I’D LIKE TO RIDE MY BIKE TO CONCRETE

Our second day here at Rasar brought full sun and a gorgeous day. We would ride the Cascade Trail to Concrete, as we normally do when we are up here.

Beautiful day. The trail is not as smooth and debris free as this photo makes it look. It is just OK for riding. It takes work and attention to avoid some larger rocks, pot holes, limbs and branches along the way which makes us even more slow.  Looking behind us…

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And looking in the direction we are going…

You can look back at my June post and see much more and some same about this adventure. We were here on June 29 and my post was amongst the June 30 collection of adventures - near the end. Here we come to a warning but decide to check it out. 

The trail was closed here last June as well, but we were almost sure they must have repaired it. But no, there is still a big washout dividing the trail. Not clear here, but photos from last June show more. 

This time, being much colder, we chose to not walk across the small board and get our feet wet, so this was a turn around point. Of course Susan had spotted a trail just behind us that led down to the highway, and HAD to take me on it. You see here that at am not too happy about walking down this steepish grade of slippery leaves and some muck. But we made it and avoided backtracking on the trail.

Once on the highway we each had a photo in mind. Susan focused more on the craggy mountains, I was focusing more on the Concrete sign. So betwixt us both you see, we got ‘em both.

The famous Concrete .. furnaces?

Last June we happened upon the Senior Center free lunch. Checking it out, the staff person encouraged us to come and eat with them as they needed more “numbers” of people for their rolls. So we did, but were sure to not eat free as we gave a healthy donation. This time she (wish we had gotten her name) remembered us, welcomed us heartily and recalled quite a bit about us. 

The Bar B-Q lunch was hardy and good. We left our healthy donation as a thank you and in hopes it would be of some help for this little town with the open heart.

On our return ride to camp we continued more on the highway that has a nice wide shoulder and not too much traffic at this time of year with the pass not yet open, though the traffic is fast! Getting back on the trail for just a short distance reminded us of how slow (esp for me) we advance on such terrain. It had been a full, beautiful day and a nice way to finish up this adventure. We will return home tomorrow after one more night peacefully sleeping in the trees that surround our campsite.

I’D LOVE TO RIDE SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT…

The theme for my ride 365 life site challenge for MARCH is I’D (for IDES of March, get it?). This is my entry for now.

I am fortunate to have about 5 different routes from home and can adapt and adjust those for a little more variation. I appreciate this but I have ridden, and continue to ride them all and a change is always welcome, and sought after. I got a change this week ;’-).

Susan and I drove up to Rasar State Park which is only about 50 miles north of us in the next county (Skagit) for some overnight camping and some bike riding. On our first day we rode a route that we have done at least 3 other times. We never tire of it because we don’t do it that often, the rural roads have  very low traffic, it is somewhat in the “country”, and it is a flat route that begs for taking your time to enjoy the views, the fresh air, and the countryside.

Starting from the campground we immediately came upon the remnants of snow fall they have had up here.

The route takes us along the Skagit river for a bit and I always love the views.

Part of the route is on unpaved trail which, except for one rocky part, is hard packed enough to not feel treacherous (most unpaved trails feel treacherous to me as I am a wimp). Here I stopped for a photo.

This photo - of the vines and brush swallowing an old vehicle.

I know we have crossed this bridge on the trail each time we have ridden it, but this is the first time I have noticed the bottle cap “design”.

The mountains were out and, though there is no photo of it, we were being chased home by some very dark, rain laden clouds in the near distance. We were fortunately turning away from that direction and did speed up a bit 🙄 to out run the rain. We were successful except for Susan feeling 2 (two) raindrops.

Neither of our two major highlights for the day lent themselves for a photo as they happened too fast and too unexpectedly:

-A small gaggle of four trumpeter swans flew overhead showing their elongated necks and honking their song. A sight I would have loved a photo of, but enjoyed and will remember just the same.

-A workman stopped us on the return trail while they felled a huge tree in front of us. The tall leafless tree fell with an explosive BOOM of limbs cracking and scattering on the ground. An excavator removed the big limbs from the trail to open the path for us. It was quite amazing.