Highway 2 was beautiful despite the weather and the construction and the aches and pains.  We will definitely have to come back and ride this highway again in warmer, dryer weather.  The mountains and glaciers were very impressive and there were a lot of fall colours to admire.  Just no reds.  All yellows and oranges.  I can see why the Ottawa Valley attracts “leafers” in the fall.  The red leaves are definitely noticeably missing in the West.  And, although the weather got very close to being cold enough to snow through the higher elevation passes, the precipitation continued to be rain until we reached East Glacier.  The sun actually came out a little for us here, but it was still too cold to turn off the heated gear until we got to a slightly lower elevation.

Before we knew it, we were at the Port of Peigan border crossing.  With only one lane open, there was a bit of a lineup at the crossing.  Koira was very indignant in her Pet Palace because we did not let her out.  The bike was stopped, so she fully expected to get out and explore.  She was barking when we pulled up to the border agent.  I could tell he was confused about where the dog was on our bike.  He was looking at the front of Jeremy’s jacket and then my jacket, like we might be trying to hide a dog in our bulky rain and motorcycle gear.  When he realized she was in the bag in the back, you could tell he was trying not to laugh.  He did not ask about meat products or pet food, so we did not mention the tiny bit of dog food we were still carrying.  He did ask for Koira’s vaccination paperwork.  So, making sure we had all that paperwork with us was not a waste.  It went very smoothly and they let us and our cranky little white dog back into the country.  I was happy we did not have to go through the bike search again this year.  It is not the search of the bike that is the pain really, as we have nothing to hide, it is having to re-pack everything again before we can head out.

It is nice to go on holidays, but it always nice to come again.  We stopped for a quick lunch in Cardston, but, now that we were in Alberta, we just wanted to get home.  Calgary greeted us with gray skies, wind, and cold.  Ottawa used to greet us with the exact same weather.  We had to turn our heated gear back on again for that last stretch.  It did not matter to us, though.  We were just so happy to be home safe and sound.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, when we were at the scenic overlook, what do we see below us but Lewiston’s “Old Spiral Highway”.  Now, Jeremy could not resist this one.  It is not often we get to take a photo of a road that we are about to do before we ride it either.  Jeremy got out the helmet cam for the road too.  We knew it was going to be a good one… and it was!  It was so good, we had to do it twice.  Down and then up!  After finding this unexpected treasure of a road, the rest of the day could suck and we would still have had a good day!

Thankfully, the rest of the day did not suck.  It was a little chilly but we had our heated jackets to keep us toasty warm and Koira had her lambskin to snuggle into for warmth.  Koira seemed to be enjoying the cooler weather, though.  She wagged her tail a lot today for some reason.  She was extremely friendly with everyone and everyone wanted to stop and meet her.  Or maybe she just likes Idaho because she can smell the potatos.  Oddly enough, though, we did not find a chip stand anywhere for lunch.  Maybe they just export all their potatos.  We saw miles and miles of harvested potato fields but not one potato or chip stand.  We ended up stopping outside of Hot Springs, Montana for a quick lunch of Pogos and vitamin water.  We need to get those vitamins somewhere.  There is definitely nothing of nutritional value in a Pogo.

After Hot Springs, we took Highway 200 through some very scenic areas that were starting to remind us again of Alberta and British Columbia.  When we saw the mountains of Glacier National Park in the distance, we definitely started feeling more at home again.

We rolled into Kalispell with the sun still shining.  And, to my delight, they had a room for us again at the Red Lion Hotel.  It has become our new favourite hotel chain.  They welcome pets with open arms and they always seem to have a room.  Probably because they are HUGE.  It might be their thing.  They never have to turn people away because they make sure they will never sell out by being HUGE.  Anyway, we have a nice little room again with a view of the mountains in the distance.  They are snow-capped so we need to decide if we should try riding through them tomorrow or take a lower elevation and less-risky drive to Roosville tomorrow.  Either way, we should be crossing the border tomorrow.  I wonder if we can bring Canadian pet food back into Canada from the United States?  I guess we will find out tomorrow!

Just when we thought we were finally on our way, about 1 KM down the road from our hotel, just before the on ramp for the interstate, a guy in a car pulled up along side us with his windows down, vigorously circling his hand in the air and pointing at our motorcycle.  Now, he was either warning us that there was speed trap ahead or we had something wrapped around something on our bike.  Oh, yeah!  I had hooked Koira to the passenger peg while we were doing our last minute preparations to ride.  Thankfully, I remembered to put Koira in the bag, though!  I just forgot about the leash on the peg!  I must send out a thank you to that man in Bend who made us aware of my blooper.  I hope he did not think we drove off with a dog attached . . . and then lost it along the way!  Jeremy pulled off safely to the side of the road, I detached the battered dog leash from the peg, got back on the bike, and THEN we were on our way out of Bend.  Someday we will be back to stay longer.  Koira’s leash almost stayed there permanently.  I am sure Jeremy could have fashioned a temporary leash out of aircraft wire if he had to, though.

We definitely found a great route through Washington today – central Oregon.  We were trying to avoid, by any means necessary, the wastelands of Washington state that our GPS took us through two years ago.  Central Oregon is absolutely gorgeous.  Oregon keeps on impressing us.  We took the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway and found some amazing roads and scenic vistas.  The stretch of spiraling highway outside Spray reminded us of Highway 1 minus the guard rails and ocean.

We stopped for a quick lunch in Spray at the corner store/gas station/restaurant that you see in all small towns since there were already two motorcycles parked out front – a Triumph Tiger and a Suzuki Hayabusa.  These are sport bikes with just a silly amount of CCs.  The Hayabusa was the fastest factory sport bike when it came out a few years ago.   It is the first time that I had seen one standing still.  The riders of these bikes were probably resting up to tackle the spirals outside of town, but much faster than we went through them.

After our quick lunch of classic American grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, it was time to hit those amazing central Oregon roads again.  We wound through little towns and around hills and through valleys for several hours.  We saw almost as many horses in central Oregon as we saw in Kentucky.  This area is definitely horse country.  Every home seemed to have cordoned off at least part of their front lawn for not one, but several horses.

We knew we had crossed the border into Washington when we could smell onions.  We had picked Lewiston, Idaho for our destination for the evening, but, when we came to the outskirts of Walla Walla, Washington, I started to think about the wine-tasting and little bistros that I had read about that were supposed to be in Walla Walla.  Poor, Jeremy.  I asked him to re-route us through Walla Walla to see if we could get a room at the La Quinta Inn near downtown Walla Walla.  We passed through a whole “vintners” alley of stores and restaurants that did not smell like onions and, at the end, was the La Quinta Inn.  As we drove into the lot, I was thinking about an evening of walking along the quaint little downtown street and tasting some Washington wines and trying to ignore the very pungent, rotten vegetable or meat smell in the air outside the hotel.  Well, there was no room at the inn anyway . . . or at the Best Western next door.  It was for the best anyway as that smell would have gotten to all of us eventually, but I was mad at myself for wasting twenty minutes of our precious riding time in Walla Walla.  Goodbye, Walla Walla!  You are stinky!

After Walla Walla, it was all about getting to Lewiston, Idaho, before it was too late to find a hotel room.  I don’t know how Jeremy did it, but we made it, just after sunset, to the Red Lion Hotel in Lewiston.  We were cold and tired and a little afraid that they would not have a room for us.  The parking lot was full and there just seemed to be tonnes of men coming out of the hotel in groups wearing plaid flannel shirts like there was some sort of lumberjack convention going on.  Well, I was very relieved when Jeremy came out and said they had lots of room and Koira even got a cuteness discount again!  Apparently, the hotel has the hottest “dance club” in town, so some of the vehicles in the lot were from the club . . . and maybe plaid flannel shirts were the acceptable attire for the club?  I am thinking line dancing club now . . .

We prepared ourselves mentally for a long day of riding.  We had 700 kilometres to cover to make it to our planned stop for the night – Bend, Oregon.  We stopped in Willows, California for a rest and a quick breakfast and then we were off again, driving through miles and miles of olive tree orchards.  The billboards advertising olive-tastings and freshly-pressed olive oil in Corning almost lured us away from our route, but we resisted and told ourselves we would be back someday for an olive orchard tour.  We also saw another kiddy pool on the highway!  Third one of the trip!  This one was just a plain, blue pool.  No cartoon characters.  It did have the built-in slide, though!

We drove for several hours on the Dalles-California Highway and Oregon’s Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway.  We had blue skies mixed with gray clouds most of the way, but we did not get rained on at all today.  Yeah!  No need to stop and put on the saunas.

We pulled into Bend around 6:30 PM, tired but happy to have made our goal for the evening.  We found a room at the Red Lion Hotel.  Jeremy wrangled with the desk clerk for quite awhile but got an excellent rate on a very nice room.  Koira gave it her seal of approval by falling straight to sleep on the bed . . . after checking the room thoroughly for little white dogs.  Nope, none under the bed or in the bathroom.  Ahhhh . . . safe.

We met Chris in Old Sacramento for lunch at a very cool burger joint and pub called Fanny Ann’s Saloon.   We all ordered the Singin’ the Blues Burger – their famous burger topped with a slices of blue cheese.  Excellent burgers . . . and not just because of the generous serving of blue cheese.  The restaurant decorating was eclectic, to say the least.  It was three stories of antiques and collectibles screwed to the walls anywhere there was room.  They also encouraged graffiti and etching contributions from their customers.   We even saw an old Ontario license plate.  Now, was that someone who drove down to California and decided not to go home?  I can see how tempting that might be.

Chris had to go back to work, so we had a few hours for another touristy adventure.   We spent a little more time wandering around Old Sacramento, mostly at Candy Heaven, and picked up a few souvenirs.  After about the tenth gift shop, we decided it was time to move on and try and see the Johnny Cash exhibit at the Folsom Prison museum.  This museum was on our list two years ago when we were in Sacramento but we were unable to squeeze it in.  This time, though, we were not going to miss it!  We had Chris’s Nissan T-top and some sunshine so we headed for the freeway.

For some reason, I had not picked up on the fact that Folsom Prison is still an active prison.  Jeremy knew but I did not.  It was a little unnerving seeing all the warning signs and lists of things we could not carry onto the grounds.  After navigating around the turkeys chasing each other back and forth across the road, we found a parking space in the “visitors” parking.  And when I say “turkeys,” I do really mean turkeys.  It was not other tourists like us confused about where to go just to see the museum.

There was absolutely no signage anywhere pointing to the Folsom Prison museum.  Jeremy thought he saw an old building a little ways up on the hill where the turkeys had disappeared.  Maybe that was the museum?  We thought we would just hike up the little path and see.  All of a sudden this booming voice was asking us where we are going.  It was a plain, clothes guard in the parking lot and he was not happy that we decided to go for a hike.  He told us to come down from the hill.  When I told him we were just trying to find the museum he relaxed quite a bit.  We must have been exuding the tourist vibe.  Apparently, they have problems with people trying to leave various types of contraband and drugs in this area we were in (which, by the way, the guard informed us, was the old armory and grounds) for the prisoners to try and pick up and bring into the prison.  That also made me a little nervous.  These hills around the parking lot are OUTSIDE the prison walls.  How and why are they out here anyway?  Grounds duty for “good” behaviour?  I decided that I was not interested in any more wandering, even if we could get special permission to see the old armory on the hill.

The guard also gave us some bad news.  Although the museum was straight ahead of us just past the prison guard house, the power was out at the prison and, as a result, the museum was closed.  OK.  Are we jinxed or something?  Now, this “closed” sign was very disappointing.  It was not because it was off-season or because we got there a little too late in the day.  I can understand that happening quite frequently to us when and how we travel.  It was a fluke power outage this time, though.  I guess they have backup generators for the prison but the museum is just shut down when the power goes out.  Oh, well.  I guess we will just have to try again next time we are in Sacramento.  Third time’s a charm, right?

We still had a few hours to kill before Chris and Stacey were off work so we decided to check out the historic district of Folsom.  We stopped at the Folsom County Museum a little unsure if anything would be open due to the power outage.  Well, all the power was on in Folsom, so it was only the prison that was out.  Lucky us!  The Folsom County Museum ended up being a nice, safe little museum to visit.  We learned a little bit about a lot of different things related to Folsom including the Gold Rush, the Pony Express, and the wine-making and olive-making industries.  And they even had a little Johnny Cash exhibit.  They called it the “Singing John and June.”  It was a whole bathroom dedicated to Johnny Cash.  To get into the bathroom, you had to actually enter a fake Folsom prison jail cell too.  Now, this kitschy tourist trap made the trip out to Folsom worth it!

We made it back to Old Sacremento in time for happy hour at Ten 22, a restaurant and bar with a selection of craft brewery beers.  We sampled some beers we will never be able to get in Canada.  We ordered the cheese sampler too.  Oh, so good!  It came with an amazing selection of cheeses, dried strawberries, meringue-coated pecans, artisan bread, and a slice of honeycomb.

We were pretty full by the time we got back to Chris’s house, but we had one more fantastic restaurant to try before we left – Bandera.  We can see why it is one of Chris and Stacey’s favourite restaurants in Sacramento.  We had yet another fantastic meal and visit at this restaurant.  The food was a mix of Southern-style cooking and barbeque.  We had roasted artichokes, poke, and cornbread for appetizers.  For the main course, it was fall-off-the-bone barbeque ribs and chicken.  We tried to save room for the chocolate banana cream pie, but none of us could stuff another morsel of food into our bellies by the time we were done the main course.  Maybe next time we will save room.

Last time we came through this way, we were headed from Lee Vining towards Sacramento and Jenny’s motorcycle was unable to idle properly.  She was forced to ride all the way twisting the throttle slightly to keep her bike running, even when heading downhill into a 10mph hairpin turn…  This ride was much more relaxing and even the falling snow was nothing to get too excited about.

Chris was scheduled to meet some people at Emerald Bay state park to look at some lift stations (poo pumps) and discuss plans for upcoming upgrades.  I chose to go along with him while Jenny and Stacey headed for the Casino and shopping.  It was interesting to see all the technology that goes in to pumping thousands of gallons of sewage generated by the “comfort stations” at the campground.  Luckily the stations were shut down for the winter already, so they were at their most pleasant.  It took us a couple of hours to see all 4 stations and for everyone to figure out what the next steps were for the project.  It was also nice not to have any responsibilities regarding the project and it made me feel that much more “on holidays”.

After investigating the campground, we headed back into Tahoe and parked at the Casino.  We found Jenny and Stacey across the street (in another, attached casino – Harvey’s), playing the penny slots.  Jenny had been hard at work turning $3.00 into a little over $11.00!  Pretty good!  While we were deciding what to do next, Jenny cashed out and handed me her ticket, saying I could play a bit if I wanted.  I walked around a bit and picked a machine that looked like it had a lot of lights and stuff, inserted the ticket and pressed the “Max Play” button.  I won another $45.00!  Then I hit the “Cash Out” button, since that was most likely the best I was going to do and we headed for one of the restaurants inside the casino for a snack and some drinks.  Since I was the big winner, I got to pay for the tequila and appetizer plate that we ordered, plus we got “the hook up” because Stacey knew the manager of the restaurant who took the appetizers off the bill.  All in all it turned out to be a pretty cheap lunch!

By now it was getting close to 5:00, so it was time to head back to Sacramento, which is about a 2-hour drive.  Most of us got to relax and enjoy the scenery some more as we headed “home”.  We also stopped at a Mexican grocery store for some fajita supplies – chicken, pork, tortillas, salsa, guacamole – and all delicious.  It was a great evening of pigging out and drinking wine with friends before bed.

A wrong turn at the lights meant we had another chance to see the Carmel mission and downtown Carmel, and then, it was really time to say goodbye.

It was rainy but we had prepared in advance by starting out in our rain gear.  We drove through Salinas and kept out an eye for Bobby McGee.  No sign of him anywhere . . . still.

After Salinas, the GPS took us on an amazingly scenic but very rough canyon “shortcut” through the hills and farmland of San Benito County.  Gorgeous vistas everywhere but no where to safely stop and take a photo.  We will have to remember it in our mind’s eye.

When we finally reached some smooth pavement we needed a break.  We stopped at the Casa de Fruita outlet for some fresh-baked apricot turnovers and lattes.  Not quite a little operation, though, like the little espresso huts we have been hitting all along the coast.  There were different “casas” everywhere advertising various fruit-based products and a huge pumpkin patch and entertainment centre.   We did not have time for all the “casas” so we picked the wine “casa.”  We bought a pomegranate wine to try.  Should make an interesting dessert wine.

The weather caught up to us again and the wind.  Oh, the wind!  Driving the 152 and then the 99 to Sacramento, we got quite the buffeting and rain off-and-on.  We stopped in Lodi for lunch in a McDonald’s that caught our eye.  It had the golden arches we all know so well but there was a weird little chef character on the neon sign.  Definitely, not one of the standard McDonald’s characters we all know so well.  In looking it up afterwards, we discovered that this little chef character was called “Speedee” and was the McDonald’s logo character from 1953 to 1962.  The first McDonald’s store and restaurant was in San Bernadino, not really that far from here, so maybe the Lodi McDonald’s was one of the original “expansion” restaurants.  It certainly looked like some of the early McDonald’s restaurants with the arches built into the sides of the restaurant.

Lodi is known for its wineries, not its McDonald’s restaurant, so we decided to try and locate Cycles Gladiator Winery as we had purchased a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvingnon in Calgary and had quite enjoyed it.  I had an address but it brought us to a residential home.  The home was surrounded by miles of grapevines, but it was NOT the Cycles Gladiator Winery.  At least, it was not the “public face” of Cycles Gladiator.  Determined not to leave a California wine region without a bottle of wine, we randomly picked another winery off the wine route directional sign – Ripken – and followed all the signs to, you guessed it, a closed wine-tasting room.  We did take a picture, though!

The last stretch into Sacramento flew by and before we knew it we were at our destination for the evening.  Our timing was perfect as one of our hosts in Sacramento – Chris – just got home from work as Jeremy drove onto the sidewalk in front of his home.  No, Jeremy did not go crazy with his motorcycle driving and decide to start driving on sidewalks.  Chris and Stacey have a little courtyard in front of their house that we can squeeze our motorcycle into and lock it up for a few days.  Time to play tourist again for a few days and give the Honda a break!  Koira will also get a chance to socialize with some other little dogs – two tiny Maltese pups named Sophie and Mico.  Absolutely adorable!  Koira is the “big dog” in the house this time, but Sophie definitely rules the roost!

After our full breakfast and a little caffeine, we were raring to go.  Well, everyone except Koira.  She needed a little convincing to get out of bed this morning, but once we showed her the leash she decided she might like to see a little of Carmel.  Well, explore it with her nose anyway.  After the “Poodle Parade,” every corner was a sign post to be read by her nose.  It was a little slow going trying to drag the dog, but eventually the “news” got old and she walked a little quicker.  She even got to do a little shopping.  Jeremy and I found Carmel t-shirts and Koira (Jenny) found a little sea otter toy.

We stopped at The Carmel Coffee House cafe for a little rest and a coffee halfway through our tour of downtown Carmel.  Excellent coffee and a beautiful little courtyard to just hang out in and people watch.  Its amazing how many different languages we heard being spoken today.  Carmel attracts people from all over the world.  We heard Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Japanese.  And lots of Australian and English accents as well.  And in every language, we got “Oh, what a cute dog!”  Who needs a purebred poodle?!

We did a little more wandering around downtown after our coffee break.  Jeremy found his favourite store in every town – the candy store!  He actually came out with gourmet fudge and chocolate covered orange peels.  The first fudge we tried was caramel and sea salt.  It may sound a little odd for fudge but it was amazing!  Something about caramel and sea salt really works.

After having dessert first, we decided we should have lunch.  One of the restaurants that had been featured on www.bringfido.com was on the way back to our hotel, so we decided to give it a try.  The restaurant is called Forge in the Forest.  Although we did not get to sit in the “forge” patio area, we were ushered to a very nice partially covered patio on the other side of the restaurant.  There were already three, very large but well-behaved dogs there with their “people.”  Koira did very well, and, once again we were all made to feel very welcome.  We had excellent clams and mussels in a white wine sauce with fresh-baked buns for a starter and a caramelized onion and roast duck pizza for our main dish.  Jeremy confirmed that he had is “odd dish” quota for the day with the “duck” pizza, but it was really good.

At the end of our meal, we met one of the other dogs in the patio area – Gerard.  He was, by far, the largest poodle that we had ever seen!  He was a gentle giant, though.  His owner told us he had been part of the “Poodle Parade” on Saturday and he had been the largest poodle there, at “over a hundred pounds”.  His brother was also part of the parade and was the second largest poodle in the parade.  We had no idea that poodles could be so massive!  He could wear Koira as a beret!  Thankfully, he was more interested in our leftover “duck” pizza.

Once again we had to roll ourselves back to the hotel . . . only to turn around and head back out to visit Carmel Beach State Park.  All the walking is good for us . . . especially after all the rich meals and sweets.  We walked, downhill, through residential areas to the beach.  There are some beautiful and very expensive real estate in Carmel.  We did not see Clint Eastwood or Jay Leno on the way.  Jeremy had the camera ready just in case.  We probably saw some very rich people but we did not know who they were.  And I am sure that is the way they like it here.

The beach was a little busier than Lincoln City and had almost as many dogs on it as people.  We still had our own space, though, and a nice quiet stroll along the beach.  We saw Pebble Beach from a distance.  I am sure that is about as close as we will ever get to being able to golf there.  We can dream, though.

After our stroll on the beach, I was the most wet and sandy, not Koira.  I am afraid that I broke the golden rule of beach-walking and turned my back on the surf.  Thankfully, the water is a little warmer here.  I had to walk back through ritzy downtown Carmel in wet pants and sandy feet, though.  And uphill all the way!  What a day!

We managed to navigate back to Highway 1 and, in doing so, passed the United States Coast Goard training centre.  Now, that’s an impressive complex and extremely well-protected.  It is now part of the Homeland Security initiative so it is probably a lot more secure that it used to be.  We did not stop and take a picture just in case it made us look suspicious.  The guards did not look like “rent-a-cops.”  These guys were the real deal!

Before we knew it, we were navigating the (in)famous hair pin turns, hills and valleys of the Highway 1 approach to San Francisco.  Just when we thought Highway 1 could not get any more technical, it went up to a whole new level of difficulty.  Jeremy, as always, impressed me with his skill and his calmness.  I closed my eyes several times and held on tight.  Good thing I was not driving!  I honestly don’t know if I could have done this stretch.  We hope Jeremy’s helmet cam captured most of this part of the ride.  And maybe the crazy sports bike rider with no license plate that was passing cars and other motorcyclists over the double line.  It is all double line through this stretch of Highway 1 for a reason.  And there may have been a reason this guy did not have a license plate.  Maybe he lost his license because of this kind of insanity a long time ago.

When things began to level off, we were in San Francisco proper.  The next milestone was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.  What an amazing piece of engineering!  Photos and film do not capture the sheer size of this bridge.  You have to cross it to really experience it.

We got caught in a little big city traffic on the way through San Francisco, but we have been in much worse.  Usually it is much, much hotter too when we get caught in traffic.  Before we knew it we were through San Francisco and driving through its various suburbs.  We stopped for lunch in Pacifica at the pier at an ocean-side canteena called Chit Chat.  It took a very long time, but we eventually got our barbeque hamburgers.  Definitely do not stop here if you are in a hurry!

After Pacifica, Highway 1 straightened out and it was a nice relaxing ride all the way to Carmel.  We drove through agricultural land that included pumpkins, artichokes, and, maybe broccoli.  It smelled like broccoli but maybe it was something else.  There were a lot of roadside stands and we could not believe the prices.  You could get 10 grapefruits or 10 artichokes for $1.00.  We definitely pay a lot for shipping this produce to Canada, don’t we?

Although our GPS took us on a creative route into Carmel, we finally found main street.  Oddly enough, the Best Western Bay Side Inn that we had picked for the evening, did not accept pets.  Every Best Western we have stayed at so far has allowed pets but the Best Western in one of the top ten “pet-friendly” cities in the United States had a no pet policy.  Go figure?  Anyway, we wandered around a little and found something much, much better – Svendsgaard’s Inn.  They had a room for all of us, one of their best, with a fireplace and little kitchen.   Our host informed us that our timing was good.  Apparently, yesterday was the annual “Poodle Parade” in Carmel and there would not have been a pet-friendly room available for us anywhere in town if we had been a day earlier.  There were 360 poodles in the parade this year too!  I guess, for once, our timing was bang on.  And really, it is only because we stayed an extra day in Lincoln City too.  I found the website for the Carmel “Poodle Parade,” but there are no photos yet from this year:

http://poodleday.com/

After settling in to the hotel and finding a decent map for downtown Carmel (none of the roads are straight and you can get lost pretty easy), we headed out to try why one the pet-friendly restaurants that Carmel is famous for among dog-lovers.  We decided to try Jack London’s Grill and Taproom.  We walked past it twice before we actually saw the sign.  There are so many little courtyards everywhere and some of the businesses are tucked in pretty deep.  The host gave us a nice little table on the courtyard patio under the Christmas tree.  Is it not a Christmas tree if it has Christmas lights?  It was so nice to be out for dinner and to have our dog so welcome too.  The offered her treats, surprise, surprise.  And made sure she had water too.  Excellent service for all of us and excellent food.  Jeremy tried their Caliente Burger with jalapenos and jack cheese and I, after seeing all those artichoke vendors along Highway 1, their Artichoke Fettucini.  Yum yet again!  We had to roll ourselves back to the hotel, but thankfully it was slightly downhill.

We are staying on another day in Carmel, so we will post some more photos from playing tourist tomorrow.

Halfway through Eureka downtown proper Jeremy had a eureka moment!  I am probably not using that saying properly but I had to use it somewhere.  Jeremy realized he still had our hotel key cards in his pocket, so we saw downtown Eureka three times today.  And Koira got to bark at people on the street too a little more than usual.

Although the day started out promising in terms of the weather, it was not long before we hit the drizzle of the coast again.  We drove through beautiful redwood groves, spotted our second children’s swimming pool on the road (this time a plastic Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle pool with built-in slide safely resting on the northbound side of the highway), and stopped at a gas station with no gasoline but fantastic brownies and espresso – The Peg House.  We found premium gasoline in Legget, just down the road at the crossroads between Highway 101 and Highway 1.  Good thing, because the Honda was getting pretty low!

After filling up, Jeremy turned on his helmet cam to film Highway 1 for a little while.  It was just as amazing as we remembered from two years ago.  A little different, though, because we are going North to South this time instead of South to North.  The views of the ocean when we came out of the trees was amazing from this direction.

We were able to do the first stretch of Highway 1 from Legget to Fort Bragg on fairly dry roads, but the drizzle turned to actual rain just outside Fort Bragg.  We stopped at a busy beach access parking lot and donned the rain gear yet again.  We were not the only motorcyclists in the parking lot trying to put on rain gear as quick as possible.  Jeremy forgot to turn of his helmet cam so we have a recording of that too.  It is always easier to start out in rain gear if you know it is going to rain.  Putting it on while it is raining when you already have all your other gear on is challenging, if not down right annoying.

After we got the rain gear on and headed out, the rain eased up, of course, but it hit us again later, so we were ready for it.  Even with the rain, Highway 1 is amazing.  We have not found anything to top it anywhere else in Canada or the United States.  The switchbacks are challenging but the views are just stunning.  We kept imagining Koira having to do handstands (pawstands?) in her Pet Palace for some of those 15 MPH and 10 MPH hairpins but, at our rest stops, she seemed relaxed and just ready to explore.  What an adaptable dog!

We pushed on through the rain, the moving trucks, the bravest bicyclists in the world, and the slowest minivan EVER with Alberta plates (for shame, Mr. Albertan, for shame), until we reached Bodega Bay.  A well known “birding” area, the town of Bodega was made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.  We did a little loop through Bodega in an attempt to find a hotel but it is very, very small.  We headed back through Bodega Bay and pulled into the Bodega Coast Inn parking lot.  They were very pricey but it was a Saturday night and I did not know how much farther I could go, so we decided to take their last available room.  Bodega Bay is close enough to the Sonoma wine region that the hotel rates would probably not be much better anywhere else nearby anyway.  Even Koira cost us an extra $30 per night and she was not even allowed in the lobby.  Oh, well.  The room is quiet and has a nice little balcony overlooking Bodega Bay and all the birds.  Lots and lots of birds.

To date, unless Jeremy is in the picture, Jeremy has been the photographer and I the writer on this trip.  I tried taking some nighttime pictures of the bay and the lights.  I think that I should stick to the writing and let Jeremy take the pictures.  I guess I moved the camera . . . you can check out my “renditions” of the harbour at night.

Just as an aside to today’s adventure, I have to take time to reflect on those brave bicyclists on Highway 1 again.  We remember them from last time too.  It is pretty unnerving coming around a hairpin turn and seeing a bicyclist.  Driving Highway 1 on a loaded “three-up” motorcycle in the rain may be daring, but not as daring as every single bicyclist we met on the road today.  And to all the very, very brave and daring bicyclists we met on the road today, Jeremy came up with a haiku in your honour:

Why, why, why, why, why
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why
Why, why, bicycle?

We were on the road early this morning for us.  We managed to get the bike loaded by 8:00 AM, including a cranky little dog who wanted to stay in bed.  We headed out under gray skies with a major Oregon winter storm chasing our tail.  It was all about getting through the storm front today and, hopefully, crossing the border into California.

We only took short breaks today.  We hit two espresso huts along the way, one in Florence and one in . . . in . . . oh, I can’t remember and Jeremy cannot remember either.  Apparently, these espresso huts are just as popular in Oregon as Washington.  Maybe it is a coastal, Highway 101 thing.  Whatever it is, we are enjoying them!  I actually learned how to hold Jeremy’s half-finished triple Americano coffee with my left hand and hold on to Jeremy with my right hand while weaving through the redwood forest of Highway 101.  I did not spill a drop!  And it really is not as dangerous as it sounds.  The coffee was cold and most of my balance on the bike comes from my legs and hips, not my arms anyway.

Don’t worry.  We are not living on caffeine either.  We stopped at a gas station in Port Orford to fill up the bike and Koira, as everywhere we go someone wants to give her a dog biscuit.  We have had to restrict it to one a day and say no to people, who then look as disappointed as Koira.  We asked the local attendant where the best place is to eat in his town.  He suggested The Crazy Norwegian down the street, so we decided to try it.  The locals always know where the best food is.  The Crazy Norwegian had fantastic chowder and homemade sourdough buns.  And we met a couple from British Columbia.  They were heading back from Reno in their camper van.

Our other memorable stop today was a small beach access area on the California coast just after we crossed the border.  There was no sunshine yet in California but we could see a promising band of light in the distance that we were hoping was our planned stop for the night.  On the way back to the bike, Jeremy decided to use the facilities.  Normally I would not mention this part of our day except that, just after he entered the bathroom, a huge California Forest Fire Services/Correctional Services armoured truck pulled into the rest stop where we were parked.  I found it a little interesting, but did not think much about it and sat down to wait for Jeremy.  The guards wandered around a bit, checked things out, and then unlocked the doors on the back of the truck.  Well, about 20 orange-clad inmates poured out from the back of the truck.  Guess where they were heading?  The men’s bathroom.  I think the guards were waiting for the bathroom to be clear before they let them go in, but I was a little concerned for Jeremy.  When he has all his rain and motorcycle gear on, he takes a long time in the bathroom.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Jeremy’s red and black rainsuit come around the corner BEFORE the inmates got a chance to go in to the bathroom.  Jeremy laughed at my concern.  He told me that I did not need to worry, because “he was not having a shower in there.”  Now, I had to laugh at that!

Unlike the inmates, we were free to leave the rest stop at our leisure.  A few of them were watching us put the dog on the bike.  I guess they will have something to talk about at dinner tonight.  They will probably be calling her “Fifi” in their story too.

After the rest stop, we had one last stretch of Highway 101 ahead of us before our stop for the night.  At Arcana, we caught up to the sun in the distance that we saw at the rest stop.  As we pulled into the parking lot at the Red Lion hotel in Eureka, the sun was still shining.  We were not sure they would have room for us at the hotel, though, as just as we were pulling into the hotel parking lot, two buses were pulling out from Utah that had just dropped off a whole load of college football players and their entourage.  And then you kind of think about rowdiness and noise even if they had room for us for the night.  Well, this hotel is huge.  It swallowed up the football players without a peep and, by the time we were walking to our room down the mile long hallway, there was no sign of a football player, coach, mascot, or groupie anywhere.  Where did they go?   Did they all go straight to their rooms to get a little study time in tonight?  Yes, that must be it.

We wandered around “downtown” Lincoln City for a little while today and checked out the gift shops.  I found a fisherman’s small  glass float at an antique store to remember our trip here.  I took a picture of it just in case it does not make it home in one piece.  I am going to have to protect it well in my sidebag.  We might have to come back to Lincoln City in the winter.  Every year, from mid-October to Memorial Day you can comb the beaches here for glass floats that city volunteers have “planted” on the beaches here.  You find it, its yours!  They are quite pretty.  Jeremy’s treasure find today – homemade caramel popcorn, chocolate-coated “sea foam” toffee,  and bacon-flavoured toothpicks from Candyland.

We also spent a little more time on the beach today, enjoying the beautiful weather and the ocean breezes.  We saw lots of pelicans skimming the waves for fish.  Koira was a tired dog today from all her walking around downtown, but she did a bit more digging for rocks and chasing of seafoam.  And there were no more snakes on the stairs today.  Jeremy had the camera ready and was disappointed.  I, on the other hand, was not!

P.S. The video from yesterday has been modified so that it now acceptable to the CRTC…

After the short walk, Koira was already tired for the day.  And her day was only beginning.  She tucked her head into the bag and settled down to sleep, but we were only going down the street to see The Goonies house.  Does anyone else remember that movie?  It was right up there as one of my all-time favourite movies as a child.  And the house they used for the movie is in Astoria!  They also filmed a lot of the coastal scenes in the area as well.   The Goonies house is a private home, but they let people walk up to it and take pictures.  So, we did.  Pretty exciting.  I want to see the movie again now.

Our other touristy stop in Astoria before leaving, was the Astoria Column on Coxcomb Hill.   The monument was constructed in 1925 to officially recognize Astoria’s explorers and early inhabitants for establishing the first settlement on the Pacific coast of the United States.  Astoria is actually celebrating its bicentennial year this year as it was established in 1811.  The column is covered in paintings and plaster carvings depicting the milestones in Astoria’s history.  Not only is it a work of art, you can also climb it!  There is a 164 step spiral staircase in the inside of the column and a viewing deck at the top of the column.  Jeremy and I took turns going up to the viewing deck.  Good exercise to get our muscles and lungs working at the start of the day.  The rewarding view from the top deck made it worth it too.

By the time we had both had our chance to climb the Astoria Column, the fog had lifted and the sun was starting to shine and warm us up.  Time to hit the road and explore more of Highway 101.

Our next stop of the day was the Tillamook Cheese Factory in, you guessed it, Tillamook, Oregon.  When I heard there was free cheese here, it immediately became a waypoint for the trip.  I think the free cheese attracts everyone, though, not just cheese lovers.  It was very busy for off-season and the parking lot was very sunny and no shade for us or the dog.  I went in to see if there was any kind of takeout lunch for us.  No luck.  I did a whirlwind trip around the little grocery section and found a 2 foot long pepperoni, some Tillamook cheese curds, and some Oregon salmon jerky.  I also found some Crater Lake soda from Oregon to try.  It was the best I could do but Jeremy said it was “pepilicious.”  Koira and I enjoyed the cheese curd too, but it was still not as good as St. Albert cheese curds.  Just not squeeky enough.  Unfortunately, half way through our lunch snack, Jeremy’s Crater Lake root beer attracted a wasp, so he only got to drink half of it.  A second wasp tried to get my Crater Lake lemon and lime bitter but I managed to rescue it.  Did I tell you how much trouble with wasps we have on our trips?  We think it is the smell of dead bugs on our gear and our bikes that attract them.  Plus, I wear yellow and black gear.  That probably does not help.

It was time for gas before leaving Tillamook.  We have to get used to Oregon’s full serve policy again at gas stations.  It makes our stops quicker as we do not have to get off the bike, but Koira gives the attendants an earful when they come near the bike.   It is always amusing to see people try to figure out where the barking is coming from on Jeremy’s bike. We have to love those gas prices in Washington and Oregon, though!  Today, Jeremy paid $1.00 a litre for premium gasoline.  In British Columbia, before we crossed the border, we paid $1.49 a litre.

After Tillamook, despite the rest, we were both squirming on the bike from sore everything.  This trip,  Jeremy is having a lot of problems with his back and his knees.  For me, it is my hips.   Koira is just having problems with “bed head” from sleeping in the same position for so long.  We only made it to a Shell gas station in Cloverdale before we needed to stop again.  It did not help that we tried to do the Three Capes Scenic Loop to Cape Lookout State Park on a very rough, patchy road.  At Cloverdale, we both needed a little caffeine fix and to think about whether or not we could really make Coos Bay for the evening.  Coos Bay was another 200 KM or so from where we were and, at 50 KM stretches, it would be dark by the time we got to Coos Bay.  We decided to slow down and just head for Lincoln City for the night.  Lincoln City advertises itself as dog-friendly and was also named by Dog Fancy Magazine as “one of the ten top dog-friendly cities in the nation” (and that is a direct quote from the Lincoln City Central Oregon Coast Free Visitor Guide).  In the visitor guide for Lincoln City, we found a lodging listing called Sea Horse Oceanfront Lodging that allowed pets.  We have good luck with hotels with sea horse themes, so we plugged the address of this hotel into our GPS and headed out.

I do not know if it was the caffeine or the knowledge that we were only 45 KM from our hotel for the night, that last stretch of Highway 101 was the best and the most enjoyable.  We were only a little bit squirmy by the end.  Koira was out like a light in her Pet Palace by the time we pulled into the hotel parking lot.  She only gave a little “let me out bark” and waited for me to haul her out.  And what a nice inviting welcome for us and our dog!  Jeremy secured one of the little sea horse emblazoned semi-detached cabins for us for the night.  It is rustic Ottawa Valley cabin mixed with oceanfront theme.  We felt right at home.  They even provided Koira with a carob-coated dog biscuit and her own blanket for the evening.  If you have a dog and want to visit the Oregon coast, I can’t imagine any better accommodations.

After we settled in a little, we just had to see the ocean.  Although we do not have an ocean view from our cabin, we are only a stone’s throw away from the public access steps down to the beach and the Pacific.

Today, was definitely the day for stairs, as the staircase down to the beach had at least a hundred, small stone steps.  It was worth the walk down, despite the snake on the steps.  Jeremy stayed behind and took pictures of the snake while Koira and I hung out at the bottom of the stairs, a very safe distance away.  Thankfully, he left the snake where it was to find its own way down to the beach.  I think I liked the banana slug better than the snake, even if it was just a garter snake.

Well, the beach was just as beautiful as we remembered from the last time we were in Lincoln City and the water was just as icy cold.  We had a whole stretch of the beach to ourselves to wander.  After figuring out that the piles of seaweed were not out to get her, Koira loved it.  After getting surprised by her first wave, she figured out pretty quickly to run away from the waves.  Her favourite thing appeared to be chasing the seafoam.  She tried digging up rocks and shells.  We need to show her how to find live shellfish and not bring us empty shells.  She also stalked a seagull but he kept at a safe distance at all times.  She is not good at stalking.  Our cat Hungry would have had better luck.

We were all tired and windswept by the time we made it back up to the top of the beach stairs again, but we needed to find food for the evening.  We found a restaurant called the Beach Dog Cafe that allowed dogs in the visitor guide for Lincoln City and headed out on the bike with our wet, newly inaugurated beach dog.  And, they must have heard about us, as it looks like they closed, permanently at the end of the summer season.  No more Beach Dog Cafe.  It is going to be a Highway 101 burger joint in a couple of months.  Jeremy had spotted an open barbeque/family restaurant called Vivian’s Resturant and Bill’s Barbeque on our way to the Beach Dog Cafe so we decided to try there.  It was an excellent choice.  They let us sit outside on their picnic tables and we had barbeque everything and pan-seared scallops.  Even their caesar salad was good with its homemade dressing.  Yum!

As an interesting side note to the snake on the beach stairs, when Jeremy was getting the bike ready to go out for supper, he saw a group of local kids come running from the beach . . . one of the little boys holding the snake.  I guess the snake did not make it to the safety of the beach after all.  I almost felt sorry for the little guy . . . almost.

We decided to start out in our rain suits today as the weather forecasts were predicting rain all the way to the coast.  The ladies at the visitor centre in Yakima had also warned Jeremy that there was a chance of snow through the pass.  At first we thought we were sitting in our portable saunas for nothing, but then the rain caught up to us.  Even despite the drizzle and the cold through the pass, the Old Natches Highway and Gifford Pinchot National Forest was beautiful.  It is right up there with some of the best motorcycling roads we have been on.  It was a nice surprise.   If Jeremy had known how nice it was going to be, he would have worn his helmet cam again.

Thankfully, we did not encounter any snow.  Jeremy was still very happy to have his heated jacket, though.  I had mine on, but I did not plug it in.  I think I am getting heat from Jeremy’s jacket just sitting behind him as I did not feel the cold at all.  Also, I think he shelters me from the cold and rain.  And then Koira probably gets almost nothing being the third “person” up.  What a spoiled dog!  We keep telling people she is riding in more comfort than us!

Although we did not encounter snow, what we did encounter on the Old Natches Highway was a construction zone.  It is really one of the risks of traveling off-season just before winter on some of these popular scenic byways.  I noticed a tight clump of about twenty cars and trucks pass us going the other direction and wondered how that could have happened when the road was so quiet on our side.  A few miles down the road, we found out how that could happen.  We came upon stopped traffic and people wandering around and walking their dogs.  The porta-potties setup at the side were also not a good sign.  Jeremy went to talk to the other travelers while I unloaded the dog, not sure if I should bother taking of my helmet yet.  The news from Jeremy – a wait time of 40 minutes.  Well, that is definitely the record for us so far.   We wandered around, took pictures, talked to people, watched the flagger, watched people ask the flagger how much time was left, watched these people take a little hike, and then watch these same people walk up to the flagger and ask how much time they had been away on their hike and how much time they had left to wait.  Talk about little kids asking “Are we there yet?”  The wait ended up being more like 25 or 30 minutes.  The flagger probably exaggerates the amount of time he tells people so they are pleasantly surprised when it is time to go.  I imagine that is also a tactic that parents use in the car with little kids too.

After the Old Natches Highway, we came across a sign for a Mount St. Helens scenic lookout.  Well, we could not pass that up.  Jeremy remembers the ash that fell in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, from the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.  It is hard to believe the ash traveled that far, but it did.  He remembers his dad giving his brothers and him little film canisters to go out and collect some of the ash from the yard.   The weather was not good for viewing at the lookout, but we took some photos anyway.  You will just have to imagine the volcano and the crater hidden in the clouds like we did.

After the Mount St. Helens “imagination” exercise, we were ready for some lunch.  We found one of our favourite road trip restaurants – a Shell gas station – in Mossyrock.  As usual, Jeremy came out with a tasty lunch – burritos and egg rolls with “raspberry jam and coconut sprayed” Twinkies for dessert.  Koira got called “Fifi” by some Washington power company workers who stopped in for lunch at the gas station too.  I was a little insulted for her, but they did not mean it in a bad way.  They were pretty impressed that she was riding with us, despite her “Fifiness.”

We almost took our rain gear off at Mossyrock but decided we could stand the saunas just a little while longer just in case.  It was a good decision because we hit the heaviest rain yet that day about ten minutes down the road.  It did not last long and then we were into sunshine.  In Raymond, we finally stopped at one of the little espresso hutts we kept seeing all through Washington.  Even the smallest little towns, have an espresso hutt.  Seattle is know for its coffee chains, so we are thinking all these little espresso hutts all over Washington are to lure in the caffeine-addicted tourists from Seattle . . . and Calgary.  It was pretty good coffee and the little caffeine boost gave us the energy for that last little stretch to Highway 101 and Oysterville.

Now, I have been talking about Oysterville and Oysterville Sea Farms for several weeks now.  I had Jeremy pretty excited about fresh oysters.  I thought it was going to be a touristy town with some small hotels and a few restaurants.  No, I was wrong.  The drive in was nice along the peninsula and we got to see some cranberry bogs, but Oysterville is kind of like a little Upper Canada Village, but the homes are actually private residences with historic plaques at the gate.  And the restaurant – Oysterville Sea Farms – closed at 5:00 PM.  We were there at 5:20 PM.  Getting to places just a little too late seem to be a common theme on our road trips, unfortunately.

Plan B was to try and find seafood and a place to stay in Astoria, Oregon.  The Astoria Bridge crossing the mouth of the Columbia River was interesting.  It took us from Washington to Oregon.  It ran along the water for a little while and then seemed to start going up like the start of a roller coaster.   I was relieved to see it was it as not too steep on the other side and you gradually wound down into the town of Astoria.

We found a room at the Best Western Lincoln Inn beside the Port of Astoria.   On the advice of the hotel clerk, we decided to try and get some Greek takeout from the restaurant under the bridge.  On the motorcycle, it did not seem that far from the bridge to the hotel.  Walking, it was a lot longer.  We took the River Walk as far as we could along the ocean.  So, it was a nice walk, really.  Seeing a “wharf” rat scurrying away from a boat near our hotel was a little disquieting, though.  Is it a good thing to see it running away from the hotel instead of toward it?

Unfortunately, after the long walk, our craving for Greek food was not satisfied.  The twenty-four hour Greek restaurant was closed . . . just for us.  We ended up having to get KFC takeout.  I was beginning to think we would not even get that as they were seriously understaffed and the drive through was their priority.  They did give me a 10% discount for having to wait for so long.  Maybe we will have better luck with restaurants tomorrow.

And then, it started to rain again.  We had to stop about ten minutes into the United States and put on our rain gear.  All bundled up in our rain gear, we headed out again.  I had several “deja view” instances during this stretch of our trip.  It was almost like we were in Alberta . . . but not quite.  Like some kind of parallel universe where names and places were just not quite the same but very familiar.  There were advertisements for rodeos and “stampedes.”  And names of lakes and regions were very similar but not quite the same like – Okanogan instead of Okanagan.  I could not help but think of Steven King’s “The Talisman” with its parallel universe.  And then, wouldn’t you know, we drove into The Wasteland.  I would not be surprised if the basis for The Wasteland was this part of Washington.  Miles and miles and miles of dry, brown, rocky terrain with misshapen little trees and shrubs.

And then we came across something amazing – Dry Falls State Park.   It looks like the remains of an aggressive and ugly mining operation, but it is actually what was left behind from the world largest waterfall after the flow of water changed.  Koira wanted to explore the 1000 foot drop to the canyon below but we held her back.   She is afraid of the floor registers at home but had no fear of a 1000 foot drop into a canyon.  Go figure.  Jeremy said maybe she is just afraid of getting stuck in the hole in the floor at home, where there is no way her little fat butt could get stuck in this canyon!

The next stretch of riding was all about interstates.  We needed to cover some kilometres to get within riding distance of the coast for tomorrow.  Interstates are great for that, but not so nice for technical riding or scenery.  We stopped for lunch at a Shell/Texaco gas station and ate at the concrete picnic tables outside.  Koira got some more attention, some from a couple that had seen her at Dry Falls State Park but were to shy to ask about her there.  Jeremy rewarded her with a little piece of meatball from his gas station calzone.  My calzone was just a big ball of five different cheeses – Jeremy knows what I like!

We drove out of the gray clouds for a little while, but the clouds were definitely chasing us.  We arrived at the Yakima visitor centre about 3:00 PM.  Jeremy went into the visitor’s centre to get some suggestions for the next leg of our journey.  I think he made the bored ladies’ day.  He came out with maps galore and free peaches!  It was the best peaches we had eaten in a long, long time.  Koira enjoyed a few pieces too but I managed to get covered in sticky peach juice.  I am such a slob.

We decided, with the rainy weather chasing us, we had gone far enough today.  Jeremy went back into the visitor centre again and asked about pet friendly accommodations.  They recommended the Oxford Inn as it had a walking path behind it for dogs with easy access from the hotel room.  It sounded perfect!  And it was.  Jeremy even got a cookie to eat while he was checking us in!  And when I came in with the dog, we got a $5.00 discount for cuteness (well, probably because she was small, but I like that they said it was because she was cute)!

The only low point today, even with the rainy weather, was the Yakima Walmart experience.  Our hotel had a little microwave and fridge again so we decided to walk across the street to the Walmart and get some groceries for supper.  It was Jeremy’s turn to go in while I wait outside for him with the dog.  Well, Koira did not approve of the Yakima Walmart.  She kept trying to pull me back to the hotel.  For a little dog, she can really pull and I took turns pacing with her and carrying her in front of the Walmart.  Well, that drew the attention of the Walmart security guard.  He walked over to me and started making notes in his little official notebook.  I don’t know what he thought I was doing, but he thought I was acting suspicious, I guess.  He was ignoring the bunch of half-drunk questionables at the picnic table at the other end of the parking lot, but the lady with the nervous white dog deserved his attention.  Just before Jeremy came back out, he walked past me, hand to mouth in a lewd sort of way and said “Bag ‘em and tag ‘em.”  What does that mean?  What a creep.  It was just after two guys walked past me into the Walmart and said “Look at the cute dog.”  Did he really think I was trying to catch a man with my little white dog outside of a Walmart?  How stupid is that?  What would you want to “bag” at the Yakima Walmart?  If you were that desperate, would it not be smarter to hang out around a luxury car dealership or high-end jewellery store?  Anyway, there is a reason he is a “rent-a-cop” at a Walmart.   Not the brightest bulb at the police academy probably.  I feel better now.  I needed to vent about it.

Anyway, despite my “experience” outside the Walmart, Jeremy foraged us a fantastic little meal in the Walmart.  For $20.00 we had microwaveable tacos with a salad (yes, we are still trying to eat healthy on the road), a four-pack of Guinness, and a bottle of Lucky Duck Cabernet Sauvingnon.  Oh, and Magnum Double Caramel ice cream bars that we had to eat as an appetizer when we realized there was no freezer part to our little hotel fridge.

Despite our early rise, this morning, we still did not make it on the road much earlier than usual.  By the time we packed up, posted yesterday’s blog, and had our complimentary breakfast of “huevos rancheros” (excellent wrapped in a homemade tortilla) delivered to us in the lobby because Koira was not allowed in the restaurant (which is perfectly understandable), it was already 8:00 AM.  It was raining during this time period anyway, so the delay let the clouds pass over Nelson a little.

We packed up the bike in the hotel parking lot while other guests packed up their cars.  Everyone had to stop and ask us where Koira rode again too.  I tell ya, she is the popular one!  After Jeremy took some photos of Nelson’s historic courthouse, we were off again!

We re-traced our route a little and lined up to ride “Canada’s Best Motorcycling Road” – the Kaslo to New Denver route.  We actually made it to Kaslo before we realized we had not had any caffeine yet today.  What is up with that?  Awake at 5:30 AM and no coffee yet?  We found a little coffee shop in Kaslo that roasted and sold its own coffee beans – Oso Negro (Black Bear).  We picked it for its outdoor patio for the dog, but the coffee was excellent and the pumpkin spice muffin and orange-infused icing was  pretty good too!  Koira spent her time hunting for crumbs under the table.

We wandered around Kaslo a little before heading off.  What a nice little town!  Along the waterfront, we discovered the restored S.S. Moyie, a famous paddle-wheel steamer.   We rode a “replica” of the S.S. Moyie at Heritage Park in Calgary so it was a nice surprise to see the real thing!  We also saw a little display of Kaslo’s former rescue boat – The Verna.  Compared to search and rescue boats of today, it was not very big, but I guess it did the job for many, many years.

After Kaslo, it was time for “Canada’s Best Motorcycling” route.  Jeremy turned on the helmet cam for this one.  It was definitely an amazing ride.   We only got stuck behind a campy once (our name for campers and camper-like vehicles).  He was nice enough to pull off to the side for us, though, and we had the road to ourselves the rest of the way.  Conditions were a little on the wet side, so Jeremy had to ease off on the throttle a little, but I think the road lived up to his expectations.  We will be back some day on two bikes so I can ride it too.  It was still pretty amazing as a passenger.

After New Denver, we made the run to Castlegar.  The rain clouds and wind were chasing us but we got to Castlegar ahead of the storm and relaxed in the Canadian Tire parking lot with some A&W lunch and, yet again, a beautiful scenic view of the mountains.  Koira got her french fry again from Jeremy so she was happy.  As we started packing up again, it started to rain.  It looks like Day 2 of our trip this year will be the rainy one.

Just after Castlegar, the rain got heavy enough to warrant warmer clothes and rain gear.  We stopped, donned some extra gear, battened down the hatches on Koira’s Pet Palace, and kept going.  Jeremy tried out his new heated jacket and was in heated bliss.  I think I picked a good birthday present this year.

The rain eased up and then disappeared by the time we reached a historic “Point of Interest” in the Kettle Valley area.  That is all the sign said, but we needed a break and stretch so we stopped.  I also wanted to make sure that Koira had stayed dry in all that rain.  She was dry and sleepy when I hauled her out of the bag.  So, it passed the rain test.

The historic “Point of Interest” was the Dewdney Trail.  Apparently, Edgar Dewdney, an engineer, was commissioned for $50,000 to create a 4 ft wide trail from Fort Hope (now Hope, British Columbia) to Fort Steele in 1860, and was only given a year to do it.   He met all his contract deadlines!  What an amazing feat!  He created the trail and it became the base for much of Highway 3 – British Columbia Crowsnest Highway.  Jeremy also found something interesting that was not advertised on the historic plaques.  A box of what appeared to be garage sale cast-offs.  Just an odd combination of things in a box.  If we had any room to spare, we might have taken the little toy truck.  It will be a nice little find for a little boy or girl that stops, anyway.

After the Dewdney Trail break, it was time for the last stretch of the day to Osoyoos.  Today proved, yet again, you just never know what kind of obstacles you are going to encounter when riding a motorcycle.  Our safety courses never told us what to do when you you come across a big, inflatable Barbie princess swimming pool sliding across the road in front of you.  It was pretty windy so this pool must have escaped from someone’s backyard.  Jeremy slowed down and watched which way the wind was blowing it and then swerved around it.  Seemed to be the right approach.  Too bad the helmet cam was not on.  We will probably never see that again!

We made it to Osoyoos, despite the wind and swimming pool obstacles, nice and early today.  The view descending into Osoyoos from the East is fantastic, but one of us had to keep an eye on the hairpin turns and the sharp cliffs instead of gazing down the valley.  Once we made it down to lake-level, we cruised the main street and picked out the Super 8 as our home for the night.  A heated pool and hot tub, and right across the street from the 7-11.  Ahhh…  sipping a Slurpee in the hot tub…

We were up early and had a leisurely breakfast, packed a few last-minute items, walked the dog and left. We took the easy way out of town through Bragg Creek then headed up to the Trans-Canada as far as Canmore before the first rest stop was ordered. Since we didn’t really need anything we stopped at the visitor information center on the edge of town so Koira could have a sniff and I could try out my favourite ride, then it was back on the bike.

After Canmore, we were riding new territory. Normally, we take the Highway 93 to Radium Hot Springs to visit Jeremy’s Mom but today there was no turning. We kept straight and headed towards Yoho National Park and Golden. I kept an eye out but, unlike my parents, I did not see any wolves running in the ditches. Koira would have loved to smell a wolf . . . from a distance, on a motorcycle, safe in her Pet Palace.

We stopped at the Golden Arches in Golden for lunch. The Golden Golden Arches. Just like Invermere, even the local businesses have beautiful views from their parking lots. We grabbed a little picnic table out back and ate our fast food lunch. Koira even got a few french fries, much to the chagrin of the ravens watching us from the nearby picnic table. They were the largest ravens that I had ever seen but Jeremy said he saw bigger in Iqaluit. The ravens in Iqaluit rumble with the large stray dogs for garbage. These one’s were sizing Koira up with their beady black eyes but they decided to hang back and wait until we were done.

After Golden, we headed for Revelstoke and gained an hour simply by crossing a time zone. We like that! Its hard when you lose an hour, though. In Revelstoke, we stopped at a busy Chevron station and watched the hustle and bustle for awhile. Revelstoke is the halfway point between Vancouver and Calgary. Very busy spot. People came up to us and wanted to talk about our dog and where we were heading. When we say our goal is California they are stunned. I think they are expecting us to say Vancouver.

Next on our agenda, after some rest at Revelstoke, was a ferry ride. We love ferries! Especially free ones! The highway to the Galena Bay/Shelter Bay ferry was a nice surprise and one of the best roads for motorcycling that we had been on all day. We had to wait about fifteen minutes for the ferry but we got to meet more people again. Everyone is just so curious about the dog and where we are taking her. She is a real hit on the road! Even once we were on the ferry, we had people coming up to us to meet her (and us because we were with her only). Maybe we should teach her to give autographs! We popped the lid on her bag and let her smell the air and see her adoring fans. Well, it was not quite like that, but exaggeration is fun in blogs.

Koira gave the other motorcyclists a good barking as we drove off the ferry and then we were off again. We stopped at a little roadside gas station in Slocan for a snack and, just like Revelstoke, watched the hustle and bustle of town life. Everyone had a dog and three kids in their car.

After our rest and some free plums, it was time for the last stretch of the day. We discovered that there were not many hotels in New Denver, so we decided to re-route to Nelson. Nelson had a few pet-friendly hotels to pick from according to www.bringfido.com, so we thought it would be a better place to stop for the night. The Best Western was full for the night but they recommended the Hume Hotel down the street. They had a room for us and allowed pets. Whew! It is a very interesting old heritage hotel too with some character. It was built in 1898 and restored in the 1980s. The restoration did not include an elevator, though, so we had to hike up three stories with our luggage and the dog.

After settling into our room, we needed sustenance and some libation. We did not know what we would find where we could bring Koira, but we wandered down main street and saw pizza spinning in a warming rack in the window of a little Italian deli. Jeremy negotiated with the patron and she allowed us to sit on the outdoor patio as long as Koira stayed tucked under the table. It was pretty late by then so there was only one other couple on the patio. So, Jeremy and I even got to have a night out on the town and a little drink after our ride. Koira got a few pieces of bacon off of Jeremy’s slice of pizza too. She is not going to want to go home!

Random iPhone pictures:

After 160 KM of interstate, we were chilled to the bone.  Every 10 KM/H on the motorcycle makes it feel one degree cooler on the bikes, so when we are on the interstate we are talking  negative, freezing temperatures.  We were both starting to shiver uncontrollably so we needed to stop for coffee and something warm to eat.  As usual, McDonald’s in Syracuse came through for us for food and hot coffee, but not WiFi.  Really, the WiFi stickers need to be taken off all the McDonald’s in the United States.  Talk about false advertising! 

Just in that 30 minute rest in Syracuse, the temperature rose a few degrees outside and the sun finally broke through the clouds a bit.  Ahhhhh . . . warmth . . . even just a little . . . made all the difference.  We also put on another layer of gear.  That probably helped too.

We were making good time after Syracuse.  The Highway 13 North was pretty fast for a smaller highway and not too busy at 9:00 in the morning.   There is some beautiful farmland in New York.  It is not just about the Big Apple.  We were steadily chipping away at Petunia’s ETA in Ottawa of 5:30 PM.  At one point, we were back on the I-80 near Pulaski (the town with a hitchinig post for horses at their McDonald’s), where our trip began last year.  Hmmm . . . our second crossover experience with our trip from last year.  The other was a brief crossover with Morgantown, West Virginia two days ago.

We started to wonder a little about Petunia’s route.  How could we possibly have as far to go as she said if we had already passed Pulaski, New York.  We had stopped at Pulaski last year for lunch after not that long a ride from home.  Jeremy checked our route.  Bad, little Petunia!  She had picked the Wolfe Island Ferries as her optimized route for the day.  She did not want the trip to end!  She was enjoying being a tourist!  Sorry, Petunia.  No ferry for you today.  Suck it up!

Jeremy changed a few settings of Petunia’s settings and like, magic, more than a hundred kilometres dropped off our trip.  We were going to cross the border at Gananoque and be home by 2:00 PM.  What a nice surprise!

Traffic was pretty heavy at the border for a Thursday.  There were only two lanes open due to maintenance work/construction.  Really, the untold story of our trip.   The United States and Canada are under construction . . . everywhere.  Make work, not debt . . .

We only had to wait about 15 minutes or so.  I managed to get through the border without being stung by the wasp that kept landing on my bike and my hand.  He decided he did not want to go to Canada and buzzed off just as I was waved forward to the booth.  Kept me distracted from worrying about the crossing.  I don’t know why I get so nervous about border crossings.  We had nothing to hide.  All we bought in our 11 days in the United States were postcards, a miniature “rotten” dog, two little gifts for my parents, and some deep-fried peanuts.

Canada greeted us with the usual – a cold, miserable rain.  Not quite enough to stop and put our rain gear but just enough to make us feel just a bit colder and a little more anxious to be home.

We spent the last hour booting it down the 401 and the 416.  Roads we know very well.  The rain got heavier as we approached the outskirts of Ottawa but we did not want to stop.  What was the point?  We would be home in a half hour anyway.  It would take about that long for the rain to actually seep through all our layers of gear anyway, even without the rain gear.

And then, there it was.  Our townhouse, our driveway, our garage.  My parents were there to greet us along with our little dog.  Our cat waited long enough on the front porch to give us a dirty look and then ran away to sulk on the back deck.  Ahhhh . . . everything back to normal.  All is right with the world.  Now, lets get that fireplace fired up.  I can’t stop shivering again.

We started out with a little bit of a disappointment.  Our tourist trap scheduled for today was Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.  Apparently, it is closed on Wednesdays for tours.  We could walk the ground for $8 each, so we decided to go anyway.  We wanted to see Fallingwater, even if we could not see the inside.

The drive into Fallingwater was quite nice through the Laurel Highlands.  The leaves are starting to change in this area, so we got to experience some of those famous fall colours.  A nice little drive before the chaos that we were about to experience that is the “parking” lot at Fallingwater.

We bought our tickets at the box office at Fallingwater and tried to follow the instructions of the attendant to the parking lot on the right, but a huge pit and an angry construction worker blocked our way.  Apparently, the attendant meant we were to go to the crappy gravel parking lot to HER right, not our right.  We tried to park on the paved area of the miniscule little parking lot that was provided to us, but the angry construction worker had it out with Jeremy about blocking the road.  Not very nice at all.  He finally agreed to let us park in the paved bus parking since there would be no bus tours coming in today.  We were both a little flustered after the experience, so the calm oasis that Fallingwater is supposed to be was just not happening for us yet.

Maybe our initial impressions of the whole historic site were tainted by our entry, but the whole time we just felt that something was just not right about it.  We finally got to see our favourite architect’s masterpiece up close and personal, but we were just not feeling it for some reason.  We took lots of photos and were even able to walk around on some of the balconies, but there just seemed to be no joy in it for us.

Jeremy hit the nail on the head for what was wrong with the experience after we left and had some time to think about it on the road (paying attention to our driving too, of course, while we discussed it on our intercom).  Fallingwater is not being looked after.  It is being used as a cash cow by Pennsylvania.  They want to make sure there is plenty of parking for their 150,000 visitors a year but they do not fix the broken windows or the concrete pillars over the driveway (they had fixed one of the disintegrating concrete overhead beams on the driveway with metal Jerry poles and wood painted the same colour as the concrete).  And some of the rooms in the actual house are being used for administration and off-limits to the public.  If it is truly a historic site/American treasure, none of the administration should be in the house or carport.  Anyway, we saw Fallingwater, even if we were a little upset about how it is being treated.

After Fallingwater, it was time to cover some kilometeres again.  We only had two days to cover 1500 KMs, so it was time to boot it to the border.  Petunia took us through some beautiful country highways and then some not too beautiful “paved” roads covered in gravel roads through New York.  We rode until we were just too tired and cold to ride anymore.  That happened to be Corning, New York.  Well, actually Painted Post, New York, since there were no rooms available in Corning, New York.  The hotels were filled up with road construction workers for America’s countrywide Renewal Project.  We  found a room at the Ramada Inn and had supper across the street at the diner called The Jellybean Restaurant.   It was a little bit of a surprise.  It was full of aging locals but decorated like a children’s play room.  They gave us Jelly Belly jelly beans instead of mints with our bill.  Yummy!

It was pretty neat, actually.  The bridge is pretty impressive when you’re walking up to it, and gets even better when you’re under it.  In addition to the bridge itself, they have started to re-create a native Indian village and there’s a walking path that takes you to the Lace Falls at the end.  Since we were there right at 9:00 when they opened it was pretty quiet and we had the place almost to ourselves.  The walk to the falls and back is about 3km (plus the 137 stairs down and back up to the visitor center) so we were there for a while.

Back on the bikes, Petunia surprised us by finding a route along highway 39 then the Sam Snead Highway through West Virginia.  Really Nice!  These twisting highways follow a quiet river through a few small towns then take you up and down the hills/mountains separating Virginia from West Virginia.  We were lucky enough to get to stay on these roads for a few hours until it was time to stop for lunch.

We found a Subway at the next Exxon station we came to just before we got to the interstate, so the timing was perfect.  We had a good break, filled up the bikes and even picked up a bottle of West Virginia Blackberry Merlot from the wine room at the back of the gas station convenience store.

About the only setback for today was when we got to Uniontown all of the hotels were booked up – looks like they are all full of construction workers this week.  Jenny was having flashbacks of last year when we couldn’t find a place to stay along the Trans-Canada and had to ride for another 2 hours.  It turned out to be a good thing though, as one of the receptionists told me about the Summit Hotel about 10 minutes out of town.

The Summit Hotel is a tourist attraction all in itself.  It was opened in 1907 as an elite getaway, but fell into near ruin after the depression.  It has a 9-hole professionally designed golf course, and even a ski hill.  In the 60’s it was purchased and brought back to life – the owners installed an all-steel Olympic sized swimming pool and added more rooms.  Today it is a mix of early 1900’s Craftsman style (they even have some Stickley furniture in the lounge), 1950’s Country style, and the odd 60’s and 70’s paintings and frames, furniture, and even some 1990’s TV’s in the rooms.  The view from the patio is fantastic – looking down on Uniontown and the surrounding 5 counties.

A man who sounded exactly like Fred Willard stopped me while I was carrying in our luggage in order to settle a bet he had going with his wife as to whether or not we were newlyweds.  I was having trouble carrying on a conversation with him though, since all I could think of was “Welcome to the 125th annual Mayflower Kennel Club dog show!”  Turns out he won the bet, despite his wife protesting that 1 year is still considered newlywed status…

We ended our day by enjoying dinner (purportedly “The Best Crabcakes In America”) and a bottle of wine in the dining room, then spent some time before bed relaxing under the stars in the hot tub outdoors next to the pool.

We decided it was time to stop for lunch, but we were not near a town, so we picked the Smart View Scenic Outlook/Picnic area.  I think the view is “smart” because it knows how to hide from the tourists.  It was a nice treed area with lots of individual picnic areas and a big covered group picnic area.  There were only two of us so we picked the big covered group picnic area, of course.  We had a nice picnic lunch of various foods we had grabbed at various groceries stores along the East Cost of the United States.  We even had fruit for dessert – canned pink grapefruit.  We do not want to get the Scurvy.

After lunch, we finally left North Carolina and crossed into the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge parkway.  The roads on the Virginia side of the Blue Ridge straightened out a bit and there were more homes and farms along the parkway.  Oh, and full-size horses this time.  Not ponies.

We waved goodbye to the Blue Ridge at Roanoke, Virginia.  I needed gas and it was a natural exit point on our way to Natural Bridge.  On the highway to Natural Bridge, I got very excited when I saw a sign for Jellystone Camp Resort in Natural Bridge.  I love camping with Yogi, BooBoo and Cindy.

Well, this campground was good for campground standards but not up to the standards of the Nashville Jellystone we stayed at last year.  The staff were a little surprised when Jeremy walked in and asked for a tent site.  We basically had our pick of about twenty river-side tent sites.  There was just one other camper at the opposite end of the campground.  We found out later that they were a retired couple from southern Virginia and were just hanging out between weekend football games.  Ahhhh . . . the good life.

We took advantage of the laundry facilities at the campground, since we had been carrying around most of our clothing in our dirty laundry compression sac for about a week now.  Nice thing about campground laundries is you can do a couple of loads at once and get it over with.  We decided to combine our laundry trek with a visit to the pool.  We had the whole pool to ourselves while we waited on the washing machines.  During the drying cycle, we took advantage of the empty arcade to play some old-school video games like Ms. PacMan.  I have never had an arcade to myself before.  We used up some of the American quarters we had been collecting for laundry and will probably not use now for the rest of the trip.  My purse will be lighter now.  Maybe the hole in the seam will not get any bigger now.

The parkway itself is pretty impressive.  The pavement is nearly perfect, there are scenic views everywhere, rest stops, photo ops, and lots and lots of motorcycles.  We stopped at a few scenic overlooks and took some pictures, but after the first few they all start to look the same – nice!  So other than discovering some kind of black hole today, we did very little other than take in the views of the Appalachians and enjoy the winding roads under clear blue skies.  We also managed to leave the hotel parking lot without crashing, which was nice.

By the time we were getting close to being back in Asheville, it was lunchtime, so we stopped at a gas station in the Pisgah Valley for fuel and whatever we could find to eat.  We had a couple of microwaved burgers and a miniature orange bundt cake.  Anything tastes good when you’re really hungry!

After we finally made it out of the Asheville tractor beam, we made a little time and ended up in Blowing Rock.  It’s a cute little touristy/artsy-fartsy town with a nice main street – kind of reminded me of Merrickville.  Not much in the way of campgrounds or anything, so we continued on a bit to Boone, which is the home of Appalachian State University.  A room at the Holiday Inn here is about the same price as a campsite at a KOA near the OBX…  maybe that’s why there’s no campgrounds here.

Today’s goal was to get as close to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway as we could.  How do we do that?  Interstates.  The weather was cooler today and a little overcast, so before we knew it we had covered 200 KM on the I-70.  We actually drove past Farmville everyone!  To my disappointment, it was just a collection of trailer parks and one solitary farm in the middle.   I was exepecting some pretty impressive farms.  Everyone on FaceBook has been working so hard to build it!  As an interesting note, not that far down the road was a town called Sims.  I wonder if North Carolina is a hot spot for game development?

It was getting close to lunch time when we saw the sign – the sign that leads to good eatin’.  It was the Cracker Barrel sign.  We decided we should stop, just in case we did not see another Cracker Barrel on our trip.  We had an excellent lunch and even had room for some dessert.  Jeremy had his baked apple dumplin’ again . . . well, a good portion of it.  It only has about five apples in it.  Stuffed again, we headed out onto the highway.  Our fears of never seeing another Cracker Barrel on our trip were obviously ridiculous in North Carolina.  We saw the signs for at least another ten Cracker Barrels on the I-70 and then the I-40.

It started to rain about twenty minutes after we rolled out of the Cracker Barrel.  We had to stop again and put on our gear.  What a pain, but ended up being a good decision.  It rained for the next three hours, sometimes quite heavily.   We decided that we needed a hotel again, as our gear would never dry by tomorrow again if we camped.  We set Petunia’s sights on a Hampton Inn in Asheville, North Carolina.

The weather cleared as we approached Asheville and the Pisgah National Forest.  We had an unusual experience driving through Pisgah (unusual for us, because the locals did not hesitate at all driving through it).  The fog/clouds/smokey mountain “smoke” hovered over the road just above our heads.  We could see the road ahead only as far as we really needed too, so it was safe, it was just an unusual experience.  When we broke through the “smoke,” it was all sunshine and blue skies into Asheville.  Our rainsuits started to create the “sauna effect” we find so unpleasant, though.

Petunia directed us well to the hotel but failed to warn us about the unmarked, hairpin hill into the hotel complex.  Let’s just say we wrecked our no tip over record today.  Jeremy says it was his fault for stalling on the hill.  I think it was my fault for following too closely around a corner I did not know.  What we both agree on is that the hairpin hill that surprised us played a big part in Mananimal going over yet again on its “crash bag” after I clipped Jeremy’s sidebag with my sidebag.  No harm done really.  Just some more scratches on the cases and we delayed a few other tourists from getting to their hotel for about three minutes.  Jeremy said I managed to crash into him in the best possible way I could.  He always puts a positive spin on everything.  All I can remember is seeing his bike at a stand still and my front tire heading for his leg.  I managed to swerve enough to avoid his leg.  Whew!  But then Mananimal was shiny side down again.

Thankfully, the Hampton Inn had a room available for us tonight.  We got settled in and decided to finally try an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for supper.  It was one of those restaurants from our last trip that we saw everywhere while we were driving, yet were never around when we were actually ready for a restaurant.  It was a pretty good meal, but we think Perkins still has better pancakes.

We checked out of the Seahorse Special around 9:00 and headed to McDonald’s for breakfast and free WiFi.  So far we haven’t found a McDonalds with free WiFi that actually works.  Great job AT&T – well worth the effort!  (What’s the symbol for sarcasm again?)

The hotel was just a couple of minutes from the Wright brothers national historic site, so we headed over there first.  There was an excellent presentation by a volunteer who said he wasn’t an eye-witness in 1903, but I’m not so sure.  He was still very coherent though, so we learned a lot about the Wright brothers and their trials and errors developing their flying machine.  Turns out they were the first to use aluminum to cast an engine block for their custom 4-cylinder engine used on the plane.  They also built their own wind tunnel to test wing shapes, among many other creative solutions to the problems encountered in their trials.  We then walked out to the site of the flight trials and took a look around, and were on our way.

The next half-hour or so was a nice tour down the highway/byway/parkway/main street that runs the entire north-south length of the Outer Banks (or OBX if you’re cool enough for that).  At the southern tip of Hatteras Island is Cape Hatteras and the tallest lighthouse in the US.  It has a lot of stairs and you have to use them manually both ways.  Up is quite a bit more difficult than down.  Jenny did not take part in the entire experience, and has no idea what the lighthouse looks like with her head sticking out over the railing.  It’s well worth the climb.

To get from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island, there is a free ferry that runs every half hour and takes about half an hour.  It was a really nice way to see the fishermen and recreational boats around the islands, and it gave us a rest while still making some ground.

The southernmost island is just as nice as the others, but unless you are visiting the beach, there is not much here for you until you reach the village of Ocracoke at the southern tip.  This is a bustling little town jam packed with touristy shops, scooter rentals, hotels and restaurants.  We had a choice between the 4:30 ferry from here to Swan Quarter or the 8:30 ferry to Cedar Island.  We picked the 4:30 to Swan Quarter since it is a 2+ hour trip and we wanted to find a campground or hotel right away.

Turns out there is not much in Swan Quarter.  I guess everyone travels the other direction and stays on the Outer Banks side.  We rode about an hour inland to Washington, where the GPS (which I’ve just named Petunia) indicated that there were a number of hotels.  By the time we reached town, it was pretty well dark already, so we just pulled in to the Holiday Inn Express and asked about a room.  They only had two smoking rooms left so we thought we’d try the Hampton Inn just to see if they had anything instead.  It was a short ride, but unfortunately they were fully booked anyways.  Apparently it is parent week or something at the nearby university and they are taking up all the rooms in town.  We had no choice but to head back to the Holiday Inn and take the smoking room.  It turned out not too badly after opening the window and running the A/C for a while.

When the sun finally rose, I was allowed to leave the balcony and get ready for the day.  We left the hotel room and walked down the boardwalk for a bit until we smelled bacon coming from somewhere away from the beach.  We followed our noses to one of the many pancake houses there (why are there so many in Ocean City?) and had a quick breakfast.  Really quick, like we had our food in front of us in 2 minutes.  Tasted OK too, but no coffee refills…

We walked back to the hotel along the beach, taking pictures of the shells and birds and other random stuff that you can find on a beach.  Jenny like watching the piping plovers run out after the surf, peck some (some what?) food, then run away as the next wave came crashing in.  I just chased the seagulls.

The hotel had a store on the boardwalk called “Dog Crap”.  No wait, it was “Dogs Gone Wild”.  They sold Dog Crap.  Jenny found a doggie t-shirt that said “Does this shirt make me look fat?” on it.  They only had a Medium and Koira would need a Large, or at least a Medium-Wide.  The Medium would have only made her look fat anyways.

It was still only 10:00 when we left the hotel, since we had gotten up at some ungodly hour, and we made tracks for Assateague National Seashore to see the wild ponies.  We crossed the bridge onto the parks area, and there they were, waiting for Jenny.  We passed by and marveled at the quantity of poop on the biking paths next to the highway.  After only a few minutes we came to the ticket booth, but decided that we didn’t have time to wander around the beach looking for more ponies.  On the way back out of the park the few that we had already seen made sure to stop traffic for us, and I got the chance to get a few pictures up close and Jenny got to see them without having to chase them down.

Back on the road again, we headed down to Chincoteague on the Virginia side of the island.  On this side, the volunteer fire department takes care of the ponies and treats them more like livestock than wild animals.  You can even buy a pony here if you want.  Jenny didn’t want one after I asked if $500 was a good deal for that much hamburger.

We had the first reasonable-sized American lunch of our trip at the Seashell café in Chincoteague.  We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the weather and watched the ponies in the corral across the street.

Next, we were headed back to the mainland, and off the Delmarva peninsula.  The tunnel/bridge that takes you into downtown Norfolk is just amazing.  I’m not sure how long it is, but it’s like going over the Confederation Bridge, then through a tunnel underwater, then over the bridge again, then another tunnel, then another bridge.  It’s long, but the views of the ocean are great.  It was $12 each, which I thought was a much better value than paying $10 each to crash your bike in a parking lot in PEI.

Unfortunately, we hit Norfolk at 5:30 – right in the middle of rush hour.  We sweated our way across town and made the south side of the city around 6:30.  From there it was another hour or so to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  We headed down to the Oceanside and picked the hotel with the cutest logo.  The Sea Ranch with a sea horse on the sign.  It was probably pretty nice back in the 50’s when it was built, and is still not too bad.  I loved the original bathroom – the craftsmanship of the tiling was excellent and it is still in good shape today.  I don’t know about the choice of color though.  The only downside was the slight wet-carpet smell – hopefully from damage caused by Earl, and not a chronic problem.

We were not too tired to walk a couple of blocks to a little “Grill & Raw Bar” called Goombays.  I had an excellent fish & chips with 6 (!) pieces of tilefish and Jenny had a banana/coconut/jerk seasoned tilefish entrée.  They also had a decent selection of micro-brewed beers and we tried a Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout (very good) and a Weeping Willow Wit (also very good).  Both flavors are brewed locally somewhere in North Carolina.

We rolled out of Goombays and back to our room where I tried to upload some pictures and update the blog.  I fell asleep before the pictures were finished, but I don’t think I wrecked anything…

We packed up and got away in not bad time today.  It was about 9:00 AM but it was already pretty hot.  No need for layering today.

We spent a good amount of time on the interstate this morning making up some distance.  It was pretty congested as the interstate crossed through some of the larger cities in Pennsylvania Dutch Country (Deutsche = German).

Our first waypoint today was Wertz Candies in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.  If any of you are fans of Dirty Jobs and Mike Rowe, he filmed one of his episodes at this candy-making store in his second season.  I just had to try some “opera fudge” and Jeremy is always game for a candy store.  The store lived up to expectations and we bought some “opera fudge” and some chocolate bacon.  One mistake, though, we did not eat it right away.  I, instead, put it in my trunk for later.  Hmmmm . . .

After Lebanon, it was back to the interstate.  We crossed into Delaware.  The highlight of our interstate driving in Delaware was crossing over the Delaware River.   At least we think it was the Delaware.  I cannot confirm or deny that Jeremy and Jenny crossed the Delaware.

The afternoon drive got hotter and hotter.  Also, the traffic got heavier, the construction became more frequent, and the stoplights were everywhere.  At one point we crossed into Maryland and drove through some very nice farmland.  And then we were back in Delaware, and traffic, and stoplights and that awful, awful hot sun.  Jeremy had a good comparison for all you Ottawa natives.  It was liking driving down Innes Road on the hottest day of the summer with a crazy humidex with no air conditioning and the windows rolled up for six hours.  At least Innes does not claim to be a “highway” though.  We decided that this area of the United States is just too populated to have nice country highways for us to drive.  We did make an important discovery after all the suffering.  If we had taken the toll highway (Highway 1), it was an “Expressway.”  We might have had a more pleasant drive and would have ended up at the same point.  With all that said, the last hour on the non-express  section of Highway 1 into Ocean City, Maryland was actually quite nice.  Maybe it was because the temperature had dropped a few degress too.

We got into Ocean City just before 7:00 PM.  There were hotels everywhere!  We saw a Holiday Inn Express in the distance, the tallest hotel on the stretch.  We headed for it.  We did the exact same thing that everyone else does.  The hotel was huge, but it was full!  On a Wednesday in September, the Holiday Inn at Ocean City was booked solid!  Maybe it is best we did not stay there.  While Jeremy was asking about a room, the manager of the hotel was calling the police about a man beating someone up in one of the rooms.  We left just as the cops were arriving, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

We went a few blocks down to The Grand.  Well, it is almost as big as the Holiday Inn but it had lots of rooms available.   It is pretty amazing what you can get in off-season for your money.  We got a beautiful room with an ocean front balcony, Jacuzzi tub, King bed, and kitchenette for the same price as a room at the Best Western in Woodstock, New Brunswick.  I like Ocean City, Maryland so far!

We were exhausted but hungry so we had to venture out on to the strip for food.   We saw a neon sign in the distance with a fish so we headed for it.  It turned out to be called Embers and it had an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.  The snow crab was incredible and we had a huge pile of it.  Ocean City just keeps getting better and better!

We headed out into the Berkshires again out of North Adams for the Mount Greylock Scenic Byway that I had accidentally discovered on “byways.org” while researching the trip.  What a fantastic discovery!  It was like a mini-Highway 1 experience, beautifully maintained, and with turns actually marked “Hairpin.”   And at the top of the mountain was another surprise.  An amazing lighthouse memorial to America’s soldiers and a lookout of the entire Berkshire Valley.  Stunning!  As an aside, we also got to meat Duffy, a Chihuahua that was getting his picture taken at the memorial.  Massachusetts was his 40^th state.  What a little traveler!  He has us well beat, for sure.

After taking in the scenery, it was time to move on again.  Plus, the temperature was starting to rise too, even though we were in the mountains.  Go figure.  I thought our problem this trip would be keeping warm.

The ride down the mountain was just as fun as going up.  Jeremy decided it was time to try the video camera out.  Hopefully, we got some good footage of the ride down.  At the end of the Mount Greylock Scenic Byway, is Pittsfield.  Not an attractive name so we continued on to Fishkill, New York.  Much better name!  We were ready for a light lunch so we picked the Summerlin Café and Bakery.  A little light sandwich with a cold drink and we would be on our way again.  Oh, yeah.  We are in the United States again.  There is no such thing as a light meal.  The sandwiches were huge (but fantastic)!  Jeremy thinks there was a whole sliced turkey on his sandwich!  I think he might have been right!  Mine was a little more manageable and I was able to eat mine.  Jeremy was defeated, though.  He had the waitress box it up for later.

The rest of the trip today was very hot and not as pleasant, unfortunately.  Mananimal needed fuel so we headed to Poughkeepsie, the nearest town with a selection of gas stations.  Well, New York can keepsie Poughkeepsie.  We will not go back.  Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the town, but we just could not seem to get out of it after we finally got gas.  The “highway” went on and on through the centre of the shopping district and the traffic was jammed and every corner had a RED light.  Add aggressive New York drivers and 32 degrees Celsius heat with wind at the same temperature – a recipe for the Jenny crankies.

When we finally made it to the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area, I was done.  I just was not going to make it to Lebanon, Pennsylvania.  We stopped at a little picnic area called Tom’s River and spent some time looking at the map and checking out campgrounds on the GPS.  We decided to try Rainbow Mountain Resort and that was about 20 minutes away.  For being in the Poconos, the GPS was certainly not showing us many campgrounds.  We were still hot, so we went down to Tom’s River and Jeremy suggested we put our feet in the icy cold water.  Now, that was a good idea!  A little more refreshed, we put on our gear one last time for the ride to Rainbow Mountain.  Well, in a few KMs, we see a sign to a KOA.  KOA it is!  Forget, Rainbow Mountain.  It was a good choice and we got a nice site off by ourselves on the hill.  Ahhhh . . . home for the night.

We spent a couple of hours again today on those crazy, interweaving Maine roads, on our way to see a Cranberry bog conservation area in Carlisle Township, Massachusetts.  It was one of those days that we had picked something to see, but were open to something better if it came along.  We started seeing signs like “Shakerland Golf” and decided we might like to see a traditional Shaker home more than a cranberry bog.  Besides, the navigation to the cranberry bog was dragging us into the traffic with all the impatient Bostonians trying to get home from their Labour Day weekend nature escapes.  Jeremy typed “Shaker” into his GPS and, before we knew it, we were heading for the Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire.  I did not even think we would be hitting New Hampshire this trip, but we can knock another state off our list now too.

Canterbury Shaker Village was quite interesting.  We wandered around this original Shaker community, learning about the Shaker way of life (the last Shaker elderess of this community died in 1992).  I realized I did not really know anything about them except their architectural “minimalist” style.   They lived communally (but celibate) and were extremely industrious, but they did not shun “new” technologies like the Amish.  They embraced technologies like the steam engine and electricity as ways to make more things, more efficiently.  It may have been “Hands to Work, Hearts to God” but if there was some new fangled technology that could increase their productivity, they could dedicate more time to God.  They had an impressive laundry room rigged up with a steam engine to spin large barrels full of clothing, water, and soap (hmmmm . . . sound familiar?).  They even had a separate machine that mimics our modern day “spin cycle.”  And every member of the Shaker community was skilled in multiple trades as they rotated jobs every couple of months.  Oh, and they bought a car for the community in 1907, probably sooner than the majority of Americans.

We would have liked to take pictures of some of the interiors of the buildings since they were setup exactly as they were in the late 1800s, but no photos or videos were allowed inside.  It was not a “stealing the soul” objection, as the Shaker’s probably had cameras.  It was just something imposed by the Caterbury protection society.  Jeremy snapped a photo of a photo anyway when no one was looking.  He could not resist.  On a funny note, Jeremy’s GPS was on in his bag accidentally and you can actually see our disorganized, criss-crossing path through the village.  The Shakers would not have been impressed with our inefficient viewing of their efficient little operation but they would have loved the GPS.

After wandering around the Shaker Village, we stopped at the Lunchbox café that is part of the experience.  We tried some New England sodas and a chocolate New Hampshire Whoopie Pie.  Yummy!   The pie was like a giant Jos Louis without the chocolate shell.

We left Canterbury Shaker Village with the Berkshires of Massachusetts as our target.  At one point, we had to do some fancy navigating through Concord to avoid some Boston traffic and we ended up on in Vermont for about 15 minutes, but we eventually found ourselves on the beautiful and relaxing Mohawk Trail of Massachusetts.  We stopped at Big Y’s World Class Market in Greenfield for some groceries, anticipating a stay at a campground.   I had to take a picture of the ATM machine in the parking lot too.  It was an “attraction” in itself as it was imbedded in a big, fake stump of a tree.

The Mohawk Trail is beautiful, with nice curving roads navigating their way into the Berkshire Mountains.  We made one stop in Shelburne Falls to see the “Bridge of Flowers.”  It is amazing how many flowers and trees the ladies of Shelburne Falls Woman’s Club have managed to make grow on an old, abandoned trolley bridge.  Apparently, there are over 500 varieties of annuals and perennials planted on the bridge.  What a great tourist attraction!  The town is worth a stop too with lots of little boutiques and art galleries (though they were all closed for us because they heard we were coming – well, probably because it was Labour Day).

We were making good time along the Mohawk Trail and we practically had the road to ourselves.  We found our way to our planned campsite for the night – Savoy Mountain State Forest – the “back way” thanks to the creativity of our GPSs.   It seemed quiet but we figured it was just the calm after the Labour Day storm of visitors.  Well, we finally found the ranger’s station where we could ask for a tent site for the night.  We missed camping for the season at Savoy Mountain by about 7 hours!   They officially closed for the season today at 11:00 AM and there was not a ranger in sight.  I know I checked these campgrounds online and they are supposed to be open until the end of September (or was it that I thought we would be here a day sooner so it was OK to try and camp here????).  Just our luck, anyway.   I gave them my horn of discontent and we moved on.

We decided to head to the next town along the Mohawk Trail, since it appeared to have a few hotels.  We are now comfortably nestled into a Holiday Inn in North Adams.  It is definitely a bustling little town that appears to once have been a centre of industry that has re-invented itself as an artists haven.  Old factories appear to have been converted into art studios, galleries, and condos.  All the homes are nestled into the Berkshires.  Very pretty.

We had a nice supper on the patio of the hotel restaurant  – The Richmond Grille .  The New England clam chowder is excellent here!  Jeremy confused the waitress a little by asking for blue cheese on his burger.  She did say he could have any cheese he wanted on his burger!  The waitress had never heard of putting blue cheese on a burger.  In fact, she did not know you could buy bricks of blue cheese to even slice up for anything.  She did say she could put blue cheese dressing on his burger.  Jeremy opted for Swiss cheese instead and all was right with the world again.  All-in-all a good meal and relatively inexpensive for a hotel restaurant.

I had wanted to see the world’s largest coffee pot (for no reason, because really, why does anyone want to see these things?) so we exited the interstate at Island Falls to have a look.  We toured around main street for a bit, but didn’t see anything even remotely pot-like.  We did see a welded metal dinosaur made out of scrap, so I stopped to take a picture of that instead.  Just as we were about to get going, a helpful local came over to see if we were lost.  I asked him about the coffee pot, but he said they only bring it out for special occasions, and we were probably out of luck.  He wasn’t sure where it was today.

We spent the next couple of hours meandering through the Maine back roads to Bangor.  I have the GPS set to take us on the shortest route, and it gets pretty creative trying to shave off a few feet.  We did find some really nice roads, and took a couple of pictures along the way.  We rolled into Bangor around 11:00 local time and swung by Stevie K’s place to see if he was home.  He wasn’t around as far as we could tell, but I took a picture of his custom iron fence and front gate so I could say I was there.

We decided to head downtown to see if we could find someplace to eat, and were promptly sent back in time to the 50’s.  Since it was Sunday, everything was closed, and if you switched out the cars for classics it would look almost the same as today.  We wandered around for a while on foot, then a nice lady sitting on a bench asked if we were looking for someplace to eat.  She told us about the one place that was open – the Bagel Place.  I had a Garlic Bagel with Lox and Jenny had some kind of super heated cheese/bagel/tomato/onion concoction.  Hand-made fresh bagels are the best, even if you have to wait 20 minutes for your order.  (I guess it’s easy to be popular when you’re the only place open…)

While we were waiting, we met Bill and Suu from Freeport.  Bill looks like your typical Harley rider with a foot long beard but a completely bald head.  He was a nice guy anyways.  We talked a bit about motorcycles and what to see in the area, and Bill gave us their phone number so we could give them a call tomorrow when we pass through.  Too bad we’re already past Freeport or we could have stopped for coffee…

The next place on our list was Perry’s Nut House in Belfast.  It was actually just a few touristy stores mashed together, but it was fun just the same.  They had a stuffed albatross, gorilla and cougar, a giant crocodile skin, and even an Egyptian mummy sort of on display in amongst the tourist junk you could buy.  One of the other shops was a miniatures store where Jenny found a tiny rotten little dog replica she just had to have.  Usually I can tell her we have no room for souvenir stuff on the bikes, but she got away with this one.  Perry’s had a metal dinosaur out front too, so I took a picture to go with the other one.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the dead seagull on display at Cappy’s Chowder House in Camden.  We saw the outside of the chowder house, but Camden was jam-packed with tourists and there was nowhere to park.  We just rolled on by and imagined the impressive character of the Victorian-framed 150 year-old contraband seagull that was inside there somewhere.

Maine certainly has no shortage of back roads cutting through anything and anywhere on the way to wherever you might be going.  Good thing the GPS knows how to connect them all together.  We spent the next 3 hours weaving our way from Camden to Sebago Lake State Park.  Every one of those roads has at least one or two antique shops on it, and when you get closer to the lake, each antique store has a seafood restaurant on one side and a motel on the other.  There is some serious tourism going on here.

Over all it was a relaxing and enjoyable day, but I think the most notable thing was how friendly people have been so far here compared to Canada.  I had the Coffee Pot Guy offer me directions and tell me all he knew about the coffee pot, the lady who decided we looked hungry and helped us find the bagel shop, Bill and Suu at the bagel shop who offered to have us stop by their place, the lady at the miniatures store told us her life story then helped us pick the best place to camp and the best way to get there avoiding traffic, and the lady at the convenience store where I bought the $3 bottle of Shiraz (which turned out to be not too bad) asked me for ID to make me feel young then chatted for a few minutes about “kids these days”.  In contrast, I think there were about 3 people who had the time of day for us in Canada, and this is only day 1 in the US.

While we waited today, we abused the hotel bathroom by washing the groundsheets for the tent along with our boots and whatever else we could find that shouldn’t really be cleaned inside.  I couldn’t get the bike in the door though, so it’s still covered in bugs for the most part.

Once the rain stopped, we decided to see if Woodstock had anything to offer, so we headed down to the St. John river waterfront and had dinner at the Riverside Pub.  It looks closed from the outside, but that’s just to scare away the tourists.  They actually have a fair selection of pub fare, and it wasn’t too bad, either.  After dinner, we walked across the old railway bridge and snapped a few shots of the river.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to see why someone would paint a house black, and it happened to be a historic site.  Turns out this is the oldest town in New Brunswick, and the black house used to be a stagecoach stop back in the day when stagecoaches needed such things.

We’re just hanging out here doing some laundry and getting ready for Maine tomorrow.

Oh, Jenny wants me to mention the breakfast feeding frenzy here at the hotel this morning.  You’ve all seen it.  Just gather 50 of your closest relatives in the same room and start handing out free food.  It’ll be chaos, guaranteed.  We managed to get some scraps and get out before going completely deaf, and retreated to the safety of our room for a much needed nap.