A Birthday Ride

My work schedule at my (former) barista job was Thursday through Sunday. There's a lot to be said for a four day work week, but I didn't have a Saturday or Sunday off for two years. Now is my chance to revisit all the weekend festivals and farmer's markets I've been missing.

These photos are from the Big Bird Fly-In, a showing of radio-controlled model planes put on by the Bellair RC Flyers club. It made me a little nostalgic thinking of my Dad, a Boeing worker who experimented with building model planes from scratch, using balsa wood covered with paper or silk. He didn't do so well with engines or aerodynamics. We had some handsome-looking models around the house when I was little, but he didn't like to fly them and take a chance on wrecking.

Orville and Wilbur Wright started out as bicycle mechanics, but Dad didn't take me through a bicycle phase. I did have a purple Schwinn Hollywood that stayed in the garage as soon as the tires went flat. That's why I've had to struggle alone with elementary bike repairs as an adult. Which might be for the best, because I was sulky and easily frustrated as a kid. I'm not a crier now, I've learned patience, persistence and confidence in my competence (within some limits).  Of course, a lot of this maturity developed after I took up bicycling.

I explored a river-side bike route, along the Nooksack and Red Rivers, to get to the airfield by bike. I cut through Hovander Park, going past the Tennant Lake Interpretive Center to the Nooksack River where a gravel bike and pedestrian trail branches off to the left. I rode this to the Slater Road bridge, then crossed the river and took Slater Road to Haxton Way, by the Silver Reef Casino. Turning left there, I followed the signs to North Red River Road, which led to the airfield, about a five mile ride from my apartment.

In this area North Red River Road and South Red River Road run on either side of the Lummi River, a small twisty river that runs out of the Hovander Park and Tennant Lake wetlands down to the bay. I left the airfield on the south road, crossing Haxton and continuing on Slater Road. After crossing the Nooksack bridge I left the road to try out a stretch of trail along the Nooksack River.

The small gravelled parking lots on both sides of Slater Road on the east side of the bridge are maintained by the state parks system and a $30 annual Discover Pass is required to park a car there. The bike trail on the Hovander Park side of Slater Road is mostly wide and newly gravelled, or mowed grass with narrow double or single-track trails.


On the other side of Slater Road the trail is rougher, grass and dirt tracks all the way, with some muddy patches, and a few places where there are roots, pot holes and small creeks where you'll have to dismount if you can't jump. Still, I rode it on my Surly Cross-Check with 700c street tires. I encountered several runners and couples walking dogs along the route. The trail runs for a bit more than two miles to Marine Drive, where I turned back. It's just a few yards from the river bank, though for much of the ride you can only get glimpses of the water through the tall grass and brush. It's a pretty ride, with lots of birds, Monarch butterflies, and rabbits to chase down the trail.

Before the weekend, the battery for my bike computer had died unexpectedly, at 1008 miles - they usually last a lot longer. So I started out on my birthday ride with a fresh battery and my odometer back at zero, and rode twenty miles exploring the trails and river roads.

A postscript: Crossing Slater Road is probably the most difficult and dangerous part of this ride. Slater has nice bike lanes on both sides, but many (most?) cars travel way above the 50mph speed limit. Car crashes and police chases are common, often involving DUI's. At the point where the trail intersects with Slater Road by the Nooksack bridge, it's safest to walk your bike across the road. While I was standing at the pavement edge waiting for traffic to clear, a few passing drivers played that little game where they drift slightly to the right in passing, so their right tires just cross over the white line into the bike lane.