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| This is the full Spotwalla view of the trip. Each dot represents a 5 minute interval. You can see same view as this but zoom in for more detail by adjusting the settings on the Spotwalla page. |
Distance traveled: 408.7 km
Cumulative distance: 6,275.6 km
Maximum speed: 116 kph
Moving average: 76 kph
Temperature range: 7.0 - 19.6
Weight: 152 lbs
That is my view of the bike first thing this morning and should give you an idea of what kind of day I had.
Fortunately, I am well prepared for most kinds of weather but I do have good rain gear. As I got ready in the hotel room, as I had anticipated last night, I had warm clothes all laid out: turtle neck shirt, heated jacket liner, rain proof glove covers, tank bag cover, hoodie over my heated jacket, jeans under my riding gear and on top of it all, one piece rain suit. I also have heated hand grips, thanks to the bike's original owner, which is essential when riding in cold weather. Think about where hands are on a motorcycle: holding the handlebars out to the sides, exposed to nature. Hands would be the first things to fall off if riding in cold weather. Not today though because I couldn't turn the heaters off. They have worked fine for the previous 21 days but today, toggle the switch to "low" and they were getting pretty warm. Toggle to "off" or "high" and they were really hot. Not sure why they picked today to fail; I had replaced the switch days before departure for this trip and it had been good. The only difference today was that the bike sat outside in the rain all night. Generally I throw a cover over the seat at night, which also covers the electronic business on the bike but I had neglected to do it last night because I was just expecting to wear the rain suit upon departure. So I had plenty of heat; I'll have to diagnose it when I get home. Worst case scenario, if the weather broke I could pull the fuse out.
By the time I was actually leaving the hotel, the rain had stopped but the mean streets of Spokane had a lot of accumulated water so when it wasn't raining on me from above, it was raining on me from below as the spray coming up from under the bike and from vehicles ahead of me.
The cloud were heavy and low and saturated. Riding up Hwy 395, the traffic was heavy, making the spray worse. At one time, I passed a parked vehicle on the opposite side of the road and there was a woman, without rain gear, walking away from the vehicle carrying a gas can. I thought was an awful situation and after a kilometre, I found a safe place to turn around. I had well over a half tank of gas and with my pump siphon, I could easily give her enough gas to get to the next gas station. However, by the time I reached her vehicle, she was gone so I presume somebody had already picked her up.
By the time I got to Kettle Falls, I had to make a decision: to continue on straight north on the busy 395 or turn west on famed motorcycle road Hwy 20. I stopped the bike under a big tree to keep a little rain off and looked at Google Maps to see the difference in time. The Garmin had voted for Hwy 20, maybe from past history whereas Google voted for 395 to save NINE minutes. I thought, what's nine minutes when I could be riding a good motorcycle road and off a busy, boring road. They are both going to be wet so in fact, the difference would probably be more since I would have to go slower on the twisty road.
Hwy 20 climbs over the Sherman Pass. As the road is rising in elevation, the temperature is dropping.
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| Hard to tell for sure if that is snow. |
Then I can see in the hills above the past something in the clouds. Is that white slate - looking rock up there or is it... SNOW?! Snow would be bad because I don't have snow tires. Aside from which, if the temperature is dropping and there is water all over the road, could it turn into ice? I would have to turn around and go back to 395. Not the end of the world, I am retired and have time on my hands... or is it that my days are numbered and I can't waste any? Whatever. The temperature bottoms at 7 degrees at
the pass at elevation about 5600 feet. OK so I should
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| No doubt about it here. This was on the way down from Sherman Pass. |
be fine but I definitely slowed down for a while.
It remained soppy until Tonasket, which is due south of Osoyoos about 35 kms. In fact, there were signs the clouds were breaking. Patches of blue were appearing and though the clouds were still heavy with rain and the sky looked unsettled, it was definitely improving. I stopped in Tonasket to get my last tank of US gas then headed north to cross the border.
I crossed the border, declared my purchases, didn't get invited to pull out all my stuff, had my Nexus card declined by the border guard in favour of my passport (going into the US, I only had to show my Nexus card), the whole process taking about three minutes max. I pulled ahead to clear the lane but steered to the side so that I get could all my crap in order. When I headed away from the border, lo and behold, my handgrips had turned off! My only guess is that the switch was probably under water and caused a short of sorts. Surprised I didn't blow a fuse but I might try to find a sealed, waterproof switch.
I got home about 4:30 pm, so it was a six hour riding day. Glad to be home, even though the house is empty at the moment.
This was not my furthest traveled on one trip, which surprised me. I looked back to other trips and saw that I was short by 600 km from my furthest trip (the Great American Total Solar Eclipse Squiggle Tour). However, this was my longest one in terms of days on the road by four days. If the weather hadn't turned bad the last few days, I would have been inclined to add two or three days and stuck closer to my originally planned route. However, there is not much glamour in riding in endless rain, particularly if trying to camp. I needed a warm day with wind to dry out my gear; that doesn't seem to be in the cards at the moment and seeing snow so close to where I was riding confirmed that I was making the correct decision. Last year, I was riding and camping in Washington on October 9th.
This trip was a "test trip" for a ride that Nan and I considering for next year, which would take us around North America. I asked her to give me her Top 10 destinations for anywhere in North America and with my Top 10, we will create an itinerary. I had originally planned to start the trip by riding to Mazatlan to see the total solar eclipse however, life got in the way of that idea so we will look to start the trip in mid April, when we see a stretch of good weather in front of us.
The test was to see what it would be like to travel without an itinerary, with minimal pre-planning and hence, the abandonment of my OCD-ness. For myself, I think I can do it but it will involve discussion with my riding partner, who will be affected by this style of travel. There were days when I was riding at 5:00 or even 6:00 pm and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going to sleep. And there were other days where I thought I knew where I was going to sleep but when I got to where I was going, discovered that not all was as I expected. Like two days ago when there was no signage on the road to indicate the presence of a campground where I was expecting. "You plan. God laughs."
On the other hand, because I didn't have someone to help keep things organized, I had to up my game in terms of keeping myself organized better than I have in the past. I found that my morning could start easier and faster when I organized my next day's clothing the night before. I wasn't trying to impress anybody, it didn't matter when I wore a shirt two days in a row (or anything else for that matter). It wasn't too often that I had to make a change from my plan due to weather being different than I anticipated.
After i had pulled everything off the bike, I jumped in the hot tub, something I have been craving quite a bit on the trip. I had a gorgeous view of our lake, which was soothing. Everything seems like it will be so easy before the trip but certainly, this trip had its challenges. It is good to be home.
You are reading this now so thank-you. I really write the blog as my diary of the trip so that I can remember what happened. However, it is fun to write, especially when I encounter interesting people. I post it in the hope that if just a couple of people will find enough entertainment value in it to keep reading, then the effort to post it will have been worthwhile. The technology was at times, challenging however, for the most part I was able to make it work. I still have many photos that I didn't add due to limitations in cell service; I will do that soon so if you want to come back in a few days, I will post a bunch of pictures on an additional "epilogue" page.
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| The home view. |
