Tour de Lopez – Day 2

The ride was on Saturday and we awoke to a glorious day:  Clear and sunny, still a bit chilly but overall a pretty great day for a bike ride.  We zoomed into town to get treats at Holly B’s bakery (a variety of croissants for me and Andrea & Ian), then drove into Odlin State Park to park & register before all of the ferry folks arrived.  While driving I tried to flash the two-finger “Island Wave” to other drivers I had learned form my buddy Chip long ago, but it was met with mixed results:  some drivers didn’t do anything (clearly not local), and then I got several full finger  or one finger acknowledgments (not that finger!).  I’ll have to confer with Chip when I get back if I was doing it right.  Anyway, while waiting to register, I bit into my Egg, Parmesan and pesto croissant – to my surprise the egg portion was not scrambled, but a giant hard boiled egg.  Eww!  I squeezed the egg out into the garbage, and then enjoyed a Parmesan Pesto croissant, followed by a gooey chocolate one.  Mmmm.  (I had a delicious, albeit extremely buttery ham and gruyere croissant which Holly herself gave me the slightly crusty cheese that had oozed out…..it seems weird that I’m commenting on the amount of butter, but really, it seemed a bit like too much.–MC)  Once registered, Kelli & I had to put our pedals back on our bikes, and Mar meanwhile looked for her gym buddies who were arriving from the ferry.   Once parts and groups were all assembled, we headed off onto the Tour de Lopez. 

Mar dumped us to ride with the speedy bikers from her gym, so the rest of us enjoyed the leisurely ride around the island, past farms, cows, sheep, barns, schools and churches.  The first rest stop featured more treats from Holly B’s:  raspberry almond shortbread and cappuccino bars.  We would later figure out that all rest stop had these treats – bonus!  Farther south we biked along the coast and water, beaches and bays.  It was really beautiful out.  At the second rest stop, Andrea & Ian decided to do the 17-mile instead, so we separated and continued on our 31-mile trek.  The ride had been pretty easy to this point, with only one evil hill.  The extended version featured many more hills – in the end they weren’t that bad, fairly short and some gradual, but man did my gears get a work-out.  Back & forth as I slowly cranked my way up an incline, barely moving as I inched up a hill, to then crest and fly down the backside.  As each new hill materialized in front of me, I just kept thinking about Machu Piccu – this is good training for the Inca Trail, this is good training for the Inca Trail….  As we neared the finish line, Andrea & Ian drove past on their way to the house, honking at us as we made our way to the village.

Around 1:30pm we “crossed” the finish line in Lopez Village, parked our bikes and grabbed our plates for lunch provided by the race organizers. It was actually quite good:  grilled chicken, corn salad, pasta & spinach salad, lots of cookies (to be specific: oatmeal raisin cranberry, ginger molasses – excellent flavor!, chocolate chocolate chip, and for those who finished earlier, pecan bars –MC).  We sat on the grass soaking up more sun and comparing ride notes with Mar, who we had only seen briefly along the route. Once fed and refreshed we then had to get back on our bikes and ride another 4 miles back to the state park where we had begun – that was a tough four miles, especially a small hill in the middle.  Whew! 

Back at the park we loaded our bikes onto the cars to drive home, but first we stopped at the Lopez Island Winery, recommended by my friend Zoey who had been camping on Lopez last weekend.  There were lots of wines to try and I was surprised to see they had a Malbec, my current favorite red.  Zoey had recommended the Raspberry Dessert wine which was in fact quite yummy.  After the tasting we sat outside near the vineyard for a bit, soaking up some more nice weather.

Back at the house Andrea & Ian’s car was gone and it turned out they headed home early, so it was sad not to see them post race.  Our group of ten now down to the final four.   Mar & I sat outside on the deck for a bit, while Kelli napped on a couch and Kevin grabbed the other couch.  One by one, we showered and changed, then drove into town for dinner at Bucky’s Island Grill.  Mar & I each got fish & chips (touted on the menu as the San Juan’s best) (nicely breaded with panko crumbs! –MC), while Kelli got a cheeseburger and Kevin the ribs.  Dinner was then polished off with ice creams of course, courtesy of the Lopez Island Creamery  - chocolate truffle and strawberry blast.  Mmmm…. (Dang, that was good ice cream, but maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I’ve had full fat ice cream…..nothing like fried food followed by artery clogging ice cream…I can feel my arteries solidifying right……now! –MC)

Back home we gathered around the coffee table for “The Game of Real Life” which we hadn’t played in a long time.  It was a rough start – Kelli & I were each aborted and had to start over, and Kelli, Mar & Kevin were all orphans.  I however met the grim reaper first, OD’ing on cocaine.  Kelli was next, hit by a landmine when Canada invaded the US.  Mar then took out both herself and Kevin (aka Burtha) in a nuclear war – game over.