Bellingham Washington to Portland Oregon
July 16th-25th 2007

Thursday August 16th
Bus trip to Bellingham, Washington from Portland, Oregon

We want to ride from top to bottom - Bellingham, Washington, to Mexico. We think it over and decide the best way is to break it up into segments. The first part would be from Bellingham to Portland. For variety we decide it would be fun to take the bike on the train to Bellingham. The bike trip would take us along Puget Sound, then inland through Kelso before getting back to Portland. Bec makes maps, calls AMTRAK and gets tickets. All is set. Then the phone rings. "This is AMTRAK. Your train is broken. But don't worry. We can put you on a commuter train. The problem is that there is no baggage allowed". No baggage. How can that be? What to do? "Refund our tickets," says Bec. We need baggage. We brain storm as to how to solve this problem. Rent a car. Rent a U-haul. How about the bus? Bec makes a call. Greyhound will take us. Problem solved. But now we have to take apart the bike and pack all of our gear into four regulation size boxes that we can dispose of at the end of the line. But, how are we going to get four big boxes to the bus station? Louie's sister, Deborah, comes to the rescue. Even though we are leaving early in the morning, she lends us a hand and drives us to the depot. As she unpacks the boxes out falls a key chain with a little bell attached. "The first token," she says.

Before going into the terminal, Louie turns to Bec and says, "Don't stare at the people. They have bright hair, tattoos, and piercings. I saw that when I picked up the tickets yesterday." Not knowing what she may see, Bec enters the terminal. Disappointingly, all the people look just like regular folk.

It turns into a very long ride with the bus arriving in Seattle almost two hours late. The bus in Seattle is just getting ready to pull out, but we flag it down and throw our boxes inside. When we arrive at Bellingham, the border police meet our bus. We wonder to ourselves if the Oregon small town police have told them about our blatant traffic violations problem that we have been having lately. We eye each other suspiciously, but we sneak into a cab and make a getaway. Bec and the cabbie chat. The cabbie tells us that whatever we do, we should not ride on Chuckanut road. "It is way too dangerous with lots of cars and no shoulder," she says. Bec says, "They're all are like that." "But not like this road. You really should not ride it if you want to stay alive," she admonishes. The weather report on the radio says rain for three days.

What else can we do but put together the bike and head for the hot tub at the motel. How bad can a little rain be? We are from Portland and it rains all the time there.

Friday, August 17th
Bellingham, Washington to Anacortes, Washington (Washington Park) 42.8 miles

Yahoo! The motel has one of our favorite things about motels - continental breakfasts. We take turns raiding the hotel's continental breakfast buffet, stuffing our bike bags full of goodies. Louie is sure that the extra weight will lower our average speed. Bec reminds him that we are retired and this is not a race. We love eating the fresh fruit and muffins as we ride along. We start climbing hills right out of town. The road has a bike lane and very light traffic. The bay is framed between giant cedars. What a great road. We look up and see we are on the infamous Chuckanut Drive. Our perspective is so different from the cabbies. We stop and enjoy the views from turnouts along the road. We stop at Joel Hammel Beach State Park and have lunch, eating food we nabbed from the hotel. We have a headwind all day, a precurser of the impending storm that is due to arrive tonight. But right now, the sun is shining and the temperature perfect for riding.

Along the way we see old abandoned ships and boats. Bec rubs her eyes because on one ship it looks as if a ghost is waving at us. Louie snaps a picture. Decide for yourselves.

We arrive at our camp in Washington Park and see a group of ten or more young men touring on mountain bikes ride by. We never do see where they all camped, maybe they found someplace better? Cooking our own meals in camp is a challenge. We take turns eating sometimes because the cook pot is so small.

August 18th, Saturday
Anacortes to Fort Warden in Port Townsend 44.2 miles

This morning is spent mostly climbing with some grades coming in at 15%. We stop to enjoy the view at Deception Pass and meet Donald from Tucson. He has been helping his Mom break in her new home, but got itchy bike legs and set off for a few days ride. We understand. It happens to everyone who bike tours. It is hard to stop. We all just want to keep on riding and as Donald says, "Watch all the scenery go by all day." Later in the day, we spy him eating Thimble Berries alongside the road. "Stop and have a treat," he calls out. Sadly we cannot. The climbing has slowed us down so we need to keep moving.

As we are climbing up one hill, Louie stops the bike and points to the road. "The second token!" he calls out. Sure enough, sitting on the road is a GPS unit. Bec picks it up, punches some buttons, and it works. No one is in sight, it is between towns, and has no name on it so we put it in our bag. Wow! It will be a neat find if we can figure out how to use it!

We are working hard going up and down hills. We pop into a town. Wait, we are not supposed to be in a town, yet. Ugh. We are lost. Oh well, time for lunch. We pull into a shopping mal, and Louie gathers lunch while Bec punches buttons on the GPS unit. It shows us where we are. Bec cannot quite get it to tell us how to get to where we want to be, so she pulls out the maps and charts a new route. We will have to figure out how to use the contraption later. At least it found us. Today really is a good day for us. We just make it to the ferry seconds before it is pulling out. The guy at the gate radios the ferry to tell them to hold up for us. Then we get the last camping space in the Park and make to the laundry with just enough time to wash and dry before it closes. We really should buy a lottery ticket today!

In the park we meet Colin and Sue from England. They took four months to ride across the US doing the "middle route". They are sad because this is their last leg. They will be flying home soon. We are not sure if we could live on the road for 4 months. Soft furniture and toast turn out to be the things we begin to miss most after a while. We also meet a pair of Canadians who are riding to San Diego. They say we are brave for riding a tandem.

August 19th, Sunday
Port Townsend to Illahahee State Park in Bremerton 55 miles

The rains have arrived but they are light and it is warm. The English stay in camp. Canadians head out.

We try to get our camp stove started but our waterproof matches are wet and won't work. Bec wanders off to the bathroom to dry them on the blower. A woman sees what she is doing and offers her lighter from camp, but Bec gives them a try and they work.

Our tummies full, we head out. We go up and down on Discovery Road in the forest. Dried them on Bathroom Blower. Up and down on Discover road in the forest. The climbs feel endless. The deer alongside the road just stare at us. Louie fusses. He wants to get rid of gear that we do not need. Many times we start a tour with items that seem to be a necessity, but as we go along, carting them up and down hills, we realize they are not worth the work. We think about what we can do without. Bec decides her water backpack is not needed because it is not hot enough to need all that water. In the pile go her extra glasses, the GPS we found, the cell phone and the charger, and some extra bike tools. All in all, the items weigh about five pounds, significant. At the next post office the five pounds will be sent home. Bec grumbles, though, because on this trip we had not taken her plastic French press coffee cup, using Louie's cup and a small plastic cup for her. She argues that it would have been worth the ounces for her to have her own because her coffee gets cold in the morning.

It rains all morning. We trudge on. We come across a car wreck where the car had mowed down a sign and hit a tree. We speculate how that could have happened on the straight stretch of road.

Finally, Louie puts his foot down and we opt out for the main highway, highway 303, over the back roads because we are tired of climbing and Bec has begun to not feel as chipper as she would like. Now instead of hills we have lots of traffic. We cross a big bridge that has a lane for bikes. Must be that this is part of the Adventure Cycling route. We have to walk the bike for about 100 feet before the end because of big metal struts in the road, but at least they tried to accommodate us.

At the park, the man at the campsite next to us invites us to warm up at his fire. He tells us all his problems having just had surgery, relationship issues, and more. We head off to bed thankful that our lives are led simply, just riding around on our bike.

August 20th, Monday
Bremerton to Potlatch State Park 48 miles

It is hard to get up this morning. It is pouring down rain. Everything is soaked. Big drops fall off the trees and sploot into our coffee and onto our pancakes. Louie takes refuge right next to a tree trunk, but Bec just accepts her fate and sits at the table in her rain gear eating her soggy pancakes. This is real camping! There is nothing like a bit of self-generated adversity to make a person more appreciative of what they have. We cart the gear over to the bathrooms and load the bike under the roof overhang. Folks stop by and chat, mostly finding it hard to believe that we would head out in the rain. We really will be more comfortable riding than sitting in camp in soggy rain gear waiting for it to stop.

After riding for a while we end up on a Freeway! There really is no other way except up these incredibly steep hills. Cars and big trucks whiz by. We see big aircraft carriers in dry dock in the Navy Yard across the freeway. Cars are going too fast and the shoulder too narrow to make it comfortable to stop for a picture. Soon our way is blocked by a tow truck trying to help a person in a car. We just have to wait. There is no way to go around them.

Finally, we get off the freeway onto Belfer Road. Ahh! Nice, low traffic, and the rain stops for the moment. We pull into Belfer to find a Laundromat. It has an attendant and signs that say no tent drying and no big sleeping bags. Louie keeps the attendant busy while Bec stuffs the tent and sleeping bags in the dryer. We have no choice. Everything is sopping wet. Everything else that does not need washing gets set out on the sidewalk in the sun. Bec minds the laundry while Louie wanders off to find food and other needed items. The folks in the laundry tell us that we have three more days of rain. A woman stops by to tell us a story of when her favorite aunt took her on her one and only tandem ride around town. At the end of the ride they went to the Aunt's home and drank a pitcher of Marguerites. "I was younger then," she says wistfully. Louie meets another guy from Germany who is riding to San Francisco. They guy is amazed at all the traffic.

After everything is dry and put away we head out for Potlatch State Park. We ride next to the Hood Canal, which looks more like a big river. It is so big and deep that Orca whales swim in it. We stop to read signs about the Hood Canal. People living along the canal have caused the oxygen levels to drop. Fish are dying. The state is trying to help it by dumping Nitrogen in it and asking folks to raise shellfish. We do not know if it will help, but at least they are trying. We stop at the Union Country store for some post cards. The owner says that he tried to make granola for the cyclists, but they all wanted Cinnamon Rolls!

We head off to the hiker biker camp sites which we like a lot better than any of the others because they are back in the trees and more private. We find out that the state bought the RV Resort next to Potlatch so eventually Potlatch will have lots of amenities. But the bad part is the monthly park residents will have to move out, which puts a hardship on them. We hope that the state keeps up the maintenance on the park. So many times, we find that vandalism is left unchecked and that items fall into disrepair. We don't know why people wreck stuff like that, but they do. If the park is to be nice, then the state will have to keep after it. We hope they do.

August 21st, Tuesday
Potlatch State Park to Elma RV Park 40.9 miles

We are riding in forests in the morning again. We climb most of the morning but have a steady downhill to look forward to in the afternoon. We see lots of fishermen wading in the river next to us. We see a group of them working to bring in a huge salmon and another walks past us on the road carrying a prize. "Nice catch!", says Bec, but the fisherman just grunts. Must have been a long morning for him. We stop on a small bridge and look down at the Salmon. There are no fishermen here as it is right next to a hatchery. We think the salmon have returned to spawn. We wonder if they gather them up here for their eggs.

We see lots of bike tracks but the only bikes we see are dead ones left abandoned alongside the road. Louie wishes he could gather them up and find them new homes, but there is no way for us to do that. The houses are very interesting along the river because we see big expensive ones next to small shabby ones. In the countryside, we also see big expensive houses and then run down trailers.

In the park we meet Azella, who is a psychic, and Terra, a cyclist who went across country building houses. Azella gave us a reading telling Louie that this year he will be working on self-searching. Bec, on the other hand, will be working on her independence. Terra, left her group behind and is riding by herself to San Francisco. She really likes the freedom of bike touring. Azella shows us some deer that have decided to have a snack in the park.

Tonight Louie dreams he makes a full turkey dinner on his camping equipment for everyone in the Park!

August 22nd, Wednesday
Elma RV Park to Chehalis - Stan Hedwall City Park 44.6 miles

We ride out on South Bank road. It is very nice with no traffic at all. We are in farmland now with cows and horses to keep us company. We bike through Oakville, but see that it is floundering. We note that those small towns that are making it have festivals, murals, and rallies of all sorts. Apparently Oakville does not because half of the buildings are empty even the ice cream parlor.

We ride on next to Rider Road. We stop to talk to an 89 year old man out walking who says, "That looks like fun!" He tells us that he was walking before walking was popular. We note that folks that are not fit say to us, "That looks like a lot of work!" Folks that are fit tell us it looks like fun.

It is overcast for most of the day, but it doesn't rain. We pull into Stan Hedwall City Park and get to know our neighbors. We have happy RV folks with cute little dogs at one site and thrifty RV folks, who mostly boon dock on another. They spend about the same a day as we do - $50.00. They tell us of RV pads in Palm Springs that sell for $80,000 and that they have the rule that RV's in the park must be less than 10 years old. Our old RV most certainly would not be welcome there!

The park is in need of attention. The men's room was in disrepair and there was junk strewn about. Louie goes to work gathering up an old BBQ, some plate metal, and junk from the men's room and puts it in the dumpster. The old guy who is in charge of the park said that he was going to get around to cleaning things up, but we really think he would rather just sit in his chair.

We have a campfire tonight, tacos, and sugar-free apple pie. Bec wants that turkey dinner Louie dreamed about, but the tacos and pie are good.

August 23rd, Thursday
Chehalis to Kelso - Brookhollow RV Park 50.2 miles

This morning we are riding on the old Jackson Highway in farmland. There are lots of goats and very few cars. We stop to pick some apples to feed the goats and find some hungry ones down the way. We discover that llamas do not like apples. We know they like triscuits, but we did not know about apples.

We ride up to the Old Jackson House on the Jackson Highway. Mr. Jackson was very busy. His house was a courthouse for a while and a store. Lots of folks stopped by and stayed for a bit. We enjoy looking around and in the house as we take a break from the saddle.

The road gets busy on the second half of the ride. The shoulder alternates between wide and narrow. It feels like a long day today. We pull into the Brookhollow RV Park and then disaster strikes. Bec had done her research and it had told her that Brookhollow took tents. But the Clerk behind the counter is not happy with us. She lowers her glasses and says, "I send all the tenters down the road to Kamp Kalama." Bec drags out the maps and finds that Kamp Kalama is 10 miles the wrong way. That would add 20 miles to our already 61-mile ride in the morning. Bec says, "But your web site says you take tents." "I know," says the clerk. "But you cannot put anything on the grass, no tents, no tent stakes, no stuff." Bec tells her our dilemma. Finally she says, "Well, I can put you on a cement pad way in the back for $20.00, but you will have to sleep on the cement." She is trying to accommodate us and that is commendable. We take it. But, really they need to change their web site to say, "No tents" if they really do not want them. It is hot today and our campsite is in full sun. So when no one is looking we sit in the cool shade on the grass. To make up for having to sleep on the cement, Louie makes that turkey dinner that he dreamed about on our camp stove. But, he is getting Bec's tummy ache now, so he does not enjoy it as much as she does.

After dinner we go for a nice walk on the dike that circles the park.

August 24th, Friday
Kelso to Home. 61.2 miles

We are getting anxious to get home so we get up early today. We head out towards the Longview Bridge. On the road we are sandwiched between big trucks. "We are a big rig, too, "says Louie as he expertly maneuvers the tandem behind and next to them. The Longview Bridge does have a bike lane, but it is filled with bark blown off logging trucks. It feels like cobblestones beneath the tires. We have to stay in the bike lane because of all the big trucks using the bridge.

The trucks continue one after the other on Highway 30. All at once Louie stops the bike. There on the road is the third token, a roll of the always-needed black tape. Bec scoops it up and puts it in the bike bag. We think we have only ever bought one roll in the last 10 years because we always find some on the highway.

We stop in St Helens at a bike shop and Louie finds two sets of used SPD pedals for $10.00. He could use them on his cruiser and on one of the tandems so he does not have to trade the pedals out all the time. To keep us entertained, the walkers from the Portland to Coast run are sharing the bike lane with us. It is fun to see all the different people doing the walk. They wave and smile as they go by. Happily we arrive home after 387 miles.

Left shoe study:

We have started to notice a strange phenomena. We see lots of shoes and gloves alongside the road. Gloves appear to be lost randomly and in pairs. But shoes are three times more likely to be left shoes. Bec finds this very interesting and cannot figure out why. On this ride we found about 10 left shoes to 3 right shoes. Bec has started a study to determine if her left shoe theory holds out. So far we have 15 left shoes to 5 right shoes. She would appreciate folks adding to her study. Please email us with your findings and theories as to why left shoes are the shoes most commonly found alongside the road.