Making our way to Jasper

 With our bikes and gear already packed in boxes and loaded into the car, we started our summer bike adventure with a road trip from Tucson to Washington State, a bus to Vancouver, a flight to Edmonton, and a shuttle to Jasper. 

The first day we drove to Ramona, CA and camped at the lovely Dos Picos state park where we had spent a night in April during another bike packing adventure. We took a short hike and shooed the crows away from our food.

Our planned destination for night 2 was unsheltered in the wind and sun and heat, so we went on to Sacramento and got a hotel next to the confluence of the Sacramento River with the American River which had an adjacent multi use path thru parks, a nice change after being in the car. We had beer and burgers at the aptly named Burgers & Brew which seemed a popular place with a fun environment.

From there we drove to Sunny Valley Campground in Oregon for a night of glamping in a covered wagon. Everything about the property was charming & thoughtful, with the only downside being the noise from the nearby freeway.  

Next up was Olympic National Park along the Washington coast.  Much of this park is beautiful rain forest.  We drove through, explored with some short hikes and in the afternoon scored a campground near the shore.  We grabbed some food to cook and firewood to build a fire for the night.

At last we arrived in Bellingham, WA where we spent a few sunny days visiting with family — hiking, biking at Galbraith, viewing heron hatchlings in Fairhaven, attending to horses, playing cornhole, sharing meals and conversation. 

After an efficient bus ride and border crossing to Vancouver, we checked into the River Rock casino, convenient to the sky train to the airport in the morning. We went downtown to walk, had dinner on Granville island, took a couple of short ferry hops via the Aquabus with great views. 

In the morning we took the sky train to the airport for our flight to Edmonton. Our improvised wheels for the bike boxes mostly worked great. At times they rolled so well that the back end of the box threatened to pass the front, but the early hour meant it wasn’t crowded, so low risk of knocking into fellow passengers. In Edmonton, there were 3 other people with bike boxes headed to Jasper, and very little luggage space. People were patient during the extra hour of luggage packing, and we met the spandex amigos (insta handle) headed to Whitefish on the tour divide route.

Tomorrow the ride starts!  We’ll post some more details about our plan later.