We went on a hiatus from Warm Showers hosting in early June to have time to prepare for our own perambulations of the summer: Vancouver Island in early July and our 10800-km shuttle in the van between trails in the Midwest in August and September. After returning home in mid-September, we put ourselves back on the “Available” list and hosted six more tourists, well into the rainy season, putting the total for the year at 22 guests.
The end of September brought us Marge, from France, on a Canada (Vancouver) to Argentina (Ushuaia) quest. Marge was a bit wary of the general lack of respect for bicycles in America, so we gifted her with the trailer flag we used on our Atlantic Coast tour last year. The flag shows up in her blog post photos from time to time as she heads south. I accompanied Marge out to the highway to head south, as I often do to lead guests out of our neighborhood and back on their route. The usual preferred Adventure Cycling route, Cloquallum Road, was being resurfaced on the big hill west of town, so she elected to ride Highway 108 to Hicklin Road north of McCleary.
In mid-October, we took in two couples, Daniel and Alex from Germany and Ed and Marty from Scotland, who had met another Warm Showers host’s the day before. They had elected to take the southern route to Portland rather than directly to the coast, so we routed them around Olympia (which is 15 km shorter than the Adventure Cycling route through Elma). Again, I led them out to Hwy 3, a good plan, as they initially missed the turn, continuing across the intersection onto Arcadia road south. With all the inlets of south Puget Sound between, it is not intuitive to get south to Olympia by first proceeding west to US 101 and then southeast.
The bicycle touring season usually ends in late October as the frost line moves south a bit faster than most tourists can pedal, and the rainy season picks up with the storms of November. But, every few years, we get an intrepid soul with enough stamina and wet and cold weather experience to challenge the elements.
So, in mid-November, we met Bryan, from New York, who was misdirected to the wrong ferry in Seattle, ending up on Bainbridge Island, many kilometers farther from his intended destination of Elma. His late request resulted in even later arrival, as he chose to ride all the way despite making several offers to meet him on the road with the van before dark. We did get a chance to visit more, however: Bryan had sent himself a supply package to Elma, but, arriving on the weekend, he would have had to wait for the post office to open, so we invited him to spend another day, to pass through Elma mid-day and have more time to heal up from crashing in the dark on the way to Shelton. Bryan is a professional cook, so fixed dinner for us the second day, an excellent cap on this, our seventh season of hosting.
