Day 5 Eureka, Montana, USA

"American greetings!"
-Maverick from Top Gun
Made the border today at around 12:45 and pushed into Eureka for a
refit before moving on to West of Whitefish Divide tomorrow.
Last couple days have been good, had beers last night at the Baynes
Lake, British ColOmbia RV park with a cool guy named Pierre.
All is well, I'm losing weight but feeling good...bike is good.
Canada was awesome, the people there were generous and not at all
standoffish. Great place!
Total miles to date: 264.66, some big days in there.
BTW, Joey... "I've always wanted to see Montana."- Sean Connery The
Hunt for Red October
Next contact 3-4 days out when I make Whitefish.

Day 4 Fernie, British Colombia

Greetings all from Fernie! Anyone with a subscription to a Skiing magazine should know about Fernie. Anyway, just arrived in town around noon. Been an interesting last couple of days.

Started off three days ago riding from Canmore into Banff and from there to a campsite near the Lower Kananaskis Lakes. 75 miles the first day was not the plan but it became the plan when I realized how remote of country I was in. Bears, cougars, and all kinds of other wilderness terrorists running around out there. Ran into three folks touring the same route bound for Whitefish, I camped with them the first night and they left out earlier in the morning than I did. Great folks, Americans from Fernie/Bend Oregon...I think they are on the trail about 6-8 hours ahead of me.

Camped the second night after crossing over the first Divide Crossing at Elk Pass, which became real remote real fast, so I pushed it till just outside Elkford, British Colombia. I camped along the Elk River after yapping with some local fisherman that evening. Woke up to bear tracks in the dirt around my tent and more on the road up the way. Nice.

Got some good breakfast grub and talked to some bikers up from Sparwood about bears and the local scene in Elkford that morning. Ran into two road bikers heading up to the coal mine outside of Elkford and talked to them for awhile. They invited me to stay at their place in Fernie yesterday evening but I unfortunately didn't have the gas to push the headwind all the way into Fernie last night so I stayed in Sparwood. It was here I met the Worlds Largest Truck. Pictures to follow...I am having issues trying to get Picasa to upload from this borrowed computer.

Plan to push on from here to Elko tonight and the border tomorrow evening, stopping in Eureka, MT to prep for the first big Montana section.

All else is well, bike is good, I am healthy and happy. My MP3 player quit two days ago, so I guess I'll have to deal with my mind until I can try to revive it in Whitefish.

Thanks Meg, Ali, Tex, Jairo, and others for the encouranging emails. I will reply soon when I get to an evening stopping point. Happy Birthday (yesterday) to Dallas Dewayne.

Off for some grub.

Canmore, AB, Canada

Greetings all, arrived by shuttle from Calgary Airport this afternoon.
No hassles in transport, the bike and gear made it okay. I need to
stop issuing myself a license to hunt paper tigers every time I decide
to step out of the mainstream.
Just took the bike out unloaded for a test spin and with some minor
tweaks it seems good to go.
The Canadian Rockies are very stunning and visually dramatic. Its
very green, lush and pleasant here. Was it worth it? Yep.
Been awhile since I've been in Canada, lots of "Royale with Cheese"
stuff going on around here.
Anyway, Canmore is nice and very beautiful, lots of folks looking
happy and heathy...walking and biking around everywhere. I found a
local bike shop just down the street and they seemed to have a good
handle on things.

Hsnging here till I can be sure the bike box ships okay, and then it's
southbound in the woodline.

Till next time.

Leavin On a Jet Plane! D-9 hrs

"Nobody is ever met at the airport when beginning a new adventure. It’s just not done."

-Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. A View of the Nile

Boulder Colorado, late, the night before.

Finally time to go! I am as ready as I will ever be.

Bike will fly with me and is packed in a hard shell bike box that I borrowed from a very generous friend of the trail and fellow FROG named Mark C. He had an accident mountain biking in Moab earlier this year and is unable to bike or travel this season. Please send the positive energy his way as he recovers!

Thanks Mark! You will see your bike box return soon via FedEx, nice, empty and hopefully intact.

I'm the bike in the box! Some assembly required.

We will see it on the other side of the border!

One logistical lesson learned. Make sure if you have a big piece of luggage (see above) that the transportation from the airport (in this case the Banff Airporter, excellent customer service so far) can drop you off at a location at least near your hotel. Luckily, in this case, my place is only a mere 500 meters (metric, "when in Rome..") away from the designated shuttle drop, but I'm it sure would have been fun to have been that guy that was lugging his gear five kilometers down the Trans Canada Highway!

Might want to check out these details before hand when booking your hotel online...the mapping technology is out there and easy to access. In this case, I should have known better and just got lucky.

Anyway, thanks to all for the support and encouragement during the preparation for this. I will be posting as much as possible.

Next post will be in Canada! Woo Hoo!

Care Package Info

I welcome care packages if anyone wants to send them!

My wish list:

• Energy bars, Cliff Bars, PowerBars, or the like. I like the chocolate ones but they melt in hot weather...if I need chocolate there is plenty to be had in the little towns. The healthier stuff is the harder thing to find. Keeping going between meals is key.
• Energy Gels, these are also hard to find but not impossible.
• NUUN tablets. These can be ordered from Amazon.com or from specialty running or cycling shops. They are excellent rehydration tablets.
  
• Prepackaged dehydrated fruit.
• I will post more data as I travel, since I don't know the craving scheme yet.
  

Homemade stuff is great but it could sit in a post office for up to 10 days and might go stale. I'd rather eat the homemade stuff at your home when I am telling you about the trip!

The best way to ship to a USPS location seems to be the flat rate regardless of weight boxes. They cost $8.95 to ship and post offices seem to like them.

Unfortunately, if you want to send a care package it will need to be coordinated with me as I could easily blow by a post office if I don't know the package is there. Ideally, the care packages need to be concurrent with bounce box drop locations...which I won't know until I see what my short term plans are. Post offices will hold the General Delivery Mail for only a 10 to 15 and sometimes up to 30 days.

To send a package, please get the PO location and ZipCode from me and address it as follows:

USPS General Delivery
ATTN: My Name
City, State, Zip Code

I will take all the support I can get, but emails are enough!