Grand Loop: Segment 1

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Well, it has been a while since I last wrote. A long while. I have no grandiose excuse to wow you. After the week on the road and in the mountains I went back to work, playing soccer and kept putting off writing.

Now it's time to get back on the horse and start writing again. So I'll start with what I remember from our trip around southwest British Columbia.

The first segment of the trip was pretty straight forward. Get to Port Angeles, WA, on the ferry and over to Victoria. We tried to avoid I-5 by taking OR 30 north and crossing the Columbia River to Longview, got on I-5 and then turning westward off I-5 outside Olympia, WA.

It was a mostly gray day to start with and somewhat chilly, especially when reached the Olympic Peninsula. When we stopped for lunch the three of us on bikes were in need of a warm-up. Besides that, my taillights were have some electrical gremlins. The connections weren't snug causing the brake light to flicker and my turn signals not to flash. A little adjustment and things seemed to stabilize. We were back on the road to Port Angeles to catch the ferry. Along the way we had a few glimpses of Olympic Mountains. But mostly things were shrouded in clouds. Up above Skokomish though the sun was coming through and we were overlooking the western shore of the Hood Canal. REALLY gorgeous coast and small towns.

We reached Port Angeles a bit over an hour ahead of the boarding time for the ferry. We proceeded to park the bikes; purchase our tickets and look around the port area. To kill time we walked around; chatted with other bikers; and generally just waited.


When the ferry arrived we mounted up and boarded the vessel. The bikes were towards the stern of the boat, off on the edges of deck along the outer walls. I was uncertain about the anchoring ropes the boat provided. They just seemed to be mounted wrong to prevent the bikes from tipping. But it didn't really matter as the seas were calm.

Once on the boat we gathered together. The ship had rules about doggies inside so Jim and I wandered around on deck with Dru. She of course got most of the attention. As we crossed the sun started breaking through and we could see Olympics as we made our way across to Canada.



Arriving in Victoria was interesting. On this leg the customs check was after disembarking in Canada. As with all customs procedures this slows things down. We had to wait as people made their way through. The bikes were through relatively early. But Jim, the car and Dru were just about the last off ship and through customs. The two wheelers went onto the hotel because there wasn't really a place to wait for Jim to come through. And we waited there.

We landed in Victoria on B.C. Day weekend. And August is the height of tourist season on the island. Between the two, navigating the through the port/government center/downtown area was not the easiest thing to do.