Day Nine - Lost In Seattle

Thursday August 18th
I have two words for the riding that I did today, “Spectacular!, Spectacular!”. The ride through Northwestern Washington was incredible. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, everything was beautiful. Anacortes, Deception Pass, Mukilteo Ferry, Downtown Seattle, Tacoma, Hood Canal Bridge and Crescent Lake in Olympic National Park were all really cool.

The weather had cleared in North Cascades National Park by the time that I had woken up. The only problem was that the ground was still pretty wet and I was basically left to tear down camp in the mud. The tent was pretty dirty when I stuffed it back into the bag.

I had been basically eating either fruit that I had bought at a grocery store a couple of days earlier or gas station food (lunchables, beef jerky) for the last couple of days. So I decided that I was going to stop somewhere and have a good breakfast. I stopped just outside of Concrete, WA at the Cascade Mountain Restaurant. I was so hungry that I ordered Chicken Fried Steak, 3 eggs, wheat toast, hash browns, 2 pancakes and a glass of orange juice. I barely came up for air as I scarfed everything down. My stomach complained a little bit after I had stuffed it all in but I knew that I would be OK in a couple of hours.

It was really cool to get my first whiff of the ocean air as I came into Anacortes. I'm not sure if Anacortes is officially considered to be in the pacific ocean. It is really an island located in a channel between Washington and Vancouver, B.C. Either way it's water from the Pacific Ocean that fills that channel.

I made it to Anacortes much quicker than I expected to. It was deceptively quick. I was thinking that Anacortes was further along my planned route than it really was and it made me think that I had lots of time to spare. Actually I suppose that I might have had extra time if it wasn't for the detours that I ran into later in the day.

Deception Pass was really the highlight of the day. It is a really tall bridge connecting Anacortes to Whidbey Island. As I came up to the bridge the whole channel that the bridge crossed was engulfed in fog. I stopped on the other side of the bridge and took a short walk down to the beach for a better view and to stretch out my legs a little bit.

I took the ferry from Whidbey Island to Mukilteo just north of Seattle. There was a much quicker route to get to Olympic National Park but I wanted to stop in Seattle to get a T-Shirt from the Harley shop. I spent nearly 45 minutes wandering around downtown Seattle waiting for the big orange bar and shield to emerge somewhere on the horizon. After checking the map 3 times, I finally gave up and asked someone for directions. I found out that the downtown Harley shop was nothing more than a clothing store much like the one in Jackson Hole.

With better directions I was able to find the store pretty quickly but when I got there I was really disappointed in their t-shirt selection. I was also a little turned off by the idea of buying a shirt from a store that didn't actually sell Harley's. For some reason that didn't bother me in Jackson Hole. Maybe it's because most of the folks who stopped in Jackson Hole were actually riding Harley's whereas most of the people in downtown Seattle looked like they had never ridden a bike before and were just there to buy a t-shirt. After a couple of minutes of poking around I just decided to leave empty handed.

I was a little bummed out because the whole point of the detour through Seattle was for the t-shirt. I looked at the map and noticed that there were a couple of other dealers in the area. I didn't want to go out of my way to find them but I told myself that if I could see the shop from the freeway then I would stop for a shirt.

Lucky for me the Tacoma Harley dealership was visible from the freeway. It still took me a couple of minutes to actually figure out how to get to it, but I did eventually figure it out. They didn't have a whole lot of selection in my size but I eventually picked up a shirt that said, “Got Asphalt?”. I thought it was pretty amusing. Unfortunately the dealer design on the back of the shirt was pretty plain and boring. But at least it says, Destination Harley Davidson - Tacoma, WA” so I can prove that I was at least here.

After buying the t-shirt I took a look at the map to see how much further I had to go before heading west again towards Olympic National Park. To my dismay I had completely missed Hwy 305. On my original route I hadn't even planned on passing through Tacoma. There was an alternate route for getting back to where I needed to be but once again the whole ordeal probably put me another hour or so behind my original schedule.

After passing through some painful road construction northwest of Tacoma I finally made it onto Hwy 101 and on the road to Olympic National Park. The visitor information center in Port Angeles was closed by the time that I got there. I had planned on asking a ranger for suggestions for camping and hiking spots. Lacking a ranger I blindly picked a site off the map. Since it was already starting to get dark I chose a campsite that was a little closer (but still 20 miles away) and positioned me for some good hiking in the morning. Unfortunately when I made it to that campground it was already full. Fortunately there was another one just 2 miles down the road.

So that's where I am now, Fairholm campground in Olympic National Park located on the west bank of Crescent Lake. There are a lot of kids and mosquitoes in the campground and it's a little noisier than I am used to but all in all it's a pretty nice spot. Speaking of nice spots, I think I'm going to go find a nice spot in my tent and pass out for the night.