July 21: Shelton to Kitsap Memorial State Park
I climbed onto my bike in Shelton at about 8:15 AM. By 8:17 AM, I was beginning a roughly mile long climb out of the valley in which Shelton resides. This climb was up to 11% grade and it set the tone for the day: steep.
I was inventing my own route today. I have learned that the busy roads really put me in a bad mood, so today I’m going out of my way to avoid them. And I did. I missed the entire Bremerton area and I stayed off of busy highway 3 all day until the final quarter mile leading up to Kitsap Memorial State Park. It made for a very pleasant day of riding and the weather helped make it even nicer. It was cloudy in the morning, but by the time I was rolling into Belfair, the clouds were breaking up. An hour later, during which I covered about ten miles and one very tough and steep climb, I was in Seabeck and the skies were clear.
Leaving Seabeck was hard though. Not because it was a very quaint seaside community (it was), but because to get out of town, I had to ride up something called “Anderson Hill” and “Newberg Hill.” There were a couple of other, unnamed hills as well and they were probably bigger and steeper than the named ones. The road sign at the top of the first one said 14%, but it sure felt steeper than that. Each climb was about a half mile long and they were killin’ me. I had to stop multiple times on each one. Fortunately, by the time I reached Silverdale, about four miles later, the road had leveled out. I had a couple more climbs before reaching my Kitsap Memorial, but only one was in the double-digits, grade-wise.
There were no restaurants or anything except a gas station near the campground I was staying at. So, I had to cook dinner at camp. I was so low on fuel for my stove, I wasn’t sure I had enough to cook dinner. I went to the gas station and they didn’t have any white gas, the preferred fuel for my stove. Fortunately, my camp stove burns a bunch of fuel types, including unleaded gas. So, I went to a pump and filled my fuel canister with forty-one cents worth of the highest octane gas they had to offer. Ah yes, I remember the good ol’ days: you could fill up your fuel canister for less than a quarter!
