|
|
By Lynx, on July 22nd, 2010 Next day in Seattle, went back downtown to check out the Aquarium and stuff around there. First time using the GPS during the trip, worked out pretty well. I’m too cheap to spring for a bike mount for the GPS so I just superglued two strips of my industrial strength velcro to the back and stuck it to the camera bag mounted behind the windshield. It worked fine and cost a grand total of maybe 15 cents.
The entire aquarium building is suspended over water, it looks like its on flat ground but its actually hanging out over the ocean on Pier 59.
Continue reading Seattle Aquarium
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 22nd, 2010 The Aquarium of course has some great reef tanks that were just amazing with the colors and varieties of fish.
These anemones were huge
Colorful Corals
Giant scallop
Continue reading Seattle Aquarium – Reef Fish
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 22nd, 2010 We loved the Seattle Aquarium sea otters!
I’m amazed at just how big sea otters are. I guess I always thought them to be like river otters, nope not even close, they are as big as Cece. Wikipedia says up to 5ft and 100 lbs, just a smidge smaller than Cece 😉
They were great fun to watch especially the young ones. I got some video but it didnt turn out.
Continue reading Seattle Aquarium – Otters
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 22nd, 2010 With the bike repaired they took us to the Ice Caves up the valley. Pretty neat. I have no idea where we were, I think this is in the national forest.
View from the parkinglot.
Trails were very well maintained, except for the end it was wheelchair accessable. We went through marshes and swamps first, no pics of that.
My first rain forest.. Now I know what they mean by checking which side of the tree for moss to find your way. Back home, moss? whats that?
Continue reading ice caves
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 22nd, 2010 Next day with nowhere to go we just slept in and did much needed tasks like laundry, and mailing another box of crap, I mean souvenirs home. Cece’s aunt and Uncle showed us around the nice little town of Lake Stevens and gave us some ideas of what to do around the area.
First though, another bike repair.. Over the two weeks we had been on the road my tour pack had begun to sag more and more in the back to where it was getting hard to read the license plate, but more importantly it was creating a growing lump in the bottom of the bag and taking away valuable space. My luggage rack did not go all the way to the end of the bag and over time the vibrations and bumps and 120lbs+ of weight had caused the thing to sag.
Took the thing off and much to my surprise it had bent the whole luggage rack down too. See in the pics how the Custom World International rack is all one solid piece with the sides bent down, it had bent straight across there where the sides end. I didnt think to get a picture of how badly bent it was. I had Rusty hold the bars to keep it from falling and picked the whole back of the bike up by the end of the rack. With the rear tire off the ground I could shake it up and down a little and it’d slowly bend back a millimeter at a time. That thing is fricken thick, it took a lot of effort to bend it back straight. Luckily it seems to have only stretched the chrome a bit and didnt crack it.
With it mostly straight I cut a piece cut a piece of this stuff from Lowes in half and wired it to each side with a strip of pizza box on both sides and on the top between the metal and the rack to keep from scratching it too badly.
Continue reading luggage rack repair
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 21st, 2010 Made it to Lake Stevens where we stayed with Cece’s Aunt and Uncle for almost a week. First thing they did was take us on a little tour of Seattle!
I’d always wanted to spend some time around Seattle where many of my college friends wound up and where most of my coworkers had lived at one time or another. Interesting to see how my life could have been had I persued employment in the North West instead of Colorado and New Mexico.
Continue reading Seattle
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 19th, 2010 
By the time we got to Spokane the bike was running more and more like crap the further down we went. It kept hickupping and backfiring through the carbs at idle once and while and now it was starting to do that while at speed on the highway causing a big jerk when it did and also starting to run a bit warm on my gauge again.
Next morning at the motel with the engine cold, time to rejet! Threw in jets 2 sizes larger and good as new, lots more power too.
About an hr later though… Went to pass an RV on the highway and suddenly the bike bogged down and one cyl cut out.. &@#% ! When I found a place to get off the road it idled fine but give it gas and it turned into a thumper. That should have been a clue, but I thought it had to be the fuel filter or something as I had just filled up 10 miles down the road. Tore the whole thing down trying to figure this out, eliminating one thing after another till finally it had to be in the carbs…
Continue reading Breakdown
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 18th, 2010 
Too bad we couldn’t cross the border into Canada to have a short look around just to say that we had been there and get to mark a Canadian provence on our states visited map 😉 That whole pesky pass port andbureaucratic red tape involving Native American’s sovereignty thing I mentioned earlier.
Idaho and eastern Washington were not quite what I was expecting. I knew Idaho had lots of forest next to Yellowstone obviously with the national forests there but I don’t know a whole lot about the rest of the state except the potato thing.
The northern stretch that we crossed was very thick and gigantically tall pine and fir trees with what looked like redwoods here and there thrown in, I now think those were Western Redcedars after looking at that site. Idaho had lake after lake after lake, some of them quite big too with very large boats cruising down them.
Not what I was expecting at all, I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. Idaho is a lot like New Mexico in that everyone’s perception of it is exactly wrong and I’m guessing nobody cares to correct those perceptions so they also aren’t overrun with tourists seeking out the natural beauty and spoiling it 😉
Continue reading Idaho to Washington
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 17th, 2010 Oil Change the next morning before leaving Kalispell… You’d think this would be easy but we went through 3 parts stores looking for oil to use and there was very little selection in any of them, the ones that did have something usable only had 1 or 2 quarts of it. So I ended up having to take notes of what was in which store and combine them all to figure out what to get. None of them had any of my preferred oil brands so I ended up going with plain Shell Rotella T synthetic, 2 quarts from one place 1 from another (more on this later).
Went to a Valvoline Express Care carwash/oil change place and asked if they would take my oil, one of the attendants said yes but we dont do motorcycles. I told him I’d do it myself in the parkinglot and hand them the oil afterwards. I was getting ready to start and the manager comes over and tells me to leave the premises. WTF? He says we do not allow any motorcycles at all on the lot, you need to go. We’ll take the oil but you cant park here. What an ass. I motioned to the Kawi parked in the shade on the side of the building and he gets defensive, thats an employees bike we dont allow the public to park motorcycles on the premises and storms off. Jeez! I can tell you one thing, if we had any Valvoline places in NM I sure as hell wouldnt go to one after being treated that way.
Rode around the block and parked at Taco Bell next door and just did the oil change there, walked my lasagna pan of oil across the parkinglot and handed it to someone and left. The first guy tried to apologize.
Continue reading Valvoline Care?
Like this:Like Loading...
By Lynx, on July 16th, 2010 Glacier National Park and riding the Going to the Sun Road was another thing on my bucket list. Unfortunately the whole trip we had been hearing from other riders who had just come from Glacier that the road was closed and we had to make the difficult decision to cut our visit short here a month just isn’t enough time to see and do all that we wanted. We had to give Cece’s Uncle a date to expect us and once we decided a week in advance we were committed.
They say that all of the glaciers in Glacier national park will be gone very soon at their current rate of melting and this is something I want to see before they are all gone. We were already expecting the road to be closed but if we hurried at least we could see the southern side of the park for a few hours on our way through if we raced fast enough.
The water is so clear. The bottom of these lakes are lined with bright multicolored smooth rocks, reds, blacks, oranges. Very beautiful, I want to go back. We are definitely staying here longer next time when we go to Alaska.
Continue reading Glacier National Park or Bust!
Like this:Like Loading...
|
|
