Day One.

Well folks, we’ve made it through our first day!!! It been a long day and I’m super tired, so I apologize in advance for all the typos and if things don’t exactly make sense. 

Saturday is kind of a blur. It felt like we spent the majority of the day eating since we were provided with three meals. In between meals we sat in the lounge car a bit, ate snacks (which we weren’t even hungry for, but we were bored), and read in our room. We also might have taken a nap after breakfast… Yea I think we did. Anyway, we met some more cool people at each meal. We met a lovely couple, Bob and Kris (not sure how to spell it), who are from Kenosha, Wisconsin. We chatted with them about the trip and traveling and ended up saying goodbye to them later that day when they got off the train in Glacier National Park. That’s pretty much all we did that day. Eat, talk to people and eat more. It was a good day and it went by pretty fast. 

We woke up Sunday morning way too early for my liking, but the good news was we had both had a fairly restful nights sleep on the train. I slept on the top bed again, but took a Dramamine before bed which helped with the motion sickness and made me sleepy. At breakfast we met an older couple who were taking the train to Seattle, then LA, then to the Grand Canyon, and then back home to Minnesota. We were in awe that they could spend that much time cooped up in a train. We had a good chat and after breakfast we headed back to chill for a bit before we had to start packing. 

We were super excited (obviously) to be getting off the train, but bot just because we were starting our trip. We were going to be seeing our friends, Colby and Dave, who we stayed with on our West Coast trip. They saw that we were starting in Everett and wanted to come see us off. They also offered to bring donuts, which we were not about to say no to. The train had been running about an hour late, but I guess somewhere along the way they were able to make up the time and told us we’d likely actually get in really close to the correct time. This was a vast improvement over the 6 hour arrival of our train to Seattle 3 years ago. I text Colby and told her we’d be there a bit before 9, but only moments later the conductor came over the PA to announce that we had to stop short of Everett for a freight train. Ugh! We were set back by almost an hour, but Colby and Dave didn’t get there until a few minutes after us anyway. 

Before we got off the train, we had packed all our stuff and checked and double checked the room to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. We anxiously paced around looking out the windows and tried to get a picture of Mt. Rainier, but it was too far away. We stared out at the mountains to the north, where we’d be biking, and thought about how beautiful, but difficult this was going to be.

It was a very stressful wait for that damn freight train and we were super relieved when we started moving again. We headed to the lower level of the train to wait by the door so we could get off quickly. We chatted nervously with our attendant and busted off the train as soon as he opened the door. FREEDOM! We took our bags inside and waited for the baggage lady to bring over our bike boxes. Ethan unloaded our bikes and then we brought the bags back out to the bikes so we could load them up. Just then Colby and Dave walked up with a big box of donuts! Hooray! 

We chatted with them while putting our bikes back together and putting our bags on them. As we were talking this random guy walks up to Colby and says “So you have donuts? Can I have one?” Colby said “uhhhh yea they’re donuts, but they are for our friends.” He was standing way too close for comfort and the whole thing was super weird. For a minute I thought he might be homeless, so I thought maybe I’d give him a granola bar. But then he came back with a bags of chips and I stopped worrying. After that awkward encounter we chatted and ate donuts and pretty much just stalled starting our trip. 

Finally, we knew we had to go. It’s not that we weren’t excited, we were just acutely aware of the enormous task ahead of us. We took a picture (with our super cool selfie stick that you want to hate, but secretly want really bad) with Colby and Dave and said our goodbyes. We had 48 miles of pavement to travel to our destination. 

The first 17 miles went by pretty fast and the first half we were in a pretty busy town. Once we headed out of town we expected the traffic to slow, but it didn’t. We were on a country type road and had been riding a while when we noticed two bikers on a side street. They gave us a funny look, but we just kept on going. Eventually we realized why they were looking at as weird. There was a bike path that had been following the road for a while and they were wondering why weren’t on it. We wondered why they didn’t tell us about it when we saw them, but whatever. We hopped on the path and that took us in to Arlington, where we stopped at Safeway for food. 

We got rice, a green pepper, salt n pepper and oatmeal. Just enough to get us through the next day or so. After our stop, it started to get really hot and we started to lose energy. The terrain was really nice and mostly flat, though there were a few hills that took me a while to get up. As we went further into the foothills of the Cascades, we knew were ginung altitude, but it was really gradual. We are eternally grateful for that! 

At one point, I needed a break and pulled over. Ethan kept going a little ways and then yelled for me to join him. He had pulled into a little farm stand that sold plants and fruits, appropriately named, Fruitful Farm. We got some strawberries and ate them in the parkinglot. They might have been the best strawberries I ever had or I was just really hungry. Probably a bit of both. After hat stop it continued to be really hot. We had to stop a couple more times, but eventually we made it to Darrington. 

Darrington is a wee little town, nestled in a valley with one towering peak above it. It. Is. Stunning. I can’t imagine living here and just having this snow capped mountain in my backyard all the time. It’s so beautiful I can’t stop looking at it. I’m looking at it right now. I can’t stop. Anyway, we knew that we had the option of continuing on to the next town today, but by the time we got here, I was dead. We filled up our water bottles and sat outside the grocery store for a while to see if I got a second wind. Instead, I got a splitting headache, and that sealed the deal. We were staying. We ventured through the sleepy little neighborhood to the campground, which is also sleepy and little. It’s got a bit of charm though with its big read barn with a giant cartoon fish on it. I think most of the people there actually live there, but hey! It’s a nice spot!

I hung out in the hammock trying to stop my head from exploding (which surely would have happened),  while Ethan set up the tent. Eventually, I got up and took a sink shower (not about to pay $2 for 6 mins of shower) and made dinner. Now we are sitting outside the the library, which has free public WiFi… Go figure! Tomorrow we have 53 miles and a some climbing to do, so we are headed to bed. 

Thanks for reading!! More pictures below!