Start: June 15, 1991 Houghton, Michigan
Finish: August 15, 1991, Seattle, Washington
3500 miles
This trip came about as I was leaving Boeing to return to school for an MBA degree in the summer of 1991. We ahd planned a family reunion in June but I didn’t need to start school until September. The logistics worked out perfectly. If I quit Boeing in June I could attend the reunion then ride back to Seattle. I figured this to be a two month trip, leaving plenty of time to check out cool stuff in the West. I don’t have too many shots of this trip because my camera acted up and I was taking slides anyway. I’ll need to convert the slides to JPEG images then I can add a few more.
This is an early shot, probably in the first week. Somewhere in Wisconsin.
This is probably the longest hill I have ever climbed up. It took a day and a half. Not terribly steep, just long and high. It’s called the Beartooth Pass and lies in the Absorka range of the Rocky mountains, near Yellowstone park and on the Montana/Wyoming border.
I was cruising along in Idaho when I came across some road construction. They were laying new asphalt but had not yet packed it down. I road warily and after a few yards I noticed bits of asphalt were sticking to my tires. Just as I realized I should probably stop and walk my bike on the shoulder, some asphalt got stuck in my rear derailleur and it snapped off in a loud, sickening CRACK. I was upset but not freaked out, because this had happened before, in Belize, so I knew what to do. I simply took a few links out of the chain and made it a one speed. I rode for a week like that until I fould a bike shop that had a replacement. Two other bicyclists came by and were aghast at my predicament. I had one of them snap this photo of me in the middle of my derailleur surgery.