As I mentioned before, Kristin and I are riding in the Seattle MS 150 this year to raise money for the MS Society. If you’d like to help me reach my fundraising goal of $1000 you can give online here. So our couch-to-150 training program now has us doing 40 miles a day (with hills) on the weekends. With all the miles we’ve spent in the saddle this summer we are getting bored of our usual routes around Seattle. So I did a little Google Earthing and found a perfect 80 mile two day ride - Seattle to Gig Harbor and back!
Kristin’s folks live in Gig Harbor so it would be a perfect out and back overnight destination. As we pedaled away from our apartment Saturday morning we both felt a little giddy thinking, “we are actually going to BIKE to Gig Harbor!?”. Gig Harbor is usually only about an hours drive South of Seattle - just across the Puget Sound from Tacoma. But with summer traffic and the additional traffic caused by the Narrows Bridge construction we haven’t been getting down to see the folks very often. Let’s just say it is a long enough drive that it stops of from just “stopping by”. So pedaling there seems like a very long trek! Another reason we were excited is that we were surprising Kristin’s dad - he had no idea we were coming. He had even called on Friday and left a message asking if we would come to visit even though he knew we were probably busy. We knew he was going to be shocked that we actually biked there!
The trip was excellent! We had a nice breeze at our back Saturday morning and made the 17 miles to the West Seattle ferry in time to catch the 9:15 to Southworth (Port Orchard). From there it only took us a couple more hours of pedaling through 24 miles of beautiful country side to land us at Kristin’s folks in Gig Harbor. What a great way to travel if you’re got the time! We were able to pack light - just our camel packs - because we both have spare cloths and toothbrushes permanently stashed at her folks. The family treated us well. We fully relaxed and recuperated all afternoon, evening and Sunday morning before starting our return trip around noon. The ride home was a bit more challenging. We took a different route back to Southworth and it proved to have much steeper hills plus the wind was now in our face instead of at our backs. But it was still a beautiful ride and the hills are strangely rewarding.
We are loving bicycling! If anyone is looking to pick up a new hobby I would high suggest getting a road bike and start putting in the miles. I think you will find it addicting like we have. I just hope we can find the courage to keep riding this fall and winter when the rain begins to pour.