And about time. I know, I know. I've been having computer problems. Lack of Internet connectivity, to be specific. My bloody phone connects ok, so why doesn't my laptop? Who knows?
The story so far. Finally the container full of bikes arrived in the freight depot yard in suburban Seattle, after what seemed like forever. There it sat, waiting patiently for me. My trusty vehicle had not been lost at sea after all. I reconnected the battery, fired it up, and.......cough, splutter, nothing. Well, that was a disappointing anticlimax. Five or six long bursts on the starter, nothing. This failure on the launch pad had not escaped the attention of my fellow travellers, and I could hear muttering and chuckling from all the non Teutonicically inclined owners. All sorts of thoughts from cold logic to blind panic ran through my head. One more try, before I really start to get pissed off, and do a Basil Fawlty with the nearest tree branch. Varoom, and a cloud of black/grey smoke filled the substantial sized shed, to the annoyance of absolutely everybody. Nobody else had the slightest bit of trouble starting their bikes. I'm warning you, BMW, no more crap from you or else I vote with my wallet as soon as I get home.
Pretty soon it was back to the motel. About all of 2km worth of riding on the right hand side and I was a nervous wreck already. Get a grip, Mike. Repacking took a while, then it was away next morning, on last Thursday morning. One of the other guys, Gordon from Sydney on his Triumph Tiger, and I had decided to leave together, and would go our separate ways when we were well north of Seattle on the I-5. From the motel, we had an easy entry to the I-405 N, and had hoped for an easy run after waiting for the worst of the morning rush to die down. Even so, it was actually fairly congested, and took us a long while to get out. Probably a good move to get straight onto the Interstates, at least all the traffic was going in the same direction, but we still had some weaving to do to accommodate all the vehicles entering & exiting the freeway. I turned east a little later, heading for the Cascades National Park, while Gordon headed north on his way to Alaska. OK, I think I've got it now. Whew.
A very pleasant ride followed, through the Park, and then across to Oroville, where I stopped for the night. I had stopped here in 2012, and so I used the same motel I used on my last trip. I even had the exact same room, spooky or what? Next morning I crossed the border into Canada at Osoyoos. After asking me the usual irrelevant questions, the nice lady Border Guard clocked the SA plates and asked how come my bike had South African numberplates? Do I look like a Zulu? Some people should get out more.
Ok, here's where it gets really interesting. I had booked accommodation via Air BNB at a log cabin in the woods near Gray Creek, BC, on a property run by a hippie looking chick. All on the strength of some photos on the net. On the way, I arrived at the outskirts of some tiny hamlet, and all traffic had stopped. It was Canada Day you see, and there was a parade going on in the main street. This is where they drive every vehicle with a flashing light on it down the street all at the same time. Some folks really are starved of entertainment. But the Mounties were there too, looking very dashing in their red tunics and lemon squeezer hats, plus the Sherriff and various others on horseback, all carrying lances with flags on them.This was just finishing as I joined the back of the queue of stopped traffic, so I didn't have to wait long. But guess what? Where there's horses, there's horse shit. Lots of it. And the cars in front of me had just spread the neat piles of it all out across the pavement. It was something to behold as I rode through the lot of it, and slippery. Not to mention the stench. I actually left tyre tread marks in the stuff! I expect it will wash off the bike in the rain sometime before I get back to Seattle.
Shortly thereafter, I stopped for coffee at a very nice looking town called Nelson. Little did I know I had stumbled right into Canada's version of Nimbin. And the first coffee shop I saw was full of freaks. Only I didn't notice that till I was inside, such was my urgent need for a caffeine fix. Everything in the place was organic. Dreadlocks, bare feet, exposed shrapnel, lack of soap, you get the idea. Oh well, live and let live. So I went outside to drink it. Then along comes a group of five tribespeople who sit down at the next table. Right then, one of them goes into a spasm of some kind, arms above her head, eyes closed, chanting some gibberish as if speaking in tongues or possessed by Satan, or whatever. Her eager young disciples transfixed on her every gesture and utterance. Two feet from where I'm trying to enjoy some serenity. I stared at them in some disbelief. A few feet away, on the other side of me, a couple of bikers were getting back on their Harleys. The lady biker and I locked eyes. Her lips flattened slightly into a wry smile, and one of her eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. No words were spoken. No words were necessary. Now that's what I call communication. As they left, for the next 30 seconds nothing but the earsplitting sound of four Harley exhausts could be heard, and for once I was glad of it. For once.
Still, we were all young once. I well remember living in a car for two weeks with two other (now reasonably respectable) guys as we went to the Aquarius Arts Festival in Canberra in 1971. I know what it's like to drink beer all day and all night long, to take illicit substances, not to wash, to have long scraggly hair and to live in the same clothes for two weeks. It sucks!! And I am amused by the very notion that after some 3000 years of human progress through evidence based logic, that somehow the mystic healing properties of rocks, for example, have been completely overlooked by mainstream science.
Anyway, I found the hippie ranch, and had a log cabin all to myself. Not bad, but you soon realise the reasons that the table, chair and fridge were all invented. Not to worry, I was here to ride. The track up to the cabin was a fair test for the GS, as it happens, glad it wasn't wet. Yesterday, I headed up to Nakusp, one of the venues for the Canadian Horizons Unlimited rallys. I knew it would be good, and I wasn't disappointed. Between Kaslo and Nakusp lie 100km of truly awesome bike road. I had perfect weather, very little traffic, no cops (that I know of, yet), and tarmac as smooth as a baby's bum, for the most part. Only a few tight corners, but mainly beautiful, long sweeping curves that really suit big lazy cruiser engines like Harleys etc. And it wasn't too shabby on the GS either. A quick feed at Nakusp, and then I went and did it all over again, in the opposite direction. It was about as good as biking ever gets. And I only just got here. Allright!
Right now I'm in Libby, Montana. I had a short run to the border this morning. Another nice twisty lakeside road, then on to a fairly remote Border Station at Porthill, Idaho. Only one car in front of me, and it seemed to take longer than I expected for a car with Idaho plates to get through. He must be getting a grilling, I thought. I soon found out why. When I pulled up at the window, I was greeted by a square jawed, stony faced prick of a Border Guard. Maybe his cat got run over yesterday, maybe he upset the boss and got sent to Porthill for a year, I don't know, but he wasn't happy to see me. A few terse questions about the bike, like the funny license plates, how much it cost to ship it here, where I landed in the US (ok, that one was fair enough), whether I was carrying alcohol, tobacco or firearms. Hey, there's a whole Federal Agency called the ATF that specialises in all that stuff, why bust my hubs? How much could I fit on a bike anyway? Not like I was driving an eighteen wheel B-double, buddy. No questions about my drivers license, whether I was carrying any insurance, whether I had import clearance, and so on. Not that I'm complaining about it. But I had the full pile of paperwork cued up ready to go, if the subject came up. I suspect having a US Visa instead of an ESTA or whatever stamp helped a lot. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that. Somebody else had done all the checking, so why should he worry about it. That's what I'd do if I was him, probably.
Idaho, or the little part of it I saw this morning, was interesting. Very nice looking countryside. The slogan on the vehicle numberplates says Famous Potatoes. I guess you go with what you've got. I mean what could be lamer than Festival State on ours? I stopped into a picture postcard town called Bonner's Ferry, on the Kootenay River, to get some cash. Everything was closed up for the holiday weekend, being the Fourth of July tomorrow. Lots of roadside stalls selling fireworks. Its going to be big! But the further I went, I started noticing a disturbing trend. I don't wish to jump to any premature conclusions, but there seem to be a hell of a lot of good ole boys around here. Great big ones, and I do mean big. And the guys are worse. This became pretty obvious when I stopped for lunch at a diner in Troy, MT. Lucky the restaurant was on the ground floor, that's all I'm saying. That and the word 'banjo'. Anyway, I'm in a nice little lodge with the Kootenay River right out the front door, and the railroad track out the back. Well, you can't have it all.
For those that are still awake, that's a lot of typing, but it's about brought everybody up to speed. Photos on the next installment. Cheers.
The story so far. Finally the container full of bikes arrived in the freight depot yard in suburban Seattle, after what seemed like forever. There it sat, waiting patiently for me. My trusty vehicle had not been lost at sea after all. I reconnected the battery, fired it up, and.......cough, splutter, nothing. Well, that was a disappointing anticlimax. Five or six long bursts on the starter, nothing. This failure on the launch pad had not escaped the attention of my fellow travellers, and I could hear muttering and chuckling from all the non Teutonicically inclined owners. All sorts of thoughts from cold logic to blind panic ran through my head. One more try, before I really start to get pissed off, and do a Basil Fawlty with the nearest tree branch. Varoom, and a cloud of black/grey smoke filled the substantial sized shed, to the annoyance of absolutely everybody. Nobody else had the slightest bit of trouble starting their bikes. I'm warning you, BMW, no more crap from you or else I vote with my wallet as soon as I get home.
Pretty soon it was back to the motel. About all of 2km worth of riding on the right hand side and I was a nervous wreck already. Get a grip, Mike. Repacking took a while, then it was away next morning, on last Thursday morning. One of the other guys, Gordon from Sydney on his Triumph Tiger, and I had decided to leave together, and would go our separate ways when we were well north of Seattle on the I-5. From the motel, we had an easy entry to the I-405 N, and had hoped for an easy run after waiting for the worst of the morning rush to die down. Even so, it was actually fairly congested, and took us a long while to get out. Probably a good move to get straight onto the Interstates, at least all the traffic was going in the same direction, but we still had some weaving to do to accommodate all the vehicles entering & exiting the freeway. I turned east a little later, heading for the Cascades National Park, while Gordon headed north on his way to Alaska. OK, I think I've got it now. Whew.
A very pleasant ride followed, through the Park, and then across to Oroville, where I stopped for the night. I had stopped here in 2012, and so I used the same motel I used on my last trip. I even had the exact same room, spooky or what? Next morning I crossed the border into Canada at Osoyoos. After asking me the usual irrelevant questions, the nice lady Border Guard clocked the SA plates and asked how come my bike had South African numberplates? Do I look like a Zulu? Some people should get out more.
Ok, here's where it gets really interesting. I had booked accommodation via Air BNB at a log cabin in the woods near Gray Creek, BC, on a property run by a hippie looking chick. All on the strength of some photos on the net. On the way, I arrived at the outskirts of some tiny hamlet, and all traffic had stopped. It was Canada Day you see, and there was a parade going on in the main street. This is where they drive every vehicle with a flashing light on it down the street all at the same time. Some folks really are starved of entertainment. But the Mounties were there too, looking very dashing in their red tunics and lemon squeezer hats, plus the Sherriff and various others on horseback, all carrying lances with flags on them.This was just finishing as I joined the back of the queue of stopped traffic, so I didn't have to wait long. But guess what? Where there's horses, there's horse shit. Lots of it. And the cars in front of me had just spread the neat piles of it all out across the pavement. It was something to behold as I rode through the lot of it, and slippery. Not to mention the stench. I actually left tyre tread marks in the stuff! I expect it will wash off the bike in the rain sometime before I get back to Seattle.
Shortly thereafter, I stopped for coffee at a very nice looking town called Nelson. Little did I know I had stumbled right into Canada's version of Nimbin. And the first coffee shop I saw was full of freaks. Only I didn't notice that till I was inside, such was my urgent need for a caffeine fix. Everything in the place was organic. Dreadlocks, bare feet, exposed shrapnel, lack of soap, you get the idea. Oh well, live and let live. So I went outside to drink it. Then along comes a group of five tribespeople who sit down at the next table. Right then, one of them goes into a spasm of some kind, arms above her head, eyes closed, chanting some gibberish as if speaking in tongues or possessed by Satan, or whatever. Her eager young disciples transfixed on her every gesture and utterance. Two feet from where I'm trying to enjoy some serenity. I stared at them in some disbelief. A few feet away, on the other side of me, a couple of bikers were getting back on their Harleys. The lady biker and I locked eyes. Her lips flattened slightly into a wry smile, and one of her eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. No words were spoken. No words were necessary. Now that's what I call communication. As they left, for the next 30 seconds nothing but the earsplitting sound of four Harley exhausts could be heard, and for once I was glad of it. For once.
Still, we were all young once. I well remember living in a car for two weeks with two other (now reasonably respectable) guys as we went to the Aquarius Arts Festival in Canberra in 1971. I know what it's like to drink beer all day and all night long, to take illicit substances, not to wash, to have long scraggly hair and to live in the same clothes for two weeks. It sucks!! And I am amused by the very notion that after some 3000 years of human progress through evidence based logic, that somehow the mystic healing properties of rocks, for example, have been completely overlooked by mainstream science.
Anyway, I found the hippie ranch, and had a log cabin all to myself. Not bad, but you soon realise the reasons that the table, chair and fridge were all invented. Not to worry, I was here to ride. The track up to the cabin was a fair test for the GS, as it happens, glad it wasn't wet. Yesterday, I headed up to Nakusp, one of the venues for the Canadian Horizons Unlimited rallys. I knew it would be good, and I wasn't disappointed. Between Kaslo and Nakusp lie 100km of truly awesome bike road. I had perfect weather, very little traffic, no cops (that I know of, yet), and tarmac as smooth as a baby's bum, for the most part. Only a few tight corners, but mainly beautiful, long sweeping curves that really suit big lazy cruiser engines like Harleys etc. And it wasn't too shabby on the GS either. A quick feed at Nakusp, and then I went and did it all over again, in the opposite direction. It was about as good as biking ever gets. And I only just got here. Allright!
Right now I'm in Libby, Montana. I had a short run to the border this morning. Another nice twisty lakeside road, then on to a fairly remote Border Station at Porthill, Idaho. Only one car in front of me, and it seemed to take longer than I expected for a car with Idaho plates to get through. He must be getting a grilling, I thought. I soon found out why. When I pulled up at the window, I was greeted by a square jawed, stony faced prick of a Border Guard. Maybe his cat got run over yesterday, maybe he upset the boss and got sent to Porthill for a year, I don't know, but he wasn't happy to see me. A few terse questions about the bike, like the funny license plates, how much it cost to ship it here, where I landed in the US (ok, that one was fair enough), whether I was carrying alcohol, tobacco or firearms. Hey, there's a whole Federal Agency called the ATF that specialises in all that stuff, why bust my hubs? How much could I fit on a bike anyway? Not like I was driving an eighteen wheel B-double, buddy. No questions about my drivers license, whether I was carrying any insurance, whether I had import clearance, and so on. Not that I'm complaining about it. But I had the full pile of paperwork cued up ready to go, if the subject came up. I suspect having a US Visa instead of an ESTA or whatever stamp helped a lot. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that. Somebody else had done all the checking, so why should he worry about it. That's what I'd do if I was him, probably.
Idaho, or the little part of it I saw this morning, was interesting. Very nice looking countryside. The slogan on the vehicle numberplates says Famous Potatoes. I guess you go with what you've got. I mean what could be lamer than Festival State on ours? I stopped into a picture postcard town called Bonner's Ferry, on the Kootenay River, to get some cash. Everything was closed up for the holiday weekend, being the Fourth of July tomorrow. Lots of roadside stalls selling fireworks. Its going to be big! But the further I went, I started noticing a disturbing trend. I don't wish to jump to any premature conclusions, but there seem to be a hell of a lot of good ole boys around here. Great big ones, and I do mean big. And the guys are worse. This became pretty obvious when I stopped for lunch at a diner in Troy, MT. Lucky the restaurant was on the ground floor, that's all I'm saying. That and the word 'banjo'. Anyway, I'm in a nice little lodge with the Kootenay River right out the front door, and the railroad track out the back. Well, you can't have it all.
For those that are still awake, that's a lot of typing, but it's about brought everybody up to speed. Photos on the next installment. Cheers.
2 comments:
well dont argue with him
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