Beavers and Vampires and Werewolves, Oh My!
Giant Beaver - Beaver, WA
Fresh off the crash and celebrating Captain’s 1 year Canceriversary, we were soon back on the trail with our eyes on the finish at the Pacific Ocean. We still had about 35 miles to go (70 round trip), but I was finally starting to believe that we’d make it and that Captain would get to do the whole trip. The remaining miles were all on paved roads without any real climbs, so we were planning on some smooth sailing. It was also yet another celebratory day, my 41st birthday; I figured this was the perfect way to spend the day, out in the woods exploring with the pups.
I hadn’t slept very well the night before and didn’t eat much for breakfast as everything was still closed and the gas station I thought I’d be able to buy some snacks at turned out to just be an automated pump with no store to buy anything at. Oh well, I’d done rides before without eating; they aren’t fun, but I figured this was only going to be about a 25 mile day, so it shouldn’t be an issue.
By the time we started riding, I was feeling a little sluggish. It just felt like I was pedaling hard but not going very fast. I wrote it off as a combination of having only had a few hours sleep and not taking in any calories before the ride, coupled with the fact that there was a very slight headwind, plus it had unexpectedly starting raining, and we were technically heading slightly uphill for about half the day. But as the day progressed, things just kept getting slower and slower. On one seemingly flat, paved straightaway, I clocked myself at going 2.5 miles in 30 minutes. Wow…5 miles an hour on flat pavement, I was in trouble. I thought about turning around, but we were only another miles or so from our planned turnaround, so it really wouldn’t save me much time and effort, so I chose to struggle on.
A short while later, we had made it to the highpoint of the day, so I figured things would at least get easier as gravity would start to be on our side, but I was wrong. As we started coasting downhill, the bike started to fishtail. DUH! My sleep-deprived and food-deprived brain had over 3 hours to figure out our problem but it wasn’t until now that it dawned on me, my rear tire was nearly flat. Well done; it only took 9 miles to diagnose a flat tire! How embarrassing! I pulled over to the most protected spot I could find and changed the flat, in the rain, on my birthday. I then celebrated by eating the 2-year old emergency Nature’s Valley granola bar that had turned to dust in my handlebar bag. Most of the coloring and writing had since worn off of the packaging, but I’m an Oats n’ Honey guy, so I knew what I was in for. Even though it was smashed to bits, it was still delicious as it was the only thing I’d had all day.
With the tire back on and with a few calories in my stomach, we carried on for an otherwise uneventful day.
Our next segment was pretty rough as well as our path rejoined the super busy highway 101 for the entire day, was in an absolute downpour, and included several small bridge crossings that had no shoulder, so we were in the middle of the lane with traffic.
The highlight of the day was the giant carved beaver in the aptly named town of Beaver. The low point for the dogs was clearly the endless downpour and near freezing temperatures, as evidenced by the looks on their face in this picture; sorry pups! The low point for me wasn’t the rain, the near freezing temperatures, or even the not one but two, simultaneous flat tires, it was the litter.
Washington is beautiful state, but there is garbage everywhere! I think it has to do with the fact that you have to pay for garbage removal as a separate service as opposed to many places I’ve lived where garbage removal is incorporated into your property taxes. By making people pay separately for garbage removal, they are incentivized to get creative at disposing their trash in order to save a couple of bucks. Unfortunately, that tends to mean that people dump garbage anywhere they can when no one is looking. We’ve seen countless roadside pullouts filled with household garbage; it’s really sad.
We passed through the town of Forks, WA which was made famous by the “Twilight” series depicting romance and rivalry between vampires, werewolves, and people. The books were set in town and the surrounding forests and parts of the movies were filmed here as well, so “Twilight Tourism” is a big draw to the area. Forks wasn’t much of a draw for me though as I was already travelling with 2 werewolves of my own and because at the end of the day, our monstrous regiment was only 6 miles (12 roundtrip) from the end of the trail in La Push.
