Lewis Levin

We rode the one paved, often broken, curvaceous bike trail from downtown Miami 20 miles to Homestead. In Miami, the trail is under the elevated commuter rail. From Miami it winds through the suburbs, including Coral Gables, home of the University of Miami. Before we reached Coral Gables we stopped at the extraordinary Mack Cycle and Fitness. We come from Seattle where there are some nice bike shops. But, none carry the amount of physically present inventory, across the price spectrum, of Mack’s.

Another long overdue update on our trip. Finally, we are enjoying the sun-soaked rides we sought rather than the just soaked rides. We moved up our rest day from day 10 to day 9 in Palm Beach, which made it easy to attend a conference I had been invited to. This was a good day to dry out before the final leg south and west. Here is a summary update with links to the rest.

Today, we are riding from Hutchinson Island through Jupiter to Palm Beach. In Jupiter, we’d be meeting Emmy’s boarding school classmate from Westover School, Genie Jessup Murray. We thought we could ride out the storm. But, that was not to be. Just 4 miles in, we were thoroughly drenched with 39 miles to go. Wait! We have smartphones, the internet, credit cards—and we are in a place with lots of resources.

We are so not Navy Seals. We visited the National Navy UDT-Seal Museum. We learned that real Navy Seals are incredibly tough, well-trained, courageous, patriotic, and dedicated to each of their team members. They truly leave no one behind. The stories in the Presidential Medal of Honor commendations are harrowing for both those who survived and those who died. In addition to the history of the Seals’ predecessors, the Underwater Demolition Teams, and the Seals, there is a lot of cool stuff:

It always pays to eat local and eat the local catch. In Florida, the local catch includes grouper, wahoo, and shrimp. You can have them all fried, grilled, or blackened. You can have them presented in salads, sandwiches, tacos, and platters. Emmy’s favorite is blackened en taco. Lewis’ favorite is grilled sandwich or blackened platter. This fine establishment is on Butler Beach: This popular watering hole is The Inlet Grill right on Pierce Inlet:

Today, we rode to Indian Harbor Beach. What’s a little wind? …say, 18 mph. What’s a little rain? …say, an inch. Ya know wind at your back is not so bad even if it is pelting rain at our Goretex ensconsed upper bodies. Uh, then we crossed the intracoastal on the only up slopes in Florida and the wind and rain came from the side. Then, we turned south again—hey, no prob.

Another uneventful day on which we did not get drenched. Hutchinson Island is long and skinny and possibly not likely to be above sea level in 50 years. Actually, it still will be but storm surge won’t see much of a barrier. We stopped at an abortive effort to build a fishing pier: Lewis, like so many cyclists, is clearly a scofflaw or merely unable to read signs or both (well, neither…):

So much has happened. An update is way overdue. Now we are catching up with a barrage, yes—I say a veritable barrage of posts. See all the posts below for all of the updates. Uneventful day 4 with an entrancing photo. Uneventful day 5 with (in)action shots. Emmy re-unites with Genie (Eugenia) and serious dowsing. Having fun while drenched. We are (not) Navy Seals Cousins and serious dowsing. Quick, where is the Ark?

Day 4 as uneventful but long: 51.4 miles. We arrived in Titusville, whose primary claim to fame is the jumping off point for visitors to the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral. We didn’t schedule time to visit—this time. But, if Emmy doesn’t get over her pining for space men, there will be a next time. (I am very fortunate this fellow could not ever get out of his space suit.

Today, we sailed along A1A with the wind at our backs, often riding seemingly with no effort at all at 14 to 16 miles per hour. The path was nearly straight for forty-six miles. We started at a temperature of 42 in Florida. It never got above 55, but with the wind at our backs and bright sunshine we felt entire comfortable. Emmy and Lewis enjoy the view at Flagler Beach:

Here is the video of crossing the finish line: Finish Line video link On August 18 we rode into Great Cranberry Island after a short boat ride from Southwest Harbor, Maine. It was raining and a bit chilly wearing only the “maillot jaune” (and shoes and shorts!). Fabulous ride. Great support from Emmy, Ellie, Jay, Susie and the team of Andrew and Christopher. Great to have James Dailey, and Jeff and Tricia Raikes join the ride.

Our host, David, at the Williams Pond Lodge near Bucksport, Maine, sends us off with a stirring bagpipe rendition of Chariots of Fire, which David informed us, was really an old Scottish folk song (weren’t most great British things first Scottish?). Bagpipes Sendoff video link

Early on I passed up most bike shops. We had what we needed. Then, the quest for the perfect seat began; I needed more spare tubes and patch kits, and the great rim tape fiasco began and was resolved. Saw a lot of bike shops: White Fish, Montana Glacier Cyclery Great people. Bought electrolyte solution. Wanted more; couldn’t justify. Sportsman & Ski Haus Bought a Specialized e-bike for Emmy so she could join the ride and some tubes.

(See the other post about the two items that didn’t really work out.) Here are the items of equipment that really helped the ride be a success. Gears To get over the Rocky Mountains, the Green Mountains, and the White Mountains some low gears were necessary and helpful. The steepest grades I encountered were around 12%. The steepest sustained grades (> 4 miles of continuous climbing) were more in the 8-10% range.

Some people care a lot about equipment. I certainly like equipment. And I did ride a bike across America; but let’s not talk about that because a lot of road bikes and mountain bikes would work just as well. Let’s talk about things that worked and didn’t work to make the ride successful. First, what didn’t work: Saddles First, saddles and butt pain. I had no problems with seats for my training rides, which were mostly 30-40 miles with 3-4 50 mile rides in the final 2 weeks.

Just a quick update since last we spoke. Yes, we are more than 3/4’s done: 3165 miles from Seattle and only 797 miles to go. Kind of amazing. After the U.P.M, we rode down the Lake Huron shore of Michigan. Then we cut across southeastern Michigan to enter Canada in Sombra, Ontario. From there we rode along the Canadian shores of Lake Erie. At first, it was mostly a long straight road through farm fields.

Well, I know the buy local, eat local, be local movement is a big thing for various people. I’ve been a bit less rigorous about this–I’d like to have one of those mini-tangerine things and they don’t grow near me. Import one and I’ll have it. Now experience has now taught me that if I want something good, it pays to go to the place that is owned and run by someone in town rather than the nearest outlet of a national franchise (spoiler alert: possible exception below).

Everyone’s been on the ride–simply everyone. Jay, Ellie, and Susie have all joined, each for 3 different days of riding. What a delight. All 3 have done stints on our e-bike, declaring they wished they’d ridden the real bike. Actually, Jay was rather smitten with the e-bike… …truth be known.

We’ve completed 2446 miles out of a projected 3936 miles or 62% of the trip. I’ve laid out the bare facts. It’s time in the next posts for a lot more photos and for some impressions, happenings, and anecdotes. It’s hard to keep up with the blog. I’m up by 6:30 and usually riding by 7:30 AM. I’m on the road about 6 to 7 hours including lunch and stops for a typical day.

That’s Upper Peninsula of Michigan for people in the know. It’s the scimitar shaped sliver of Michigan attached to Wisconsin, which touches Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. We’ve been to Iron Mountain, Escanaba, and Manistique. Next we’ll go to Trout Lake and St. Ignace–jumping off point to Mackinac Island and “lower” Michigan.

Minnesota might be the only state that can attract cyclists for tourism with over 100 miles of paved cycling trails. We did 70 miles on parts of the Heartland Trail and the Paul Bunyan Trail. And there is coffee… Minnesota claims Paul Bunyan DayTownDistanceRiding TimeElevation GainAvg. Speed31Two Inlets, MN88.8 miles6:55 hours2,373 feet12.8 mph32Walker, MN42.2 miles3:22 hours:min1,021 feet12.5 mph33Rest Day————34Nisswa, MN52.1 miles4:13 hours1,288 feet12.3 mph35Little Falls, MN57.8 miles4:34 hours988 feet12.7 mph36Milaca, MN60.

North Dakota was a surprise to our geographic bubble: not flat; not dry; not treeless (as in, there are trees). Industrial scale agriculture. Nice, fine people. Badlands in ND near Theodore Roosevelt National Park DayTownDistanceRiding TimeElevation GainAvg. Speed26Medora, ND63.5 miles5:34 hours2,586 feet11.4 mph27Bismarck, ND68 miles6:29 hours:min2,067 feet10.5 mph28Napoleon, ND68.4 miles5:18 hours2,218 feet12.9 mph29Clausen Springs, ND94.2 miles7:16 hours2,247 feet13 mph30Fargo, ND82.7 miles6:31 hours1104 feet12.7 mphTime for more full disclosure. Medora to Bismarck is actually about 128 miles.

We have had a chance to see many major rivers and ride along most of them. Here are some mighty rivers in no particular order except my misty recollections: Skykomish, Wenatchee, Okanagan, Columbia, Kootenai, McDonald, Yellowstone, Mississippi, St. Croix. And the not so mighty: Milk, Rum. It is an impressive thing to see parts of these rivers in their free-running state. It is less stirring, but still something to contemplate, to see the the vast expanse of the reservoirs behind the dams of others of them.

We’ve entered Minnesota from North Dakota. North Dakota was fascinating–not flat, more trees than Montana, very serious industrial scale agriculture, and sincerely nice and polite people everywhere. One fellow cut me off by entering the right-hand lane–where I was–making a left turn. He stopped; backed up; and profusely apologized saying that he drove that route nearly every morning and never encountered a car, let alone a bicycle, on the turn. He didn’t have to come back and apologize; he did and he meant it.

Glendive is a fine town full of the nice people we found at every stop in Montana. We had the opportunity to explore diverse viewpoints, too. Here is the Glendive Dinosaur Museum, which is dedicated to employing the various local dinosaur fossil finds to support the alternative viewpoint of creation “science.” We saw a diorama of an Aztec emperor riding a triceratops and dinosaurs lining up to get on Noah’s ark with Noah either running out of room or dinosaurs “missing the boat” so to speak.

We’ve covered another large segment of large Montana–389 miles worth. With the prior week that means we’ve traveled 796 miles by bike through Montana. We’ve got about 49 miles to go to the North Dakota border so we’ll have done 845 miles to cross the whole state. Phew! (Full Disclosure: I did leave out 49 miles of the north-south path to get to Glendive, MT because we had a guest arriving and needed to fly out of Glendive to a wedding back east.

Emmy and Lewis dine at the Stockman Bar & Grill

If ever you are in Chester, Montana for any reason at all, you must stay at the The Westland Suite. This old bank building has been converted into a wonderfully comfortable b&b. We had a found a second home for Christopher to cook a great meal, to wash away the dust of the road, and catch up on laundry. They even provide a large jar of ear plugs so that you can sleep while 10 or more trains pass by in the night not more than 200 feet away.

On our way to Rexford Bench, MT we rode along Lake Koocanusa. We were wondering what the origins of this name were. Was it…. …..? The Flat Iron Indians have a word in their language to depict a crazy person who doesn’t understand the spiritual relationship between humankind and the natural world that sustains humankind. A person who is “koocan” is the sort of person who’d kill a buffalo and not collect the the meat and hide to provide for his group.

After a day in touristy SandPoint, ID–where we enjoyed amazing coffee (current record-holder for best morning coffee on the bike trek) and pastries at Pine Street Coffee–we continued into Montana where we will spend 15 days! So far, here’s where we’ve been: the charming Amber Bear Inn in Heron; then after a stop at Kootenai Falls we were on to Libby; then to Rexford Bench on the shores of the Reservoir called Lake Koocanusa; on to the resort town of Whitefish; two days in the gem of Glacier National Park; the plains began at Cut Bank; coasted on to Chester.

After wind in the face to Cut Bank, the wind changed nearly 180 degrees to come from the west. Rode the 67 miles to Chester with 15 to 25 mph winds at my back. Sometimes I could ride 14 mph on the flats without pedaling. I had a friend pushing my bike up hills (well, up grades as there was only one legitimate hill). US Highway 2 goes across northern Montana alongside the railroad.

After the most glorious weather ever for our two days in Glacier National Park our weather luck ran out. Bad weather happens. Riding to Cut Bank, MT we got 20mph winds in the face and pounding rain. It felt more like scuba diving than biking. Main Street in Browning, the seat of the Blackfeet Nation, was flooded to add to their other much more serious woes. After the support team showed up with a complete change of togs and my complete winter cycling outfit I was drier and warmer for the balance of the 76 mile ride.

Going to the Sun Road has to be the most beautiful bike ride I have ever experienced. Emmy road her electric bike with me, mercifully never gliding effortlessly past me (in turbo mode). We arrived at the perfect time: the road hadn’t been fully cleared yet. Cars were stopped just 5 miles past our stay at Lake McDonald Lodge. We went another 11 miles up with just bikes and hikers.

Kootenai Falls (James & Lewis): James capturing the majesty of it all: Despite fair warning, we did not see any bighorn sheep:

Four more towns have passed under our wheels: DayTownDistanceRiding TimeElevation Gain8Ione, WA56 miles5 hours3266 feet9Sandpoint, ID85 miles7:17 hours:min3154 feet10Heron(+), MT49.5 miles4:39 hours2007 feet11Libby, MT49.5 miles3:56 hours1795 feet

DayTownDistanceRiding TimeElevation Gain1Skykomish67 miles5 1/2 hours2910 feet2Leavenworth52 miles5 1/4 hours3632 feet3Chelan53 miles4 3/4 hours1952 feet

Day 1 was from Seattle to Skykomish with Kevin Fitzwilson and James Dailey: We rode out the Burke Gilman, onto Woodinville, Monroe, to stop for big amazing greasy spoon lunch and amazing baked goods at Sultan Bakery. We made it to Skykomish after Kevin rode more than twice as much in a single day as he’d ever done. He is showing no pain and he protected us from crazy drivers as “the big red stop sign.

Our stalwart team: Lewis: approaching 60 years old James Dailey: cyclist, enthusiast, instigator, dad, husband, friend => on the road from Seattle to Whitefish, MT Emmy: best wife, partner, and friend ever the “Scotsmen”—son Jay’s ATO fraternity brothers Andrew Peeples Christopher McDougal Drivers, dog-sitters, long-distance carryout sandwich shop operators, slack-liners, philosophers the dogs (quotation marks not required–they are actually dogs): Wally, a wired-hair dachshund of gravity and dignity, almost 10 years old Joni, cousin twice-removed of Wally, a rambunctious wired-hair dachshund puppy 7 months old

Three stalwart cyclists and the valiant support crew set off to Skykomish. From the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle we are heading to the Atlantic coast at Great Cranberry Island, Maine. All because in May of 2016 I thought I should ride across the US for my 60th birthday. I began researching and planning. Somehow, I convinced Emmy to go with me. We bought an RV to use as the support vehicle, mini-cabin, and–little did we know–cross-the-country food truck.

Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson was our favorite stop. Operated by Pima County, the fabulous setting is atop a hill overlooking saguaro in every direction. We are very glad Joni didn’t have a rattlesnake encounter. Here we are: Just a mile away is the extraordinary Sonora Desert Museum. This lovingly created mostly outdoor museum guides you along paths through desert flora and fauna condensed into a few acres. The museum advances a strongly ecological theme depicting riparian habitats, long gone, where lived river otters, beavers, herons, and fish.

We really enjoyed our all too brief stay in Las Cruces, NM. Good eats and awesome staff at Chilito’s: This is a gordita (actually 3) and they are goooood! ] Earlier, Lewis read to the puppy:

Kitty korner from our RV park in Dixie Inn, LA was this fabulous place: …that offered this fabulous menu: …that lead to considerable contentment: Lewis dined on blackened catfish topped with crawfish etouffe with a side of gumbo and pronounced it, “extraordinary!”

Wally’s cousin twice removed (?)…

We’ve named our RV “Silver Bullet” because it was ordered by someone who ended up not buying. They ordered it with custom paint: all silver with no running shoe swooshes. We like that; apparently, most RV buyers don’t. Our motto: We may not be going fast, but we are not standing still. #NotStandingStill

We’ve pulled off the interstate for lunch and backed into our first parking space. Note overhanging the long rear end and just missing the tree. Emmy is sore relieved. 

Wow. A lot of stuff. A battleship with wheels. We’re sailors and an RV makes a sailboat look like a bathtub toy.

We arrived in Nokomis, Florida to pick up our RV: a Leisure Travel Serenity. This is the start of a new, very American adventure. We will travel 3700 miles. Along the way, we will pick up a new wire-haired dachshund puppy in Pearl, Mississippi. He or she will accompany us the rest of the way to his or her new home in the Pacific Northwest. Will he or she lose his or her barking accent?

Emmy and Lewis wanted to experience living abroad on a somewhat extended basis. Amsterdam seemed the perfect place: it’s perfect for the bicycling obsessed, has a wonderful progressive culture, and we’ve been welcomed by just about the most friendly city people in the world. Most people speak English and a sincere “dank je vel” goes a long way, even if that is your only shred of Dutch.

Cities are laid out differently in the Netherlands than in the US. First, the Dutch have made a virtue of living with density. For them, it’s better. It’s gezellig (see other post). Most houses are small and share outer walls. In cities with canals, such as Amsterdam, Haarlem, and, well, most Dutch cities, canal houses are 3 or 4 stories high and only 6 meters wide. Think of “brownstones” in Brooklyn or “walk-ups” in Boston, but much more compact.

Conviviality engenders in one a pleasant feeling, a felicitous experience or a sense of coziness, friendliness, homeliness, or kindly familiarity. It’s a Dutch word and extensive idiomatic character trait and national cultural trait, so it’s hard to translate too precisely.

With all the stories of gentleman riding bikes in tweed jackets and ladies riding in skirts and spike heels and moms toting toddlers to daycare, you might think that bicycling in Amsterdam is a breeze, or a walk in the park, or something that seems very easy. Well, sorta… There are dedicated bike lines along most busy streets. There are separate traffic signals for people, bikes, and cars. There is a network of numbered bike routes throughout the entire country.

Emmy Emmy likes her “omafiets”. It’s by Gazelle, a large Dutch bike manufacturer. It’s called “Ambiance” and has 7 gears, so it is much more advanced than a classic omafiets, which is a black single speed coaster-brake bike. By the way, “omafiets” means grandma’s bike, which is not applicable to Emmy, as yet. Lewis Lewis brought his gear-head folding bike from Seattle. It’s a Bike Friday Tikit, the like of which has not been seen in Amsterdam.

We flew in directly from Seattle, departing mid-afternoon and arriving bright and early in the morning. The morning was that; we were not–having not achieved the necessary state of pre-departure exhaustion or inebriation that would induce sleep enroute. Taking the canal tour is a great orientation to Amsterdam and demands neither effort nor thought. We had been to Amsterdam last year and wanted to see something new. So, we went to the Nemo Science Museum along with hundreds of Dutch families and their happy, cute, very indulged children.

I am visiting Iceland and Scotland with my friend, Brad Marten. Actually, we’ve already been to the land of ice and fire. Now we are in Scotland, the land of clouds and rain. I will catch up and post highlights of our amazing trip to Iceland.

We arrived in Reykjavik at 6:30AM and resolved that we would stay awake all day to get synchronized with the day time cycle in our new time zone. So, we walked around Reykjavik like zombies. The otherwise extremely polite Icelanders wondered if all Americans were such idiots. It was so bad we slept through the Icelandic Sagas wax museum. But, we were so startled by the witch being burned at the stake we woke up.

Isafjordur (issa-fyor'-thur) is a remote city in the Western Fjords region of Iceland. We flew into the precarious airport that requires the pilot to execute a 180 degree turn with one wingtip within 100 yards of a steep mountainside. The pilot had practiced the maneuver prior to our arrival and we landed safely. ..don’t miss that turn.. …ah, safely arrived at last.. Within an hour of arriving in Isafjordur we went kayaking under the able guidance of Runnar (like Gunnar, but with an ‘r’) of Borea Expeditions.

After a hearty breakfast of cold salami and pancakes, we headed out of town in the mighty Grand Vitarra, fishtailing down the road toward Latrabjarg, the westernmost point in Iceland and all of Europe. We drove through an underground tunnel that must have been at least ten miles long, the Icelandic equivalent of the NORAD command under Cheyenne Mountain. It was the only tunnel either of us had ever seen with an intersection (no stoplight), but we managed to stay on the right path, finally emerging the other end and racing past a bicyclist who had probably been inside the tunnel since 1972.

A quick trip in the Grand Vitarra took us from Latrabjarg to the ferry terminal, where we boarded for our trip to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, the central of the three major peninsulas in western Iceland. Lewis was hungry enough to try the “Captain’s sandwich,” a mistake, but not as bad as the soupy potatoes of the night before. Having been on the move nearly non-stop, Lewis promptly fell asleep on his chin, as Brad enjoyed the view from the deck of the ferry.

After breakfast at the Framnes, we were off once again for the drive back to the international airport, where we would leave the next day for Scotland. We drove straight through, arriving in Reyjavik in a rainstorm. Parking, we headed out on a shopping trip, purchased some gifts and had a terrific lunch at Solon, where we found out that there really is good food in Iceland, if you are either lucky or know where to look.

With no time to waste, we awoke at 4:30 am and bade a fond adieu to Iceland, first stopping to exchange our krona for British pounds. Given the high prices we paid in Iceland, Lewis was determined to get our VAT refund, and took us on a tour of the Reykjavik airport, until we found the proper officials, who gladly refunded the onerous Icelandic tax and exchanged our currency, after taking a generous fee for the good people of Iceland.

Port Charlotte was a good place to catch up on sleep, which we did and, after breakfast, headed out in search of the perfect dram of whiskey. First stop was Bruichladdich (“Bruch-laddie”). Bruichladdie is an old distillery that was closed in the 1990s. It was purchased in 2001 and “reborn.” The story we were told is that a young British bicyclist stopped by the gate, peered inside and decided on the spot to buy the place.

Glen Coe is certainly the most beautiful river valley in the west highlands of Scotland or possibly all of Scotland. And it is where the most notorious massacre in all of Scottish history occurred. A less notorious massacre afflicted Lewis’ knee after Brad and he scaled and descended 1600 feet in the Glen Coe Pass on a ‘moderate’ ‘walk.’ Were we to say strenuous hike no quotation marks would be needed.

Realtor Lewis shows prospective buyer Brad some excellent investment opportunities: Cawdor Castle How about this one? (Inverlochy Castle) This one’s nice. (Cawdor Castle) This one has a lovely water feature. (Castle Stalker) This one’s a fixer-upper, but could be lovely. (Castle Urquhart)