After finally convincing wife to ride with me again after years of my riding solo, we did a similar ride to my trip up Whidbey Island last time, differing mainly by having a stop in Langley and at West Beach. The weather was touch and go, but the showers didn't dampen my enthusiasm at all. I'm sure she also appreciated the heated jacket.
Albums from past rides in the area:
More after the break…
Part 1: To Langley
I started this ride out solo our the parking garage, then rolled over to the adjacent 7 Eleven parking lot so we could figure out the wiring of my wife's new heated jacket. While I'd brought an SAE extension cable, it ended up being too much and my wife was fine with just the short cable attached to the jacket. We ended up leaving at about 8:30, then headed up to Mukilteo, this time taking SR-526 instead of SR-525, which brought back memories of when I took my wife to her MSF course up in Everett.
When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we had something like 25 minutes, which went by rather quickly. My wife was cold, so we tried to find a way up to the ferry terminal, but all of the staircases were blocked off, so we huddled together in the covered walkway to the parking lot's restrooms. I can't imagine how miserable it would be to be stuck outside as a cyclist on a frigid Winter morning!
While on the ferry, we looked for places where we could eat since both of us were pretty hungry. When I brought up the lack of restaurants open in the morning during my previous ride, we ended up deciding on The Braeburn in Langley.
After rolling off the ferry and making a quick stop for gas in Clinton, we headed straight for Langley and breakfast. We ended up waiting for quite a long time due to The Braeburn being short-staffed, but the food was quite good. This was also one of the rare times when we were able to share coffee, as I don't drink it unless I'm really cold. Oh, and the water glasses were handmade and quite colorful.
After breakfast, we wandered around Langley for a bit, picking up another hot coffee for my wife at The Langley Kitchen along the way.
We also checked out the glass shop next door to The Braeburn, which turned out to be the source of the fancy glasses.
After a quick stop at the local public restrooms (which were very nice according to my wife), we were on our way.
Part 2: Main Loop
After returning to SR-525, we rode along it and SR-20 all the way to San de Fuca, skipping Coupeville since there wasn't really a reason to stop there this time. We ended up plowing through a couple of scattered showers, one of them being quite strong. I tried to switch to rain mode a number of times, but the button wasn't working correctly, so I just followed common sense to not "rock the boat." Unlike last time, we left the highway at San de Fuca and headed to West Beach, which immediately triggered the memory of a bicycle ride from long ago. While I walked around taking photos, my wife stood beside the bike and kept warm with her heated jacket.
While my route originally had us pass by Joseph Whidbey State Park, we both needed to use the restroom, so I punched Oak Harbor into my GPS and we headed that way. After waiting for quite some time to turn left onto SR-20 due to traffic backing up on the highway past the turn, we descended into the strip mall district. My wife wanted to go to Walmart, but I stopped at the Safeway instead.
We then continued along SR-20, through Deception Pass State Park without stopping, and returned to the mainland. Rather than dealing with Mount Vernon and I-5, I took us along Beaver Marsh Road so we could see the current status of Roozengarde (there wasn't much to see). We then rode over to The Rex along the slow Summers Drive along the Skagit River so I could get us some of the almond extract brownies from last time and use the restroom.
From Rexville, I stuck to largely the same route as last time to Kayak Point. (My wife didn't want to stop there originally, but she agreed to it after I said we could stop by the Seattle Premium Outlets in Marysville.) We didn't stay there for long, but I wanted her to see what it was like.
From Kayak Point, my route diverged from last time, as we headed towards Marysville. The road undulated up and down quite a bit, as straight east-west roads must do around here thanks to the land shaped by the receding glaciers of the distant past. After a quick stop for gas, we hit the Seattle Premium Outlets so she could do some shopping.
Traffic on I-5 in Marysville was pretty bad, but it died down a bit by the time we got to Everett. Much later in Seattle, keeping last time in mind, I exited I-5 at Northgate…and ended up taking a very convoluted and slow route home. My plan was to use Meridian Avenue N to head south, but a bunch of things combined to make that not work. First, I had to make a quick right because of oncoming traffic, so I didn't think to make it to the left lane ASAP. Second, there was a raised barrier preventing moving into the left lane where I ended up, so I was stuck taking Northgate Way for a bit. Traffic backed up as we approached Aurora, so I hung a left onto one of the side streets and ended up making many turns before we eventually ended up on 8th Avenue NW and on our way home. My wife wasn't too happy about it taking so long for us to get home from I-5, but we did make it eventually!
My wife said that, while she was reasonably warm with the jacket, her hands were still freezing. We'd misplaced her Winter gloves from our past motorcycle rides together, so I ordered a pair of heated gloves for her the next day.
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