2 Lefts

Yesterday morning began with a 15-minute ferry ride across the Columbia River into Oregon. Woohoo, state 25 out of 26 for Mike and me. The second-to-last state for all involved. We joked that we were now one third of the way through the final leg of the tour. It is possible that the three states (Washington, Oregon, and California) may not be equally sized... We cycled west along the south side of the river to the town of Astoria. We enjoyed some slightly bumpy but peaceful riding on a bike path until it joined up with a river-front boardwalk. The boardwalk was built by an engineer who either has never ridden a bicycle or owns a fat-tire bicycle shop. The gaps between the wooden boards ran parallel to our direction of travel and were plenty wide enough for our wheels to fall in. No thank you, Danger Trail. Off to the road we went. The weather was spectacular, clear blue skies and gorgeous sunshine. We found a high-quality full-fingered glove at the side of the road on a break. Some t...

If you're ever on a bike tour and having rough weather, invite your father. It seems like my Dad is our good luck charm. Since we've all joined up in Centralia the weather has been extraordinarily good. No more torrential rain - hello blue skies and sunshine. Now to see if that luck will hold down the rest of the coast or if the fates will toy with us after we've softened. This stretch of Washington has been very pretty. We've climbed through thick forest, followed along clear, winding rivers and seen Mt. St. Helens off in the distance. Yesterday included a lovely break next to the Cowlitz River in the town of Toledo.  The town was kind enough to have constructed a sturdy, wooden gazebo and we watched as the water rushed by. We finished our day at the Paradise Cove RV Park and campground near the 5 freeway. It was a little noisy here but the price was affordable and included a fully stocked fire pit. We had a campfire but didn't really even need the heat. T...

Sunday morning brought sunshine through the trees. It was still pretty cold as we packed up and there was a lot of dew around. The tent case instructions say "never put away your tent while damp", I think the manufacturers have never been camping. Certainly they haven't visited the Pacific north-west. Regardless, the tent was stuffed away wet. We rode over the gravel forest road back to Highway 101. As the day warmed up the ride took us through small towns with ever-present forest on either side of the road. It was nice to be warm again, by the end of the day our shoes had even dried out. We spent the night at the Elma RV park, a bargain of a place at just $10 for bicyclists. As we were spreading our damp tent all over the tent camping area the host came to give us freshly baked cookies. Best RV park ever. They were delicious. We took full advantage of the amenities offered and washed all of our clothes and spent a few dollars on hot showers - our first in several days....

"They don't call it a rainforest for nothing." - Mike Roddy, 2018 Yesterday opened with about twenty miles of short up and downs. That type of riding might be fun on an unloaded bike but momentum carries you all of 10 feet up the next climb when your bike has so much gear. Progress felt slow but we made it through to a southbound turn on the 101 where we started to make faster miles. Not to mention the shoulder was wider and we didn't have to watch out for as many logging trucks. Feeling upbeat, we made lots of rude jokes as we approached the small town of Beaver. Somewhere in here was an 800 foot climb. I temporarily thought I lost my wallet but found it in a different compartment than the usual. All was well. We took great pleasure in an indoor rest inside the general store (the town's only commerce) and watched the grey skies outside turn from drab to menacing. The rain was here. We rode past the forests and the pines. Next stop: Forks, WA. As you may or ...

Three days of no riding appears to have thrown off our rhythm. We had a late start to the morning when we left Port Townsend. There was laundry to sort, a blog post to publish, and crumpets to eat. Somehow all of our gear fit on our bicycles again and we were on the road by 9:30 am or so. We experimented with taking a shortcut and found it to be along a loud, busy highway. So we returned to the route and found... a loud, busy highway. We took another shortcut and made it to highway 101. The road curved around to the town of Blyn where we took a break at a market. Mike had a very good sandwich (two kinds of cheese!) from their deli, I enjoyed some pesto pasta. Despite the good food, we were finding the day difficult. On the previous day we had walked around 6 miles while exploring Port Townsend and had, perhaps, overdone it. We were not enjoying the ride so we finished early at a campground east of Sequim (pronounced 'skwim'). The afternoon was sunny so we spread various bits of...

It's been a good few days off. We've done the following in no particular order: - I got a new book from a fantastic used book store by the water. John McPhee's "Oranges" - We ate Chinese food. The portions were enormous. - Hung out in a coffee shop and enjoyed the coastal view and WiFi. - Went to the cinema. "The Miseducation of Cameron Post." It was good. - Walked the docks. Lots of beautiful boats up here. Many older/traditional. - Befriended a park ranger and chatted about our trip and her work in Washington. - Took a taxi home from the movie because we got fancy after a lot of walking and the bus stopped running. - Did the laundry. - Strolled the main street boulevard. - Rach did some additional tent sealing repair. - Visited the Northwest Maritime Center and saw some wooden boats under restoration. - Saw plenty of rigging shops, sail lofts, and boatyards to service the craft up here. - Made friends with our campsite neighbors from Asto...

As we left Newhalem on Friday clouds hung around the mountain peaks and dropped copious amounts of water on us. British weather in America. It was, thankfully, a little warmer than other days but we decided that it is time to head south for the winter. The ride was beautiful but wet as we headed away from the mountains and towards more built-up areas. We stopped in the town of Concrete (guess what they used to produce) for lunch and met a woman who had served us at a bakery in Twisp two days earlier. I think we're easy to spot in small towns. Sixty soggy miles took us to the relatively large town (10,000 people) of Sedro-Woolley, which had a city-run campground for us. There we met a man from Alaska who had cycled across the US 35 years ago. He was extremely generous and gave us some Alaskan beer and two pouches of Indian food for dinner. We drank the beer while watching TV in the tent. Luxurious. The next day Mike got the first flat tire in approximately 1000 miles. The culprit ...

As alluring as continued lounging was, you make very few miles of progress staying at the Rodeway Inn. It was time to go. The day's big challenge was Loup Loup Pass - 4,020 feet tall. The first stretch of the climb was steep. We pressed slowly up a winding road and past apple orchards on either side. Workers in tractors maneuvered skillfully among the trees, towing trailers with big wooden crates to collect the fruit. It's very dry here and the trees deliver only with lots of irrigation. We finally made the top and began descending past a charred landscape. Trees all over the mountainside were crisp and black and all of the underbrush was gone. We found a mellow mountain town called Twisp for a delicious lunch at a bakery. There were two dogs in a pickup outside that barked the entire time we were there. I'm not sure if the owner was in the bakery, but if so they were too embarassed to do anything about it. More riding kept us on Highway 20 and we rode through a small...