Orcas 1, Cy 0

Hey, Orcas is hilly! You can file this island's hills under "Humanity, Oh the." It's 15 miles from the ferry dock to Moran State Park. I made it. Barely. And now I can barely walk (partially because I just sat down in THE comfiest chair EVER at the Rosario Resort).

On Sunday at 12:05 I left my car behind and hopped a ferry. Ferries rock.


Here's my bike all decked out on the deck.


Here's all the scenery I'd been hoping for, right before I unloaded everything to fix my first flat. Riding about 300 yards behind me up the Hills of Humanity (Oh the) was a senior citizen riding to go see about a mint 1946 Buick. He offered to help in a number of ways and then we started chatting. Of course he's a surgeon (plastics of the hand and also of the head & neck, which you can't really do any more without triple-boarding). He'd heard of Nova and he said I should expect no trouble as a DO. That's nice.


Here's a horse for Melissa. What a beauty. The horse was pretty too.


This is the road to the town of Eastsound, from where I stopped for lunch. Peanut butter pitas. I stopped in Eastsound at a bike store to borrow some air. The guy who owns the bike store was very helpful. My frame pump sucks.


After Eastsound, things got dicey. It was getting close to 5 pm, my legs were cramping, and the hills got REALLY intense. I was worried about it getting dark before I got to Moran State Park, I was worried about losing consciousness and falling over into the path of a truck, and I was scoping the side of the road for good trespassing opportunities. I started hiking up the hills, and riding down. At least it felt like I was making progress. I was moving so slowly that a deer on the other side of the road, maybe 25 feet away, didn't stop chewing and watched me go by. I took a picture but it didn't come out, nor did it bother the deer.

Finally I got to Moran State Park and then I had to keep riding more hills to the one open area of campsites. It was worth it.


Camping rocks. Cooking was really fun - I made miso soup with green beans and rice, and had strawberries and tea for dessert. Sleeping was trouble - I figured out in the morning that I was supposed to close the valve on my self-inflating mattress. Erf. Here's an otter that was goofing off while I ate breakfast. Look closely: it's the black bump in the middle of the shot.


Here's what my site looked like just before I tore everything down.


And here's the obligatory takeoff photo.


From there, I bagged on further camping because I knew I could barely ride the 1.25 miles to the hill down to Rosario. I'm staying here tonight, and I'll get a shuttle back to the ferry in the morning. I feel exactly like I used to feel after a triathlon: like I'm not ready to do another one yet.

OK, so the concept that I set out to prove was half proven. Everything about bike touring is fun, except for my fitness level. Good to know. Bike touring across the US is more ballsy than I think I want to be at this point - it could be done, but the first month would be really excruciating, day after day. I don't think I'm up for excruciating. So I think I'm going to stay Seattle-bound until I leave in July for school, and harass everybody I know to go workout with me. New goal: make it to the top of Mt. Si before I leave.