Interurban Trail & Nearly to Vancouver

Left Seattle yesterday and took the Interurban Trail. The trail is a longggg off street path (and bike network) that connects Seattle to Everett in the North. I took it an entire 25 miles and only got lost once which is fairly good considering the length and how many times it cuts off and resumes; the signage is fairly good.

This is one brand new section (with a nice man who stopped to ask if I wanted to be in the picture..although I didn’t want to)

Here’s a pretty wooded stretch of the trail. The bollards were sometimes the only way to figure out where to go after a break in the trail.

Stopped for some wild blackberries. I’ve been so stuffed full of fruit since I’ve been here! There are fruit trees everyyywhere: apple, plum, pluot, cherry, fig, pear. Yum

Yesterday was the first day with any significant climbing. Was a lot of up and down, the worst kind, but it afforded some decent views at times.

Descended from the hills into flat farmland. They seem to like corn ‘round these parts

I had contacted a person on Warmshowers in Mt Vernon, a reasonable distance north from Seattle. He was no longer in the area but said I’d be welcome at his parents. Arrived at the given address and unfortunately came upon an empty house but got a call saying to make myself at home, shower and eat anything I wanted. A tad awkward though meeting someone for the first time eating a sandwich in their own kitchen…but they were extremely cool. They told me a bit about their hitchhiking days in the 70s and I told a bit about my touring. They left early in the morning but trusted me with the whole house basically and said to leave whenever and take food. They left a very sweet note and I left one in return. It completely makes the trip meeting such generous and trusting people.

I stumbled on this cider place and said “boy, I could use some cider” and stepped in. I was both happy and disappointed though at the honor system payment setup: its admirably trusting and quaint to us city folks but it meant I couldn’t get change for my $20.

Skaggit County’s transit system is somehow called “SKAT” (Skaggit County Transit). Who gave the go ahead for this idea?!?

So I made it to Bellingham; very cool little town, has a great feel. There are three colleges in the area so there are a lot of young people milling about the cafes and restaurants of downtown. I sent out a last minute Warmshowers request last night and surprisingly got a reply. I rang her up when I got into the city but there ended up being a conflict with her roommate but did offer to help find me something from a friend and indeed she did! We met up anyway despite the inability to host and had some coffee (which was probably very good but I’m too much of a coffee pleb to realize such things). She has done several tours including a cross country so we swapped tour stories and chatted (especially about the wonderful hostpitality we’ve received). Met up with her friend and am happily being hosted again, woot.

Tomorrow the plan is an early ride across the border and into Surrey where I can take the SkyTrain into the city; sounds a lot easier than trying to navigate through unfamiliar city streets. Most likely meeting up with my friend from the last portion of my Cambodia stay too!

Yes I do have my passport