Bicycling Washington State

June, ’80

After Oregon, I booked. I wanted to arrive at Eddy's place, in the
capital city of Olympia, by Friday. Eddy was expecting me. We had
lived together on the beaches of Hawaii and I was really looking
forward to seeing him again. It had been seven years since our last
goodbye. The most notable event on my way to Eddy's' was crossing the
Astoria Bridge. The wind on the big bridge made for some exciting
biking. On the other side was Washington--lots of logging trucks,
honking horns, people screaming at me, the apple core that just missed
my head, and of course, the rain. Actually, Washington's personality
hadn't changed much from the way I remembered it back when I hitchhiked
through the state twelve years ago. In this Washington there were no special rates for camping bikers, so I've been pitching my tent in the fields and woods.

After I left Eddy's, and headed up into the Olympic peninsula, the
biking got better. The weather got worse. I'm about fifty yards off
the highway right now and last night I pretty much camped in a swamp.
I woke up to a drenched tent with three four-inch leeches crawling
over it. Hopefully, I won't experience that tomorrow morning, but it’s
possible because there's a 100% chance of rain tonight—every night.
In fact its rained everyday since I hit Washington, and up here on the
Olympic peninsula it rains harder and longer. I wonder why Dr. Gill,
my old philosophy professor never mentioned all this rain when he
talked about his "magic spot" up on the Olympic peninsula. Oh, excuse
me; I guess if it was magic that meant no rain.

Now to fill in my weekend with Eddy; I saved that for last, but its getting
dark and I'd like to have something to write about on the ferry over to
B. C., so I think I'll wait until tomorrow to tell Eddy’s story.