Weekend in Bellingham Part 1: Mountain Biking and Portlandia

I went to college in (what I consider) the best college town in the US - Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. It's nestled between the North Cascades and the Puget Sound and between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. It's got easy access to skiing, mountain biking, paddling, hiking, climbing, local beer, live music, art, theater - really something for everyone. Luckily, I have a few friends who have made Bellingham their permanent home, so I have friends to stay with when I go visit.

Flights were cheap, so Greyson and I headed up after work on Thursday for a long weekend jam-packed with activities. Here are just a sampling of the fun things we did.

Thursday:
We got in late on Thursday night, so we headed straight to meet Stacey, Jodi and Beth at the Beaver Inn. The Beave (as we called it in college) is a true dive bar. The drinks are cheap & strong, there's free popcorn, and don't bother trying to make friends with Don, the locally-famous bartender.

Friday:
One of the things I really wanted to do while in Bellingham was to test ride a Transition Smuggler. I'm in the market for a 29-er trail bike, and the Smuggler is on my short list. (More on that in a later post!) It's hard to find Transition demos down in California, but their headquarters is located in Bellingham! They offer bike demos for a $20 donation that goes to Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition for trail building and maintenance.

Greyson and I got set up and headed to a trail on Galbraith Mountain recommended by the awesome people at Transition. We started from the Birch Street trailhead in a light rain, where we tried out our new Smith goggles.

Full Enduro

I'm so not used to riding in mud and roots and it took me awhile to get my riding legs under me. There are a bunch of social trails, and we ended up climbing up the wrong one! There was a section that was so steep - maxed out at 46% grade! We did eventually make it to where we wanted to be.

I wore myself out on the climb and bonked a little - I ended up walking more than I should have until I forced down a granola bar. When my blood sugar stabilized I had a blast riding the down SST. The Galbraith Mountain trails are super fun and well built. I really wished I had gotten into mountain biking while I was still living in Bellingham. Oh well, guess I'll just have to come back to visit a lot.

After biking, Greyson and I met back up with the group for dinner at On Rice. We gorged ourselves on delicious Thai food, and headed to Bellingham Circus Guild to see one of my favorite local musicians, Jason Webley, perform. We didn't quite know what to expect when we walked in, but I told Greyson that he had to experience the weird parts of Bellingham, as well as the outdoorsy adventure parts. Jason Webley was as awesome as always, playing fun songs on his accordion and guitar. I'd never heard of the headliner, Andru Bemis, before, but he was really talented and I enjoyed his set as well. The other acts...well, as Greyson put it, "That was more Portlandia than Portland." There might have been a tiny piano, a Huck Finn themed aerial performance, and some truly un-fathomable interpretive dance. We ended our night with a stop at Mallard's Ice Cream, where I had an amazing scoop of chocolate lavender.  Stay tuned for part two!

Have you ever been to Bellingham? How amazing is it, right?