Day 1: mysterious native american parcels, anteeek overload and pterodactyls

I is back! All your good wishes carried through; we had a FANTASTIC TIME!


After carefully reviewing our plans it was decided that, instead of taking our new Victory on vacation, we would take the whip: a white Buick Park Avenue. Four doors, air, cruise, tunes, power everTHANG. This was to be a research mission as much as a getaway, and we needed to be prepared for unusual eventualities; which entails packing a lot of extra shit, like shoes and a map. (Next year we'll have the Victory in fighting trim. All we'll need are one saddlebag each, a t-pack and a credit card. Travelling light is an art.)

Our first stop, dictated by my bladder, was the Smoky Point wayside...the very same site of the mass geriatric potty misadventures I've written about before. Fortunately we arrived before the first of the Canadian casino charters and so the floor was dry, the seats were clean, and there were no alarming motorboat noises. Excellent!

When I came back to the whip the Biker was holding a round blue box. "It was on the ground in the middle of the parking lot," he explained. We looked inside and saw loops of woven cedar fibers. We placed it in the trunk, planning to put a notice in the local free paper.*

The weather was overcast and chilly as we climbed through the Western Cascades, through Monroe, where the Big House is, through small roadside towns with names like Gold Bar and and Sultan and Skykomish , where many of the former inmates now live. We've explored these towns in past years, and everything that was antique, historic or charming about them is slowly being lost to Section 8 housing, blackberries and meth-lab fires. Still, the major part of the passing scenery is spectacular. The forests and farms are lush and it's a beautiful ride.

We crossed Stevens Pass and ran full into summer as soon as we passed the ski lodge. I'm always surprised every year at how abruptly the countryside changes...up from valleys overgrown in logged-over maple and pine toward massive Doug firs broken by lightning, through false azalea and silky oatgrass to the final bare alpine summits. This time of the year they're black and bare with a few dirty patches of old snow on the very top... and then all of it gives way in the space of three steep downward miles to tan-barked Ponderosa pines and ryegrass and rusty-black basalt, dry dry heat and blue sky.

And unfortunate Bavarian-themed candy stores.

Even though I'm a little ashamed to admit it, we always stop 'n' shop in Leavenworth, 'A Little Bit of Bavaria in the Pacific Northwest'.
I really don't need to describe the tourist district, do I.
Suffice it to say that we hit town around noon, just in time for the daily 'Music in the Park' programme, featuring a man in lederhosen who played the accordion.
And yodelled.

The HORROR.

Thank God, as soon as you hit the city limits sign you enter the real Eastern Washington. The highway follows the river, and the valley floor is covered with orchards and gardens. The hills above this are tan velvet, perfect and soft from a distance. The arroyos which run down their sides are green and filled with clematis and sumac.

Peshastin is home to bizarre sandstone formations, Cappadocian-looking peaks that start up out of the hills suddenly and make a rather extraterrestrial backdrop to the tidy little downtown. This is a hardworking place...everyone is busy in the fruit warehouses or out in the orchards, and even the retirees are out bustling around making strange yard art and picking up trash off the roadside.

The town of Dryden is right next door. This place was pleasant enough that even the first tourists decided to linger, leaving Clovis points the size of the palm of your hand all along the riverfront. Both of these small towns are really nice places. People smile, dogs wag, and the little riverfront parks are pleasant and shady.

Cashmere parallels the river on the opposite side of the highway. Basically it's one meandering Main street, a long stretch of businesses in carefully preserved false-fronted brick buildings, and two residential streets. These run through the most adorable, neat-as-a-pin bungalow neighborhood you've ever seen, just spilling over with flowers and huge shady trees. It is also home to the largest indoor antique market we've ever been in. That's saying something. We maxed out and had to go visit a smaller one; there is actually such a thing as antique overload.

Monitor has a special place in my heart for two reasons: one, is the most gorgeous river-rock bungalow in the state of Washington, and two is the single-lane wooden bridge towards the outskirts of town, built over a wide irrigation channel. The goddamn thing is so ancient and so rattletrap that as you pass over it, even on a motorcycle, the decking flexes and creaks and you can see the spike heads jump up from the planking ahead of you.

Right as you summit the hill leading down into the town of Wenatchee you come upon the motel we've been staying in for years. All it lacks is a boomerang sign out front advertising 'COLOR TV!' ...otherwise it's pure 50's; neon-blue pool, cinderblock construction, flat angled roof, 'Magic Fingers' massage beds and all that jazz. The view from the rooms is an orchard and a horse paddock. The overweight friendly manager has an overweight friendly cat. Rockin!

We unpacked, got situated, then flew downtown and hit the streets ambling. We'd come 183 miles to amble. We were poised. We were ready. Our fu was unbeatable.

Old downtown Wenatchee has some prime ambling. Window shopping, cafe' sniffing, looking at the buildings and reading the old painted advertising, spotting architectural details, musing over oddball street sculpture, alley whomping and people watching. It's just a different world there. Half German, half Mexican, part NA and part Asian, small town and friendly, but scary hardcore after the sun goes down.

Just as evening fell we were crossing a street when we heard a loud, prolonged scream echoing off the buildings.
eeeEEEEEERRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!
Silence.
eeeEEEEEERRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!
Silence.

As far as I could figure, someone was smacking a pterodactyl with a bat.

All this ambling took energy and we soon needed Mexican food. We took our sweet time cruising up and down town, brains tuned to simpatico Mexican food wavelengths. I was beckoned by a little corner place called 'Taco Loco'. The biker was lured by 'Mi Abuelo'. We finally settled on Mi Abuelo. (I think he felt apprehensive about the whole 'Crazy Taco' concept.)
It was grubby.**That was expected.
The food was utterly, utterly fantastic. Fanfuckingtastic, even.
The service was awesome.
We were happy.

That evening I took two showers just because I could. I opened the bathroom window to let out the steam. While I was sitting on the side of the tub shaving my legs I heard another strange call echoing in the night:
'eeeeeaaARRRR ha ha ha!'
I looked outside into the darkness. I saw a horse. It saw me.

I worried about that. Pterodactyls probably eat horses.




____________________________
*when we returned we opened the box and pulled the contents out. It turned out to be a stack of dancers headdresses and a spool of raffia to repair them.



** this seems to be par for the course in downtown Wenatchee...unless the business in question has just been built, everything from the floor up to about five inches high is pretty much black. grocery stores, antique stores, real estate offices, it doesn't matter.