Our Sitka amongst the Sitkas: Summer 2025 Week One in Washington

Victoria BC to Astoria OR, 501km

“Hey let’s go Go-Karting!” said neither of us, ever, on our honeymoon bike tour along the Pacific Coast of North America. Over 3,000km from Victoria, BC, to Tijuana, Mexico, the thought of pausing our romantic whirlwind and dismounting our two-wheeled steeds to drive a mini-car in circles, at slower speeds, never occurred to us. 

That was because we didn’t have a fun-hungry teenager to show us what we were missing.

Two decades later, here we were at the Fun Beach Go-Kart Speedway in Seaview, Washington. Ed whisked around the loopy track in hot pursuit of our 15-year-old son Sitka, who takes his job as Seeker of Non-Bike Adventures very seriously.

This is a kid who has grown up on summer bike tours since before he could walk. He’s cycled across New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Cuba and all over Canada. And he’s the first to remind us that it’s not just about the ride, but also about all the stops in between.

“We haven’t had any adventures yet,” Sitka blurted out one morning over a bowl of yogurt and granola brimming with fresh strawberries, surrounded by towering firs in a thick coastal forest. 

Our shocked faces encouraged him to clarify.

“You know what I mean. I’m gonna find us an adventure activity off of our bikes. Of course, all the biking is fun too!”

Indeed, the first week of our 2025 summer bike tour brought us back to our family’s happiest place: together on our bikes.

We’re missing a pretty big part, however, as our oldest son Heron pedals in Quebec at the Canadian Road Bike Championships. Being from the Yukon in the far North, he impressed with some strong finishes (fourth in his U-19 Junior category) and experienced his first big crash, with the gauze-covered road rash to prove it.

In 18 summers, it’s the first time our full family isn’t exploring altogether. But soon Heron will be joining us near Portland to join the ride.

He’s missed a sweet week, amongst the spectacular rainforest on the Olympic peninsula, and along the rugged, windy Washington coast. We thought we’d feel some major déjà-vu on our return to our very first bike tour as newlyweds. But in many ways, it’s been an entirely new journey.

First, of course, we have a fresh set of eyes seeing this road for the first time. Beyond tracking down the mini-putt courses and campground ping-pong tables, Sitka helps us notice every moment more vividly - especially being surrounded by hundreds of the giant trees after which we named him.

“Man, they’re tall,” he marvels regularly, neck craned to the sky.

At Lake Quinault, epicentre of the state’s famous Hoh Rainforest. we found the “world’s largest” Sitka spruce. Having lived in Vancouver, he’d seen a Sitka before. But growing up mostly in the Yukon, with our stunted aspens and pines, the soaring old-growth conifers have made an impression - just as they did in 2005 for Ed, an Ontario boy experiencing coastal forest for the first time.

A lot else has changed in 20 years, including more paved bike paths separate from bustling highways. Straight off the ferry in Port Angeles, the Olympic Discovery Trail brought us into the National Park well away from the famous, often frantic 101, on a series of side roads and old rail beds - including the recently upgraded Spruce Rail Trail hugging the north shore of Crescent Lake. We dipped in the shockingly blue waters and found a cute campground nestled away from truck traffic on Day One.

A few more times, we found surprise paved paths - leaving Aberdeen westward on the Chehalis River Trail, and out of Raymond on the Willapa Hills Trail - for our merry threesome to pedal side-by-side along beautiful rivers. Of course, we now have cell phones with the BikeMap app to guide us to all these hidden gems en route - as opposed to handwritten transcriptions of our guidebook directions on an old paper receipt in a Ziploc affixed to our handlebars.

We’re cycling faster and farther now, probably thanks to annual bike tours over each of our boys’ summer since birth. And certainly because it’s now us struggling to keep pace with teenaged Sitka, rather than the opposite. And it’s also us who insist on chocolate stops every hour to keep us motivated. 

Some things haven’t changed, though: a slight drizzle leaving Kalaloch tricked Ed into resisting the call of his rain jacket. He got gradually wetter and more stubborn until the day devolved into a full-on downpour, by which time the jacket would have been of no use. This time, though, we could call ahead to a sweet cabin on Lake Quinault instead of settling for the first roadside motel we came across.

We did remember one lesson from our honeymoon: avoid the heart-stopping Astoria-Megler Bridge across the Columbia River into Oregon. The four-mile-long behemoth starts flat, then soars several storeys high to accommodate tanker ships. It also has a puny shoulder with endless obstacles and pummeling cross winds. And we have Internet now, to read about the horror stories told by fellow cyclists.

Fortunately, we met Randy, a lovely soul from Vancouver, Washington, who was camping with his family nearby our hiker/biker site at Cape Disappointment. He replied generously to our inquiry about a ride in his pickup truck, then offered great companionship on the quick jaunt across the terrifying bridge - proving that Americans are indeed wonderful people… and you know the rest of what we want to say.

But the best difference between 2005 and 2025 is our family. Twenty years ago we were two kids deeply in love. Now we’ve got two kids of our own to share the journey, the memories, and the load.

All our newlywed dreams of a beautiful life together have come together quite well. We’ve even discovered the wonder of the Go-Kart.