July 11 Lopez ... no San Juan ... wait no, Orcas Island

We had planned to cycle Lopez island, the flattest of the main islands making up the San Juan Islands, but we missed the ferry by about 30 seconds. Since the next one to Lopez wasn't for another three hours, we got on the next ferry instead, which went to Orcas Island, the hilliest. We'd planned to do Orcas on a previous trip but never made it, so today was just as good a day, since we were already here and there was no way we were going to meet up with our group.

The ferry was listing on one side and then the other and it made a horrible sound when they turned. I told Harold I was expecting it to blow up or flip over, and thankfully he laughed, so I knew I was overreacting. We pulled into Shaw Island first, then landed in Orcas Island, a 45 minute trip from Anacortes. There's always a hill right off the ferry and Orcas was a bigger hill than the usual. As we waited with some other cyclists for the cars to go on by, we saw the most beautiful polished wood kayak go past on an old rusty 70's Mazda, laughing at how the kayak was worth 10 times the car. One of the guys with us said "I don't even own a car, but my bike is worth a good bit too."

 On the way down the other side of the hill, I noticed  there was a squeaking noise coming from the front of my bike. When I got faster, it got louder. I was afraid the front tire was going to either blow up or fall off. I seem to have a fixation with the fear of things blowing up.

We stopped and looked at it a few times, but couldn't see anything wrong, until we eventually turned it upside down and took both tires off. We found a little wire staple sticking in my back tire, taking it out and being thankful for my thicker treads, but knew that couldn't have been the problem. Then we noticed the kickstand was so loose it was almost flopping. Thankfully that was the problem, and it had only taken up 45 minutes of our ride to figure it out. Oh well, it was nice to have it fixed and on we went.

Just down the road I saw this big dead rodent in the middle of the road, calling out to Harold "What is that thing?"

"It's a squirrel." He quickly responded.

"That is not a squirrel!" I scoffed. "It's way too big!"

"It's a fox squirrel." He yelled back. "they get that big!"

"I don't think we have fox squirrels here! I'm googling that!" I challenged, to which he just shrugged his shoulders.

The sun came out as we cycled up and down the hilly countryside. Another 10 minutes down the road, I came across this horrible stench and looked over to the side of the road to see a fly covered deer corpse. The smell and view were so disgusting, I was sure it would invade my nightmares later.

We came out alongside the water, and on the side of the road were four beautiful, huge sparkling, twinkling, jingling metallic wind chimes. There wasn't a sign or anything saying who made them or how they came to be there, but they really were so magical.

We got to Eastsound Village on the north end of the island, where we stopped for lunch. This is a very quaint seaside town, the only one large enough to be deemed a city on Orcas, but still very small. It's made up of small boutique hotels, restaurants, and artsy tourist shops. We first went downstairs to the pub but it was overflowing with people watching the World Cup game, so we went upstairs where we had a beautiful view of the waterfront.

After lunch, we headed out along Crescent Beach, then up the hill to a wine shop where we tasted wines from Lopez and San Juan Islands. We'd visited San Juan Vineyards on a previous trip and knew we liked the Merlot-Cabernet blend but also liked the Lopez wines, both whites and reds, but in the end we bought two reds, the Merlot-Cab from San Juan and a Merlot from Lopez. The islands aren't hot enough to grow red wine varieties, so they grow whites and get their reds from the Yakima Valley.

Wine in bags, we headed up north to the ocean, and then cut back west, cutting through some streets that showed as public on maps but were gated against cars with Private signs. We chose to ignore them and continued on, coming out by the airport, then we cut around town, to head back down south again. Along the way there was more roadkill to smell and view. When I visit Arkansas, I am always surprised by how much roadkill they have there, and I'd figured it was because they just don't have the billions of acres of wild lands we do up here, and I expect that's what also happens on the islands as well.

I have this love-hate-fear thing going on with my cleats on my cycling shoes. Last year was my first experience using them on my bike, having only used them for spinning before that. Like an noob, I fell over pretty much every time I clipped in. This year, because we've been training Toonie on the back of my bike, I decided to get used to only clipping in on one side. Some times I switch sides but for the most part I clip in on the left and leave the right unclipped. Yesterday as we were coming up one of the bigger hills, I figured, "Hey Tracey, you can handle clipping in both sides. You're not gonna forget to check anymore, you always check. Besides it'll help a lot to get up this hill." So I clipped in and I was right, the hill was much easier. Sailing down the other side, I geared up to the highest so I could eventually pedal and then at the bottom I sailed around the corner to a new hill. I know now I geared down way too fast, and my chain came completely off, bringing me to a stall on the hill and as I stood there, for that brief second, the thoughts that went through my head were:

First, the panic starts ..."Oh %&^$, I'm clipped in!"

Immediately followed by ... "I'm trapped! I'm falling!"

Fear and horror come into play ... "Oh please don't let me fall in a bloated, maggot infested deer corpse!"

And finally, my pride makes a showing ... "Please don't let anyone see this!"

Thankfully, there were no corpses in the immediate area, just a ditch and a hill to slide and roll down into. As I laid there catching my breath, trying to decide how hurt I was, cars drove by and people leaned out, to ask if we were okay, but Harold waved them on. Realizing there was no one except Harold to see me, I let myself cry. I'm not sure if it was from pain, embarrassment, or the relief that I hadn't ended up in a pile of rancid, infested roadkill.

Harold helped me up and we had a discussion about the way I'm shifting and we figured out my gearing logic was all screwed up. After that, I followed Harold's instruction, only to find it made the hills so much easier! My fall now had a purpose.

We cruised up and down the hills back down to Orcas Village where we waited for the next ferry, talking to other people waiting. Due to all the exploring we've done down here, we actually have a clue where people are from. One family with the most adorable puppy was from Concrete where we'd cycled in June, whereas another was from near Mukilteo, south of where we'd been a few weeks later.

On the ferry back, we read a bunch of leaflets and magazines about the local areas and were amused to find the info about the Olympic Peninsula now includes a big section on the tiny little town of Forks and the fictional Twilight characters.

On the ferries, our bikes get tied in at the front. So we need to be down there to get them untied and unlocked and ready to be the first off, before the cars. When we got down there, the wind was so strong and cold, even in the full sun, it was freezing cold. I stood huddled behind an SUV while Harold got out our windbreakers, then waited until we got closer in, to untie and be ready to get off.


Once we got home, I did follow through and google "fox squirrel orcas island" and didn't find anything saying they are found there. However, another search for "fox squirrel washington state" came back with results showing that Fox Squirrels are found on the mainland here, so perhaps Harold is right after all.

Some days you think you should have maybe just stayed in bed, but this absolutely wasn't one of them. At the very least, my tire and kickstand were saved, I have no broken bones, and I completely missed falling on even one corpse.

June 25-27 Meetup: Whidbey, Fidalgo and San Juan Islands, WA

I joined a few Meetup groups from Seattle since they tend to do some thing up near here and I'm also interested in what they are doing down there. One of them doesn't have a lot of events but when they do they are at least a weekend or longer, typically cycling, but also kayaking trips.

The ride we joined them on was starting from South Whidbey Island, then up onto Fidalgo Island, and a ferry ride over to San Juan and Orcas islands. The first evening we all met up in the camp site at South Whidbey State Park. State and County Parks have this interesting rule, that if you arrive on bike or on foot, you will never be turned away. They typically have Hiker-Biker sites that will allow many people to group camp together and you pay by the tent. Unfortunately, since most of the people on this trip were on road bikes, the organizer brought along his SUV to support everyone's gear. That meant we didn't qualify for the Hiker-Biker sites but we were able to get reserved sites here so it wasn't a problem.

People came in at all different times. We were the only ones coming from the north, and we arrived by car so we we there first. About a half hour later, the organizer and a few others showed up. Then later, those who had cycled up from the ferry showed up.

The group was comprised of techie and engineer folk. One worked at Microsoft, another at Disney, one at Boeing, another at Amazon. We had an Indian engineer here on a work visa who had this snarky sense of humour I enjoyed but Harold didn't. He told me that he puts off a lot of people here with his humour and when I told him I found him very amusing, he said it must be the Brit in me, since British get the snarky stuff.

The Microsoft guy was amazingly stereotypical. Very small and slight, I'm sure he was very smart, but he was completely socially inept. He was so rude in his ways, and he really got on my nerves, but you know, this happens a lot with geeks, so I gave him a pass.

The guy from Boeing was an uber-athlete. He'd gone to West Point and been a flight officer, before leaving to work at Boeing. His bike, made of Titanium, came apart into pieces for travel. It was both very strong and very light. He had a personality that was almost braggardly, but then he'd pull back and say something silly and you'd realize he was teasing. He was a very fun guy to be around.

One of the other engineers was a young guy of 28 who shocked me when I found out his age. Here was a man, in very good shape, very mature, seemed to have a wealth of knowledge, and yet I was old enough to be his Mother!!! He'd gone to Dartmouth and ridden on the cycling team there.

There were three other women on the ride, and I was proud of myself for being the only one to do the entire ride. One of the women worked for Disney, and made me laugh when she told me about how seriously they take the mouse there. People have actually been let go for drawing pictures of Mickey in situations they don't approve of. They are told "Don't mess with the mouse! Ironically or fittingly (not exactly sure which), she also told me that at Disney, as a part of their company credo of accepting alternative lifestyles, it is accepted for those who choose to live as Furries to wear their costumes at work.

One of the other women there was early retired. She had made a lot of money in the high stress, crazy houred financial industry of yesteryear, and now spends her life living in Seattle, Paris, and a hotel she owns in the Bahamas. Born in Japan, her parents had immigrated to Seattle when she was very young. She has a very interesting accent, a  mishmash of American, Japanese, and French. She runs marathons and had very muscular legs. One of the guys nicknamed her drumsticks because of them. She hadn't done any cycling in years however, and had just bought a bike to come along on the ride. She did really well, since she was in such good condition, but if you don't have a lot of hours of recent experience sitting on a bike seat, it can be very hard on your backside.

The third woman was from Denmark and had met her husband online years ago, eventually marrying and moving here. They were riding a tandem bike together and brought along their two dogs in a trailer.

The first day we rode up through Coupeville, where we promptly lost 3 people. I was the only one to notice since Harold was one of the missing. Usually he is just up ahead of me, and will stop if I get behind, but I was pretty sure he'd been behind me when we left Coupeville and then when I looked back he had vanished. I thought maybe I had made a mistake, that he was up ahead but was worried something had happened so I waited, then moved along at a really slow pace, hoping he'd catch up. I caught up to two of the group and told them I thought we'd lost my husband but they were pretty sure we were the last ones. That didn't make sense to me, but I decided to push faster and catch up to the group to see if they were right. I was half worried something had happened to him, and half angry that he'd leave me behind ... but I knew he'd never done that before.

The group was stopped at the next turn about 5 miles down the road. My heart sank when I saw he wasn't one of them. I told them he was missing and was headed back to look for him and was a little upset when I felt I wasn't heard. I raced back to Coupeville just wanting to find Harold safe and sound and was so overjoyed when after 4 or 5 disappointments of seeing riders that weren't him, there he was with two others. I hadn't even realized two others were missing!

I asked them what had happened and they'd got cut off by traffic and missed seeing where we'd turned, then ended up in the midst of a country fair and had to backtrack in a number of different directions before asking someone how to get to Oak Harbor. We quickly made our way back to the turn where three of the faster guys were waiting and we made our way to meet up for the lunch stop at Oak Harbor.

Nothing tastes as wonderful as bagels and hummus and fruit on a long ride. We ate off the front of the organizers SUV and it was the most wonderful meal. Then we were back on the road, where we'd agreed to meet up again at Deception Pass

Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island. The first Europeans to see Deception Pass were members of the 1790 expedition of Manuel Quimper on the Princesa Real. The Spanish gave it the name Boca de Flon.  A group of sailors led by Joseph Whidbey, part of the Vancouver Expedition, found and mapped Deception Pass on June 1, 1792. George Vancouver gave it the name "Deception" because it had appeared to be a narrow bay instead of a strait.




The bridges are high up over the water, with beautiful vistas east and west. The sun was shining when we got there and we just sat and looked out, feeling the beauty invigorating our hearts, before riding on again, all the way up to Anacortes. We got there with only minutes to spare, and raced onto the ferry, which sailed right away.

Once on the other side, we rode a short distance to the beautiful Lakedale campgrounds, situated on a series of fresh water lakes, in the middle of the island. We had originally planned to go to San Juan County Park. Unfortunately because we had an SUV along with us, we weren't eligible for the Hiker-Biker sites and the regular sites were all full. Harold and I will definitely plan to camp there when we go there alone. That area is known to be the best place in North America to see whales from land.




That night we had dinner and drinks and them headed to bed. The guys in the site beside us had been drinking all day and were loud and obnoxious when we got there but thankfully they were all passed out early so we had a good nights sleep.

The next morning it was decided we weren't going to make it to Orcas Island since the ferry schedule made it that we couldn't get there until afternoon and we had a long ride to get back to South Whidbey. As we were packing up we saw a black fox. It was so exciting since I'd never seen one before. The interesting thing about the islands is since there aren't any bears or wolves, or hunting, the wildlife is both abundant and not very afraid.

We spread out more along the way back, meeting in Deception Pass and Oak Harbour and finally at the campgrounds where we'd all met up Friday night. We changed, said our goodbyes and headed off for home.

June 19, 2010 Petal Pedal Ride in Silverton, OR

For this weekend, we had to make a choice between going to George, WA for the Rock n Ride, or Silverton, OR, for the Petal Pedal. Both would require a hotel and were towns we'd not been to before, and both were close to wine country. Silverton was about 1.5hrs further, but it was all on I5, whereas George would have taken some smaller highways.

I came to make the decision, as I was fooling around on Priceline. I made an error and selected the lower grade rooms and of course my bid was taken. Luckily I didn't pay more than the room cost normally, but I had to worry all the way down there that we'd be in a bedbug infested place. Once a bid is won, and you are given the hotel information, you cannot get your money back. So our decision was made, and I quickly went over to the ride web site and registered.

We left Friday afternoon, and figured we'd be there about 9pm but we encountered one traffic jam after another, starting in Bellingham and following us all the way down to Portland. We ended up getting in at about 11pm. I was so relieved to find the motel, though older, was actually well looked after, and even kinda pretty. My first aggravation is that they charge a $1.50 fee for use of the safe, which you can have refunded the next morning if you don't use it. My second aggravation was waking up the next morning to find out that the office didn't open until 7am and we had to leave at 6:30. So no breakfast and no safe refund.

We headed out into the country, following the directions I had received from Google Maps, and got to the Oregon Gardens, in Silverton, in plenty of time to have breakfast, which was included in our ride price. They had all sorts of samples of power bars, gels, candies and drinks and the bike repair guy gave us little boxes of tube repair items. It was like being a kid in a candy store.

This wasn't a timed ride, so we were free to leave when we wanted. It was a little overcast outside but there was no rain at all. We headed out, going up, and up, and up, into the countryside, along with 1,000 other riders. The first rest stop was at the quarter way mark, on the side of a big hill. The view was wonderful, with the valley laying way below us, and it felt so great to be able to look down and know we had just cycled all the way up here.

People who do these rides typically have small, light, road bikes. They're flashy, weigh next to nothing, and go like hell. Our bikes tend to get a lot of notice. As we were starting we heard a guy say to another "Those are touring bikes!" and it feels like every third person either asks us what kind of bike we are riding, remarks on how well we do on "those" bikes, or asks how we can handle doing a ride like this with "those heavy bikes". In some ways it frustrates me, knowing we'd be so much faster if we'd opted for road bikes, but really we want the freedom of being able to be self supported, to be able to carry all our gear with us on long and short trips. Besides ... another year we can buy the road bikes, maybe even a tandem! Everyone needs at least 3 bikes!

On and up we went, for the first 50km, into Silver Falls State Park. The actual falls were just beautiful. Pretty much everyone had to stop for a picture break. Then we had a wonderful 8 mile downhill plunge to the next rest stop. It was a wonderful bit of fun and well worth the previous climbing.

The second half of the ride was more flat, through the rolling hills of the Willamette Valley. We rode alongside all different sorts of smells, both pungent and attractive. A man wearing a big red maple leaf jersey raced past me and I wanted to catch up and show him my maple leaf socks, but I restrained myself. It was hard not to stop at wineries we past by, and the hardest place to pass by was a farm shop where they were selling home made strawberry shortcake with local berries, cream and cake! We pushed on, and were happily rewarded with the same strawberry shortcake at our next rest stop. Funnily though, it was the watermelon I enjoyed more.

The thing I hate about valley rides is that we always get head winds, and they always turn on us, rarely do we get a tail wind. The last quarter was like this, all head wind, but the sun had appeared and it was truly beautiful so we rode on back to the Oregon Dinner for the Salmon dinner and Microbrew beer we had been promised. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the salmon as it was rather cold and I really would have preferred wine. We stayed for one beer and then decided to leave to go on up to Portland.

I've never spent anytime in Portland, just driving through on the highway to somewhere else, typically in pouring rain. It was a nice surprise to drive into the downtown on a nice sunny afternoon and find a festival going on. It looked like Mardi Gras was happening. I was wishing I'd made a Priceline bid for a room somewhere, as the few hotels we went to were already full. After a walk through the city, we decided to drive on, back as far north as we could make it. I believe I fell asleep somewhere around Olympia and Harold got us back to Everett before he just couldn't go on any longer and we checked in at a cheap, roadside chain motel for the night.

The next morning we got up and drove back to Birch Bay, with our afternoon free to sit out along the bay, drinking wine and enjoying a beautiful day.