Location Shopping Part II

 After leaving the Olympic Peninsula we stopped for the night in south Seattle near the airport for a reset - showers and a hotel bed. In the morning we came out and noticed a large pool of gas on the rain-washed tarmac that upon inspection appeared to be coming from the van. Joy. Someone had repeatedly punctured the van's fuel tank (to steal gas in a clumsy and ineffective fashion, I guess?) although miraculously they hadn't taken the catalytic converter, usually the first thing that gets stolen these days. A friendly contractor who was staying at the hotel paused at the vehicle while we were looking at it and told us all the parking lots in the area saw routine vandalism and theft.

Seriously?

I told the hotel clerk, who gave a cursory sympathetic murmur and slid the Xeroxed incident report form across the desk but made no offer of redress for the utter failure of the night security shift. Cy, being the very competent and capable person he is, started walking the two miles to the auto parts store to get some epoxy and radiator patches while I filed the police report and insurance claim. The contractor saw Cy jogging through the concrete hellscape of traffic sprawl and gave him a ride back to the hotel. Cy laid out a rug on the ground and started patching the holes while I talked to the wildly helpful insurance adjustor, who immediately sent me payment for the temporary fix plus labor plus lost fuel, and started drafting the estimate for replacement. A diametrically opposite customer service experience than the hotel clerk interaction. 

This guy is the best

We went for a walk along the Interurban path while waiting for the epoxy to cure, and talked about the sad fucked-up-ness of humanity in all its myriad ways. Every battle being fought is overwhelming and insufficient. I don't know how we could ever begin to fix all the things that are wrong with everything, with the cities and the sprawl and the pumping arteries of cars, and the scary shacks in the hollers and the pervasiveness of drugs and the grinding poverty and the sweeping entitlement and crushing lack of empathy, where people living in vehicular wastelands need a car to get around and need to steal half a tank of gas, and hotel clerks are so burned out dealing with the constant miniscule demands of guests that they treat actual crimes on premises with the same beleaguered attention as an empty coffee carafe. It just feels like people are sad and broken and isolated and hamstrung, and I don't know if there's any way this ship can right itself. 

And yet...there is still beauty

Sobered by that experience, but with a functioning vehicle, we went to Bellingham, checking frequently that the tank wasn't leaking gas. Cy's internet friend turned real friend Sarah was happy to go for a muddy evening ride with us and all was well with the world. After we cleaned up we headed to a brewery dance party celebrating Sarah's new can art and it was so fun to be among a bunch of likeminded people dancing to music targeted with laser precision at the 28-35 demographic. Sometimes being in a bubble is refreshing. 

You can't tell but this is the biggest gap I've ever hit

We spent most of Sunday meandering all over Galbraith, including an interlude at the Transition Outpost where Cy always gets love thanks to his large paintings hanging on the walls of the shop. I had some minor biking breakthroughs and was feeling pretty good about myself, partly because I was riding on flats and I can now proudly claim pedal ambidexterity. 

Pushing my comfort zone on slabs

After Vietnamese food we had a beer down at Trackside on an evening that was pure propaganda, crisp rays of sunlight illuminating the deserted paper mill structures as people enjoyed the first hint of summer on the bay and hordes of children pedaled, strider-ed, or stumbled around on the big pump track next to the beer garden. What is this world.

Too good to be true

As if that wasn't appealing enough, Cy learned that the local LGBTQ bar had a weekly Sunday drag show so we stayed up past midnight for the third night in a row - unheard of. At the bar I picked up a newspaper for idle perusal and was impressed by its thoughtful government coverage. Later research revealed that it's a new print offering with a super exciting mission and staff. Sigh. Stop it, Bellingham. 

Who doesn't love a Sunday night community drag show?

On Monday after a delicious gut bomb of a breakfast, we met up with another Instagram friend to ride. We quickly polished off the big mellow climb interspersed with mean hike-a-bike, and then hit the steep rutted descent that, because of the wet conditions, was at the absolute edge of my abilities and bravery. I was stoked to end the trip feeling depleted and accomplished. After eating poke bowls in town we enjoyed one final hang with random internet people, crashing a wheel-building session at someone's garage. Bullshitting and drinking beers with bike bros - always a fan. Cy got to see in real life an art collaboration he had done with a tie-dye apparel brand. It's kind of wild how many clients and fans he has in Bellingham and surrounding areas.

Finished off my trip with a good hard ride in the mist

And then I flew home. He continued on his merry way doing more things that exactly fit his emotional needs - volunteer trail work days, art store visits, weekday race hang outs, jumps, and scary trail rides. I settled back in at home, gave the neurotic dog as much attention as possible, and started plotting in earnest how we could move there. 

Location Shopping Part I

On the brink of burnout at work and in a valley where it feels like we've been making the most of pretty meh weekends for the majority of winter, I take off a big chunk of time at work, more than I ever have. It's scary, it's exciting. I feel privileged and entitled because in addition to the occasional long weekend, I do take off for about a week straight every year, usually to go to weddings in North Carolina. This time though we're going to Washington and doing some location shopping. 

We load the van up with bikes and ski gear, arrange loose dogsitting plans with our friends that live nearby, and hit the road early on Saturday morning. Drive through boring, hazy Idaho and windy, snowy passes in central Oregon, make it up to Hood, above the rain line, back in snow. We wander around Cy's old haunts, the massive hewn logs of Timberline Lodge, stunning in its magnitude, the beauty of the Works Progress Administration writ (very) large. 

After a cold night that frosted the windows of the van, we prepped early with cold hands for the ski, but not early enough, we later learned. We made very quick work of the first 4k of vert - Cy has long legs and I've been skinning a lot in hopes of getting faster. It's steep and boring, although the view of the massif in front of us is gorgeous. But we hit a line of people, both skiers and hikers, walking past the Devil's Kitchen fumarole, moving agonizingly slowly with heavy, inappropriate gear, and we can see in front of us the only way to the summit, a 500-foot headwall clogged with humanity, the bootpackers' progress frozen under the hangfire of rime ice, rocks poised to fall, and fresh snow turning into slabs as the sun ratcheted up the temps.

The crush of humanity on the headwall

Not the day for it, another skier said to his companions as he ripped off his skins. His quick hand pit broke a slab clean with an audible pop. It was exactly the inducement we needed to decide to head downhill instead of summiting. The ski over to the picturesque Illumination Rock was touchy and grabby. We snacked then skied very flat groomers back to the parking lot. 

Inoffensive skiing but not great

The base area was shrouded in a heavy, moist cloud and it was only 11, so we figured we might as well go for a ride in the valley. Sandy Ridge was deliciously not sandy - damp, mossy, rooty, it was a gentle introduction back into mountain biking for refugees of the snowy Intermountain West. We sprawled on the warm pavement in the parking lot afterward, so happy to be back in the land of trees and dark, clingy dirt. 

Multi-sport day

We have a friend across the river gorge in Washington and I had a newspaper to put out, so we slept on his couch in the small, imminently charming burg of White Salmon and worked a full day Monday. After sending the paper we pedaled around a scrappy little bike park a quarter mile from town, then walked across the street for good beer and bar food. 

I am constantly wondering what I really want in a community. High on the list is trails that are within walking distance. When Brendan got home we talked for a long time, about life, about being disappointed in places that seem like a good fit. 

We moseyed west on Tuesday, stopping at Dog Mountain for a short steep run above the Columbia to appease my incessant need for motion. 

Appeasement

Our next stop was Olympia. We wandered aimlessly around the state capital, admiring its mini-Portland feel. After grabbing some cans from Three Magnets Brewing that were adorned with Cy's illustrations, we found a good home base for the next couple of days in Capitol Forest, which we agreed was not close enough to town. The stub road we parked in had the remnants of a hard weekend - trash everywhere, a syringe on the ground, a charred pile of debris next to a fire pit - but it was quiet and only feet away from Mr Bones, the trail that would be featured in the next day's Free For All, a weeknight downhill race whose promotor is one of Cy's favorite clients. We couldn't resist doing a lap on the course that night and I was convinced to register. 

Van camping is pretty glamorous

On Wednesday we managed to do a ride that was plenty big, incapable of saving the legs for the race. The trails were delightful and not too challenging, although I took a weird line on a steep rooty switchback and went ass over teakettle, miraculously my only real crash of the trip. The scene at the race was cool, albeit bro-heavy. Riders could attempt as many laps as they wanted in the two-hour window, but everyone was shuttling, which doomed my plan of pedaling for laps on the steep, curvy logging road. I put in one clean run and returned my timing chip - no need to mess with fate. Turns out I still hate time trials in all flavors, especially DH. Cy went back for more and we were both handed very mediocre mid-pack results. Whatever, it was fun to get a taste of the grassroots Olympia bike culture. 

I liked the race course

On Thursday we headed up and around the peninsula to Port Angeles, admiring the beautiful coastline and bemoaning the inescapable rain. We strolled around the quirky, scenic town, which felt on the cusp of being "discovered," surprising in such a bikes-breweries-and-Sprinter-vans region. To Cy's delight we came across an aquarium and touched sea urchins and watched prehistoric-looking rockfish being fed chunks of mackerel while marine biologist nerds told us everything we could hope to know about the ecosystem.  

Aquatic life, meet terrestrial life

Driving around the outskirts of town trying to plan for the next day's ride, however, changed the feel. There were plenty of properties plastered with No Trespassing signs of varying ferocity, huge Trump flags everywhere, and yards full of decrepit cars, rotting cardboard, sagging lean-tos - no. Not a place I would feel comfortable if I was out for a back roads ride. This exploration culminated in the Rat Hole, which a bike shop employee had warned us about - gated land that according to most sources was probably a militia stronghold or libertarian commune. We parked on logging land and went for a muddy evening walk through a clear cut. 

Friday's ride was pretty dang cool, quasi-unsanctioned trails off the Olympic Discovery pathway that were a very open secret, fun and not too hard (except for one, which was ridiculously hard) and plenty of miles. I did long for the clouds to clear so I could see the glaciated peaks that were just above us, but we were generally satisfied with the experience, so we headed to Seattle.