Day 3 of the journey did not start out well at all. The Best Western we had stayed at the night before had a broken elevator, a broken jacuzzi and a broken laundry detergent vending machine. To add insult to injury, in the morning we all enjoyed the same continental breakfast we'd had at the other two Best Westerns, only to find out that at this one it wasn't complimentary and was going to cost us each $7.95... something we were told after we had consumed it.
As we left Silverdale to head back to Port Townsend where we would pick up our bike route, we stopped at a Starbucks. It was the first time on this trip. Washington is fantastic in that you can hardly go a block without seeing one of those "photo-mart-ish"-sheds-turned-espresso-shops, and until that point all lattes had been purchased at the little sheds (each individually owned) or at quirky little local coffee shops. But in this case, Starbucks was right there, and Fred and I were both looking for a boost.
I got a salted caramel latte that was marginal at best. But Fred's plain old coffee with cream was pretty much the worst cup of coffee either of us had ever tasted. Definitely not up Starbucks' standard and not even close to the delicious coffee that had us spoiled so far. We were trying to find the right words to describe how bad it was... Metallic? Bitter? Stale?
We headed north to our drop point with Nancy driving, me riding shot gun and Fred in the back seat. I could hear him rustling around in the back but got distracted watching the scenery. After a short time he said, "Well, I have a definitive way to describe just how bad this coffee is."
"What's that?" I asked.
"I just spilled some of it in my shoe, and I didn't want to throw it out the window, so I poured it from my shoe back into the cup...and it actually tastes better now." (That comment caused me laugh and spit out the coffee I was drinking.)
When we got near Port Townsend, I had Nancy pull off the road so we could unload the bikes. As we took them off the rack, she noticed at we were actually in a bus stop, where a sign read, "No parking." She was quite worried about it, very likely because by now she knew how long it took Fred and I to get all our gear packed onto the bikes and get moving each time. Happily, no buses approached before we started to ride.
It was a great morning. Overcast and a little misty, but no heavy rain. I felt great...better than I deserved to feel given the previous day's crash. The highway was smooth with wide shoulders, and lined with evergreens and foliage. What a wonderful day to be on a bike.
We rode furiously to Chimacum, an easy, mostly downhill jaunt with the wind at our backs. There were moments there when I felt like I was flying. In Chimacum, Nancy caught up with us and gave us some chain lube she had purchased at a bike shop so we could clean and lube our chains and gears. My gears were still slipping a little, and while I had figured out how to handle it when they did, I was hoping that by cleaning and lubing the chain, I could avoid another crash.
We took off again, heading toward Quilcene on Hwy 19. It was still a fairly easy ride, but now there was tons of traffic, especially truckers, with little-to-no shoulder to keep us out of harm's way. About 20 minutes into it, Nancy drove up and pulled over, telling us we were headed the wrong way, and that we should have turned onto Center Road. We had driven up to the drop point through Quilcene, so I knew the highway we were on would take us there, but we also had to consider the traffic and road safety.
The thought of going all the way back to Chimacum to take the right road wasn't all that pleasant,
though we considered having Nancy drive us back to it and starting over from there. Nancy
consulted the map. "Hmmm... If you take the next right, The Egg and I Road, you can connect to Center after about 2 miles and keep going from there.
That seemed reasonable enough. So we started up again, turning off at Egg.
And that's the thing about maps. Just because it is a nice, flat line on the page in no way means it translates to a nice flat road. About the third extremely steep, miserable hill I had to walk up, I was not thinking the most charitable thoughts about Nancy and her @$&#% iPhone, and was cursing myself for not following my own instincts and staying the course.
But hills notwithstanding, the sights were breathtaking. Up one winding hill, we saw a tiny little shack overgrown with ivy at the end of a long driveway. It had an open doorway and a little built-in bench. I whimsically guessed it was a kissing booth, but Fred correctly surmised it was a homemade bus stop for children who had long since grown up and gone on with their own lives.
This third day was the first where we did some riding into the evening. I loved it. Around 6 pm, the sun was starting to set, and we rode through a wooded area next to a long lake. The purples and pinks in the sky were reflected on the water, and woods had an enchanted silver-lined quality. Magic. I felt strong and content, and at some point during this leg of the ride, I felt my entire body sigh and finally...finally...relax.
It's a great day to be a cyclist, blog.
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