all that love all those mistakes/what else can a poor boy make

in the ranger station at the top of lolo pass, they give out free hot chocolate. we hung out there for a while, enjoying the latest in a string of “highest point for the rest of the trip” moments and ogling the 3-D relief map of the area. the descent from lolo pass brought us to the river corridor that would take us all the way to the pacific. in theory, one could build a road that was downhill all the way to the ocean; adam wanted to test this theory by pouring hot chocolate onto the relief map but decided against it in deference to the families of mudslide victims. on our way down, we passed a family on a triple bike pulling a trailer. at a rate of around thirty miles per day, it’s going to take them around four months to get to wherever they’re going. they financed the trip by selling their house and cars–sort of a financial cleansing, in an effort to turn back the clock fifteen years to when they first rode their bikes cross country sans fils. will i have a wife and kid and midlife crisis in fifteen years? hopefully i’ll have the sense not to try to climb up lolo pass on a triple. good lord.

idaho was a lot like kentucky in several ways. for starters, it suffered from position–being one state away from the finish (at least, according to the plan) made us want to get through it all the quicker. also, the population was described as mostly mormon fundamentalists and anarchist white supremacists. lastly, they were suffering from a heat wave, with temps hovering around 105° for most of the time we were there. although we encountered neither packs of polygamist offspring nor gun-toting maniacs, we did see more confederate flags and homemade camo paint jobs than we had since back when radio stations started with Ws. idaho itself was beautiful–crystal rivers winding down through sheer gorges for the vast majority of the state.

washington was hilly. and windy and smelly. we weren’t even supposed to be there. but when given the choice between continuing on to the dalles in your wagon and rafting down the columbia river, what did you do? you rafted down the damn river. this was a mistake, because the columbia river is the biggest windsurfing spot in the world, and if you stopped pedalling (wagonning?) you went backwards. and lost 343 pounds of food, and your oxen all died. of dysentery. also, if you’re like us, you got 18 flats in three hours, shredded a tire, ran out of patches, ate nothing but pop-tarts and tuna for a day, and your ass looks like van gough’s starry starry night if he had only used red paint.

oh hey, look! a waterfall! and, now we’re in portland.