August 10, 2025
The not South Pass Road ride
Maintaining International Relationships
For several years we've been watching for an opportunity to come up to Canada and visit or revisit our CycleBlaze friends we've made through this website. Well, here we are - in Bellingham for four weeks with a car at our disposal, just a half hour from border crossings at Blaine or Sumas, and only an hour and a half from Stanley Park. We could be up there and back on a day trip or stay over somewhere for a night or two. But we're not coming.
We are fully sympathetic to Canadians unwilling to cross the border and come south - who could blame them? - but we aren't willing to enter Canada either, because we don't trust our government to let us reenter without grabbing our electronic devices, accurately concluding that we are not Friends of DJT, and disappear us into the nearest icebox. The risk is probably low, but who can be sure? It's an avoidable risk of great potential consequence, so we'll avoid it.
So instead, consider this an open invitation to a meetup on Boundary Road. Some of you might recall that we stayed in Bellingham for a month during the Covid Year, when cross-border traffic was prohibited. On one of our day rides we biked along Boundary Road and were surprised to see that it was a meeting place for cross-border visits, with Canadians walking their side of the border and Americans on theirs, just yards apart. There's even one spot where a group found space for a picnic, each party sitting on their side of the border.
So if anyone is interested in a chat along the border somewhere, let us know and we'll schedule a time and place to meet up there.
Today's ride
Conditions are favorable for a bike ride today, and we're both up for it. Rachael is quite achy this morning from overdoing it on her back-to-back climbs up Chuckanut Mountain, so she's ready for a change of activity; and my elbow has responded well to a few days of reduced activity so I'm game too. And events-wise it's a good time for a ride that requires more driving than other choices because we're eating leftover pizza tonight and don't have any other appointments so we're free to go whenever we want; and since we're free to choose, we waste the best riding hours of the day by sitting around until nearly eleven before finally stepping out the door.
And since I forgot to include them yesterday, here are shots from our pizza stop last night so you can see what we're returning home for this evening:
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Which reminds me of why we were so late getting out the door this morning. It was partly due to our exhaustively searching for Rachael's long-sleeved black shirt that disappeared somewhere over the last few days. One possibility was that it was left at the Black Cat, the restaurant Rachael is calling with a vexed look on her face. It never did show up, which we have no explanation for.
Finally we're off though, driving north to Lynden with the plan to ride an out and back east along North Pass Road, a stretch that we particularly liked five years ago - very scenic, it angles up the gap between the two Sumas Mountains, one in Canada and one in Washington, before finally dropping to the North Fork of the Nooksack west of Sumas. In another typical TA fiasco though, North Pass Road isn't happening today when we discover that neither of us has that route loaded to our garmins.
Which sounds lamer than it really is, because we actually both have the route named Pass Road OAB loaded to our Garmins. It's just that they don't actually go to North Pass Road. Strange, but stranger still is that our routes don't even match each others either. Mine is a 35 mile OAB the starts east to Everson and then turns straight north to the Canadian border, while hers is a 12 mile OAB starting in Everson and biking back west to Lynden.
It's only after a lot of head-scratching that we realize what must have happened. We have two methods for downloading routes to our devices: Rachael's 1040 is loaded directly, since her device is paired with her RideWithGPS account; and mine are first downloaded to our transfer device - a 1030 that is paired to her account also, and from which we can transfer the route to my 1030 - necessary because the 1040 dropped the Bluetooth transfer function for no obvious reason.
If the device is on, it will download any new pinned routes. I think that I must have modified an existing pinned route while I was creating the new one, and different versions of it got downloaded at different times when the devices happened to be on. So there's a lesson for the future.
Which is frustrating, but what was really frustrating was that we didn't discover this until we were on the road biking out of Lynden and trying to figure out why our routes were sending us different directions, neither of which looked like what we wanted. So there went another half hour or so as we spent a very frustrating mile trying out false starts and returning to town again.
We finally just stop, switch the GoPro to Rachael's bike so I can lead, and follow my route since it at least started from where we'd left the car. By now though it's afternoon already and we were into the hottest part of the day. After leaving Emerson we 're biking north on busy State Highway 9, and the shoulder disappears after we bike out of a Nooksack. After having driven a half an hour to get here we decide to turn off on a quiet road heading east and ride without a specific destination, keeping to quiet roads and turning back when we'd had enough. Which works fine - there really are some great, quiet roads up here - and we get our 27 miles in but are pretty well sapped by the heat by the time we made it back to the car.
Oh, one other frustration: about 12 miles into the ride we finally come to a patch of shade and stop to check out the map, hydrate, and consider our options. While Rachael leans into a blackberry patch I bike another fifty yards down the road to a tree I can hide behind and then wait for her to start biking again and join me.
And wait, and wait, and wait. Finally I phone her and am surprised at her vexed tone when she answers; because it turns out we are both waiting impatiently for the other to bike up. She thought we were turning back from here, and I thought we had agreed to bike on for several more miles (which we ended up doing). Pretty funny!
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Sound track: Sermonette, by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross
Back at the car, I sit in its back under the shade of the opened hatchback door while Rachael walks across the street to the market/gas station and returns with a large bottle of sparking water and a pair of Haggen-Daas ice cream bars. After we're revived enough to drive we head south, having had our fun for the day.
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But we're not quite done yet, because earlier we'd agreed to stop at the Fred Meyers store/mall on the way. You'll recall this as the place where Rachael got lost coming out the wrong door of the huge, sprawling place a few days ago. Today we do better and park in front of the main entrance so she'll have an easier time finding her way back. And while she's shopping I take the opportunity to rest my eyes and soon doze off, only to be awakened by a phone call 20 minutes later. It's Rachael, lost again. She can't find the car, so we each describe where we are and decide we're by the same entrance. I tell her to just walk straight down the row of cars straight in front of the door. And then finally I open my eyes for the first time and am startled to see her staring straight at me through the windshield, at the same time that she's asking me on the phone if I can see her yet because she doesn't see me. Apparently she's still looking for the white car we had down in Portland and doesn't see me sitting inside.
But now we're really close, only six miles away down the freeway, with the on-ramp only a few hundred yards away. The on-ramp is one of four spokes off of a small traffic circle: one is the one I approach from, one gets on the freeway going north, one continues straight, and one gets on the freeway going south. Even though we've got the phone navigation prompting us and Rachael watching, I screw up and pick the middle spoke and drive out the other side. It's hard, because it's a devilishly tight, small circle with the spokes very close to each other and little time to read signs or react.
So I make a U-turn as soon as possible, drive back through the circle again, and then on the other side I park, stare at the map, stare at the circle, and try again. And I still get it wrong, getting onto the freeway going north this time. A new TR record!!
Has there ever been a day that more illustrates the meaning of Type 2 Fun? It takes a couple of miles for the frustration and stress to abate, but by the time we're nearing home it all seems pretty funny already.
Today's ride: 26 miles (42 km)
Total: 515 miles (829 km)
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1 week ago
And other than being stuck in this nutso country, we're doing quite well. We'll be staying stateside through the winter hoarding our needles, but I fully expect that we'll make it back to Europe ourselves next year for at least one three month tour. Whatever we do will be more base-centric, but we were heading that way anyway even without the drug issues.
1 week ago
1 week ago
I've been away from the internet for a few weeks (in central BC, tending to horses and a big dog while younger daughter and family went to visit older daughter and husband back east). So, I only today read your Aug 10 entry and your suggestion for meetups. I would enjoy a rendezvous. Jean is still recovering from a broken wrist and now some painful dental issues and needed work, so I'm not sure what she's up for.
I go back and forth over the border several times a week, checking our mailbox in Sumas, and using the Sumas library as they often have titles and authors not held at our BC libraries. I'm not sure what route or destination to suggest for riding, and I would easily defer to you two, and meet you anywhere in Whatcom County.
Having said that, I will mention that Artist Point, the parking lot at the end of the Mt. Baker Highway, higher than all the normal Mt. Baker Ski Area runs, is a terrific place for scenery and a good starting point for fairly level hiking. The lot gets very full on weekends, but the overflow is to park down the highway short of the lot, and I've never seen it impossible to find a spot.
From reading your previous months of posts, it appears that lengthy cycling to Artist Point would be more than you'd want. But, one possible exception would be to drive to Heather Meadows where there is another large parking lot, and slowly ride in low gears the final 3.2 miles to Artist Point. That's all uphill, above the main tree line, and exposed for fabulous views. Google map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/StCupdKjC375Bt7o6
If you did want to ride more miles, miles that would include more hills along with flats and some descents, then starting in the town of Maple Falls would be an option. Or parking in the smaller town of Glacier farther on would be another. Or parking at the maintenance shed after Glacier would shorten the ride even more. For all of these options, including the 3.2 miles from Heather Meadows, you'd want to be sure your brakes and their pads/shoes are in good order. The return from Artist Point to any of those spots features riding the brakes for miles at a time.
Of course, a non-biking, mainly walking option is simply to drive up there for a hike. There are numerous hiking options, some with serious uphill, but several with gorgeous views and largely flat terrain. If you wanted to do that, I could meet you somewhere - even at your current house - and we could drive together, my car or yours. Parking at Artist Point requires a national park pass. I'm guessing you bought your lifetime one years ago. If not, I have one and it would cover a vehicle's occupants.
If Artist Point is for you a been-there-done-that destination, any other rides would be enjoyable. Or, just visiting somewhere would be good. At this moment I do not recall your date of departure from Bellingham, and if a meetup does not fit, that's understandable. This is longer than comments usually get, and if you prefer to write directly, please use mch2290 at gmail dot com.
6 days ago
6 days ago