not wet

Today was a glorious winter day. It was above 50 degrees the entire day and not a drop of rain. We had some fog (which effectively sticks to your face shield) but it really wasn't too bad. We we left washington and are now in Tillamook, OR. And yes, we visited the cheese factory.

For Lunch, we found a Lao restaurant in Raymond, WA and I was got to speak Thai with the owner (who fortunately spoke thai).

For dinner, we walked around town for a while looking for a place to eat, but decided that American food for dinner was not what we wanted so we went to the grocery store and bought some ingredients for a yummy meal. FIred up the Optimus stove which worked perfectly and made some tortellinis with garbanzos and broccoli. Yummy. A great end to a great day.

As far as how we are feeling, it was nice to have a good day of riding. It feels good to sink into the rhythm of the bike and the curves of highway 101. I still feel like we brought too much stuff, but we'll pair down in Ventura when we stop there for a couple of days to work on the bikes and prepare to leave the states.

Tomorrow is supposed to be good weather and hopefully we can make it into California from here.




View Larger Map

wet

The forecast didn't look too bad. chance of rain or so... but that was when we read it yesterday.

View Larger Map

So the morning went like this. Wake up. Blog a bit at Leah and Ian's house. Have some breakfast. Hang out. And then it was suddenly 1:30!

Oops.

So we loaded up the girls (as they are now called- mine is Irmtraube and Megan's is Gigi Cavaliero) and were on the road by 2. Not exactly an alpine start. Not even a crack of noon start, but we felt we needed to put a few miles on. The goal was Raymond or Aberdeen or something near the coast.

We made it to Shelton. Merely 60 miles or so.

So why did we stop so soon. Well, the rain really started coming down. It rained about 1/2 inch in the last hour here. And it was cold. Around 44 degrees fahrenheit. And since we got such a late start it was starting to get dark. We didn't want to drive in these conditions with it getting dark.

So here I am in Shelton, WA at a cute little bookstore/ coffee shop trying to warm up.

Not such a successful day distance wise, but we are on the road and we had a good time hanging out with friends.

So close yet so far away

In an effort to title all my blog posts with cliches, I thought so close yet so far away seemed appropriate for this morning.

After an "epic 10 mile ride" through bainbridge Island (the locals are not very polite here), our trusty Zumo 550 pulled us straight to the garage of our good friends Ian, Leah, and their new baby, Chiara.

After some 2 million years, Leah has finally finished her medical schooling and got a job as an interventional radiologist in Bremerton. At the same time, they popped out a little girl which meant that Ian had to stop being a full time landscape architect (of which he was all too happy to oblige) and move on out to a gorgeous old two story square house right on the water.

They invited us to come check out their place and as a first destination, this seemed perfect. It is about 1 hour out our place in Seattle (including a ferry ride) so we could leave late and still get here with plenty of time. No pressure to get up early and make miles between seattle and the next stop.

With expectations of leaving Seattle at 3, stopping off at Touratech to say goodbye the guys over there (they hooked us up with some gear and plugged us into a great community of adventure riders) and catch a afternoon ferry. Reality set in when we were frantically cleaning our condo at 3 trying so hard to get it into shape for our friends Forrest, Nuria, and Sofia to move into. 5:00 came and went and there was no going to Touratech. But we did leave at 7:00 or so and got out here around 8:00.

And so with some ungodly amount of miles ahead of us, we spent a great evening with some good friends. I even held a baby for what seems like the first time. It isn't as easy as a lot of people make it look. I mean, what if I drop her?

One day at a time

We finally managed it. Yesterday at 7:08 pm we pulled out of our garage in Ballard, bikes fully loaded and proceeded to do what we will be doing a lot of in the next 6 months. We went to the gas station and filled up our bikes.

There is a strange giddy calmness that overtakes me when I am about to do something new. A lot of things passed through my mind as we went up the ramp and out of our garage.
"The Bike is heavy"
"We are going to do this for 6 months?"
"My ass is going to hurt"
"The bike really is heavy"
"What have we just gotten ourselves into?"
"Do we have the skills to actually make this happen?"
"Everything will be easy until california"
"I can't imagine doing technical riding with a bike this heavy"
"I'll get used to it"
"We just have to make it poulsbo tonight"
"I'm so freakin' excited to be doing this with bubbs (aka Megan)"

And then we pulled out into traffic and we were off.

Air Rifling

On my quest to try as many new things as possible, I accepted an invitation from my friend Andre to join him at a Benchrest Air Rifle Competition this past Saturday. I had shot one time in his backyard (air rifles are cool that way) and thought it was very intriguing. It takes a lot of skill to hold the rifle steady as you launch a little lime seed sized lead pellet to a very small (1 inch inch diameter) target 20 yards away using only air as the propellent.
How could I turn down an offer to go to an indoor firing range way out in the middle of the woods about an hour south of seattle and look into this very small but specialized subculture.

There were a couple of small kids, a couple of guys my age, and a lot of 60 year old geeky air rifle enthusiasts. All very nice people.

This sport is all about the gear. I over heard the classic letter and number dominated conversations that went on for ever. "You shooting a 300 with 22 on an R11 at 20?" "Yeah, I like the 75 K100 with the 26 much better" (or something like that). Interesting how all hobbies like this have their lingo. I think of motorcycle lingo with all the brands and models and parts or of climbing lingo with weird words like bomber and jengus and manky that once you are indoctrinated into the culture, it all makes perfect sense. But as an outsider sounds completely like a bunch of techno gibberish.

It was a fun day doing something I had never done. I have to say that air rifling is pretty cool. Something about hitting a bullseye 2mm across at 20 meters away with a pellet smaller than a pea using only air that is satisfying. There are guys at this competition who can do it 98 out of a hundred times in a row. Impressive.
More photos at this flickr site