Skykomish

June 19 202

What a day!  Two major firsts on this ride.  But let me step back and start last night.

Last night while we were in the school having dinner the police came by and decided that because my tent was an off blue colour that it needed to be trashed.  All the other tents were various shades of orange so my tent must be trashed.  It was only through a very lucky happenstance that Jim T who is one of the Cycle America staff happened to see the police trashing my tent and he ran over and intervened that my tent was not totally destroyed.  They then paid me a visit later in the evening after I had gone to bed to double check that in fact I was not some sort of vagrant.  Thousands of tents along the freeway and homeless on almost every corner and they have to pick out and hassle me because I have a different coloured tent.  Defund the police?  Well maybe but for sure they need to have some sort of redirection.  How about solving crime? 

This morning it was raining so rolling up the tent was a wet affair but managed to get everything in order in 58 minutes.  I would like to get that down to 45 but not bad for a first shot at it.  I am standing under the eves waiting for Greg to come to load luggage when he comes around the corner talking to the caterer on the phone.  From his side of the conversation it is obvious that the caterer is going to be arriving at least 30 minutes late an breakfast will be 45-60 minutes late.  Greg knew I had put two and two together and came and asked me not to spread it around.  However I was ready to roll so I bolted. 

I decided not to shot cut the route, which was very tempting considering the rain.  There was a paved bike lane only 2 miles from the school which would have cut the ride down to 53 miles compared to the itinerary of 74.8 miles. However no wheel dip which I needed to do.   As it turned out I would up getting lost and adding an additional few miles making the total 79.0 miles. 

But what about the first for this ride.  About 15 miles out from Skykomish there was a brief parting of the clouds and I saw my shadow. Never done that before as this is the rainiest part of the world.  I had been riding with Tom, Patrick and Bob and we pulled into Skykomish not first but in the top ten.  Realizing we were quite early I grabbed my shower bag and hit the showers.  Got the very first shower which had hot water.  Never had a hot shower in Skykomish as it is the smallest hot water tank on the tour.  It was so good. 

What a day!

Terry