North Sound Loop

This last Saturday found me sitting in front of the computer carrying on with others on this forum. I don't remember what the topic at hand was, and that's why I decided to leave it behind and go ride. The weather was nice and I couldn't bare the thought of letting a sunny day slip by without taking a ride on my motorcycle. Being so late in the year, one must jump at every opportunity to ride when it presents itself. Besides, I was hungry and Dairy Queen has been running an ad on the TV for their chicken strip basket. Some of you may remember that back in January of this year, my local Dairy Queen burned to the ground. It's not been rebuilt and I haven't been to one since. Sad, really.

Anyway, I decided to gear up, and head into Marysville for some lunch. I grabbed the TomTom and headed out the door. A few taps on its screen and I had my route planned. It wasn't long before I realized I made the correct decision. The sun was shining down and the warmth was great. I headed through Granite Falls and then out Getchel Road down into Marysville. With a left-hand turn on Cedar I soon found myself pulling into the Dairy Queen parking lot. Another couple of minutes and was sitting in the sun enjoying my lunch.

While eating, I watched this guy come out of the adjacent grocery store and park his shopping cart next to his van -- which was parked next to my bike -- to unload it. As I watched him, it occurred to me that this guy was using my front tire to keep his cart from rolling away. I immediately became furious and for a moment I was about to get up to demand he move his cart. I thought about it again and decided to instead watch and if anything happened I could then approach him. No need to make a scene over something trivial. Glad I did, as nothing did happen and, as it turns out, they came into the Dairy Queen to purchase an ice cream birthday cake for his son. Man, I would have felt like an ass for ruining his boy's birthday over something so petty.

After lunch, I decided that I wasn't ready to head back home. I pondering my options and decided to head up through the reservation into Warm Beach. I worked out a rough map and figured I'd turn back toward home when I got up by Stanwood. As I motored on through the res., I decided to stop by Jeff's (jdpesz) house to see how he was and to see if I could talk him into joining me. By the time I came to his street I had decided to extend my ride a little further north... like, into Bellingham via Chuckanut.

We chit-chatted a bit then Jeff and I hit the road. We headed up into Conway for gas, then out through the flats along the coastline. Before I knew it, we were through Edison and waiting to turn left onto Chuckanut Drive. As we approached the bridge at the southern end of Chuckanut, I saw a single headlight heading toward us. As the rider got closer, I realized it was a young rider cruising on his Vespa. But, what was so hilarious was that he was in a full tuck! I can only imagine because his machine would barely do highway speeds. For some reason this really cracked me up.

The ride through the trees was awesome. The leaves were turning their autumn colors and the sun was shining through them making everything glow. We decided to stop at the Larrabee State Park for some pictures. Yea, this is when I realized I walked out of the house without my camera. I asked Jeff if he would mine doing the honors and emailing me some pictures. Here's a couple he shot at the park.



Hmmm... this guy looks familiar.



Being from Granite Falls, I was surprised to see so much sandstone. I guess I was under the impression the whole area was hard rock. I was told that they use to quarry sandstone from the Bellingham area for public works projects in the Greater Seattle area.









Almost completely clear. It's kind of hard to see in this reduced-size picture, but this looked like a two-person kayak with a sail erected. Pretty cool idea.



From the park, we continued north. Jeff and I have made this trip before. It seems to me the last go round had us going into Bellingham and heading east to Highway 9 via the Mount Baker Highway. While we did want to end up on Highway 9, Jeff wanted to go an alternate route he had found on a subsequent trip. When we got into the southern end of Bellingham, we hung a right on Old Lake Sammish Road. We followed that around to Summerland Road which eventually put us on Old 99 heading south into Alger.

When we got into Alger, we took a left and headed back northeast on Alger Cain Lake Road. I must tell you I have never been on -- let alone heard of -- any of these roads. I'm glad Jeff knew where he was going because I was completely lost. I literally was along for the ride. Sure I had TomTom, but I was too busy checking out the sights to pay it much attention.

After a bit of riding we came to a rather large lake. I've since learned this was the southern end of Lake Whatcom. We turned east and eventually hooked up with Park Road, which in turn lead us out to Highway 9. Once on Highway 9, we headed into Sedro Wooley for some gas and something to drink. After we were taken care of, we headed south on 9. Before leaving the gas station, we agreed to split up at the 530 intersection in Arlington. From there, I hopped over to Tveit Road -- one hell of a fun bit of road to ride -- that dumps you back onto Burn Road. From there, it was easy sailing on home.

Google Maps puts the trip at 161 miles round trip and taking a little more than 5-1/2 hours. I think I was gone about 7 hours all told. It turned out to be a great way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon. If you get the chance, I highly recommend it, especially this time of year. The changing of the leaves into their fiery fall colors is something to behold. Thanks again, Jeff, for leading the way!