Dustin' off the Harley

We here in the beautiful PNW finally began to have our summer on Labor day, September 1, while I was in Hawaii.  Since my return home we've continued to have decent weather for the most part.  But the upcoming week looks like autumn is sneaking in slowly.  Saturday, though, was to be absolutely, drop dead, GORGEOUS!!  

Rick hasn't been doing too well in giving his Harley the attention (using it, that is) it deserves so he suggested that we go for a ride on what looked to be our last beautiful summery day of the year.  I wanted to swing up to Chinook Pass to give the wildflowers another chance and he was already thinking of the same destination.  We tried to see the wildflowers at the normal time last year, late July - nada.  So this year we waited an extra month - zip.  How about now, another month later?

BINGO!!!

So about 11AM we hit the road and the weather was great for a motorcycle ride.  Except for the deep woods along highway 410 from Greenwater to Crystal mountain.  Brrr....

We got to the pass and wandered around Tipsoo Lakes finally getting the shots of the wildflowers.  I don't think I've ever seen them so dense, nearly every variety that blooms was blooming right now!  Some of the daisy types were drying out but the majority were in perfect bloom.  And there was a thick lenticular cloud over Mt Rainier.  Such a great day for photography.  

From the pass we headed down and pulled into a small trailhead parking area with a picnic table and outhouse and had a quick watery beer.  But we were hungry, so we hit the road again with a diner as a goal.  We checked out Whistlin' Jack's right down the road from our Bumping River Road (Lily Lake is down that road!) but Rick decided it looked like the kind of place that served chintzy thin hamburgers so we moved on (no, he had nothing visual to go on, just making another assumption).  We headed for the town of Naches another 30 miles or so further down the road.  When we got to the Nile area there was a detour, the highway was closed due to a huge landslide that took place nearly 2 years ago.  The detour took us through some pretty landscape and when we got back to the highway there was an interesting looking diner on the corner called the Wood Shed.  It was very unpretentious but the smell coming from the smoker was irresistible.  And they even had a patio to eat on.  Good 'nuff, we were staying!  It couldn't have been better, the food, the weather, the band softly tuning up and the local women with their short hair and too much makeup!

We continued on to the town of Naches, gassed up, took a quick side trip and then headed back toward the pass, daylight was burnin'!

When we stopped once again at the pass to use the restroom it was nearly dark enough to need a flashlight.  The previous 50 miles were not too comfortable for me but I'd thunk it over and knew I needed (1) another layer to be warmer (2) the restroom (3) earplugs and (4) to request Rick to not have so much fun and drive a little slower.  After accomplishing all that I enjoyed the last 55 miles much more. 

 

We got home in the dark and were slapped in the face by a smattering of raindrops but overall we had a great last day of summer!

A Well-Rounded Weekend

I just went to read Rick's blog and saw that he also blogged this weekend so I stopped reading and started my own. somehow it's not as exciting to share when you just read someone else's recap of the same thing. So here's my version.

My friends that live around the corner, the Haydens, just moved back into their house after a kitchen fire moved them out back in October. So for the last couple weeks I've spent a lot of time over there helping put things away, pick up trash, use our pickup to help haul away Goodwill items, etc. As a thanks they wanted to take us out to dinner (it was also a means of getting to know Rick better!) So our weekend started on Friday night with a trip to the Outback Steakhouse. We had a nice dinner, Mary and Rick got steak and Kevin and I got "grillers", meat served on a rice mix. All in all a good dinner. Afterward they had us to their house to play on their Wii. We bowled 2 games, Kevin stomped everyone in game one and Mary and I tied for first place (202!) in game two. Cheesecake was forced upon us.  Rick said he enjoyed the evening. Oh yeah, we left around 9 to soak a while in the hot tub, mmmm.

Saturday was expected to be a nice day earlier in the week so we'd planned to break out the old Harley and go for a ride but it turned out to be not so nice after all. That and Kevin (my son this time) needed a babysitter so we stayed home and babysat. Rick took our newly acquired canoe apart and straightened some bent frame tubing and put it all back together, now it's nearly like new! I seem to be having a hard time doing anything when the boys are here so I just futzed around. I had one difficulty with Joe, it's his turn to be in a problem stage, but overall it was a nice visit. Again we enjoyed our hot tub and our woodstove as well. I actually got it cranked to about 80º in the house, unintentionally. We watched a movie (in our underwear) and had Taco Bell for dinner.

Sunday morning was glorious and the temp was expected to hit 70º so it was our chance to put on our leather and take the Hawg for a ride. So we got out early-ish and went to The Krain for breakfast. It was perfect. From there we just rode around and took a few pictures. We toodled through Buckley, Bonney Lake, Sumner and Puyallup. We had a scary event right after we hopped on the freeway for the short time we would be on it. No, we weren't in any danger, but Rick's camera was! He bungied it in it's very well padded bag on the back of the bike. We were flying along and suddenly someone was frantically honking at us. Rick has been riding long enough that that can only mean one of 2 things, either we lost something or were just about to. So he immediately looked in his rear view mirror and saw it tumbling into the median! We pulled off and he walked back and got it. Like I said it was in a "very well padded bag" and all is fine! Shock! It tumbled right over the water-filled spot in the median and landed in the dry grass.

Our last stop before heading home was to visit my friend Judy in Puyallup. I was hoping Rick could meet her hubby, Carlton, but he was working, bummer. I told Rick that as nice as Judy is Carlton may just be nicer (sorry Judy!). Can't decide, they're just a super couple. We decided that we have to go riding together, even make a weekend trip together. Sometime in June looks good. We were talking May but I have too many obligations already for May and the weather will be nicer the closer to summer we get.

To cap off the weekend as I was heading out for my meeting (it was the special talk) Sarah got here and she and her dad did some photography. He brought home some dry ice for her to play with and then I have this new bird feeder that attract lots of purple finches who seem pretty fearless, you can get as close as 4 feet from them! So Rick had fun with his daughter and at meeting I got told that my commenting restriction is gonna be lifted, Yay! No Amazing Race on TV last night, Country Music Awards instead so back into the hot tub again, mmmm!

There's our well-rounded weekend, family, friends, suspense, drama, action!

Anacortes Oyster Run 2008

I've been hearing about this Oyster Run for months. It's interesting, I see really no purpose for the whole thing except to "be there".

Rick has been doing this ride with his friends or family, at least once in his car, before he bought his Harley, since 2004 as far as I can tell. I've seen pictures so I had an idea of what to expect.

But it's like the Grand Canyon - pictures just can't capture it, they can't do it justice. Rick said in the past a fire ladder was set up at one end of the road to allow a person to climb and get an aerial view. The impressive thing was the shear number of bikes/bikers and the line of them coming into town that stretched as far as the eye could see. I just checked online to see if there was an estimate of the number - 30,000. This was expected to be the biggest event yet because of the gas prices prompting motorcycles sales to skyrocket. And here in the northwest - if you have a bike you MUST do the Oyster Run!

A month ago or so I questioned the plan and day of the event since I'd already attended the Spring Opener to Toppenish and had an idea of what to expect. The ride either to or from the event was planned and ridden together as a group, then the opposite direction was loose, everyone by themselves or a couple bikes riding together, etc. What he'd experienced in the past was the ride up was done early AM individually, straight up I-5 to get into town by 9 or 10. After milling around and having lunch, and visiting the vendors,etc, the group would leave together and take a relaxing ride back, taking ferries and enjoying the scenery. And the event is on Sunday. So I suggested that we go up on Saturday and spend the night, lessening the amount of time we had to spend on the road on one day.

A couple weeks ago Rick found out that his group was going to Reno for another event. They're Boeing workers and are currently on strike so I guess they figured they'd take advantage of the "free" vacation time. So we were on our own.

I don't know when he forgot about the idea of staying overnight. It was on my mind indelibly because the previous rides have been a bit excruciating, the seat I was riding on was really just a pad, 7" wide. He had a better, wider, softer seat I could use but it was thicker and put me a whole head above him. Well, Rick shelled out the big bucks and bought a new seat, a one piece that was both seats. It sat him higher as well so I still sat mostly behind him. He didn't care for the new seat when he first used it but it's just different, he just has to get used to it. The difference for me was gargantuan! I can ride anywhere now in comfort. The only pain I got was a cramp in my hip on the way back. The new seat is 14" wide and actually supports even my upper thighs, not just my bum.

Anyway, Friday I reminded him of the idea of staying overnight and eventually he decided that it would be a good idea so he found a deal on a room and booked it.

We putsed around Saturday AM and finally hit the road noonish. We went pretty much straight there, stopping only once at a rest area. We checked in at the motel and while he was parking the bike I went up to the room. It had been a smoking room that was freshly painted so the door was propped open. I glanced in and yelled down to Rick "You didn't pay an arm and a leg, did you?" This place was awesome! It had a kitchenette, 2 baths and the bedroom was upstairs (2 tv's too).

After settling in we decided to go find some food. I've discovered that taverns have pretty good and inexpensive food so I suggested we find one. It took a while but eventually we ended up in old downtown Mt Vernon. They were having a craft sale street fair thing so we had to park and walk to find a place but we did and the food was excellent, Rick couldn't even finish his.

After eating we went back to the room - now what? Rick had mentioned Chuckanut drive in the past, that we should check it out on this ride if we had a chance. Besides, it was about 6PM and we were in a strange town, what else could we find to do? So after googling it we hit the road again. We found it without a hitch and it was indeed a beautiful ride. But Rick was just whizzing down the road and I was attempting to get some shots from the back of a moving motorcycle - not an easy thing to do. The hardest thing about it is that the helmet gets in the way and you can't easily look through the viewfinder. So we rode the whole thing and the sun was getting lower and lower. We ended up in Bellingham via the back door. We didn't know if the road dead-ended or what. We turned around and this time we stopped for some awesome shots. It turned out to be a perfect day for sunset shots of the San Juan Islands in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. The sunset lit up the whole sky and lasted for probably at least an hour.

We got up at 6:30 Sunday AM showered and hit the free breakfast most motels seem obligated to offer now. Not too bad, I had yogurt, half a chocolate muffin and biscuits and gravy. For once we got up and ready early enough to enjoy the full "menu". Then we packed up and headed for the big event.

Being as early as we were we didn't really have an issue with traffic. It was pretty much what I imagined, based on the pictures I'd seen. We were parked in one of the diagonal rows that were set up in the middle of the main street. We wandered the streets looking at bikes, visited the vendors, looking for the "right" shirt to prove we'd been there. There was a marina nearby and I prodded Rick into walking down there and getting pics of boats, fish and a seagull in her nest. We were gonna have "taco in a bag" for lunch but opted for the wraps they offered instead. Then we watched a couple motorcycle "drill teams" of sorts, the first one looked like cops and rode quiet Hondas. The next one were noisy, old Harleys, 1930's and 40's and they did quite a nice job of stunt riding. Known as the Seattle Cossacks, they wore Russian-looking maroon and white uniforms.

There were lots of interesting sights. People brought their dogs with goggles. I enjoyed seeing big, bad bikers with their tattoos and their little foo-foo dogs. They were also enjoying the outdoor latte cafe, again, with their tattoos and leather. There were fantastic and expensive paint jobs, we found one bike decoupaged. There were antique bikes, old gnarley bikers in their worn out leather, fashion biker chicks in their color coordinated (other than black) leathers with lots of fringe. Helmets were personalized with hair and horns. But the best sight of all was on the freeway on the way home, after I'd put the camera away - darn! There was a bike that passed us with a small, pink pet carrier bungied to the back. I didn't get to see what was inside but we caught up with them and I made sure to check it out. It was a duck! Just laying peacefully in it's little box - AFLACK!! Too many pictures to put in this blog - go check out our smugmug site with the link ("my and rix pix") at the upper left section of this page. (You can also click on any of the pictures in my blogs to see larger versions)

It was 3 when we hit the road but Rick wanted to be sure to let me see Deception Pass, since we were so near and I had never seen it in all my 23 years living here. It was beautiful but I would sure have loved to have spent more time, walking down to the water and exploring a little. Some other time.

We weren't so fortunate in missing the traffic on the way home. We were in the thick of it. It was rather grueling. We just came straight home and Rick collapsed when he got inside, right on the floor. We got a little too much sun for his delicate nature. I was just cramped up a little and cold. I was shocked to see the temp signs saying 65º, I was COLD! Not freezing, just colder than I like and for longer than I like. But we made it back.

An interesting weekend to say the least. Very full. Maybe too much for a couple in their 50's, eh?

More of our Harley Weekend

OK, I want to quickly recap our Saturday, as it was a very full day. We got up and had breakfast in the hotel dining area. Then we took off and got some shots of the other bikers on the way, witnessed a crash, went to the hospital, ate at a Subway / gas station in Goldendale. We continued on to Stonehenge, stopped for more pix on the way back to town, went to the bike event, then back to the motel, put on our swimsuits and went in the hot tub and pool. Then back to the room for the last of our sandwiches from Subway. Whew! A lot crammed into that one day.

The next morning we all went our own ways. Rick and I opted to go back over Chinook Pass which had just opened that week, so there would be lots of snow on the pass. But before we got there we had to find some grub. We ended up stopping in a little diner in the town of Naches . It was a very simple place with no frills, just busy, busy, busy and good service and good food. It turned out to also be a great place to people-watch. I saw 3 people in particular that just stuck out. First there was the waitress with a little too much makeup and jewelry and looked a lot like her name should have been "Flo". Then Rick spotted a real rugged lookin' cowboy type, with the leather skin and grubby clothes. The only problem was he wasn't wearing the right boots. Then a very tall thin fellow walked in who could not have been known by anything other than "Stretch". He was tall and thin and had the longest neck and head I think I've ever seen.

After breakfast we got back on the road up to Chinook Pass. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. Warm and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. There was still about 5 feet of snow at the pass but it was about 70º so everyone was there in their shorts and tank tops. One family had laid a blanket down in the snow and were having a picnic. And with all that sunshine and clear skies the mountain was just stunning.

When we got to the town of Greenwater we stopped at a tavern for all the usual reasons and bumped into one of the couples from our group. We had also run into them at the diner in Naches. We were on the same wavelength I guess. We had a nice break there and from there went straight home. It was a very pleasant ride.

All in all a great first bike weekend.

Our First Harley Weekend

As I mentioned in my previous blog, that weekend was anything but mundane. Rick and I and a few of his buddies took a motorcycle trip to Toppenish in eastern Washington. It was the "spring opener", whatever that means. We met up at a couple different places, stopped at a couple taverns on the way and took about 7 hours to make a 170 mile trip.

I'm learning about the whole biking world in little bits. You stop often to warm up, rest your butt and relax the vibrating. I imagine the driver needs to rest their driving hands as well. And the best place to do that is a tavern for a quick brewski. It was interesting also to see the reaction from observers, being dressed all in the black leather, like true biker scum. I noticed everyone looking at us at intersections, on our noisy Harley and in our leather and goggles, etc. We got lots of waves and thumbs up. One old guy yelled at us that we were "lookin' good!"

The ride out was nice, the weather was good, the roads were dry. One of the bikes had a problem though, when it would crest a pass it would spew oil out the breather. Anyone behind them got sprayed with oil. So they had to stop and let it cool, then we could go again with no further problems until we had to crest another pass.

We stayed in a nice motel in town, unlike the one we stayed in in Walla Walla. But the town itself was a far cry from Walla Walla. There's really no reason ever to go to Toppenish for anything other than some event as we had. It's known as the "town of murals". There were interesting historical murals everywhere. That was interesting to look at but not enough to be a reason to visit. You could hear sirens all the time, and they weren't at the biker event.

Speaking of the event itself, we only got to go for a very short time, one evening for a couple hours only. It was interesting people watching. But we missed most of the games, parade and other events. What was left was mostly just a lot of people milling, visiting, drinking, etc. No trouble, just goofing around. One thing was kinda comical. They sold beer and had a "beer garden" which you weren't allowed to leave with your beer. But everyone who was at the event brought beer in with them and drank everywhere. Silly.

Saturday morning we all planned a ride to a nearby site, Stonehenge. It's a replica of the one over the "pond" in the UK. On the way we got the chance we were waiting for. We finally hit some 4 lane road so I got out my camera and passed our other riders and got shots of them as we passed. Then we slowed and let them pass us and took more pictures. Just a few minutes after taking those great shots I got to experience something for the first time, and on my first bike trip to boot - a bike accident. The oil spewing cycle did it again and as usual he was up front again. He pulled off and the following bike did also but too fast and it forced the guy behind him off the road and into the gravel. They were almost stopped but caught on the edge of the pavement and fell over onto the asphalt shoulder. Ouch! The EMT and police ended up coming out. She just had a bad case of road rash all up her leg (she was wearing shorts and sandals) and he broke 3 ribs. The bike survived fairly well. Turns out the driveway we were all hanging out in was the fire chief's son's place and he let the damaged bike stay there, one less hassle for them to have to deal with on that particular day. It wasn't pleasant but it could have been so much worse. We went to the hospital until we found out everything was taken care of and continued on our day.

The Stonehenge was interesting but not nearly as photographic as the surrounding area. It was overlooking the Columbia river and flanked by orchards and vineyards. Across the river were train tracks with what looked like long toy trains traveling on them. There was a town with a beautiful bridge crossing the river and Mt Hood was beyond that. A photographers' heaven.

On our way back from our trip we stopped at a few more spots for more photo opps. A burned out woods with thick greenery below gave the right amount of contrast and then a graveyard of rusted out model A's and T's was quite the sight as well. You can check out all these sights on our smugmug site by clicking on the "my pictures" link at the top left of this page.

I'll pick up the next day in my next blog, it took me almost 2 weeks to get this one done! Check back in soon!

Mundane Life with Sue

Well, it's been a while since I blogged anything so I suppose I ought to fill in the big blank spot. The reason I haven't been blogging is because nothing especially blogworthy has been happening. Mostly just normal day-to-day stuff.

Rick and I have done a few rides on the Harley for my benefit. We're planning on a 3 day weekend in the middle of June with a ride to a town in central Washington called Toppenish. The ride there is about 165 miles so I have to get myself conditioned for that length ride. So this past Saturday we went about 101 miles (one way) to where the kids were camping, a few miles east of Cle Elum. It was a nice place, but no Lily Lake. The ride was ok, I have to get used to taking curves at highway speed, it's a little nerve-wracking. When we hit the summit it got pretty cool, we were dressed down a little since it was in the 70's when we took off. So on the way back I put the liner back in my jacket and wore my gloves. The next day we headed out to visit a coworker at his vacation home on a lake about 35 - 40 miles away. Again, the weather in town was beautiful so we dressed down a little, but this time I left my jacket liner home - oops! As we headed out we could see rain in the distance and the temp just kept dropping off. I was freezing by the time we got there. And there wasn't much to do on the way back to make me warmer. But I sure learned a lot, mainly, don't take out the liner of the jacket unless it's in the 80's!!

When we got to where the kids were camping it was coolish and almost drizzly. Rick and I wandered around with our cameras getting whatever was there to get pix of. Our main focus ended up on the bumblebees visiting the wildflowers. They would let us get right up to them, about 4 inches away!! We got some neat pictures of bee fuzz. The wildflowers were also screaming for us to get them, so we indulged them. Then, of course, there were 3 grandsons. We stayed for a couple hours and then split just as the drizzle began and avoided all the rain squalls we could see off in the distance. It was gorgeous again when we got home, maybe we should have just done that - stayed home! No, the ride was fun and good practice for me.


A couple weekends ago we had planned to go to an automotive swap meet up north in the fairgrounds. It's a huge annual event and we had been looking forward to going for a month or so. About a month previously though, a relative of Rick's died, she was in her 80's and it wasn't unexpected. Well, they chose that particular Saturday for the memorial. The Monday before, though, a friend from the kingdom hall died unexpectedly. She was Dane's best friend's mom and was only 42. Well, they decided to have her memorial on that very same Saturday. So Rick and I each had a memorial to attend, weird. We'll have to try the swap meet again next year.

Last week I got a little gift from Rick. He's been watching Craigslist for a bike for me so we can ride together (pedal-type, not motor). He found a real nice one for sale for only $50 that was $450 new. I swear it couldn't have 50 miles on it. It's a Diamondback Topanga, a nice all-terrain type bike with 21 speeds and the shifters are upshift and downshift! Cool, the neat stuff they come up with!

Other than work, going to meetings and spending time with the kids, Rick and I do a lot of photography. I have a goal of spending a few hours each weekend doing nothing but photography. We seem to have perfected the macro stuff, the close-up bugs, flowers, etc. Good enough anyway (but it's so much fun!!) Now I'd like to work on landscapes where we use a technique called "bracketing" and then sandwich and stitch the pictures together to get a more detailed landscape. We also need to work on indoor lighting, that's a tough one. But necessary if we want to do portraits.

So that's my mundane life for now. I guess I can't always wait for something exciting to make myself sit down and blog. Mundane will have to do.

Don't forget to go check out our picture site!

A fantastic Saturday!

The weather forecasters had been predicting Saturday to be about 70º for days and for once they were right. Fantastic! When Rick and I heard the forecast we started planning a bike ride.

But first I had to get the rest of the necessary gear and I happened to have some spare funds. So we got out early and made it to the leather goods place in Tacoma at opening time. I got some chaps and gloves, both were size small which made me very happy - but as many of us already know - "small is the new medium". Either way, my ego enjoyed it. Next we hit the Tacoma mall for Rick to find some new shoes, which he didn't. But I was planning to look for some shades for Keith since he kept using mine whenever we were in my car together. I found some for half price, good deal. And he totally loves them.

We finally got back to Rick's and suited up for the drive. We started by going to a local cycle place where I got some new glasses to use for riding. My sunglasses let the air flow in and my eyes would just run like a river. The new glasses worked great and were only $10. So we were finally prepared to hit the road. First we went to the Harley place in Tukwila to get a free lunch and so Rick could get some bushing / spacers for his new windshield. Turns out it was an anniversary and the place was jammed. But we got the free lunch and enjoyed people watching and checking out the other bikes. They had a live band that was pretty good too. We continued our ride by driving back on the hill toward my place. It was so warm and nice. I got smacked by about 3 bugs.

We went to Denny's place and the kids got to see me in all my new cycle gear. Shirley seemed to enjoy it as well. We decided to have a BBQ so Rick and I went back to his place again to change out of our cycle gear and buy dinner. It was Rach, Tony, Denny, Heather and all 3 grandsons beside the 2 of us. The steak was good, Tony did a good job of cooking it. Someone came up with the idea of bringing Denny's trampoline down to his place. I had brought it to my place a while ago, when they were contemplating moving and Heather was pregnant. It was in pieces so it was easy to transport but it had to be assembled. To move it out and down the street 5 houses we decided to keep it together but we had obstacles to get around / over. We ended up lifting it up and over my house. Then we stuck it on Rick's car to bring down to Denny's. We had been planning to use my car but when the time came it was at Rick's so we used his instead. So he slowly drove his car down with a trampoline on top and we all walked behind, it looked like a parade, people, toddlers, a bike, a dog and 2 two strollers. Quite an interesting thing to do on a Saturday afternoon.

After dinner Rick and I went back to his place to watch a movie. What a great day! But was I bushed, I slept in Sunday AM til 10:30.