Post 1- Seattle to Ross Lake

July 10, 2009
My trip started out in Seattle on Tuesday ther 7th of July; I had spent most of the day sweeping and mopping my basement apartment , getting the rest of my backpacking gear at Second Ascent in Ballard, and storing the last items in the shed for the summer. I finally got on my bike and rode down to the train station to try to catch the 6:40 pm train to Mt. Vernon. Luckily I arrived about 20 minutes before the boarding call and I bought my ticket. I arrived in Mt. Vernon around 8pm, repacked my bike and it started to rain, but there really was no turning back.
I rode about 15 miles to Anacortes and after initially getting lost, finally found Washington Park 3 miles outside of town. I set up my tent and slept in relative comfort even though my spirits were slightly dampened. In the morning downpour, I hightailed it over to the bike shop only to find that it was closed, so I pedaled over to Penguin Coffee to get my Americano fix and wait for the bike shop to open. When it finally did, I spent close to three hours buying and installing all the rest of the gear that I needed (most importantly the rain booties for my bike shoes, and rearview mirror). I was finally ready they told me to go to the marina where I could dip the rear wheel of my Kona in the water.
It was about 2 pm when I left town, and my situation was improving by the minute. The ride was mostly uneventful until some older lady stopped her pickup in the middle of the highway to see if I was alright; I had laid my bike down to go filter some water out of the Skagit. I got to Concrete and decided to push on through to Rockport, where I found an amazing campsite at Steelhead Park. The ride was about 65 miles through farmland and rolling hills along the meandering Skagit, really quite beautiful. I met Bill and Linda, a Canadian couple in their late 50’s who had only just started touring about ten years ago but have been all over the world since. I learned some important things from them about the bike touring lifestyle so the next morning I went over to the Post Office in town and sent home about 3 ½ lbs. of clothes and other items that I didn’t need.
I was on the road a little after 9:30 am and caught up to the Canadians in Newhalem, which has a great history from the construction of Diablo Dam. Apparently, the last real store for about 70 miles was in this town, so I bought some Reisling and stuck it in my bottle holder. The ride was mostly uphill from there until I made it to the sleepy ghost town of Diablo, where I was supposed to stay with a friend of a friend. She couldn’t host me that night because she had to work, so I thought that I would just push on ahead to Ross Dam where my friend Ian was working and living. I made the mistake of not writing his emailed directions down before leaving Seattle, so I went by memory because there was no internet or phone connection for miles around me. The directions were something like, “walk across Ross Dam, even though it kind of looks illegal and then take a right until you get to building H”. I rode seven miles up a steep grade to the Ross Lake trailhead and then down about a mile trail from highway 20. This task is no problem if you don’t have a bike with fifty pounds of gear on it! The other problem was that once I got across the dam, there is another longer trail that leads to Ross Lake Resort. I thought to myself, “this won’t take me that long”, so I just kept moving. Bad decision; this trail was about a foot wide and switch-backed up the hillside. Nevertheless, I somehow made it to the resort with my dignity still intact and explained myself to the staff. They said, “there is no Ian working with us, he must be working at the Environmental Learning Center down at Diablo Dam”. I was shocked and in disbelief, three hours earlier I was at Diablo Dam .
Before I could say much else, one of the staff said, “You can get a ride on the trash boat that is going down to Diablo right now! Go get your bike and bring it to the dock before they leave”. So I gathered my bike, loaded it on the resort boat, and we went across the lake to the waiting truck that had the trash boat hooked up to it already. The driver told me that If I had gotten there literally two minutes later, I would have missed “the maggot run” that they only do once a week on Thursdays. We drove down to the bottom of Ross Dam in the diesel pickup with his dog Lady, unloaded the boat and headed down the Eastern arm of Diablo Lake.
A euphoric feeling washed over me as I was sitting cross legged on the front of the tiny boat gliding through the lake with towering cliffs rising on either side. When I took my bike off the boat I rode over to the ELC; I met one of the workers, Sarah just outside. I quickly told her of my ordeal and that I was looking for Ian. She said that if I wanted to stay, dinner was being served in fifteen minutes. I just about cried with happiness for my recent turn of luck, and ate the best five dollar salmon dinner I have ever had.
It turns out that the chef, Betsy is a roommate of Ian’s and I got a ride from her over to the house. When Ian got home, I pulled out the wine that had made and interesting journey around Diablo Lake and back and enjoyed a wonderful evening of drinking and second dinner. I had traveled over a hundred miles in two days and the journey already proved to be a wild, crazy adventure. In my 28 years on this planet, I have always believed that everything will work out for me…. and it always has…