Somewhere "Hoh River" the Rainbow...

For my birthday this year I was given—in addition to a Blue Virginia(!)—a trip to Washington (the State)! I can neither confirm nor deny whether this gift may have been in any way related to a job interview my girlfriend had at the same time in Seattle :-p This was my first trip to the Emerald City (or the Pacific Northwest in general) and it definitely lived up to its nickname: While the first days were greyscale (although only outside) this was soon replaced by blue skies and a trip following the not-quite-yellow-brick highway 101 around the Olympic Peninsula—ultimately winding up at the end-of-the-rainbow (literally).

Thanks to Lonely Planet studying on the airplane flight and my relentless travel pace—which I hopefully managed to moderate fairly well—we packed in much of what we wanted to do over the four day trip. The highlight for me was our day driving the Olympic Peninsula and visiting the Hoh National Rainforest (thanks to Jeff for the suggestion) and it earned its own slideshow (so at least skip to the bottom if you don’t feel like reading). I won’t detail every moment as I did for Russia or West Africa but here were some things I learned from the trip:

• Lowell’s in the Pike Place Market has a great view over the Sound on the third floor and good, cheap food to boot. Also at the market, Beecher’s handmade cheese is delicious.
• Try to see Frank Gehry’s E.M.P. building in sunlight (which is also probably a good time to visit the Space Needle next door)
• The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) is free on the first Thursday of the month and is open until 9pm. Highlights included the Aboriginal artwork of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and helping some scavenger hunters track down the title of Katharina Fritsch’s Mann und Maus
• Lola’s in the Hotel Andra offers delicious cinnamon donut holes with Mascarpone cheese
• One of the best tips we got was to call 206-553-3000 (Seattle Metro) and tell them where you were and where you wanted to go and they would tell you what buses to take and when to catch them. We used this all the time to get around the city on the public buses. The buses also get you downtown from door 00 of Sea-Tac airport for $1.50.
• We loved the Argosy Locks Cruise (my birthday present within a birthday present), which takes you from the Seattle Waterfront up the Puget Sound, through the Hiram Chittenden Locks and into Lake Union (right past the floating house from Sleepless in Seattle)
• On the cruise our guide Aaron taught us that the Columbia building has one of the nicest women’s restrooms in the world with each stall looking out the glass window onto the city below (it’s the tallest building in town so nobody should be able to see in… theoretically). He also told us that when it came time to film a scene at Tom Hanks’ floating house it uncharacteristically failed to rain so they had to use a fireboat to create fake rain (supposedly, while the paid extras were dressed for the fake weather, you can see some locals in the scene dressed to enjoy the sun)
• Fremont was my favorite neighborhood with its host of fanciful sculptures including a giant troll under an overpass literally holding a VW Beetle. It’s also home to the Fremont Bridge which I read about in the Lonely Planet. Apparently it was originally painted an uninspiring green but when they went to repaint the bridge it got a primer coat of orange. Some people liked it so much that they just left the orange. Of course some other people dis-liked it so much that when it came time to repaint again they had a vote (and didn’t put orange on the ballot). Blue won. But those orange-lovers were not so easily dissuaded and added orange highlights to the blue bridge. The result turned out to be a happy compromise and they’ve painted this pattern each time since (although Elizabeth and I agreed when we passed under it on the locks cruise that it is due for another repainting)
• We do better at trivia on the East Coast. We tried our hand at the Monkey Pub’s Friday night pub quiz and finished next to last. I guess these folks are serious since they charge $3 per person and the emcee stopped midway through trivia to break up a table of 6 people (there’s a limit of 4 per team). Still we learned some interesting facts including that while Obama will be the 44^th President there have only been 42 different presidents before him—thanks to Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms as both the 22^nd and 24^th presidents. Also, we are terrible at obscure TV theme songs. We couldn’t pick out “Double-Dare” and I misremembered that the Bloodhound Gang were part of the Electric Company—should have put 3-2-1 Contact.
• If you are looking for a (long) day trip outside of Seattle head to the Hoh River Rainforest. While the clear-cut trees in some sections of the drive are saddening, there are plenty of spectacular views (Lake Crescent in particular) and the actual Rainforest is like no place I’ve ever seen before. It’s certainly the closest I ever expect to be to an elk. Try to go when the days are longer so you can enjoy the views of the Pacific Ocean on the ride home (it’s a powerful feeling standing there even in the dark).
• We met the ranger at the visitor center, Jon Preston, who wrote a great essay in the book on sale there Fast Moving River: Images and Essays from the Hoh River
• Enjoy the Hoh River Slide Show which inspired the blog title (hey, it’s my blog so I’ll have punny titles if I want to. According to the vampires in True Blood, puns were once considered the highest form of humor—since replaced by Darrenisms)

Thanks to my family, AB, Jeffrey, Cam, and Laura for all the great suggestions, and of course to Elizabeth for a lovely birthday week.

Blue Virginia

Thank you everyone. This really was the perfect birthday present :-)

Fire it up! Ready to go!

Historic. That was definitely the feeling at Obama's last rally before election day, and I'm so grateful that, despite the late start and traffic, my mom, sister, and I got to be there. From beaming to "Beautiful Day" before the show, to seeing a stranger walk over and hug my mom after the speech, I am filled with Hope. From now on I'll hopefully think of Manassas as the place I first heard President Obama speak (instead of as the home of Lorena Bobbit). And if someone from Centreville can have some love for Manassas, then you know we may really be on to something here...

So from one voice from Greenwood, South Carolina to the entire world:

Fire it up!

Ready to go!

Tour the Grape Life

Despite the shouts of the crowd, I was not the Fruit of the Loom guy in the Leesburg Halloween Parade. I was “Chardonnay”, the bunch of green grapes, promoting Virginia Wine Adventures, the wine touring company started by Darren’s sister Deidra. In addition to playing the critical designated driver role, Deidra’s company provides gourmet lunches and knowledgeable guides of the Virginia wineries that you visit on the tours. While I didn’t do as well promoting the company as my compatriot “Merlot” did (according to him), I definitely had fun and like to think I warmed up the crowd for Darren’s—I mean Merlot’s—pitch that followed. I couldn’t get over how excited the kids were to get a “High Four”—our giant white cartoon gloves only have four fingers—from an over-sized bunch of grapes. That was definitely the highlight of the experience for me, although Merlot and I doing the Do-Si-Do dance with our lovely wine bottle girlfriends was definitely up there… as was literally running several hundred yards to close down the gap that had formed between the floats as we got carried away high-fouring the crowd (try to imagine a man running up the street, balloon-sized grapes bouncing all over the place, and giant white cartoon hands flailing wildly—you can see why the “Fruit of the Loom” comment was made quite a bit!).

Here are some Notes to Jon (well actually to Deidra) for next year’s parade:

• Keep a wine bottle with each grape bunch to cut down on the Fruit of the Loom confusion.

• Make Virginia Wine Adventures labels to put on the wine bottle costumes.

• Have one person giving out candy on each side of the street to make sure the candy lasts all the way to the end of the parade—the kids at the end looked like they were ready to riot after all the floats were out of candy by that point.

• More giant white hands. Those were great and really engaged the crowd when we were over interacting with the kids.

• Purple and green afro wigs for the grapes, and corresponding light-up sunglasses.

• Try to get behind other floats with walkers. We were all behind driving floats which led to the huge gaps when we tried to walk and interact with the crowd.

• Go early to Idle Park and bring chairs to relax and tailgate while waiting for the parade to get under way.
  

Now THAT's a Better Bag!

They're back! My blog post about the demise of the Whole Foods retro bags looks like it was thankfully premature. Not only did Whole Foods return to my favorite style of reusable bags after nearly a year, they actually improved them! While retaining the look and feel of the original retro bags, the new Better Banana bag is made of 100% recycled materials. The cool new black background is also a welcome change from the perky Apple "Better" bag that caused me to launch into this subject in the first place. The new look got favorable comments from both the men and women in my focus group—by which I mean my friends who were over when I got home and found the bag that Jeffrey had brought me. While the color is different, the great graphic design is back, and the size of the bag (and most importantly, the straps) exactly match the previous retro bags. For me the long stretchy straps are the key because they stay firmly planted on my shoulder, and are long enough to turn the bag into a backpack—as I jokingly did while getting lined up for my Century bike ride, and then found I needed to do when I had a bag of clothes to bike across town last week.

See the new bag really would have matched my black and yellow bike kit for the ride! Alright, that's getting carried away and I'm even scaring myself now for noticing that, but thanks to Jeffrey for bringing me the new bag, and thanks to my favorite reusable bag designer "Anonymous" for designing these great bags (and posting comments about them here!), and to Whole Foods for continuing to provide the best line of reusable bags!

Retaining Joel

I generally try to avoid business trips, but I figured heading to San Diego would give me a good chance to handicap the odds on when Joel will move back east. It's still a tough call. From the scenery and activity standpoint he may never be back. However, his foray with foster dog Fiona (who's not a bad dog... once she gets over her fear of water and relieving herself outdoors) made it clear just how hard it will be to replace Reagan. I think an over/under of a year is still about right.

Note to Jon:

• The Jamba Juice at the Chula Vista Center has a $1 deal on a delicious hot Parmesan Pretzel with the purchase of a smoothie. Ever since my Whole Foods got rid of Jamba Juice I've been craving some and made up for that all week in San Diego.
  

• If Joel asks if you can jump up on a retaining wall in his backyard (and mentions that he can)... don't try it, at least not in flip-flops. Ouch.

Side-view Century

Usually when a biker gets hit by a car, the biker takes more damage than the car. Thankfully, I was the rare exception to that in my head-on collision with a pick-up truck about 40 miles into my Century ride. I’d like to think I was just that determined to finish the 100 miles, but it probably had more to do with getting hit by the one part of the truck which would give way before my arm did—the side mirror.

Even before the collision it was an eventful morning. No more than five miles in I discovered the flaw in my plan to pre-hydrate for the race. I felt the call of nature and had another 22 miles until the sanctioned rest stop. The problem is this area is not populated enough to have a gas station or restaurant I could pop into, but populated enough to have fences and houses discouraging me from stopping just anywhere. By mile 13 I knew there was no way I was making it all the way to the rest stop and my standards for a bathroom had diminished considerably—from isolated woodland to anywhere without a fence. I was seriously considering Tour-de-France-style (i.e. while riding) but figured I wasn’t skilled enough to stay on the bike let alone avoid pissing off the neighbors (or on myself). So you can imagine my joy when I found a ten foot gap in the fence above a dry culvert with a few trees beyond. I practically leapt off my bike and ran to the first tree. I was safe. And then I looked up. Directly above my “urinal” was a wriggling mass of bees. But by now I was… committed. And vulnerable. As the first bee flew from the tree and landed on me I prayed that my yellow and black jersey would convince it that I was a friend. My disguise worked as the other bees left me alone. By the end I felt so comfortable with my new friends I decided to document them. What I hadn’t anticipated was… the camera flash. Needless to say I ran back to the bike even faster than I had run from it.

After that everything was perfect until the fateful curve I took at 11:00. As the truck and I approached the curve on Meyerstown Road I could see that he was turning farther and farther into my lane. At first I assumed he was just taking a tight turn and I hugged the right side of my lane. By now he was entirely in my lane and I assumed he was trying to scare me (I’ve heard bikers aren’t well loved in these parts). But when he didn’t veer off I was sure he was trying to run me down. Before I had a chance to abandon the road altogether and careen into the fence, there was a thunderous (to me anyway) smash as the side mirror exploded off of my arm and shattered on the road. Somehow I managed to keep a grip on my bike and coast to a stop. Apparently the driver hadn’t noticed me biking towards him, and it did seem from his reaction that he was oblivious rather than malicious. I was shaken up but otherwise uninjured and after a discussion with the driver I cruised to the next rest stop powered mostly by adrenaline. I’m sure the mirror-less driver and I were both considerably more vigilant after that.

Thankfully the second fifty miles started with seeing my family at the midway point and were mostly memorable for the bucolic scenery, the delicious food served at the rest stops, and my amazement that I felt as strong at mile 85 as I had at mile 45, despite having never ridden more than 65 miles. I even sprinted the last two miles in an effort to finish in under 6 hours and 30 minutes on the bike (I did succeed even though my bike computer kept counting an additional two seconds once I had stopped!). Despite the close calls described above it was a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone and when combined with all the post-ride celebrations it was one of the best days of my life. Thank you to everyone who supported me in accomplishing this (specifically the Potomac Peddlers Touring Club for putting this Historic Back Roads Century on, Darren for inspiration, my family for support, Mimsi for many of these photos, and of course my post-ride masseuse—I am not even sore today!).

PPTC Historic Back Roads Century at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging