In Memory of Warmer Summers

Back in the Day, Planes Were Waterproof

Arriving in Seattle finds us about eight to nine hours later than scheduled due to the graces of American Airlines cancelling flights.  Apparently there was some rain in Dallas, heavy rain as it turns out, but having lived there ten years I know the habits of DFW Airport and our chosen airlines.  The bottom line is we get to sleep in Seattle about the same time we wake up in Florida and we have a shuttle to catch to get us to Anacortes in just a very few hours.  This places us in a state of fatigue that will tax us fairly significantly for several days.

Back in the day, planes flew in the rain and for our part, I confess we were significantly less impaired by schedule interruptions, jet lag and time shifts of three time zones.

Finding our equipment successfully shipped to Skagit Bicycle Shop, we avail ourselves of a couple of parking places out back and I somehow in my fatigue succesfully put two bicycles together without exchanging parts.

Folks have asked what my “bike in a suitcase” looks like

Leaving camp at Washington Park on Anacortes for the ferry to the islands. Bags packed; bags under the eyes

Sallie engaging with other cyclists

A beach on Lopez Island

Pink parts on Sallie’s; black parts on mine. Easy peasy.



Lopez Island campground

Sunset on San Juan Island

A real treat. Orcas making an appearance off of San Juan Island for us. They had not yet been spotted this summer, and we saw two pods coming through.

Meet Olivia from New York and Emma from Berkley. They are on their way to the U.S. Mexico border from Vancouver.

On June 6th we rode up to the summit of Mt. Constitution

From here they say there are some of the best views in the world. Let’s take a look…

Looking west toward Victoria and Vancouver Island

The Olympic Mountains on the horizon barely visible through the mist

Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters covered in snow on the horizon

Obviously the weather was fabulous and visibility about as perfect as one sees from Mt. Constitution

For our cycling friends: Not uncharacteristically, we encountered some poorly chosen advice from folks. Unfortunately, many of the sources of poor advice were cyclists. Pretty much everyone said Lopez Island was “flat”, San Juan was “hilly” and Orcas Island was some sort of killer of cyclists and their bodies pile up in the forests as they topple from their bikes from exhaustion trying to scale the grades and climbs. Nonesense. All of these islands have significant climbs and were taxing to two folks from Florida, but come on. Lopez was not flat and Orcas was not any worse than any other.

Most importantly, we were told over and over by everyone that the last two miles of the climb up Mt. Constitution was some sort of death match with gravity. I suspect this is an uban legend that gets passed on from cyclist to cyclist, scares people off the attempt, and folks take their rented car up there instead. The truth is the last two miles of Mt. Constitution were the easiest part of the entire climb.

Finally, for those who want to explore the islands, I recommend using Lopez Island as your base camp. The campground on Lopez has the fastest, shortest ride to the inter-island ferry and will serve you well to take day-trips to any other island from there.

P.S. A tip of the hat to the Washington State Ferry System. Cyclist pay a fee to leave Anacortes, but from there on the inter-island ferry system is free to all hikers and bikers. The ferries run on time and they are a jewel to treasure.

I’ll be back next week with more. In the meantime we are back in Anacortes awaiting a Fed Ex shipment of some needed bike parts to help with a problem I developed. It’s not a big deal, and we’ll start our trip east very soon from this, the starting point of the Northern Tier.