Sorry for the 24 hour delay of Thursday’s post. Last night I stayed at the world’s worst motel and the Internet did not work, nor did the cold water. I included a picture of the view out of my room and the paneling on the wall of my room.
Greetings from Yakima, the self proclaimed “Palm Springs of Washington” – NOT. An Alaskan cold front moved into the Pacific Northwest today and I was in its way. I’d planned to spend the day in Vancouver, but I was boxed-out of hotel rooms. So I decided to ride around Vancouver and then head southeast away from the foul weather. I think it was Karma’s way of telling me to get out of Dodge. Despite the rapidly changeable weather, I’d still put Vancouver on your Bucket List. I got halfway through WA before the storm hit. Fortunately, my rain gear was up to the task and despite 200 miles of rain, I was warm and dry, as was all my stuff. I remember Vancouver as a clean big city with lots of trees, Mountains in the distance, surrounded by water and hanging baskets of colorful flowers everywhere. After 45 minutes to get through at the USA border crossing, I was on my way down towards the Oregon Trail and my trek eastward.
After touring north up the coastal route, I thought WA was entirely green with lots of lumber mills, rivers, lakes and ferries, after all it’s the “Evergreen State”. Today I rode southeast through WA, starting at the Western Canadian border. Wow, this state is diverse! The coastal region and Cascade Mountains are green, foggy, wet and filled with rivers, lakes and fir trees. After crossing the mountains shrouded in clouds, fog and rain, the landscape rapidly turned to farmlands with rivers, apples and row crops, and then into dry blustery rocky brown canyons and hills with no signs of life. It’s strange to travel through cold rain, mountains and fog, followed by bone dry winds and blue skies. WA has it all within a few hours ride.
I stopped for gas and lodging in Yakima, WA and politely asked the clerk at the station why the town stinks. It turns out that Yakima has one of the largest hops processing plants in the U.S. and the essence of tons of hops drying is extremely unpleasant, but I’m satisfied that the beer made with it is worth sacrificing the scenes of the entire Yakima town folk. I also learned that Yakima is a huge producer of apples and plastic tabs that seal the bags covering your loaves of bread at the market. Who knew and who cares? Well I care, because I was able to avail of the special $39.95 migrant laborer rate at the Yakima Econolodge. There was a sign out front advertising Contractor [read: apple picker] rates and I asked for it and got it. Much better than the “Best” Internet rate of $59.95! I asked the hotel clerk what her favorite restaurant is. She said the Chinese joint across the street is the best in town, so I decided to try it. Unfortunately, it only opens once in a Blue Moon and TH at 7:45 was not a Blue moon. Dominos chicken sandwich delivery was the back-up plan. Dominos tastes better when you’re starving.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot today’s top news story: Tiger’s got his Mojo back! Remember who told you how it would happen.
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