Colorado and Washington trip

Because the Covid situation was so shit in Canada and because my friends gratiously let me stay with them, I decided to spend some time in Colorado and then Washington this summer. I stayed much longer than I anticipated for various reasons but I did get to meet and visit many people and overall it was an enjoyable time albeit far too long.

I enjoyed a nice week long solo road trip in Washington state that made me really narrow down what kind of vehicle I want to be driving around.

Here’s a picture of a ton of food items I baked / cooked while I was in Colorado. This is one of the more enjoyable parts of traveling for me because I love cooking/baking but not really for myself.

Almond cake

Steamed Buns

Sad Pumpkin Pancakes

Shepherd Pie ( Quebec style)

Shepherd Pie ( Quebec style) inside

More Buns with Various Sweet Fillings

Fried Cauliflower

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Banana Strawberry Pie

Strawberry Banana Pie

Biscuits

Biscuits inside

Strawberry Shortcake. Love this now

It's Basically Biscuits with cream

I need to make more right now

Cream Cheese Cookies

Cinnabon Cookies

Nutella Cookies

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Levain Style Chocolate Cookies

Here’s some various random pictures of my time in Colorado. I guess I don’t take a lot of pictures when my friends are also taking them…

A Halloween Theme Miniputt

It had animatronics. That's nerd tard for "robots".

This is called the Manitou Staircase

It's 2x the Empire State Building

Some Bighorn Sheep. They Love People.

Guanella Pass in the fall

Top of Boreas Pass. I think.

That Whole Pass was basically a mountain bike trail.

Some mountain

Dunes national park

Sliding on Dunes

This is what that looks like

Top of Mount Shavano

After spending over 3 months in Colorado, I left for Washington state where I planned a solo road trip. I got screwed with the Covid testing BS and was stuck there 2 more weeks than planned during the rainy garbage season. Most of these pictures are from my solo trip.

A map of the rides I had planned. Washington Pass is the road that goes through the mountains between Okanogan and the coast. If you ever get the chance, do that drive. You lazy bums.

Day1: Halfway up Lion Rock

The top is just a desolate wasteland though.

Nice view but temperature was almost at freezing and it was just 5pm.

Day 2: Badger Rock + Mission Ridge. Two solid climbs. This is the top of Mission Ridge, not much to see there.

Sometimes the top of just a ski resort. This is called "getting scammed".

Top of Badger Rock. Very peculiar geography of round hills with hay being harvested on top of them.

Town of Wenatchee. Beautiful but prone to bouts of Hobo-ism.

Ate in Leavenworth that night, which is a small Bavarian style town, aka a tourist trap.

Day 3: Tour of Okanogan. Starting point.

The inland climate is much more of a desert than the costal rainforests and huge mountains..

Town of Chelan, where they store all the apples. It smells like rotting apples for miles.

Ending in some Rain with a view of Washington Pass in the distance. I think.

Oct 1: Mount Baker. 1300m of climbing over 50km.

The last part before the final switchbacks to the parking. One of the most amazing views in North America.

The road doesn't actually go to mount Baker. This is as far as you get.

You can see this mountain from Vancouver Island on a clear day, which is 200 miles away.

Oct 3: San Juan Island. There are a few of these larger islands east of Seattle.

Approaching the island via ferry.

When the weather is nice you get these gorgeous views from almost anywhere in the Pacific North West.

Just biked around the whole thing.

Rewarded myself with this pineapple warm cake.

Oct 5: Hurricane Ridge. This is the hardest climb in Washington state.

It goes up 1600m over 30km. Got snowed on a bit.

Bad view from the top. Very strong winds were moving a storm in, I didn't wait long.

View from Port Angeles, right at the base of Hurricane Ridge.

Oct 7: Decided to bike a bit around Seattle while getting my Covid Test.

The furter away you are from the center, the better.

Ugh. Maybe instead empty your blocked urinals?

Next day I tried to do Washington Pass. 2000+of climbing over 60+km.

It is the most stunning area I visited during my WA trip.

The bottom 30% of the pass has all the most amazing views.

Even has cool tunnels.

Sadly it had started to get quite cold.

I didn't get to the top because there's a little dip before the "real" last bit of climb...

I went back 2 days later for another attempt but snow and cold made that impossible.

At this point I had received a “positive” covid test result. I had ( and never had ) zero symptons, I’m double vaccinated and didn’t hang out anywhere for months. This was clearly complete bullshit. Two days later I got a negative test and the 1-2 people in contact with me also tested negative.

Nevertheless Canadian law states that I have to stay outside the country for 14 days as a result. At this point the fun was over and I mainly sad on my ass for 2 weeks. It rained almost every day. I had never planned to stay in the USA anywhere near that long.

A creek in the woods on a short hike.

A short hike part of the way up Mount Ellinor. Good view of very ominous snowy crags.

I’ll take more pictures next time I go anywhere. Maybe even of myself. All things considered it was really too long of a vacation away from my actual life. All I did was exercise and at the level I’m at ( semi-garbage ) it basically seems to make almost no difference given how I’m training. In other words I didn’t improve at biking and I doubt I gained much muscle mass.

I did find new songs to listen to and did a bit of painting but as far as moving my goals forward, this was really not the best thing.

It was also very expensive! However as said I did learn that I enjoy solo road trips and likely would enjoy the ability to decide on a whim to drive off for a 2 week trip.

So that informs my potential next moves. Thanks for reading this, me.