Seeing Washington on Two Wheels

I'm pretty sure the motorcycle ride that Suzie and I took yesterday didn't cause my sore back (I was a little sore yesterday morning too), but it certainly didn't help any either. I failed to write down our starting mileage when we left here yesterday morning at 8am, but based on our gas stops and trip resets, I figured that we had ridden about 320 miles or so when we finally rolled up into the driveway at 11:30 last night.

Yep, I woke up pretty sore.

It was a previously-planned trip of sorts. We were going to Mt. St. Helens for something to do. Sue's daughter Rachyl and her husband Tony were at the controls of their Tahoe, and riding passenger with them was her son Denny, his wife Heather and their son Hunter. Suz and I opted for a two-wheeled adventure. It was supposed to be a nice day and we wanted to take advantage of it.

It seemed to take almost forever to finally escape the holds of civilization--To finally put the stoplights and traffic behind us, but it felt good when it finally got to that point. The weather was cool and overcast still, but it was good to be out on the bike nevertheless. We headed south out of Puyallup, continuing down through Eatonville and on to Morton. When we made a "butt stop" there in downtown Morton the weather was looking good. The sun was coming out and it was getting warm. We hooked a left on Highway 12 and continued on to the town of Randle, at which point we turned south. That's when the trip really got nice. Traffic was thin and the sights were many, even though at that point it was mostly farmland. There were closures in effect from recent weather-related events of the past that put us onto an alternate path. Lucky that Rachyl had a good map from the web printed out because we never would have found our way. The road we ended up on was a paved, single-lane road that meandered through the dark woods, intersecting with a river here and there. It's roads like that that make you appreciate riding on a motorcycle. We had the sweet smell of pine needles constantly tickling our noses as we rode, and had the benefit of a 360-degree view. When the road finally intersected with the little highway again we started the curving climb that eventually was to have taken us to a lookout area called Windy Ridge. Unfortunately it was closed a few miles in, still afforded us good shots of the mountain. Here's one (click it):


The ride took us on a loop that went south around the mountain, through the town of Cougar and down along the Swift Reservoir where the road finally intersected with I-5 once again at the town of Woodland. There's a decent little online map you can check out here if you want. While in Cougar we all sat down and enjoyed a leisurely lunch. It was funny that the digital age still hadn't touched the only gas station in town. Their gas pumps were the old analog kind, and they had a notice on the gas pumps explaining that because their pumps wouldn't go any higher than $4 a gallon the actual price would be automatically doubled when you went inside to pay. We said goodbye to out travel partners in the SUV at that point because Suzie and I were planning a stop in Chehalis where I could introduce her to Melinda and Danny.

After a butt-numbing ride up Interstate-5, we arrived there about an hour before the sun finally dropped. We wandered around their farm for a while and had fun taking pictures of all her critters. Their farm has recently gone the direction of miniature donkeys and we loved them. I'm not sure how many she had (old guy--Bad memory) but I think they have 7 of them. They are the most friendly little things! Add to that the chickens, horse, dog, kittycats and who-knows-what-all, and it's a pretty cool place to visit. We had a great time there and would have loved to have stayed longer. They loved Sue and she felt the same way about them.

Our trip back home was in the dark, but fortunately wasn't all that cold. It was actually a pleasant ride--Albeit the previously-described boring freeway riding. We were however blessed with the cool sight of a full moon rising over the horizon on our right. It was so big and so yellow it looked like a slightly-distorted egg yolk or something. It was very cool!

There will be pictures of our trip posted on our picture site soon. Keep checking it!