Day 239 – Best Ride EVER!

10

239/365 (August 27, 2011) – Kirk is still trying to get a bleeder in for the hydraulic steering for the boat so we aren’t leaving the dock until we can get the steering fixed. Sort of makes sense. So, what else to do on a gorgeous sunny day when you can’t boat? Why ride of course! Did we expect to end up at snow? Certainly not!

The bleeder issue is actually almost funny. The company that distributes the steering part is right here in Vancouver, about ten minutes from where Kirk works, but they are a wholesale company and can’t sell directly to us. Their only distributor is West Marine. Fine, Kirk called West Marine and asked if he could order the part. The woman on the other end of the phone said no problem, delivery would be about 6-8 weeks. WEEKS! Apparently because West Marine is a US company it needs to go through their American ordering system. Turns out that our Yacht club can deal with Western Marine (a wholesale company) that can also bring it in, but although faster, it’s still a couple of steps before it will be in Kirk’s hands.

So, with no boat to take out, our eyes turned to our other form of weekend entertainment. The motorcycles. Kirk had suggested something local, I said no way, Baker was calling. So we grabbed the Nexus passes and after a lazy morning, headed state-side. The Nexus lane is awesome. The border line was about 90 minutes, we were through in under 10 minutes. For some reason the US border guard made me remove my helmet, but apparently Kirk looked less sinister and he was sent right through while I was still trying to get all my gear back in place. Seemed a little sexist 🙂 Once across the border I was constantly trying to do math in my head (something I’m terrible at) since neither one of our bikes had a speedometer that reads in miles per hour. So every time we encountered a new speed zone we were guestimating what we should be doing. On the I-5 I realized I was underestimating when a police car flew by us. In the end I would look at a speed sign, multiply it by 1.5 and then add a fudge factor of about 10kph to it. Seemed to be roughly accurate.

So from there we headed to Ferndale and then went due East, more or less. As usual I wing it and ended up on a different road than the one I intended and completely missed the town I wanted to have lunch at. But it’s hard to get lost when you are aiming for a volcano covered in snow, it’s sort of an obvious landmark on the horizon and eventually I found a road that took us to the state highway I had been aiming for. Ironically, the accidental route turned out to be more efficient. We wound our way up through Pleasant Valley and into Glacier where we stopped for a beer and a fabulous sandwich before heading into Mt. Baker National Park. The road up was fabulous. Dappled sunlight, huge stands of everything from lodgepole pine to massive cedars. The air shifted from cool and damp to hot and arid depending on where we were. As we got higher into the mountain the road started to present some fun snaking curves, and then it turned into some rather technically challenging (for me) hairpin corners. One thing I realized is that while the US has more generous speed limits than Canada does, when they warn you to slow down they mean it! I took a couple of those 15mph hairpins a little hot and had to fight my way through, and rolling over some rocks in one of them didn’t exactly settle my nerves.

Once at the top, what a fabulous series of views. We popped out to find a tiny little puddle called Picture Lake that was just gorgeous and pulled over for a few photos. Then on up to the top, or as far as we could go. The road to Artisan Point was closed as it was still covered with snow, but the lower parking and picnic area was open and full of people. We wandered around a bit, marvelling that this spring/summer was cool enough to keep so much snow for the entire season. A glance at the time told us that we’d better get a move on if we wanted to be home in time for the Carlos Santana concert. It was 3pm and we had a good 3hr ride ahead. So back down through Glacier, but this time I led us back through the way I’d come in the first time two weeks ago. Through Pleasant Valley again, but then back through Maple Creek, Sumas, Lynden, Birch Bay, Peace Arch and then back home. Had a bit of stress between Birch Bay and Lynden. I hate riding on grooved pavement, but hitting grooved cement at 115 kph on two wheels, and having to endure it for about 5 miles, that’s just not fun!

Total ride, about 365km.

All that and then a Santana concert in the evening, what a fabulous day!