Rising Up Through the Latitudes At Last
The Rise Up Ride 2022: Days 7-14
Rising Up Through the Latitudes At Last
Date: 5 May 2022
Start Location: Ceres, CA
End Location: Everett, WA
Distance/mode: 1384 km/mostly train and some cycling
Latitude: 47° 58′ N
Tom met Kelly while cycling the Great Parks North route the year before they both rode from Montana to Alaska, and two years before Tom led our group on the Southern Tier from San Diego to St. Augustine over 59 days. Kelly joined us on that trip in Austin, where we met, and we’ve all stayed in touch. They’re part of the woof and weave of a loosely knit family of long-distance cyclists connected through the Adventure Cycling Association and lots of shared journeys on two wheels over many years. They politely insisted that I should plan to bunk in at their home in Eugene while sojourning up the West Coast, enticing me with a “top-10” list of excellent cycling routes that is “at least a hundred rides long.” Tom produced the excellent “North Star Calling” video https://vimeo.com/300774455 that inspired me to plan my 2021 ride from Minnesota to Alaska. The circle of friends and interests draws more tightly.
We rode bikes, watched the Eugene Marathon in Steve Prefontaine’s town, cooked elk chili, and swapped tales for five days that just flew past. Tom, whose skills include video production, has a home editing studio and used very little arm-twisting to get me to step in front of the camera to talk about cycling equipment. We scripted, rehearsed, and shot a series of gear video segments that will be the first content on my new YouTube channel.
My Amtrak travels from New York to Chicago, through Martinez to Modesto, and up the center of California and Oregon ended yesterday in Everett, Washington. From here my journey north (now at 47° N, 10° higher than last week) will continue by bicycle up the Centennial Trail to the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Northwest campus outside of Mt. Vernon. After the ten-day Wilderness First Responder training, I’ll leave to scout out a better route from there up along the coast to Bellingham, where my ferry departs on 18 May for Alaska.
