Pictures of the Block Island Ferry and the Martha Vinyard Menemsha Ferry. Riding with John M, Mike P, and Matthew.

This year, I will be doing “something new.” I have chosen a “theme.” I will be blogging about biking adventures. This will include riding tales, travel, stories, absurdity, insanity, adventure, and hopefully a little humor and nonsense mixed in; my favorite topics.

By Zulu Delta

I first noticed it in Washington State. I was out exploring with my cousins Michael and Wina. Wina, by the way, happens to be an avid, long-time reader and comment contributor to this blog; thanks Wina! 

We had just boarded one of the Washington State Ferries to take a sail over to the San Juan Islands; nestled snugly inside of the spectacularly beautiful Puget Sound. I was so excited to be traveling with my kind, funny and generous “West Coast Cousins.” We were outside on a beautiful summer day, we were on the water, and I was off on another adventure to see somewhere new. Everything was perfect and would remain that way for the entire day. 

Standing overlooking the pier, and the ongoing boarding operations, I suddenly got a pang of sadness. “What the hell is that all about.” I thought to myself. I did some quick soul-searching and came up with the answer. I was staring at Men, women, and children who were getting on the ferry with their bikes; and I was not one of them. I don’t mean I am not a man, woman, or child; I mean I wasn’t someone who was taking this magical trip with their bike. 

I just love traveling by ships; U.S Navy Ships, transportation ferries, The Queen Mary 2 Ocean Liner, bike ferries, sailing ships, motorboats; and the list goes on. Traveling by ship seems so exotic, such a sense of excitement and adventure lurking over the next horizon. I think train travel can be the same. Airplanes? Not so much. As my brother recently summed about airline travel; “they have made it so miserable, it’s basically; sit down and shut up…..and like it!”

If I can take a bike on the ferry, or the ship, it only adds to the mystique and excitement of exploration. The ship or ferry will take me to a magical land that I don’t normally travel, but if I take a bike, I can bask in the special additional joy that a bike can take me further to a place a car cannot go; the dirt road, the bike path, the wooden area, the beach shoreline, and the mountain trail. Sure, anyone could get to those places walking, but who wants to read a blog like that, other than my sister Maura of course. Hahahahahaha!

The Menemsha Bike Ferry on Martha’s Vineyard and the Lake Champlain Bike Ferry in Vermont only takes 5 minutes to make their passage, but they are as wonderful as any other ferry ride I have ever taken.

So yeah, the idea about getting on a ferry without my bike makes me sad, but the daydreams of getting on a ferry with a bike make me so happy!

I’m still looking for a print of a mural I saw at the San Juan Ferry Port; it was a Washington State Ferry docked in the shadows of snow-covered trees. So beautiful! Until I do, I just rely on my imagination.