News From the West
Farm field - near Tekoa, WA
It was a long drive from my house to where we’d last cycled near Rosalia so as I drove, I decided to give Jacob a call and see how he was doing as I hadn’t spoken to him in the roughly 2 weeks since he’d left my house. He told me he’d made it to the Pacific and was on his way to Canada for his race. I asked him where he was and he told me that he would be to Rosalia in a few hours and continuing east which was exactly where Zilla and I were going to be starting our trip! I did the math in my head and quickly realized that we’d probably get to the trail about a half hour or so before Jacob would likely roll through and pass us. Since it seemed likely we’d be crossing paths, I decided to pick up a little treat for him to make his day a little brighter as I knew all too well how difficult it was to find food and water along the eastern half of the Palouse to Cascades Trail.
When Zilla and I got to the trail and began to ride, we had no way of knowing where Jacob was. He could have been ahead of us, in which case we’d be too slow with the trailer to catch him, or he might be behind us. Either way, we started on our journey and were quickly treated to a steep hill where a trestle no longer existed so I had to push.
(click photos to learn more)
Atop the small but steep hill, the trail predictably leveled out and seemed to be in fairly decent shape. I’d had to work that morning, so with the long drive included, it was already close to sunset when we started, but we’d only planned on knocking out about 4 miles before dark. About a mile into our ride, off in the distance I could see something we hadn’t seen in a couple hundred miles, a cyclist on the trail! Sure, we’d run into Peter Peter Pretzel Eater near Ewan, though that was on a road portion of the trail, but this was someone on the actual trail itself! I knew instantly that I’d calculated things properly and that it had to be Jacob! This was quickly confirmed as I saw his extremely tall (roughly 6ft 5in) frame riding towards me.
I’ve seen enough fantasy movies and movies about the Middle Ages to know that when a person rides up (typically on a horse) to you in the middle of nowhere, it’s customary to say, “Hello Traveller! What news do you bring from the West?” (subject to whichever direction they are traveling from), so I wasted no time with pleasantries but instead followed custom. Playing along, Jacob warned me of a large dip in the trail that he’d just passed. Satisfied that he’d in fact given me news from the west, I told him I brought him a treat and proceeded to hand him a bag of tacos from Taco John’s and a Gatorade. Based on the eager look on his face, I could tell he was hungry so I was glad to have been able to provide an unexpected snack for him.
We only chatted for a few minutes as it was getting late in the day and Jacob still had to find somewhere to sleep for the night and Zilla and I still had our miles to make so we parted ways. As we rode, I started to see some of the most incredible lighting yet that we’d seen on the Palouse. I realized then that were entering a cloud aided magic hour which was casting a heavenly light all around us. It was exactly that, magical! The rest of the ride was spectacular as the light cast upon us elevated things to a different level.
We then made our way to the Seabury Bridge which is a small but extremely picturesque bridge that is still intact and can be used by trail users. It seemed like the perfect place to end our day, but not before getting out my drone and seeing if I could capture the beauty of the moment. After a small snafu with crashing the drone into a tree and getting it stuck (thankfully low enough that I was able to retrieve it without too much hassle), I was able to record some of my favorite footage of all time which I ultimately turned into our Youtube channel intro.
Enjoy!
