Lake Sylvia State Park, near Montesano, Washington
Tonight I’m camping at Bruceport County Park, south of South Bend and north of Astoria, on Washington’s southwest coast. Each of the campgrounds in Washington has had a “primitive” section for those who arrive on foot or bicycle. The section tends to build an easy community among long-distance bike travelers. Tonight I share the camp area with a man who has been traveling by bike for 18 months with his cat in a trailer. Another man is running from Canada to Chile, averaging about 30 miles a day (that’s more then a marathon a day, dear reader), pushing his gear in a push-cart, much like a high-performance baby stroller. Over in another area is an older couple from Germany.
Shane Boshco has been living on his bike for 18 months with his cat as his travel companion. Both seem content, although the man was considerably friendlier than the cat.
I’m told that most of this rig is for his cat. Or maybe it’s that the bike and rider are there to serve the cat’s travel desires.
Jamie is another league… He’s running, 20-30 miles a day, pushing his gear along as he runs. He’s from England, is running from Vancouver BC to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He’s currently blogging his adventures at www.jamieisrunning.com.
Jamie Ramsay, www.jamieisrunning.com.
From his card: 18,000 km
600 days
428 marathons
14 countries
Johanna had encouraged me to experience local cuisine and delicacies when I told her about the fresh crab and oyster experiences. So today I stopped at a seafood store along highway 101. I asked the woman working there to suggest a local meal that I could make this evening, using a single-burner backpacking stove and small pot. She got me a pound of fresh clams from the back, said they were fresh off their boat this morning, and told me how to steam, prepare and eat them. So I made a sauce of butter, garlic, lemon juice and a bit of chopped onion, and had the freshest steamed clams with good bread and a distiller craft peach mead over ice. Probably the most exotic meal I have cooked on a bike trip.
Steamed clams in butter and garlic. No RV included.
Legal pot. What a subtle concept. Nothing’s changed, but it’s subtly different. It’s simply – legal. I passed through Grayland today, and learned that the name is appropriate – it’s usually foggy, misty, damp and gray. I then took a side trip of eight miles or so in order to fully experience Tokeland. Named after Chief Toke of what’s now the Shoalwater Indian Reservation, nevertheless I honored the name in kind. It’s legal, hmmm… It’s also occasionally sublime, when combined with a broad shoulder, smooth pavement, shore birds and deer, and a strong onshore tailwind. I rode an easy 50 miles today to this lovely, quiet little park on the bluffs over the ocean’s edge.
How did I get so lucky? Here I am, totally healthy at 63 and able to do this self-propelled travel. When I left I was developing a sore lower back; that has disappeared. My left thumb was feeling like beginning arthritis pain; that is simply gone. With the exception of the effects of my radiation, I’m as strong and healthy as ever in my youth. Indeed, I’m repeating the route and adventure I took forty years ago. I am simply filled with gratitude: for this amazing fleeting journey called life, for good health, for the opportunity to live thoroughly in the moment…
As an adolescent I had so little self confidence in my physical condition, my coordination, that I couldn’t see my own natural athletic abilities. They were always there, undeveloped. I credit Johanna for repeatedly calling me athletic until I have finally come to believe and accept it. I remember my father telling me, when I was maybe eleven years old, “Athletic ability doesn’t matter. What matters is how you develop your mind.” How wrong he was! I carried the adolescent social stigma of the physically uncoordinated through middle and high school, convinced I simply lacked ability. I need to state clearly to the world (or at least both of the readers of this blog… ;^) ): I. Am. An. Athlete. I am an athlete. There. Feels pretty good.
Until I turned about forty I could eat just about as much as I wanted of pretty much whatever I wanted and stay slender. With middle age came the need to pay attention as my weight began to creep up. I weighed about 175 when I got my cancer diagnosis; the radiation, and with it the inability to eat solid food, brought me back to around 150, and I have stabilized at around 160, which feels just right. I would never recommend my weight-loss method to anyone, thank you. But I would certainly recommend bicycle touring. One of the subtle joys of traveling by bicycle is that I can once again eat as I did a quarter century ago. I suspect that I’m consuming twice the daily calories as before cycle touring, and my weight is holding steady. The father in a touring family (dad, mom and their three-year-old) with whom I shared lunch today told me, as we were sharing our appreciation of gustatory plenty, “Someday I’d like to write a book called ‘The Two Thousand Mile Diet’, but it would be pretty short: go on a bicycle tour of at least 2,000 miles, and eat all you want. You’ll lose the weight.”