Holy moly! What a @$%^ day!

View from Chukanut

So here's the thing about bicycle touring: you can have both the absolutely best day AND worst day ever, all at the same time. The way it works is this: nobody transports you to the start of a spectacularly scenic route or challenging climb. Nobody picks you up and whisks you away to your hotel when the road surface deteriorates, or you hit huge traffic, or you have to cross a bridge riding on the sidewalk against traffic going 60 mph. You handle all that crap on your own.  It's actually part of the appeal of touring; solving those problems and getting where you need to be is a source a great satisfaction and accomplishment. Doing it yourself is what touring is all about, after all. But . . . some days you can get just a little too much of all that.

Mt Baker, we think

Thus, we began our day with a sweet ride through the Skagit Valley. We had an incredible ride up and over Chukanut to Bellingham. We enjoyed coffee and the best pastries I have had (outside of France) in the cutest little coffee shop right there on the main drag. We passed through one charming, vibrant little coastal town after another. We even stopped for fresh cherries at the last intersection before the border. The weather was fine, winds were favorable. We were making good time and this day, like yesterday, was on track to be one of the great days on a bike you remember forever.

One of touring's sweet rewards

And then, following our crossing into Canada, we began a four hour descent through the cycling world's seven levels of hell, and the day became one of those you will always remember, but for different reasons. First, we lost our guidance system (map got funky due to our data plan issues); got lost (multiple times); got hangry (I told Roger I had to stop to eat something but it was really about him); got hot (nothing to do about that but dump water on ourselves).

Your route might be off-road

 Traffic was CRAZY (we were in city driving at rush hour for 35 miles); we had a deadline (we were planning to meet an old fried for dinner); and THERE ARE HILLS EVERYWHERE (oh Lord, not another one to climb!)

I mean, with 7+ hours in the saddle, and within 10 km of the end, you do not want to face a 10% grade on a 200 foot climb. If you are riding in the Tour de France, I understand that comes with the job. But c'mon - is there no way around this hill? Apparently not. Vancouver is built on the rocky hills and ridges left by the glaciers.  It's all up and down.

Photo does NOT do it justice. We walked this one.

By the way, did I mention that we also had to contend with the data conversion from meters to miles? Because of course, once we were able to get a map and route refresh (thank God for McDonald's and their universal WiFi system!), all the route keys were in kilometers. But my Garmin was running miles, so I had to do the math to figure where our next turn would be. If we missed something and got off course, it tried to recalculate the route, which it couldn't seem to do because of the data plan, and thus everything froze up, and we had to find another McDonald's. (Fortunately there seems to be one every few miles up here.)

We did at last make it in to our hotel, after 88.3 miles and about 7 1/2 hours. That's more than we thought it would be, and way harder than we'd anticipated. Our dinner with Elliott and his daughter was great, and we were happy to have a nice bed to sleep in. Most importantly, we knew that we had nothing to do the next day! Roger said, "I don't know how I can ride that bike in another day!" But of course we will. A day spent resting and refueling, and we'll be fine.

Done!

Mount Vernon to North Vancouver, 88.3 miles

3647 feet climbing, 11.7 mph

What a great day!

How could a day that begins like this be bad?

We headed out from Gaye and Ben's house about 7:40 this morning. It was crisp, and cool, and the weather today just couldn't have been more spectacular. Until after our lunch break, it was super - and even then, when it began to get warm, it was still cool as we passed through the shade. Just a perfect day on the bike.

A big part of our day was on two spectacular bike trails.  In Seattle, we rode the Burke Gilman trail from the University all around to the north side of Lake Washington and beyond. It was busy with cyclists, walkers, runners and commuters - a fine example of the adage: if you build it, they will come. What a fabulous public amenity. I considered one of the interesting ironies of our age: what would once have been a terrible impact on one's home value (i.e., a train running through your back yard) is now transformed into a great property value booster: proximity to a 15 mile trans-city bike path linking you to everything!  All the neighborhoods we rode through looked interesting and appealing to me, whether modest or spectacular. Shops and cafes were everywhere. Even in a city where winter weather can be cold and rainy, cycling connects communities. It was exciting to see.

Then, we spent about 25 miles on the Snohomish County Centennial trail. It's also a former rail corridor, and it keeps cyclists off the main roads. Great views, perfect surface, lots of pull-outs for picnic tables, parking every few miles. It was full of runners and riders, miles into the county.

Places that invest in trails like these see a benefit. Look at all bikes lined up at this eatery!

And lastly, Seattle has lots of twisty roads through lovely neighborhoods. To keep speeds down, many of the intersections have planters, like the one below. Great idea to both beautify the street, and slow the cars racing through.

Well, I will find that photo later. In the meantime, here's Roger.

Seattle to Mt Vernon, 80.5 miles
Climbing, 2760 ft
Avg speed, 12.1

So, how's that working for you?

Hah!  Obviously, not so well.  Here I am, 5 or 6 months later, and I still have not put any of my other stories into place.  But I do think about it, and I am about to get on a bike again, and that seems to be the thing that inspires me, and so here goes  . . .

We are now on stage 7 (or maybe 8) of a multi-activity, multi-state, multi-focused adventure.  Roger and I left home over a week ago to visit with Dana and the girls, driving to Tahoe to see them in a summer theater production.  Then, after just a day's visit, we took the girls with us to Texas to meet their extended family on my side (including a whole passel of cousins.) That leg in itself included driving down to Waco to visit with Mom and Dad - the girls great-grandparents - before spending the better part of a week at my sister's home north of Fort Worth. Flying back to Reno, we returned the girls to their mom and then drove up to Seattle, where I write this.  Tomorrow, we'll head off on the tandem to Vancouver, where we will meet up with Mark Friis for another great Wheeltales tour through the San Juan Islands.  Then, of course, we'll have to get ourselves home again.  We figure to be away for at least three weeks.

Before we left home, I had to gather our biking and camping gear and get it over to Mark to come in the van from Redlands.  With us, we needed clothes for Tahoe, and then the Texas leg of our trip. I had made jam from our plums and apricots, and was carrying that, plus fresh lemons, for my mom and sisters.  Back in Tahoe, I sorted and repacked, moving the rest of our gear and clothing into the bottom of the suitcases so that we'd have what we needed for the bike portion of our trip ready at hand. Now I am stuffing the panniers, hoping to balance the small load of items we have needed all along and therefore couldn't send from home with Mark. 

Clothes and gear on us, packs and panniers ready to load

I am looking forward to getting on the bike tomorrow and pedaling away towards Vancouver, in no small part because once we head off, we are GONE.  Whatever we have with us, we've got. If I have forgotten something, too bad.  And that is one of the really beautiful things about touring. I can't remember if I have ever written about this before, but it's truly a wonderful thing.  You have what you have.  If you need something, you figure it out, but you just can't take it all with you, so you don't.  You get to leave a lot behind.  We don't do that very often in our lives.  Turns out it's very liberating, and I can't recommend it enough.

Put this back in the car - for later!

So here's to leaving *most* of it all behind, and following the open road. I'll write if I can.