Daver

On my last day before getting to the west coast I met Daver. I woke up to a layer of ice covering my sleeping bag and all of my stuff. I hadn’t bothered to set up my tent cause I was tired. I packed my stuff quickly and jumped on the road in-order to warm up. My hands and feet were frozen until I climbed to where the sun hit the hillside. I stopped and warmed myself there. I started riding again and maybe 200 yd later I was so hot I had to stop and start removing layers. Just then a rider passed me. We exchanged pleasantries and he continued. I started riding again and then he stopped to remove his excess clothing. I caught up to him at this point and asked if he didn’t mind riding together for a while. He had come from Chicago and was riding the same route to the ocean. I had 140 miles to get to the ocean that day and having someone to get you motivated was very nice. We got along very well and I definitely enjoyed riding with someone. We stopped to get some food, and I overheard a man in an RV explaining that the problem with North Cascades National Park is that it didn’t have enough roads and that some parts of the park were only accessible by trail. I feel that the problem with the park is it allows people like this guy. We continued on for about 80 miles before Daver’s knee began hurting him. It turned out he had hurt it several days earlier and it was bad enough that he thought he might have to quit. At that point we said goodbye and with only 60 miles left I couldn’t just stop and not make the coast so I pushed on.