tuesday

Excellent riding this weekend. Not too much traffic (plenty on Sunday afternoon, but all going the other way), very few intentional blockers and more than the usual amount of moving to the right to let me get on with enjoying the twisties. Once the Interstate portion (a nice two hour warmup) was out of the way, it got good.

I rode to Waterville, just because the 15 miles or so of US2 right before you get there is so good. Lots of elevation change, good pavement, not too much gravel (eyes open) and then I turned around and went back, because after Waterville it's as straight as a ruler for sixty miles. I couldn't decide whether to ride up the Methow (MET-oh) valley (SR 153) or over Loup-Loup pass (US 20)...so I did both. The result was that I got to ride up the Methow valley twice. So many deer! Warning signs everywhere. Apparently they're lurking in wait for travelers and then one of them throws itself onto the road in an attempt to crash the vehicle. It's said that the remaining deer first eat the dead and then toy with the survivors, sometimes for days, before eating them as well.*

(I thought) I was lucky to find a place to pitch my tent at 8:30 on a June Saturday night, when I got to Winthrop the last Vacancy sign was 20 miles behind me and the nearest State Park was Pearrygin Lake, very popular with the "this little seventeen-inch TV is roughing it...help me with the tripod for the satellite dish" people. They are good people, I'm sure...decent, honest, hard-working families who make up the bulk of our population, but that isn't camping.
I found an empty spot (on the $19 side, the $13 ones are not on the lake, and were full) and parked, unbungeed my gear and pitched my tent. The Mom of the family in the next site said "Hi." I opened the 22oz. Arrogant Bastard ale I bought in Carlton and wrote some notes on the day. Beautiful sunset, smooth, grassy pitch for the tent...it turns out that the stick with 153 on it that I parked and pitched my tent by (and paid $20 for) was for that site over there, and this is part of the site on the other side. The soft chewy center of this story is that the Park Lady (there's always a Park Lady, you just don't always see her) gave me back my $20, now in tens for some reason, and I poached a (unused) corner of a giant family jamboree (roughly 300 children on tiny bmx bikes saying "Woo" and "Aaaa", and things of that nature) with three trailers and about six tents spread over four sites. I've become an unintentional squatter. There's no extra vehicle charge for bikes, but if the jamboree people want a little green for my spot I'm cool with that. They didn't ask, I didn't offer. All good.

Sunday by 9:30a the RVs were far behind and I was well into the run up to Washington Pass (5477') and Rainy Pass (4855') which are about four or five miles apart. I got some gas in Mazama (which did not cost nearly as much as they could be charging) and on into the very cold mountains. Before noon on a Sunday, the road was all but empty, I didn't even encounter any bikes until I was almost at the top. Lots of them later in the day, though. Going both directions. I was never overtaken by a herd of squids, but they would go zooming by (six or eight of 'em at a time) every time I stopped for a picture or to add or remove a layer.

Blogger doesn't seem to want to add any more pictures right now, so...

To Be Continued.


* RIP Larry Grodsky, you will be missed. Eyes open, people, no joke.