Montvale

"Oh, so you're only a couple years older than me," the concierge said, looking at my driver's license. She was an attractive middle-aged woman at the Montvale Hotel, downtown Spokane. It's funny how a single word can throw a completely different meaning to a sentence. If she had omitted the "only" and said, "Oh, you're a couple years older than I (I've corrected her grammar, of course)", then there's no problem. Put in "only" and suddenly I look much older than the two. This isn't surprising. It's a hard time on the road, this rock-and-roll lifestyle. Ask Iggy Pop or Keith Richards, ancient even when they were young: partying all night the night before, riding hard all day the next, your eyes sunken, skin mottled, the toxic smell of charred caramel oozing from every pore. You lead this life, lady, and let's see what you look like..

The good news is that I am now back to "ripped" status, the layer of subcutaneous fat burned, although I'm not "shredded" or "yoked" as the kids would say, and my six-pack abs have returned. 

The bad news is that while wearing my kevlar riding pants, the ones I bought when I weighed 175 lbs., I now look like a little boy swimming in his older brother's hand-me-down britches. Also, my belt, that I previously wore on the third notch, is now at the fifth hole, the last one available, and I could go one more.

Motorcycle riding burns serious calories, surprising as you're sitting and don't appear to be that active. But riding works your core, everything moves from the waist, and the mental concentration, those who've ridden long-distances know, can be fatiguing.

Spokane, home of the Montvale Hotel, was a rather happening town, filled with young hipsters and, surprisingly, punk rockers - complete with mohawks, piercings, tattoos, strutting the hard downtown streets, causing trouble, making noise, having fun.

I wanted to join them but sadly my rock-and-roll lifestyle had caught up with me and after a quick dinner at the Brooklyn Deli and a discussion with the restaurant manager, John, who was intrigued by my ride and offered to buy me a beer, no thank you, I limped to the hotel, sullen and tired, asleep by 9:30. 

The sleep rejuvenated me and I awoke at 5:30 A.M. I reviewed Yelp, found a local restaurant, four stars, Molly's Family Restaurant, that opened at six. I quickly prepped and packed, filled the bike with gas and I was the first customer to walk through the doors. I was on the road by 6:20.

My ride coordinator, aka my editor, aka Hurricane, aka "the Boss", and I had discussed my modified route to the north, avoiding Seattle. The Montvale's wifi refused to load web pages in a timely manner, which meant Google Maps was nigh unusable. Melissa reviewed the route suggested by Tom and it would be 10.5 hours without breaks, 2.5 hours longer than going through Seattle.

Going through Seattle meant less compelling scenery due to the rather monotonous stretch of I-90 West between Spokane and Ellensburg and more traffic certainly. The positives would be that I'd cross Snoqualmie Pass, a mountainous ascent full of Brobdingnagian spruce and firs and a descent into Mercer Island surrounded by the sapphire-blue of Lake Washington. I'd cut time by taking the Bainbridge Island ferry, instead of having to either route south through Olympia or north, taking highway 20, nearly crossing the Canadian border before having to take a different ferry that would land in Port Townsend.

The I-90W route disappointed me and, frankly, I regretted the decision not to invest in the extra couple of hours; that is, until I started ascending the Snoqualmie Pass, which is beautiful. Washington was resplendent, unusual that, and invited me on my last corner journey with a beautiful day, in the 60s and 70s. I never realized what gorgeous cities Bellevue and Seattle are - because I'd never really seen them without the marr of rain and clouds.

I'm staying at the Neah Bay Inn tonight. I'll blog about the trip up and the final corner tomorrow but what I will say is that in terms of just pure beauty and being fun-to-drive, Highway 112, the Strait of Juan de Fuca Highway, may very well be one of the best motorcycle rides in the United States.