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| Volcanoes of Washington Bike TourSeptember 10 - September 23, 2003 |
The first day of the Bicycle Adventures tours that we've taken follow a similar pattern: Pick up “guests,” drive to a remote park, ride out and back on a rural, low traffic road, gather for lunch, then ride to the first night's lodging. This is a break-in period for testing out the bikes to make sure everything is put together properly or that the rental bikes fit their new riders. Many people rent bikes to avoid the hassle of packing and shipping their own.
After our cab ride to the pick up spot, we moved to a sunny location in the parking lot to assemble the bikes again. After putting them together we took our gear to the motel entrance as the other riders gathered. Much to our surprise we saw Mike and Tim from the Icefields Rambler tour in July of 2000. If Mike and Tim were there, Ruth was sure to be somewhere nearby, and sure enough, she showed up not long afterwards. Syd from Everett and Leslie from Riverside, CA were also there. We picked up Debbie from Brooklyn, NY at the nearby airport. We met our guides Mark and Kate. As Mark explained, they have 12 years of experience at Bicycle Adventures between them; Mark has been with the company for 11 years.
It was about a two hour drive from Seattle to our starting point, the Salmon la Sac campground in the Wenatchee National Forest. Under the towering evergreens we set out for beautiful Cooper Lake. It was an easy uphill climb to the lake, although the last mile or so was rough and unpaved and barely rideable, even with our fat touring tires. A few of us decided to ride the final stretch, then returned for the long downhill back to the lunch spot.
Lunch of course was one of the reasons for choosing Bicycle Adventures. Some of the other tour companies provide some lunch snacks, but BA seems to do the best job providing nutritious lunch fare. Mark and Kate consistently fed us well for lunch, usually in the middle of nowhere.
On the way to our lodging for the night in Cle Elum we passed Roslyn, a tiny town that provided the set for the TV show Northern Exposure, another show that I've never seen. I tend to miss out on a lot of popular culture references in that I've rarely seen many of the popular TV shows in the past 20 or 30 years. It was a nice enough little town, with two equestrians riding down one of the main streets.
Cle Elum is a bit larger, but there's not much there. Thinking that the inn was just around the corner (which it was), we stopped at a local historical museum/art gallery for a quick look. The Iron Horse Inn is not far from the downtown area, but the sadistic route planners had us make a 10-mile loop after we passed within a few hundred feet of the place.
Kerie sensed we were going the long way around because she had seen a sign pointing to the inn, but I dutifully followed the cue sheet. One of the downfalls of Bicycle Adventures is that their maps are not very detailed or complete. In fact they are nearly useless. Since we mostly use cue sheets to navigate anyway it's usually not a problem. In this case it would have helped to check out the map ahead of time. The 10-mile loop was scenic, but it was late and we would be rushed getting our showers, unpacking and getting ready for dinner.
The main inn was formerly a boarding house for railroad crews who worked on the Milwaukee railroad. Three cabooses have been renovated and turned into rooms as well. 
Before dinner we gathered around for the orientation for the upcoming week and introductions. Mark had a good, rather large overview map that he used for describing the route. Another amenity of BA was the cooler full of beer and lots of before-dinner snacks.
With a group of only 10 people, dinner at Spacone's Italian Restaurant was not the usual 3-hour ordeal that can happen with larger groups. And the food was very good, linguine with portabello mushrooms chopped fine in a light cream sauce.
On Sunday I was up early and went out to sketch the nearby train station undergoing restoration. I was determined to find some time each day in between the many activities to do some drawing. After a good and filling breakfast at the Iron Horse, we headed out toward Yakima, our next overnight stop, 80-plus miles away.