Exploring the homeland - Northwest Passages: Victoria to Portland - CycleBlaze

June 20, 2019

Exploring the homeland

One of the many fine things about being retired is that we have more time now to explore our own neighborhood.  For almost 30 years we dedicated  virtually all of our annual vacation allotment to overseas travel, and rarely took extended tours at home.  We did plenty of riding in our region, but nearly all as day rides or long weekend getaways.

Overseas travel suits us very well, but we live in the heart of a pretty fine region with some of the best touring possibilities the country has to offer.  It’s well past time to dig a little deeper into our own back yard than we’ve been able to do up until now.  This summer’s ride from Victoria back home is the first of what will hopefully be a series of longer tours in the Pacific Northwest.

We’ve had many discussions in the past year or so about whether to plan out and book the whole tour in advance or leave our options open to give us flexibility.  This one is a book-it-all tour, partly because it’s high season but mostly because we’ll be staying at a few of the historic lodges on the Olympic Peninsula.  If you don’t book these places well in advance you’re out of luck, and we don’t want to be disappointed.  Since the heart of the tour is locked down, there’s no real point in not booking the rest of it as well.

The planned route is shown on the map below, but we thought we would publish a rough calendar for the tour also so folks that live along the way will know when we’re in their neighborhood.  If you’ll be around and care to meet up for a meal or a beer or to ride (fairly slowly) along with us for a ways, please get in touch.  We’d be happy to see some of you folks in person rather than just through the comments block.

So here’s the plan:

  • 7/16-18: Friday Harbor
  • 7/19-21: Victoria
  • 7/22-26: a loop through Sooke, Port Renfrew, Cowichan Lake, Chemainus, and Nanaimo
  • 7/27-31: ferry to Tsawwassen, White Rock, Bellingham, Laconner, and Mukilteo
  • 8/01-06: Coupeville, Port Townsend, Sequim, and Port Angeles (and hopefully up Hurricane Ridge!)
  • 8/07-10: Lake Crescent, Forks, Kalaloch, and Lake Quinault
  • 8/11-14: Aberdeen, Centralia, Kelso, and home.

Please join us, virtually or IRL!

It’s not like we’ve never been up this way before. Here we are on our honeymoon on top of Mount Constitution on Orcas Island, 31 years ago. Pretty decent accomplishment for a woman who got her first bicycle just three months earlier.
Heart 5 Comment 4 Link
Jen RahnWhat a great photo! And so cool that you 2 wear the same smiles as you continue decades of riding together.

Any idea how many miles you've ridden together since you got married?
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnI was so glad to be able to dredge up this photo from the archives. I wasn’t sure we still had it.

Good question about the miles. I keep a log of our longer tours, which must add up to somewhere around 75,000 miles by now. With day rides and weekenders added in? I dunno - maybe we’d be up to about 200,000 miles.
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4 years ago
Bruce LellmanI love this photo. You two look so happy together.
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4 years ago
Jen RahnTo Scott AndersonWow! You 2 are great role models. Not sure the Grumbys will get to 200,000 miles .. but this number will surely encourage us to keep getting out and riding together.
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4 years ago
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Rate this entry's writing Heart 10
Comment on this entry Comment 15
Steve Miller/GrampiesAh yes. Bored, spoiled kids may often claim they have "nothing to do", while casting aside their perfectly good existing toys. Instead they want something new and probably expensive, or to be taken somewhere new, probably also expensive.

For five seasons now we have refused to tour on this continent, let alone close to home. Ok, so we were a little crabby because a truck bowled us over on a freeway in Florida, but have we even considered Duncan to Port Renfrew?

Now we will have you to blaze the way, and maybe show some new and for us cheaper possibilities! From the safety of our sofa, we will be watching closely. Assuming, of course, that we can put down our fascinating "Alpe Adria" and other guidebooks!
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4 years ago
Jen RahnVery impressive how much you're able to book in advance with minimal deviation from your itineraries.

Out of curiosity, do most of your bookings have generous cancellation policies?
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnFor the most part. We’ve definitely started paying more attention to this though, because we’re more prone to change our plans. We made quite a few revisions to our precooked plan on the last tour, and we ended up eating the cost of one night’s lodging. On our trip through Spain and Portugal this fall we’re going to book as we go. That late in the year we don’t think we’ll have any issue finding lodging.
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesYou’re scaring me, Steve. I was thinking this would be a pretty tame stretch of road. Hopefully we won’t find ourselves heading for the ditch to avoid logging trucks every other mile.
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4 years ago
Keith ClassenI wouldn’t worry about the odd logging truck, its the bears and cougars running away from the forest fires I would be worried about.
🚴‍♀️🚴🏻‍♂️🐻🐻🐆🐆🐻🐻🐆🐆🔥🔥
Really looking forward to seeing two here in Victoria.
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Keith ClassenDoesn’t sound too scary then. After facing down a herd of wild boar in Basilicata, we feel invincible.
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4 years ago
Rachael AndersonTo Keith ClassenI don’t know those emoticons make it look pretty scary. We look forward to seeing both of you also.
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4 years ago
Keith ClassenYou are going to have a great safe ride! We have talked about doing that loop but have never got our act together. Not meant to scare you just my warped sense of humour kicked in. See you soon!
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4 years ago
Gregory GarceauOoooooh, so close! The Feeshko and I are going to be in Seattle either the week of July 14-19 or July 21-25. And I'll have my bike with me too. After we're done visiting our son in Seattle, we'll be driving back to Spokane where The Feeshko will spend 2-3 weeks visiting her parents while I go out on a little bike tour of inland Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Gregory GarceauDrat! Well, if you decide come out in the week of the 14th, let us know. We could do something goofy like come up to Seattle on the 14th and bike with you north to Edmonds or even Everett on the 15th to catch the train the rest of the way to Mount Vernon. We’ll probably need to know pretty soon, because we should be looking at train tickets.
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4 years ago
Gregory GarceauTo Scott AndersonSorry, but there are a couple things in our lives locally that make it hard to commit right now. We don't want to hold you up, so please go ahead and make your plans. I'll be reading your journal, so if we get there early I'll hunt you down (creepy) and maybe we can meet up.
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4 years ago
Sue PriceRats! You are coming right to us, but we will be long gone! Have an awesome ride in this beautiful part of the world!
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4 years ago
Rachael AndersonTo Sue PriceSorry will miss you. Are you off on you cherry picking adventure? I look forward to hear about your adventures.
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4 years ago
Jacquie GaudetOoh! We've been thinking of that loop too, ever since we heard that the road was paved (not all that long ago, I think). But we haven't done it.
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4 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Jacquie GaudetI didn’t realize it was recently paved, but then we never bike up that way. Lucky us!
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4 years ago