June 10 & 11.

PICTURES COMING SOON

June 10, 2025…Longview to Tenino…Today is Jim’s 70th Birthday and Anniversary #47 for me and Susan.  We started the day with coffee and a donut at Heavenly Donuts here in Longview.  Then we drove to Vader since that’s the start point for our ride to Tenino.  Before we rode though we had to buy Jim a second pancake breakfast. For those of you who don’t know Jim, that guy can eat. And he loves pancakes. So it was good that he got donuts and the “Jimmy Special” at Vader’s Little Crane Café for his birthday. The ride was interesting and the weather was good. Our first stop was in Winlock to see thee World's Largest Egg. We stopped in the town of Chehalis to take a break and have lunch.  After that we set off on the last leg and the route took us up and over one of the steepest climbs of the entire trip.  Thankfully it was a short ride up but mama mia was it steep. After that the google bike route took us to a Federally restricted power plant with no access to the road we needed.  The security guard invited us to ride back about 15 miles and take the long way around.  We pressed on another shorter route that had in the security guards words, “a bit of a rise..” As it turns out, Jim was waiting at a park we had picked as a convenient end point about 4 miles away, he could see us on one of the apps, and he decided to come see if we needed help. Good thing too because the last 4 miles of hills might have killed us at this point after riding 44 miles.  We called the ride at that point and drove the last 5 miles or so to our warm shower host.  Cindi had a house overlooking a lake and it was a beautiful setting.  We had a nice dinner and talked about riding and hiking and all kinds of things.  Cindi has done a lot of bike touring, including a few cross country rides.  But her most impressive feat was doing 50 century rides in 50 consecutive days in 50 different states as a 60th birthday gift to herself.  Yowza, what an amazing thing.  Cindi, thanks for hosting and keep being awesome.

June 11, 2025.  Our FINAL DAY of riding.  After breakfast, Larry and I set off on the Chehalis West Bike path towards Olympia and Tacoma.  It was great to be on a bike path with no traffic to contend with.  We finally rode into Dune Peninsula at Fort Defiance Park in Tacoma about 1:30 in the afternoon.  Jim, Tom and Liz were there to yell for us and it was good to get off the bikes.  We had lunch at a taco joint and then checked into our AirBnB to clean up and relax.  We went to Tides Tavern, a nice little restaurant in Gig Harbor for dinner with Tom and Liz and had a nice end to a long bicycle ride. 

June 12.  We spent the day with Tom and Liz, went to a car museum, we had lunch and dinner together.  It was an easy relaxing day.  We will spend 5 or 6 days now driving back to Tampa so that we can reintegrate back into our normal lives.  What a great adventure this has been.