I got up quit early last wednesday. The day before I spent a lot of time looking at my printed out map of the Lake Washington loop and have been giving it A LOT of thought. I knew deep in my heart that I really wanted to try this ride out. For me to be able to hit a half century ride would be quit an achievement to my goals, so I went to bed and just slept on it so to speak. Wednesday I get up at 7am ate my breakfast, been thinking about the ride all this time and by 8am I decided to hit the road. The first hour wasnt bad, I needed to make a stop at a local QFC to pack my bag with high energy stuff. Went out and loaded myself up w/ a few Cliff Bars and 2 bottles of Boat House natural berry and kiwi juice (did I mention how GOOD that stuff is by the way?) Anyways, continueing on with my ride. I was heading east so I could catch the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Well Im very well hitched on the trail and unexpectedly I run into a construction worker. I was wondering what that other bike rider said half a mile before about something being closed ahead. I wish that I could have gotten some kind of notice, SOME KIND that is. Well they closed down part of the trail because they were repaving it. I found myself in the spot of thinking weather I should just head back home and do this ride some other time or stick to my goal. I figured that Im not the type to give up, I had this thing planned for a while and have been thinking about doing this ride for a VERY LONG TIME! Im not gonna quit now and here. I got off the trail and just took Bothell Way untill I found what looked to me like the next restarting point to the Burke-Gillman again.

"Hmmm...Somethings strange here...Lake Sammamish Trail....Well! we'll see where that takes me." So I head down that thing thinking that its going to bring me back around to the much northern portion of the Buke-Gillman. I was wrong....I got lost on this new, never ridden on trail, but none the less I became very thankfull that it happened. I never seen anything beautiful in my backyard as this trail. I was lost, yes! but I was lost in paradise. I knew that I had to find my way back or do what I did with trying to get to the Space Needle the one time I got lost trying to get back to it in Downtown Seattle. Just follow the Needle. In this case it was FIND LAKE WASHINGTON AND STICK TO IT!

The locals on the Lake Sammamish Trail were quit nice to me when it came to finding directions on how to get out and try to resurface hopefully near Redmond going to Bellevue. It was because of them that after 2.5 hours of being lost I found my way around and headed alreayd past Kirkland. From Kirkland to Bellevue was a breeze. Once I got to Bellevue I got lost again. That is when I realized that I have a GPS tracking app on my cellphone so it came in really good use. After waisting precious time trying to relocate Lake Washington again it was almost 5pm by this time. Another cyclist gave me a helping hand in finding the bike trail that actually loops and reconnects around Lake Washington. I was surprised of how fast it took me to get from Bellevue to Renton, it was probably at least a 20 minute ride, and I been hearing car drivers complaining of how far Renton is to get to from Seattle. I been thinking by this point that if people just could realize the joy of bike riding than maybe they wouldnt be so pissed off about traffic. Huh! no wonder most riders look at car drivers as people in cages!

Over all this turned out to be a highly rewarding ride. I learned several things about this ride, next time, plan well if I do it again and try not to get lost. And 2, make sure that I have 2 days off in a row for something like this. The next morning I had to be up by 7am again and be at work by 9am. That was not fun considering the fact that I finished my ride at 1:30AM. My co-workers have never seen me as drained as I was at work. I havent felt that drained since I worked two jobs. My knees were stressed, they felt quit frail and for a few days straight I had to cut out 1 mile of riding from work because I put a lot of pressure on my knees. But regardless of all the body aches and the tiredness of the day after the ride, NOTHING takes away the reward that I got from the natural scenery of the entire thing.