The weather has been beautiful as I’ve ridden down the coast – balmy, warm days cooling down slightly in the evening when the sun sets. I have been blessed with an unusually warm dry summer which is drifting gently into a warm dry autumn.
I exist in a total media blackout, paying not the slightest heed [...]
I break camp in the morning and cycle on dedicated tarmac bike paths through gentle bucolic countryside. The sun is shining and I share the path with other cyclists, dogs and dog walkers, roller-bladers and other people enjoying the crisp clear early autumn air.
I stop at an information centre to pick up the cycle maps [...]
When the last petals drop from the fireweed, summer is over.
Also tagged fireweed, washingtonLoose connections unravel easily and I find my original plans for Seattle disintegrate suddenly. I arrive in the city, trying to traverse freeways on a poorly sign-posted urban bike trail, and wonder why I am here. I realise that I don’t want to be in the city and I have no real reason to be. [...]
Also tagged city life, hospitality, washingtonI disembark from the ferry on Whidbey Island in the afternoon with no map and no plan. The lawns here, back in the USA, seem a little smoother and greener, the picket fences a shade whiter, national flags far more prevalent.
I stop at a tourist information centre in Anacortes and get a map of the [...]