A Ride North To Marysville & Back, Just For The Hell Of It

I start back at work on Monday, so today's my last day as an unemployed cyclist for quite a while. I threw my Brooks saddle & handlebar bag on my newly fendered Bianchi, my new rando bike. Where to?

Today I'm gonna see how far North I can get - I know I can at least hit Marysville, which is about 40 miles away. I did it this summer on my fixie, but it doesn't have an odometer, so I don't know exactly how far it was. The question is how much night riding do I want to do?

Check the map on veloroutes here.

The route, roughly:

1) Head north on Broadway Ave
2) Keep heading north through the U-Dist, on 12th Ave N
3) Left on 75th St, quick Right on 5th Ave N (next to I-5)
4) Left on 185th St, another quick right on 5th Ave (now on the West side of I-5)
5) Left on Highway 104/Ballinger Way
6) Right on 76th Ave W
7) Intersect with Highway 99, Aurora Ave/Pacific Highway/Evergreen Highway, if you're feeling adventurous, and don't mind lots of traffic. (But the right lane is turn-only, except for bikes, so it's actually not that bad once you're outside of Seattle proper)
8) Follow 99 ~16km to Everett, turns to Broadway Ave
9) Left on 20th Ave
10) Right on Grand Ave (next to the waterfront, nice views)
11) get on Highway 529 (there's a tiny sidewalk on the bridge, the rest has large shoulders. Use caution!)
12) After a few scary miles on 529, you're in Marysville! Kind of a let-down to arrive there, yeah..
13) Possibly take a left on 4th/Marine Drive, a rolling road that I've done once in the dark
14) Reverse!

I've got these directions scribbled down on a piece of paper, screw a map! Hopefully I can do this one again from memory, and at worst I'll be asking for directions.

But dammit, it's 11:30 A.M.. I'm not an early-riser, oh well. There'll be some night-riding involved, but I've got a camera along this time so the next post should be fun.