Darn maps!

AI now have an A+ and expert designation in pushing a fully loaded bicycle both UP AND DOWN hlills.

The last three days has seen some fantastic bike ridiing, but also some extreme frustrations with maps that show that things are nice and flat!!  Starting in Tacoma, we decided to visit the famous Dale Chilhuly Bridge of Glass.  There are a lot of Glass Artists in Tacoma, with Chilhuly being the most famous.  He has provided a terrific public monument which is open from 8am to 11pm.  You walk across the bridge from the Museum of Glass to the Courthouse across this bridge of glass.  The first display that you encounter is a long wall of quirky glass scupltures.  The photo below is only about 1/10th of the display.

The next spectacular exhibit is a ceiling with wonderful glass flowers and ornaments.  See my attempt at photographic art below, with Peter walking out of the covered bridge area.

 (and yes, it was still raining).  From here we went in to the court house.  This as the old central train station, which served 48 trains at its peak, but with the rise of the automobile, diminished to 6 in 1984 when it was closed.  The building was then beautifully restored (and it appears had some additions for the courthouses) and now has a wonderful display of art by Chilhuly.

Then on either side there was more beautiful art glass (but the photos didn't come out too well!!)

We then returned to our ride to the Ferry to go to Vashon Island.  We cycled along the wonderully restored waterfront in Tacoma.  They have done a terrific job (and obviously made a serious investment).  13km from our hotel by the Tacoma Dome (entertainment centre) to the ferry. Full of restaurants, museums, boardwalks, gardens, a lot of tasteful condiminiums and for the  most part a great bike path.

At the end of the route though (we didn't realise it was so far), we heard the ferry tooting.   We rode like mad (very fast, and up a darn hill - they always have hills to get to ferrys!!!) and made it to the ferry at 10.50 with about 5 minutes to spare - pretty tired  Thank goodness, the next ferry didn't go until 12.30.

After a 15 minute ferry ride, we 'enjoyed' another approx 3km hill climb.  Surely the map said this was a nice straight road... well straight yes, but no indications of the hills!  An enjoyable days riding in the rain (yes, it was supposed to be sunny), but I did a mini-bonk.  Not as bad as Daves the week before, but 2 pieces of wholemeal toast (not Vogels) and three teaspoons of raisin bran was not enough to sustain hard out riding and hills.  Fortunately we still had plenty of trail mix and a trail bar and after replenishment, I was good to go until lunch.

Rapt that at our lunch stop, we discovered we had already done 11 miles and only had 4 miles 'mostly downhill' to the next ferry.  Again, after lunch, we ended up rushing to make the ferry, fortunately this time, we had 10 mins to spare (next ferry wasnt due for another 2 hours.)

Wet but happy punters  ( I sensibly changed my wet clothes for lunch so I didn't freeze and then put on the wet clothes after)

We then started on the terrific bike trails of Seattle.  This day it was around Alki Beach.  A few little hills (the climb from the ferry), but the rest took us through some very mouldy houses on the side of the hill in West Seattle - to some flasher houses.  Quite a jumble of quality of houses.  West Seattle and Alki Beach were some of the first settlements of Seattle.  You can see why.  It is quite attractive and quite close to Seattle.

To get to Seattle we had to go throught the Port Area below.  We were so impressed with the bike trails, so well signposted, separate to the roads and  over major freeway intersections AND heavily used by cyclists.

That night we had a fantastic meal at a restaurant just down the road from our hotel 'Crow.'

It was packed and we were seated at the 'bar' in front of the kitchen. It was a small menu, with huge portions and we watched them all being cooked and served.  Very enjoyable evening.

From this photo, you can get a sense of the hill behind 'crow.'  This is the devil that got us the next morning.  After visiting the excellent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitors Center, designed for children with a lot of educational interactive exhibits to teach them about the issues and philanthropy, we headed off to tackle the Burke Gilman trail and loop (50 miles around Washington.)

However, first we had to get onto the trail.  This was no minor exercise.  Using the MAP!!!  we worked out that we could go to another bike trail along Lake Union, but no, Aurora Street was a freeway, no way across it..  So, we followed the nice straight streets on the map.  Huh!  Up and Up and Up and Up  Nobs Hill we went.  The cycling ended pretty quickly.

The calves and shoes and arms got quite a work out, pushing the bikes up 30 degree hills.  Not so bad without luggage, but the extra weight of the luggage (on a hot day - yay sun had turned up) was hard hard work.  Then we got to the top and could see the Fremont Bridge that we were to cross - Hallelujah. 

Not so quick - we had to get down.  The map said 'take 4th st'.  So we started too.  I got to a crest and said to Peter 'Im not riding down that'.  It was virtually vertical. He rode some, I was too chicken, so I started studying in wheeling a fully laden bike DOWNHILL.  Eventually it got too steep for him too, so we pushed our bikes down this 60 degree hill.  Quite an education.

Then, later, we discovered that if we had ridden back to the city a bit before starting, we could have got to the Lake Union trail easily under Aurora Street.  c'est la vie!