Deer Lodge MT to Olympia, WA
May 23, 2005
598 Miles
After
the lecture, Garrett and I crashed out for a few hours. When we awoke the
rain had stopped, but it was either at or just below freezing. There was a
layer of ICE on both of the bikes. I really don't know if I lost a camera
or not, but I would have sworn I got pictures of us after this shot. Here
Garrett is loading up and scraping the ice off the bike.
We rolled about a mile up the road and stopped at a local gas station and diner. At the gas station we bought the road warrior's true friend, a box of garbage bags. I already had duct tape, so we were set. During breakfast, I am told I was my usual charming self - basically Garrett told me to shut up before we both ended up shot. We finished breakfast without incident and then effectively covered ourselves in the garbage bags. I had one over each foot, one over my torso and one covering each hand. We knew the bags wouldn't last long, and we couldn't walk around with them on for the most obvious of reasons, but if they could last at least a tank of gas we'd be 150 miles away, a couple hours down the road, and hopefully 30 degrees or so warmer than we were right now.
We looked like idiots.
Still, we were warm enough to be functional for a tank of gas.
There are no other pictures from this day until we met Bill in Olympia Washington. The reason for that is simple - we FLEW from Deer Lodge to Coeur D'Alene. Then we limped from Spokane to around Ellersburg, then we RIPPED from Ellersburg to Olympia. I am not telling fish stories when I say we were making serious time through the mountains. It was simply glorious. Taking a turn leaned over far enough to drag a knee through a mountain pass is just incredible. I don't want to exaggerate here and I don't want this information to come back to haunt me later . . . at the same time I will say that we took corners through the mountains at above highway speeds had NO chicken strip to speak of. Want to know exact details of HOW fast we were going - email me.
We did have a funny moment around Kellog,
ID. We stopped for gas and this hippie pulls up in some POS Japanese wagon
belching fumes and
leaving a trail of rust and oil behind it. When he gets out of his car I
notice he has a banner over his cracked side window with
"BUSH IS SATAN!!"
written on it. I looked him dead in the
eye and said the following:
Scott: "You're right - Bush is Satan"
Hippee: "right on"
Scott: "HAIL SATAN" (making the "hook'em horns" symbol - see right)
Hippee: "?!???"
Garrett: "'Don't do that - you'll just confuse him, he's probably one of those 'all life is sacred, let's hug away all our problems' kinda guys"
Hippee: "!?!???"
I mean, what an idiot - right? First off, people who support Bush aren't going to stop supporting him because some unwashed midget Wookie says he is the devil. Furthermore, people who worship the devil probably voted for Kerry anyways. The inanity of the anti-Bush crowd just amazes me. Here is the thing, just because you don't agree with someone doesn't make them 'satan.' Even when I didn't agree with Clinton, I never thought he was an agent of the devil, he was just taking things in a direction I didn't agree with. Now, to some extent (at least 51%) I agree with Bush. Where I don't agree would have to be his fairly intense religious slant. Even though I disagree with him on that set of issues, I don't think he's the devil (mainly, because I don't believe in the devil to begin with). I think these people are idiots and the more they screech and scream their point of view the more alienated they become from the mainstream, and frankly the more power Bush and the Republicans get. Nothing sells the idea of becoming Republican quite the way a hairy, unwashed, anti-American, ranting, psychotic, socialist Democrat does. It saddens me a little, because I think that there are valid issues and valid points to be made - but instead it has become a screaming match and most Americans are turned off by it, I know I am.
Just West of where I90 intersects with I82 we met up with a guy in a flashy Porsche. He kept the rest of the ride interesting, if for no other reason than to have someone to play with in traffic. He'd dart ahead, we'd catch up. We actually blew by him a couple of times and the slowed back down to let him get close again so we could enjoy the road together. You have to be careful though, not to let it become competitive or devolve into Road Rage. Road Rage is nasty, if you can keep it fun and if the other person can keep it fun and not a contest it is much better. As soon as someone starts showing signs of aggression or frustration it is time to cool it off.
Garrett did some very impressive riding on his BMW R1150r. He was very used to the bike by this time and was pitching it deep enough into corners to earn some well deserved respect. The running joke was that we would need to put knee sliders on his side bags because he was deep enough in the corners to legitimately drag parts.
Once we got to Seattle we stopped in the Hooters to meet some friends and grab a bite. I was in a ROTTEN mood - and was not in a mindset that was amenable to female companionship. I think I snarled my order through gritted teeth at our waitress. I was tired, sore, grumpy and just wanted to unload, take a shower and relax. It is weird how the mind works . . a day prior I was total zen, the day before that I was all energy and excitement. Right now, I was less than a tank of gas from my final stop and ALL I could think about was "get this over with . . "
Here is the bizarre part . . Garrett and I rode from Deer Lodge MT to Olympia Washington. We hadn't spoken to Bill in something like 3 days. We hadn't planned on when we'd all meet up . . and we rolled into the hotel parking lot at exactly the same time . . exactly.