8/26/10 – Weather Happens & Free Wifi Doesn't Mean Internet

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.

8/25/19 - Head North Eh

If you haven't been to Vancouver, B.C., it's time to bust out your Bucket List again. I'm serious, this is a must-see place.

I slept like crap last night. After sleeping in so late, I tossed and turned all night, eager to get back on the road. I finally drifted-off at about 5:00 a.m. and got up at 9:00 a.m. I went to work mounting my new XM radio antenna and tried out various configurations: on the clutch reservoir, on the front fender and finally on top of my windshield. The latter sucked-in signals better than a...let's just say it worked well. I went to Whole Foods and got a picnic lunch for the road. At about 11:30 I set-off for Vancouver, B.C.

I decided to stop for lunch at a rest stop at around 1:30 p.m. There was a huge Red Cedar stump from a 1000 year old tree that died in a fire back in 1893. I sat down at a
bench and started my picnic when and old dude on a 1983 Honda Sabre 1100 pulled-up, He came over and I asked him about his bike. I told him that a high school acquaintance of mine had died in a crash on the same bike many years ago. He sat down and we started to chat for over an hour. Robert is a Vietnam Vet who saw combat as a 50mm gunner in the central highlands during the Tet Offensive. He keeps a stable of 5 bikes at all times and he had purchased this particular bike on Ebay from a guy in Monterey, CA for $1,528. He flew down to Oakland to pick it up and he was riding it back to his home near the Canada border. We chatted about everything from the Vietnam War, Illegal immigration, medical marijuana [he has a card], Obama, taxes, you name it. He suffers from effects of Agent Orange that was sprayed on him in Vietnam, but he refuses to quit riding. He rides to live and he lives to ride. It took him 2 weeks to get from Monterey to up-state Washington and he stayed with his Vet friends along the way. He is bitter about the piss-poor way our government treats Veterans and I empathize with him and all who have served, only to come back to nothing. Anyway, I ate my turkey and avacado on wheat while he smoked a pack of Marlboro Golds and then we set off on our separate ways.

The ride up to Vancouver was mostly fabulous. Perfect weather - 75 degrees and sunny and the scenery is breathtaking. It was also nice to listen to classic rock on XM radio without interruption. A Neil Young "triple-shot" was particularly fitting given the ride up to Canada. The only bummer was about 10 miles outside Vancouver, there is a tunnel where the highway bottlenecks from 5 lanes into 1 lane. Traffic came to a virtual standstill for about an hour. The one problem with my bike is that it's horsepower comes at a price - LOTS OF HEAT. Not bad when moving, but when stopped for long periods, the electric cooling fan blows scorching engine heat that turns my tender bits into huevos rancheros.

I checked into my hotel in downtown Vancouver at around 6:00 and proceeded to take a cold shower. At around 7:00 I rode down to Stanley Park, which is a large park on a peninsula surrounded by the sea. This park is on par with Golden Gate Park or Central Park and it has old growth trees and stunning vistas everywhere. Tonight, I slowly rode the entire perimeter of the park and stopped periodically to take pictures. To the east there were vistas of the city and a full moon rising. To the west was a beautiful sunset. Tomorrow, I plan to explore the park's interior.

For dinner I picked-up a mini personal pizza and a beer at a local joint and ate it while writing this post. Not bad for take out.

Cheers, John

8/24/10 - Sleepy in Seattle

Today I awoke to an over-zealous toothless maid who wanted to clean my room despite the fact that I sleeping in the room. This woman was scary ugly and she insisted that I had already checked out. After a few minutes of negotiating, I convinced her that I had not checked out and I was staying another night. She looked strikingly similar to Wichy Poo from the early 70's show HR Puff N Stuff [picture above for those of you who are too young to remember the show]. She has definitely been ridden hard and put away wet! Back to bed until around noon.

I'm pleased to report that the pinko communist shower police have not struck Washington. There's plenty of water in this state and the showers flow freely as God intended. I had lunch and then went to Best Buy to get: (1) an XM satellite radio antenna that actually works; (2) a charger for my camera battery; and (3) a radar detector. I'm so used to shopping at Fry's where the clerks are recruited from mental institutions, that I was actually shocked when this kid walked me around the store to collect all my goodies. He actually knew details and differentiating features of the products he sells. Wow, this is truly a novel concept.

I came back to my hotel and played with the new gadgets and then walked down to Lake Washington. I met a guy walking his 5-year old yellow lab, Buddy, and we chatted about dogs. I took a few pictures of the lake, then I came back to the hotel and watched the evening news. After 4 days of isolation from news, I'm happy to report that the world is still completely fucked-up. Politicians are still up to their same shenanigans, the economy is in the crapper, Pakistan is still a complete shit-hole, suicide bombers are still doing their thing in crowded markets and Iran now has enriched uranium. I almost forgot the top story: A judge finalized Tiger Woods' divorce today and it only cost him his wife, his kids, his dignity, his sponsors, his golf game and half a billion dollars. A spokesman for Camp Woods released a statement saying that Tiger will immediately begin a regimen of indiscriminately banging skanky women in hopes that he can get his mojo back in time for the Ryder Cup matches in Wales this fall [or something like that]. On a happy note, BP reported today that 200,000,000 barrels of oil inexplicably disappeared from the Gulf so the clean-up effort can wind-down immediately. Why can't we get more happy news stories like this?

It was pretty hot here today [about 90 degrees F - I know it was 110 in San Jose today, but for Seattle, it was hot] so I waited until around 7:30 to ride into town for dinner. Statistics show that Seattle has a high rate of depression and suicide because it rains so much, but I like it here. The town is pretty big, but it's also quaint and easy to navigate. The mountain and ocean vistas are spectacular, especially the completely snow covered view of Mt. Rainier in the distance. The food is great and there are little restaurants and bars everywhere. The coffee's good and the fish mongers throw 20 lb. salmon's around like footballs. What's not to like? I had dinner at my favorite Seattle restaurant, Place Pigalle, that overlooks Puget Sound and watched the sunset. http://www.placepigalle-seattle.com/. I sat at the bar and watched the chefs doing their thing in a tiny little kitchen that's about 10' X 10'. Those guys must get along well to turn out great food in such cramped quarters. After dinner, I indulged in a snifter of God's nectar, Clear Creek Pear brandy. Life is good!

Tomorrow I'm riding up to Vancouver, B.C. and I'll plan to spend a couple of days there before heading east on the Oregon Trail.

8/23/10 - A Day in Portland, OR

Greatings from Seattle! It's one of my favorite towns on earth.

You wanna know what really pisses me off more than the Giants' trying to sabbatouge their season? It's the diabolicle low-flow shower head. This thing is the invention of pinko comunists, pure and simple. Worse yet, the plumber at my Comfort Suite has Dyslexia whereby he set cold as hot and hot as cold. The more I tried to cool the feeble trickle of water, the hotter it became. Comunism! CCCP... Ca-ca-ca-comunist-pigs!

Fortuantely, my day improved considerably after my morning shower misadventure. I was able to hook-up with my buddies, David and Ronan in Portland this morning. David was packing for a a family camping trip, but Ronan and I had lunch at an excellent little bistro in downtown Portland called VQ [Veritable Quandary http://www.veritablequandary.com/] and I recommend it highly if you are ever in Portland. Picture of Ronan included in this post. Sorry ladies, Ronan is happily married with three kids, including a newborn baby girl.

After lunch I headed to the Alphabet District of Portland with the intention of visiting Clear Creek Distillery, makers of God's favorite nectar, Northwest pure alembic distilled pear brandy - 30 lbs. of pears per bottle. Check it out at http://clearcreekdistillery.com/pear.html Unfortunately, I didn't find it, but I did enjoy wandering around the Alphabet District. More Hippies than in Berkeley - see pics of "Mary Janes Glass Pipes".

I hit the road for Seattle about 3:30 and I was fortunate to use the car pool lane since the rest of the highway was severely constipated. As I crossed the bridge over the Columbia River into Washington, I noticed a huge NBC Sunday Night Football tractor truck. I suppose NBC's next broadcast game must be in Seattle.

About 30 miles outside of Seattle, I stopped in Olympia, WA, the state capitol. When I was a kid, I remember advertisements for Olympia Beer that featured people who had seen "Arteseans" that make the pure water to make Oly Beer. I went on a search for Artesians, but rememberd that they are nocturnal, so I took pics of the capitol instead. Please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSnqQFY8fZ0&feature=related

When I pulled-up to my hotel tonight I saw an eagle fly away from it's nest atop a cellular antenna tower - see pic. Tonight I'm staying in a hotel about 400 yards from Lake Washington and it it truly a spectacular vista.

More tomorrow.

8/22/10 The Oregon Coast

Wow! If you have not yet experienced the OR coast, it's time to add it to your Bucket List. Better yet, make plans to do it ASAP. Today I rode from Crescent City, CA to Vancouver, WA and the scenery along the entire Oregon Coast was nothing short of breathtaking. It reminded me of Carmel by the sea, Big Sur and Moro Bay, but with less people. Your Stimulus dollars have also repaved Hwy 101 throughout OR and the highway surface is pristine and twisty. It was a sky blue day, cool and breezy, but gorgeous. If you've ever experienced buffeting from gusty winds in a car, imagine what it's like on a 450 Lb. motorcycle. I got used to it after about an hour or so and when the road veers inland 100 yards or more, the thick pines block the wind considerably. One thing that makes the OR Coast so stunning is that virtually every beach has rock outcroppings and giant Rocks peppering the ocean just off the shore.

I had to stop at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort and I hiked up to a high spot and snapped a few pics. When I golfed there 10 years ago there was just one course - Now there are four courses and the golfers come by the busload. Apart from the lodge, there are no structures on the courses, no carts, no cart paths; Just golfers and caddies, the way God intended it. It's the closest thing to the original [St. Andrews] except it's more scenic and better maintained.

There are not as many Indian casinos in OR, but the ones they have are definitely of the jumbo Rancheria variety.

Tomorrow I will try to hook-up with some friends in Portland and then head up to Seattle.

Good night.