Wing Washington Ride to Royal City 20130922

Take Two on my getting some more of those Wing Washington sites.  Sunday the 22^st I decided to head over to the East side and bag 5 more.  I figured I might as well get up at normal time and jam on over.  The weatherman said not to expect the clouds n rain until around noon!  Woohoo!  Lets rock! 

Sooooo….. Sat night I toss all my stuff on the bike so I’m ready to go.  Not bothering with gas as I’ll get some in Ellensburg.  I’m up @ 4:15 and out the door by 4:30 with the motor running, I’m fiddling with the stupid bluetooth unit and want to listen to some tunes so 5-10 min later I’m zipping down the freeway.

Oh yeah, it was a Dark and Stormy night… Well morning anyway, and as I head down I-5 with a few other crazy souls I’m enjoying the dry pavement until I hit the 405 interchange (which is only about 10 miles…) then a little sprinkle here and there.    By the time I get half way to Kirkland it is POURING!  I’ve been in worse but at least I didn’t start out in this crap.  Another 15 min goes by and I slow to make the curve to I-90 east.  Because of all the rain I’m a little gun shy about blasting through the curve and that’s fine.  I’ve got all my lights going and wick up the pace to a tad over the limit.  The rain eases a little then comes back like an angry mob wanting vengeance.  The weather performed this little dance for the next 60 miles. 

As I rode up the freeway I hit a few of the wheel ruts and the water was deep, it felt like I ran into a huge sand pit and let out a parachute at the same time.  I concentrated on staying in the middle but wasn’t happy about that either as that’s where all the oil from cars/trucks leaks on the pavement. 

Now, when I ride I’m always scanning the mirrors, up ahead, sides, gauges and just keep this cycle going all the time.  At night it is easy to see if anyone is coming up from behind by their lights and I was totally taken by surprise as I passed an 18 wheeler in the last section of Snoqualmie pass in the rain.  I turned my head to the left and a white SUV went blowing by me.  Where the heck did this guy come from???  Oh well, let’s keep on going. 

It’s still pitch black as I make it over the pass, at least the rain has subsided so I can chill out and not be so tense.  I feel my jaw was really clenched riding in all that rain.  Now riding at my normal speed I am zipping along making decent time, the construction crews are not doing any road construction, which is nice so all of us are making time.   After many miles I am finally starting to get near Ellensburg where I’ll get some gas and then can zip to my first point. 

The west side of Ellensburg is a known speed trap area.  It just is, and (brian) we all know it’s not for safety (Hello Brian) it’s all about revenue.  I slow to 70 but feel so slow that I could hop off and push.  Somehow the speed sneaks back up.  I haven’t ridden or driven through there (BRIAN!) in a while but crap it’s still black out and I slow back down to 70.  Wait what is this?  I’m coming up on that White SUV!  Well that’s interesting I’m seeing it again, the dude must have stopped for something.  I over take him and get back in the right lane.  (HELLO DUMB ASS I’ve been blipping at you for a few miles and guess what YOU ARE BACK UP TO YOUR NORMAL SPEED AND THE MAN IS SHOOTING YOU RIGHT NOW!)  That’s what my V1 has been telling me for the past mile.

I can barely make out in the median up ahead a black crown vic with black windows and NO light bar.  CRAP I’m busted!  I don’t need this!  As soon as the V1 screamed at me I let off the gas and this time was no different.  I went by him about the speed limit while Mr SUV was coming up my 6 quite quickly.  I never hit my brakes and as I’m watching my mirrors I see Da Man turn on the car, flip around and start blasting up the road towards me.  I’m totally TOAST! But wait, What is going on here?  The dumbass guy in the SUV is pulling out and PASSING ME!  Isn’t he even paying attention to the cop flying up from behind us???   I’m approaching a big truck and maintain my speed/distance behind it, the cop comes up beside me and I know he is saying to himself, “I am almost positive it was YOU speeding but that chump in the SUV is leaving all of us, hmmm…..”  He presses on and gets behind the SUV and then lights up the Christmas tree inside the car and pulls over the SUV.    Both the 18 wheeler and I move over to the left lane and keep on truckin.  ;-)  Don’t ya just hate it when that happens……  I give the cop a minute of playing with his radio, then zip up the road to the next exit for gas. 

The sun is finally starting to come up, but the spectacular sunrise I was hoping for just isn’t happening so I check my GPS and have about 44 miles to Royal City where I’m looking for the middle school.  Back up to my nominal speed and in 15 min or so I’m coming up to a windmill farm . 

I stop, snag a few photos and head on over the Columbia River where I’m blinded by the sun for the next 15 miles to Royal City.  As I approach the town there are some HUGE combines or other mammoth farming rigs coming towards me with a lead car/truck with flashing lights.  There must have been 5 of these enormous rigs in a row zipping along at their max speed of 30 mph heading to another field to do whatever they do.  To me it’s really cool to see these types of things out in their element – this is America!  J

I make it to Royal City a small town of roughly 2200.  I pull into town and see probably the only cop in town trolling the 2 main streets.  I waved as I drove by him and putted through town looking for the school.  The GPS started routing me all over the place.  Good thing I looked at the map the night before.  I turn around and come back in town, drive down main street a ways then just pull over into a parking lot to get out my W Washington packet and review the street names.  Mr. Cop cruises slowly past as I play with the GPS a little and review the packet again and again.  This entire time I’m stopped my V1 is just going berserk!  I finally look around and Mr. Cop has some poor soul stopped down the street,  Sheesh, it’s like 7:30 AM on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere and you got this wild hair to get back at someone, what a police state this is.  I hop back on the bike do a U-turn and see the road I’m looking for and start up the hill going very slowly.  Finally I see all the schools - Elementary then the Middle and High school.  I stop by the sign and get my shot.

Also on the map last night I noticed a parallel road to the 2-lane highway roughly a mile from it, which I was right next to.  I’ll just ride through the country.  You know the farm areas are broken into 1-mile squares so this is a no brainer.  I’ll see some different countryside and enjoy the morning.  This is all fine and dandy until I think I see no more pavement!  What?  Oh well it can’t be far so I plow along and the gravel gets thicker and thicker (now probably 2-3” thick in places) so I really slow down and decide it’s probably time to head south towards the main highway.  Unfortunately I don’t see any roads for another mile, then another mile, then another….  Finally I see this big yellow sign pointing left or right (a dead end).  I head left and in a couple hundred yards I hit black top.  I don’t mind dirt roads but the big RT isn’t exactly a light or even a heavy dual sport bike.

I cross back over the Columbia and head up the 10 mile hill to the wind mills and notice the GPS says the next turn is about 40 miles away or something silly and it wants me to turn left.  Who the heck put the points in this unit?  Good thing I looked at the map the night before because I should be hitting the 2^nd or 3^rd point by the time I go that many miles.  Oh well…  I take the Kittitas exit and stop at a dead gas station to look at my WW packet.  The sky ahead is getting darker by the second as I pull back out and head into town, in a few turns I find the Secondary High School.  The road to the school is lined with pine trees and looks very nice.  As I am stopped to take a few photos the wind is starting to pick up and it’s spitting at me.  No biggie, I set the GPS to the next stop and pick the shortest distance so I can see more countryside.

The back roads are fun and you never no what to expect.  I don’t expect speed radar but hit 2 spots where schools or some little community has them going 24/7 to flash at folks but the lights are turned off this morning.  See some cool cars fixed up here and there, people starting to get up and are out walking, or whatever.  I get into the town of Ellensburg and find the Roadhouse Grill for my next photo.  It’s closed so I zip across the street for a bacon, bacon, biscuit at Carls Jr.  As I’m sitting there I see this big suburban pull up.  It is dark blue, dark, dark tinted windows and on the roof is a big satellite dish folded down and some other big radar receiver type thing that looked like a round trash can about 2 feet tall.  Hmmm…  It also had a big winch on the front.   As I walk out to the sprinkling rain the guys are coming in.  I flip open my back trunk and take a few “no look” photos.  The sticker on the side says something about Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team.  I set the GPS to the next stop and pull out for gas.

Next stop is the town of Cle Elum where I’ll be looking for the Historic Telephone museum.  An uneventful drone up the freeway in the rain and I pull off. Watch the instructions and in a few minutes spot the unassuming little brick building on the north side of Main Street.  I whip around and get my shot.  The sun is trying to break back out but I’m not holding my breath.  Set the GPS for my last stop (The Veterans memorial cemetery in Roslyn).

Roslyn has an interesting history starting in the 1880s as a coal mining area, had labor unions, strikes, brought in ~300 black miners from the east to be strikebreakers.   Because of the influx of all sorts of nationalities the Roslyn Cemetery is composed of 26 separate but adjacent cemetery plots, reflecting the diversity of early immigrant society.    If Roslyn sounds somewhat familiar it is because it was the site of the hit TV show Northern Exposure from 1990-1995.

Ok so 20 min later I’m pulling into the town of Roslyn, find my cross street and start heading up.  The road I’m supposed to take has been removed with a big bulldozer and some other machinery.  Hmmm…  Well the town isn’t that big so I just start heading up another street and make some turns to where I think it should be and wall-ah I’m there!

Now my dad is a Vet from Vietnam war and was in the service for more than 20 yrs.  It wasn’t easy on our family like it is today with the internet, email, skype and all this stuff but we made it through those years just fine.  I am quite thankful to all vets and thank them for their service when I see them out and about by themselves.  Enough of this sappy talk, the cemetery has a few helmets on posts or something so I decided to look around.  Many of the head stones are from men that served in World War 2 or the Korean war, I didn’t see much or anyone from Vietnam or the latest in the middle east but some had little vases w/plastic flowers at them which were blown all over by the wind so I stopped, picked them up and put them back at their respective places. After roughly ½ hour of this I hopped back on the bike and cruised slowly through town, waving at the locals and then meandered out to the freeway for the slog home.  I had plenty of heavy rain for the next 80 miles and was home before 11.  :-)  About 375 miles for the morning ride.