Trip Total - 1,274.8 miles
We got a relatively late start this morning, since today was slated to be a relatively short one by our new, high-mileage Washington standards. Partly because the terrain is much flatter and partly because we haven't had any serious headwinds, our speed in Washington has been much quicker than in Oregon and California. Thus, while a 40 mile day was about average there, it's on the low end for Washington (weather notwithstanding).
We backtracked three miles to the city of Belfair with ambulances and sheriffs speeding by in the other direction. We guessed that it had something to do with the race track down the road, but we never found out for sure. Once we got back to town, we turned onto the Old Belfair Highway, the alternate route to busy Highway 3. This was a really good road, particularly once traffic died down a few miles out of town. It was climbing gradually up the Union River Valley, but not at a steep enough grade to really slow us down. Soon enough, we crossed into Kitsap County, where we would be spending the rest of the day.
A couple miles from Bremerton, we saw another cyclist headed the other way. He waved us down to talk - he turned out to be a veteran tourist from Germany (I think) who was riding through the western US. He actually wasn't sure where he was going, but we assured him that he was on the right track. After a few minutes of conversation, we went our separate ways.
Some 13 miles into the day, we arrived in the outskirts of Bremerton, which, at a population of nearly 40,000, was the biggest city we had been in since leaving the Bay Area (the California one, not Coos Bay). The route had us skirting the city though, so we didn't face much traffic. The downside was steep hills, so we spent a lot of time in very low gears. We almost had a dog incident there too, but the owners, insisting that the dog wouldn't hurt us, called it back just in time. At least they were apologetic about it, not blaming us.
The next several miles were through basically suburban environment into Silverdale. After intermittent views from the east side of the Kitsap Peninsula, we stopped at Silverdale Cyclery for Kevin to get his bike fixed. Alas, he judged the mechanics to be subpar and decided to continue with his ailing bike to the next shop in Port Townsend tomorrow. We also did some shopping in Silverdale, including a stop at a Barnes and Noble at the mall in town. It was the first real mall we had seen since California, so it was something of a notable occasion. On our way out, we were stopped by a man who talked to us about how he wanted to tour the coast as well. He was interested in the Novara Randonee, so we talked a bit about the bike and how it has held up (very well, even some components that I expected to be long gone by now).
After a couple more brief stops, we were once again on our way north. We had to ascend again to get over the spine of the peninsula, and while we were climbing we passed by two entrance gates to Naval Base Kitsap, one of the major submarine bases of the US Navy. From the crest, it was smooth sailing for the last eight or so miles to camp at Kitsap Memorial State Park. The hiker/biker sites were well hidden, but after biking in circles for a few minutes, a park employee directed us to the woods on the side where they were located.
Already in camp was a cyclist named Amos, a student at Olin College, who was on his first day touring from Seattle to San Francisco. We tried to help him out with some advice on what he would be facing, but I expect he'll be fine. At least he missed the bad weather of the last couple of week. After dinner, I went to check out the beach, which surprised me with a magnificent view of the Olympic Mountains to the west. We were very close to the northern end of the Hood Canal, and to the north, I cold see the bridge over it that we will cross early tomorrow. Hopefully the sky is clear, because the Olympics in morning light would be even better than they were this evening.
View Day 34 - Belfair, WA-Poulsbo, WA in a larger map
Almost there!
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