Day 0 trial run to Sequim and back 19.24 miles
As we will spend a second night in the Airbnb, today will be an out and back trial run with all our gear. We load and pack, unpack, reload, leave more stuff out, pack again then make our way across the insanely busy hwy 101 and ride the shoulder. Failing to find the trail where expected, we continue a short noisy smelly mile to the intersection with the Old Blyn Highway and are rewarded with a quiet empty country road and roll gently downhill past farms. Pausing to top off our tire pressures, we begin to slow down to bike tour speed and away we go toodling along. It works!
Along with testing out the load, our second mission is to find a place to leave the car during our trip. David's original plan is to drive back to Norton's and return by bike to the Airbnb along the no shoulder high traffic death route highway 20. Annmarie favors starting further down the trail all together in hopes we will be able to bike to the coast. Monica favors David not riding the death route highway 20. So we scope out car drop places as we go. We pass a Discovery Trail parking area near the casino which gets thumbs down from all, then we detour off the trail to assess the possibility of parking there. Two extraordinarily friendly and helpful park workers make some calls and give us the thumbs up for parking for 5 days in the day use area. It seems perfect. We pedal triumphantly down the trail until alas a young ranger steps out onto the trail an informs us that the friendly helpful park workers checked with him and in fact overnight parking in the day use area is strictly against regulations. We hear that sound from the Peanuts TV specials of our youth when Lucy pulls the football back "Waaa Waaaahhh:. Back to square one.
Deflated but not defeated, we spend some lovely minutes at the boat ramp admiring Sequim Bay, then pedal onward. A few miles onward, David books down to John Wayne Marina while Monica and Annmarie talk to locals about overnight parking potentials.
David returns with the firm negative from both the John Wayne RV park and Cabins along with strong advice against parking at the trailhead parking lots. Monica and Annmarie have talked to some local fellow bikers on the trail and have an idea of the nearby Walmart parking lot. We decide to continue on the trail into town and are rewarded with a gorgeous railroad trestle winding over Johnson Creek. We arrive in Sequim and pull into the Chamber of Commerce hoping for additional advice about parking.
Annmarie buys a lovely postcard at the Chamber, and a jolly helpful Commerce Guy hands us brochures and maps and loads us up with info on the trail. When we ask about our search for car parking support, they offer their parking lot, but warning us that there has been repeated instances of gas siphoning in their lot as of late. He verifies with the head Commerce Woman and she not only approves but glowingly describes the next segment of the trail. Our parking mission resolved, we water up and pedal the return trip, relived that we have a solid plan.
Trader Joe's Raviolis for dinner and we are all to bed early.