Monday 24^th May, Ramada Hotel SEATTLE

11.00

Well we made it. We got here about three o’clock yesterday afternoon after an unexpectedly difficult day. We had breakfast in Tweeds café (The Double R in Twin Peaks”) and left North Bend at 8.00. The first stretch on the motorway, which we thought would be a doddle, because it was all downhill, turned out to be pretty scary as it was very wet. Visibility was very poor and we were going downhill really fast, getting drenched by spray from passing lorries. Not nice. The book talks of leaving the motorway after 25 miles and "making your way to Seattle by side routes and bike paths" for the last 5 miles. Fair enough if it was 5 but you actually have to come off 20 miles from Seattle. It's a bit like dropping someone at Gatwick and saying find your own way to London. We ploughed through the suburbs as best we could, getting lost at one point which cost us about 10 miles.

At least there was a very good cycle path that covered the last ten miles and got you right into the downtown area. Seattle is very cyclist friendly and the streets are full of them. Seattle is also extremely hilly but who cares. I have no intention of cycling around town –although we do have to get our bikes to a bike shop this afternoon, to get them packaged up for the flight home.

So here I am! Free at last. 3203 miles cycled in exactly ten weeks. This has been an unforgettable experience but I am glad it is over. It’s a great feeling and only a week more before I am home which will be even better. It's so nice not having to check the Weather Channel in the morning and not having to worry about where you are going to get something to eat during the day.

We went down to the Waterfront area last night and had a few drinks in Lowell’s Bar to celebrate. Then a few more in the Pike Tavern. Then the Queen City Grill. Then the Palace Bar. Then it was time to get up.

A few thank-yous before I finish. Firstly to Mr. Bowden who has been such a stalwart companion on this trip . Chief mechanic (only mechanic) , navigator, planner, purser and general organiser, he has had to put up with the most disgraceful displays of petulance, foul language and generally gross behaviour and has done so with minimal fuss. The whole thing was his idea and I would never have done it if hadn’t been for him. For this I will never forgive him.

Secondly to all the people who helped us on the way. Generally we were overwhelmed by the kindness and friendliness of all the American people we came in to contact. In particular, thank you to Linda McClung, Tim Schweigert, Scott, Andy, Bill, Joanna, Charlie and Denis who really went out of their way to assist us and without whose help we would have lost several days. And thank you, whoever you are, to the lady who bought the bananas.

Finally to all the people. who sent messages of support via text e-mail and blog comments. They were all much appreciated. Special thanks to Marie , Julie, Maureen Gerry Brendan, Frank, Paul and Paul D. for all the football updates and gossip, and,above all, to Lesley whose wonderful daily e-mails did more than anything to keep me sane over the last ten weeks.

Thank you all and goodnight. xxx

Saturday 22^st May Sunset Motel, North Bend, Washington.

17.00

We ate in Mama Vallone’s Restaurant last night, a decent, if a little subdued, Italian restaurant across the road from our motel. Then I headed off to The Caboose which was a much jollier place. I’m finally getting into baseball and the Seattle Mariners were beating the San Diego Padres. (their first win in a long time). Diners, not apparently even watching the game, burst into cheers and rounds of applause for home runs. Good stuff.

Today was a real roller coaster of a day. I’m still not sure if we've been lucky or not. The day started cold and very windy and we had thirty-two miles uphhill, on a very noisy motorway, to get to a mountain pass. This was bad. Then n we discovered two separate sets of road works on the hard shoulder which meant that it was closed to cyclists for stretches of a few miles each. . This was very bad. . For the first closure they had installed a special phone for cyclists. You just called and the highway people came, picked you up in a truck and drove you 5 miles to beyond the roadworks. .This was good,. The very nice Texan girl who drove us, actually took us an extra few miles up the hill which was much appreciated in the cold windy rain. This was very good.

There was no phone at the second set of roadworks but they did provide maps showing a nearby lakeside trail which allowed you to rejoin the road 8 miles later. This was good. Unfortunately the map was very misleadng and we ended up travelling four miles uphill on a wretched pot-holed grave road before we realised we had made a mistake. This was very very bad. We stopped a car which contained a couple of old guys, Charlie and Denis, out fishing. They agreed that our interpretation of the map was right but they also agreed that we were lost and would have to go back down the pot-holed road.. This was rolling around on on the ground, weeping, bad . Charlie and Dennis were not locals but were working on the area. Charlie then offered to drive us to the summit, a distance of about seven miles and completely out of their way. Unbelievably generous and so good it is off the scale. They were really friendly and interesting people; explosives experts who were working on a project to move a large hill so that a road could be expanded.

So we got to Snoqualmie Summit at 1.00, Nerves pretty frazzled but it was downhill from there and the sun even came out. . We reached North Bend.at 3.00. Just outside town Mike noticed that my back wheel was buckled.. He spent the next mile or so telling me how buckled it was and how it was a miracle I could ride at all. This was bad. Fortunately there was a bike shop nearby and it turned out to be just a broken spoke. Ten minutes work to fix. This was very good..

So there we are. Or here we are. Never a dull moment and all in all it could have been a lot worse. Thirty miles from Seattle. 25 more on the motorway but it will be downhill. Desperately not trying to count chickens yet, but this time tomorrow it could just all be over.

North Bend is a pretty little town and it's where they filmed Twin Peaks so I'm hoping to get some cherry pie later.

Friday 21^st May Timber Lodge Inn, Cle Elum, Washington.

17.00

I think I owe a bit of an apology to Yakima. The outskirts are truly hideous but there is an old historic centre, around what was once the train depot, that is actually quite charming. We discovered this when we decided to go out after all last night. It seemed a bit daft to be surrounded by all these wineries and not to sample any of the products On Front Street, we found a very jolly little bar called Bob's Keg and Cork that produces its own beer and wine. Over a couple of hours, we sampled quite a lot of these, while continuing to tell each other how important it was not to get too drunk as we had a long day ahead of us. Both beer and wine were excellent and Bob’s is one of the nicest bars I’ve been in on this trip. It was probably a mistake to visit the hotel bar when we got back but I am definitely in demob mode now. It was pretty gloomy and I ended up watching CSI something or other, with a barman and a couple of very camp young men who were desperately trying to make their clerical jobs in TV production sound as important as possible. I told them I was in sewage processing and the conversation sort of died away.

Our hotel was hosting some sort of teachers conference. A herd of what my Principal calls "bag ladies" were milling around with badges saying "delegate" and "educator", at breakfast this morning. Clipboards everywhere. Nearly everyone seemed scheduled to be giving a talk to everyone else. One very bossy woman was frog-marching a number of hotel flunkies around demanding that seats be aligned, tables be moved, lecterns be put in place, “This was all arranged six months ago…. AND I SHALL NEED A MICROPHONE!”. This last was most definitely not the case.

We got to Cle Elum after a fairly easy 62 miles. (The name is from an Indian phrase that means “swift water”) Cool and sunny with no noticeable wind. Two canyons took up most of the day. The first, in Yakima, was very impressive, 30 miles long, very narrow with long winding hillside roads. The other, just outside Cle Elum, was just ten miles, much broader, greener and it reminded me a lot of Scotland. An enjoyable cycle and ,more importantly another day done. We saw Seattle on a road sign for the first time this afternoon which gave me quite a lift. 86 miles to go!. 56 of these are scheduled for tomorrow, on the Interstate 90. Our guide book says it’s the only way to get to North Bend and a check with Google Maps more or less confirms this. We thought that going on the interstate is illegal. We’ll find out tomorrow. Be sure to sign the “Free the Seattle two.” petition if necessary.

Cle Elum doesn’t look wildly exciting but there’s a place up the road called “The Caboose” which might be worth investigating

Thursday 20^th May, Red lion Hotel, Yakima, Washington.

15.00

Just after writing the previous entry, the rain returned and stayed for the rest of the day. The road on which we would have been travelling,e had we continued to Yakima, experienced tornado force winds and traffic on the Interstate had to stop. Another woman staying at the hotel said we would have been “blown to Seattle”. I think I might have taken the risk. .

It meant that we couldn’t get back into Prosser and ended up eating in a pizza bar/pub in the middle of a nearby cluster of places that only exist to serve the motel trade. It wasn’t too bad, although there was a mix up with my order and I got a small pizza rather than the medium .I had asked for. The waiter and chef both apologised profusely and told us to “ snack on the small one until the other one arrives”. Somehow I can’t see that happening in England. I couldn’t finish both pizzas, so they suggested that I took most of the large one away in a box. Mike scoffed at this. He also scoffed most of the pizza the next day, on the road to Yakima.

We finished eating at 8.30 and there was nothing else to do. There were no bars anywhere and it was too wet to go for a walk. So it was back to the room and to bed with Graham Greene.

Today was a bit tedious. Just windy enough to be annoying. Basically one long road, mercifully flat. We cycled through the Yakima valley, full of fruit farms (mainly cherries) and vineyards (sorry, wineries). Several fields had long poles waiting to have something grow up them. Mike thinks hops, which seems a reasonable guess.

It all looks fairly prosperous, which makes the ugliness of the outskirts of Yakima a real shock. Several miles of really ugly development. Cheap bars and fast food places, casinos tattoo parlours and tacky little shops. Then when you get to the centre of town, where Main Street should be, there’s a little overpass across a railway depot, surrounded by factories making breeze-blocks and concrete mouldings. As we climbed the overpass, a poor woman, drunk, mad or both was weaving her way through the heavy traffic, stopping every now and then to yell abuse the drivers. Cars and lorries were swerving dangerously to avoid her. It seemed to sum the whole place up. The places on the other sides of the tracks were a little better but we then discovered that all the motels were behind us and we had to retrace our steps back into Sin City.

We checked in to the Red Lion Hotel, which is comfortable and in a relatively calm part of town. It has its own restaurant and bar so I think it highly unlikely we will l be venturing out again today.

Although today was only 50 miles (and yesterday only 30) we have both said how tired we have felt. It’s probably psychological as we are getting near the end.. I fully expect to get a sudden resurgence of energy when we reach Seattle and I have finally hurled my bike into the Pacific.

.

Wednesday 19^th May, Best Western Hotel, Prosser, Washington.

15.00

Yesterday

I had somehow imagined that these last few days of the trip would be a gentle downhill amble, getting ever nearer to the warm Pacific coast. A few hours a day cycling then a relaxing afternoon in a pretty little town. Crowds would be gathered in the streets to throw bouquets and shout “Vive les deux Michels”. (My geography is weak and I've always had Quebec and Seattle mixed up – probably because they are both islands).

As it is the pain continues and will probably do so until the end. After being burnt and half- blinded on Monday, we spent Tuesday travelling through torrential rain and howling winds, for over seven hours to cover the seventy miles to Richland. Not much to look at, apart from potato fields, and lorries drenching you with spray every ten minutes. A really draining day. Crossing the Columbia River, near the end, Mike had to stop and cram a large cherry pie into his gob because he had come over all faint. This would have made an amusing photo if my camera hadn’t got waterlogged in the pocket of my super Gore-Tex waterproof jacket.

We got to the Red Lion Motel , recommended to us the owner of Woody’s bar in Dayton, only to find it was fully booked. The receptionist a supersize version of Christopher Biggins offered to ring around a few other places for us. This was very kind of him but gradually, our gratitude wore off. I mentioned the names of various places we had seen on the way, all reasonable looking and each time he would wrinkle his little button nose and say “Oh no,no,no, not there!”. Eventually his assistant, a very sensible girl, suggested the Day’s Inn three hundred yards away. We said we would try this and left, having clearly gone down several social classes in Mr. Biggins’ eyes.

The Days Inn was fine as was the Atomic Ale Microbrewery around the corner (Half-Life Hefeweizen ( wheat beer), Atomic Amber and Plutonium Porter). The Apollo Greek a few doors away was fun is there really something called Greek spaghetti?

Today

Maybe it will be alright after all. The sunshine returned this morning. We had a very enjoyable gentle thirty-two mile spin along Yakima Valley (famous for fruit and wine) into Prosser, getting here just in time for lunch. I even discovered that my camera had started working again.

Our original plan was to press on all the way to Yakima (another 50 miles) but after the last couple of days this did not seem such a good idea. It also means that our penultimate day, which involves a 50 mile scramble up the hard shoulder of an Interstate Highway, will be on a Saturday rather than on a Friday. (We are not even sure if we’re allowed on there yet.)

Prosser is small but lively tourist town mainly geared to the local wineries. We had lunch in the Keno café and lounge (Lounge means there’s a bar) a friendly little diner, and then headed out along Wine Country Road, turned right at Chardonnay , left at Merlot (I’m serious) and booked into the Best Western. In the motel by 14.00. Luxury.

Monday 17^th May, Weinhart Hotel, Dayton, Washington

19.00

It turns out I was talking rubbish yesterday. We were in Lewiston and not Clarkston. We had crossed Snake River to get into Lewiston but you needed to cross it again, around a sort of U-bend, to get into Clarkston, which we found this morning, after a mazy cycle through some back streets. Same difference. Both smell of cabbage and have few redeeming features.

Having read the guide book, I knew today was going to be quite a difficult day. 70 miles with a long, 12 mile uphill near the beginning and another 1500 foot climb near the end. Still nothing we hadn’t seen before. ( Hah!)

A nice flat start for about ten miles then the first climb. Gentle at first then a steep increase in gradient for the last five miles. It was just at this point that the suntan lotion I had lovingly applied in the morning started to drip down into my eyes and made seeing virtually impossible. There followed a period of stop-start walking and cycling while wiping my eyes with the back of my sweaty cycling gloves. The only consolation I had was listening to, if I may say so, some very creative obscenities echoing down the valley.

One day when I have retired from public life I am going to write a book about hills. It will study them from every conceivable angle. There will be charts covering hill height, cyclist height gradient, camber, wind velocity, cyclist velocity, cyclist precocity, cyclist weight, gear ratios, isometrics, biometrics, tide tables and currency fluctuation. Sheahan on Hills will make Duckworth Lewis look like the two times table. And you know what? It will be useless, completely useless. Because in the end it’s how you feel on the day and little things like the suntan lotion getting in our eyes. That’s why I hate hills.

Once at the top we pressed on. It was then that we found that we had a slight misunderstanding between crew and navigator regarding the day’s destination. Mike (quite reasonably) had thought it was Richland and penciling in some place well beyond Dayton as our refreshment /refueling stop. By the time we discovered the confusion we had done the first ball-breaking hill and were beyond the lovely sounding (and looking) Pomeroy with over 36 miles to go and me with hardly anything left to drink.. Nowhere else to stop, the temperature and humidity were rising rapidly, another big hill coming and the wind was getting up. Oh how I laughed!

We staggered along and got there in the end. Just before the last hill we came across another hazard. One that we are meeting more and more frequently as our journey nears its end. Other cyclists. These usually come in two forms. Solo cyclists and pairs. The solo cyclist are nearly always barking and each one seems to try and outdo the last one with their tale of derring-do. “This is my 85^th time across”; “I’m cycling around America with my eyes shut”; “I’m going west to east, having a leg amputated (not sure which yet!) and cycling straight back.” .

Couples are not quite as bad but they still need watching.; “He’s Frodo and I’m Sam” is not a good conversation opener in my book.

Today we met a couple of Costa Ricans. Really jolly people, very friendly and full of fun. Don’t get me wrong . I love Costa Rica. It is one of the most peaceful and politically stable of all South American countries. In fact I have the Costa Rican flag tattooed in a place where only my loved one can see it. But when you’re hungry, thirsty and tired, with sore eyes and one big hill to go, you (I mean I) really don’t want to be comparing the merits of different types of pannier bags or posing for snaps with anyone. I would love to meet fellow cyclists in the bar or hotel at the end of the day and chat about our experiences, but out there I just want it over. Mike is the opposite. He loves looking at the other people’s bikes, what gear they have and taking photos. He says the last thing he wants to do is meet them in the bar in the evening and I see his point. There you go.

We got to Dayton at three and it is a lovely little town. Very small but with a very attractive main street and a relaxed feel about the whole place.

We stopped at the Manila Bay Café on the way in. A really strange, but oddly wonderful , German/ SE Asian place run by a lugubrious but friendly German guy and a more lively Vietnamese. All I wanted really was beer, which they had an excellent stock of, but Mike had Bratwurst and Cheese soup so to enter into the fusion fun, I had some purple yam ice cream which was pretty good and turns your tongue an amazing colour.

We're now in the Weinhart hotel, a very nice antebellum sort of place and just what an intrepid extreme sportsman like myself deserves at the end of the day. One final little sting, though. I managed to burn my eye-lids today ( I had my Ray Charles's on but the sun ingeniously found a tiny little gap at the top.) Luckily Mike now travels with a bewildering array of unguents and I am literally aloe vera'ed up to the eyeballs Seems to work too.

Sunday 16^th May, Comfort Inn, Clarkston, Washington

22.00

We had a really pleasant time in Orofino yesterday. A hazy warm afternoon and the view along the fast moving river was wonderful. Last night we had probably our best meal so far - clam chowder, steak, potatoes and asparagus and a bottle of Greg Norman wine. (He should stick to the golf). Several more glasses of wine in the bar afterwards and we ended up helping the barmaid with her algebra homework (that is not a euphemism for anything). She is doing some sort of OU type course and her exam is next week. If successful she wants to open a toy museum ( so obviously algebra is essential). Not sure how much help we were but she seemed to find it very amusing. To bed at ten, a very late night for us, happily sozzled,

Another easy run today. 40 miles of very flat road, still alongside the Clearwater River. Lots of salmon fishermen about and I saw one of them land a big one. We had intended to stop at Lewiston but actually crossed into Clarkston, just across the river. They’re named after the explorers Lewis and Clark, part of whose epic journey we have been more or less following for the last couple of weeks. We didn't realise the two towns were so close and so by entering Clarkston, have entered Washington, our final state. Only 375 miles to go! Weather is now very humid and thundery. You get tired more easily but at least we are out of the winter gear (for now).

Clarkston is an ugly place with an odd cabbage-like odour. probably coming from a large industrial complex on the riverside. When we checked in to the motel, we asked for somewhere decent to eat. The manager told us about the Merryweather micro brewery just down the street. "Great food, great beer and with his voucher you get 20% off" . Off we happily skipped, only to find that it was closed on Sundays. We ended up in a local Chinese restaurant. The only non fast food place around, and not too bad at all. Clarkston doesn’t look up to much. Any place whose only real claim to fame is having the highest zip code in the USA is going to struggle to get tourists.

We spent the afternoon dozing and reading and then wandered down t o a hotel next to the closed microbrewery as we thought they might have a restaurant. It turned out that they owned the place next door and served the microbrewery beers. A pint of Rattlenake and a Stoutburger for me and a wheat beer and fish and chips for Mike. Neither brilliant but better than we had been expecting. One last pint for me in a really depressing bar opposite the motel. Two old boys hunched silently over their drinks. A drunk, who looked remarkably like Gordon Brown , singing along quietly to Janis Joplin on the juke box. And me drinking Fat tire, which seemed quite apt.