TandemHearts

In early June, Veronica heard about an organized bike ride called the Tour de Blast, that goes up the highway into the Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument. It sounded like it would have spectacular views and a lot of climbing – right up her alley. We decided we would take ten or twelve days, stopping on the way to Washington to ride in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, do the ride, then go back as far as Oregon to ride the North Umpqua Trail again and ride around Crater Lake.

So, we loaded 2 road bikes on the roof of the car and 2 mountain bikes into back of the car, along with all our camping gear and set off the Pacific Northwet. Whiskeytown NRA is one of the few parks in the National Park system that allows mountain bikes on trails. We picked up a trail book and headed for a ride that had a lot of climbing and good views. This would be a sort of shake down ride, since Veronica hadn’t done any mountain biking in several months. Thom had been making good use of his time off to ride local trails, so he and his bike were ready. A few miles into the ride, we missed a turn and had to head back down a steep, paved road to get the the trail head.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon (more…)