Living Well With Diabetes

I left Bellingham, Washington on July 25 at about 6 PM under sunny skies and this morning at 4:45 AM, I rolled my bike off the ferry in Juneau, Alaska. It was barely light and raining a light, steady, all-day kind of rain.

It was not the arrival I had imagined, having to ride in the early morning in a steady rain. Still, I was happy to be on the bike again and as I rolled onto Highway 7 towards downtown Juneau, I realized I had just completed my goal for this bike tour: I had ridden my bicycle in Alaska. Alaska, the forty-ninth state, becomes the forty-ninth state I have ridden my bicycle in. The only one remaining is Hawaii, the fiftieth state.

Under the awning of the ferry terminal, as I was putting on my rain gear, I met my first Alaskan. He said “You should wait until it stops raining.” Helpful advice. He continued “Of course, you might have to wait fifteen days or so.” That wasn’t such helpful advice. He said they’ve had fifteen days or so of rain everyday. He said that’s unusual for this time of year.

The three nights and two days on the ferry was quite an experience. There were people from all over the world on that ferry and people of all shapes, sizes and flavors. It was a interesting maneuver to strike up a conversation because I never knew if the person I was speaking to actually spoke one of the languages I spoke. By that I mean English.

During the day, the ferry had some of the feel of a motel and some of the feel of a tourist attraction, depending on what deck you were on. On the Upper Deck and Cabin Deck felt like a motel, although very cramped. The Ship Deck and Bridge Deck were above that. There, you had access to outdoors and it definitely felt like you were on a ship, but it also felt like a tourist attraction because people were taking pictures of the scenery and wildlife all day long. There were half a dozen or so whale and dolphin sightings, but I was only able to see one of them and then I was only able to get a single, blurry photo of a couple of fins sticking out of the water. I quickly learned the difficulty with whale-watching: the ocean, even the teeny bit you can see from a ship, is a very big place and you can’t possibly look everywhere. To me, it seemed largely a matter of luck as to whether you were able to get a decent photo of a whale or dolphin.

At night, the ship began to feel like a refuge camp. I didn’t know this, but there are areas set aside for campers to set up tents. If you do this, bring lots of duck tape otherwise you risk having your tent and all its contents blow overboard. There’s also a heated, covered area — the Solarium — where people would sleep, mostly in deck chairs. This is where I imagined myself sleeping except by the time I got my bicycle stashed and I arrived at the Solarium, the place was packed and there wasn’t a single empty deck chair in sight. That left me, along with quite a few others, scrounging for a recliner or floor space in either the TV Lounge or the Forward Lounge.

The first night, I slept on the indoor/outdoor carpeting of the TV Lounge. It had the unfortunate characteristic of a floor that vibrated in an irregular pattern. It kept me awake for part of the night. The second night, I tried the Forward Lounge which seemed to have a steadier floor, but it was linoleum. It’s amazing how much harder linoleum is than even a basic indoor/outdoor carpet floor covering. It was also drafty and right next to the cocktail lounge, so the third night I went back to the TV Lounge and had a much better night except for having to get up at 4 AM to get ready to disembark at 4:45 in Juneau.

I’ve got a bunch of photos I’d like to upload to add to this posting, but for some reason, I’m unable to do that here at the motel where I’m staying. Until I figure out how to do that, this post will have to remain photoless.

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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!

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It was an absolutely beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest. The sun burned off the clouds by about 10 AM and a gentle tailwind helped me make quick work of the seventy miles to Shelton.

The first thirty miles or so of the ride today left something to be desired though. I shared Highway 109 from Ocean Shores with everybody else who felt a need to leave early. It wouldn’t have been so bad except a good portion of 109 back to Hoquiam has no shoulder and a good portion of the traffic was composed of those monstrously large RVs.

I don’t know what’s going on with the towns of Hoquiam and Aberdeen, but they did not look like happy areas. There were a lot of vacant buildings downtown. The roads are in disrepair and the drivers did not seem friendly. I had a large deisel truck idle past me and then hit the gas, causing his truck to emit a foul, black cloud of exhaust. By the time I got to the east end of Aberdeen, I was not in a good mood and I still had to face ten miles or so on a very busy highway 12. It had a wide shoulder most of the way, but it was littered with trash and other highway detritus.

After ten miles of highway 12, I was able to pick up a less busy road — old Washington 410 — that ran parallel to 12. It was a great relief and within a short time my mood had improved.

Just past the town of Elma, I took a left turn off of 410 and onto something called the Cloquallum Road. I took the Cloquallum Road all the way to Shelton and it was such a pleasant ride. It climbed gently about 500 feet over the course of the next 20 miles and the final five miles was mostly downhill into Shelton. The Cloquallum Road had large areas that had been logged which is something I had been seeing here and there in Washington and Oregon. Today it seemed like there was more of it.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue north. I’m not yet sure which route to take though. The most direct route is the west side of the Hood Canal on highway 101. But, I’ve learned over the last week or so that 101 is not really fun to ride on because it has a lot of traffic.

The alternate is to continue towards Bremerton and Poulsbo. I would be able to take country roads similar to the Cloquallum Road I was on today. The downside is having to cross the busy Hood Canal Floating Bridge north of Poulsbo.

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For the first time on the tour, I didn’t have anywhere to go today. Since I’ve decided against taking highway 101 “the long way” around the Olympic peninsula, I have an extra day or two. Instead of venturing east and north towards busier areas, I decided to make a side trip to the sandy beaches of the Ocean Shores, Washington area.

I thoroughly enjoyed a leisurely morning gathering my things together for the 25 mile or so bike ride to Ocean Shores. It should have been an easy ride and it was except for the hilly section just west of Hoquiam. There was one hill measuring 14% grade — the steepest I’ve seen on this tour. Fortunately, it leveled out to 10% after not too long. 10% never felt so nice! Another quarter mile of so of that and it was back to 6% which is typically about as steep as most major roads get around here. A mile or so later, I was up on a plateau of some kind and the road was mostly level. Since I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, I stopped more often to take photos or simply to take a break. It was a a casual day of riding.

I arrived at the turnoff to Ocean Shores about lunchtime. I decided to continue north away from Ocean Shores and along the coast to the town of Copalis Beach. There I went out towards the beach and had some lunch at the Griffiths-Priday State Park. Even there, eating at a picnic table with sand at my feet, I was well over a quarter mile from actual beach where I could stick my toes in Pacific Ocean. I might have done just that except for the cool temperatures (low 60’s) and the 15-20 mile per hour wind from the northwest.

Tomorrow, I’ll retrace my steps to Hoquiam and then continue east to McCleary. Winds are supposed to be from the west so I might even make it as far as Shelton. Stay tuned here to find out.

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Once again, this post is a summary of two days of riding.

Yesterday, I rode from Gearhart, Oregon to Raymond, Washington. It was cloudy, cool and windy all day. The clouds made it kind of an uninteresting day for photo-taking, but I took some essential ones like photos of the Astoria bridge and the sign welcoming me into Washington.

Just after I crossed the bridge into Washington from Astoria, I met up with two cyclists also heading north. (Most touring cyclists are headed south because of the prevailing winds from the northwest.)

I expected to only say hi to them before they went their own way at their own speed, but it was only a matter of minutes before we realized we were riding at roughly the same speed so we might as well ride together and have someone to talk to for a while. Shaun and Doug were college friends, but now live in Minneapolis and Seattle respectively. Shaun, as it turns out, went to Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota which is about twelve miles from where I grew up and went to college. He was nearing the end of his five week long bike tour from Boulder to Seattle. He and I took essentially the same paths across Oregon so we exchanged stories about places we had both been, separated by a few days.

Shaun has been keeping his own blog on his trip:

http://denver-seattle2000miles.blogspot.com/

Shaun and Doug and I rode together most of the day — about 45 miles. We arrived in Raymond in time for a late lunch. We shared a pizza at the very first eating establishment we came across. We were pretty hungry and polished off a large pizza pretty quickly. After pizza, we said goodbye and wished each other safe travels. Shaun and Doug were riding twenty more miles north on highway 101 which began with what looked like a fairly large climb. I, on the other hand, turned the corner off of highway 101 and downhill towards the campground (actually, an RV park) where I would be staying.

I cooked dinner at my campsite. The RV park was a clean, quiet place. In other campgrounds and RV parks I’ve stayed at, just like this one, the tent sites don’t have electricity, but I always managed to find some way to suck a little electricity off the grid to charge batteries, etc. Not this place, however. They had it locked down pretty tight. Even access to the bathroom was controlled. When you registered, you were issued a key to the bathroom. God help you if you lose it! There was one electrical outlet in the bathroom, but it was just a teaser — it was dead.

Of all nights on my tour, this was the one when I really could have used some electricity too. Late in the evening, my Dexcom continuous glucose monitor started beeping at me about a low battery condition. I had to listen to that thing beep at me about the low battery hourly through the night and all the next day.

I woke up this morning to a very light mist. I was concerned about riding in the rain all day, but I spoke with a couple tenters in the spot next to mine. As it turned out they lived in Olympia, Washington and they were in this area for some kayaking. I asked about the rainy weather and he looked up at the sky and said “This is actually a nice day.” He went on to explain that this was a common summertime weather pattern. He predicted it would be cold and misty in the morning and the clouds would burn off by early afternoon. He was exactly right. The longer I rode today, the dryer it was and by early afternoon, as I was coming into Aberdeen, there was some blue sky. Not much, but it was there.

From here, my grand plan was to continue north on highway 101 to Amanda Park, then Forks, and then finally Port Angeles — a ride around the Olympic peninsula and the Olympic National Forest. Forks and Port Angeles are large enough to offer enough lodging options that you can be sure of finding a place to stay. Not so with Amanda Park. There are only a handful of lodging options (including campgrounds). This being the summertime anda weekend, none of them had a spot available for me.

So, that left me with plan B. Actually, I didn’t have a plan B until about 15 minutes ago. Not riding the Olympic peninsula gives me a couple extra days now to get myself to Bellingham by July 25. So, instead of cycling the Olympic peninsula, tomorrow I will be heading west on highway 109 for an out-and-back trip to Ocean Park. After that, I’ll continue to head for Bellingham via highway 101 on the west side of the Hood Canal.

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