June 27, 2010
First, I’m going to update last night’s post. After my blog post from last night, I went out to a trail around Lake Sylvia, I only did about a mile and a half of it before I came out because it was starting to get a bit dark. I did get some cool pictures on the trail though which are posted below. Also, there’s a funny story about the lake associated with that hike, remind me when I get back to tell you about it, not blog material.
After I got back from the trail I saw that the other hiker/biker campsite was taken by three cyclists. Turns out they are doing to same route that we are, which was kind of nice to hear since I had been wondering why I hadn’t seen too many fellow cyclists at the campsites. Two of them, Luke and Erika, are doing the ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (click this link if interested in reading about what they’re doing http://pedal-for-charity.com/). It was good to have some conversation with people at the campsite, our other camps have been void of any real interesting people to talk to.
On to today. We rode about 48.5 miles today! It was pretty good terrain, so we finally managed to cycle at about 10mph. Only downside about today was that the wind was blowing decently hard against us (any flat roads were made to feel a little bit uphill since we were fighting the wind). We took a shortcut to skip Twins Harbor and ended at a KOA camp in Bay Center so that we could make up the day that we lost in Olympia. The ride was nice today and our bodies aren’t that tired, but it was also a pretty boring ride today. The sky was heavily clouded all day, even threatened to rain on us once, and we didn’t get too many views of the ocean. A lot of the area we went through today is known for their clam harvesting. In fact, during the 2 mile ride into Bay Center today, we saw a few huge stacks of clam shells. Long story short, even though I finally found a convenient and accessible place to hold my camera today, I didn’t take any pictures.
One last note. We stopped at a very cool diner today in Raymond, WA. The outside looked pretty shabby (it was a bungalow), but the inside was done up real well to resemble a 50s diner. Lots of Marilyn Monroe and Route 66 memorabilia and good food. Taka took a picture of the place, so I’ll post the name of it later. The music was good too, even got to listen to the Battle of New Orleans. I don’t know how I know that song, but I recognized it immediately and knew the chorus. Also, I’m going to see if I can setup a widget on this site in order to catalogue the songs that pop into my head relentlessly while I’m riding. So far my head is consumed by Twisted Sister – We’re Not Gonna Take It when I’m going uphill and John Denver’s – Country Roads whenever I go over 20mph on a downhill (strange I know).
-Chris