Doing the Pre-Ride

On Saturday, July 4, Bob Price, Gary-Paul Reineke & his friend, and Mike Mercier met up with Angela and I at the Farmhouse Restaurant on WA 20 west of Burlington to do a pre-ride of the routes I'm putting together for the Gold Wing Road Riders Washington District Rally. We departed shortly after 10AM and headed north towards Edison and then east on the Bow Hill road. We wound our way over to WA 9 and rode north to WA542 to Maple Falls where we took a short break. Our route then took us by Silver Lake and into Lynden where all were feeling good and not wanting to stop for lunch.

So we rode on up to Blaine in an effort to get to the Peace Arch. But that was not to be because Blaine was having a major July 4th party which had all of downtown blocked off and lots of traffic. So we stopped and joined the party. Angela and I went for a sandwich at a local pizza parlor and watched pizza dough being thrown.




We also encountered our former pastor and part of his family and enjoyed a brief visit with them while we devoured our sandwich. Gathering up our travelling brood, we headed out to do a tour down the waterline from Blaine to Bow. It was a very twisty exploration with lots of holiday traffic in much of it. We did encounter some nice scenery.






Leaving the scenery we rode through Bellingham, re-fueled, and then rode Chuckanut Drive before taking a few pictures. The group separated here with GP & Mike heading directly home, while Bob followed us for a while before heading south himself. As for Angela & I, we headed into Anacortes via the back roads via Lake Campbell.





It was a great couple hundred mile pre-ride. The actual routing will be different than the pre-ride in a number of respects. But the riding will be spectacular. Make plans to come join us. I'll be leading the chapter on Saturday morning on a major part of the ride that I did today.