2013 TransCanada Part 1 - Home Sweet Home

Monday - July 29 - The train takes us miles while we sleep....sort of sleep anyway. The train was 2 hours late leaving Whitefish last night which meant we left at 11 p.m. We slept as best we could in the reclining seats. The train split in Spokane at 4 a.m. with the other half going to Seattle. Donna wandered down to the restroom just in time to see that our bike boxes were being loaded in the luggage space on our car. That was good news since we are riding the bikes home from the train station!

Sunrise found us in the Palouse of southeast Washington.

Crossing the Columbia River at Pasco while eating breakfast.

The Amtrak route travels along the Washington side of the Columbia so we are looking towards Oregon, not the view we usually see on our way to and from Kalispell by car.

Mt. Hood

Hood River, Oregon

Back in a place with trees.

There is a big bend in the river which makes it looks like we are crossing it but we aren't. We are looking at part of the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area.

In Portland, we switched to an Amtrak bus for the ride down the Willamette Valley to Albany.

One more leg of the journey to go.

The biking part from Albany Amtrak station to our home.

Putting the bikes back together one more time. We got into the station at 2 without having had a real lunch yet. The bodies are still in touring/FEED ME mode so we got this done in record time. Fish and chips at one of our favorite spots, The Depot, which is a couple blocks away, got us refueled.

What was so lush and green when we left has been harvested in our absence.

This time Doug saw the fork. Donna still can't believe he missed it when we passed it a month ago.

People have been busy while we were gone. A choir of angels has been added to the whimsical yard art on Denny School Road (see first blog post for this trip for more).

Grass seed for the world's lawns is moving out. In case you didn't know it, Linn County bills itself as the Grass Seed Capitol of the World.

Almost there.....1,178 miles horizontal and 40,730 feet vertical and many wonderful memories later. Thank you for letting us share our journey with you!

Headed Home - To Whitefish to Catch the Train

Sunday - July 27 - The Empire Builder doesn't come until this evening so we had plenty of time to go to breakfast at The Base Camp Cafe in Columbia Falls. The waffles were so huge that Doug had to finish parts of both mine and Lori's. We got a some more pictures uploaded to draft blog posts but still are way behind.

"Now really Toad, don't you think Cody will notice that his bike repair rack is missing? And just how do you plan to ride with it anyway?"

It is just "See you later". We will be seeing Lori again in 2 weeks when our daughters join us for a week on bikes checking out the San Juan Islands and Victoria.

The Flathead River looks like a pleasant place to spend this warm afternoon. Fortunately, there wasn't much wind at all today so we made really good time to Columbia Falls. Didn't take many pictures since it was the same route we took from Columbia Falls on Friday.

Just east of Whitefish we stopped at this place for some huckleberry pie. However, they only sold whole pies so we had to settle for some fresh Flathead cherries which are yummy too.

We enjoyed the carvings too. This one is just a little too big to fit it our panniers.

Whitefish on the horizon. We had dinner before going to the train station. That worked out just fine as the train was 2 hours behind schedule and we were 1/2 hour ahead of schedule.

The Whitefish Amtrak Station.

We had plenty of time to get the bikes in their boxes.

We also had plenty of time to wander around the station. These guys were in a pond in the park across the street.

We sorted pictures but didn't make much other progress on the blog since there wasn't any Wifi in the station. We finally boarded the train at 11 p.m.

Sprague Creek Campground to Lori's House and THEN......a Rest Day

Friday - July 26 - Boy are we glad we are going out of the park instead of into it!

Sunrise on Lake MacDonald

We first met Justin and Abby a couple of nights ago at the restaurant in St. Mary. They have followed the Northern Tier route from their home in Connecticut and plan to end at a friend's house in Seattle. He is originally from Allen Park, right next door to Doug's home town in Michigan. They stopped here last night because they were having trouble with their rear wheel. He kept their speed below 8mph all the way down from the pass. We told them about the Glacier Cyclery in Whitefish, gave them our phone number in case they needed assistance later and wished them well. They were really happy to be in the mountains after 2 weeks coming across the plains.

NO problem.....it is only 8 a.m.

Just click on the picture and it will get bigger and easier to read this eloquent passage.

Breakfast #2 in West Glacier. We are really glad that we are not going to be on the road in the park today as the traffic headed east was already pretty heavy.

That is 5 girls. Wait until they are all teenagers! Those parents certainly have some really interesting times ahead of them.

So far so good for Justin and Abby. They also stopped for breakfast #2 in West Glacier.

The Flathead River.

It says, "YOUR CAR IS YOUR CAGE". Guess we won't go in since our "cage" is really minimal.

At Columbia Falls we stopped for a milkshake. Just as we were leaving, Justin and Abby came by. They had another flat tire but since they were only about 10 miles from Whitefish they were feeling a lot more optimistic about making it there with the funky wheel.

We left Highway 2 and took the Columbia Falls Stage Road south, a route we had scouted in June when we were here for granddaughter Abby's eighth grade graduation ceremony.

It looks flat but it really isn't. Our legs were still tired from the last 2 days, the afternoon was hot and we had a headwind.

We knew we were ready for a rest day when we took 2 shade breaks in the last mile to daughter Lori's house, which just happens to really be uphill. We arrived just before 3. The shower and the hugs were awesome.

How many hands does it take to put a chain back together? In this case it took at least 5.

Saturday - July 27 - REST DAY - We even slept really late for us....8:00. We had a VERY leisurely breakfast with scrumptious biscuits fixed by Lori.

Grandkids Abby and Cody joined us for an afternoon of casual shopping. We did go into Whitefish for lunch and to Glacier Cyclery. There we found out that Justin and Abby were in earlier today. Their back wheel had a split rim! Sandpoint was the closest place with a replacement so they had rented a car to get there. After 2 weeks of sameness coming across the plains, it is sad that they had to drive instead of bike this very scenic section of their tour. BUT, we are also really glad they made it down Going To The Sun road safely under those circumstances.

An evening BBQ at Chad's house, Lori's friend, completed our day of relaxation. We were celebrating Chad's recent birthday with friends and family.

At the end of the evening Mya gave the younger girl the bike since she had outgrown it.

Cody and Yance working up to going off the newly built ramp for the first time.

The fire felt good in the cooling evening air and it brought out the storyteller in Chad, who entertained us with stories from his younger days being a hunting guide.

In fact we talked until midnight. Of course it didn't get dark until 10:30!