The Toppenish Run

Boy, where do you start when you're trying to blog such a great weekend?

I think it's fair to say I was probably more nervous that Suzie was about it--After all, this was her first "biker" event/weekend, and it could make or break how she feels about ever doing it again, right? Here we were both sacrificing a vacation day by taking Friday off, and that's not to be taken lightly beings that we don't get anywhere near the amount of time off that the Boeing people get. I mention that because we were the only "non-Boeing" people in our group. For them taking a day off is nothing.

It was cloudy and cool when we left, but all signals pointed to it getting better as we went. I was starting to have my doubts about the group early on. A few of us met at Steve's house in Puyallup, then rode up to a place out past the Roy "Y" on highway 7 to meet the rest of them. The people we met were sitting in there having drinks, so then the people in our group went in and had drinks. When we finally go going, we ended up stopping for drinks again in Morton. A few miles later we stopped again, this time in Packwood, and this time for lunch (and drinks of course). I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get over the pass...

Well, we did get over the pass, and it was a beautiful ride all the way. We chose to go over White Pass on the way down, and that was good because I really didn't remember the last time I had been across White Pass. It wasn't without mishap, however. One of the guys in our group (I can't remember his name) had a problem crop up. Right as we crested the pass his bike started spewing oil out the breather. Fortunately we were in the very back, but even we ended up with a light dusting of oil on the front of our Harley. Everyone in our group seemed to have trouble stopping when that happened. They stopped too frantically or too quickly or whatever. At any rate, some of them were lucky to get stopped without crashing into each other like idiots. Maybe it was their drinks? After "oil slinger" (as Suzie and I refer to him) got going again, it happened a little ways up the road again, only this time the stops were even more haphazard--This time making us even have to do some power braking. I'd say Suz is lucky I have some riding under my belt because it was like a comedy of errors every time the group pulled over like that.

We finally got to our motel in Toppenish at about 6pm. The ride was pleasant other than what I've noted already. The weather got warmer as we went, and it was about 80 or so in Toppenish when we got there. There were bikers everywhere in town. The event was only about 8 blocks or so from the motel, so it was very easy to find. All of us in our group were staying at the same motel except for two couples that brought their tent/gear with them. They were staying on the grounds of the bike event. What did I think about Toppenish? You can have it. After hitting two stores to buy some beer and having no luck, I finally asked someone why. It turns out that where we were standing was the edge of the Yakima Indian Reservation and there was no beer unless you went farther up the street. Weird. The town has "The City of Murals" as it's slogan. Apparently a town that has absolutely nothing going for it needed something to be proud of, so they have a lot of buildings downtown with full wall murals painted on them. We were going to get a bunch of pictures of them the following day, but due to unforeseen events, that never happened.

I guess a few of the guys got together and decided that we were going to ride out to a place near the Columbia River where there was a replica of Stonehenge. We all met outside the motel at about 11am, all , all amped up for a nice ride in beautiful sunny weather--Most of us in t-shirts. As usual we were in the rear, but this time Suzie had her little Canon pocket camera in hand. As we were headed up a long hill, a passing lane opened up and an opportunity presented itself. Suz and I sped up and slowly passed each of the riders, taking pictures of each of them as we did so. When we finally got to the front, we slowed back up and took pictures of each of them again as they slowly passed us. I haven't seen the pictures yet, but everyone was totally excited about the possibility of great riding shots of them. Action shots of people actually on their bikes are the hardest ones to get! You know what the only downfall was? Nobody got shots of us.

About a half hour further up the road after cresting Satus Pass, guess what happened? Yes, "oil slinger" strikes again. This time we were a little farther back than most folks, but it didn't unfold quite like the previous events. The guys were a little closer together this time, and when they pulled off the road they did it too quickly. They did avoid crashing into each other, but Sean and his wife Tracy took a spill when the front wheel slid out on the shoulder gravel while they were in the midst of panic stopping. Fortunately they were almost stopped when it happened. Sean sustained 3 broken ribs, and Tracy ended up with bad scrapes on her entire left side. She was not dressed for bike riding--She was dressed for summer. Needless to say, we ended up with paramedics, State Patrol, and Sean and Tracy got a ride to the hospital in Goldendale. Although that was a severe damper on our day (not to mention theirs), things came out all right. Sean and Tracy got a ride back to Toppenish by a family friend of one of our group that lived near Toppenish that drove out and picked them both up.

We did end up eventually seeing the replica of Stonehenge. We all took a bunch of pictures of that and had a good time in the sun. At that point, the rest of the riders took off on their own, and that was just as well with us. We both saw what traveling in a group had gotten us--A series of near-misses. Although sometimes a group is good, sometimes it's not. We really enjoyed our solo trip back at a leisurely pace, and was able to make a couple more picture stops on the way.

We did manage to make it to the actual biker event on Saturday night. It was fun! We sat and partied with a few of our group at their campsite a couple times, and wandered around taking pictures and stuff. Funny--We even ran into a prior La Croix Industries employee over there while we were sitting in the beer garden. After a couple hours of listening to the band, watching burnout tire smoke wafting over the crowd, and generally just taking it all in, we went back to the motel and hit the hot tub. It was a very interesting day to say the least.

We left at about 10am for our trip back, bidding goodbye to the remaining members of our group that were still milling about. Apparently Sean had gotten hold of a friend that was coming over with a pickup and trailer to get his damaged Gold Wing that was still at a home nearby where his accident occurred. We rode leisurely toward home, looking for a good breakfast spot, finally stopping at a place in Naches. Sitting there waiting for their food to show up was Mark and Joyce, one of our group. We left there after they did and immensely enjoyed our ride over Chinook Pass, stopping a couple times near and at the summit for pictures. We stopped at the Naches Tavern in Greenwater for a beer, and right after we sat down in the sun of their outdoor seating area, here came Mark and Joyce again! Funny how we think alike eh?

We made it back in plenty of time for Suzie to get to the graduation ceremony of her youngest son, Keith. It took place at Auburn High School, so it was just a walk through the park from my house. Her daughter Rachyl dropped by and accompanied her. Sarah came over right after they left, and the two of us walked over to visit with my folks on their porch. It was a nice day for it.

All in all, a very good weekend. We rode about 500 miles, had excellent weather, and the bike ran flawlessly. Although Suzie had the misfortune of witnessing an accident, she also experienced the good parts of motorcycling. She had a great time and I'm so glad. We both agreed that a new seat for her was in order though. Stay tuned for pictures on our pictures site--There are many coming up!