The Pacific Northwest

Wow! I made it to Seattle! I’ve made it on my bike to the West Coast! I make a call home, to let Mom know that I’m just down US-20 from her house (only 2,500 miles away).

 

Deb welcomes me to his home, and we ride around various parts of Seattle. This is a very scenic city, with a very interesting mix of both young and old. This is known as the center of the punk rock movement, and many youth can be found wandering the streets. While most have jobs, many are runaways, and live on the streets. Still, there is a young energy that fuels this city. Mount Ranier is over 80 miles from this city, but it is a large part of the horizon. It looks as if it were 10 miles away, but it is well over an hour away.

Deb takes me to the Seattle Space Needle. I usually try to avoid purely tourist sights, but there is no way I can pass up an opportunity to get a picture of Waldo in a famous place. After all, it is just a few weeks before Waldo is reunited with Mark, and we have to create a photo album of the plastic turtle’s adventures. So, it gave me a reason to go up in the Space Needle (they didn’t charge extra to take Waldo). The view is spectacular.

I contact a biker friend, Bill, in Vancouver, and ride to Canada to visit for the weekend. It was a sunny day when I left Seattle, but just a few feet inside the border of Canada, the sky dumps rain. The last hour of my trip is spent in the rain, but it is August, so at least this is warm.

Bill points me towards some of the scenic areas, and I work my way to a marketplace along the water, with a great view of this major city. As it turns out, Bill is having a party, so it is a great opportunity to meet his friends. I certainly adds to the fun in this city. Several of his friends also ride, and it turns out that many of my friends from Sturgis also have connections to the riders in Vancouver. Small world. Very small world.

I head back to Seattle, then head south through Tacoma on the interstate. I see signs for Mount Saint Helens and decide to camp there for the night. As I pull into the campground, I find a rather isolated site away from the campers and RV’s. Just as I am unloading the bike, a young boy on a bicycle rides up to me, and says “I like your bike!”. Smiling, I reply, “Thanks! I like yours, too!” He looks totally confused. He gets off his bike and walks over to talk. His name is Stephen, and his family is from Canada, on vacation in the northwestern U.S. He’s really excited about seeing the volcano at Mount Saint Helens, and getting himself a lava rock. I don’t tell him that there is no active lava there. Stephen’s older brother comes by to find his brother, and apologizes that his brother is bothering me. It’s not a problem, but I need to go find dinner, too.

I find a diner in town. It’s just a few moments after I return to the campground when Stephen shows up again. This time he has a box full of toys and rocks that he’s picked up on their vacation. His dad walks over, again, apologizing for his son’s enthusiasm, and invites me back to their campsite.

They have a nice fire going, and I get warm as we get acquainted. They are from the town of Nelson, British Columbia. It sounds like a beautiful town, nestled in the Canadian Rockies. Dad is a fireman, and Mom works at a restaurant. They’ve had a great vacation down the coast, and are heading home. I share some of my stories, and we drink lots of beer around the fire. Dad finds an extra fireman’s shirt for me. It was a very fun night. I really enjoy meeting new people, and this was certainly a fun night. Eventually, I head back to my tent and get some sleep.

Morning comes all too soon, and I’m packing up camp as Stephen comes by to invite me to breakfast. Wow. Canadians are certainly friendly! I’m grateful for a good meal, and we get pictures to remember the experience.

I ride up Mount Saint Helens. It is a fun ride up the mountain, and it is a weekday, so there aren’t many cars or RVs on the winding road. It’s amazing to see what remained of the devastation from the eruption in 1980, just twenty years earlier. There are sections of forest that are completely flattened, and there is a clear line showing the carnage. Much of this damage was simply from the heavy layers of hot lava ash, several feet deep. Near the blast zone, the black lava rock was clearly visible. I remember hearing some scientist talking about how nothing would ever grow where the lava burned the ground. Even then, it seemed like an odd statement for him to make, since most of the west coast was formed by the same volcanos, and it is in lumber territory. As I expected, there was a layer of grass and shrubs working through cracks in the lava rock. Comparing this completely new terrain, to the new growth at Yellowstone after the wildfires, and the active wildfire we saw in Montana, it was really fascinating to see the cycle of nature in action. As the rock cools, cracks form. Seeds fill the cracks. As the seeds grow, the roots create additional cracks in the rock. As the cracks get bigger, the chunks of rock are broken down. As the plants eventually die, they decompose and feed larger plants with more powerful roots. Eventually, over many dozens of years, it is difficult to identify the difference between the old forest and the new.

A park ranger presents the story of the Mount Saint Helens eruption. The photos show how the entire side of the mountain grew and bulged out, eventually exploding into the blast that threw massive rocks miles away. The amazing amount of force is beyond comprehension.

I ride down to Portland, Oregon, and spend the night. This city has a great reputation, but after the week in Seattle and Vancouver, I am anxious to get to the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). It surprises me that Portland is not on the Pacific Ocean (being that it is a port), but it’s a harbor protected from the weather and the ocean currents, which has advantages for loading cargo ships.

Huge waves crash against the rocky shoreline of the Oregon coast. This is very different from the gentle shoreline found on most of the east coast. I remember hearing that most of the Oregon coastline is state park, so there are only a few areas where towns were grandfathered in.

It’s not unusual to see lumber trucks on the PCH, and I am stuck behind one for quite awhile. There is another biker, as well, also loaded with camping gear. We both stop for gas and do introductions. He’s Bill (as I remember) from Boulder, Colorado, and is taking the long route to Burning Man, in Nevada. Being that it’s getting late, we decide to ride together and find a campground.

Since the coastline is mostly state park, there are plenty of campgrounds. We set up our tents, ride for food, then enjoy conversation around the small campfire.

Between the lumber trucks and traffic, it is rather slow progress down the coast. We stop to see sea lions relaxing on the rocks. As it gets later in the day, we start looking for a campground. Since we’re getting closer to California, and it is a Friday, there are more people trying to camp, so we see a few signs indicating the the campgrounds are full. We finally find one that indicates availability, and find our way to the registration area. It turns out they just filled their last opening, and the other worker was going to change the sign. The next possible campground is many miles down the road, and it is unlikely that they would still have availability, so the campground manager decides to let us camp in the group camping area. This works out nicely, since it is an isolated area, and we’ll be the only ones there. We surveyed all of the sites and picked one that would be sheltered from the cold, damp, wind. We build a fire, and we enjoy another good conversation around the fire.

The next morning, we wake up to a thick, soupy, fog. Our tents are damp, and it takes awhile to get our bearings to head back to the highway. Eventually, the sun breaks through the fog, and it turns out to be a sunny, brisk day for riding. We stop at a small beach for a break. We pass through the town of Waldburg, and decide that it is a perfect stop to get a photo of Waldo, the plastic turtle.

In the late afternoon, just after we enter California, Bill decides that it is time for him to start heading east, while I will be continuing south. We say goodbye, and I head to the small college town of Arcata. There are plenty of interesting little restaurants, and I enjoy a real meal for the first time in days.

I got an early start on Sunday morning, and road into the Humbolt Redwood State Park. There aren’t many other people in the early morning, and it is incredibly peaceful. These trees are massive. I park the bike at the base of one, and walk back so I can get a picture of the incredibly tall tree. As I take the picture, I realize that I can’t even see the bike at the base of the tree. I zoom in and get a picture of the bike and the trunk of the tree, just to prove the bike was really there. This is the park where they have hollowed trees you can drive your car through. Since the park is empty, there is no one to take my picture, so I continue on my way.

At this point, the PCH is quite a distance inland. To get back to the coast, the highway turns west, into the mountains. There are many tight curves as the road climbs the mountains. A sports car is following far too close for my comfort, so I pull off to let them pass. It is something I have noticed as I travel west: there are turnout’s every mile or so, to let slower vehicles pull off so others can pass. There aren’t many of these in the Appalachians, and I really appreciate them when travelling in the Black Hills, and other western mountains.

The road descends to the coast. This isn’t Oregon. Every place where you can see the Pacific Ocean, there is a building blocking the vista. It gets to a point where it becomes really annoying, and I begin to miss the state parks up north.

Finally, I make it to my turnoff to Boonville, to the home of friends I met once in Sturgis, David and John. They have a beautiful mountain home in the redwoods, and close to vineyards and wine country. I arrive just in time for dinner, and to see them off. They are going to deliver Paul and Mike’s bikes to San Francisco, and pick them up at the airport. They give me full reign of the house for a day. Wow. What a cool change from camping and motels. A house!

After an incredibly peaceful night’s sleep, I wake up in the redwoods. It was very exciting, actually, having practically nothing to do during the day. I gave the bike a much needed bath, then rode over the mountains to the city of Ukiah, for lunch and gas. Then I spend a couple of hours printing a photo album of pictures of the plastic turtle, Waldo. I will be seeing Mark, the ‘owner’ of the turtle, in just a few days.

I ride down to San Francisco to meet up with Mike and Paul. We ride around the city. Only in California, they allow lane-splitting, which allows motorcycles to ride down the line between lanes of slower traffic going the same direction. This applies to highways and multi-lane city streets. This makes it very easy to ride in this city, since most every intersection has traffic lights, the bikes can just filter up to the front, and have a clear shot when the light changes. Very useful in rush hour traffic. Makes it worth having a bike in California. We get across the city in just a few minutes.

Next: The Pacific Southwest