Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Jul 15, 2005

July 11, 12, 13 Washington or bust (1)

Filed in Landmark-Hunting, Motorcycle Road Trips, Ride-In 2005

When I got in touch with D. he suggested that he’d like to join me. I looked at the day - Sunday - and wondered if we could arrange things so that he took Thursday and Friday off work. That left me three days to fill. An email and a call later, I confirmed that I was still welcome up in Washington, so that was decided.

I was to visit Lissyvigeen and Lios, whom I visited last September. Both do a lot of data entry at Markeroni, and they are a snarfing team - Lios drives and Lissyvigeen runs/photographs/logs. She is our #1 snarfer with 503 at the time of writing.

I got straight onto I-5 and headed north. It was just a straight road, a bit of roadworks around Portland, a bit hectic but nothing I hadn’t dealt with a thousand times. Crossing the bridge into Washington (a landmark if I recall correctly) is always exciting, especially as it was my first time going through on a motorcycle.

I stopped at a couple of rest areas, including the one below, where you can see the size of the trees by checking the human below.

Around the Olympia area I ran into rain. :: sigh :: Not just a shower this time, but dangerous, bouncing, spray-splashing, icky rain. Didn’t help that my visor was buggy so wiping at the visor smeared it rather than cleaned it. It was a short and sharp, cheek-stinging affair that left me damp, but coped. No longer am I a rain virgin. (I did my share in the UK, you understand.)

I stayed off the brakes and kept as straight of a line as possible. I did not quite navigate correctly, so Lios came out and guided me in. I spent the evening dressed in an old robe while all my clothes were variously washed and dried. ;-)

Obviously I will have to bribe the cats more.

The blonde beauty we saw earlier is Shakti. The little wide-eyed thing, very shy, is Ariel. The noble one who is also a big lump is Garuda. Shakti is a love bug. Ariel is like Gracie, very very shy. Garuda has limits but is generally a lot mellower than when I was there last year.