Living in a crowded motorhome for so many of my developmental years has given me supernatural packing abilities. This time I impressed even myself. For a full list of the items we brought, click here. For those not bored enough to read through that list, let me briefly state that we had a two-man inflatable boat and two oars, a four-man tent, three sleeping bags, two inflatable mattresses, two sleeping pads, cookstove, dishes, spare clothes, fishing gear, camera with tripod and a partridge in a pear tree.

As you can see, we were completely packed to the gills. Brooke and Kelly took turns riding in luxury in the sidecar and sitting wedged between me and the backrest. The seat of the bike is stock, so it's made with the old not-very-comfy foam they used back then. Very hard on the backside. Add to that the fact that the sidecar mount is welded to the bike in a spot that makes it very difficult to use the right passenger footpeg and you've got a comparatively unpleasant place to sit that is only partially compensated by the greater field of view afforded by the height and the absence of a bike looming to your left.

D'ya like the flag? It gave a parade-like feel to the whole trip. Streamers from the handlebars and crepe paper through the spokes briefly crossed my mind, but I got over it. Maybe we should have thrown candy!

I'd taken Kelly and her friend Adam on a short tour of some of the scenic pastoral backroads around my house, but had never taken three people on any sort of sustained drive. The bike gives me trouble from time to time: the starter is sometimes flaky, the plugs carbon-foul and have to be replaced, and there's the occasional unexplained decrease in power. For this trip, I switched to a hotter plug (NGK D8EA, as opposed to D7EA) because I knew the bike would be under tremendous strain and the plugs I normally use wouldn't last twenty miles. As it turned out, I didn't have to change the plugs even once! It was great! The poor beast did get overheated on one particulary long grade, however: we had to pull out and kick around for a few minutes to give the bike a chance to cool off.

On Friday afternoon I had belatedly realized that I needed a camera tripod. I looked at them at a few stores, but they all looked awfully bulky. I went to Value Village (for you out-of-staters: Value Village is a thrift department store chain here in Washington. I think there's one in Anchorage, too, and some in Canada.) and found a cheap lamp with a telescoping stand that ended in three folding legs. With a couple of modifications, it made a suitably compact and halfway decent camera tripod. It wasn't the most stable of things and had only one plane of adjustment for tilt, but at least it allowed me to use the timer function on our digital camera so all three of us could be in the photos, which was important.

As I said before, we left Kirkland on Saturday morning around 9:30 in the morning. I'd wanted to leave much earlier, since the ferries get quite a bit more expensive after noon, but we foolishly stayed up late on Friday night, so... As it was, Brooke showed up at my house looking like she'd been dragged behind a cow the entire way, and Kelly had to be beaten cruelly about the head and shoulders before she'd get her carcass up off the couch where she'd spent the night. I felt sorry for them, but sorrier for myself, so there was little mercy.

Personal items had to be kept to a minimum, due to most of the space being occupied with group essentials. A Ziploc freezer bag apiece was allocated for personal toiletries and small whatnots. Kelly's response to the Ziploc bag I handed her: "You're kidding, right?" Spare clothing was kept strictly basic, with emphasis on warmth, comfort and dual-duty. Additional luxuries were few and taken on a space-allowed basis. Kelly and I ended up bringing a book apiece, a walkman and mini speakers, and a few cassettes. Brooke's only additional item was her own water bottle. As I had done most of the packing the day before, there was little to do on Saturday morning before the expedition was ready to depart.

Brooke was trepidatious about getting on the contraption (with good cause, I would say: I think the last time she was in a vehicle with me was the time I rear-ended a pickup truck and totaled Mom's car!) and was more comfortable with the idea of starting out in the sidecar, rather than riding bitch. The bike seemed willing enough to go with all the weight (I wish now that I'd stopped at a truck scale and gotten a number to go with this load, but I didn't think of it at the time), so we pointed our noses west and hit the road. There was no chance of taking the freeway, laden as we were, so we took surface streets west from Kirkland, until we hit highway 99 and headed north. Just after Lynnwood, we left highway 99 on a northwest tangent called highway 525. (NOTE: for a full map of our route, click here.) This took us to Mukilteo, where we took our first ferry a short twenty minutes to the tiny town of Clinon on rural Whidby Island. This second photo was taken during that ferry trip.

You can see the back of a saddlebag on the right side of this photo. I think the guy said his Harley was a 1400 cc. I was sorely tempted, but somehow managed to refrain from joking that he probably needs all that power to move the 600 pounds of extra chrome that thing had bolted to it. Some people take themselves and their bikes way too seriously and are insulted by that kind of joke, even if it is true.

One of the cool things about riding a motorcycle in this neck of the woods is that if you are taking a ferry, you don't have to wait in line: not for a ticket, not for boarding the ferry, not for exiting the ferry. When you get to the ticketing line, you can go right on around and park at the head of the line, then walk back and pay for the ticket. When they are loading the ferry, the let foot traffic and bicycles go on first (unless the ferry is big enough that they have a separate gangway for foot and bike traffic) and then the motorcycles, which they direct to the very front of the ferry. When the ferry reaches its destination, foot and bicycle traffic are first off, then the motorcycles again. It's great! So bikes waiting for a ferry all gather in one spot, at the head of the line. A lot of "bike talk" takes place here: mutual steed inspection, comments, questions, compliments, iteneraries, port of origin, etcetera. We talked to some nice people, waiting for the ferry at Mukileo. It was a little gray when we left the house, but the sun quickly burned off the low-lying clouds and the day was shaping up to be entirely cloudless. As such, many bikes were out and about, with a predominance of two-ups and street cruisers. We got lots of grins, waves and thumbs-up from our fellow bikers, with some little horn meeps as well.

Here's another photo of us on the Mukilteo ferry to Whidby Island. I didn't mean to step in front of my sister. I just didn't realize how, well, gathered and tidy Kelly and Brooke were standing. I tend to sprawl when I'm not actively trying to behave ladylike, and I guess I sprawled in front of Kelly.

The ferry landed in Clinton - a little no-account town whose entire reason for being is to receive ferry traffic onto Whidby Island. We blew through it and hit the open road. While Whidby Island stretches a good maybe 50 miles in the north-south direction, it isn't very wide east-west. As such, we had ocean breezes for most of the ride up the island. The crest of every hill gave us wonderful views of beach and bay, horsey meadows and forest. One hill was a little too much for the bike, though. We'd recently hit a stretch of highway where the speed limit was 55 miles per hour (up from 35 or 40 most of the way). The weekend sightseeing traffic had thickened and I didn't want to hold people up, so I hovered around 55 MPH, even though it was a little faster than the rig comfortably wanted to go. Even so, people still ran right up to my tail and rode it impatiently. Where on earth could they possibly want to go in such a hurry, with so much beautiful scenery around? The shoulder was generally pretty narrow, but where space allowed, I swung onto it and waved people by in ones and twos. When five people piled up behind us, I pulled off entirely and let them go by. After about twenty minutes of that, however, the bike got pretty warm. One particularly long grade got the better of us and we started losing power, steadily but gradually. I found a place to pull off and we took a couple of photos, had some water, retied our hair, etc. while the bike cooled.

That would have been a nicer photo if I'd thought of arranging it so that cable wasn't in the way. Oh well. The background gives you a good idea of the countryside we were passing through: 75:25 evergreen to deciduous, with lots of ferns, grasses and wildflowers.

That was the only time the bike forced us to stop, though. Well, for something other than gasoline, I mean. We passed through several sleepy hamlets on our way up the island. Returned many friendly waves, got hit by lots of unfortunate bugs. I got a bee to the forehead. SMACK! I managed not to get stung, however. Must've head-butted it. The 525 turned into the 20 and still we headed north. In Oak Harbor we stopped for food, batteries and film. That's when I pulled out the Lopez ferry schedule and realized that if we didn't make the 3:25 ferry, we'd have to wait for the 5:00 one. So we bundled back into the rig and made some time. Sailed unhappily past Deception Pass - a very large bridge that connects Whidby Island with Fidalgo Island (which is where the Anacortez ferry leaves for Lopez and the rest of the San Juan Islands), with a state park, miles of beaches and absolutely gorgeous views. No time to stop! I promised we could stop there on the way home. We were doing good when, about two miles from the ferry dock, we suddenly encountered some traffic problems. It was stop-and-go and as we creeped forward, we saw what was causing the problem: two small dogs of identical breed - one black and one white - were running crazily in the middle of the street. Obviously confused and panicked, they milled and darted back and forth, but never left the street. People were carefully aproaching them, stopping and waiting for them to move, then carefully driving past. Everyone was exercising all due care not to hit the little things but no one was doing anything to remedy the situation. The issue of the soon-to-be-departing ferry loomed large in my mind. Make the ferry? Help the dogs? What the hell would we do with two little dogs in our sidecar? I was torn.

Nearly two years ago, however, I was driving somewhere (don't remember the destination any more) in my truck, in a bit of a hurry. Some deadline was making me rush. Freeway traffic was heavy and barely moving, so I was taking surface streets. I encountered a similar doggy situation: a large German shepherd was running down the middle of the street in the center turning lane, occasionally darting into the lane to one side or the other, making cars honk and swerve, then returning to the center lane. His tongue was lolling and he had a nutty look in his eyes. I could see he had a collar with tags and I considered stopping to try to get him to come to me so I could get him into the back of my truck and returned to his owner. He was running with determination, but was visibly confused by all the traffic. I wrestled with the idea for a few moments as I slowed and followed at a short distance behind the dog. But eventually my time-sensitive destination won out and I passed the dog and went on to do whatever it was that was so bloody important I couldn't stop and help a frightened beast in trouble. On the way home, traffic had let up and I took the freeway. And damn me, there was that dog, dead on the freeway, right where the road he'd been running on turned into an on-ramp onto the freeway. I swore then and there that I'd never, never again pass up an animal in peril if there was anything at all I could do about it. And I haven't.

And so we didn't.

Cursing silently, I pulled off to the right shoulder and started calling the little dogs. They looked at me and ran around in circles a little more, then the black one started in our direction. Traffic in the lane nearest us stopped entirely, as they saw what was happening and waited to let the dog across the lane. The black one approached hesitantly as I held my hand down to it and cajoled in as kind a tone as I could manage. I could see it trembling and it licked its lips compulsively. Several lengths of old, dry blackbery canes were tangled in its long hair; between the thorns and caught fur, it must have been in no small amount of pain. Finally, it reached my hand and licked it several times, nervously, before I got a couple of fingers through its collar. I needn't have, however, because it pressed up against my leg and sat down, shaking. The white dog, however, wasn't having any of that and kept running around in traffic. Then, I heard another voice and saw that a man in a pickup had also pulled over, on the other side of the road, and was calling the white dog. The dog didn't approach hiۍ+ut stayed where it was and allowed the man to approach it. He reached the dog and put a hand on it. At this point, I felt that someone vastly better equiped to handle the situation had shown up and demonstrated sufficient interest in the animals. Traffic in both lanes had stopped and I let go of the black dog, who started in the man's direction. Relieved and relieved of duty, I put the bike back in gear and sped the rest of the way to the ferry.

Where we discovered that my watch was off by half [��:our and we'd already missed the boat. Alas.

So we had some time to kill. Kelly dozed in the sidecar for a bit, while Brooke and I went down to the water and poked around under rocks and seaweed to see what there was to see. We found an endless number of small crabs and set idly about catching the larger ones in a bag that had, until recently, contained my lunch. A swan stood on the shore and, like Kelly, tried to nap. We gawked at it, but left it alone. A bored sports team of loud, rough young girls wasn't so magnanimous, however, and tried to surround it. I wondered what they thought they were doing, but never got to find out. The swan shouldered them aside and made for open water. Once past them, it turned around and floated, making small reproachful sounds at them. The girls stood on shore and glared at it for a while, before moving on to also poke around for crabs. Kelly gave up on sleep and came down to see what we were up to. Seeing the swan floating just offshore, she walked down to the water and talked to it in a soft voice.

Under one rock, I found a large crab - monsterous in size compared to the tiny crabs Brooke and I had been finding farther upland. This thing was well on its way to being of legal eatin' size. I prodded it with a stick and the team of girls came down to investigate. One particularly brash thing shouldered her way through, reached down and expertly snagged it by a rear leg and held it aloft. "It's a girl," she said. "Do you want it in your bag?" We did, and she wrangled it into the bag. By this time, another girl had found a similarly-sized crab under another rock. Then another. We realized that the secret was the rocks' proximity to the water. Four large crabs were found and put into our bag. One of the crabs was missing a claw - a detail that was noted by the bold girl, who said, "Here," and took the crab from me. Before I knew what was happening, she had torn off the other claw. One of the other girls asked her (in an appalled voice) why she'd done that, and the bold girl replied that she might as well, since the other one was already missing. "Besides," she said, "now it won't pinch." Eventually, the girls tired of the game and wandered off. All except the bold one. She came up and said, "I would like one of the crabs. You don't need them all," and reached into the bag Brooke held, and selected a crab.

By this time, Kelly had managed to get the swan to come to s��� and eat bread out of her hand. Realizing the photo opportunity for what it was, I ran up the bank and got my camera from the bike. When I got back, however, the bold girl had insinuated herself in the private communion Kelly and the swan had been holding and Kelly, bothered, had left. The bold girl offered the crab to the swan, who swam near to investigate, then backpedaled, shaking its head in disgust.

Kelly came up to Brooke and I and we gave her the bag of crabs. I think Brooke said that we'd found "pretty stones" for her. Kelly opened the bag and looked in. Her face was blank for a moment, then a look of surprise and revulsion washed over her face, to be replaced by bland amusement as she handed the bag back with a smirk. We laughed.

Finally, the bold girl became bored with the swan and wandered off - most likely to harass some other hapless creature.

Kelly went back to the shore, where the swan had retreated back out of harassment range. She sweet-talked it, but it'd had enough of people for one day and floated warily out of range, eyeing her. Kelly crouched on the shore across from it and they regarded one another for some time.

Finally, five o'clock rolled around. The ferry arrived and disgorged its load of traffic from the islands. We helmeted up and were first on board. What with the few hours of sleep we'd gotten the night before, the long drive to Anacortez, and the long wait for the ferry in the warm, soothing sun, we were tired. We took no photos. This ferry ride was going to be longer than the one from Mukilteo to Whidby Island - 40 minutes instead of 20 - so we went up to the passenger deck above us and found a booth to sit in. After very few minutes, however, I was unable to resist and fell over on my side on the seat and proceeded to doze most of the way there. The overhead address system woke me from a pleasant dream of working on my shed at home and informed me that we were about to dock at Lopez and that it was time for all drivers to return to their vehicles. Sleep-muddled, I staggered down the stairs to the rig. We helmeted up and watched the foot and bicycle traffic disembark. Then it was our turn. The traffic-directing guy gestured for me to go ahead up the ramp. I started the bike... or tried to, rather. The bike turned over strongly, but refused to catch. Everyone was looking at us. I cursed and "pumped" the throttle a couple of times before trying the starter again. No go. The traffic-directing guy looked askance at me and I shook my head, while still trying to start the bike. I was just about to tell Brooke and Kelly to hop off and help me push it up the steep ramp off the ferry (the tide was low), when I suddenly thought to try opening the choke. The bike started right up and away we zoomed, my face burning with embarassment.

I must say in my own defense that I never have to use the choke unless 1.) the bike hasn't been started in a week or 2.) it's cold. I was groggy and hadn't realized how cold the car deck had gotten on the trip to Lopez. The ocean breeze had chilled the bike sufficiently to make the use of the choke necessary to start it. I was ashamed that it took me that long to figure it out, though.

So we were on Lopez.

We'd run low on gas during our mad rush to catch the ferry in Anacortez, and I'd been on reserve for a while now, so the first thing we did was go straight to the village and get gas. I think there's two gas pumps on all of Lopez: one at the grocery store in the village, and one at the marina on the south end of the island. Kelly went into the grocery store to get a soda and came back out to say that this couldn't possibly be the only grocery store on the island. "It's not even as big as an Alberson's!" I assured her that it was, in fact, the only grocery store on the island. Technically, there's a convenience store at the south end of the island, but it's only got the sort of things you'd find at a gas station quickie-mart. Kelly expressed skepticism. We gassed up, climbed back in the rig, and I gave the the 30-second tour of the village. Then we were off to Spencer Spit State Park. We found the toll booth unoccupied and read the posted notices, fees, etcetera. Now, I really do hate staying at state parks. It's not like camping at all. There's bathrooms and sinks and water and garbage cans and fire pits and picnic tables and OTHER PEOPLE and worst of all, you have to PAY! My whole aim when going out camping is to be surrounded by pure, unadulterated wilderness... for free!. However, Lopez Island doesn't really have any place where unregulated camping is feasible when you've arrived by vehicle. If you were hiking, you could get to the south end of the island and just head off into the woods and find a nice stretch of undeveloped shoreline and pitch your tent. The land might actually belong to someone, but a lot of the land on Lopez is either 1.) owned by someone who lives elsewhere and hasn't actually done anything with the land they've bought or 2.) part of a very large parcel of land where the owner has only developed the portion of the land closest to the access road. The land isn't fenced and you can sort of ghost through it to the coast, where you can have an inconspicuous campsite (but no campfire, as the smoke would give you away) and clean up after yourself, with no harm done and no one the wiser. But when you've got a vehicle with you, there's no place inconspicuous to park that won't give you away. So the upshot of all this is that you've gotta stay in a park.

I was pleasantly surprised by Spencer Spit State Park, however. We found the park almost entirely deserted. Out of the 30 campsites, I think perhaps three were occupied. We found a very nice spot that featured a nice grassy and shady area to pitch our tent, but which would also receive morning sun to warm our sleepy bones. The price was a little steep: $16 per night. We might have been able to get away with pitching our tent in the bicycler's/hiker's tenting area and just parking the rig in the general parking lot, but I wanted the bike near enough that I could keep an eye on it and also didn't want to get the campsite all set up and then have the park ranger show up and shoo us away into a vehicle camping spot. So I spent the extra $8 and made my peace with commercialism.

As I unpacked the rig and we started setting up camp, Brooke expressed amazement at all the stuff that'd been brought. "I didn't think all this could fit on there!". Indeed, we were well-appointed and wanted for nothing. Well, except paper towels. I ended up wishing it'd brought some.

After we got the bike completely unpacked and the site set up, we headed back into the village to the grocery store. Lopez has fantastic fishing and clam-digging, as well as many many tasty mussels available for gathering. I'd just renewed my fishing licenses (salt, fresh, shell) and had intended on providing us with dinner in that fashion. However, missing that ferry at Anacortez had put us quite a bit behind schedule and I was no longer confident that I could get dinner caught and cooked before dark and before we all starved to death. So, we hit the grocery store and acquired a bag of yummy multigrain rolls, a huge can of ravioli, a package of bratwurst, and two cans of chunky stew. On the way back to the park, we saw many many many rabbits and a few deer. I kind of half-hoped to find a freshly killed rabbit for dinner, but instead we had ravioli, rolls and half the sausages, then turned in early around 10:00 PM.

Although I'd rather not mention it, I suppose that for the sake of history and veracity I should mention that I singed the ends of my left eyelashes getting the campire started... I was too lazy to whittle some kindling down for wood shavings and instead, er, poured some of the spare cookstove fuel on the fire and, uh, got a little more on there than I'd intended or realized. Stood too close for the amound of fuel on the wood, tossed in a match and WHOOSH lost the ends of some eyelashes. "Whoa," I commented. Brooke and Kelly laughed and laughed and laughed. Got the fire going, though.

Kelly and Brooke each had inflatable one-man air mattresses, topped with foam camping pads, and each with a sleeping bag rated at twenty degrees Farenheit. I inflated only the bottom air chamber of the raft we'd brought and slept on that in my forty degree sleeping bag and cotton bag liner. We put Kelly in the middle, in the hopes that she'd stay warm. The forecast said the lows should only reach 44F, so I wasn't worried about sleeping well. Sure enough, Brooke and I slept soundly and toasty-warm. I was awakened by crows at 8:00 and got up to find that they'd kicked our bag of garbage around the campsite (fortunately, it hadn't come open) and eaten the rootbeer-flavored licorice-like candy Kelly had bought at the grocery store the day before and left on the picnic table. I made coffee and enjoyed the warm sun. Before long I was joined by Brooke, who declared it breakfast time. Leaving Kelly still sleeping in the tent, we hopped in the rig and went out to buy eggs to go with the rest of the bratwurst.

You see, many of the farms on the island produce more eggs than they can use. So they make these little shaded self-service egg caches, at the end of their driveways by the road. Kind of like a mailbox, but bigger. Some people put them in a little cooler with a bit of ice, but most of them just nest them in some hay in a bowl in a sort of open-fronted box. They have the price marked on the box and many of them have some sort of flag or reversible sign to indicate the presence or absence of eggs. However, many of the stands that I'd visited the last time I stayed on the island (last year, I think?) were absent. The three stands we did find were bereft of eggs. Eggless, we returned to the campsite to make sausages and chunky stew.

When we got there, Kelly was just getting up. We inquired politely about the quality of her rest and were surprised to hear that despite sleeping in her pants and warm sweatshirt and depsite being in the middle, she froze all night and got a stomach ache besides. No wonder she slept so late!

We puttered around and I made some breakfast: sandwiches of sausage and rolls, with chicken vegetable soup. We wrapped up camp and re-packed the rig, as we had to be out of the park by 1:00. We didn't get out till 2:00, however, and by that time an incoming family of campers had recognized our spot as being vastly superior to all the others in the park and hung around till we finally left. I felt hounded, even though they made sure to tell us to take our time.

We left the park and headed for the ferry dock to see when the next ferry was due to leave so we'd know what kind of playtime we had ahead of us. On the way, I took a scenic loop that went along a beach that was lined with perhaps fifteen summer cottages. A column of smoke rose from the beach. I didn't think anything of it until we got close enough to see that two men were using shovels to dig sand onto a grass fire that had leaped from a nearby firepit. As I pulled over onto the shoulder, I said, "Let's help!" and swung off the bike, removing my gear. Kelly and Brooke sat watching the men and I angrily swatted Kelly on the shoulder and barked, "Don't just sit there!" Startled, they leaped into action, getting off the bike and similarly removing their gear. I got my collapsable vinyl bucket out of one of the saddlebags on the nose of the sidecar and ran across the street with it. There, an elderly lady was standing by the road with her garden hose stretched to the extent of its length, slowly filling a 5-gallon bucket. One of the men handed his shovel to Kelly and ran back across the road for the bucket of water, thanking us for the help as he ran by with the half-full bucket. As I waited for my tiny 1-gallon bucket to fill, I gently suggested to the old woman that perhaps if she removed the spray nozzle from the end of the hose, it would fill the bucket faster. She replied that she didn't want to waste water between filling buckets. I thought unkind things at her (not the least of which was the hope that if this fire spread to houses, that her house would be the first to go), but said nothing and took my bucket to the perimeter of the fire, dousing the leading edge. Parts of the fire would be snuffed by sand or water, only to flare up again. We worked quickly, though and after perhaps two or three minutes, the five of us had gotten it under control. Wanting to make sure that the men understood that the entire area of storm-line dry driftwood and grasses would have to continue to be soaked for a good time to come, I mentioned the similarity to sod fires in Alaska. One of the guys caught my drift and replied, "Oh, you know about those too, eh? Those are pretty nasty. Yeah, we'll be doin' this for a while yet." Satisfied that the fire was in competent hands, I had the old woman rinse my bucket out (halfway through the fire, I had switched to filling my bucket with sand from the beach instead, as it was much faster) and we left, amid a chorus of thanks.

We got to the ferry dock and I ascertained that the next ferry didn't leave for another hour and a half. I'd been thinking about the way I snapped at Kelly and Brooke, when we were stopped to help put the fire out. I apologized for my cranky behavior, and for smacking Kelly on the arm. They explained that, wearing their full-face helmets, they hadn't heard me say, "Let's help!" and weren't really sure what they were looking at. Kelly said that she thought it was just a brush-burning and didn't know why we were stopping. I felt like a heel.

To waste some time, we went back to the village and got some half-price pastries at the fantastic bakery. We wanted ice cream, but the stand was closed (at 3:45 on a gorgeous Sunday!), so we took our pastries and went out onto a thin strand that connected a jutting portion of the island with the main body. One side of the strand was rocky and strewn with driftwood and other detrius. The other side of the strand was a mud flat. I rummaged around in the mud just enough to confirm the existence of large clams. Dunno if it's legal to dig there, though. Have to find out next time we come back.

A pickup truck full of kids went by as we poked around on the beach. "GO HOME HIPPIES!!!" they hollered. We discussed this for a while. Ah, small-town youth. So creative! So bold! So.... bored!

Finally, it was time to go. Belatedly wishing I'd thought to take more photos of the island itself, I geared up and hollered to the other two. They piled grumblingly back in the rig and away we went.

We arrived at the ferry dock just in time. The ferry was just about to unload onto the island. We cruised to the head of the line and waited while incoming vehicular traffic went by in the other direction. Then the foot and bicycle traffic loaded. Then it was our turn. This particular ferry had hit all the other San Juan Islands before coming to Lopez and then continuing on to Anacortez. As such, there was already a lot of vehicles on board. The last person in line to depart Lopez barely made it on. In fact, we all were asked to inch forward as close to the bumper in front of us as possible... didn't even leave room to walk between vehicles, in most cases. The last guy in must have been quite relieved to make it.

That was a very difficult photo for us to take... we were standing on the passenger deck, at the back of the boat, where you are somewhat sheltered from the wind, yet still out in the sun. It was a very popular place to be. There were a lot of people standing around, enjoying the scenery. We eventually commandeered a place along the railing and I set up the tripod. I'm surprised the photo came out a clear as it did, with the camera swaying in the breeze like it was. Anyhow, I set the camera up to take a photo of us facing the rest of the ship... unfortunately, it also forced us to face the rest of the people. It felt really odd to pose, grinning, at all those people looking directly at us. We had to grin and hold the grin for about seven seconds. I thought of perhaps taking a second one, just to increase the chances of getting a non-blurry photo of us, but I just wasn't able to do it. Too weird.

That's the island we decided we should live on. Now you know what to get us for Christmas.

When the boat reached Anacortez, we had to wait a while before we could get off the boat, since there was so much traffic ahead of us. While we were gearing up and waiting for our turn to disembark, a guy in the car behind us said, "HEY!" out the window. Brooke turned around. The guy said something else that Brooke couldn't catch. Twice more he repeated the phrase, but twice more Brooke couldn't understand, and moved closer each iteration. Finally, she caught that he'd said, "Do you have room for one more in there?". She replied in the negative and returned to the sidecar to report what he'd said. We rolled our eyes. When we finally did get off the boat, traffic was stop-and-go due to backups at the traffic light ahead. Mumble-Mouth pulled up alongside to inform me that my tail light wasn't working. I thanked him, but he didn't go away. Instead, he hovered beside me in the other lane for a little while and hollered some more about my tail light. I didn't get it all, but I was trying to concentrate on keeping away from the bumper in front of me. Annoyed, I decided to pull off for a while to let the mob get some distance on us. And let Mumble-Mouth go find someone else to holler at. Called Scot to let him know where we were and how things were going (there'd been no cell reception on the island) but got no answer and left a message instead. The traffic died down and we took off again.

The return trip started out nice enough. Although we were running a bit behind, we made time to stop at Deception Pass and take some photos. Again, we ran into amusing side-effects involving posing at a small camera with a nearly-invisible tripod. Passing motorists grinned and waved - one honked. I imagine they thought we were posing for them. The second photo above was the one that got a honk. The sidecar rig earned us a one-bike salute (wheelie) from a passing racebikeboy.

The second photo above depicts the view that motorists get when they are trapped behind us on a long hill with no shoulder. You'd think that as burdened as we are, they'd be a little more understanding of our predicatment. But no. They ride right on my tail the whole way up the hill. To be fair, about thirty percent of the people I let around gave me a wave of thanks through their back window. The majority, however, just accelerated noisily and brusquely by, without so much as a fare-thee-well. It's not as though I held them up for long periods of time... a few minutes, tops.

About ten miles beyond Deception Pass, the bike abruptly lost a bit of power. Hills were suddenly slow, grueling chores. Top speed was reduced to 45 MPH on straightaways and 60 MPH with the throttle wide open down a very steep hill. The weight of the sidecar has a tendency to pull the whole shebang to the right. Holding it on-course for long stretches at a time makes my arms and shoulders ache. My forearms and wrists were starting to cramp when, suddenly, two miles from the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry, the bike surged forward with renewed vigor. Whatever blockage the bike was suffering had passed through (bad gas? heh.) and things were back to normal. We took a break at a gas station so I could shake my arms out and remove the bugs from my teeth. I went into the restroom to wash my face and hands. When I looked in the mirror, I was appalled. The goggles I'd been wearing had left indentations surrounding my eyes. There were gnats in my eyebrows and a raised red lump on my cheek where I'd been hit by a larger bug. The wind and sun had combined to leech every drop of moisture from my lips, leaving them red, puffy and painful. My eyes were bloodshot and my nose bright red. I looked like twenty miles of bad road. I did what I could to clean up and then went back out the door, past the clerk, who eyed me warily. I smiled reassuringly at her, but it was not returned.

We made for the ferry, paid our fare, and made it on board with a narrow minute to spare. The ferry was only about one-third full, but that was because it ran every half-hour for most of the day. There was a State Patrol copcycle at the head of the ferry. When the rider went upstairs, I wandered over and had a look at his bike. It was amazing! A brand-new, sleek-looking black-and-white BMW racey number with little gizmos and doo-dads attached to every possible surface. I'd heard that the Washington State Patrol had adopted some BMWs into service (whereas most of the local police and sheriffs' bikes are Kawasakis and Harleys), but hadn't seen one yet. It was tall and FAST looking. Very imposing.

We reached Mukilteo and disembarked. Made a pit-stop to empty bladders and don additional warm gear, as it was getting appreciably cooler. Struck out onto 525 south, on the last leg of our journey home.

Then, the sun went down.

That last leg home was COLD! With no clouds to keep a lid on things, the heat that we'd so enjoyed during the day just drifted right up into the stratosphere and disappeared. When we reached the top of Lake Washington, with about ten miles left 'till home, I started singing to myself to distract from the fact that I couldn't feel my face. "We're almost there, guys!" I reassured my passengers. I got no response. Their jaws were frozen shut! Just kidding. I think they were too miserable to say anything.

When we finally pulled into the driveway, there was much moaning and groaning as we slowly, gingerly removed our carcasses from the rig. "My butt!" said Brooke, "It's broken!" She'd spent the last leg of the trip riding bitch behind me. My backside wasn't too happy either. We went inside where it was NICE AND WARM and in a couple minutes Scot came home. He'd been out getting hamburgers for us! We were starved and fell to eating the burgers like dire wolves. Later, digesting dinner and soaking up warmth, we were sitting on the couch and Scot took these photos of us: tired, sunburned, windburned and slap-happy with relief:

I'd fully intended to drive Kelly home myself (NOT on the sidecar, thank you very much), but I rapidly became too tired to do it safely. Poor Scot ended up having to do it for me: Kelly lives 100 miles south, in Olympia. If she hadn't had to work the next morning, she could have stayed the night and taken a bus home the next day, but the busses stop running early on Sundays, so that was entirely out of the question. I wish she'd move back to Seattle! Having her live so far away makes arranging outings like this very difficult. I can't imagine what she sees in Olympia: it's smaller than Seattle and has fewer job opportunities. And no relatives!

Brooke lives pretty near to my house... perhaps twenty minutes away. She had driven her truck here on Saturday morning, so she had her own ride home. She didn't have to work the next day, and I asked her if she'd like to stay at our house, but she had to get home to catch a phone call from her sweetie in the morning. We removed Brooke and Kelly's possessions from the rig (what few there were) and I said goodbye to one and all. Hit the sack and didn't even notice when Scot came dragging back in around 2:00 AM.

I slept HARD and didn't get up till about noon the next day. Still haven't unpacked everything off the rig and today's Thursday already. I've been removing a couple things at a time and putting them away, but haven't really been motivated to get it done. Been pulling weeds instead. Haven't heard from Kelly or Brooke since sending them home. They probably hate me for that last leg of the trip home. I hope Brooke's butt is mending nicely!

If you come visit me in Seattle, I'll take you for a ride in the Rig. But maybe not as far as Lopez. Not just yet anyway. My butt's still broken.