Phase I: Get to Seattle
I’ve said time and time again that I was going to post a report of my trips. I thought having a PPC would be good enough, but what a pain in the ass typing an entire blog on that thing. This year, Alden was kind enough to lend me his ThinkPad, so now I have no excuse. This part of the trip contains no pictures–we were too busy hauling ass. 
Wednesday, July 25th
Seattle or Bust!
Left work later than expected–of course. Ran home, finished packing, eating lunch, loading the bike, and by 4:00pm was on the road. Boring drive across Missouri; well, except for the a$$hat in Columbia–a bus wasn’t paying attention and tried coming into my lane. Everybody else noticed the flashing headlight modulators–what the hell??? Stopped shortly after Columbia to pick up my new favorite alarm clock– a Screaming Meanie! Strong enough to wake the dead!
It was fun driving through K.C. with the headlight modulators, which flash my brights on and off at a very high rate. Definitely got noticed; several people slowed down and pulled over, lots of heads turning around to see if I was a cop. Got gas north of K.C. and took a break–got started again at about 9:00pm, when getting onto the interstate I pass a guy strolling along on the interstate with a knapsack…. and a life-sized cross. I shit you not. Here he is, happily strolling along I-29, I’m sure telling all his friends that he’s going to do the same walk that Jesus did or some such shit. Problem was, his cross looked like it was made of 1″x6″ boards. C’mon, at least carry something that could hold your weight if I nailed you to it! And let me test it on you just to make sure…. >:)
Got into to Omaha around 11:30 and stayed with Leslie’s brother-in-law. Haven’t seen Mark in a while, and we stayed up talking until 3:30am! Stupid monkey!
Thursday, July 26th
Performance Achievement Awards, South Dakota, and other Unpleasant Things
Woke up at 7:30am, thinking the house was on fire! Nope, just the Screaming Meanie–these things sure do work! Took as hot a shower as I could possibly stand. Plan was to be on the road by 8:30am, but Mark woke up too–said he could hear the Screaming Meanie 3 rooms away. I think Mark’s lonely, as his wife has been out of town for a week. So we drank coffee and talked while I slowly packed the bike. I pack slowly enough as it is, but with only ~4 hours of sleep my brain works like it’s moving through molassas. So I didn’t actually get on the road until about 9:30am, and I was supposed to meet Brian in Sioux Falls by 11:00am. Then I hit some construction on I-29, and was getting frustrated, when I pass a speed trap–and got caught. I’m sure I wasn’t doing more than 75, but he claimed I was timed by an aircraft going 83mph–complete BS. I talked as smoothly as I could, but he gave me a ticket for 80 in a 70mph zone. Bastard.
Hooked up with Brian around 12:30 and ate lunch, then it was time to drive into the hairdryer (aka South Dakota). Hot, dry, into the wind the whole day–it sucked. Or blew. Take your pick. The only upside was that while the temps were in the mid-90′s, it had been 110 two days before. Ate dinner in Rapid City, discussed making it to Sheridan–I’m glad we didn’t try! We found out later that all hotels in Sheridan were completely sold out. We decided to get to Gillette, WY, about 1 1/2 hours east of Sheridan. I’m glad we called and booked a room from Rapid City, because by the time we got there all the hotels in Gillette were sold out too. We crawled into bed around 1:00am after showering, and passed out for the night.
Friday, July 27th
I Thought Yesterday Was Supposed To Be Our Hard Day!!!
Got up at 7:00am–Screaming Meanie to the rescue again. Ate breakfast (yumm, New Mexico green chile omelet!); the service was nice in the hotel restaurant but painfully slow. Got rolling again around 10:30am, and the miles began flowing by. Passed the entrance to Highway 14A and the Bighorn National Forest–it was hard to resist going up into the mountains, but we needed to make Spokane that night and the GPS indicated we had over 800 miles to go! Blech.
The miles rolled by pretty uneventfully. Past Billings, the wind kicked up again, then the heat, and we were back in the hairdryer. Rolled into Butte, MT at 3:00, but didn’t get out again until after 4:00! There was some kind of charity motorcycle ride going on, and the exit we took was completely blocked off by police–we had no way of turning around, so had to sit there until the whole thing was done. Then the gas stations were jam-packed with all the vehicles who also took the exit we did; have I mentioned lately that I hate people? Finally got to Missoula around 8:30pm and had a really good pizza. Lucy, our awesome waitress, informed us that Red Bull was not sold there, but said the manager kept a stash in his office and sold us two for the cost of two iced teas–Lucy rocks! Then when packing up to hit the road we had to avoid making eye contact with this complete 130-pound dweeb who was arguing with a ginormeous bouncer. It ended with the bouncer puffing up, coming out of the doorway and screaming, “DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FUCK WITH ME???” The dweeb finally backs down, and walks by us muttering something about guns and laser sights.
Missoula to Spokane was excruciating! Construction, cops all over Idaho, and our flagging concentration led to a very interesting and somewhat frightening ride. Brian was leading–I had to take my contacts out in Missoula, and even with glasses my vision was very blurry from over-wearing my lenses–and had been periodically dangling his legs for a rest while driving. At one point he stuck a leg out, then I see this HUGE black something-or-other on the road to my left. I watched it pass by in slooooooooow moooooootioooooooon and when it had passed, my brain finally worked out that he had been pointing at a road obstacle that I really only watched and made no conscious effort to avoid. Time to take a break!
We pulled over in parking area on the interstate for a smoke break and some jumping jacks–wake up, brain!! About 60 miles later and we were west of Spokane, in Cheney, WA. We had a hotel reservation at the Holiday Inn Express there (made en route with Leslie’s help, since I couldn’t get a data signal where we were) which was brand new, right down to the 36″ high-def LCD tv’s in each room–too bad I was too tired to enjoy it! We finally got to bed around 1:30am; damn I’m tired. Just 4 more hours and we’ll be there!