists aggressively pointed their little automatic cameras at it. Many were taking the picture of a bold mountain top, that's pointing in the sky. At this elevation, 6000 something feet above sea level, the air temperature was significantly lower than in the valley. Most people wore sweater or even jackets. Rangers had gloves on their hands. I also fished the pants and a sweater out of my bags and dressed a little warmer. After talking to few tourists, eating some crackers and taking a picture next to the Logan Pass, Continental Divide sign, I started riding down the pass, towards town of St. Mary. The wind was cold, that my finger felt like in the winter, few times I stopped to breath warm air at them. The view around was so magnificent that it was just not realistic. I took several pictures and hope they will show more than words can describe.

Inoplanetyanin

In about an hour, I stopped to take another picture at the lookout point, that was high above the lake. A jeep with a retired tourist couple came out of the jeep for the same purpose. The had almost the same camera, so we started a conversation. After usual questions about my trip, they told me that they met a german cyclist, not long ago, and even gave him a ride, somewhere in Kansas. He was also riding across the country, from NY to LA. When a man's wife got out of the jeep and asked me where I was going, I had a good chance to make a joke, which actually made sense. I told I her that I am cycling the opposite way the German cyclist was going, and that I was also from Russia. The couple thought it was funny and laughed. :-)
When I came to St. Mary, about 30 minutes later, I stopped at the visitor centre and found that there was a post office in town. Asking one more time, the girl at the counter of some store had an accent and turned out she was from Slovakia. The next lady, I asked direction, also had an accent, so I felt pretty strange, having a feeling that this whole place is completely filled with foreigners.
After sending a money order to pay the ticket, I headed another 32 miles, towards Cardston, north on hwy 89.
The clouds in the sky were very dark, very low and the temperature was low. The wind was blowing the opposite direction I was riding and there were hills after hills. I was going pretty slow, and it was already about 6 pm. In another hour and a half, I should have made it 18 miles to the Port of Peigan, entrance into Canada! I was very excited and going against the wind didn't see to be a problem, as long as I was going.
Looking north, I saw that sky is much brighter above Canada and it brought additional excitement towards going there, not to mention that I was trying to get here for the last month.
In about 8 miles, there was a little town, called Baab, where I stopped at the local gas station to fill out the water battles and surprisingly saw a big basket with a sign underneath "free bananas". They were overripe, mostly dark with some yellow spots left, but as we all know, that's when they contain the most sugar and so it's all right for the cyclist. I ate some of them with water and crackers and continued another 10 miles towards the border.

Now I could clearly see that the sky is heavy and black only above glacier and this northern part of Montana, but it is clear above Canada, which raised my mood a lot. It was pretty exciting, I stopped to take a pictures, thinking that maybe this is my last time looking at Montana, or maybe at US at all, if something meant to happen on the road in Canada, so all my american experiences came up in my mind, and looking at the dark sky and snow peaks of glacier mountains was very emotional.
Finally the border. There were no cars for the past hour and when I rode into the gate and stopped at the window, without getting off the bikes, as sign said "remain in your vehicle":-) I answered the questions of a young, nice looking officer. Usual question about firearms, identification, purpose of visit. He issued me a yellow paper and asked to proceed to the corner of the building and come inside to immigration and naturalization office. A young, pretty lady greeted me, and started examining my passport and other documents. The lady was very formal, yet, friendly at the same time. She only asked subject related questions, such as where was I going to stay, how much money I had, and where did I live in the States. The procedure took about 20 minutes and she issued me a stay permit for 3 months!!! till November 1st, which was very great, because it meant that I wouldn't have to race against time. She then wished me a good day, and very happy, I went back to the bike, put a sweater on, as it was chilly and went across the street on Canadian territory in a Duty Free shop.
There was an older lady working, which I asked silly question wither she was a canadian. She was, and in return she asked me where I was going and from what country was I from. She saw my excitement and happiness and decided to give me a free map of Canada, saying that that's her part of helping me to go across. :-) Great.
I took a picture near Alberta Welcome Sign, and started riding towards city of Cardston, which was 26 kilometers ahead. Wohoo, metric again, which I used to be very comfortable with, now made me transfer back into miles, also because odometer on cyclocomputer registers distance in miles.

The road was very desert, cars were passing only once in 5 minutes, staying on the other side of the road, which I thought was very friendly. Peaceful scenery, of smooth running field hills, with slowly eating grass cows, bright sky above with sun shining through spaces between. Even though I was suppose to be tired, it was very easy to pedal, even up the hills, but I was not thinking about that now, I was enjoying looking at canadian land, cows, clouds and eating animal crackers. Right before Cardston, finally I rode to the hill that made me concentrate and breathing hard ride into in in the lowest gear.
Oh, almost forgot, 5 miles before the border, I had another thought, of being lucky that the bicycle didn't give any troubles for the past 3 weeks and 700 miles, and then in few minutes, while aimlessly looking at some distant cloud, I heard a loud noise "POP!", the spoke in rear wheel broke, which made a tire wobble a little. Well, a job to do in Cardston.

*Lady in the library announced that my time is almost over, so the story ends now.
In Cardston I met a cyclist that invited me to stay at his house, and where I eventually pitched a tent in his yard, they also let me use the shower which was very nice. Interesting family, they are mormons, as I understood and had 8 children.
In the morning, I went to the bank and changed us money for canadian, which turned out that food is cheaper here... :-)
The journey continues.
Pictures are coming.
Thank you for reading.
All the best.!

roadfix

Cool story, Mr. Ino.........I'm at work right now but spent several minutes reading all four segments.....very interesting. Show us pictures!!

George