Sunday, May 31, 2009

Day 6--Ahhh luxury!!

We have arrived in Sedro Woolley. We started out with a ferry ride back to Anacortes at 11:00am. There were probably close to 40 bikes on the ferry. A bunch of kids had ridden around the island yesterday and were going back to Anacortes. Anyway, the bikes were all piled up just like when we came over. This time, however, we were the last to get on as Lopez was the last stop before Anacortes. When we got to the dock, we had to wait for the cars to go first. Some poor guy has a dead battery. There were still about 4 cars behind him. They let us go ahead.
We stopped at Safeway and replenished our food selection. Now we have some rice dishes, some tuna and chicken and a precooked pasta dish. We should be good over the North Cascades. Today's interesting experiance was going on the Padilla Bay Shore Trail. Nice trail, except we couldn't fit our bikes with the panniers through the gate. We had to take everything off push the bikes through then load everything back on. Then not a half mile down the trail, I had a flat tire. I had to take everything off the bike again to change the flat. Bummer!!! After that, we had a pretty flat ride the rest of the way into Sedro Woolley.
Tonight we are staying at the Three Rivers Inn. We decided since we didn't have showers last night and I have a slight cold, we would splurge on beds and showers that can be longer than 3 minutes!!! We also decided we should probably do what laundry we have as the laundry options may be slim. The problem is they don't have laundry here. Well, no big deal. I have some Tide sink packets that worked just fine.
Now we are hungry and are going to have pizza for dinner!!! And salad!!! And we won't have to do dishes in cold water at a faucet. And, best of all we get to sleep in a real bed tonight!!! Ahhhhh...the luxury of it all!!!

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Day 5 Desserts Aplenty

We started day 5 with the sounds of the ferry boats. It was like a giant alarm clock with a snooze button that went off again just after we would drift back to sleep. We got up and were off to the ferry by 7:45. We only had a couple of pop tarts and bananas for breakfast. We planned today a more substantial breakfast on the ferry. As we were waiting in the bicycle line, we met 4 people who were also going to Lopez today. They were Marijan, her husband, Frank, Ron and Don. They were all retired and drove from Bellingham to ride around Lopez and camp overnight (just like us only we didn't drive). Marijan, Frank and Ron had all done this before. This was Don's first experiance with bike camping.
We enjoyed a nice hot breakfast on the ferry. There were lots of cyclists (many eating breakfast just like we were). The bikes were stacked about 5 deep on the car deck. They weren't tied up just leaning against each other. They did just fine.
After we disembarked from the ferry we headed off for our circumnavigation of the island. There was pretty much no flat land. As Ron said, these islands are pretty bumpy. Marijan and company went to the park first and dropped off their stuff (not a bad idea except we've gotten so used to riding loaded that it would feel a little squirrly to ride with everything off).
As we turned onto Shark Reef Rd., along came Marijan, Ron and Don. Ron said Shark Reef was a pretty place so we stopped and hikes out to the water with them. They ate their lunches. We ate Cheesecake Brownies. After awhile we came back to the bikes and Kule and I continued on our route and they continued on theirs. After a few more miles, we got to Lopez Village where we stopped at Holly B's for dessert from our dessert lunch. I had a berry crumble. Kyle had another brownie. We bought a couple of raspberry brioche to take with us. We took off only to stop a few yards later when we spied a fudge shop. We bought 1 1/2 lbs. of fudge (six different flavors). Actually we only bought 1 lb. The other 1/2 lb. was free! As we came out of the fudge shop we ran into Marijan and Ron (no Don). They, too, were getting some fudge.
We made it to the park shortly after where we saw Don. He had lost the others. We told him they were getting fudge. We chose site 25 without looking at it. It is very nice sitting up above the water with a view of Shaw Is. and the ferries passing by. For one of our shortest mileage days (32), we took a long time to do it but, that's what bike touring is all about! Taking your time, seeing the sights, eating good food (desserts anyway) and meeting new people!
Tomorrow we are back on the ferry and heading away from the water to Sedro Woolley. Thus ends our marine portion of our trip. We will still have the fudge for awhile though.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Days 3 & 4 Boats & Bridges

I had no network service yesterday so couldn't post. Yesterday we started out taking the water shuttle across Hood Canal from the Lofall Dock to the Southpoint Dock. It couldn't have been any easier! We wheeled our bikes onto the boat through one door, then wheeled them off out the other door. Didn't even have to turn them around! The crossing took about 15 minutes. We met a gal named Suzie who took our picture and even went up on deck with each of us separately and took our pictures! Nice gal! When we got off the shuttle, I asked the dock guy if we could take Teal Lake Rd to get to Oak Bay Rd to head to Port Townshend. He said "Oh no, you don't want that road! Go down toward the bridge and take a left on Paradise Bay Rd." Well, I was really hoping to avoid that, so when we got up to the Hwy, we stopped at the fire station. I asked the firefighters standing outside if they were familiar with the area (I know, stupid question--of course they are familiar with the area--they're FIREFIGHTERS!!!) They said we could take Teal Lake Rd and that it would take us right to Paradise Bay Rd, close to Oak Bay Rd. Now, in all fairness to Boat Dock Guy, the ride up Teal Lake Rd was very steep. Perhaps he was trying to spare us the climb? Anyway, we made it up to Teal Lake and down the other side where I hit my maximum speed for the trip of 38.6 mph!
We made it to PT where we got to go on the William Scott Memorial Trail all the way to the ferry dock. Some of it was paved, but most was packed dirt/gravel. Oh yeah, we also saw a bobcat crossing Teal Lake Rd.
We got to the ferry dock about 30 minutes before the ferry. When we got over to Whidbey, we still had a ways to go to the park. Kyle kept thinking we should be there already. We did finally reach Ft. Ebey State Park. It is a nice park except the showers were quite the hike from our hiker/biker campsite. In fact, our campsite was so far from everything that it was like there wasn't a campground! We have noticed that the parks all seem to put the best restrooms by the RV sites. Don't they have those facilities in their RVs?
The sunset was beautiful to watch looking out toward Vancouver Island.

So, today we got going earlier on our way from Ft. Ebey to Washington Park in Anacortes. The sun was shining from the start and I was down to just shorts and jersey before we crossed Deception Pass. As for going over Deception Pass Bridge, Kyle did just fine. We are now finishing up laundry and showers. This is a nice park with the restrooms close by (a treat for sure!). Kyle did a "Julie" (Julie knows what that means!) and lost his gloves. We found the bike shop in Anacortes and replaced them.
Tomorrow we take the ferry to Lopez. The weather looks promising.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

O' Granny Gear O' Granny Gear!

O' granny gear O' granny gear, we have become so familiar...
Today was a very hilly day! I used my granniest of granny gears twice. Following the map through Bremerton was tricky and everytime we had to make a turn, of seemed like we were going straight up! Kyle has decided he doesn't like Bremerton. Of course, it didn't help that we went down this huge hill only to find out that the road was closed at the bottom! Would have been nice if the sign had been back up the hill! Anyway, we returned up the hill and asked a guy if he knew how to get to Hwy 3 from where we were. He told us to go about 3/4 up the hill and we would see a park on the left. We were to turn into the park and go through to Hwy 3. We assumed he meant the hill we were on (you know what happens when you assume). So we continued back up the hill. We noticed a left turn. Since we were almost to the top, we figured that must be it (no signs of a park however). Well, it wasn't. So back out we went and thought we would just keep going until we saw a park. As we were about 3/4 the way up the NEXT hill, lo and behold, there was the park! We rode through, just like the guy said, and came out to Hwy 3. We got on the hwy and got off at the next exit. We were back on the route! Our little detour took us about 4 miles out of our way.
So now we are at Kitsap Memorial State Park. I took my shower and found out that you CAN dry off with a bandana (thanks Patrick!!) as I forgot my towel.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Day 1- EPIC Ride with Kyle

After 53 miles and a wee bit of rain, we have arrived at our first night's destination- Twanoh State Park on Hood Canal. The ride was good. We ran into rain showers as we were coming into Shelton. After riding for awhile, we decided it wasn't going to stop any time soon so we put our rain gear on. After about 2 hours the rain quit and we were able to put away the raingear. Well, I did. Kyle left his on.
There were no major challenges today except Kyle did not like the big descent to Hwy 106. I thought it was fine, but we did have to stop rather abruptly at the bottom (it was either stop or sail across 106 and land in Hood Canal).
It is windy here, but we are camped on the water so it's pretty. I guess that's it for today! It appears I can't put photos in from my phone. Too bad!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Getting ready for the big ride!

So, we are just 4 days from leaving on our big 17 day ride around the state! Stuff has begun to migrate to the dining room table in anticipation of packing the panniers. I think it is not all going to fit. We will have to make some decisions as to what we can live without. I'm hoping I can take my camp pillow. The bikes are cleaned, lubed, and ready to go. I'll be posting from the road when possible (hopefully with pics).