Pacific Coast Tour – Day 6 – 7; Birch Bay to Canada and back down to Lopez Island

Day: 6, Border #1 – Check.
July 23, 2021

Distance: 39 miles (195 total)
Birch Bay to Canada to Bellingham

Miraculously Andrew and I both awoke without any soreness or stiffness. I guess the 5th day of riding is when you hit that bike high! (Although my butt is still sore when I sit on the saddle, I need that bit of me to get with the program and accept it’s fate haha).

Since Birch Bay was about a 2 mile detour off the ACA route, we made up our own way up to the Peace Arch Park. We went through the cute town of Birch Bay, officially our first “beach town” to visit. It didn’t take long for us to reach the US-Canada border. And once there we spent way too long taking pictures, but it was still fun. I’m bummed we are three weeks two early to cross, it would have been nice to swing over to Vancouver Island, but c’est la vie.

So now we’re finally heading south. We pushed our way through the mostly meh landscape of the previous day. Although there were some nice views of Mt Baker we hadn’t noticed as much going North. We were doing pretty good, but you know what they say, “it’s not if you crash, but when”. Luckily I was able to jump off the bike in the nick of time un scathed. Andrew on the other hand has a cut on his hand and some serious road rash on his leg. He’ll live to ride another day though, don’t you worry. And the bike is also fine.

Thinking we would need a bit of a rest, and wanting to do some laundry, we had found ourselves a Warm Whowers hosts in Bellingham. (Warm Showers hosts are people who open up their homes to bike tourers). We made it into the city pretty early so we explored the waterfront area a little and enjoyed some tasty craft meads from Artivem- meads are a highly underrated drink IMO, I love them!

Day: 7,
July 24, 2021

Distance: 48 miles (243 total)
Bellingham to Lopez Island

Our first experience with a warm shower host was excellent. Nick and Ashley really treated us nice, they fed us, and even made brownies! And we were very happy to do some much needed laundry, take warm showers, and sleep in a real bed.

Since most of our riding was repeat riding today it wasn’t hard to keep a good pace. Most of the ride was parts we had enjoyed the first go around, and they were still pleasant the second time! We even had a nice tail wind for a chunk of our ride.

We decided to do a gas station lunch today so we could save our beans for tomorrow. Man it’s great to eat whatever you want because you actually need the calories.

Riding into Anacortes was actually really nice. There was a bike/pedestrian trail with a cool bridge we were able to take. Not wanting to do much else we decided to chill for a couple hours at a park while we waited for our ferry to arrive.

Next Stop, Lopez Island!

We had a short 5 mile ride to Spencer Spit Campgrounds for our hiker biker site tonight. Other than the killer hill out of the ferry landing, and our rumbling tummies it was a pretty easy ride. We snagged the last hiker biker spot in the main area (yay not staying in overflow! Lol). After cooking a quick ramen-plus-snacks dinner we wandered down to the water to soak in the views.

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