I know that taking two rest days in a row after riding only one day makes us look like a couple of amateurs, but considering the toll that day took on us, I felt it was well deserved. Also, our “rest days” are typically more active than most people’s so I certainly don’t feel like it was wasted.
After another breakfast at New Day Eatery, we started the day with a drive (yes, we rented a car) up Hurricane Ridge. Our legs were still healing from our trek from Port Townsend, and after passing several cyclists huffing it up the ridge from the comfort of a vehicle, it made me confident in our decision not to ride it. There is a dedicated car-free Hurricane Ridge ride that we may come back for one day if we truly feel the need for redemption.
At the top, we stopped into the visitor center to see which trails were open and decided to do a short hike out to Sunrise Point via the High Ridge Trail. The wildflowers were in bloom and along the way we saw a sooty grouse with her chicks and a fairly large family of marmots. I’ve never seen a marmot before and was surprised to find that the adults (we saw two) were the size of a small dog. The pups were having fun wrestling with each other which is something we could have watched for hours.
After our hike, the fog started to roll in and so we headed back down towards Port Angeles. On our drive down we saw six more cyclists on their way up and once again I felt confident in my decision. We stopped by the AirBnB for a quick bite, then headed out to Sequim to check out everything we missed during our twilight ride through town. The lavender festival is just kicking off and so we stopped by the B&B Family Farm to take in the many shades of purple. We then took a drive out to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge to check out the Dungeness Spit. There is a lighthouse at the end of the spit that is only accessible by boat or a five-mile walk along the beach. If the car didn’t need to go back that afternoon, I’m sure Lauren would have talked me into the hike. I guess we’ll put that activity on the list for the next trip along with riding the Ridge.
We closed out the day with a great meal of pad Thai and massamun curry at Sabai Thai and a walk to Country Aire Market to get provisions for our ride tomorrow. We have an early start time of 6:00am tomorrow in order to get to Lake Crescent and through a sketchy area of Hwy 101 before traffic picks up. Looking forward to getting back on the bike.
Today’s Mileage = 0
Total Mileage = 66
