One Sunday morning in early May, we made our way from Seattle to Bellevue and on down to Renton, where we made what we thought would be a quick stop at Gene Coulon Park.
Wait, not so fast!
Here we were fascinated to discover some VERY competitive toy boat races — these folks were intense — and, for breakfast at 10:30 a.m., some luscious fish ‘n’ chips from Ivar’s.
We soaked up the sun, admired the blue sky and blue water, and thought: What better way to spend a Sunday morning?
We managed to do a few other things besides climbing Mount Constitution twice … but not really all that much.
We stayed all four days of our San Juan Islands trip on Orcas, thanks to a Groupon deal for the lodging. That proved a little much, especially in still-rainy April. Much better would have been to spend some of those nights on at least one of the other San Juan islands, for variety’s sake. Gorgeous as the Orcas roads are, there aren’t that many of them, and we ended up retracing our routes much of the time (and not just up and down that mountain).
We practically had the island to ourselves at that time of year — great because it was so peaceful; not so great because maybe it was a little too peaceful over four days.
Now that we’ve seen more of Bainbridge and Whidbey, with Vashon looking good on the radar, we’d perhaps opt for any of those over Orcas. Easier to get to, more diversity both on and off the bike, and you still get a ferry ride. Of course, we still have to hit the other San Juans …
And the scene is entirely different in the warmer months. Whale watching, kayaking and whatever else normal people do would be fun. Next time!
So, we’d made it up Mount Constitution (and more significantly given the weather, made it back down again). But while climbing perhaps should be a noble end unto itself, we did still wish to savor the view from the top.
So we did it all again.
This time around the skies threatened as we headed out, and got downright ominous by the time we reached Moran State Park. Would the drizzle once again turn to snow? Descending a second time in nasty weather was not appealing. But neither was missing a chance at the view. So we took our chances and pedaled onward.
Great decision!
After some maddening indecision, the weather gods opted to come over to our side (maybe they just wanted to give us some moody photo opps first). By the time we made our way back to the top, the skies were clear and the view spectacular. And we could claim credit for that climb not once, but twice.
Here’s our route.
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