Second day on the road (written in the early morning of the 28th), and the first that I’ve felt up to keeping a log, an inauspicious start. Yesterday we left Santa Cruz at 1pm, biked over the Santa Cruz mountains, and into San Jose, arriving at 6pm. The last 10 miles were in Los Gatos and San Jose, and were really flat. The first 30 miles took us up 3500 feet, and was pretty brutal, as it’s just continuous climbing to the summit. It is the largest single day climb on the entire tour.
At the moment we are in Seattle, enjoying the comforts of the alleyway beside the Amtrack station. Those of us with hammocks, including myself, are certainly having the best of it, but the tent crew is doing ok. Hopefully we won’t be routed from the station as we were from the Quest Field parking lot. Speaking of landmarks, from my perch on an overturned luggage cart I can also see Amazon’s headquarters, and the cranes at the docks. At the very least we’re getting the most ardurus parts of this trip done with at the beginning (or so we hope).
We will be catching the 7am train to Vancouver in the morning, and taking some number of ferrys. As with everything that has happened thus far on this trip I have very little idea of WTF is going on. I’d be more O.K. with this if it was apparent that someone else knew what was happening. Our MO thus far has been simply to grab our gear and tickets and go.
Which is perhaps why we are sleeping in an alley.
(Robert)
