Author: neil

  • Astoria, OR

    Astoria, OR

    Weather along the Pacific Northwest coast is nearly rain-free for the entire month of August, and mostly clear through September. But October is the month where everything falls off the cliff, with rain being near constant by the end of the month. So we have a strong motivation to get south as quickly as we…

  • South Bend, WA to Astoria, OR

    South Bend, WA to Astoria, OR

    43 miles, a bunch of hills, and not a single bit of services between our endpoints. We knew that almost-desert Eastern Washington has super-empty wide-open spaces, but apparently southwestern Washington does too. That means the day was pretty uneventful until it got super-eventful. Heading out from our stealth lunch spot on someone’s for-sale land, I…

  • Satsop, WA to South Bend, WA

    Satsop, WA to South Bend, WA

    The morning continued on a totally empty country road, one that was unusually filled with a lot of “country”: those relatively rare areas in Washington where areas of trees are cleared around a river valley, opening it up to farming in a way that makes it feel more like the eastern half of the country.…

  • Belfair, WA to Satsop, WA

    Belfair, WA to Satsop, WA

    The continued requirement to compensate for our lack of preparation meant we stuck with the familiar, continuing our 2020 route along the Hood Canal, and even the gray skies mostly matched our memories. There would be only one “grocery store” along today’s route, but when we stopped at the Union City Market, it had more…

  • Redmond, WA to Belfair, WA

    Redmond, WA to Belfair, WA

    We’ve sure never started a bike tour like this before. But then, we’ve sure never done a bike tour like this before. This time, we have gone full-nomad, disposing of most of our possessions, putting the rest in storage, and strapping the remaining ~120 lbs. of them to our two bikes. With no deadlines, our…