After a beautiful drive through Washington State from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, we settled into a hotel in the small Seattle suburb of Pacific, south of the main metro area, for three days and four nights. We chose this place because we found reasonably priced, pet friendly lodging, and Barry discovered that we could ride our bikes into the city via several different paved bike paths. It was more rural than urban, and we were able to avoid most of the city traffic by not having to drive into Seattle proper. On our first full day in the area, it rained off and on all day long. Between showers, we got out for a walk to a grocery store in Auburn, the city next door, but did not do any riding. Our second full day also started out a little iffy -- chilly, cloudy, and damp. But we decided to pull on our layers (while cursing having to wear all these clothes at the end of June!) and take our chances. And it turned out to be a good decision as the day got nicer and nicer as it went on. We started out by riding north on the Interurban Trail, which we picked up just steps outside our hotel. We went through parts of Auburn, Tukwila, and Kent on our way north. Continuing on, we turned onto the Green River Trail in Kent. This trail runs alongside the Green River, providing scenic views. Finally we caught our first glimpse of downtown Seattle! Neither of us had ever been there before; in fact, this was our first time in Washington State, so we were excited. We had to ride through some kinda beat-up neighborhood roads while on our next trail, Duwamish. This was the first time we encountered any actual hills on our ride. Now we knew we were getting close! Slightly less than three miles from downtown, we turned onto the West Seattle Bridge Trail. We were going to get to go over a big bridge -- wheeee! But first, we had to stop and wait -- the bridge we were crossing was a drawbridge, and a boat was coming through. Cool! At least we finally got a good look at the Space Needle -- we had plenty of time to look while the bridge tender let the boat through and we waited to cross. Once safely across the bridge, we set up the camera's self-timer for a photo of the two of us in front of the industrial port of Seattle. Notice the leg warmers have come off now as we were starting to warm up a bit. We still had a ways to go to get into downtown proper. Fortunately, Seattle's excellent cycling infrastructure with bike lanes and good signage made this pretty easy, although there were areas of construction that were a little hairy to get through. The flag on the top of this building was the first sign that this wouldn't be just a typical Sunday in Seattle! And we're here! The ride into town was around 30 miles. Stay tuned for Part 2 to see what we saw in the city. It was an incredibly day!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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