August 14, 2010
Day 2 & 3 - Lake Sylvia State Park to Twin Harbors State Park, WA: Days 2 and 3 ......still learning!
Distance = 39.36 Mi today was a fast ride for us even with the hills....we averaged 10.3mph which is flying for us with all our gear! After a surprisingly good dinner at Denny's last night and a full 8.5hrs of sleep we were up and out by 9:15AM. It was already warm as the weather up here in the No West has turned sunny and warm. Considering my whining of late about the cold fog you would think I would be loving it. Well yes and no. It feels really good until about five hours later going up a 500ft climb.....however I will refrainfrom an actual complaint more just an observation. We had three climbs that were around 500ft each. The last one being into the state park where we are now camping in a beautiful hiker/biker site surrounded by 35 camp sights full of playful children and adults that can not seem to leave their radios at home. We took a beautiful walk deeper into the quiet of the forest and it is beautiful. We are just hoping for some sleep tonight. We have no signal here so I am drafting today's journal and will send when we find signal again. Today's ride was mostly on Hwy's 108 &12 which turned out to be as busy as 101so there was not much to look at except the shoulder which again was a hazard zone. At one spot we walked our bikes to avoid a box of carpenter nails/tacks that had spilled off the truck. The little town of McCleary was nice and the park here is beautiful. Your journalist fast at work
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Day 3 - Lake Sylvia State Park to Twin Harbors State Park, WA: Distance = 35mi? Today's ride should be titled "How you have a double blow out-and do NOT have a flat"It happened to me today.
To understand this we need to go back a few days and review a discussion we had in the car while driving to Seattle. While driving down some very steep hills there were several 'run away truck' ramps Jack explained how they worked to me as I just did not get how a few feet of gravel at the end of long ramp would do the trick. Now most of you probably know that the ramp is several feet deep of gravel so the truck just sort of mushes to a stop.
Well it happened to me today! After crossing this scenic old trestle bridge I was to close to the edge and all of a sudden my bike just felt like it was melting into the ground. I could not make it go and I was clipped in so I just sort of fell into the ditch ...which was full of lots of tall swamp grass so it was a very soft landing. It was really surreal ...Jack had stopped up the hill as he could not see me and here I come walking thinking both of my tires are flat. We pump them up and then notice that my left rear bag is missing! I walk back down the hill and have to really look to find it. We get back on the road and make it to the next town where I need a good stiff tea!!! That's when it dawns on us what had happened I must have just hit a thick patch of gravel which there was tons of all day on the road.
That is pretty much the story of the day. Since we split the 74mi ride into two rides we only did 33mi today. Which was fine as it was 90+ out and we were basically on a freeway all day. We think the pretty part is starting tomorrow ...we hope! We have had a great hot shower, nice camp dinner and a walk down to the beach. Just about time to go to bed. The camp tonight is great we are way far from the RV campers so maybe no earplugs needed tonight. They did save the day yesterday! Quilt shop next to the coffee/popcorn shop we were at. This is for you Mom
Today's ride: 74 miles (119 km)
Total: 123 miles (198 km)
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