It was a bit chilly when I woke up this morning but not like yesterday when I was in the mountains. I lounged for a bit, reading, before getting up, getting dresses, and going out for a walk. Yes, I know that the morning stiffness is somewhat age related and I know that a good walk will completely loosing me up so that's what I like to do. At home I head right to the gym 3 days a week, sometimes running there.
This morning's walk took me back to the far end of the site, an area they are developing but not yet done. The campsites are defined with an umber, a picnic table, and a fire rind but there are not what we would call roads in the area. This is why they call these sites the walk-ins. They are free but one has the pay the $5 day use fee to leave a vehicle in the parking lots. On a bicycle it would be completely free. I pay half price with my military interagency card, $7.50, so for the extra $2.50 I don't have to carry in my gear. But if the campsites were full, I could do that.
The train goes by every few hours.
I did the rest of the morning routine, broke camp, loaded up and hit the road by 8:25. I rode straight into Ellensburg and topped off my tank while I took advantage of having cell service again and looked at the map. There was motorcycle club at the station. I noticed that several were armed.
For a route, I really only have 3 options from here. One is the long way by heading south and working my way around Mt. Ranier and coming in from the south. It’s a nice ride but make a very long day. The shorter option is to ride the freeway directly into Seattle and take the ferry across. That sounds intense. The remaining option is the one I usually take and took today. It starts with 90 miles on I-90 before getting on Hwy 18 to Auburn and Tacoma, crossing the Tacoma Narrows bridge and then riding north. One has to be highly alert on this route but I still have that skillset from all my years of driving/riding in Los Angeles.
So, off I went. Somewhere along the line I got an alert from the navigation software that there was an object in the road. I don't know how it knows there things but it walks to me in my helmet speakers. Sure enough, I saw it and it looked like a roll of barbed wire. I can only imagine what hitting something like that on a bike would be like.
The traffic on Hwy 18 going the other way, out of town, was backed up and stop and go for over 12 miles. I saw this last year too and I think it’s people getting out of town for the holiday although I didn’t notice that many RVs. When I took that route a few days later the crowds were gone.
I navigated my way, heading into stopped up traffic as I transitioned to I-5 but it got better as I left Tacoma behind and crosses some bridges.
The ride north is a 4-lane for most of the way moves along pretty well. Somewhere between Gig Harbor and Bremerton I pulled off and stopped in a hotel parking lot for lunch, banana bread and an apple. I also called home and got an update on things there.
Back on the road I made good time rode directly to my mom's place, a very nice independent living facility. She came out to greet me and my sister pulled up right after. I got the bike unloaded and took a shower before making a beer run. My mom only has box wine in here fridge.
We settled in for some visiting before my sister took off and my mom and went down to the chow hall for dinner.
The food here is pretty good, with a good variety and a special every night. As it is rarely vegetarian I opt for their salad bar which is well stocked. Her usual table was full so we sat at an adjacent one but I said hello to all as I have gotten to know most of them on my frequent visits here. One of them had her 100th birthday a few years ago.
After dinner we went out to the lobby area where they have a big fireplace for Friday night chats. It's a regular social thing and I enjoy talking to one of her friends who is an avid reader, particularly science fiction.
Back in my mom's apartment we went through process of making sure she could turn on her TV which we had turned off earlier. Long gone are the days when TVs just had an On/Off/Volume control and channel selector. Now, when one picks up the correct remote control, a challenge there, and hits the on button, the TV wakes/boots up, a logo is displayed, followed by a progress bar while it makes some kind of connection. One would think that after that it would just be a matter of selection a channel, but no, you then have to work through a menu of input choices. The correct choice is HDMI which means nothing to non-technical people, and it eventually settles in on some channel.
She watched TV a bit while we chatted some and I cleared out the email on my phone. I got out my iPad and saw that it was on low battery so looked around for a place to plug it in. Next to where I was sitting is an outlet that is servicing a lamp and, it turns out, one of her two oxygen concentrators. She tells me that this one no longer works. I asked why and she said that it doesn’t charge anymore. I tried the On button and it was dead. OK, I moved to the hallway and plugged it in there and it sprung to life. I tried my iPad in that outlet and got noting. I looked for switch on the wall that might control it but found nothing. OK, a problem for another day.
I plugged to iPad in over in the kitchen and we wound the day down.
Riding, it was a 228 miles day.
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