Bruce and I awoke at
5:00 am so we could meet the rest of the group at the starting line. We
caught a ride with Nadine to Fairhaven Middle School, where they were
serving breakfast (eggs, potatoes, fruit and pastries). Once we finished breakfast
and prepped our bikes it was 7:00 am, and we headed out on the road as a
group, including Jeanette who had arrived late Saturday night. The weather
was sunny but cool, and pleasant to ride in. The scenery was beautiful as we
rode south on
Chuckanut
Drive (reverse of what we rode on RSVP), complete with spectacular views of
the San Juan Islands.
After dropping down to the flat terrain across the Skagit Valley we
encountered head to cross winds, and the weather turned cloudy. Bruce ended
up with a flat tire at one off the water stops, and the others headed on.
After a repair and a convenience store stop we headed toward LaConner,
with a quick delay to use my ham radio to call in an accident with one of
the RAW cyclists (not someone from our group). After passing through
LaConner we turned west, went over a couple of ridges and crossed the Swinomish
Slough. We had our lunch stop at Pass Lake, great sandwiches (ok, not so great but I was
hungry!). We rode across Deception Pass, close to the reverse Trek
Tri-Island route. Not exactly the same route, though, as we turned off
the Trek route and hit some real hills, like RAW went out of its way to
find them. We dropped down to sea level and climbed back up, then rode west across the island to the
West Beach Road. Up and down more hills into Coupeville and met up with
Gerry, Bruce Z. and Steve. Made a short
convenience store stop and then headed for the ferry to Port Townsend. Caught the 3:00 and after
the 30 minute crossing arrived in Port Townsend. We were met by John Collins
and then we rode out to Fort Worden. Setup camp, showered, and John
picked us up and took us to his home where he and his wife Carol treated us
to a wonderful lasagna dinner, with salad and apple pie ala mode for
dessert. As we were yawning, John shuttled us back to Fort Worden for the tail end of the
evening rider meeting, a few chats with fellow RAW riders, then to bed
around 9:00. Tough day on the bike with around 4000 feet of climbing, but
incredible scenery and great company.
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See below for pictures from today - hover your mouse cursor over the
thumbnail for a description. |
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