You meet the nicest people on a motorcycle

June 4.

This is getting to be an old story.  I woke up again this morning to rain and cold.  Full-face and rainsuit; 3 days in a row.  Enough said.

I went back into Winthrop to gas up and get some breakfast in a nice little family run restaurant.  I love places like that.

As I walked in the restaurant, set my helmet down and began stripping off raingear, a couple in the restaurant instantly struck up a conversation with me.  Motorcycling is funny like that.  Other bikers will immediately befriend you.

I learned this couple left their bike at home this trip (because of the rain - go figure) and came to Winthrop by car.  They were from Bellingham, WA.  I shared that I had been to Bellingham once, to visit the aluminum smelter Intalco (or at least that's what it used to be called).  Small world; the guy was a retired ingot caster operator from Intalco.  To make the world even smaller, he had travelled to Burlington once before to witness the factory test of their new ingot caster they bought from Aisco – the very place I used to work.  Life’s funny like that sometimes!

After breakfast I set off on highway 20, to start to make my way towards I5 and Seattle.  The ultimate goal was to make it to the coast today on highway 101.

As I travelled along highway 20, there were some nice roads but it was getting progressively colder as the road climbed to 5477ft at Washington pass in the North Cascades.  As I approached the summit, it was raining and downright frigid.  The roads were “clear” but there was an incredible amount of snow everywhere else.  The snow here even dwarfed what I saw in BC two days ago on Rogers pass.  (I later learned this road is usually closed in the winter, and only opened back up two weeks ago!)

 Love those warm summer rides (!#?@)

Thankfully things warmed up a bit when a came down the other side of the mountain.

About 150km into my ride I stopped at a small organic “restaurant” (?) in the middle of nowhere and had an absolutely fantastic cappuccino.  I also met a couple on their BMW riding the area as they were thinking about relocating to the Pacific Northwest.  He was German, she Ukrainian but now living in New Jersey.  Again, a great conversation happened, just because we both rode motorcycles.

 Eventually I made my way over to Interstate 5 and headed south towards Seattle.  Even with the poor weather of the last few days, the roads have been great.  I was loathed to ride an interstate.  It's like eating McDonalds in Paris.  But unfortunately it was my only way to get where I was going.  If there is a positive to be found riding the interstate, it's motorcycles are permitted to use the HOV lanes in the US.  I was able to reasonably move through Seattle and Tacoma at rush hour.

 Seattle's Space Needle in the Distance

A little further down the interstate, the Boeing plant is clearly visible from I5.  The engineer in me had to stop and take a few pictures.

I then saw there is a flight museum on the Boeing property.  It was late in the day but decided it was a good idea to go and check it out.  Unfortunately the place was closing shortly after I got there so I wasn't able to go through.  I did manage to get a few "free" pictures at the entrance area though.

They also have several airplanes outside the museum.  Quite impressive and would definitely be worth stopping at if you have the chance, and earlier in the day!

After leaving the museum I pressed on trying to make it to the coast on highway 101.  By about 6:30 I had another hour to go, and needed to stop for gas.  

There was a warm motel attached to the Chevron and rooms were $59.  A Mexican restaurant down was the street as well as a laundromat.

Screw camping tonight.