Monday, Aug 20, 2007
By Serena Beck
Colin and I enjoyed a nice American continental breakfast of white chunky gravy and biscuits at 7:00 AM at the Best Western. As if, we ate waffles and cereal. We were on the rainy roads at 7:30 AM. It started pouring as soon as we got up. We rode for two hours until the thousands of icicle rain drops prodded into our bones and our stomach's growled.
At 9:30 AM we stopped at Kristall's in Leavenworth for a second breakfast. I had peach pie and ice cream (oh so bad, but I'm on vacation) and Colin had sausage and eggs. When we went back outside, the rain had passed, but it was still cold and I snapped my glass frames when I put them back on inside my helmet, so it was another long day of contacts for me. Leavenworth was a neat town. The buildings are all old and facny looking like in Jasper. Safeway doesn't look like our Safeway. As we were leaving town, I saw some tourists petting a suicidal mountain goat who was walking on the ledge of a bridge on the other side of the guard rail.
We enjoyed Interstate 2 in the U.S. I took tons of pictures of Tumwater Canyon and the neat mountains we wound our way through.
We stopped in the town of Wilbur at Babe's for lunch and enjoyed southwest chicken pannis and chips. I had a gunpowder green tea and I bought a duck magnet. The coffeshop/lunch place/store even had an entire wall of Red Hat Society items for sale. It was the offical Red Hat Xing in town.
We stopped in Davenport to go to the bank in search of the U.S. state quarters. Instead we found the new American loonies (sorry, "American one dollar coin") for my Dad and cousins who collect coins. One thing I noticed in the U.S. is that the smaller the town the more antique stores they have. In these towns it is also legal to hitchhike too.
Spokane had lots of cool old looking churches and we toured Victoria Secret for my favorite undies (pretty much the only thing that I could buy and fit on the bike).
We stopped in Idaho somewhere in some small town and ate dinner at the Boondox Pub. We had good burgers and thick Red Robin fries. It was surprisingly good for a run down bar that allowed smoking. Yes, that right the only restaurant we ate in where you could smoke right at the table. I was scared my motorcycle jacket would smell like smoke for days.
American Quirks (warning this section contains opinionated content)- We rode through Idaho and I witnessed bad grammar on the road construction signs "Motorcycles use extreme caution." I think they meant "motorcyclist" you know the person in control of the motorcycle unless of course motorcycles are transformers that drive themselves.
- I also saw road signs that said "If you litter it will hurt." I think what they meant was that you will be fined. However, with all the litter I saw it seems that people made this rule and no one follows it. This is also why they have the adopt a highway program. Jesus Christ or perhaps they meant the Church of Jesus Christ has adopted a lot of these interstates (oops they are not highways in the U.S.). I think a more effective approach would be that if people are caught littering a herd of game (the signs say Game on the road instead of Wildlife) comes and beats them in their car.
- Numerous people also told us "Y'all be careful out there now." I know motorcycles can be dangerous, but I wondered if they were getting at something else. Why should we be so careful, do Americans mistake motorcyclists for Game or terrorists? Are we at risk of being shot?
Well that's enough ranting. Today was our longest leg at 700 KMs and 12 hours of riding. It was scary crossing the border at dusk because there were many "game" on the road. A deer darted in front of us by a few feet. Thankfully there was no line up to come back into Canada's arms. We stayed at the Crestion, B.C. motel and enjoyed blizzards and watched the Disney Pixar movie Cars for free.
