Mount Mazama, once over 12,000 feet in elevation, went through a half-million years of alternating eruptions and quietude. Between seven and eight thousand years ago, Mount Mazama erupted violently numerous times, covering eight states and three Canadian provinces with six inches of ash. These eruptions produced 150 times the ash as the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980. I was around for that one, just below the summit of Mount Hood, south of St. Helens, but I don’t seem to remember Mount Mazama’s last big blow.

For the past five thousand years, Mount Mazama has been resting, and quietly creating the deepest lake in America, Crater Lake. It is the seventh deepest lake in the world at 1943 feet, and is also one of the purest in the world. Here’s hoping it stays that way until the next eruption turns it all to steam.

When will that happen? Who knows. But, it will, and so will the other Cascade Range volcanoes, and the really big one, Yellowstone. Mount St. Helens was a wake-up. There are more to come. I just hope I’m around to see another one.

Crater Lake is well worth the detour, and the best way to see it is, of course, by bicycle. Just be reasonably fit, and have serious mountain gearing. The views are worth the effort.

We’ve called this often grueling trip from Chengdu, the Back Road to Shangri-la. A few days ago, we entered the high gate to the garden of Shangri-la. We topped out above 15,000 feet each day, and often stayed there for hours. We meandered the Tibetan Plateau, in company with yaks and Tibetans, surrounded by a landscape stippled with stupas, prayer flags, tiny wildflowers and singing mountain streams. Meadows of jade steepened up to fresh snow covered peaks, at least some days backed by a cobalt sky and cotton clouds.

At least one day was miserable with rain and we cut our day short, rain soaked and freezing, at an unheated roadhouse infested with Mahjongg playing and yelling, day off revelers. But those are not the things we will remember. We will remember the smiling Tibetan greetings of “tashi dele” from every roadside yak camp or a passing motorcycle, laden with bags of grain, and sometimes the whole family.

We will remember the hours long climb each day, each switchback revealing new wonders of high meadows and lines of blinding peaks. Then we begin the long descent through rock walled paddocks, friendly villages, and herds of yaks and deep gorges of evergreens, autumn coloring trees and roaring streams.

Do the people here live to very old ages? Are they always healthy and happy as the Shangri-la myth tells? No, they are mortals, increasingly invaded by the outside world, nudged into ways foreign to their culture and religion. But from the smiles on their faces as we pass, an exceedingly strange apparition from afar, the hearty waves and open-faced surprise, I know they are a happy people. We were told by one man that they don’t even think about the weather, no matter how bad, and it can be very bad! That tells me the Buddhist philosophy is real and alive in their lives. We’re not there yet, especially when it comes to weather!

So Shangri-la is in some measure real, at least here in the high meadows. There is much more to discover, much more to come.

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State is not as famous for sunset skies as some places, but when the sun has a little space between clouds to work with, spectacular results. Some of the best skies are late in the day in winter. It seems like winter is coming early this year (La Nina), and this evening sky gives strong hints of things to come.

Claire and I were honored to be able to fly on a vintage B 24 and B 17, with members of the Womens Air Service Pilots, WASPs, from Phoenix to Tucson. They were a delight to be around and it is a memory we will cherish. The story ran in the Desert Leaf, a Tucson monthly.

Today about 200 surviving WASPs were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal. About time! We hope all our friends were there.

The High Road to Shangri-la

We leave September 1 for Chengdu, Sichuan, China to begin a tandem bicycle tour of SW China and SE Asia. We begin in Chengdu, Sichuan, where the earthquakes killed thousands last year. We will visit some pandas and probably visit our first important Buddha statue before heading into high country where the Himalayas transition from the Tibetan plateau, giving birth to all the great rivers of SE Asia. After a long crossing into Yunnan, we will drop into the sub tropics of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and end probably in Bangkok, one of our favorite cities.

We are feverishly making preparations: Zippy, our 38,000 mile Cannondale mountain tandem. He’s our precocious teenager. Though still strong, he always requires a complete rebuild from the frame up, because the places he takes us are hundreds or thousands of miles from a modern bike shop. We like him to start out without the creaks and grinding noises he will acquire after rain and grit take their inevitable toll. Claire sewed patches on holes and weak spots of our 38,000 mile Cannondale panniers (no they are not sponsoring us). We are far to sentimental to buy a new bicycle or panniers; we’ve come a long way together. I’ve been gathering all the tools necessary to fix almost anything that might go wrong in a few thousand miles, though as I learned on our Silk Road Crossing, I can’t carry replacement parts for every eventuality.

Claire is working on her Chinese, and I will, as usual, smile and use various vigorous hand signals attempt communication. The airlines are making it more and more difficult to travel with bicycles, let alone a tandem, so after painstakingly rebuilding him, I have taken him apart, down to the smallest package possible, and it still exceeds the maximum size, but is underweight. We are hoping for compassion from the agents.

There will be more preparation pictures, and another message from Lucky the rescued Panda who is going back to China with us.

There will be many more posts along the way than there were for the Silk Road Crossing; we’re taking a netbook so you can travel with us. Be sure and bookmark this site and check it often. We appreciate your good wishes.

Lucky takes a think break on a mountain wildflower pillow

I had another of those funny think things. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.” I asked Claire what that word respect means. She took a long time with her thinks before she said something. “Respect means you think well of someone, and that you trust what they say is what they will do.”  That sounds good. I thinked there might be more.  She heard my think, “Respect takes a long time to happen, she said. ” My head hurt, but I wanted to hear more. “To respect yourself, means to be honest so you know you are a good person, or uh, panda.” I had a think that I want to be a good panda. “If you act right, so you can respect yourself, then other people, and pandas, will see that and respect you.”  That was a long think, and I’ll think on it more. I like this think.

I think these thinks are coming from someone else. I’m not that smart by myself. It’s probably not a panda. We just think about bamboo. I wonder if it is a China person? Does anybody know who thinked these thinks first?

My head fluff is acting up again. I’m doing more of the think thing. I kind of like this one, since I’ve been seeing really pretty country lately. But I know I didn’t think this by myself. Somebody really smart thought this first. Bob and Claire think I’m a smart panda, but I think I think these thinks are coming from another place. I wonder where?

Lucky's First Thoughts

I must have bumped my head pretty hard when ended up in the middle of the road, before Bob and Claire rescued me.  My head has been feeling funny, not hurting, just funny. Well, after that last fast bicycle ride, the words up above just popped into my fluff filled head.

I told Bob, and his face went white. He said it was scary that a stuffed panda was doing something he called, thinking.

After little bit, he said he had an idea what the words meant: That a person (or panda?) should really do stuff, rather than hear about it or see it. He said it is the reason they travel, and hike and bicycle, instead of watch other people do stuff on television. I think I remember such a thing called a television from my other life. The people were always sitting quietly in front of it They might have been doing this thinking thing, but I couldn’t tell.

I think I like moving better than sitting, but I like doing this new thing they call thinking too.

Does anyone know where my thought came from?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSXQJK57tus

Bob Says Writer's Block is Normal

Hi big people, and maybe some little ones. This is Lucky again. Did you see my first blog? Bob and Claire rescued me from the middle of a remote highway. I don’t remember how I got there. I hope my memory comes back. Bob took a fake picture of me in the road and was caught by the flashing lights guys. Claire laughed herself sick. I think Bob is good at making a fool of himself.

Bob and Claire told me my life with them would be adventurous. The next day they began to show me how to ride a bicycle. Something about China and bicycles seems to go get them all excited, and it looks like I might be a part of what they have planned.

I wish she'd look where she's going!

Riding in Bob's Olympic Peninsula Bicyclists Jersey

Yikes, Too Fast!

We went to a high place called Lizard Head. It was cold. It was even colder coming back down in Claire’s pocket. I’m not too sure about this bicycling stuff. I heard Claire say it would be a lot more of a high place in China and even colder.

Me at Lizard Pass

Brrrrrr

I think they want us to do a lot more of this high and cold places as practice for China. At least they promised some other fun stuff in between.

Last night it got so cold in the motorhome that the skylight was all frosty and it was cold inside. I wish they would invite me into their bed on cold nights. But there are already three other pandas there, and they have seniority. Maybe later.

Frosty Morning

When I landed on my head in the road I think it made me all funny. Now I think all the time. I didn’t used to think. And I listen to Bob and Claire and wonder how humans think, and what makes them do the things they do. I get hints that Bob and Claire might not be like lots of humans. Like the three pandas they talk to and sleep with, and all that hard breathing and sore muscles they get from those bicycles. They laugh a lot too, and they just snuggle closer when it gets cold. I think they have some stories to tell me. But for now I think we’re just supposed to have fun, and get ready for China.

Last night I heard them whispering about a China place. I thought they said, “Shangri-La.” But I can’t be sure. It might have been my imagination.