I was supposed to bike to Bellingham this weekend, but as the poet said,
The best -laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley
Gang aft agley
Deciding not to let the unpredictability of the world in general dissuade me altogether from a ride, I turned my Gazelle towards the sweet little town of Port Gamble, a fifty-mile roundtrip ride from my home.
I tend to think of Port Gamble as Port Townsend's little sister. Founded in 1853 (two years after Port Townsend's 1851 founding), it is only slightly younger than Port Townsend, but considerably smaller. It was a classic company town in the nineteenth-century, with the entire life of the community revolving around its sawmill. By the late Victorian era the Puget Mill Company was the largest owner of timberland in Washington state.[1] It was only very recently that Port Gamble's mill ceased to be its heart: Until 1995 it was the home of the oldest continuously operating sawmill in North America.[2]
I tend to think of Port Gamble as Port Townsend's little sister. Founded in 1853 (two years after Port Townsend's 1851 founding), it is only slightly younger than Port Townsend, but considerably smaller. It was a classic company town in the nineteenth-century, with the entire life of the community revolving around its sawmill. By the late Victorian era the Puget Mill Company was the largest owner of timberland in Washington state.[1] It was only very recently that Port Gamble's mill ceased to be its heart: Until 1995 it was the home of the oldest continuously operating sawmill in North America.[2]
The old general store still sells two-cent and nickel candies, along with seeds for plants as utilitarian as carrots and as exotic as echinacea flowers. Farm soaps, soaps from France, brown glass gallon jugs and glass dishes shaped like blossoms: The quotidian and the extraordinary share room with each other and vie for the visitor's attention. Up a flight of wooden stairs that runs through the center of the store is a seashell museum, where thousands of sand-worn homes of pearl are arrayed. Intricately branching murex snail shells sit in a glass case next to horseshoe crab shells big as the platter on a Thanksgiving table. Another case holds beautiful glass floats like enduring bubbles in every color of the rainbow; on these are perched the shells of carrier snails. The sign calls these "Nature's shell collectors", and explains that they camouflage themselves by attaching other creatures' shells, stones and bits of assorted flotsam to their own mobile abodes. Many of the cases are laid out like a natural history museum, with the shells arranged in careful lines and neatly labelled, but in the far corner are a few cases filled with the sort of shell collages the Victorians loved: intricate flower pictures made entirely from seashells.
After exploring the town a bit I turned my steed of steel towards home again.
The mind gets into quirky tracks while pedaling long distances, and on my return trip I found myself contemplating the fuel mileage of a vehicle driven by one's own power. Modern sports drinks (and their advertisements) fuel massive industries; for Victorian cyclists the recovery drink of choice was milk, either by itself or mixed with soda water depending on the cyclist's individual preference. My standard ride lately has been a twenty-five mile out-and-back to a farmstand; I'll often buy a pint of Jersey milk when I get there and drink it before heading home. When I get home I usually drink another cup of milk, mixed with seltzer, so it occurred to me that I was getting twenty-five miles per three cups of milk. However, I eat more than usual when I'm cycling a great deal, so as I pedalled along and did sums in my head I rounded up my three cups of milk to a full quart. I reasoned this accounted for the caloric value of the rest of the extra food, and it also makes calculations incredibly easy. It gave my Gazelle a nice round figure of one hundred miles to the gallon of milk. My Victorian tricycle requires considerably more energy, so I decided fifty miles to the gallon was a more realistic figure for the trike. At this incredibly fanciful stage in my musings I reached a steep downhill which directed all my concentration to the splendid wind rushing against my face.
[1] Information from interpretive sign, "1860 M.S. Drew House."
[2] Information from interpretive sign, "1853 Port Gamble."
The mind gets into quirky tracks while pedaling long distances, and on my return trip I found myself contemplating the fuel mileage of a vehicle driven by one's own power. Modern sports drinks (and their advertisements) fuel massive industries; for Victorian cyclists the recovery drink of choice was milk, either by itself or mixed with soda water depending on the cyclist's individual preference. My standard ride lately has been a twenty-five mile out-and-back to a farmstand; I'll often buy a pint of Jersey milk when I get there and drink it before heading home. When I get home I usually drink another cup of milk, mixed with seltzer, so it occurred to me that I was getting twenty-five miles per three cups of milk. However, I eat more than usual when I'm cycling a great deal, so as I pedalled along and did sums in my head I rounded up my three cups of milk to a full quart. I reasoned this accounted for the caloric value of the rest of the extra food, and it also makes calculations incredibly easy. It gave my Gazelle a nice round figure of one hundred miles to the gallon of milk. My Victorian tricycle requires considerably more energy, so I decided fifty miles to the gallon was a more realistic figure for the trike. At this incredibly fanciful stage in my musings I reached a steep downhill which directed all my concentration to the splendid wind rushing against my face.
[1] Information from interpretive sign, "1860 M.S. Drew House."
[2] Information from interpretive sign, "1853 Port Gamble."
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