With 140 miles to go to Seattle, we are shooting for about 80 today and 60 tomorrow. That should put us somewhere around Spanaway by the end of the day with our longest distance yet.
Several years ago I passed along this route in the opposite direction during the Cascade Bike Club's Seattle to Portland (STP) ride. While not exactly the same roads, we are pretty much riding it in reverse now and hitting all the same towns. This time however, there will be no folks on the side of the road with bananas and juice for us.
Much of the roadside scenery remains fairly similar to what we have been seeing. The weather is definitely nicer today which is a plus. In the absence of scenery variation I have decided to make today's theme roadside flowers of which I am totally ignorant.
Pink flowers
Maybe they are daisies...or weeds
Much of the early day was spent riding on the westside highway which parallels I-5 on the other side if the cowling river. It is always nice to ride on secondary roads near an interstate because most of the cars take the interstate. Empty roads are nice for biking.
Quiet biking tunnel
Passing through Napavine we decided it was time for second breakfast/first lunch and pulled over at the local market. Cold drink and cold burritos have been the main lunch fare on this trip and that was it for today.
While there, we watched an older gentleman training a young dog. The dog was amazingly well behaved and would wait for him as he pretended to go into stores and walked out of sight behind cars. Clearly the two of them have been putting in a lot of time together.
Somehow this inspired the thought of performing tricks (maybe it was the brief appearance of the sun). Whatever the reason, shortly I found myself imitating my niece to perform a cartwheel on the lawn. It may not get me to the Olympics but it did get a comment from the dog trainer.
8.5...I totally stuck the landing
Back on the road we got the first look at Mt. Rainier as we continued north.
Hints of home
Eventually our directions took us to another coonstruction site and a closed road. Fortunately we were able to skirt most of it along what will eventually be a bike path but today was a firmly packed gravel trail.
This time we march through it
A different pink flowet
Now that we have altered our route and are west of the cascades, we began discussing how unlikely it would be that we would see other touring cyclists for the rest of the trip. As it has so many times for dogs, rain, construction and logging trucks, talking about it out loud made it happen. Shortly we ran into Ben and Heather headed the other direction. They were on day 2 of a ten week trip from Seattle to Washington D.C. Ben works for a non-profit targeting hunger and they will be stopping along the way to give talks about the work to various groups across the country.
Heather said that even on day 2 it seemed like it would be over soon. I shared some of my new touring wisdom to ensure her that sometime soon it would seem like it was never going to end (and then get better). Ben gave an experienced nod of agreement.
Nice folks to meet along the road. I hope they have a great ride. (They are keeping a journal at bikeagainsthunger.tumblr.com )
Ben and Heather looking strong on day 2
These are kind of purple
The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. We continued to make good time and enjoyed the sunshine. It was the first day in a while that I rode in short sleeves for the entire day.
Red or maybe Orange flowers
Yard art taken to a pretty high level
We continued to stick to the side roads and enjoyed passing through the little towns. At one point we were on a bike trail for quite a few miles. The road surface was nice but the thick vegetation made it a bit muggy and that attracted quite a few bugs. I choked on several as they were inadvertently swallowed along the way.
Tunnel of choking on bugs
Yet another pink one
Soon we were getting back to populated areas and the roads were looking pretty familiar. Mt. Rainier continued to look great in the distance.
The mountain is getting larger
The blue ones are my favorite
When we arrived in Spanaway we stopped to use wifi at a McDonald's (pretty much the only reason to go there) to scope out a place to stay for the night. Sarah looked for camping locations and I looked for a backup motel.
We ended up finding a nice out of the way field at Pacific Lutheran University where we could set up out tents right away and not be in the way of any of the nearby athletic fields. It made for an early bedtime which is my key to being able to continue riding everyday.
Not fancy but functional
Functional camping location
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