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Rich and I are off again this month with our friends, Jim Fitch and Genny Fox, this time up to the Pacific Northwest.

On Monday, the 26th, we'll drive up separately to the Bremerton, WA area, our starting point for the tour.  Fellow Eagle Cycling Club couple, Mary and Sandy Harris-Tucker, have generously offered to host us at their vacation home on Kitsap Lake for a couple of nights, where we'll get organized. As last year, Rich and I are taking our truck for SAG and to port our stuff from place to place so we can ride unencumbered. The four of us will trade off driving. Jim and Gen will leave their car at the Tucker's.

This year's tour will be very relaxed, with an average of around 30 miles a day. While there will be some climbing all of us have "graduated" to high-end Specialized ebikes (pictures forthcoming), which make the climbing more enjoyable and the downhills a thrill.

The plan is to stop in Port Ludlow and Sequim on our way to Vancouver Island, where we'll spend a couple of days being tourists—visiting museums and, most importantly, strolling the Buchart Gardens. Then it's a ferry ride to Tsawassen for the night before heading back into the US through Blaine.

From Anacortes, we'll ferry out to explore San Juan, Orcas, and Lopez islands. I'm especially excited about being on the islands again, because Rich and I toured here in 2020, during the height of the pandemic. Not only did we have to deal with most places being closed, there were several huge fires in California, Oregon, and Washington that year, and the smoke made the air quality so bad there were many days we could not ride. And when we did get out, usually we could not see much but a wall of white in the distance. So I'm hoping this time we'll get to experience the magic of the islands' beauty.

Finally, we'll ferry back to Port Townsend and pass through Port Ludlow again on our way back to Mary and Sandy's place.

Genny is also blogging about the trip, so be sure to also follow her at https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/salish/ to get bot our perspectives.