Slide show
http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t134/TamarakRim/Olympic%20Peninsula%20ride%202009/?action=view¤t=3c60634e.pbw
Originally calculated to be 650 miles or so, turned out to be 820 miles. I cut out part of my planned route down along the SW Washington coast and the NW Oregon coast. Something about that route made me uneasy. I could do it, no problem, just a feeling. So, I made a hard choice. Don’t go that route this time. How many riders would make that choice on an unknown gut feeling? After arriving home mid-morning on June 4th, I know why it was a good decision. Had I gone that route, I would have been riding home during a horrific thunder storm and tornado watch conditions, with wind, driving rain, hail, lightning. Trees and branches down on the road I had planned to take inland from Seaside.
The riding was cool in the mornings and hot in the afternoons. All riders experience bugs hitting the neck area. No big deal. I was riding a little country road east of Centralia, where I loved riding my bicycle down the hill. Curves, easy stuff. I’m going about 35 mph, wonder how fast we rode down the hill on our bikes. Bug struck my neck. STING! How often does a bee get a lucky strike at that speed? On my jugular. Sting, again !! He must still be alive and stuck on me. I’m in no pain really. Sting again !!! WTF !!! I swoosh my neck with my left glove hand. All is well. I keep going. Two hours later, I stop for a late lunch in Castle Rock, take off my jacket, and there’s the poor, staggering bumble bee crawling on the belly of my sweatshirt. Brushed ‘im off. I like honey bees and bumble bees. They are the friendly bees. Most of the time, I never even feel them sting me, until I see the welts later, or the imbedded stinger hanging on. I could not see where I was stung 12 hrs later. I was such a cry baby when I was a little kid!!!
I suppose this trip was for memory lane purposes, a reason to see familiar places, and old friends not seen for many years. Grandparents’ old homestead, parents’ old place, my former home in Centralia, hospital where I was born, those were nice to see again and astounding to find so much change.
The riding was fairly easy. Long times on the interstate. While many riders don’t like interstate riding, I’m still green enough, it’s a challenge to ride fast with the traffic, keep my safety zones open, and risk getting a traffic ticket. I found that roads off the interstate could not be taken for granted. Many times I saw gravel on the roads in the wrong places. Complacency is not good.
Hurricane Ridge was really nice. I had the road all to myself. I arrived at the top along with 2 or 3 other tourists there before me. Wonderful fresh alpine air. When I went to get some pictures, a resident of the place was caught unzipping my double zipper saddle bags and was about to leave with a plastic zip lock bag of my fresh underwear. Ravens are sooooo smart. I am glad that I had put my bike key into my pocket, rather than leaving it in the ignition. 333 miles on the 3rd day from Sequim to Centralia, including side trips to Hurricane Ridge and Hoh Rain forest.
The road along the south shore of Crescent Lake was OK, but there were many places where the pavement was pot holed, sunken, and constructed of some sort of weird, cement that had sand blasted little squares. It did not look to be something a motorcycle tire would grip very well. I saw very few officers of the law. A park ranger came up fast behind me along the south shore of Crescent Lake. I pulled into a side out, waving him by. He passed, then stopped the pickup truck with a camper a mile in front of me. We were both following a big truck that was keeping a fast clip. We were all going fast. I suppose I may have been going a bit slow about the time the Ranger showed up behind me, ‘cause I was dealing with crappy pavement. Lucky me.
The ride into the Hoh river rain forest had many curves, and often they had sprinklings of rock that had rolled onto them. Road work included two 10 foot gravel patches of the road. One gravel patch was about where you might lean your bike just a bit to make a slight turn in the road.
Much of the time I had the hwys to myself. I could speed along for miles and never see anyone behind me, or in front.
While Hwy 101 north along the bay was pretty, I got real tired of the constant left and right curves. At first it was fun, progressing to just get it over with.
I accidentally rode up a gravel driveway at my friend’s place. When I got off and looked back, I was very uncertain about riding it back down and making a turn onto the main paved street. Next day, I cleared a path in the gravel and gently rode down and made it without crashing. Pretend you are walking on marbles and you get the idea what gravel is all about. Then, the gravel road in Sequim. Not steep, not too much gravel, so I rode on it about a 100 yards to sis’s place. I parked at the bottom of their nice paved driveway. Later I had to figure how to drive up a steep, paved driveway and turn onto a gravel road. I managed to angle it well enough the next day that the front tire did not need to make much of a turn on the gravel. Then, it was downhill again on gravel and stop at the bottom before entering what might be a busy paved road. Creepy, but I did it.
Since I decided to divert to Centralia rather than Long Beach, I then wanted to see whether I might find my mentally ill brother wandering the streets of Centralia or Chehalis. I rode around a lot on the streets looking, but no luck. Haven’t seen him since ’96, and that was just passing along in our car to a summer camp, while he sat reading a book at a city library park. Oh well.
I cannot make the slide show move slower. You can click it to stop, and I think click the picture to enlarge it. There's a deer in the forground of a picture, notice the one further away at the next curve? The tree on the rock, at the coast, I don't know how it's still there after years of winds over 100 mph and surf pounding that rock.
