Rail Trail Memorial Day
Over a long Memorial Day weekend in 2008 Odette and I went to Vancouver Island and rode 200 miles to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.
On a wet Friday morning we drove to Olympia and rode the Chehalis Western trail to the junction with Yelm – Tenino trail. It rained pretty good for about half of the ride. We turned left and rode to Yelm and then back to the car. Odette got lost where the trail detours by the railroad tracks. My cyclometer fell off on the gravel as I was retrieving her. All of the gates that were on the trail the last time I rode it have been replaced with single bollards. What a difference!
We drove on over to Port Angeles, clipped on the panniers, and took the Black Ball ferry to Victoria. It was an uneventful ride. We rode over the Johnson Street bridge and then followed the bike route signs to Craigflower street which has a bike lane. We rode that to the Galloping Goose at the Transcanada highway. It was a pretty good climb with our heavy panniers. We got to the bed & breakfast at a little after 8:00.
The next day we rode into Victoria on the Galloping Goose (via the Esquimalt Lagoon spit and the Ocean Blvd. hill,) went to a book store where we got a bike guide to Vancouver Island, and then biked the Lochside trail out to Sidney. I recognized the second half of the ride from our previous visit in 2003 (our 25th wedding anniversary). We ate pastry in Sidney and went to a bookstore, then rode back to Victoria. Odette’s heart-rate monitor wasn’t working and she really missed her mileage and speed. She made me carry the books. We went to MEC and bought a cheap cyclometer for her bike and then walked around downtown Victoria and worried about leaving our bikes with just cable locks. We finally went to an outdoor restaurant on the water and parked the bikes where we could see them.
On Sunday we biked the other way on the Galloping Goose ending up in Sooke. We met neighbors (Noel & Eileen) from our block in Seattle on the trail (they were riding a borrowed tandem.) We ate lunch at Serious Coffee in Sooke and then rode on out to Sooke potholes and back to the B&B. We stoppped at a mall on the way back to buy chinese take-out and ice cream and then ate in our room.
Monday morning we loaded up the panniers and biked the Galloping Goose to downtown Victoria and the ferry terminal. The boat was crowded and I stood up most of the way to Port Angeles. The customs guys waved us through (maybe because our bikes weren’t going to work very well in their maze) saving us at least half-an-hour in line. We threw our stuff into the car and then rode the Port Angeles Waterfront trail to Morse Creek and back, remarking on the headstones under the park benches. We weren’t quite finished when we got back to the car so we rode the other way on the trail, out to the end of Ediz Hook.
Then we drove home in Memorial Day traffic with a loose bike carrier shifting around on top. (I got sleepy and made Odette drive from Sequim.)
All in all a very good trip. Here are some images