San Juans vacay Day 5: not all business

After our bad experience at the Northwest RV park, we stumbled around in the dark and found an RV park run by the city of Oak Harbor, Washington.  The park was called Staysail RV; why the name was obvious once we got there. It was windy as all get out and on the harbor. Between the wind and rain, we had a fitful night of sleep.

Wednesday was Veterans Day, so I took my veteran for some coffee at Whidbey Coffee. What a great little coffee shop with free WiFi

Today was also the day to do the business we came up here for.  The rental house needed a new roof and so we met the roofer to discuss where to put in solar tubes to bring some light into the house.

It’s a cute house.

With the business done, it was back to tourist and bike adventures.  We stopped and walked out on the bridge over Deception Pass.

The narrow straight at Deception Pass that makes Whidbey Island and island.

The tide was coming in and I can see why the water is so dangerous; it was really cruising through there.

But the real event of the day was riding the Cranberry Lakes trail system. There are 15 to 20 miles of trails on Fidalgo (Anacortes) Island in a block of land the community has set aside for recreation.

Huge Big Leaf Maple leaves on the trail. The common name for this tree is appropriate.

The trail is a mix of wide walking paths, and narrow trails with technical rocks and roots.

An occasional look out spot to remind you that you are riding on a heavily populated island.

Swamps and lakes are everywhere.

Loved these mushrooms growing on a log.

I’m tired of the typical smiley face pose.

Drew thought this was a rhododendron tree. The bark sure was red.

We had a great ride and saw only a few hikers.  What a jewel of a trail system to have in your community.
After the ride, what else but…


We stopped at the new North Sound Brewery, where Drew’s old Navy buddy is the head brewer. The beers he is making are exceptional. How cool is it to know a real live Pacific Northwest brewmaster.

Drew and Rob.

Rob gave us a private brewery tour, which made us feel special and drink more of his beers.

Because this brewery doesn’t have food either, we snagged big plates of Mexican food at the restaurant across from the RV park. The chili rellano was one of the best I had ever had, and the decor was kind of fun too.

"I don't normally surf in the Pacific Northwest, but when I do, I surf with these two awesome mountain bikers."

 Then we retired to our home for the night, the Mount Vernon RV park.

San Juans vacay Day 4: rinse and repeat

After dinner, back at the campground, we enjoyed a chlorinated hot tub in place of a pay shower. That’ll show them to make the Jordans pay for a shower.
In the morning, we bid farewell to West Beach Resort and made our way to town.

Pulling out of the soggy campground. The straight is beyond the trees.

East Sound is the inlet of water that divides Orcas Island into two “wings”.  The wind howls up through the inlet somethin’ fierce.

Back we went to Moran State Park to ride some of the other trails and repeat some of yesterday’s fun ones.

This time we rode the mostly level path on the east side of Mountain Lake. 

At various times, a drop or two of dew would fall from the trees, but we talked to a 40-year island resident and 25-year Moran State Park Ranger and he said he has never seen it so dry!!!!!!  I had a good laugh at that.  If this is dry, I am terrified of wet.

Mountain Lake

I was really, really bundled up today, and stayed warmer than yesterday despite the cooler temps and lack of sunshine.  We also avoided the big descent that we did yesterday and instead tried part of the 6 miles open to equestrians.  They were rutted, as we had been told, but that gave us a chance to hike a bike and warm up.

Horse damage.

How many layers does it take to keep Lucy warm? 5.

We said goodbye to Moran State Park just in time to blast through town and buy some provisions for the night.

No time to shop at the cute shops in Eastsound, so I just took a picture for you as we drove by. Biking's more fun than shopping any day. 

Provisions included frozen burritos for dinner and a delicious choice of microbrews from a mind boggling selection of beer at the little supermarket that serves this island population of about 5000 people.

Then to kill time as we waited for the ferry to Anacortes so we could head down to Whidbey Island

And since it was dark on the ferry, we got to do a jigsaw puzzle. 

We called ahead to the RV park we wanted to stay at at 5 pm, but unfortunately, they closed the office at 3 and had no way to get the WiFi code or bathroom key after that, so instead, we plugged in for some power to nuke our burritos, filled up with fresh water and dumped our waste tank before getting the heck out of there before the airstrikes started. Watch the videos to see what I mean.

So we ended up at a rather barren RV park on the harbor in Oak Harbor.  Because laundry facilities were not included, and it was windy as all get out, we hunkered down in the smelly van to write a post for you.



Tomorrow we will meet with the property managers for Drew’s house here. Until next then...

Tour of S Utah Days 9 & 10: Mesa Verde and Bust

It has been a few days since we arrived home from vacation.  A couple of quick posts to finish the saga. 
Off to the Races
Friday morning we broke camp in Comb Wash quickly and rolled into Blanding for breakfast at the Center Street Café.  Tasty, especially after eating our own camp cooking for most of three days. We learned that Blanding is a dry town. Good thing we were there in the morning.
We motored on east, jumping into Colorado to get a campsite and reserve spots for our teammates at the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde Mountain Bike Race.  Drew and I have done this race three times, in 2010-2012. A couple of months ago we decide to cap off our vacation with this race and found spots on three-woman and three-man teams.
12 Hours of Mesa Verde is a super fun event on a giggly fun course.  We were looking forward to racing, however, as we rolled into town, the dude at the liquor store informed us there was a storm on the way.
“We’ve been lucky so far on this trip. I’m sure we’ll be OK,” we said. How wrong we were!
Friday afternoon we headed out for a pre-ride of the race course as clouds were building.  The course was in perfect shape, but the weather was a little chilly.  This lovely gopher snake thought it was cold too and wouldn’t get off the trail.

Gopher snake on the trail

But 30 minutes in the thunder and lighting and hail came down. We huddled under some trees to wait it out.

Waiting out the storm. I look happier than I was.

Post ride, we tried to stay warm and hung out with other hardy teammates in the gravel parking lot.  Not my idea of ideal vacation camp spots, but whataya gonna do.

Dinner in the parking lot.

Race Day

Our teammates Jennie and Devon opted to take the first lap.  Clouds were threatening and it was cold, but not unbearable.

LeMans start.

Little did we know, that would be the best conditions of the race.  As Drew and I were getting ready to go out on the next lap, the snow started coming down in large non-race-friendly flakes.


As we were waiting for our teammates to come in, the race directors called for a two-hour hold on the race to wait out the storm.  Each of our riders came in and marked their time, but the next riders (us) were not allowed to go out.  Since I had been watching bikes of other teams come in in bad shape, I was OK with just fine with that.

  My teammates bike was trashed!

Riders were coming in very cold and VERY muddy.


At 10:30, the directors held another meeting and continued another hold until noon.  We went back to our camps and warmed up in the van.  But the snow and rain continued.  Finally, at noon, the directors, with very heavy hearts, called an end to the shortest 12 hour race in history.
Since all the food and beer was already bought, they served it up and handed out awards and prizes.  It was an OK time, but everyone was really disappointed.

Make Lemonade

Reports were coming in that the weather was better in Moab so we packed up and headed back west.  With unexpected time on our hands, we were able to continue the theme of new experiences on this trip with a side trip to Newspaper Rock…

Newspaper Rock contains petroglyphs from Archaic, Anasazi, Fremont, Navajo, Anglo, and Pueblo peoples

and Needles District of Canyonlands National Park

Once again, we found ourselves up against nightfall and out of time to hike in a spectacular setting.  We had to settle for pictures like any regular American.
Apparently lots of Americans like to feed the ravens in the park because this guy was not one bit shy to ask for a treat from his perch on my side view mirror.

Bold raven

We checked every campground inside and outside the park

Dewey, showing off to his Sportsmobile cousins who never get to leave Indiana.

but the inn was full so we ended up driving back most of the way toward Hwy 191 to find a nice spot for the our last night in Dewey during this trip. 

Dewey’s last resort.

So 12 Hours of Mesa Verde was a bust, but we got to hang out with friends and continue to have new adventures.