Reasons 1347 – 1457

So, getting slightly behind on the blog. Also our minds might be a little foggy from all of the monotonous biking.  Here it goes, giving it about 82 % mental capacity. Let’s start off with a recap of previous events, to get the mental juices flowing. Leaving Wednesday morning, I think, ya Wednesday.  The Fraser’s were very hospitable and it was a nice to leave Canada on such a high note.

Getting to the Peace Arch Border Crossing was a quick ride and I was fully prepared to be there for a while. Getting there and seeing vehicles lined up way beyond our line of vision, was kind of disheartening. But seeing as how we were on bikes and thus above the law, we made our way to the front using the very handy Nexus lane.  Once at the front, we were directed to a building that dealt with pedestrians and cyclists. I was quite positive we would get through no problem but I wasn’t sure.  We may have got it easy; right before us was a guy that was being quite rude. Because we weren’t complete assholes the officer was easier on us.  While asking questions about where we were heading, I was getting nervous and almost blurted out everything.  So I did my best and let Nathan answer with direct answers.  We got through no problem.  But, they almost confiscated Nathan’s apples but they were Granny Smith and from Washington so he got to keep them.

  

Our first stop was the town of Blaine and we were so excited to be in America, we just needed a picture. So we park our bikes, ask someone to take our picture, pose for the picture, realize sprinklers just came on, watch the bikes get sprayed by sprinklers, laugh hysterically at the situation, get picture taken and continue on our journey.

Our path eventually took us to Bellingham where the Western Washington University is. Google maps took us through the University, but the University was on top of a huge hill. We also got lost looking for an imaginary bike trail that even the locals didn’t know about.  With all that we spent about an hour trying to get back on course.  I had my phoned turned off because we were in the states and I didn’t want roaming charges because I hadn’t cancelled my account in Canada. So far we hadn’t needed to rely on my GPS for directions because it has been fairly easy without. But I remembered it and so I used it for directions and found out where to go in five seconds.  We still had a long day and so I was happy to get out of there. 

After Bellingham, was a very nice mountain pass along the coast, which was very beautiful.  Under different circumstances I would have appreciated it more.  Along the way we saw a group of people looking on the side of the mountain at something.  Nathan being his curious self wanted to check it out.  Turns out they were fossils of palm leaves and different ferns.

After the ups and downs of the mountain pass we get to nice flat farmland, which felt like a dream.  We are almost there and Nathan starts feeling faint. We realize that we haven’t had anything to eat in around five hours and Nathan forgot to put a nuun tablet in his water to recover his essential electrolytes.  After eating some food, downing some electrolytes we are ready to hit the road again.  The days are getting shorter, we found ourselves getting into Anacortes in the dark.  When we eventually did get to our location, our hosts assumed that we weren’t going to show up because of the dark. 

The couple that hosted us in Anacortes were Bill and Ann, very friendly. When we got there they fed us Spaghetti with delicious sauce. Bill and Ann are vegetarians and grow a lot of their own fruits and vegetables in their garden. There were a lot of homegrown vegetables in the pasta sauce which made it even better. After dinner we talked about cycling and our tour, they told us about some of the tours they have done. It was really neat because they have done the pacific coast as well as the southern route through the southern states. They gave us a lot of tips for along the way which was much appreciated.  Bill mentioned that in mornings they go rowing for an hour in the ocean. He asked if we wanted to come along the next day. It was quite early but we weren’t going to have a big ride, so we agreed.

It was a lot of fun, the boats we were on are called Gigs. They are the boats that in the old days were used by the crew to get to shore. We were taught how to row, the commands and the origin of where the commands came from. It was a good wake up. After we went to a coffee shop where Bill and some of his friends hang out to start the day. It was great to have conversations and to hang out with his friends.

 At the coffee shop with the gang.

Nathan, Ann, Bill and Me.

We were all packed up and ready to go. Bill and Ann got a picture of us with our bikes as they do with all of their Warm Showers guests. Before we left we got into a circle holding hands and we prayed for one another, it was really nice.