Thursday, June 2, 2022: WtW Day 2
The best aspect of our campground was the clubhouse. In there was a TV, which we didn’t watch, some chairs, tables, a couch, and a full kitchen along with washers and dryers. We cooked and ate dinner there and this morning I even made a pot of coffee!
I had to backtrack 1.5 miles at the start this morning, but it was worth it, as it got me on the Olympic Discovery Trail (ODT), which I rode the day before. This trail is absolutely awesome. It goes from nearly Port Townsend to Forks, with some road sections. I highly recommend it.
I road across a cool double-decker bridge with the lower deck only for bikes. Then through some lush forests, but soon I was entering Port Angles and riding along the coast. I passed by a port with a bunch of logs. I assume that was the probable destination for the trucks passing me the day before. There were lots of fishing boats. Well, what do I know? Maybe they were crabbing boats as the Dungeness River empties into the Pacific here and this must be where Dungeness crabs come from.
It was really foggy and very hard to see any distance out into the ocean. I had hoped to spy some orcas, but no luck. Sheri sent me a text telling me that she was just behind me. She was using “Find My Friends” to locate me. I took a pee break and waited just a moment and there she was, running along the path.
Back into the woods I went and came across a deer. Deers are funny. When I first came upon this deer it trotted away from me down the path. Of course, I was going in that direction and gaining on the deer, which switched its gait to hopping. What other large, four-legged animal (counting kangaroos as two-legged) hops? It seems inefficient and also slow. Mountain lions should easily be able to catch them.
I rode past tons of small farms, one after another. It felt very rural.
At one point I closed on a couple of riders just getting back on their bikes: Steve and Bruce. Steve was in the midst of biking across Washington via the same route as I plan to follow. He’s heading up Snoqualmie Pass on Saturday, just like me and hopefully, I’ll see him. Bruce was just joining Steve for half a day and was soon turning back. Bruce has biked across America via the northern, central, and southern routes — three times! They were super nice guys and I rode with them until running into Sheri for lunch.
I had Steve and Bruce pull over and say hi to Sheri. Bruce and Steve had both climbed Rainier 16 times with only one failed ascent. Steve had even climbed Liberty Ridge (after his one failed ascent, just like I did). I’m 2 for 4 on Rainier and Sheri is zero for one. We bid them goodbye and I sat down to eat lunch.
Just as I was finishing my lunch, Jim and James came by! I flagged them down and Sheri fed them cookies. We chatted for a while and since I was ready to go, I rolled out with them and rode with them for an hour or so. They split off to Port Townsend, where they had started and left their car. They did a 4-day trip, out-and-back to Forks, staying in hotels or B&B’s.
Once I left them I was feeling good and really put some effort. I crested a couple of hills and then road across the Hood Canal floating bridge. Just as I went by the crossing guards in the center of the bridge, they lit up and came down, blocking traffic. This bridge is very cool. Even though it is floating, it can let boats pass by raising up the middle and sliding a span underneath the raised part.
Sheri had already found us a campsite, but I was in time to help her set up camp. Once up, we took a walk down to the “beach”. The beach consisted of barnacle-encrusted rocks and a lot of shells.
Friday, June 3, 2022: WtW Day 3
The theme for today was rain. Or rather drizzle. That’s what it does up here. Seattle gets 37 inches of rain a year, more than double that of Boulder, Colorado (14-18 inches). That doesn’t sound like that much rain, but it drops so slowly here that it rains most days. Supposedly Seattle has 152 sunny days each year (Boulder has 245), but today might classify as a sunny day for them. In Colorado, in general, our rain comes hard. fast, and short. In Seattle, it comes soft, slow, and long. If a drizzle stops you from getting out, then you won’t get out much here.
My ride started with no rain and I didn’t really ride through anything more than a heavy mist. I loved it. Such a cool vibe. It wasn’t cold, at least I wasn’t cold, but I was heavily dressed. Because I’m a wimp in the cold. I did take things conservative on the descents and especially the curves because I really didn’t want to go down.
I’ve been using Strava to pick out my route each day (thanks to Danny Gilbert for this suggestion) and it has been working great! The route today was stellar. Almost no traffic until I got on the highway to the ferry, just the last four miles on Bainbridge Island. I rode on backroads and up small, punchy climbs — my favorites.
I made good time and arrived for the 9:30 ferry. Sheri was already in line and we both got on the same ferry. Getting on with me was another biker, Matt, and he showed me the ropes. Bikers can take the ferry for $1, but cars cost $20. Matt commutes from Bainbridge Island to the Space Needle (he is an attorney at the Hoover Center…or something like that) at least three days a week. It’s 40 minutes of cycling and 35 minutes of ferry riding each way. Cyclists get to board and disembark first. After parking our bikes, Matt and I sat together and Sheri soon joined us.
Matt has lived out here, on Bainbridge Island, for 25 years, but he came from Boulder, where he was in law school. And he did his undergraduate studies at Stanford. He’s a Mormon, too. He has lots in common with me and with my buddy Mark. Plus, he and his wife rode cross country after college on a tandem! They rode 80-100 miles a day, always taking Sunday off. I’ve heard tandem bikes referred to as “divorce machines.” Matt said they did go through one rough patch and even stayed in different hostels in New Orleans, but they are still together and have five children. We exchanged contact information.
As the boat neared the Seattle port, a Coast Guard boat pulled up alongside us. A guy was in the bow, dressed in an open-water survival suit and manning a mounted machine gun. Apparently, since 9-11 and now due to a raft of shootings, the ferry always gets an escort into the dock. Matt said that the water here is so cold that you’d only survive 10 minutes if you went overboard (hey, what about that iceman that swims in the arctic? Maybe he’d last an hour, but the rest of us would be dead). Meaning, that if a crazy gunman was onboard picking people off, it would be hard to escape. The Coast Guard drills for that and is adept at coming aboard.
Once off the ferry, Matt guided me a bit on my way, going the opposite direction of his commute. What a nice guy. I bid him farewell and rode east through the streets of Seattle towards the I-90 bike path. At first, I detected the aromatic emanations of bakeries and it stimulated my hunger, despite being only 10 a.m. Next, I thought I was riding through a ramen kitchen. It smelled so good. Finally, I detected some pizza. What an unexpected smell for a major city. It sure beat exhaust fumes.
The I-90 bike path was really nice and got me across two bridges — onto and off Mercer Island. There was a confusing detour on Mercer Island and I flailed around before locating it again. Once back on the mainland, I rode on a smooth road with a bike lane.
I was headed to my sister Brook’s house in Issaquah, which looks to be a really cute town. Unfortunately, Brook had a previously planned trip to Denver and left just 90 minutes before we arrived. His husband Kraig, who works on satellites for Amazon, was at work but left us a key. Greeting us at the door were their dogs, Lola and Bonnie. Bonnier is so cute and so happy and so tiny — about the size of a guinea pig. Lola is small, but still twice the size of Bonnie. She was a bit more nervous about our arrival, but she knows us a bit and soon warmed up.
I was hungry from all the smells and forty miles of riding, so I immediately ate and drank. We watched some French Open tennis and Sheri did all her exercises while I sat on the couch. Then, as I sat down to write, Sheri went out the door in the rain to do Tiger Mountain — Brook’s Green Mountain equivalent with similar stats. The difference is that she can do this mountain from her front door! That is so sweet.
Brook’s house is super nice and so clean and orderly and decorated so nicely that it seems like a model home. I told Brook as much and she responded, “It’s because we haven’t lived there long so haven’t crapped it up yet.” They moved up here a few years ago from Longmont. They are excited that Derek will be moving here as well at the beginning of July. Hopefully, I’ll be visiting up here regularly.
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