Pictures with captions to make up for quickie blog post! An actual S24O! (Sub-24-hour overnight)

The nice thing about the Emerald City Bike Ride happening so early is that I had tons of time to go home to rest and pack and make it with plenty of time for the 3pm ferry to Bremerton.

This was my first time taking Pixie camping as well as my first time on the Bremerton ferry. It’s downtown, same pier as our usual Bainbridge ferry, but the crossing is 60 minutes versus 35 to Bainbridge.

Illahee State Park was just 3.5 miles from the ferry (my extra mileage is from going all the way down down down to the beach and back up up up).

I took a different route on the way back and it was not as nice, with more climbing and a highway bridge with narrow sidewalk.

I got extremely lucky weather-wise and all the rain fell while we were asleep in the tent. I kept an eye on the morning forecast and left early enough to stay dry all day.

Bremerton seemed hillier than Bainbridge, but I am prone to being more comfortable with the “hill you know” so I could be wrong. It’d be fun to go back and explore for a flat-as-possible route to Illahee and then take the kids.

Pixie did great bike camping. In the evening she didn’t want to stay super close while I set up camp, but in the morning she sat in her little bed and chilled while I put everything away. So having the kids to keep her busy will be nice next time. The hiker/biker sites were $12 which is more than Fay Bainbridge’s $7, and there are only two of them. They don’t have picnic tables and the square for the tent was a bit small for my REI Half Dome 2+ (you can see the corner of my tent staked outside the square on the right in the picture below). So we’ll shell out for a proper site when we come back. For dinner, Pixie and I walked down to the beach. There was a great trail and kids would consider it a fun hike. There’s also a small playground up at campsite level.

One more thing: I couldn’t attend, but that night Menstrual Monday returned from hiatus! It’s a monthly ride for women–the first Monday of the month, meet at the Seattle Center International Fountain at 6:30 p.m., ride at 7:00 p.m.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 4 miles: 10.9
April 5 miles: 12.2
April cumulative miles: 100.7