Since we were already in Seattle and since we had a gift certificate to a hotel in Anacortes, we decided to turn the football game into bike-touring road trip. Our plan? Spend Sunday night in Anacortes, hop the Monday morning ferryto Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, bike around it, camp, hop the Tuesday morning ferry to Orcas Island, bike around it, camp, summit Mt. Constitution, hop the Wednesday morning ferry back to Anacortes. Yeah, yeah, it's an ambitious plan, but definitely doable. As you know, we're definitely hard core.
Sunday night's view from the hotel window. Bleak.
Monday morning ride preparations at the Anacortes ferry dock.
View of ferry dock at Friday Harbor. Bleak.
But the biking gods shone down and cleared away the clouds just as we pulled out of Friday Harbor and pointed our bikes toward Roche Harbor on the north side of the island. San Juan Island is full of great things to do and see. Most of the island is reasonably flat farmland, with vineyards, pastures, cutewooded B&Bs and of-course, sculpture gardens.
Our lunch stop at the W.B. Sculpture Park.
Roche Harbor.
Monday night campsite at San Juan County Park.
Tuesday morning, we got up early and headed south by Lime Kiln State Park back toward Friday Harbor. This was our best chance to spot some whales, but we kept looking out on still, quiet water.
We caught the Noon o'clock ferry to Orcas Island and headed north toward the east side of the island and our Tuesday night campsite at Moran State Park. I now know why no one ever talks about how great it is to bike on Orcas Island. Because it sucks. Sure, the scenery is gorgeous--Orcas is more mountainous than the other islands-- but all of those mountains mean lots of climbing and our bikes were pretty loaded down. So when we stopped for gelato in Eastsound around 5pm, we were pretty tuckered. I'm not sure who said it first--"you know, we should just get a hotel"-- but that's all it took. B was on the phone, finding us a room. It was a great decision. We had already abandoned our Wednesday morning plan to summit Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juans at 2,409 feet, so we took showers, had some great Mexican food and got a great night of sleep. We are so definitely not hard core.
We took off bright and early Wednesday morning back to the ferry dock and headed east for Anacortes.
Conclusions, i.e. lessons learned:
1. This was our first bike tour. We'll definitely do another one, but B didn't like the trailer one bit. We'll do a rack with panniers for him next time too.
2. We will not be biking the San Juans again. The whole time we just wanted to be out on the water. We will come back for sure, but next time, on a boat.
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