PICS from my vacation

[Luwin1026]

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share a few pics from the past month and a half I've had off. I graduated from grad school in June, and luckily had a position as a therapist lined up at a local community agency. However, seeing that I had spent the last few years in school, I wanted to take some time off so I pushed my start date back until the first week of August. So these are some things I've done in the meantime, and pics to accompany it.


Mid-July - Completed the Seattle-to-Portland (STP) ride in one day. I had started cycling last August, and the longest ride I had done prior to this was a training ride of around 75 miles or so. (The recommended long training ride for a 200-mile ride/double century is around 130-140miles, but I was not able to find time for one of that distance). Anyways, long story short - finally arrived in Seattle the night prior at 10pm after being bumped from two flights (joy of flying for free due to airline benefits is flying standby - sarcasm intended), but just happy I arrived. Lo and behold - no bike. I got a whopping one hour of sleep, went back to the airport at 3am and luckily my bike had arrived on a later flight. Booked it over to U of W and as other riders were getting their gear ready, here I was - sprawled out on the pavement with bike parts and tools everywhere frantically trying to put my bike together. Managed to start at 5am after dropping off my luggage/bike case on the truck bound for Portland. Long story short - 204 miles, took me a tad less than 12 hours of total ride time and 15 hours total time.

It was a big accomplishment for me, as it was my first century (100miles) as well as double century (200miles) all on the same day.


The route:




The start:




Along the way:




At the halfway point:




A few more en route:






Crossing the Lewis & Clark bridge into Oregon:




Finished!

[Luwin1026]

Part 2

Spent a week up in Anacortes and while the weather was crummy pretty much the entire time, it cleared up nicely on the day that we were supposed to leave. So we stayed an extra day, and took the ferry out to Friday Harbor (San Juan Island) -











Bonus pic of the little one on the ferry -





So back to the everyday reality of life, work, bills, etc. - but it was a much-needed break. I hadn't checked the forums for over a month, so it was nice to do some catching up these past two weeks.

[jay]

As always, works of art! Thanks for sharing.

[Preludetundra]

Congratulations! I have been riding from 20+ to around 44 miles four days a week for the past 2 months. My goal is to eventually ride in a 100 mile event. At my age I'm not sure my butt can take it.

[waynerd]

Great photos, as always....I just figured you were a professional photographer!

Wifey and I loved the San Juan Islands when we went on a Seattle trip a few years ago.

Congrats on your new start!