I had the day off today, and my daughters were heading back to school, so I stuck my velo cheapo bike into their trunk and they dropped me off in the next town over, about 20 miles by MUP. Temperature in the upper 40's with just a little wind, so it was pretty comfortable in just khakis and a long sleeve t-shirt. Stopped at Costco to pick up a polish dog lunch and a few small items I needed at work, kissed my girls goodbye and headed for home. Had a couple very light rain showers and one fairly impressive but brief hail storm along the way, but pretty nice overall, for January.
Typical rails-to-trails infrastructure, with little warning posts and signage where your cross a public road.
I SHARE THE ROAD. (With large, ambulatory poop factories)
The Dungeness River Trestle is of course a leftover from when trains ran through this path. Theres a park built around this now, with the local Audubon center directly adjacent. There's always tons of birds around the river, so it's a good spot for it.
At a couple of points the MUP leaves the grade, so you get some crazy steep (but short) hills where you go down to river crossings, then back up. There's a cute little covered bridge at this one.
Another river crossing a few miles later:
The last four miles into town you skirt the ocean, with lots of places to pull off and camp out awhile, or just bliss out to the sound of the waves. (Yes, recreational marijuana is legal in my state; and no, I haven't bought any yet. But I do remember my misspent youth. Vaguely.)
In this part of the country, if your chainstay crotch looks like this after 20 miles on an immaculately tended MUP, you know it's winter. Or fall.
Or spring. Or maybe large parts of the summer.
