A Perfect Day on the Trail!

June 17th:

Olympia to Millersylvania State Park

35 miles

Sunshine and 70 degrees--- perfect biking weather!

The four of us were in Olympia by 11. There seemed to be no overnight parking in the little park by the trailhead, so I walked to the house across the road to ask for advice. A couple of middle-aged guys were out in their garage working on restoring an old pickup truck. The homeowner kindly suggested "why don't you just park here?" So we left our 3 vehicles in their yard. Back over to the park to finish loading up the bikes, we all got a little contact-high from visiting the restroom where someone had obviously spent the night smoking pot and drinking beer.

By 11:45 we were on the trail, Nancy on her new recumbent trike, Cheryl hauling a trailer behind her Bike Friday, and Gerry and I on our touring bikes loaded up like the Beverly Hillbillies' old truck, me complete with a teakettle bungied on top of my panniers.

I've never seen a prettier trail. 30 miles of silky-smooth paved off-road, almost all of it through quiet woodlands and prairie. We started out through a forest of tall firs and soon crossed a swamp full of blooming water lilies.

In just a few miles we came into the suburbs of Olympia, where we stopped at the edge of a big parking lot and watched a motorcyclist class practice riding very slowly around a marked course, while we had our lunch. For some reason which we could never quite fathom, this sorta tough-guy looking instructer kept shouting "yoo-hoo! yoo-hoo!" at his students. It was good lunchtime entertainment.

About a mile after that we came to a sign that just said "trail ends". This is so frustrating because the trail does NOT end here, it takes up again just across the street behind a building, but there's no indication of that at all. This is one of those cases where sections of the trail are owned by two different organizations: the first 5 miles by the DNR, and the rest of the trail by Thurston County. Why they can't each post signs indicating that the trail continues is beyond me!

Onward out of the suburbs, through tunnel-like canopies of leaves and wildflower covered prairie. Fields of daisies, set off by grasslands just beginning to turn from green to gold. Foxglove, columbine and many other unidentified flowers. This must surely be the perfect wildflower time of year to see the wildflowers in this area.

This is the Chehalis-Western trail, following a former railroad bed. The sign says more than a billion feet of timber were shipped along this route, to the nearby harbor where it was loaded on ships and sent to the mill in Everett.

We stopped briefly at the Monarch Sculpture Park for a snack and a rest. We've all been through this park before so did not walk through it this time, but it's definitely worth a visit. A few acres of trails through funky and sometimes humorous "found object"-type sculptures.

Somewhere around mile 25, the Chehalis-Western trail ends and we intersect with the Yelm-Tenino trail. Yelm is about 7 miles to the left, and we turn right for the 6 mile ride to Tenino. In Tenino the trail ends at Quarry Park, the site of an old sandstone quarry. Many of the old buildings in downtown are built out of this, and part of the old quarry itself has been turned into a public pool.

I like the name of the town, Tenino, and have always thought that Nintendo should be located there. Nintendo in Tenino, doesn't it have a nice ring? According to Wikipedia, the town was named either for a Chinook word for "fork in the trail", or for a survey marker with the numbers 10-9-0. I like the second version!

We stopped for dinner at pretty good Mexican restaurant (and pretty much the only choice) in downtown Tenino. After a quick trip to the grocery store for wine, snacks, and a fire log, we had another 6 mile ride, on pleasant back roads, to Millersylvania State Park. Our reserved spot was waiting for us, although we certainly didn't need midweek reservations as the park was mostly empty. Millersylvania is a huge old CCC park, with around 200 campsites mostly among tall firs.

Nancy was asleep nearly immediately after setting up camp, but Cheryl, Gerry and I sat around the campfire for awhile and then collapsed into blissful exhaustion.

June 18th

Millersylvania-Tumwater-Littlerock-Mima-Rochester-Maytown-Millersylvania

47 miles

Sunshine and 70 degrees -- perfect biking weather!

A leisurely breafast of steel-cut oats, granola, coffee and tea at the campsite. About 11 am, Meridee and Laura joined us. Meridee joined the Peace Corps and has been in Mali for about a year. Due to a death in the family, she's home for a brief few weeks before leaving us again to stay in Mali for another 16 months or so. What a woman... She flew in late on Wednesday night, and the first thing she wanted to do was get up early on Thursday morning and come out and ride with us!

We rode into Tumwater for lunch, then back out of the city on rolling, low traffic back roads, to Mima Mounds. This is an area of "lumpy" prairie that goes on for more than 20 miles (although much is developed). The whole area is totally covered with mounds, each about 8 feet in diameter and 8 feet high. There are lots of theories as to origin (probably glacial) but nobody knows for sure.

More rolling back roads and then a few miles on high traffic not-so-back-roads brought us to a latte (for me) and snack stop in Littlerock. By then it was nearly 5pm and we were feeling a bit pressed for time, as Maridee and Laura needed to leave by 8 to make the last ferry back to Vashon, and somehow we needed to fit dinner in there too! So, a bit of a push got us back to the campsite about 6, where we all spent 10 minutes "dressing for dinner" before being driven back to that same Mexican restaurant, as Meridee had a strong craving after a year in Africa.

June 19th

Millersylvania to Olympia

35 miles

drizzle, rain, sunshine -- perfect biking weather!

We got rained on last night! The drizzle slowed just enough for us to make breakfast this morning, after which we packed up our soggy tents, donned our rain gear and extra layers, and set off back to Tenino. Lunch stop at a nice little cafe, and then back on the trail where it REALLY started raining. And wouldn't you know, today's the day for a flat tire, and it has to be one of the little hard-to-change tires on Nancy's trike. With Cheryl's help, though, we were going again in just a few minutes. (That's me flat on my back, "helping".)

By the time we got back to the suburbs of Olympia, the sun was out. We sat at Starbucks and dried out while we entertained questions from passers-by and discussed our upcoming September trip (stay tuned).

Back to our starting point, our cars were safe and sound, and our friendly hosts were sitting in the yard as if waiting for us. We told them we planned to make this ride a yearly event, and they said they'd reserve a spot for us!