Day 68 Sunnyside to Yakima

Day total 45
Trip total 3,526

Unreal how good it felt to be biking today after four days off, our longest break of the trip. It was a super short day (our shortest) into Yakima, where Nik knew some hop brokers who had supplied hops for a one time speciality beer at Harpoon. Yakima is region where most of the hops in the country are grown. We saw a lot of them along with apple and pear Orchard on our short jaunt down into the valley.

Fortunate that the day was short because we got 33% (4/12) of our flat tires just this morning,  two before we even left Carl's house in Sunnyside. Goat heads were the perpetual culprit.  If you have never seen a goat head (or puncturevine) it's okay, they are generally unassuming plants. If you have ever stepped on their seed pods (or driven over one, as they can puncture both car and bicycle tires) you'd recognize them pretty quickly.  The spiny seeds are perfectly designed to leave hard sharp half inch spikes always pointing upwards.  Even our "puncture resistant " tires (which are pretty poor at resisting punctures to begin with, granted) are almost useless against them.  We will see how well we deal with them tomorrow.

Photo Dump 12: Tetons Part Two

But there was more.

My attempt at artistic photos at Hidden Falls.

What we think was a mule deer, probably no more than 15 feet away. Just munching on some shrubbery like it ain't no thing.  (And ignoring the 10 or so tourists snapping photos.)

This is me working on my awkward tan lines.  The view is nice, no?  (The park is good looking, too.)

Oh yeah.  And then we got turned around by some bears.  What was going to be an 8 mile hike was diverted by a ranger, warning us about a sow and cub walking down the trail.  Which of course he said when the bears were barely 10 feet ABOVE US.  This is the best picture I got of them, since smart phones don't have a good zoom feature.  Just look at the two dark patches in the middle of the photo.  Eventually, another 2 mile hike, a ferry ride, hitching a ride with a group of Mormons, and then a 20 mile bike ride got us back to our camp, just before a massive thunderstorm.  (The same storm that started quite a few fires currently burning throughout the Northwest.)

You can see bits of the storm on the right side of this photo.

One last picture of Jackson Lake and the Tetons.  Next stop, YELLOWSTONE!

Photo Dump 11: Tetons Part One

Beer and Mountains.  Nice, no?

Although it has nothing to do with biking, this may be my favorite picture of the trip.

We are so adorable.

And so are Molly's tanlines.

Every once in a while, you have to pinch yourself.  The Tetons are just ridiculously grand.

A short little afternoon hike to get away from Colter Bay Village.  Which is completely full of people.  But if you even get a mile away along the lake, it gets empty pretty quick.

And pretty, pretty quick.

On this day, we woke up to sun, bike through rain, 

Saw some sights.

Hiked in brilliant sun.

And thought that this might be the coolest thing we saw...

Photo Dump 13: Yellowstone

Days 64-67 Sunnyside WA

We will be spending the next few days in Sunnyside resting (although oddly enough it is only my wrists that feel fatigued), hanging out with Carl and Katrina, and playing with our nieces. 

The original plan (as much as there was ever a plan beyond pedaling west) was for Sunnyside to be our final destination.  However, we are now biking addicts. Addicted to this whole bike touring thing and the free and exploratory life style that comes with it. If we had more time I would love nothing more but to continue pedaling down the Pacific Coast and into Mexico (and really why stop there?). But because time is a factor for us I will savor our final days of biking west when we leave Sunnyside and pedal up and over the Cascades into Seattle.

W