Blue skies and beautiful sun greeted us as we loaded up the bike for our trip to Orcas Island. This was our first ride with the rental bike loaded. We were making the short trip from the Kirk House to the ferry and following directions that Tom had googled when there in front of us was a nasty steep but mercifully short hill. We made it to the top which kind of amazed me but landed in a dead end – that wasn’t right! We should have turned off a couple of streets before the hill so Tom walked the bike back down and we pulled into the ferry landing with plenty of time to spare
Normally the dual kickstand on the tandem keeps the back wheel up off the ground, but you can see that with the load on the back the front wheel is in mid-air.
Here’s the bike on the ferry
Nice ferry ride with a stop on Shaw island and then we unloaded in Orcas Village. The Coast Guard was on board doing some type of safety checks and drills, so we had to wait a while to load and then they stopped the ferry on the way there and tested some sirens – and presumably some other stuff that we didn’t see. One interesting thing on the inter-island ferry is that many of the tables in the passenger area had jigsaw puzzles on them, some under way and others just in the box. We didn’t work on one – more interested in the beautiful views – but there were two groups of people near us that we working on the puzzles on their tables.
There is a surprisingly good market in the village where we got coffee and some lunch. Would have been great to shop for provisions there but we had no room to carry anything. We could see the hill heading out of Orcas but had no idea of how long or steep it would be. Let’s just say that it was a challenge and I am really glad that Tom is a ridiculously strong guy. Once we conquered the initial hill and turned off on West Sound Rd it was rollers all the way out to Pebble Cove Farm. I would be worried about biking on Orcas during the season – the roads are narrow, winding and have no shoulders. Fortunately, traffic is light at this time of year.
Pebble Cove Farm is fantastic. It’s right on the water with gorgeous suite accommodations, a garden that you are free to pick from, chickens whose eggs you can use and a pony!
Will get more pictures tomorrow as it has started raining again so we are staying inside. We biked to Deer Harbor Marina which is just a few miles away to get some provisions. Slim pickings in the Marina store so we have spaghetti and sauce and a bottle of wine. Fortunately we found some kale and a cucumber and tomato in the garden so I’ll make us a nice dinner. We seem to be having a lot of espresso; here’s the espresso we had at Orcas Village and then another one not much later at the marina
Note that we got lunch at the Orcas Store as well (I am in mid-bite of my sandwich in this photo). They had a ton of sandwich selections and a couple of soups – Jeannie had beef stew, as well as a full espresso selection.
