Homecoming 2021, Day 5, 6/20; 37 miles to Belfair State Park; TM: 208

Glad I got an early start today, because the temperature shot up into the low 80s. The temps during the previous days have been in the 60s. I was really able to feel the difference.

The route today was not all that scenic and followed some heavily trafficked roads, particularly out of Bremerton WA. Unpleasant even with a mostly decent shoulder.

I narrowly averted disaster in the small town of Belfair, after it slipped my mind that I had threaded a luggage lock around the bike’s rear wheel while shopping for groceries.

After I loaded up the groceries and tried to coast away, the tiny cable got jammed in the spokes. It only took a minute to cut the cable with my tiny pair of pliers. Neither the spokes nor the derailleur were damaged. So I dodged a bullet on that one. 

In camp that night, I built a lazy-man’s no-cook dinner around refried beans and hot sauce. I ended up eating the same concoction several times during my journey. It filled me up, especially when I chased it down with a can of sliced peaches or pears in heavy syrup. Kept the motor the motor running, too.

That night, I went to sleep before the sun went down, per my usual practice. (Ride, eat, sleep, repeat.) But I was awakened an hour or two later by a couple of other cyclists who moved into the adjacent site. The fellow had an Aussie accent.

I would not meet my fellow cyclists face-to-face until many days later, since they were still asleep by the time I moved on the next morning.

The neighbors who moved into the adjacent site