Category Bicycle Tours and Rides

West Coast Spring 2018 – Summary

May 14 – August 19 We’ve had a good run since our first long trip in 2014, completing 3 trips of 3-months or longer in a 4-year span.  I’ve pontificated a number of times to any poor soul who will suffer my rambles about the appeal of lengthy travel.  For those who’ve escaped my rants […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Wytheville

August 16 – 18 Our last major day of driving would take us five hours to Wytheville, Virginia, situated at the junction of the I-77 and I-81, about 70 miles east of Bristol, Tennessee, site of that weekends NASCAR race.  Bev and Jed would drive down from Baltimore the next day, Friday for the race, […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Cedaredge, Colorado

August 8 – 10 As anticipated, it would be a long day’s drive, a combination of two-lane state highways and as we had experienced throughout the trip, interstates filled with constructions zones.  In many areas of the country, repaving can only be done in decent weather and this meant mile after mile of one lane […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Spokane/Missoula

July 30 – 31 Recalling the delays we’d encountered on the way into Vancouver at the tunnel and at customs, and with an eight hour drive in front of us, we left the apartment around 7am.  Although it was a Monday, traffic was light as we were going against the morning commute and we made […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Vancouver, Part Three

July 26 – 29 As planned, we set out the next morning on the bikes ready to explore as much of this bike friendly city as we could.  Heading north on the bike path two blocks away from the house to just shy of Burrard Bridge, then left along the shoreline all the way out […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Vancouver, Part Two

July 26 – 29 Sleeping that first night we discovered a couple of downsides to our Chic Airbnb, one correctible and one not so much.  The non-changeable was that in many homes on the west coast don’t have air conditioning (ours in L.A. doesn’t) and we were visiting during a very warm period of the […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Lopez Island

July 23 – 25 With the short ferry ride to Lopez Island completed, a five-mile drive took us to Spencer Spit State Park for the next three nights.  Featuring two sand spits that join to form a briny marsh lagoon, the park is a popular migratory stop for waterfowl, including Bonaparte’s gulls, great blue herons […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Orcas Island

July 21 – 23 Given how close this group of islands are to each other, the ferry ride to Orcas wasn’t very long.  We were scheduled for just two nights there, our original intention to spend three on each island (San Juan, Orcas, and Lopez) got short circuited due to a festival on Orcas that […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – San Juan Island, Part Two

July 17 – 20 As planned, we took off the next morning on our bikes to attempt a ride around the island.  Turning left out of the resort onto Roche Harbor Road we continued north to the tip of the island, skirting its airport and making a brief stop at Roche Harbor there before turning […]

West Coast Spring 2018 – Victoria, Part Three

July 14 – 16 With another glorious morning ahead of us (good weather would follow us the whole trip) we set out on the bikes on a route laid out in a cycling map that our campground host loaned me.  We’d end up with 26.5 miles in total and almost circle the peninsula. The first […]