Lake Roesiger

Gerald, The Rizzers, and I (if you don’t know who that is, you’ll certainly be confused by the photos) got out yesterday for a perfectly lovely ride. The ticker indicated 51 miles, and the roads were, for me at least, a near perfect blend of hills, descents, and fast flats. While I could have asked for 5-10 more degrees of Fahrenheit (despite a number of layers my toes and fingers were numb the first half of the day, welcome to most-of-the-year riding in Washington, right?) the scenery we chewed was absolutely top notch: some of the best roads I’ve ever ridden.

The first half of the ride was very familiar, a ride across Ebey Island (luckily familiar enough that foggy to near zero visiblity on the way out wasn't much of a worry) into still-sleepy Snohomish and just few miles up the Centennial Trail. Then we veered off onto little OK Mill Road, heading east up through a little valley towards Lake Roesiger. Following the contour lines we slowly climbed up through overgrown maple and oak, bright yellow this time of year, and ready to shed their foliage. In places grown enough to form a full canopy over the road I imagine it will get slick in coming weeks from the carpeting of waterlogged leaves it willsurely recieve. Currently OK Mill is my new favorite stretch of road that's still readily accessible from my front door (some of the roads west of Beaverton, OR and those north of Lynden, WA might trump it, but not by much, and they are not readily accessible from my front door). I'll be sure to come back soon, let's see if it holds up after it's reduced to bare twigs and probably even more numb fingers and toes.

A quick stop at the lake for a snack (I ate Luna Bars, hence my waxing romantic in this post) we also snapped some pics of the bikes, the lake, and a really big horse chestnut tree. We should have surreptitiously snapped photos of the chap combing the shoreline for...treasure? anything metal? I don't know?

After that, we had only the ride along Dubuque Road before we got back to familiar territory. But the road home wasn't nice enough to meander the contour lines of the terrain as it had on they out. It had to go straight-as-a-bullet east/west, despite anything the contour lines had to say. So the road, instead, went up and down and up and down. and up. and down, rinse and repeat. Ha! Nothing Gerald and I couldn't handle with ease though, after a purgatorial climb up the TdM two weeks prior (T Crash!).

Shortly thereafter, and free of blanket of fog, we could see no-longer-sleepy-but-now-trafficy Snohomish and what we missed of Ebey Island could finally see what we missed on the way. Unfortunately, our usually deserted country roads are currently at the nexus of three family farms, all with sizeable pumpkin patches. Contending with the steady parade of cars proved too much for conversational riding and we had the put our noses down and ride single file for the last 8 miles.

4 hours later and back home (not bad!), Gerald betrayed that she had a made a pot of spagetti ahead of time for a post ride glut. Jealous! I had no such foresight. Bidding Gerald and the Rizzers farewell and finding the entire household asleep for a miday nap I scarfed down a couple of bagels with peanut butter and joined them.