John’s Ramblings

Day 2 – Skamokawa to Battle Ground – 79 miles
(or, I-5 sucks [you along])

Cool and solid overcast again on Monday. Soon after the start today we diverted through the White Tailed Deer Wildlife Refuge. This was a very pleasant and tranquil way to start your riding day, I must say. The road was pancake-flat, and the views of the river and wildlife (just birds, no deer) were quite nice.

After 5 miles of tranquility, we were back on Hwy. 4 rubbing shoulders with the automobile traffic. The traffic increased as the day went on, especially in and around the cities of Longview and Kelso.

At about mile 19, Russ and I left the RAW route for a little planned “bonus mileage”, to visit some of his departed friends and family at the Bunker Hill Cemetery (Russ grew up around these parts). Although we only added about 3 miles to the day, the operative word in our side-trip destination is “hill”. There were two approaches to the hill in question, “steep” and “un-ridable”. We chose “steep”. Russ got off his bike for a section of the hill, I stopped mid-hill long enough to take his picture (and to give my heart a chance to re-enter my chest cavity). The destination was a beautiful hilltop spot, with a vista of the Columbia River far below.

After our detour, we rejoined the route and headed into Longview, maybe 45 minutes later than we would have otherwise arrived. The long run into Longview has been repaved with real asphalt, making it quite pleasant riding despite the increasing traffic. Lunch was at a park in Kelso, a Caesar salad wrap as I recall that was long on wrapper, short on filling.

After lunch, we meandered south along old highway 99 through the town of Carrolls, and into Kalama. It was 4 miles after Kalama that we would have to ride a 5-mile stretch on Interstate 5. This was an interesting experience for me. What I expected was a lot of fast traffic passing me on the left as I rode on the shoulder. What I did not expect was being sucked along by the draft of the passing cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles. With very little effort, I was moving quite smartly at 25 miles per hour. Also unexpected was the sheer din of the traffic, which combined with my relative speed and the proximity of 70 mph vehicles made for sensory overload. While kind of fun (in a dangerous sort of way) and a bit of an adrenaline rush, 5 miles of this kind of riding was just enough of a taste, for this rider anyway. Exit 22 was a welcome sight, and everyone seemed to take a moment after the offramp to catch their breath and collect their thoughts.

The rest of the day was rather tranquil by comparison, although there was a fair amount of up-and-down to be done through the afternoon. As you can see here, the volunteers that marked the route took extra care to mark the turns and highlight hazards along the way. Their job was complicated by eco-friendly paint that faded to black in the week preceding the ride (they had marked the route the previous weekend). Consequently, they marked each day’s route a second time, on the day prior to that route being ridden. Truly above and beyond expectation, great thanks to those folks for a job well done…twice!

We pulled into our designated campground in Battle Ground mid-afternoon. We were camped on 3 baseball fields, Russ and I pitching our tents just outside the dugout on the first base line. The dugout made for a great bike parking area. We opted to skip “industrial fajitas” from the catering truck, and walked into town for a little italian food and cold beer instead.

Day 3

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