If you were following my dispatches from U.S. Bicycle Route 10 in Washington and Idaho the last couple of weeks, you know I met some great people along the way. (Especially because I wrote all about them here.)

I thought some of you might like seeing photos of them, as well as links to their travel blogs, which make my heart hurt when I look at them. I wish I could've kept going!

First off, my young college friends who I met in Newhalem and rode the daunting Rainy and Washington passes with: Emma, Raisa, Sam and Kali.

Check out their blog here. (I pressed them to update it a bit more, but at least I got a mention!)

Next up are the five students I had summited Wauconda Pass with: Alex, Erin, David, Thomas and Carolyn. They all attend the University Connecticut School of Medicine, and they’re riding to raise money for leukemia research for Lea’s Foundation. 

Here's a photo of us at Wauconda Pass. (I'm the Waldo in back.)

Be sure to visit their blog, which they update very regularly with a ton of photos.

I also heard from a bunch of local cyclists along the way, including in Sedro-Wooley, Republic, Newport and Sandpoint. I had a great dinner at Tony's Italian Eatery in Colville with the local bike club ColVelo (such a clever name). It was a long, hard day of riding for me, but the company, local beer and fresh spaghetti lifted my spirits. Unfortunately, I didn't write down any names, so here are my nameless pals!

Finally, there were plenty of people I met along the way, some whose names I never acquired, others I never took photos of, et cetera. But, I do have two other travel blogs to share of people I shared the road with.

First is Vu and Josh, two guys from California who I first met going up the hot face toward Wauconda. The guys were beat after 15 miles of a headwind to Tonasket, and the first six steep, steep miles to the pass. I chatted with them again in Republic as we converged on Esther's.

Here's their blog, which they keep very up to date.

Also, there was a silent herd of teenagers racing across the country that I was lucky enough to ride with one day. It was on a particularly sketchy stretch of road where the shoulder is pretty much nonexistent and the truck traffic quite intimidating. It was just luck that I joined their pack up this 15-minute bit of road, but the dozen of us formed a peloton that no motorist would scrap with.

Here's their blog. 

Be sure to read this Sunday's paper, where I'll have one final article about my ride and the whole U.S. Bicycle Route system that's currently being built.