My Birthday Party

The avant garde stage - but the Wicked Tinkers seemed more electric and less tribal this year - I missed the digeridoo and bagpipes.

Better than cake:  a scone with strawberries and whipped cream.

The Highland Games are becoming more multi-culti.

The Bellingham Firefighters Band seems to be still in their formative stages.

The judges at work.

Sharp-dressed men.

At the end of the day all the bands march en masse to one end of the field, then turn around and march back the other direction, without any collisions or fist fights (below).

Randonneuring

In previous summers one of my favorite rides was from Bellingham through Ferndale to Birch Bay, where I would cruise through the state park and along the bayside road, then treat myself to ice cream and espresso.  This ride is 30-40 miles one way, depending on the exact route, which is a tiring day-trip for me and really made me earn my ice cream.  Today I tried a different route from my new base in Ferndale.

I rode out of town on Portal Way, crossing under I-90, where the state of Washington has reconstructed the on- and off-ramps and added bike lanes, sidewalks and landscaping.  The route on the Ferndale side of the freeway is now much safer and more pleasant, though the rest of the way is still unimproved.

From downtown Ferndale it's four miles on Portal Way to the Grandview overpass, and eight miles to shopping opportunities at the Birch Bay Outlet Mall.  The road is two lanes with a 50mph speed limit, but since it parallels the freeway the traffic isn't too heavy.  The pavement is mostly cement sections with regular seams, and the white fog lines mark the pavement edge, but there are wide sand and gravel shoulders, which for parts of the way are smooth and packed enough to be about as comfortable to ride as the pavement with its regular bumps at the seams and irregular cracks and patches.

From the Outlet Mall, a left turn on to Birch Bay-Lynden Road takes you to the beach.  It's three miles to the C-Store on Birch Bay Drive, a confectioners known for their chocolate Easter bunnies, which is about half-way between the BBL Road/beach drive intersection and the state park.  At Birch Bay State Park you'll find camping, restrooms with showers (fifty cents for three minutes), beach walking and cook-outs, and digging for shellfish, but red tides are common.

One warning:  DO NOT cross the freeway on the Grandview overpass, unless you're in the mood for twenty or more miles of extra rambling.  The overpass leads to an MC Escher time-warp of county road that winds around past suburban homes, horse ranches and farms, but doesn't seem to connect with anything.  There seems to be a huge area east of the freeway that isn't linked to any other neighborhoods or communities.  I've spent an hour or two following a winding road with only dead-end turn-offs, trying to find my way back to a main road.  It's pretty and interesting, but allow an afternoon for exploring, bring a map and compass, and extra of food and water.

I rode about 53 miles, which was more than I was really prepared for, and I didn't even stop for ice cream.

Hybrid Power

Since moving to Ferndale, I'm commuting about sixteen miles round-trip, four days a week, to my barista job, about the same distance I was riding to the full-time job I was laid off from last September.  I'm riding in the opposite direction now, heading toward Bellingham in the morning, and returning northbound in the afternoon.  I've had headwinds in the morning this week, but riding home after work has been a breeze.  On weekdays I can cheat a little and load my bike on a commuter bus on the way home, but on Saturday and Sunday bus service to Ferndale is too limited, so I have no back-up mode of transport.  Some service cuts are due to be restored in June, but I'm not sure yet what difference that will make on the weekend.

Meanwhile, I still rely on my trusty old hybrid bike.


The ride is more rural and woodsy now, but near my new job there's an interesting new feature in the landscape.  Alpha Engineers has installed a hybrid wind and solar power generator on Airport Way.
According to the company web- site, the station is used to charge electric vehicles.  It was completed in the spring of 2010.

http://www.alpha.com/solar-wind-hybrid-power-bellingham/

Bike to Work & School Day

This Friday is Bike to Work & School Day.  Earlier this winter I volunteered to help out, but when my landlord troubles progressed from mean notes from the managers to legal notices, I decided to concentrate on my own issues.

When my landlady first began complaining about my bike, I tried some creative problem-solving.  I contacted some housing assistance offices and people connected with cycling advocacy groups or bike clubs, proposing some sort of bicycle-friendly co-op housing.  The response at the time was resounding silence, though eventually I did get in to my new place on the recommendation of a friend who is active in bike and pedestrian advocacy and transportation planning.

I know that clubs or advocacy groups can't be all-purpose support groups, but I've come to feel that events like Bike to Work & School Day are really just pep rallies, and I don't want to proselytize unless I'm able to offer some real support to anyone I might convert.

Poverty Sucks

I'm in a new apartment now, but posting from the public library because my internet service isn't up yet.

On Thursday, April 7 I returned home from work to find the locks changed and a sheriff's notice on my apartment door. My landlord let me back in long enough to capture my cat and grab a few other personal things. I left that night with a change of clothes and some toiletries, some personal papers, my bicycle, and my cat in a front-loading baby-carrier-type pack. I took a sleeping bag, too, in fear that I would end up sleeping in a park, but in the end I resorted to the conventional middle-American solution:  the magic of plastic. I left my bike locked up outside the public swimming pool and walked a mile or so to a hotel. (A good choice, too, because there was frost over night and when I returned for my bike the next morning, there was ice on the saddle.)

Now I'm a little disgusted with myself, feeling I've managed to trivialize homelessness. I spent three weeks holed up in motels, running up an ugly tab on my REI VISA card (but earning rewards points and dividends). After a few days, I began to feel the best answer to any problem was to go back to my room and hide under the bed covers with my cat.

I did develop more sympathy for the young women and men with small children I see at the transit center, trying to get around town on the bus, with babies and all their gear. My cat was unhappy and traumatized, but at least I knew he was safe and comfortable, not starving and shivering in the woods. I didn't have to carry him around with me all the time, in all weather, knowing it's a rotten kind of life for him, fearing I'm not competent to care for him or myself, trying not to take it out on him.

The worst part of the experience was the months of legal wrangling with my landlord. Every time I found another note or legal paper taped on my door, or received another lawyer's letter in the mail, my stomach would begin to burn and knot up, and I could barely choke down food - I lost five pounds easily for every notice I received. I dreaded opening my door in the morning, or returning home to find another paper on the door. And once I was out of my apartment and lost access to my computer and most of my papers, my ability to defend myself and prepare a case fell apart.

It still seems so unbelievably stupid and unnecessary. All along I've tried to second-guess my landlord's motives - maybe they thought I'm a lesbian, or a drug-dealing prostitute, or maybe they just thought I was getting too uppity and needed to be put in my place. Or maybe they didn't want it to work out this way, either, they just weren't too smart.

I was balanced on the edge of real poverty and homelessness, walking around the real thing. But I keep thinking of the lesson of the concentration camps - that the altruistic, compassionate, self-sacrificing people are not the survivors. How can I live like a decent human being?

Worried cat

At the Motel 6 with Elvis

Hiding out

The sublet fell through during the last week of March, leaving me in a motel with my cat and my bicycle, wondering why I can't have comfort, security and free-spirited adventure, too.

There may have been a hobbit in my family woodpile:  there's a part of my mind that thinks adventures are nasty, inconvenient things that make you late for dinner.  Also, I have a tiny bit of hair on my toes.