July 15-18: Bellingham

My dad and I spent Sunday afternoon disassembling our bikes and carefully packing them into two bike boxes in preparation for our flight to Bellingham, Washington on Monday morning. It is always a game of Tetris trying to get a bike to fit in a box along with bags, camping equipment, and other assorted odds and ends, while also being mindful of weight and size constraints. Luckily, come early Monday morning at the Allegiant Airlines check-in counter we found that we were each successful in staying within their strict baggage limits.

Our ride up to Bellingham, an Allegiant Airbus A319-100

The sand and chaparral of Southern California were soon behind us as we made our way north. Mount Baker loomed on the horizon as we descended into Bellingham, where a crisp breeze from the south greeted us as we exited the plane onto the tarmac. Man it feels good to be back.

My godfather picked us up and we grabbed a bite to eat before heading to his house, where we spent the next few hours unpacking and assembling what we had packed and disassembled some 24 hours prior. Save for an absolutely tangled chain on my dad's bike that neither of us could undo, our bikes survived the transit no worse for wear. Luckily a quick disconnect of the quick link remedied the chaos and his bike was soon back together and ready to ride.

We spent the late afternoon and evening getting some last-minute supplies at REI, the most important of which included bear spray and bug spray. Black bears, mountain lions, and mosquitoes are likely to be the most unpleasant wild creatures we may encounter so we wanted to cover our bases.

Wednesday morning, with the sun filtering through the Japanese maples outside our windows, my dad and I loaded up all of our gear onto our bikes for a test run on the local trails. We first rode to Lake Padden, where we circumnavigated the lake on the network of gravel roads. At every intersection I found myself reminded of one of my favorite words: "komorebi," a Japanese word that describes the dappled light that filters through the leaves of trees, or the dancing shadow patterns that result from sunlight shining through rustling leaves.

I love the vignette my lens produces at wide aperatures.

We soon departed the trails around Lake Padden and took the paved connector to Galbraith Mountain, a mecca for mountain bikers all throughout the Northwest. The fire road took us up, over, and through clear-cut forests and back into the neighborhood in which we were staying. We found ourselves making fine-tuned adjustments to straps, shifter and brake cable tensions, and tire pressures.

This test-run gave us each a renewed sense of confidence for our trip. My dad has been nervous about the amount of climbing we are slated to do, while I have been fighting a respiratory virus that has made me worried about fatigue and falling further ill. But by early afternoon, we rolled back to our accommodations having ridden 11 miles with over 1,000ft of climbing, and we each felt that we could comfortably complete this trip together. The long northwest summer days give us ample time to ride slow, take it easy, and enjoy each kilometer.

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