June 20, 2019
Exploring the homeland
One of the many fine things about being retired is that we have more time now to explore our own neighborhood. For almost 30 years we dedicated virtually all of our annual vacation allotment to overseas travel, and rarely took extended tours at home. We did plenty of riding in our region, but nearly all as day rides or long weekend getaways.
Overseas travel suits us very well, but we live in the heart of a pretty fine region with some of the best touring possibilities the country has to offer. It’s well past time to dig a little deeper into our own back yard than we’ve been able to do up until now. This summer’s ride from Victoria back home is the first of what will hopefully be a series of longer tours in the Pacific Northwest.
We’ve had many discussions in the past year or so about whether to plan out and book the whole tour in advance or leave our options open to give us flexibility. This one is a book-it-all tour, partly because it’s high season but mostly because we’ll be staying at a few of the historic lodges on the Olympic Peninsula. If you don’t book these places well in advance you’re out of luck, and we don’t want to be disappointed. Since the heart of the tour is locked down, there’s no real point in not booking the rest of it as well.
The planned route is shown on the map below, but we thought we would publish a rough calendar for the tour also so folks that live along the way will know when we’re in their neighborhood. If you’ll be around and care to meet up for a meal or a beer or to ride (fairly slowly) along with us for a ways, please get in touch. We’d be happy to see some of you folks in person rather than just through the comments block.
So here’s the plan:
- 7/16-18: Friday Harbor
- 7/19-21: Victoria
- 7/22-26: a loop through Sooke, Port Renfrew, Cowichan Lake, Chemainus, and Nanaimo
- 7/27-31: ferry to Tsawwassen, White Rock, Bellingham, Laconner, and Mukilteo
- 8/01-06: Coupeville, Port Townsend, Sequim, and Port Angeles (and hopefully up Hurricane Ridge!)
- 8/07-10: Lake Crescent, Forks, Kalaloch, and Lake Quinault
- 8/11-14: Aberdeen, Centralia, Kelso, and home.
Please join us, virtually or IRL!
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For five seasons now we have refused to tour on this continent, let alone close to home. Ok, so we were a little crabby because a truck bowled us over on a freeway in Florida, but have we even considered Duncan to Port Renfrew?
Now we will have you to blaze the way, and maybe show some new and for us cheaper possibilities! From the safety of our sofa, we will be watching closely. Assuming, of course, that we can put down our fascinating "Alpe Adria" and other guidebooks!
5 years ago
Out of curiosity, do most of your bookings have generous cancellation policies?
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🚴♀️🚴🏻♂️🐻🐻🐆🐆🐻🐻🐆🐆🔥🔥
Really looking forward to seeing two here in Victoria.
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Any idea how many miles you've ridden together since you got married?
5 years ago
Good question about the miles. I keep a log of our longer tours, which must add up to somewhere around 75,000 miles by now. With day rides and weekenders added in? I dunno - maybe we’d be up to about 200,000 miles.
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