Crossing Over.......the Strait of Juan de Fuca....BC to WA

That white line in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is the international border.....we must have blinked at the wrong time because we didn't see it during the voyage across! August 31 - Sunday - Our route to downtown Victoria and the ferry terminal.

We decided to get an early start and have a proper breakfast downtown. We passed several of these spruced up utility boxes along the way....a nice touch!

Not much traffic at that hour so we made good time.

We were at the ferry terminal to buy our tickets by 8:45.

The British Columbia Parliment building

These lovely sea turtles were swimming in the store window where we parked our bikes for breakfast.

Relaxation.........Sunday paper, hot chocolate, and breakfast at Sam's Grill.

The Victoria waterfront is always pretty festive on weekends but this day it was particularly lively because of the Classic Boat Festival.

Donna's new buddy

Here comes our ferry!

More wooden boats than we've seen anyplace besides Port Townsend's Wooden Boat Festival.

This little boat is locally famous for having sailed around the world.

We boarded about a half hour before departure and spent the time watching the harbor activities. Our sound of the day was Canadian geese honking and sea gulls calling mixed with the brass band that was playing across the harbor.

Bet it is really pretty with all the sails unfurled.

This was one happy dog.

You can tour the harbor on these little boats which we've done on a previous trip. Today they are preparing to do their Harbor Ferry Ballet for the Boat Festival. We took a short movie of them practicing but it is too many megabytes for the blog. They were quite entertaining.

Alas, we have to leave Victoria behind. It was a little sad to have to leave one of our favorite cities on such a festive, pleasant day.

Looking for that international border.....and watching the horizon dip and tilt. It looked smooth but there were some pretty long swells coming from somewhere.

Back in the USA, Port Angeles, Washington. The crossing took an hour and a half and then it took about an hour to get through customs. It is a lot easier on a bike than in a car. This is our decision point.....to go east or west around the Olympic Peninsula. It is shorter to go east and we decide that it will be too tight timewise to go west.

In case you can't quite read it - "If you aren't living on the edge, you are using up too much space." Lou Whitaker - one of Doug's favorite sayings.

The most colorful restaurant booths of our trip.

Donna is eagerly awaiting her crab quesadilla...yummmy!

The hold-the-camera-over-your-head-while-you-are-pedaling shot. We are on the Olympic Discovery Trail which is a paved trail that currrently connects Port Angeles and Sequim (pronounced sort of like "skwim"). The trail is new since we passed this way in 2004 (headed the opposite direction).

Guess there must be a shortage of log trucks in the area!

This part of the trail is a railroad trestle Rails to Trails conversion. The trestle is the centerpiece of a small park. Since it was a sunny Sunday there were a lot of people hanging out and lots of people on the trail walking and biking.

One kind soul helped us out by taking our picture. Just after this we discovered that the only way off the east end of the trestle involved stairs. That was a little tricky with fully loaded bikes!

The perfect place to take a break......it has all the essentials. This was in Sequim where we also picked up some food for dinner since we decided to stay at Sequim Bay State Park which is about 5 miles east of town.

This is currently the east end of the paved portion of the Olympic Discovery Trail. It is on another railroad trestle. The ravine was so deep that we were looking into the tops of the trees as we crossed the big sweeping curve of the trestle.

Sequim Bay State Park - we were the only bikers so there was a spot for us even though it was Labor Day weekend. The rest of the campground was full by early evening. There is a nice little interpretive center highlighting bivalves of the area.

The trail is gravel through the campground. The lady in the entrance booth told us that the long term plan is for this trail to go all along the north side of the Olympic Peninsula from Forks to Port Townsend. The part we did today was very nice.

September 1 - Monday - Labor Day - Sequim Bay State Park to Brinnon

It was pretty cold this morning so there wasn't much incentive to get out of the sleeping bags. Sooo we didn't get a very early start. We are pretty sure that 7 Cedars - this very fancy gas station/convenience store/gift shop was not here in Blyn on our bike trip in 2004.

A lavendar farm and gift shop.

Discovery Bay - we stopped here for warm drinks. A motorcyclist was waiting for some buddies and he told us that his bike's thermometer said it was 47 degrees!! No wonder warmth sounded good. We stopped here on our 2004 trip as well. There are new owners this time around but the service was still good. From here on south we are once again in new bicycling territory.

This was our lunch stop in Quilcene. We also hung out in the laudromat for a little while drying out some clothes and towels. It is very much a community built around the timber industry that has had some hard times.

A familiar sign........sort of like visiting a long lost cousin that you've heard about for years.

The road through the National Forest took in the one real long grade (5 miles) for the day. The top of Walker Summit is in sight. Time to put on our jackets so we can enjoy the zipping 4 mile ride down the hill.

Our first glimpse of Hood Canal. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they have reconstructed this part of the highway and the shoulder is not nearly as narrow or non-existent as we remember from a long ago road trip.

It stayed cold all day so we decided that a night in a motel would be worth it. We checked into the one motel in Brinnon and then went exploring at Dosewallips State Park. It turned out that the campground had yurts available which would have been a good alternative. These fish are swimming under the highway bridge along the road that connects the 2 parts of the campground.

The trail takes you all the way out to the low tide waterline.

Funny way to moor a sailboat!

The motel in Brinnon was on the second floor above the senior/community center. The carpet was a wonder to behold. Donna is working on the journal and logistics........it looks like we can make Astoria by Saturday if all goes well. The weather report said it was 10 degrees below normal today. We ended the day watching the first Dirty Harry movie. Clint Eastwood sure looked young! All in all a very interesting day.