Day 35 - Poulsbo, WA to Oak Harbor, WA

Day Total - 59.7 miles
Trip Total - 1,334.5 miles
We saw Canada for the first time today.
In related news, Kevin isn't going to Vancouver. He has decided to end his tour in Bellingham tomorrow, so I'll be going solo north from there.

We started the day at about 10:00 on the very busy Highway 3, which we followed a few miles to the Hood Canal Bridge. The crossing was gorgeous. heading west from the Kitsap to the Olympic Peninsula (and Jefferson County), we could see the snowy Olympic peaks against the clear, blue sky. The weather was the best we have had in Washington so far, and that was good, because we had some 60 miles to ride to our destination for the day.

As we reached the west end of the bridge, we turned off the highway to follow the eastern shore. The roads were excellent, with almost no traffic and pleasantly rolling terrain through the shade of evergreens. As we looked east, we could see the Cascades from Rainier to Baker. We rode through this for about 15 miles before we turned briefly onto highways again.

Soon after, we were directed onto a bike path by the Adventure Cycling map. But the directions were a little unclear, and it took us a good 10 minutes of riding around to find it. Once we did, we had to hold our noses past a paper mill into Port Townsend. We were ultimately going to catch the Whidbey Island ferry there, but first we had to stop at the bike shop to get Kevin's bottom bracket fixed. The place where we stopped, The Broken Spoke, was excellent. It was more a couple people who loved cycling more than a traditional commercial shop. While Kevin got his bike fixed, I bought a frame pump and a bottle of chain lube. Kevin had decided earlier in the day that he was going to end his tour in Bellingham, so I needed to get those items to make sure that I could make emergency repairs should anything happen on my way to Vancouver.

Once Kevin's bike was fixed, we rode a couple blocks to the ferry terminal and got in line (at the front, bikes load first) for the ferry to Whidbey Island. We got on the 3:00 sailing, and after a 25 minute crossing, we rode off the ship into the appropriately named Island County. We stated by biking east across Whidbey to nicely-manicured Coupeville, a town of about 2,000 inhabitants sitting on a calm cove.

Cascades from the ferry

Port Townsend 

The Olympics 

On Whidbey Island

We didn't have much time to spend there though, so we rode on, across the island's impeccable roads. Whidbey isn't all that hilly, although we did have a noticeable climb over the spine of the island back to the western shore. The riding here was even better than on the mainland, and what's more, as we climbed the western cliffs, we got our first glimpse of Canada! Vancouver Island (famous for not being the location of the City of Vancouver) was off in the distance to the west, beyond the San Juan Islands. Overhead, meanwhile, jets from nearby NAS Whidbey Island were buzzing around, so every few minutes we would get a deafening blast of noise.

The descent from the western cliffs was steep - so much so that I reached 40 mph for the first time on the trip. I was cruising along the flat beach at the bottom when another cyclist pulled up and told me that Kevin had a front derailleur problem and had stopped. I waited for him, and within a few minutes he caught back up and we were on our way again.

San Juans in the foreground, Vancouver Island on the horizon

Despite Kevin's slow pace as he neared the end of his tour (or my single-minded focus driving me to Vancouver, I'm not sure), we made it to Deception Pass State Park at the north end of Whidbey Island around 6:30. For a nearly 60 mile ride with a repair stop and a ferry, we had made decent time. After a steep headland climb reminiscent of Oregon, we rode (actually pushed the very last bit up a small wooded trail) into the secluded hiker/biker sites, our last of the trip, and set up camp.
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