So I was checking out the Volusia website and I noticed that one of my riding partners from Utah, Polovision, was going up to Seattle for the weekend. Well, I could do Seattle if he could do Seattle, so I decided to join in for the get-together at Steilacoom, Washington, just south of Tacoma. Sounds great so far, doesn't it? Well, it did get great eventually, but first it had to go bad, as is often the case, based on weather. So I headed out Wednesday afternoon with a destination of just south of Longview, which should put 5 hours under the belt and leave me with only about 10 or so for Thursday's ride. Yeah, that's going to work out well! So, somewhere around Red Deer it started to rain. And then it just continued on raining. 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 .... I set up the tent in the rain, slept in the rain, but fortunately woke up with the rain having just quit. But soaked and humid everywhere. Oh, and 5 degrees. That's about 41 for you 'Meericans! What actually happened was that I had my alarm set for 6:00 a.m. and I woke up, saw that it was 5:30, figured I wouldn't get back to sleep for a half hour and that I might as well get a jump on the day. And what a jump it was as I started up my motorcycle and looked at the clock it had to realize that I had misread mine, it was actually 4:30 when I woke up. So, no coffee for me this morning, for a while at least. Finally, at 8:30 I stopped in Cranbrook, with all 5 layers of clothing on (two of them leather even), frozen. I have never been so glad for those stupid air hand dryers. Started it up, let it get warm, then directed it down my shirt. Over and over and over again! Went back to my restaurant seat, drank my coffee, but really just wanted to pour it down my shirt also. But that is not considered proper outside of the house now, is it? Finally, after an hour, I had warmed up enough to finally figure that I could continue, 5 layers and all. Bike seemed to be wobbling a bit, stopped, back tire was looking suspiciously low. This can not be a good thing. Turned out it was an easy fix, the valve stem had wiggled loose, tightened it up, add some air, off we went! Lost an hour doing that, though! Now we get to the border. Nelway is the name of the border crossing west of Creston that I used this time. Road construction. A lot of road construction. Lost another hour here waiting to get through it. So now it is noon, and I am on my way, finally! Burned off most of the morning sitting around. So it wasn't all bad that I had started out as early as I did. HARVEST TIME IN WASHINGTON STATE! Yeah, there were Mexicans everywhere! Migrant workers, if you must. And this apple picking business is big time stuff. They have special trucks for picking up the apple crates, and they were everywhere. Except somewhere that I could take a picture of them, so sorry there. I wish I had the time to stop and take some pictures of the people picking, but I was already running late as it was.
Apple orchards in Northern Washington
Road shots
Apple orchard and apple crates
