We made it to Portland! 210 miles in two days. 2015 STP

Headwinds all the way.  Everything was sore. But so what?  We made it. 

 

Ready for our fourth STP together

We completed our training for the STP today.  It was the fourth time we have trained for this event.

Since we returned from Road Trip 4 early in March we have taken 58 rides for a total of 1300+ miles.  We also rode a stationary bike for a few hours.  We had planned to take more rides, but life in the form of pesky medical issues that people in their 60s have to deal with derailed (or should I say derailleured) our plans somewhat.  But even with that we got in the number of rides and miles that we wanted and needed.

We did most of our riding on hill-infested Whidbey Island.  We road about 180 flat miles on the flat Burke-Gilman Trail, a few of which were with Ian and Adam.  We also road in the LaConnor, Tacoma, Kent, Tri-cities, and Wenatchee areas of the state.  When we went to these areas we often got to ride with Jules.

Last week we took our bikes on the ferry to San Juan Island and rode for three days.

This is where we stayed:  Orca Inn.  Small rooms, but a great price when all you want is a place to crash after a bike ride:

 

 We stopped along the way and took a three mile hike. 

 People could rent these cool little three-wheeled mopeds.  A lot easier than cycling up the hills.

 We stopped in at Roche Harbor on one of our rides for ice cream.

And had a nice rest stop at a winery.

Since we got married four years ago we have cycled over 6700 miles.  The STP is coming up in just a few days.  We will add 200 to that total.  We know that the STP is not the most difficult bike ride, but golly in our mid-60s that we are so blessed that we can ride 200 miles in two days is still something we can't quite comprehend.  We can't believe it is almost here once again.  We are so excited. 

Oh! Neat! We have a raccoon..............Can I kill it?

A few weeks ago we saw a raccoon in your yard.  It was such fun to see yet another wild animal that lives on Whidbey Island.    Whenever we saw it we'd yell to the other person, excitedly, to "come look!"

Then, it started showing up more and more regularly. 

THEN, it started climbing up the supports for our back deck and knocking the bird feeders off.

THEN, it started coming around at night and turning on our motion-sensitive lights, waking us up and scaring the bejezus out of us.

THEN, it started ripping apart the Hosta plants where bird seed sometimes falls.

THEN, we saw it disappearing under our porch several times, leading us to wonder whether it was living there.

And all of a sudden we were done with our new pet.  Go away!

And for some reason, it did.  Haven't seen it for several weeks now. 

I'd think that raccoons were awfully sensitive to danger, running when they picked up the vibes from us that we were (not seriously) ready to kill it, but then I saw this:

Someone really snapped a photo of a raccoon hopping a ride on an aligator.

I think the reason our new pet left us was not because it was frightened of us, but because the food was better elsewhere.  I hope it's OK, but I also hope it likes its new place really really well.