Chapter 1- Leaving Seattle
Seattle, Washington. Tuesday the 7th of July, 2009
(dipping my rear wheel in the Pacific Ocean in Anacortes, WA)
I hurriedly packed my gear into two panniers and one dry bag. I had spent most of the day sweeping and mopping my basement apartment floor for the last time. I was also rushing to getting the rest of my second hand backpacking gear at the outdoor store in Ballard, and storing the last of my possessions in my landlord’s shed for the summer. I finally got on my bike and rode swiftly down to the station to try and catch the 6:40 pm train to Mt. Vernon, Washington.
Thankfully, I arrived about 20 minutes before the boarding call, bought my ticket and loosened some of the gear strapped to my bicycle rack. I called my father and told him that I was on the train. He gave me his blessing and said if needed support to please let him know. It felt good to have my family behind me, even though I was about to be very alone for an undetermined amount of time.
As I got off the train at Mt. Vernon around 8 pm, and loaded the 60 lbs. of gear back on my bike, the gloomy grey sky greeted me with a steady light rain. This moment was my first impression of what my trip might by like... Unpredictable, rainy at times, and no turning back. I no longer had a home.
A powerful nervous feeling pulsed with every beat of my heart, it reminded me to keep focused and not think about how my life had changed so dramatically the last couple of months. I was 28 years old, had had, then lost, a great Architecture career, and a beautiful girlfriend who would likely have married me, everything was seemingly well, but my soul was dying and I needed a drastic shift in my life.
From the train terminal, I rode about 15 miles to Anacortes only to somehow get lost in the deserted small town streets, where the cold pouring rain decided to come down even harder. I finally found Washington Park three miles south of town. I set up my tent late in the night and slept in relative comfort, even though my spirits were slightly dampened. There was something very familiar and comforting about being warm and dry in my tent for the first time as a houseless person.
It was shocking to say the least to leave everything that I had worked so hard to achieve. I had finally earned my Architecture degree and was working as a draftsman at a top architecture firm in Seattle, EDGE, LLC., in the artsy Ballard district. I had savings, a nice car, a good life with lots of friends. My art career was starting to flourish as I found the joy of live painting at events. I was a very active person. Life was full of back packing, rock climbing, cycling, gardening, concerts, and my girlfriend was absolutely beautiful. But....I lost it all.
It started going downhill in the fall of 2008, as I was told that I didn't have a job any more, but I was living in a very expensive city. I found a job working as a delivery driver for Jensen's Smokehouse. The job was interesting for about a month until I slipped in the walk-in freezer, twice. My boss at times had me packing the boxes, working the register, and then started to reduce my hours. After slipping once again, I quit. I was very depressed. I found another job working for a building supplier, which involved me looking at blueprints all day and sending quotes out to contractors of new buildings. Well that only lasted for about 4 months before they said they needed to lay me off due to so many projects cancelling. I was lucky enough to start collecting unemployment payments. This was around June of 2009 and I was already starting to plot my escape from the drudgery of life. I started to sell everything, including my car, furniture, and gave my landlord my notice. I told her that I decided to ride my bicycle across the United States to find out who I was, and that life itself was a feeling like a lie. She was nice enough to allow me to store a small amount of things in her shed once I was ready to leave.
In the morning downpour, I hightailed it over to the bike shop only to find that it was closed, so I pedaled over to Penguin Coffee to get my morning Americano fix and wait for the bike shop to open. When it finally did, I spent close to three hours buying and installing all the rest of the gear that I needed. Most importantly, the rain booties for my bike shoes (it’s a thing), rearview mirror, and spare inner tube.
Finally, my gear was in order. They gave me instructions on how to get to the marina. I had to sneak through a cut open section of chain link fence to get to the gravelly beach to dip the rear wheel of my Kona Jake bicycle in the water. I stopped by the hardware store to grab a cheap adjustable wrench, and the guy who helped me find it asked me if I was the guy going to Boston. I said, “How the hell do you know that?” and he replied, “It's a small town”. I laughed hard.
It was about 2 pm when I left town, and I felt confident that my situation was improving. The rain had subsided quickly and the ride was incredibly scenic through farmland along the Padilla Bay. I passed over I-5 and through Sedro-Wooley, and began following the Skagit River up the valley on the S. Skagit Highway. I had completely depleted my two water bottles ten miles upstream and laid my bike down in the shoulder to go filter some fresh mountain water out of the river. When I climbed back up the embankment, a toothless older woman wearing a worn out plaid jacket and blue denim jeans had stopped her beat up old chevy pickup in the middle of the highway. I thought that she was going to pull a gun on me and steal my bike but she asked me if everything was alright. I said, “Yes, just getting some water from the river, thank you”. I had no kickstand on my bike to keep the weight down, so I had to prop it against a tree or lay it down on the ground when stopping.
I came across the tiny woodsy town simply named Concrete, and stopped at a gas station. When I walked into the store, it was obvious that hunters and campers stopped here all the time for last minute supplies: there was ammunition, random canned food items, camping towels, toilet paper, just about one of everything but no more. So I bought a black bandana with skulls printed all over it to keep the sweat out of my eyes. I also picked up a small bar of soap, a travel towel and some orange juice. The shop owner was a short Asian lady who didn't speak much English, but helped me find everything. She was a sweetheart. She told me to wait there, and ran outside. When she returned, she had a small yellow plastic wrapped microfiber towel and handed it to me, motheringly instructing me to use it to clean my pans, and telling me, “This will be very useful. One day you will thank me for this".
I went outside to pack up my bicycle and a group of motorcyclists had pulled up. They asked where I was going; I told them I was going to Boston. They couldn't believe it, but wished me luck. I decided to push on through to the small town of Rockport, where I found an amazing campsite at Steelhead Park.
The ride that day was about 65 miles through lush farmland and rolling hills along the meandering Lower Skagit River. I chose a hiker/biker site and met Bill and Linda, a Canadian couple in their late 50’s who had started bike touring about ten years ago and had travelled all over the world since then. Bill was a retired Canadian Mounted Police officer. I learned some important things from them about the bike touring lifestyle, like sending unnecessary items home. The next morning, I took their advice and went over to the Post Office in town and sent to my old landlord, who was storing my few things about 4 lbs. of clothes and other items that I didn’t need. Why did I need six pairs of socks and underwear? A dress shirt? Watercolor paints? I remembered that I this trip was about practicing being in the moment, as I had been actively practicing Zen Buddhist meditation which require one to be supremely aware of every moment.
I was on the road a little after 9:30 am and caught up to the early rising Canadians in the town of Newhalem, which was built to house the workers during the construction of Ross, Diablo, and Gorge Dams beginning from around 1921. Apparently, the last real store for about 70 miles was in this town, so I bought a $6 bottle of Chatteau Ste. Michelle Reisling and stuck it in my water bottle holder for later.
The ride out of Newhalem was an incredibly steep several miles of uphill from there, until I reached the apex and swooped down to the sleepy ghost town of Diablo, where I was supposed to stay with a friend of a friend. The town name was cryptic, and the houses all looked the same: identical post war era homes, aluminum windows and small fenced yards all in a line. It was like the Department of the Interior had selected a suburb of perfect homes straight from a Sears catalog, complete with grassy front lawns in the middle of a high mountain pass.
The unused tennis courts had grass and weeds growing through the asphalt, there were no children running in the streets, no plants in the yards. The scene was just plain creepy, like a Twin Peaks episode. I was expecting a top hat-wearing midget to peer around the corner of one of the structures. I wandered around town with no cell phone reception but finally found a pay phone to call the girl I was supposed to stay with. She couldn’t host me that night because she had to work, so I didn't waste any time. I thought that I would just push on ahead to Ross Dam, where my friend Ian was working and living.
This was a good idea in theory, but I made the mistake of not writing his emailed directions down before leaving Seattle. So, I just went by memory instead; the directions were something like, “Walk across Ross Dam, even though it looks illegal and then take a right until you get to building H.” It took me a long time to ride seven miles up a steep grade to the Ross Lake trailhead and the wind was blowing in my face.
The parking lot for Ross Lake Resort and Dam is high above the lake. In order to get down to the water level, one has to hike a relatively steep one mile trail until you reach a gravel road. The gravel road leads to the dam wall, and eventually to a small boat ramp. Hiking down is no problem if you don’t have a bike with over fifty pounds of gear on it! The other problem is that once you have successfully walked across the dam, there is another longer horse trail up the other side of the lake that traverses you over to Ross Lake Resort.
It took about half an hour of holding on to my brakes trying not to let the bike slip on the rocks, tree roots and dirt to get down the first trail. I needed a place to stay that night so I thought to myself, “There is no way that I can make it back up that trail, so Ian better be there.”
I walked the bicycle across the dam and started to push the bike up the narrow trail, watching every step so as to not fall over with the weight of the bike or slip off the edge. The trail kept on with a steady switch-back, up the hillside and my muscles were aching from the strain.
I had run out of water and my throat was dry. I was sweating profusely, and kept muttering to myself, “This has to be some kind of cruel test that the Universe planned for me.” I realized that if there was anything that built character, this would be it.
By the time I could see the floating resort down the hillside through the thick pine trees, my sore ankles and legs were all scratched up and bleeding from banging the bike or pushing through the brush. Nevertheless, I somehow made it to the resort with my wits still about me and explained why I was there to the front desk person. They sadly said, “Sorry can't help you, there is no Ian working with us, he must be working at the Environmental Learning Center down at Diablo Dam, but how in the world did you get here with that bike?”
(ironic view looking back at the hills I ascended and trails flanking the dam)
I was shocked and in disbelief. Three hours earlier I was at the town of Diablo, at the base of the Dam. I painfully told them how I got there, and they had never heard anything like it. I was upset and I asked them if I could set up my tent on the dock somewhere. In response, one of the staff exclaimed, “You can get a ride on the trash boat that is going down to Diablo right now! Go get your bike and bring it to the dock before they leave; I'll radio them and tell them to stop and come back to the resort!”
So I gathered my bike and brought it around the building. The boat driver pulled into the dock and helped me lift it in, then took me across the lake to the boat ramp and dock on the other side. The waiting truck at shore had a small single motor trash boat hooked up to it on a trailer already. The pickup truck driver told me that If I had gotten there literally two minutes later, I would have missed what they call the “maggot run.”
Because there are no services on a floating resort, they run all the trash out once a week, and only on Thursdays at four o'clock. I was lucky to be there at the right time. Mark, the hippy truck driver and his black lab lap dog, Lady (say that 5 times fast) drove me down to the bottom of Ross Dam in the old diesel pickup. We unloaded the boat into the crystal clear water and sped down the Eastern arm of Diablo Lake.
A euphoric feeling washed over my body as I sat cross legged on the front of the boat, slicing our path through the water. I gazed up at the towering cliffs as they rose on either side of the 50 yard wide gorge that we were moving through. I felt like I passed the test and this was my reward for not giving up, a free boat ride amidst some of the most majestic mountains and landscape that I have ever seen. We finally reached the other side of the lake and pulled the bike out of the mounds of black trash bags, placing it on the boat ramp.
I rode over to the ELC, as they call it, and as I was getting off the bike, I bumped into one of the workers, Sarah, just outside. I quickly told her my ordeal and asked her about Ian. She said, “Yes, there is an Ian that works here but he wouldn't be back for a couple of hours.” She said that if I wanted to stay and wait, dinner was being served in fifteen minutes. I just about cried with happiness from my recent turn of luck. I was beaming with accomplishment. For a donation to the ELC of $5, they let me eat with the staff, and I ate the best three plates of pesto and butter encrusted salmon, papaya dressing salad and warm apple pie that I have ever had.
Just by chance, it turned out to be that the chef, Betsy, was a roommate of Ian’s, and she offered me a ride over to the house. I locked the bike up at the ELC for the night, and we drove all the way back down the hill that I had struggled up earlier in the day. We drove back to Diablo, located at the base of Diablo Dam, where I had been many hours earlier that day. I recall passing by the one of those creepy houses that we then pulled up to.
When Ian finally got home, I pulled out the wine that had made an interesting journey around Ross and Diablo Lake and back. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of music drinking and I ate second dinner.
I had traveled over 100 miles in two days and the journey already proved to be a wild, crazy adventure. I my 28 years on this planet, I always maintained that everything will work out for me as it will, and it always turns out fine....
The following day, Ian and I went swimming and diving off rocks back up at Diablo Lake which had a light greenish-blue color. It reminded me of the color the sky turns just after sunset. The melting glaciers that feed Diablo Lake contain particles and minerals that are much finer than sand, and are suspended in the water during the late spring and early summer; they change the color of the water and reflect the brilliant suns' rays back with a brilliant shimmering display, they call it “glacial flour”. Later, we raided the leftover lasagna, beets, pancakes and pie at the Environmental Learning Center. We were relatively tired afterwards, so when we got back to his house, I tenderly napped in a tattered hammock suspended between two trees.
In the evening, we had an improv music session with Ian's roommate, Nick. We even wrote and recorded a song about the creepy little suburb. I enjoyed all of the people at house B-12; they had hearts of gold. The next morning I went on a tour of the Diablo Power Station with Ian and all the kids that he worked with. We jokingly said that my name was Wendy on the tour because one of the female ELC workers named Wendy couldn’t make it.
The beginning my trip was very hectic and nerve-wracking, yet extremely rewarding. It showed me that if I don't give up, I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. I tiny little smile crept up on my face that was letting me know that I was in store for some epic adventure! This was only mile 100 of nearly my 5000 mile trip.