From Luxury to...

...Not Quite so Luxurious.

From two nights in the backyard campground of Casey and Brigid's to Fairholm Campground in the rain. to be fair (no pun intended), we are in the rain forest. One should expect there to be rain.

We left Casey and Brigid's at 9:15 this morning. At first it was just foggy as we finished riding along the Olympic Discovery Trail through Port Angeles. The trail ended near the ferry dock of the ferry to Victoria.

From there we headed to Hwy 101. As we were climbing out of Port Angeles, we stopped to take off our rain jackets because we were just too hot. Of course, shortly thereafter it started misting more heavily. Finally, we stopped and put on full raingear. We were at a roadside jerky stand (similar to a roadside fruit stand only this guy was selling a variety of jerky--the teriyaki was pretty good so I bought some).

As we reached the beginning of Lake Crescent, we saw a sign telling bicyclists to "Read Notice". Kind of strange, but we did as we were told. Below is a photo of the sign. Basically, it warned us of the death defying act we were about to partake of by riding Hwy 101 along Lake Crescent. First of all, there wasn't really that much traffic. Secondly, the traffic that did pass us was very courteous. In addition, there were pull outs about every quarter mile or less. Really, it was not bad at all. There were far more winding and narrow roads in New Zealand with much higher speed limits.

We stopped about 1/2 way along the lake at Storm King Ranger Station for a bit of lunch (in the rain, but under the trees). We thought we would have a look at Marymere Falls, but it was an 1 1/2 roundtrip hike. Had it not been raining, I may have considered it. Then we thought we would check out Nature Bridge. We thought it was an actual bridge but, no. It is a science camp of sorts. A neat looking place, actually. But, not a bridge.

We continued on for the last five miles or so of the dreaded 101 along Lake Crescent. As we approached the Fairholm Grocery store I saw a cyclist sitting outside the store. We stopped to talk to her. Sadly, she had broken a spoke on this, the first day of her trip down the Coast to San Diego. She was waiting for the bus to take her back to Port Angeles so she could get a new wheel (this same spoke had broken before). We wished her luck and headed the 1/4 mile to Fairholm Campground.

We chose a nice walk-in site overlooking the lake. I got to set up my under the rainfly like I had learned to do while in NZ. I also put up the small blue tarp I brought for just such rainy occasions. Betsy is parked under it (even though it has stopped raining).

We cooked a dinner of lemon garlic orzo with sautéed zucchini and tomato in lemon olive oil. We threw in the ever-present can of chicken and an avocado. It was quite good.

After dinner we went for a stroll. As we came around "A" loop, I saw another cyclist. I went to talk to her and lo and behold it was the same girl from the store! She had caught the bus to PA, got a new wheel at the bike shop, and caught the bus back! She thought she was going to be at least a day behind! We chatted for awhile. Her name is Megan and I suspect we will see her again.

Here are some photos from this rainy day.