39: Approaching the corner . . .

Riding up Whidbey Island this morning, I realized that we are about to hit the end of our journey north. After our visit with our friends in Friday Harbor, we will turn east and head for New York and Vermont. We are 1800 miles into our trip; we've been on the road nearly six weeks, and we've finally gotten to the corner of our loop. I don't know what to think about what that means for the rest of our voyage. If we continue to average about 60 miles a day, we may not make it around the circuit we had planned for ourselves before the weather gets really bad this fall. On the other hand, we could get favorable winds and really make great time as we cross the country heading east, in which case maybe we'd catch up a bit to our original estimate.

Roger ponders our future

Roger seems to dwell more on this than I do; I figure it is an excellent adventure regardless of how far we go and so it really doesn't matter. But time will tell, I guess. In the meantime, we are delighted to have reached the home of our friends, Jeff and Gail.

Island life

We had another bumpy, up-and-down day today. You might think that riding a bike along an island would be flat.  After all, you are right there at sea level, right? But these islands are NOT flat, and the roads tend to run along the center ridge, and so we once again were doing lots of climbing and falling.

We had great views now and then of Mt Baker, and finally we reached the ferry landing at Anacortes for our trip over to San Juan Island, where Jeff was waiting to escort us home.

Mt Baker from Deception Pass

Approaching the turning point on our journey - Friday Harbor

One highlight of the day was our passage over the bridge at Deception Pass. This is a beautiful, trestle bridge built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and local farmers who were out of work due to the Great Depression. It connects Whidbey to Fidalgo Island.

A view of the bridge from below

We are starting to see more bike tourists now! Joanne from southwest Colorado is getting ready to start a cross-country trip with her friends; they are on mile 0 and headed for Maine. Take a look at that tandem - it's the real deal!

We are looking forward to exploring the island a bit with our friends, and then we'll resume our journey later this week.

The day's report:  Coupeville to Friday Harbor, 38.4 miles/1857 to date

Joanne at Mile 0

That's one bad-ass tandem!