Bicycling Adventure

Erik and I have wanted to do some bike touring. We went on a one week long trip in Central Florida a number of years ago, but ending up fearing for our lives with the crazy Florida drivers. Now living in Washington State, we were excited to try it again. After some research, we found the Palouse to Cascade Trail. This trail is an off road “rail trail” that begins in Cedar Falls, WA east of Seattle and goes to the Idaho border. We started our trip in Cedar Falls, biked over the Cascades (more on this later), and ended in Ellensburg which is in the desert east of the Cascades. We spent a week on the trail.

The used Trek mountain bikes worked perfectly for this type of trip. They had no problem handling all the camping gear and food. Fortunately, this trail was on an old railroad bed, so there were no steep grades to climb.

The trail had designated primitive campsites along the way. We camped in some beautiful spots, including along the Yakima river.

While I have been touting that we biked over the Cascades, we actually biked through the Cascades. The trail has several tunnels including a 2 mile tunnel near Snoqualamie Pass. There were portions of this tunnel where you could not see either end and it was completely dark. Bike lights definitely came in handy!

The varying landscapes on this trip was quite drastic. The wooded mountain landscape in the Cascades versus the desert east of the Cascades.

We came across some super friendly and happy cows that greeted and mooed at us along the trail.

A quarter mile later, we found out why the cows were so happy. Party cows!

Karen was attacked by this vicious praying mantis that landed on her helmet and was saved by Erik who slayed the beast. Well, not really. The praying mantis was cool and was gently brushed aside. No harming of the praying mantis took place for this picture.