observations

Departed home slightly after sched­uled time, sit­u­a­tion nor­mal, right? Stopped in mon­roe for fuel and to meet any­one who might have decided to come along and not told me. There is no one there, so about 12:40, I headed east towards stevens pass. light driz­zle, but noth­ing bad. As I get closer to the pass, how­ever, it’s com­ing down harder and harder. pretty soon I’ve folded: out with the glove cov­ers, put the shower caps on the tank and tail bags, and I’ve got the suit liner cranked up to about ‘7’. I stop at the top long enough to shoot a pic­ture, and then boo­gie. About 10–15 miles down the other side, the road is dry,

and I’m start­ing to think I need to dump the heavy gloves and the neck tri­an­gle. By the time I get to wenatchee, it’s about 65 and humid, I ditch the heated liner in a star­bucks park­ing lot and the long johns in their mens room. ah, much bet­ter. Along the way, my brain has been cat­a­loging the things I’ve for­got­ten: so far I’m up to a cup, a spoon, cof­fee, and my flask full of good scotch. the first three are eas­ily remi­died with the help of a safe­way and an ACE hard­ware in chelan. A quick ride out to Lake Chelan State Park, and I find a nice camp­site, right on the lake. I pitch camp, and con­struct my exper­i­men­tal din­ner; one of these freeze dried back­packer meals. I don’t intend to sur­vive on these on my trip, but know­ing if they are edi­ble seems like a good bit of knowl­edge. boil­ing water, a lit­tle packet of oil, and 13 min­utes later: viola, black bean chili pie (there were a few tor­tilla chips, too). not too bad, a lit­tle ‘thin’, but good spice. From this I con­clude: in a pinch, they will do. How­ever, now that I’ve had din­ner, i think of another thing that has been for­got­ten: I could use a cup of tea. oh well, not out here.

well, off for a bit of a walk and some pic­tures before it gets dark.

return­ing to camp, I tidy up, and pre­pare to hit the rack. Next up on the test list, a lit­tle inflat­able pil­low. It comes un a pack­age the size of a juice can, but it works really well. What doesn’t work so well any more is the old Ther­marest sleep­ing pad. Admit­tedly, it’s about 15 years old, but I sup­sect that it’s the age of the back, not the pad! I toss and turn most of the night. finally drop off about 4am, wake up at 7 with both arms numb and trapped under­neath my torso. yukko. OK, that’s some­thing that will need fix­ing.

Get up and about, and try to fig­ure out how to make cof­fee with my new-fangled stove/french press. Mechan­i­cally, this is easy, its a french press right? but it’s been dogs years since I’ve used one. How much cof­fee goes in? how long do I let it sit for. Oh My God, I’ve for­got­ten the recipe for cof­fee! But I mud­dle through, get some­thing mostly drink­able, if a bit weak, out of it, and set about pack­ing my stuff up. Sur­pris­ingly, it all goes back pretty much where it came from, and I head into town to score some break­fast. The Apple Cup cafe in Chelan gets a pass­ing grade: good food and fast, friendly ser­vice.

As I’m gear­ing up to head out, I can’t find the exten­sion con­nec­tion for my heated jacket liner. I paw through all the lug­gage, no lit­tle coiled cord. Oh well, I throw on another shirt and head up the pass. I have a beau­ti­ful ride back over the pass, includ­ing the moment just as I approached the top, a group of rid­ers passed going the other way, giv­ing me the uni­ver­sal ‘law enforce­ment ahead’ sign. Sure enough, the state patrol is at the top, giv­ing our tick­ets to those who can’t read speed limit signs. Not me, today.

So, all in all, a suc­cess­ful shake­down. The bike is comfy and very capa­ble, nearly all of my lug­gage and camp­ing gear works great, and the elec­tri­cal stuff on the bike (heated vest con­nec­tion, and charg­ing port) all work great. If I can fill in the few gaps in my check­list and fix the sleep­ing pad prob­lem, I’m per­fectly set.

See ya on the road!

black­dog on board the Great Pump­klin (aka the Turbo Giraffe)…
shiny side up, y’all!