Honestly, I was so excited I could hardly sleep. I’d spoken of a trip such as this so many times my wife would start to get “that look”whenever I started in.
“Why don’t you just take a week and go on an adventure?”, she’d say. I needed the right vehicle, and with my 2015 RT, I had it.
I woke up at 1am, 3am, and then finally at 6am, did my final loading and was on the road by 7am. I was out the door early enough that Seattle’s notorious traffic wasn’t too bad yet. Seattle is known for rain, which we hadn’t had more than a trace of all month, and we were in a heat wave, and since today’s forecast was for temperatures in the upper 80s, I was wearing my light summer motorcycle jacket, along with gloves and jeans.
Packed and ready to go, ready to leave the bustling city behind.I made good time on south bound I-5 and was to Tacoma, Washington’s second largest city, within about 40 minutes, at which point I left the freeway. For all those years of thinking of a trip such as this, freeways were the last place I wanted to be. My trip, all plotted out on GPS, is 80 percent backroads.
For the first half hour or so I was stuck in a land of never ending strip malls. Most of them are virtually empty, with their only renters either nail salons or pot dispensers, thanks to Washington States new marijuana laws. This is a land of churches and strip malls, sometimes even churches in strip malls. I imagine church on a Sunday morning, filled to over-flowing with ladies looking absolutely fabulous with their beautiful fingernails, their partners shirt fronts still stained with Dorito dust, a clear side effect of pot induced munchies.
One of many beautiful country roads. THIS is motorcycling!Eventually the strip malls became somewhat scarce, then disappeared altogether, leaving me in a wonderful maze of small two lane country roads on a beautiful Summer day. I was driving through little towns that had once merely been the names on highway exit signs, interesting names, Bucoda, Tenino, and Vader. I’d driven past these names for decades, and every time I’d wonder what they were like, wonder about the small country stores and the tiny overgrown cemeteries, all just out of sight from the freeway.
I wasn’t disappointed. In Bucoda, a town of just 0ver 500 people and falling, there was an old Odd Fellows Hall, unique in that it was all done in poured concrete. It looked as out of place in this dying berg as a rocket ship. It was the only building in sight that was more than a story tall, and what few buildings there were around it were pretty ordinary, to put it nicely. Dumpy would be more accurate. Even the post office, one of the best kept places in town, was simply a small manufactured home. But this place, this concrete monument from the past, was a one off, as the poured concrete with a sort of stucco veneer gave it an imposing look, solid, and rather grand.
Prior to 2010, and for a couple of decades before that, it was a boarded up mess. See a story here.
But then a local family gave enough money for it to become a community hall, though in the five years since, the funds to keep it open must have dried up, as the inside was just stuff piled about. The pool table was just another place to put more of that “stuff”.
Still, it was looking far more grand now with those improvements then it did a few years back.
And some artwork on the sidewalk out front was worthy of note, if not just a touch scary.
A few miles down the windy road the country store in Oakview certainly stood out. This business, unlike Bucoda, was in a town that wasn’t bypassed when the new road was put in about 50 years ago. While the town wasn’t thriving, this little story had a certain optimism about it.
Sadly the interior was rather non-descript, and the food nothing more than typical gas station burritos. No homemade country pies here. Fresh berry pie featuring something locally grown, that would have been nice. I settled for a frozen “Drumstick” from the freezer case.
Eventually, country gave way to bigger cities, though keep your mental imagery on the modest side. Centralia and Chehalis. From the freeway side they were outlet malls, fast food joints, and gas stations. From the backside it was giant birds. NO road trip through south western Washington would be complete with a stop at Yardbirds, known for its monstrously large, well, yard bird. It was under restoration, it’s exposed frames giving it the look of an odd ship in drydock.
The store itself, killed off by the outlet malls across town, seemed beyond saving, but they were doing their part for roadside kitch by restoring this old bird.
Eventually I made it to my destination for the evening, Happy Trails Horse Ranch, a small AirBNB near Portland, Oregon. The accommodations were a little red shed, no, small house complete with clerestory windows above above a single room, and a porta-potti in the barn next door. No shower. No TV, but yes, they promised internet!
Ir was as comfortable as it was cute, with a trio of Adirondack chairs out front, perfect for an early evening iced tea. The owners have a six year old boy who just LOVED my motorcycle and helmets and talked my ear off. He had several helmets for his bicycle rides, including....
More here: http://triketrek.com/?p=165
Last edited:
