(133/366) Well this is annoying!

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May 12, 2012 – I have a couple of dozen cameras, but only two that I really use. The rest are novelty cameras, film cameras, or old ones that don’t actually work anymore but look neat on a shelf. The two that I use on a daly basis are my big Nikon D300, and a little Lumix LX3. The Nikon stopped working last saturday without warning, simply refused to focus. Not even manually, so obviously the mirror is out of position. Today I went on an eight hour ride and covered closet to 500km of fabulous roads down in Washington State. I took some great shots overlooking the valley below Mount Baker, the deep snowbanks that I rode up through, and the mossy trees. I had some really great closeups of seashells on the beach in Birch Bay National Park, and a great shot of a road that simply ended into a 10 foot snowbank. I had some shots of herons off of Lummi, and of a really great little rock construciton building.

All gone.

Totally annoyed!

Well, aside from that annoyance, it was a great day. I dragged myself out of the condo at 10 am and headed for the border. I crossed over at the Pacific Truck Crossing without issue, as usual the border guard wished me a good ride. They are generally pleasant to me in the Nexus line, and particularly when I am on the bike. I headed down I-5 a short way and bypassed the usual front end of the route I often take. I cut back into the side road a short ways down the freeway and headed towards Birch Bay National Park. I stumbled onto a back route in to the park that didn’t take me through town, that was a nice change. I stopped for a bit and had a bite to eat and sat by the seashore for a while. The park is usually a hive of family activity, but it was almost empty save for some cyclists and one or two cars. Eerily quiet.

From there I took a different road out and bypassed the residential area I usually ride through. That popped me back out on a road I recognized and I took that all the way through Lummi Reserve where a First Nations Pow Wow was underway and there was a war canoe race taking place out on the water. I stopped and watched some herons fishing and some eagles soaring overhead making them all nervous, then continued on through Bellingham, and into Fairhaven. I breezed through there and turned on to Chuckanut Drive.

I’d found the traffic.

It wasn’t terribly bad, but it was still slower than I like to ride it. I pulled out into a rest stop about halfway through and had a granola bar at the side of the road, looking out over the Pacific. Fewer riders than I’d expected on the road, but there were some, and most gave a friendly wave as they passed me at the side of the road. A few big groups of cruisers, but mostly single riders, or couples two-up. It was a great day to get lost in one’s own helmet and ride solo.

I picked up four sport riders who settled in with me for a bit, until I turned off on Colony Road and they kept on going straight. This is a wonderful stretch of road recommended to us by a waitress on our last trip down. A bit of construction, and a few short gravel stretches, but otherwise, a really nice way to cut over to highway 9 from the I-5. I stopped for gas and grabbed a power bar before heading over through Alger-Cain Lake Road and around the bottom of Lake Whatcom.

I took a couple of short side roads that didn’t really amount to much, but then I decided to head down Mosquito Lake Road on a whim. I’d seen it when passing by last time, thought the name was funny considering Kirk’s hatred of the insects. Turned out to be a fabulous choice! In the next hour I only saw two other bikes and a half dozen cars. That was it. And it was an awesome stretch of road.

Eventually it set me back out on the main road and I continued up until I hit Mount Baker Way. I headed up through Glacier and up Baker and went through some pretty amazing temperature changes as I climbed. I was glad I’d put the thin wool tights on underneath my leather pants. As I rode higher, eventually I had snowbanks on either side of me, and rounding one nicely banked corner in the shadows I hit a patch of sand on the road and the bike skittered sideways under me. That woke me up and reminded me that all the road dirt that had already been swept away down lower was still a hazard up here.

It was pretty lonely up there on a sportbike. I saw less than a half dozen other riders on that stretch, only one was a sportbike. I stopped at a lookout near the top, and looked down into the valley below, still heavily covered with snow before continuing up around the little lake, or rather the ten foot deep area of snow that covered the lake I recall being there. The road I remembered from last summer ended abruptly as the pavement disappeared under a wall of snow. The end of the road was a little sooner than it was last summer.  It will be awhile before it’s open.

I took it a little slower on the way back down, at least for the first bit. The shadows made the hairpin corners treacherous because it was impossible to see the sand. I have to say, American drivers, or at least those in Washington, are a darn sight more courteous than our drivers. I caught up with several vehicles, and every one of them eventually pulled to the side so I could get in front. It wasn’t like I was tailgating, far from it, in one case I wasn’t even paying attention to the driver because I was fiddling with my vents trying to open the back ones when all of a sudden he pulled off on the side while he was driving. I had to pick it up to get by him before he ran out of shoulder and gave him a beep as I went by.

I passed back through Glacier, but when I rode into Maple Falls I took another side road.

I’d seen the road to Silver Lake Recreational area on previous occasions and noticed that it came out on the other side. Someone had recently told me it was a nice ride, so I turned the corner and had a fabulous detour, although a LOT longer than I expected. If I’d looked at a map I’d have seen how far up the road went before it came back down. No matter, I had no agenda and over the next hour or so I didn’t see a single other bike and only a handful of cars. They aren’t fast roads, but they are scenic.

The road finally popped back out on familiar pavement and I rode the last bit to cross the border at Sumas. The border guard was pleasant, and when she asked me if i was bringing anything back, I simply answered “a lot of dead bugs” and she laughed, complimented by bike, and told me to have a safe ride home.

My back was hurting at this point, and I just didn’t feel like dealing with the freeway, so I rode across to Mission, took the Lougheed, and then returned to the Number 1 at United Blvd to take the last bit home fast. Another rider settled in behind me for awhile. It used to bother me when a stranger rode with me, now I’ve gotten used to it, and sometimes it’s acutally nice to have another rider there when I’m tired. There is a bit of comfort in it.

Home, tuck bike in, clean gear, food, wine, couch. I’ll have to scrub the dead bugs off tomorrow.

Done. And done in.

Eight hours, 460 kms, and not a photo to show for it because the camera crapped out. Oh well, I suppose it just means I’ll have to do it again soon.

The Google Map track is here (I forgot my GPS so I just did this from memory)