Category Archives: city

city, history, roadtrip, travel, USA

Seattle

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For a city know for its rain & only having two seasons, winter & August, we were lucky to have an absolutely stunning day on Friday exploring what is a very nice city in the sun (but then most are). After much frustration with the metro’s awful website, Google Maps told me what I wanted to know simply & we headed downtown after a much needed sleep-in. First stop was the Underground Tour, which came highly recommended from Karin. The tour was insanely popular, but very well run, informative & most amusing. When Seattle was built originally it was in the intertidal zone & twice-daily flooding was a bit of a problem. Not to mention the smelly waste-disposal problem – sewage tended to come back in with the tide. Like all good American cities it seems, Seattle had a big fire in its history which went a good way to wiping out the whole city.

For the rebuilding phase the engineers wanted to take a long time to raise up the height of the city. However, the building owners didn’t wait so rebuilding started almost immediately. Eventually the City put huge retaining walls along the perimeter of 33 blocks worth of the city. These were then filled with whatever they could find & so the street was now up on the second story, while the sidewalk was still down on the first floor. Eventually a new sidewalk was built bridging the gap between the street & the building, leaving a underground network of tunnels where the old sidewalk used to be – this was what we toured through seeing all manner of relics. Well worth the time & money to get that interesting insight in to the city’s history.

The coil of the first electric elevator in Seattle & other paraphernalia.

The ferry to Bainbridge Island was a good way to get out on the harbour & enjoy the sun & good views of the city. So we spent a few hours riding out to the island, poking around & tripping back.

We strolled over to the famous Pike Place markets, saw people throwing fish around to order & wandered out. Valerie had decided some time ago that she wanted to buy me a Stetson in the States (I could hardly refuse such an offer) & as this was our last chance we eventually found the shop we were looking for. With me having no fashion sense, it was a long deliberation before I ended up with a grey fedora – which I hopefully will find occasion to wear a bit. That night we managed to tick off a very slight desire to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. It was crazy busy on a Friday night, but we had a nice meal & the cheesecake was very good & not too intense.

city, roadtrip, travel, USA

Portland

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We drove the extra fifty miles west to the outskirts of Portland last night as it was much more affordable to stay here than in Hood River. So with no riding planned today, we were free to explore the city a bit. Supposedley one of the greenest cities in the States with all its public transportation – we had to take the light rail in. It was pretty cheap (less than five dollars for an all-zone day pass), but gosh it seemed slow. Eventually we were deposited downtown & with good instructions from some loud-voiced (according to Valerie, at least) guy at the Visitor Center we set off walking to find the streetcar (trolley). With a brief stop at Powell’s (claiming to be the largest new & used bookstore in the world) second store, I then wandered in to the main store. This one takes up a whole block & four storeys – once I read that we had to runaway (“Runaway! Runaway!”) or else the whole day would have been wasted. It was a very pleasant walk around Nob Hill & all the nice old houses before we wandered up the hill to Washington Park. After a sobering time at the simple, poignant & effective Oregon Holocaust Memorial it was a short walk up to the International Rose Test Garden. Portland, as the Rose City, does have a mighty impressive lot of roses. Never have I seen a rose garden so large & so well visited – there were people everywhere. Another very nice place to sit down & eat our wraps for lunch.

A bit more wandering, riding the streetcars, checking out the riverside (they sure like bridges here – there were well too many crossing the river) & we ended up looking up at Portlandia. She’s the second biggest statue (of the kind) in the country.

She’s also up on the second or third floor, so bigger than she looks here.

We were exhausted from pounding all those pavements (‘sidewalks’ isn’t quite as alliterative) & the Max train was packed most of the way back out east. We had our usual dose of crazies on American public transport & a rather disturbing whitetrash domestic.

bikes, city, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Boise

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All yesterday’s activity induced a fantastic night’s sleep for me & it was late in the morning before we got downtown on another clear, sunny day. Set in a beautiful park, we were happy to spend a couple of hours at the Idaho State Museum to see if we couldn’t discover a bit more about this state that we hadn’t really intended to visit (I think we are both really glad that a ride, of all things – imagine that, induced us to duck east from the Pacific states). I won’t bore you with the history of a state that most of you won’t visit – but nonetheless I found it interesting. We got another good dose of Lewis & Clark history – which we got a lot of at the start of the trip.

After lunching in a nice big leafy park & wandering through a decent rose garden we headed to the historic area of downtown. We didn’t find many old buildings, but did manage to find the Basque Center. Apparently, Boise has the second largest Basque population in the States – after Bakersfield, CA, of all places. Eventually we made it to the Capitol building. Not overawing from the outside (I think the dome looks too skinny), the interior is fantastic.

It’s been recently restored & all the (Alaskan) marble inside it just great. Unlike other Capitols we’ve been in, the walls are remarkably free of portraits & other such things – this suited the place very well. Looking up, I really wanted to be going up the little spiral staircase to the top of the dome. But that wasn’t open to the public of course. With the best display about the state we’ve seen in a Capitol & not many people around, it was a great visit.

Always keen to get another ride in, there was only time & energy for a short one close to town. Miles had told me of one starting on the road to Bogus Basin (what a great name for a ski-area) just out of the suburbs. Corral Trail started with more climbing than I was expecting, but it was mostly doubletrack & not too bad. A local guy snuck up behind me, told me I was riding well & then proceeded to beat the pants off me the rest of the way up. But Bernie was great, he changed his ride to make sure I got the bonus mile on the end of Bob’s Trail that is not so easy to find. The first half or so of the downhill was on Corral & it was fast & flowy. There were plenty of little jumps – these irritated me for a while as they weren’t quite right for the speed I was going, I kept touching the front wheel down first (just). I finally figured out that loading up the front fork just on approach made life much better, I was pretty happy from then on.

Bob’s Trail started out much the same as it followed a gulch all the way down to suburbia. But one had to be careful around blind corners, as pesky rocks would suddenly jump out & plant themselves in the side of the trail. More technical, this trail was most enjoyable – even if I had to walk down a few metres (still have that fear of ending the riding component of this trip early doing something stupid). Skirting around between a golf course & some really nice houses we were all done an hour after I set off. What a great ride for only an hour’s worth of effort & so close to the city too (the trail map & markings were great – there looks like there’s quite a network of trails to be explored up there).

Driving back to the hotel through central Boise, I though I recognised a bike on top of a Cayenne at the lights. Sure enough, we’d caught up to Miles – strange parallels with our first random meeting in Fruita. We had a quick chat at the hotel before he headed to Oregon. Any energy I burnt on the ride was soon regained – we went to a nice Basque restaurant for dinner. How are they not all fat? I was more full from that meal than I have been for ages – & that’s considering all those large portions we’ve been served.

city, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

A Tale of Small “Cities”

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I woke too tired & sore to be bothered getting in a quick shuttle run up to Armstrong Connector, Sidewinder & Corral before leaving Tahoe.  Pleased to be leaving all the traffic behind, it did feel like I was leaving with unfinished business.  Maybe if I ever return the higher long trails will be clear to ride.  On the other hand, maybe it’ll be the middle of winter & I’ll be skiing.  Pipe-dreams.

We hit only the second state capital of the entire trip (the first being Helena, Montana, right at the start) in Carson City, Nevada.  We didn’t bother stopping on our way to the trio of old mining towns – Silver City, Gold Hill & Virginia City.  It’s always a little incredible how quickly dropping elevation changes you from the alpine of the Sierras to the Nevada desert landscape.  There wasn’t reason to stop in Silver City, but I did spy an old steam locomotive sitting on a siding near the top of Gold Hill.

As I was poking around looking at it (it was in pretty good condition) some guy appeared from I’m not sure where – probably checking I wasn’t trying to put it in my back pocket.  He was part of the historical society that has been restoring the loco & old freight depot adjacent to it.  He was only too happy to talk about the projects & the mining history & answer my questions – which was great.

Virginia City was only a mile up the road – Valerie came here on Saturday while I was playing in the snow & didn’t realize Gold Hill was so close.  The main street of Virginia City stretches & stretches and is most definitely the best preserved western-style street we’ve seen so far on our travels.  There were plenty of saloons, museums & of course, being Nevada, places to see your money disappear in to machines with flashing lights & irritating tunes.  The site of the Comstock Lode in the nineteenth century, this place was booming on the back of all the silver & gold being pulled out of the hills.  A couple of interesting snippets – the name Mark Twain was first used from here, as Samuel Clemens wrote for the local newspaper & George Hearst (of the Hearst Castle, which we visited almost two weeks ago, family) made one of his fortunes here.

We drove “all the way to Reno”, not much to see there – it’s like a little, tame version of Vegas in parts.   Rancho San Rafael on the northwest of town was a very pleasant spot for lunch; interestingly I could have kissed a Blarney stone.  Reminding me of “how would you like to play a central park in Newark?” (Flight of the Conchords, before you ask, Mum), for some reason there was a stone from Blarney Castle in the garden.  Continuing north we were soon going through the Californian border check as we then headed up & west into the Sierra Valley.  I was surprised that it was so wide & flat.  They obviously have plenty of water as the cropping & livestock herds gave evidence of.  Climbing out of the valley, as we pressed on east, was once again stunning, very beautiful forest as we reached Sierra City (another large village with “City” tacked on the end of its name).  Eventually we found a couple of beds at Kokanee Kabins.  Nestled in the woods, it’s great to have the birds chirping away over the steady stream of all that snowmelt running down the river.