Wednesday, July 5 Day 21

It definitely looked like rain when we got ready to leave Leavenworth, but cleared up by the time we actually left, much to my relief. We got back on SR 97 and headed south. The road was nearly perfect: smooth, winding, not very busy. We pretty much skipped breakfast thinking we'd get an early lunch. We were heading toward Yakima, Washington and got sidetracked in the small town of Ellensburg trying to locate an adjacent road aside from the freeway. I made a wrong turn and we wound around the town, both of us getting a little frustrated. I turned down one side street to head in the general direction from where I'd come and we stumbled upon a house that was decorated like nothing I've ever seen. This is what we found: Dick and Jane's Spot. We spent an hour looking at everything. We always find the most interesting things when we are lost, irritable and hungry. It's weird. We could not have found this place if we looked for it and if I hadn't taken a wrong turn we would never have seen it.

We found the road we were looking for after that and had a nice ride along the Yakima river all the way to Yakima. Yakima, I must say, offers very little to the weary traveler so we wandered around until we got back on the freeway and ended up in a a smaller town called Toppenish where we found a Mexican restaurant for lunch. The food was ok after we scraped off the block of orange cheese they melted over both of our plates.

My token picture of the Columbia River Gorge before Mother Nature tried to blow me away

After we left and headed south again toward the Columbia river gorge, I could feel the wind starting to pick up. By the time we hit the SR 14 along the gorge it was really windy. A few times I was really fighting the wind with the bike. I'd be ok for a while and then all of a sudden a gust would make us wobble and lurch. Not a good feeling. I drove a few more miles, but decided to slow down considerably which helped, but the gusts were pretty bad. Our intent was to cross the Columbia river and go to Hood River and spend the night. I was really reluctant to cross the river with the wind as bad as it was. At one point the wind was so bad that I literally felt like I had no control over the bike. I pulled over a wide shoulder and stopped. I told Monica, "Your trip is over."

"Thank you," she said. "What do we do now?"

I was hoping to at least get to some kind of town, but here we were pretty much out in the middle of no where, about 18 miles from the nearest town. I didn't think I could go any further. "We wait until dusk and see if the wind dies down." It was only 3:30pm. The wind was knocking us both off our feet and the 800 lb motorcycle was rocking in the wind. All I needed was for it to blow over to make my day complete. Monica sat down on the gravel because she couldn't stand up to the wind. I picked up a couple of potato-sized rocks and shoved them in her jacket pocket. "So you don't blow away," I told her.

Fifteen minutes past and we saw a beat up bile-green El Camino pull up behind us. We were a little scared until an elderly woman in a stained housedress leaned out and asked us if we needed help. "We can't go any further in this wind," I told her.

"What do you plan to do?" she asked.

"Wait for the wind to die down."

"Oh, that's not going to happen. It's been like this for days. I know it's hard. I used to ride an 1100," she told me. Then she offered to find someone with a truck to haul my bike to wherever I wanted. The thought of loading this bike into some local yokel's truck did not sit well with me. The potential horrors of that scenario played out in my head and made me shudder.

"No, I don't want to go through that trouble."

"Ok, well, how about if you follow me closely and it will help block the wind and I'll get you to the nearest town?"

None of my options were looking very good, but I agreed. She instructed me to follow closely behind her and she "promised not to brake." Terrific. I agreed, but didn't follow as closely as I think she wanted me to in case one of those big horn sheep should leap in front of her El Camino and she had to brake. I didn't want to eat her back window. She led us to the next town where we assured her we could go on by ourselves the next 10 miles to a town with a motel. She told us that next time we were in the area to look up "Aunt Jane." We thanked her and she went up her road to her mountain home while we set out to tackle the wind again. With the aid of a train that happened to be running along side of us at the same time, blocking the wind from the river, we landed in the town of Bingen, just across the river from Hood River. We stopped in a local pub for a Coke to contemplate what to do. Monica was getting nervous that I was reconsidering going over the bridge. There was no place to stay in Bingen. My option was to continue another 17 miles down the river to another town or to cross the 3 mile river bridge and get to Hood River. The bridge was grated, I knew and that is no fun even on a calm day with a motorcycle. It's like walking on ball bearings. Grated bridge, 50MPH crosswinds. Big fat cold, deep river. 6:00 news. "The Coast guard is still searching for the bodies of two California women who were too damn stupid to stay off the bridge this evening....."

As I was finishing off my Coke, Monica discovered an ad for a hotel in White Salmon, cleverly named The White Salmon Inn. Where is White Salmon? Hey, wait a minute. That sounds suspiciously like White fish Motel!! 

A reprieve from the wind.

We find out it's a mile and a half up the hill from Bingen! Woo hoo! Quick. We must check it out. Monica calls the hotel. The woman there tells us it's not windy there. Strange. We motor up the hill and find this oasis. Beautiful restored 1937 hotel, decorated with antiques, private room and bath overlooking the garden, hot tub, parlor, full hot breakfast with homemade pastries for breakfast. Nothing like the Whitefish Motel. We settle in and think about the fact that we may be stranded forever by the wind.