Shifting Gears

Season 4. Episode 3. What now? 7/22/24 continued.  Within 10 minutes of leaving the encounter with the fire fighter boss, I started replaying the exchange and conversation in my head. I thought of all the more appealing things I could have said to persuade him to let us through. I was beating myself up on “failing this negotiation”. I know you can’t negotiate with fire (even Moses lost his “negotiation” with the burning bush in Exodus), but I thought I could have achieved a different outcome with the fire boss.  Heather was kind to tell me there was no way he was allowing us to pass through, and I should stop dwelling on it. I still couldn’t help thinking I failed. But I decided then and there to let it go and move forward. Everything that happened now was our path forward and the adventure we were meant to have.  We settled into the AirBnB in Marblemount. We had lots of work to do. Heather tackled laundry - lucky us there was a washer and dryer. We have a 3 day supply of...

Season 4 Episode 2. Visits to the Principal’s Office as Useful Training –  7/22/24. As we went into our tiny, two-person tent last night, we thought about and discussed our predicament. As I last wrote, we had no idea how long State Road 20 would be shut down and we had 3 meals worth of food and it was 12 miles ride back to a general store. (And this store had very little. It was more like a 7-11, not a supermarket.) The park rangers John and Debbie had told us they assemble by the campground office around 9:30am and we could have an update then. Neither of us are the type who like to wait for things to happen and both like to tackle a problem proactively. We didn’t want to wait until 9:30am. We decided we’d head back 4 miles early morning to a spot where we were told there is WIFI and that would allow us to tell our kids what’s happening and that we are completely safe, but might be off the grid and off cells another day or two until we figure things out. And it would allow us to ...

Season 4 Episode 1 (7/19-7/21) Funny how luck works –  7/19/24. While thousands of flights globally were being cancelled, including the departure at the gate next to ours, we flew without a hitch from Newark airport to Seattle. We didn’t even know of the mass software glitch until my sister texted us shortly before boarding. Count ourselves lucky! On the plane, I watched the seat back screen and our flight path cross over our intended bike route: Lake Erie, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Fargo, Bismarck, Great Falls. I marveled how in 6 hours we could fly across what it would take us 10 weeks to cycle. I guess that I have flown hundreds of times, but never before thought of the progress we’ve made in travel time from the era of the covered wagon - until today. I also thought software glitches don’t stop analog bikes from riding. Day “zero” logistics ran smoothly according to plan: flight on time, transfer to rental car, drive to Bellingham bike shop, bikes reassembled. (Well the bike repa...

Welcome Back for Season 4! The Northern Tier. July 17, 2024 Welcome to new readers and welcome back to loyal readers of the Shifting Gears blog! On July 20th, Heather & I start cycling by ourselves from Bellingham, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, back home to Larchmont, New York. We will ride over 3,900 miles which is 900 more miles than our previous cross-country ride! This ride was originally conceived of as fly to Seattle and then ride home, with a tagline of from Puget Sound to Long Island Sound. However, the Seattle bike shops would not accommodate our need for a set appointment time to help in reassembly of our bikes so as bike-packers learn quickly, we improvised. We will land in Seattle, rent a car to drive to Bellingham, a lovely town on the water 90 miles north of Seattle but not actually on Puget Sound. We will start from a bike store that we visited last year. We look forward to finishing at Dog Beach in Larchmont, nearly 70 days later, in the last week of Septemb...