Day 123: Lopez Island, WA to Fort Townsend State Park

August 13, 2011

I wake up to a windy morning with the rain fly shaking and rattling. With the extra blast of cold and the white caps that dot the surface of the deep blue water it makes the ferry ride feel especially nautical.

From Lopez Island the ferry heads west to Orcas and Shaw and then on toward Friday Harbor. It's another dive into nostalgia. Sailing through Wasp Passage I look north and spot Jones Island, a state park reachable only by boat where my mom and dad and I traveled almost every year when I was younger, anchoring in the protected north bay and then rowing ashore to feed the deer apples and carrots from our hands. Around the next corner I look off to the port side of the ferry and out into Parks Bay, a small cove tucked into the west side of Shaw Island where my dad and I spread my mom's ashes 13 years ago. Not much farther on I again feel the twinge of excitement when the boat turns and slows and Friday Harbor spreads out in front of me.

I'm about to walk into a restaurant when I turn back toward the street and see a familiar gray bike ridden by a guy in a familiar dark red shirt. It's Mark, who I met last week when I climbed over Sherman Pass. I take a few seconds to close up the bags on the bike and then start to jog down the hill and toward the harbor to try to catch him. I think I've missed out, but then I round a corner and look down the road that leads to the marina and see Linda and him stopped and looking at their maps.

"I thought I smelled Floridians," I tell Mark as I walk up behind him.

"Oh hey bro!" he says like he always does, with a big smile, and then gives me a handshake.

The three of us catch up on what we've been doing since we lost track of each other just outside of Republic, including their awesome experience reaching the ocean in Victoria. Yesterday they rode around the city near the water, looking for a patch of beach where they could dip their wheels in the salt water to mark the end of their cross-country ride from Maine. It took a long time, but eventually they found a spot—one that happened to be where a group of a dozen female Japanese tourists were stopped to take pictures. When their guide and interpreter explained what Linda and Mark had just accomplished, the group responded with a round of applause and cheering that turned into an impromptu standing ovation. I can't think of a better way to cap off such a huge achievement.

And they totally deserved it. Linda and Mark are a couple of the really good ones—two of the most wonderful people I've met on this trip. They have such a passion and joy for life and traveling and unique experiences, which even among bike tourists is a rare combination. They also curse a fair bit, which is a welcome change from most of the clean-mouthed riders I traveled with, because that guy who almost ran them over really is a prick and it doesn't make sense to call him anything else. It's too bad I didn't have the chance to hang out with them more.

We say goodbye with handshakes and hugs, but we're all so bonkers for bike riding that I'm sure we'll meet again somewhere in the future, probably at the start of a huge climb over a mountain pass. I sure hope so.

Back at the restaurant I plow through an amazing barbecued pork sandwich and hush puppies. At the table across from me, a mom and her three daughters play the card game Uno, smiling and talking and laughing the whole time. It's completely opposite to the feeling given off by the parents and two sons sitting at the table to their right, where the young boys each tap away at games on their own iPads while their mom and dad both look around the restaurant and don't really talk to each other. I still don't want kids any time soon, but the list of things not to do when I finally have them continues to grow longer and longer.

In the afternoon I load the bike and gear and my greasy, pointy hair onto another ferry. The 65-foot Glacier Spirit runs between Friday Harbor and the city of Port Townsend, which sits at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. The boat's much smaller than the huge state ferries I've been riding in the last few days, and so much more awesome.

It speeds south into San Juan Channel, out through the rushing current and swirling tide rips of Cattle Pass that tug the boat gently to the left and the right, and then on to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I sit outside on a cushioned seat at the bow of the boat and listen to the roar of the twin diesel engines, watch the white spray shoot out from both sides of the hull, and shiver as the cold breeze blasts me in the face. The smell of salt fills the air. When I look out to the west I see Vancouver Island, and then farther out I watch the Strait fade into the horizon as it heads toward the Pacific Ocean. On Tuesday I'll be there.

Dark clouds arc across the sky to the south and the west in a crescent shape, swallowing up the sunshine and the blue sky and signaling what could be the start of a wetter, colder ride ahead. By the time the boat motors into the grayness the Olympic Peninsula comes into view, its outermost bluffs marked with big bald spots where the sides are slowly giving way and falling down to the beach and water below.

A fine layer of salt spray covers the bike as I ride out of Port Townsend and on to a state park not far south. Setting up the tent in a hiker-biker campsite made dark by the thick tree branches above I think to myself, "Holy shit, I only have to do this three more times!" And then I feel at the same time very happy and very sad.

I've spent so much time on boats over the past few days that when I sit or lay down on the air mattress I feel like I'm rocking gently back and forth on the waves. The incredible combination of a cold night, a warm sleeping bag, and a phantom sea soon start to mix together and send me headfirst into a deep and wonderful sleep.

Today's ride: 13 miles (21 km)
Total: 6,319 miles (10,169 km)

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