The Boise stop at Big Twin was quite well organized. Big Twin is a great supporter of riders, and besides Joe’s rallies, they welcome, or even organize, quite a few other events for riders. Thanks again for the welcome, for the support – and for the good food :-) We all left Boise around noon, in 90+ degree heat. After a very windy ride, it proved to be a little hard to find a "wildcat" in Sunnyside as requested, as it turned out to be the nickname of the owner, who happened to not be in the store that day… I got a picture of his wife, which looks much better than he anyway, so that was a plus! I had a lot of fun riding the nice mountain roads to Leavenworth, a bit too much fun as I ended up getting my first speeding ticket in the U.S. L . With that roadside antics, I got to the store 5 minutes after its closing time, but it didn’t say on the bonus sheet that this was a timed bonus – so I took a picture and hoped that the rally-master would accept it, instead of the receipt that was requested (he did, whoo hoo.) I found Rick’s house and took my picture quickly, to avoid the mosquitoes that always swarm around the lake – good training for the Alaskan skeeters, which are said to be able to carry away poodles and other small animals. And as I turned around to head to Seattle, the clouds that had been gathering all afternoon started opening up – the rain (and worse) would now be with me on and off till Alaska. This is Summer in the Greater NorthWet for ya (Mark Twain said once that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco – I don’t believe he ever got further up North along the Wet Coast!)

Quick stop at Café Veloce for a quick piece of pie (just wanted to buy a hat, but they didn’t have anything to sell.) On to Mark Reis (who was getting tired of me – I had seen him 3 days before to get a new headset in my helmet :-), and I finally ended up in Anacortes a bit before midnight. The rain hadn’t let up, my StreetPilot fell off on the bike, and didn’t seem to pick up satellites anymore, but the day had been pretty good so far (besides the little roadside chat with the nice gentleman.). Time to get some sleep, so I stopped at the first motel I found. I was planning on hitting the Ironbutt motel (sleep outdoors by the roadside) at the ferry terminal, but it was raining and the wind was blowing, and I was not that anxious to get into the full glory of rally adventuring just tonight. Goodnight. (About 680 miles for that afternoon ride.)

No problems waking up around 4:30, before the alarm went off (much to the relief of the neighbors, I’m sure, who didn’t know what they missed :-) I got to the ferry terminal 2 minutes before the ferry started loading, and rolled to the head of the line, where I spotted another motorcycle – yeap, a fellow rallyist. John Langan had ridden all night and just got there, and I felt a little bad about telling him about my nice comfortable night – not! Uneventful ferry ride, where John took advantage of the downtime to do some more planning for the days ahead. I had got my plan set, so I just fiddled with my busted GPS, and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery – gliding by the many islands in the San Juan archipelago, checking out the boats, wildlife, enjoying the sun that had decided to come out in the morning. It was all quite peaceful (a lot more than my ride 2 years ago, when I really wanted to try and get some rest, and where what appeared like the total population of a local summer camp had been on the ferry, running and horsing around, break dancing, and breaking (my) peace. Kids, I’ll tell ya!) Uneventful ride to the top of Mount Constitution, on gorgeous twisty roads, hike to the top of the watchtower there, pictures (it’s nice to be with somebody else, so you don’t have to worry about tagging your flag on stones to make it legit.) Stop along the way back for John to pick up a sample from the Northwest waters. Points could be earned if you brought back water sample from down South, the Northwest and Alaska. Easy ride back to the ferry dock. John, who is not from them parts, had actually checked the ferry routes, and ended up taking advantage of the ferry system much better than me, who had been using it for 15 years. Instead of coming back to Anacortes and head North along I5, he was going to ride ferries over to Vancouver island and then Vancouver, to head for Point Roberts, a difficult bonus to reach on land. Smart planning… I debated with myself for ½ second whether I should follow, but decided that I’d rather stick to my plan: I was not sure what the timing would be, (and was too lazy to check, I guess) and didn’t want to muck up my chance to get to Whitehorse on time, as I had already planned my schedule as tight as I felt comfortable. I also didn’t want to just "borrow" somebody else’s ride: I wanted to ride my ride, sleep in the bed I made, to coin an expression, and live the consequences of my planning, or lack thereof. Finally, John had suggested something that had not occurred to me, blissful nincompoop – I could buy a replacement antenna for my StreetPilot (while on the ferry, I had swapped antennas with my old GPS III+ that I also carry, and found that this was the problem. Not a bad idea to have redundant, and compatible, systems, if one can…) I knew exactly where the West Marine store was located in Anacortes, as we used to keep a sailboat there and I spent lots of money in that store! It would be easy to stop on the way and get all my systems back up, instead of running around Vancouver trying to find a supplier. We would part ways here. John lucked out as he pretty much rolled on his ferry as soon as we pulled into the staging area, last vehicle onboard. I’m not sure what the deal was, if it was the Sidney ferry he had planned to ride that was too early or the one before that was too late, (or if John screwed up the timing altogether :-) but I don’t think he was expecting it to work out quite that tightly. Lucky bum. Yeah, that must be it, luck. And he ended up winning the rally, with a monster ride, all luck, I’m sure :-). Quick bye byes, and he was off, while I had to wait another hour or so, for a ferry that came in late (do NOT listen to Mr. Joe Z., I tell ya!) I wouldn’t meet another rider for the whole rally, except a quick wave at the Sumas border control when the only Harley rider in the rally, Verne Hauck, pulled up to the next lane, and zoomed away as his lane went much faster than mine. I was pretty happy that I had made the bonus and that I still seemed to be on time – but the leg was not over, there were still a couple thousand miles to ride, and I knew the terrain was going to get a bit more challenging – I blissfully didn’t know how challenging yet!

I tried to rest while waiting, then during the ferry ride, but no dice, I couldn’t go to sleep. Quick stop at West Marine, they had no cheap standard antenna in stock, so I had to buy the high-zoot remote one, and had the pleasure to pay full retail for it. Argh! I had thought about buying one before, as it would give a bit more clearance to lower further the electric windshield on the KLT, but had balked at the price (yeah, yeah, I know, penny-foolish...) Well, the deal was done now… I thought I was going to attract a bit of attention in the store, as I was wearing full road warrior gear, hi-viz ‘stich, water bladder in an orange backpack plus another one in the front pocket, with assorted tubes crisscrossing over my shoulders and in front of me, map cases on the sleeves and on the thigh. But actually, this does look a lot like a regular sailing suit, and one dear lady asked me if I were sailing in from Canada. She seemed a bit confused when I told her that I was actually motorcycling north! I plugged the antenna in, and stuffed it under the velcroed map case on top of my tankbag. It worked like a charm. Of course, as I tried to make a quick getaway, a guy stopped by to chat about my bike and my gear, and to tell me all about his sweet full-chrome XLGQCTX that he had just traded in for a BMW RT, and how that thing was so comfortable, but just didn’t sound right. I’d love to get going, but shy little violet me never knows how to break off in situations like that. I just took advantage of it to eat a couple oranges – might as well do it while stopped, it’s hard to eat those when riding, and they quickly taste like gas if I eat them when picking up fuel. After I was finally able to take off (well, it probably didn’t take more than a couple minutes, thinking back on it, but you know how every second seems to drag when the wheels are not turning…), I took a side trip to Deception Pass, a few miles out of the way. I had stopped there for the Northwest Passage with Jerry Golani???. We had both looked high and low for a sign indicating the bridge, had not found one and had settled for the information billboard (which was accepted.) Well, this time I found the sign – it’s only about 50 feet tall and 20 feet wide, maybe 20 feet back from where we were looking. Amazing that neither one of us had the brains to look up and back… Awright, time to head up for Canada.

Next page