This post has been a long time coming.

For me, this blog was a personal project, just so people could follow along, know where I was and how I was doing, and hear about the people I met and the things I saw. And so I am not compelled to wrap this story neatly—as I often do—into something simple and digestible. But, I will say a few things.

At times it was difficult, but those times were relatively few because I was with Joe. When you’re traveling with someone and you wake up and your body hurts or your spirit has gone, you can’t let your partner down. It’s a dream to have the kind of adventure we had this summer and neither of us could rob the other of it. That drive, that mutual dedication, made even the worst days pass easily.

The world is a far kinder place than I knew it to be. I could never have imagined we would meet so many generous, welcoming, and interesting people. It sounds cliché, but I have a renewed faith in people. I hope the feeling I finished the journey with carries through the rest of my life. I never again want to assume that a stranger is anything but good and decent.

The simple life we led, with nothing more than what our bikes carried, was so peaceful. Even more than when I’ve traveled by backpack, I felt free but in want of nothing—except better Mexican food. It’s probably the time in my life that I felt most at ease with living day-to-day.

I want to thank everyone who followed along and everyone who commented. It really did mean a lot. Maybe Joe will add his own thoughts, but this is it for me.

Cheers,

Colin

[Wine and oatmeal]

Gourmet living, Amtrak style.

Our trip isn’t over; Joe and Kate still need to catch a train in Seattle and I need to go to California. We have help in this last leg; my parents are driving up to meet us in Seattle to celebrate and possibly SAG some of our gear into the city.

Now, though, we’re in Anacortes, the largest town on Fidalgo Island. Their annual arts festival is this weekend so we have had plenty to do. It was rainy and cold on the night of the thirty-first, but a cyclist we got in contact with over the internet, Art, took us in. We can’t thank him enough, it would have been a miserable night in the park. He and his wife, Lexie, couldn’t host us the following night, but that morning the weather was clear and he told us the rains would likely stay away for a few days.

We spent that afternoon at the arts festival which consumes eight or more blocks of Commercial Ave. We walked through and around the booths and tents, ducked into cafes, listened to live music, lounged and read in bookshops. As it grew darker, we took our bikes to a pavillion in a city park and set out on foot to discover the bars in town. On the way, among all the white tents in the road, we heard singing. We followed it to a computer service and sales store where a woman was singing and playing guitar to an audience that spilled out onto the sidewalk. A man in a worn cowboy hat and a flannel shirt directed us in for wine and we slipped in after she finished a song. The crowd thinned just enough that we all found chairs and we sat and listened to the end of her first set and by the end of her second the only occupied chairs were ours. We helped the man in the cowboy hat, Jay, clean up. Jay owned and ran the shop. He gave us a brief tour after I mentioned I had done some IT work. In the course of the tour, we told him about our trip and he invited us to stay with him and told us that his house was only a block from the park. So again we were rescued from the damp northwestern night. We agreed to meet later, after he had finished closing the shop and we had settled in the house, at a bar down the street, The Brown Lantern. There we were again treated to live music and bought Jay a drink as a token of our thanks.

[What is there to say]

Only islands beyond us. As far west as we can go.

[Whaaaaaat]

Single digits. Crazy.

[My beloved I-5]

Can’t be far now.

[Looking forward]

After Rainy Pass, Crater Peak in the distance.

State route 20 through the Northern Cascades, from Mazama to Newhalem,
was one of the most beautiful days of our journey. However, we may
have gone through on an exceptional day. I’ve heard the western slopes
there described as rainforests and know that some of the peaks average
more than one hundred inches of precipitation annually. The trees on
either side of the road rose from a thick, damp, dark underbrush.
Rivuletes of water ran down and around exposed rock and fed flowers
living in cracks; waterfalls cut deep channels and chasms that the
road had to bridge. But, in this sturated place, only rarely was the
sun hidden behind a cloud and we didn’t feel a drop of rain.

[Looking up]

From Washington Pass

[Looking back]

On the way up to Washington Pass

[Lucky...]

The sun is shining at Rainy Pass!