[24/07/2024 – 31/07/2024[

Our Last Week – Whenever You Read IT

With the usual cursing Stefan managed to convince Amazon to deliver him a new pair of shoes to a Amazon lock box in Portland, which then led me to have him add a new (aftermarket) license plate holder to his order. The order was placed back in Redding and it is now time to collect it. Portland is a nice city however for the size of it restaurants and or bar close down at 10pm, even if it is later in the week (Wednesday/Thursday), the club we wanted to go to on Friday would have closed at 2pm, again for a city that size I find that rather odd. Especially if you compare it to Vancouver BC, Canada, roughly the same size, both in city and metropolitan region. Where people enjoy a wee night out even on Mondays and you have a wide variety of spots the close way later then 10pm. … Getting ahead of myself here
Sightseeing blogging, shopping and collecting the ordered items went hand in hand. And then it got time to change my two left hands for a pair that can change the back of the motorcycle. There is a time lapse of it. Long story short, took us about 5 hours to do it, and the result is favorable, in a way that i got a full set of working lights again (the license plate light was the one i was missing for the past months). However, this back is not allowed to be driven in Germany, so this operation needs to be done once more, and most probably in another parking lot, as we do plan to collect our bikes back at the harbor, to go full circle. For here it is good enough, but I´d rather not order parts from Amazon again. Btw. the T7 is quite good to be worked on. I just hope that we do not have to move further to the front of the bike.
New shoes, somewhat mended back we are now ready to commence our journey north. And the new back was put to a test a few days later, as Stefan rear ended me, at very low speed.
After taking a look at the calendar we opted for not taking the detour through the Olympic National Park, but go around Mt. Rainier which greeted us with another 90 minutes of wait time at the entrance and the mountain itself had a bit of a shy day, hiding behind clouds for the most part. We spent the night at the Silver springs campground outside the national park. and thanks to the hosts being motorcycle enthusiasts as well we were granted to stay at the overflow part of the campground, otherwise they were fully booked. Cool camp site. And it showed again how different people are. As on the next night we camped on Whidbey island north west of Seattle. We were offered a hike and bike campsite which we took, which in the aftermath turned into a bit of a ruckus as the employee that offered us the camp site was new, and not fully inducted by her team, that hike and bike camp sites are only for cyclists not motorcycle riders. But even after three different people were telling us about it, and said: “For tonight it is ok” they continued not speaking to each other as at 11:30pm another came around telling us that we are in the wrong spot, and in the morning yet another one. I just hope that the lady who offered us the choice does not get into any trouble over it. Whidbey island definitely warrants a visit, quite a lovely little island that in the north is connected to the mainland via a bridge, and at least for the Washington State Ferries if you are on a motorcycle or a bike, you can cut the line, which most probably saved us 3 hrs waiting time. It is now time to cross the border into Canada, the 13th and last country to visit. Not the last border crossing though. This was the first rain day in a very long time, it started during the night, sometimes it stopped, then it got more towards proper rain. Anyway i was up at 05:30 am and enjoyed a rather quiet morning. Good thing as it prepared me for what came after. Still on the island, my back tire had a meeting with a nail, which then led us to fix our second flat tire roadside, in a drizzle. The tube was punctured at like 4 different spots, using all of our remaining patches. Stefan did a great patch job, as the tube is still holding. However we both were rather unhappy with the patched up tube, and not patches, especially that we are going to leave the good infrastructure behind in the not to distant future. So before we crossed the border into Canada we tried to buy both, a new spare tube, and a tube repair kit, but we struck out on both. Anyway two nights in Vancouver, hopefully we get lucky there. The border crossing was again a 5 minute affair, so no affair at all.
Ah by now we are totally wet as the rain persisted to stay, and from what i have heard it was the first proper rain since quite some time. We are in Canada, in Vancouver and the vibe of the city was definitely something to enjoy and it seems like the Canadians are much more outgoing (in the literal sense) then the Americans.
And in the end we even got a new tube for a back tire and a new tube repair kit. I even asked the clerk if he would have ordered me a new chain guard and front fender, which he said yes to, the only thing he would have asked for was a credit card number, just in case we would not have shown up. Currently my hope is that we will find a shop in Edmonton on our way down, that would do the same.

Wednesday: Lincoln City – Portland

Just a lovely riding day, with temperatures rising each kilometer we got towards Portland. City traffic was more dense then in other cities we have driven to but all in all not to bad. Oh and a wonderful dinner at an Israeli place.

Thursday: Portland

Shopping and sightseeing, blogging and package retrieval, not to bad for a quiet day. Found an Indian food truck who could not really believe as we said we take the spice level as they would at home. Proper food.

Friday: Portland

The back did occupy us for about 4 – 5 hours and discussions if we should not just simply reuse the already broken one. Good thing we did not 😉 (see above). Shopping for one more time and I think I am ok for the north.

Saturday: Portland – Silver Springs Campground (Mt. Rainier)

Driving through the national park was quite nice, and the campsite most definitely. There is some drone footage in the video. (was not filmed in the national park)

Sunday: Silver Springs – Fort Casey Campground (Whidbey Island)

Just a drive through Seattle, no stop here, again time is currently a bit against us. Basically we have about 5000km to go till Deadhorse. Thinking back at the beginning of the journey we had about 4200km from Valparaiso to Ushuaia, for those we took about 3.5 weeks. And here we are attempting it to do more kilometers in 14 days.
Dispite the discussions about the hike & bike camp site, the campground was really nice, and they did have hot showers :-). Well it started raining during the night, which ment we had to pack a wet tent.

Monday: Fort Casey Campground (USA) – Vancouver (Canada)

Well the rain started the day marvelous and it got better with the flat tire. At least it does not take us 90 minutes anymore, and we have learned how the rear cogwheel is mounted to the rim. Not at all it is plugged, apparently. As said the border crossing was yet a breeze, and no neither one of is missing the times when a border crossing took at least 1:15 hrs (that was the fastest we had up until the U.S.)
Once arrived at our accomodation in Vancouver we unpacked our camping gear to dry off the tent, which naturally made the room we stayed in a bit crowded, but the job got done.

Tuesday: Vancouver

Just walking around the city. The bay front would have been a great spot for running but, currently I am still dealing with a cold, and as my lungs have to deal with my smoking I keep the running to a minimum. Ah yes smoking the tobacco prices in Canada are something else, so it seems my account says I better go back to vaping. Quitting I am not there yet.

This concludes week #34 of the our journey through the Americas
Till next time
Happy Hacking everyone