Day 5--CHAINSUCK

September 9, 2000

Port Angeles to Forks, WA

Today we gladly packed up and left Lincoln Park in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula and rode to Forks. We are in a motel because it has been cold, windy, and rainy all day and we'd had enuff!

Despite the weather it was a gorgeous ride along the foot (feet?) of the Olympic chain and around the east side of Lake Crescent, a 600-foot deep glacial lake with clear, deep-green water.

I took many pix which we will get developed and send. A couple we met on the ferry from Victoria took a digital of us at Marymere Falls today and one of us from their truck as they passed later. They are sending them to Scott for posting on the website. [They never did send the photos]

Left: Topiary Octopus at 
the Fiero Marine Life Center,
Port Angeles, Washington 

Port Angeles by daylight, flanked by the Olympic Mountains

Sol Duc Valley & Hot Springs in Olympic National Park

Entering Olympic National Park

A sign we saw that we thought was funny: ORGANIC LLAMA MANURE, $3

Storm King Mountain at Crescent Lake

Our first glimpse of Storm King Mountain

Jess with Crescent Lake in the background

The single-log bridge to Marymere Falls

Mutha & Dauta at Marymere Falls

Mustachioed with Marymere moss

Ten miles from Forks my chain jumped off the rings and somehow got caught between the chainstay and smallest ring (chainsuck big time) . A nice guy from Seattle gave us a lift to Forks (first having to nearly empty his SUV in the rain to squeeze us and our gear in) and a character in Forks fixed the problem. 

Jess stayed in a C-store/Subway sandwich place while I loaded my bike in the littered back of the character’s beat-up truck and took off with him for his workshop. Don’t think I wasn’t pondering survival moves just in case he got any weirder than he already was.

We've been having a great —if soggy—time and will send accounts of our first week if this transmits.

Miles: 51

Weather: 50s to low 60s, all day rainy and strong headwind, particularly around Crescent Lake

Terrain: Rolling hills with one very long climb

Route: Port Angeles to Forks