The San Juans are Northwest of Seattle and are often mentioned in books as being one of the most beautiful places in the United States to ride. That is not what drew us out there, but I wasn't going to be upset if this turned out to be the case. Now that I have a job that only gives me one week off a year, we wanted to make the most of our vacation--so we loaded up our bicycles and took off.
A work meeting took me up to Port Townsend on Friday and this was a perfect place to set off on our journey. We ferried over to Whidbey island and had a pretty intense first day to make it to Anacortes. If we were out for the day it wouldn't have been too bad, but with our bikes loaded up for 8 days, it turned into quite a haul. Hanna rode really well the whole day and we made it 55 miles to our campsite and launch pad to the San Juan islands.The next morning we boarded the ferry that took us to Friday Harbor on San Juan island. Although it was a beautiful place, this was our least favorite of the three islands we rode. There were loads of people and quite a few cars on the roads (not to mention, dork mobiles--see picture). We found out early that these islands have very few flat stretches and the roads follow the hilly contour of the tops of these gigantic mountains in the ocean. We ended up boarding the ferry again that day and taking it to Lopez island to stay the night.
Our campsite was only 50 feet away from the ocean and was quite possibly the best place I've ever spent the night. After dinner we climbed in our sleeping bags and were hypnotized by the repetitious sound of the waves rolling over the boulders on the shore. Our ride the next day was fairly easy and it offered some great views. Lopez island is filled with farms and interesting people. For dinner we sat at a cafe and talked to two organic farmers that were cutting hay all day preparing silage for their cows. If you don't already know, silage is basically saurkraut for cows (or any other animal that is living off grass)--fermented hay. The farmers introduced us to one of their local condiments called Chicaoji. It is a hot sauce made from peppers, raw cacao, goji berries and a few other ingredients. We brought a bottle home with us.
The last island we toured was Orcas. This was a very challenging island physically, but well worth every calorie we burned climbing the long hills. At the East end of the island, we set up camp, dropped our panniers and rode up to the top of Mt. Constitution. This is a 4.7 mile climb and gains 2409 ft. in elevation. It kicked our tails, made Hanna cry, but we made it up. At the top, we could see all the surrounding islands and as far as Mt. Rainier. The ride down was fast and short to our camp that we shared with a fellow cyclist named Kelly. Kelly had just returned from living in Ireland for 3 years and is getting reacquainted with Washington by bicycle. We spent a day riding with her and she was definitely a high point of our trip!
We made it back to Anacortes the next day and rode halfway to Bellingham. We woke up early and rode into Edison, one of our favorite little towns on the trip. We sat at a small bakery called Farm to Market and talked to fellow cyclists and grubbed on the day old cinnamon rolls. Our ride into Bellingham on the narrow Chuckanut Highway was a little dangerous, but pretty spectacular. A few of my friends hosted us for the night in Bellingham and we enjoyed our first shower in awhile.
The next day we rode back through Anacortes and camped near Deception Pass. We arrived early in the evening so we had plenty of time to relax, sit by the fire with a weird guy from Canada (not that all Canadians are weird, but this dude was!) and eat a load of pasta with Chicaoji. Our final leg over Whidbey Island and into Port Townsend was successful. Although we loved being out, it was a good feeling to be done pedaling for a few days. We covered around 300 miles in the 8 days we rode.
Hopefully this is the first of many bicycle trips around the Northwest. Check back periodically for any trip reports or other ramblings from the Heddy's!
Hopefully this is the first of many bicycle trips around the Northwest. Check back periodically for any trip reports or other ramblings from the Heddy's!
