August 8, 2008
Day 88: Eagles Nest RV Park (Near Concrete, WA) to Stanwood, WA: THAT'S ALL!
95.65 Miles, 7:26:12 Ride Time, 12.86 Average Speed, 28.16 Maximum Speed
I woke up early, after a good night's sleep. Most of the time I awake several times in the night (even back home in my comfortable bed), so I suppose I can attribute the slumber to the long hours of riding yesterday. Or, perhaps it was the excellent, albeit three pound, buckwheat pillow I have carried around the last three months. I love the (laughably heavy) thing, and I won't give it up, despite what the naysayers say (that means you, J.M.S.!)
I couldn't find NPR on the little radio, so instead I tuned to a Seattle AM station while I lay in the tent. The traffic and weather updates proved only mildly diverting, and eventually I roused myself for the last pack-it-all-up session of the trip. Three months, and I hadn't got much faster at getting everything together in the morning. I'm really envious of (and, to be honest, sort of annoyed with) those people who can get everything back on the bike in about a minute and a half.
After a trip to the pretty-damn-bad-but-I've-certainly-seen-much-worse bathroom, I rode a few miles to downtown Concrete (pop. 790), where everything looked neat and maintained, but I saw virtually no signs of human life. Nothing was open yet (at 8:00). This was one of the rare small towns I've seen that did NOT feature a bustling diner serving breakfast to all the local octogenarians. A woman at a not-yet-open cafe saw me standing forlornly outside, and invited me in, where she declined to make me breakfast (she apparently was required to wait until 8:30 or something), and instead gave me a Red Bull. As was the case every time I've tried the stuff, it was disgusting.
After a lecture on the history of Concrete (short version: Manufacturing concrete in the town used to be a big,big deal; now, not so much), I rode off and in a few miles found a convenience store and purchased the usual sugar- and fat-laden junk I favor.
I soon crossed over to the south side of the Skagit River, and enjoyed several nice, quiet, flat miles. Everything continued to be lush and green on this side of the Cascades.
Traffic picked up as I found my way through the oddly-named Sedro-Woolley (pop. 10,030), but soon enough I was on back roads again. Until now I hadn't decided whether to ride all the way to Anacortes, where the Northern Tier route officially ends. My destination for this last day was the town of Stanwood, where some friends were putting me up for a few days until I flew back home, and riding to Anacortes would require several miles of backtracking later. After almost three months, it seemed dumb to ride so far and not get all the way to the end of the last map, so I pushed on.
I felt incredibly strong today, despite not having eaten a real meal since yesterday morning, and moved quickly to the outskirts of Anacortes, where traffic got very heavy, but the shoulder was wide. I wound my way through the town, which seemed nice enough, although too busy for my tastes. I rode through a traffic jam the last mile, and suddenly there I was: The crowded ferry parking lot that is the official terminus of the Northern Tier. I rode slowly through some brown grass at the edge of the parking lot, in a (quickly abandoned) attempt at getting the bike to some symbolically salty water, and chuckled as a little girl pointed to where I was riding (a pet walking area), and declared, "That's where the dogs go to poop!"
With that, I put away the last map, and rode back to downtown Anacortes. I found a McDonald's, parked the bike in the shrubbery outside where I could keep an eye on it, and went inside with my laptop, where I ordered a meal of salty, fatty, greasy goodness and used the internet to belatedly figure out directions to the home of my hosts in Stanwood. In typical fashion, I had waited until almost literally the last minute to figure out how I was going to go off the route and find my way to the last destination of the trip.
After chatting in McDonald's with a couple of nice women who were doing a short tour up the coast, I rode out, directions scrawled on a napkin. My quickly improvised route was really nice most of the way, and I made one last stop at a cool little country store in Rexville, where I had an extremely large cookie. Soon I was riding into the driveway of Chris and Kelsey Graves, who had kindly offered me a place to stay for a few days.
I spent five minutes sitting on the front steps, drinking the last of my water and reflecting on the last 88 days and 6,479 miles, and then I stood up and knocked on the door.
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Today's ride: 96 miles (154 km)
Total: 6,477 miles (10,424 km)
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