Timeline is a little tweaked...As I post this I'm actually in Auke Bay/Juneau, Alaska...
Port Angeles, Washington, stayed with some awesome CouchSurfing hosts. I did a 2 day excursion to Forks, the Twilight Capitol of the world, so that I could fulfill a promise and mail off a few postcards. The ride was abhorrent, haha. Some areas were pretty, but most of it was just tree-encompassed, grueling uphills, and long slight downward slopes. I battled a stiff headwind 90% of the way there on Friday, and the same damned wind on the way back, Saturday, which makes no sense to me, but oh well. It was "only" 60 miles one way, which looked simple enough on a flat map, but the topo views would convince me otherwise. It also took 3 pieces of French toast, 2 eggs, 5 english muffins, 1 Payday candy bar, 3 bananas, 1 cup of coffee, and about 2 gallons of water to get me back to my hosts' house. I stopped at the store on my way back and then devoured half a pound of Chinese-chicken salad from the deli, 3/4 of a loaf of french bread, 2 cinnamon rolls, drank most of a 1 liter chocolate protein shake (64g whey/soy blend) which I used in place of milk so I could eat 3/4 of a huge box of Cocoa Rice Crispies. I was still hungry, but I knew I needed to save some food. Fortunate for me though, an anonymous couple who I can only assume overheard me talking about my trip with someone else, paid for my breakfast in Forks. Thanks again, that was a really nice surprise. :)
But, I digress, back to Eugene, land of microbreweries, natural food stores, and lots of bicycles. It also happens to be where my friend Ian calls home, which was awesome. Hanging out with a fellow devoted cyclist and outdoorsman was a lot of fun, and he was gracious enough to have me stay with him for a couple days. Used most of my downtime to eat and sleep in, as well as doing some mapping and figuring out where I'd be staying in Portland. My last night at Ian's place we feasted on some delicious chicken tacos that he cooked, which was way cool. Still getting used to having people cook for me, but it is indeed pretty rad.
Leaving from Eugene I made it a bit over 100 miles to the Badlock rest stop off I-5, and made it there dry too, which was a big blessing. A nice place, with lots of trees, good lighting, and nice people. In just a few hours I met a lot of really nice people who wanted to follow the trip, and a sweet little older lady who wouldn't take no for an answer when she insisted I accept the dollar she wanted to donate to my trip. :) I found one of the buildings toward the rear end of the park that was closed, so I set up camp there, knowing it was going to rain, which it did, quite a bit. Got up in the morning and was scolded for having camped there, so I ate in a hurry and caught a break in the rain that allowed me to book it towards Portland along I-5, in the wet, during rush hour...
Stopped at a Starbucks just south of Portland and got in touch with my next CS host, Kristin, who got back to me in a flash and kindly agreed to host me for a couple days. After arriving at her awesome apartment in Portland and chatting for a bit, I got cleaned up and got to relaxing and taking in the view. I explored a bit later, taking the super cool aerial tram up the to hospital campus above the city. They have a little grassy area near the base of the lift where they keep goats that eat all the weeds so no one has to go down there and mow under the cables! So cool! Back to the apartment, did some mapping. Got a great night's sleep on the comfy couch and took most of the next day to go explore the city. Took the aerial tram again for fun, read at Powell's Books for like 5 hours, got some food, took lots of pictures, and enjoyed riding the streetcar system that takes you all over the city.
Kristin cooked a wonderful salmon dinner one of the nights I was there, thank you very much! I'm finding that I've grown to like fish after all, so long as it doesn't taste fishy, heh. The morning I left and set off toward Lewis and Clark state park was a rough stretch of I-5 that seemed to go on forever. Finally made it there and found out that all the hike&bike areas in WA are 14 dollars! I decided that was way too rich for my tastes so I camped on yet another picnic bench that night...Got up the next day to head to Tacoma, where I was planning to take the ferry to Vashon Island. Scrapped that upon further review of my route so after 80 miles, I illegally rode over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which, thankfully, did not fall apart. Camped at Goodman middle school in Artondale. Slept great, got up the next day to ride up 30 miles to Bremerton where I took my very first boat ride EVER to Seattle!
Once I got to the ferry port at Bremerton I assumed I'd have to stop, get out my wallet, tell them where I was going, etc. I saw the booth and turned off my mp3 player just in time to have the guy lean out the booth and ask if I was going to Seattle. I yelled back that was correct and he waved my through and said "Hurry, it's about to leave!" I raced down the ramp towards the boat as they were preparing to leave. The parking controllers waved me where to go and we were away, already moving before I had parked my bike. I was a little freaked out, ha. After I got my bike situated I talked to some other cyclists, then headed up to the passenger decks to snap some pictures. It was about an hour long ride but it went fast, and was a lot less scary than I thought it would be, so long as I didn't think about how deep the water was. We made it to Seattle and I disembarked with the horde of other bikes, heading to the first Starbucks I could find. After asking another cyclist, I found one just up the street from the docks. Parked the bike, got out my laptop and set to work looking for a last minute couch in Seattle. I did eventually find one, but not before I met a guy named Blake.
Blake was on a solo motorcycle journey that started in Vermont a month prior. He was also hanging out at the Starbucks and we got to talking about motorcycle stuff, and traveling in general. We got to talking about where we were staying and he offered me to crash with he and his friend who had put him up in the best Western down the street. I thanked him and said if I didn't find anything else that I'd be stoked to have a place to stay. 4 Hours later or so, Blake and his friend came back to the Starbucks and we got to talking about how to smuggle me into the hotel. Turned out it was as simple as walking the bike in, waving the to desk clerk, and taking it into the elevator up to the room, haha. Now, imagine fitting 3 guys, a bike, and my trailer into a small hotel room...It was pretty snug, haha. I crashed on the floor for the 2 nights we were there and it was awesome. Blake and I are both on VERY tight budgets and were eternally grateful for the amazing breakfast room at the hotel, eating ourselves more than full on both days, and taking extras back with us.
Watching the fireworks in Seattle for July 4th was pretty rad. Didn't really do much else while in the city, but it was nice to relax. Tuesday afternoon I headed out on another ferry, across the sound to Bainbridge Island, beginning the 50 someodd mile ride to Kitsap Memorial State Park, where I had the lucky fortune of finding an empty building to sleep in, due to a more or less unlocked log cabin type structure, used for large parties and such. That night I got a call back from my next CS host in Port Angeles. E said she'd be happy to have me stay with her and the fam. I was very glad to know I would have a place to stay. I left Kitsap headed for PA, mostly along the 104 and the 101 West, a direction I'm not used to seeing printed on the US-101 signs. I almost got hit by a dear while about to merge onto the 101, which was pretty gnarly. It continued running across the highway and in front of a Prius, narrowly avoiding another collision. The rest of the ride to PA was really pretty tough, with lots of hills and lots of headwind. I finally arrived at the McDonalds where I used the wi-fi to check my emails. I called E back and got directions. Once I arrived I was welcomed in, met Mike, and told to make myself at home, shown my ROOM, and told to eat anything I found in the house, haha. We immediately started talking about the tour, and Mike's similar touring experiences in Germany and neighboring western EU countries. It was pretty rad to find people to stay with who were also into outdoors stuff! E is a bigtime surfer who has lived all over the world, and she knew exactly where I was from when I told her about Morro Bay.
Mike and E were setting off for a big walk so I jumped in the shower and got cleaned up a bit, which felt great. I ate second dinner before we all enjoyed home made mango pie with vanilla ice cream. At this point I felt pretty spoiled, haha. Called it a pretty early night at around 1am and passed out, sleeping in til about 9 or so. I used most of the day to blog some stuff, then went to the grocery store and explored a bit. Ate lots of food, hung out for a bit, then got rested up for my ride west to the edge of the US, and Forks! E said I was welcome to come right back after my 2 day out and back to Forks, which was totally rad. Including breaks it took me 7 hours to make it to Forks! It was VERY hilly, windy, and not fun. After completing my obligatory tasks in town, getting some food in me, and chatting with a nice Swiss couple about places they should see while driving down the CA coast, I retired to my stealth camping site at the back of Forks elementary school, lol. Shortly before dark, a police unit stopped when he saw me throwing away some trash. I assumed I was in trouble and was gonna get the boot. He asked me what I was doing, where I was coming from, the usual stuff. I told him my wallet was near my bike, in the alcove, but gave him my info and waited while he checked it out. He came back and we talked a bit about my bike tour, where I was headed, all that. I showed him my ID and he was a lot more chill when he saw that I really just had my bike there and needed a place to crash. He told me to have a nice night and to stay warm. What a cool officer! I was relieved to not get kicked out. Bedded down for the night and managed to sleep OK.
I left the school in search of hot food, stopping at the Forks Coffee House. After eating and filling out my postcards I was ready to leave when I was informed that some lovely older couple had already paid for my food when they left. I can only assume they overheard me talking about my trip with someone else and decided to do something very nice for me. Happy as could be, I mailed off my postcards, had a nice talk with the shop owner, and headed East back to PA. The ride back only took 5 hours, despite having a headwind for about half of the ride, which had me pretty pissed. Getting back to a grocery store and E's house cheered me up some, as I arrived to find her dogs had treed a large raccoon in the backyard. Entertained for hours, and fed by the tons of food I got at the store, I waited for E and mike to get home from picking up their daughter from volleyball camp. We all went to bed pretty early, I spent the whole next day mapping out the next 2 months of the tour, and was then treated to amazing turkey burgers and a really fun game of Scrabble! It was a very close game, and according to Mike E is a bad loser and an even worse winner, haha! I won, barely, but was mainly just super stoked to find such gracious hosts with whom I got along so well. After exchanging contact info and saying goodbyes the next morning, I spent all day monday riding back the 101, then the WA-20 towards Port Townsend. Took the short ferry ride to Keystone at the south end of Whidbey Island, then rode the length of the Island up to Deception Pass State Park, where I have been camping for 3 days. Only hours ago did I get my tent finally dry enough to pack up, after enduring 14 hours of Washington's finest rain...Ugh. Next I will ride the 45 miles to Bellingham where I depart for Juneau, Alaska! Hoping for good luck with the crew, as it is apparently a case by case basis as to how they deal with and charge for bicycle trailers...I'm really hoping they charge me the regular bike fee and let me take the trailer on as luggage, since I couldn't find anywhere to store it in Bellingham. Either that or I'll have to figure something out at the last minute...
