Tour de Southeast Olympia
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
It was 90 degrees this afternoon when I got home, but my aching weekend-warrior thighs were calling out for movement to loosen them up. Rather than do the Boston Harbor ride tonight (which I’m on deck to do tomorrow with Charlie) I headed south. It was actually quite a pleasant ride, even if I did take it slowly. Click here for the turn-by-turn directions.
Mima Mounds
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Standing on a mound, looking out at the mounds
We had our pick of events yesterday between Tour de Blast and the Capitol Criterium. Instead, we opted for a 55-mile country ride south and west of Olympia. The main attraction, besides solitude and beautiful roads, was the Mima Mounds.
We started from my rental house in Olympia and took the Chehalis Western Trail south. After 15 miles (and a few turns off the trail) we arrived at Millersylvania State Park - a great stopping point for a snack and water bottle refill.
Deep Lake at Millersylvania State Park
We criss-crossed local roads past people’s farms and homes until reaching the booming town of Rochester. Nick has raced here before and pointed out the way to Independence Valley. We turned the opposite direction, though, and soon battled fierce headwinds as we approached the hills. We were rewarded as we turned north by a tail wind and made good time up to the Mounds.
They’re admittedly a little hard to see in the picture, but they’re neat in a Roswell-alien-like way. There are thousands of these over-sized gopher hills (about six feet tall and 40 feet across) in the Mima Prairie. They are made of silt and sand (probably left behind 13,000 years ago when the Vashon glacier retreated) and sit on a bed of gravel. Each mound has a “root” of silt that extends into the gravel below the mound. No one knows for sure how they formed. Theories include formation of polygonal ice wedges in soil near the edge of the glacier, burrowing by colonies of pocket gophers, and erosion or deposition by glacial floods around regularly spaced trees or shrubs of a long-vanished ice age landscape. What do you think?
For a turn-by-turn route description of a 35-mile variation of our ride that starts and finishes at Millersylvania State Park, click the map below.
A tiger tried to eat my husband
Monday, May 5, 2008
Sometimes when Nick volunteers to climb with me, he stops half-way through the day, shakes his head, and says, “You do this for fun?!”
Sometimes when Nick comes home from a bike race with half of his skin missing because of some horrible crash, I ask, “You do this for fun?!”
Fortunately, the damage was minor yesterday - the blackberry bushes and gravel cushioned most of his fall. He says he missed the pavement entirely. His rear wheel didn’t fare so well, however. Anyone got a good deal on a lightweight pair of clinchers for him?
(Side note: Yes, those are turtles on his boxer shorts. Cute, huh?)
A most excellent view
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sometimes, when Nick isn’t making me practice sprints on the tandem, I have the opportunity to look around and take in the view.
Close call
Sunday, February 24, 2008
There’s a first time for everything right? How about almost nailing a deer, while driving 35 mph on a tandem bicycle…
On a seemingly harmless recovery ride around Lake Sammamish this morning, we encountered two deer at the side of Eastlake Sammamish Parkway. I didn’t see them until Nick was hard on the brakes. I peeled my head off his back in time to see 125 pounds of fur lose its footing on the smooth asphalt about 20 yards in front of us. I closed my eyes and did my best to relax in case Nick needed to take evasive action. Fortunately, there were no cars around at the time, and the deer regained its footing in time to scamper across the road, out of our way.
I caught the look of fear in its eyes as we passed by. It would be hard to say who was more frightened by the experience. Likewise, I will not hazard a guess at who would have fared worse had we actually collided.