Day 13: Friday
We enjoy a leisurely departure with a slightly better than standard hotel breakfast. The air quality is still pretty bad. The Susquahana Falls of Twin Peaks fame is on our way. There is a nice paved path along the ridge below the falls. It is beautiful and the search for the exact spot of the opening photo of the falls and lodge.
We consider eating lunch there but the prices
are inflated, the only seating doesn’t have a view and it is in the 90’s sitting on the patio. We opt for something in town. Could spend lots of time poking around the
shops but we don’t as we have miles to go before getting to Marissa and
Fred’s. We choose a very authentic
Oaxacan Mexican restaurant. Nick ordered
a mole and I got tacos al pastor.
We go through several small towns. Many seem like they have a large tourist or
resort feeling. We find Fred and
Marissa’s place without any problem and Fred and Sunny are there to greet
us. Marissa gets home soon after. They have a comfortable place with a nice
back patio area with nice flowers and tomato plants. We decide on a dinner place called “The Black
Cat”. Fred and Marissa raved about the brussle
sprouts and the onion soup. We were
sold. They lived up to the reviews. I also had crab cakes that were wonderful.
Day 14: Saturday
Fred makes us pancakes, bacon and eggs with peppers and onions
for breakfast. Yum! Marissa wasn’t able to sleep well last night
and needs to take a nap. So Fred, Nick
and I start out on our e-bikes for a day of sight-seeing in Bellingham.
At first, I feel a
little shaky on the bike but get used to it pretty quickly. Sunny goes with us in a basket on the front
of Fred’s bike. Bellingham is a very
bike friendly place with bike lanes and trails.
We bike to a local park that is down a rails to trails path close to
Fred and Marissa’s. There we play a round
of disc golf. The course is nice,
through large cedar trees. I do my usual
short frog jump throws. Fred threw a
tennis ball for Sunny to chase rather than our discs.
Time for lunch. We bike to a dumpling food truck next to a local brewery. What? Food truck is closed because their supply chain was interrupted. No problem. Bike to another nearby food truck and brewery. Food truck is also closed but the brewery isn’t. Get some beer and order a pizza that we bring in. Marissa joins us. We bike through town, stopping at the court house and park. From there we pass by some small, pretty falls. Boy, the e-bikes are great! Not feeling tired at all!
We head on to a bike park that is
opening a new jumping area. We watch the
jumping for a little while. I get the
idea that Fred would really like to have his jumping bike rather his road
bike. From there we bike several miles
to a park along the sound. Sunny enjoys
some fetch while we enjoy relaxing on the grass, people watching, and the
pretty view.
We head back to downtown Bellingham to a favorite brewery
that has live music. Long wait for the
area that served food and the band seemed like they needed more practice. So, we decided to go elsewhere. We ended up at a little place pretty close to
Fred and Marissa’s. Huge beer selection
and good sandwiches. I didn’t realize
that I had chosen a 9.6% large beer. I
was able to stay upright on the bike on the way home where Fred pulled out his
guitar and we had our own personal live music.
A great day sharing a slice of Fred and Marissa’s
lives. A world class mountain bike race
was taking place in Slovenia that night.
Fred plans to get up at 5:30AM to watch it live on TV. Marissa plans to get up a few hours later and
see the end of the race. Nick and I will
get up when we get up.
It was smokey today but not so much so that it interferred with our enjoyment. Tomorrow when we're in the mountains it's supposed to have cleared.
Day 15: Sunday
Nick and I get into watching the race as well. The highest rated riders race last. So an early first place probably won’t
hold. It was exciting to watch different
runs. The French dominate the sport. A young underdog came in for the win.
We unpacked the back of our car to make room for passengers
and a day up in the Cascade mountains.
It is a short hour drive from the flats of Bellingham to the
mountains. It is a beautiful clear day
so we’re able to see Mt. Baker. The road
is closed up to the lookout that is one of the favorites. But, we could go most of the way. We stop at a road side pulloff where there is
an old stand of cedars. We hike back in
a little way, use a fallen tree as a table and enjoy our picnic lunch.
Continued on as far as we could go to a large parking area
that in the winter is for skiers. No
views of Mt Baker from here but there are good views of other mountains.
Marissa could tell you the names but I can’t.
We go back down a little way to walk down to a lake where we waded in
the cold water. Sunny had fun fetching
sticks.
We headed back down and then turned on to a forest service
road and started climbing back up. The
road kept getting narrower and went from paved to gravel with some impressive
pot holes. We ventured on until we got
to mile post 9 where there was a great pull off and view of Mount Baker. We are quite close. With the help of binoculars we could really
get a feel of the glaciers, blue ice.
Fred and Marissa are planning trip to climb to the top of Mount
Baker. That involves a 3 day training
session and then an attempt to the summit.
Back home, Fred and Marissa grill some pork tenderloins, corn and vegetable Kabobs. For dessert we have root beer floats. Some of those breweries make root beer as well as regular beers.
Nick is doing research on how to get south
around fires and road construction.
Rather challenging!
