Brian and Farah's bike trip - (the other) Washington! - a summary

Whoa! Washington was awesome (though not quite as bike friendly as B.C...). We came back into the U.S. via San Juan island - highly acclaimed as one of the best places to bike in the world. Though it did not make the very top of our list we can see why people love it. The San Juan islands are beautiful, small enough to do a weekend loop and very accessible by ferry. If that wasn't enough there was a bizzarly beautiful mausoleum / free mason shrine in the woods. Definitely the highlight though was the picturesque campsite - with a beautiful sunset overlooking the water and orca whales in the distance.

From San Juan we took a ferry to Anacortes on Fidalgo island and were soon greeted by possibly the most amazing view yet on the trip - Deception Pass whose bridge then took us to Whidbey. From our guide book or other travelers we were alerted in advance to most of the spectacular views, but this overlook of the Skagit Bay (Puget Sound) and the Strait of Juan de Fuca surrounded by state forests really took us by surprise.

We crossed over to the mainland by ferry from Whidbey Island (Coupeville) to Port Townsend. Port Townsend was super-cute and people were incredibly nice - one woman even offered us a place to stay for the night. We appreciated the volunteer-run community coffee shop and the Better Living through Coffee shop and just generally that Washington shares our love of coffee! We definitely took advantage of quite a few of the bike-in (ok, or drive-in) espresso stands along the sides of the roads. Anyhow, we pressed on from the cute town and stayed in Old Fort Townsend State Park. We rolled up to a small grassy area in front of 2 port-o-potties and thought that was the area designated for hiker-bikers... then Brian spotted a trail into the woods and we found a lovely circular clearing in the forest where everything was covered in a beautiful green. After learning to ward off and fight cougars (stay on your feet) and agreeing that Brian would try deescalation if we encountered one and Farah would do the fighting we started a camp fire and settled in for the night.


The next day we headed to Seattle via the Bainbridge Island ferry. This was the first rainy day in Washington state and we ducked under the awning at a gas station to make our sandwiches and eat lunch. One of the typically friendly locals suggested that we change our route and head to the Bainbridge ferry instead of Bremerton - savings us time and hills! (thanks.) We arrived to Seattle with amazing views of the city, and snowy mountains above from the ferry and biked another 8 miles up the steep hills to Brian's Great-Aunt Rita and Uncle Jerry's. Rita and Jerry gave us an amazing tour of the city (we are going to have to send Jerry a porter cap and tip jar for his van) including Seattle's famous troll under the bridge, and hosted us in style - providing a hot tub, pool, great food and interesting stories - what more could the touring cyclist ask for?! They accompanied us all over - even to the punk, vegan diner. We also got to see Carol once again! She continued to give us great tips on excellent vegan eating along the Pacific coast. Unfortunately, we did not find Seattle to be very bike friendly - and it wasn't just the hills - bridges were slippery when wet (all the time in Seattle), drivers were aggressive and Brian was almost hit by a car - when riding in the bike lane - and then yelled at by a pedestrian for it.

We missed the ferry we wanted from Seattle and ended up with 40 miles to bike starting at 4 PM. The first (20!) miles were steep and harrowing - as we deviated from our guide book and used google maps (which has obviously never ridden a bike). The next 20 were beautiful though as we biked right along the coast of the Hood Canal. Heading to camp we rounded the canal and met the 101 (the main route for biking down the coast) for the first time since B.C. - ironically, though, it was to head north (though just for 1.5 miles). We ended at the Potlach State Forest and were greeted by 3 or 4 other groups of touring cyclists. This was the first time we met more than a couple other cyclists. At least some of them were using the same guidebook and we swapped stories and plans.

Potlatch to Twin Harbor State Park - an 80 mile bike day! We cruised in the morning with the wind to our backs. Topping over 20 MPH going up hill! By lunchtime we had biked close to 50 miles and then.... the flats started. Just after lunch, Brian's tube was punctured by a nail - in places! After finally putting on the 3rd patch, the tube exploded, thanks to a nice man's defective floor pump! All fixed up though we headed out on the road again - without the tail wind. 10 miles later we reached the 500 mile mark of our trip! As odds in Washington state would have it, right in front of a Starbucks. 10 miles later, Farah's tire was punctured! So, we have now proved the tire punctures happen, on average, every 500 miles. Yay, only 2 more flats each for the rest of the trip!



From Twin Harbors we headed to the coast and had our first views of the Pacific Ocean. This was the first day that it was really challenging to find good food - even "Everybody's Super Supermarket" / diabetes center did not have much to offer us. We are convinced that the diabetes center drums up business through the poor offerings at the market. We did find some good greens to go with our bulk items we were carrying and ended up with a delicious gourmet dinner of black bean and quinoa soup with garlic collard greens. We camped near the beach in Bay Center.

Last day in Washington! We headed down the coast and visited Cape (not at all a) Disappointment State Park. We took a 7 mile loop through the park. The views were so amazing they distracted us from lunch for quite a while. We finally ate near North Head Lighthouse - most photographed lighthouse in Washington. We hiked through the rainforest and saw amazing huge trees and beautiful preserved coastline. We finished out the visit by flying down - and then up - the snaking, roller-coaster roads.



We left Washington and entered Oregon via the Astoria-Megler bridge - a 4.2 mile bridge with a serious climb in the last 3/4 of a mile. Washington was beautiful and, despite predictions, the weather was awesome. Thank you, other Washington.