A shorter mileage day today, but lots of fun. Riding with my brother now, we set off from Tri-Cities mid-morning with three loose objectives for the day: A half day of good riding, a rear tire swap for Badger, and some time hanging out together, entertaining ourselves with something. We settled on Portland as a destination, offering to tick all three boxes. After leaving town southbound on I-82, we exited right prior to crossing the Columbia River (aka the Washington-Oregon state border), electing to initiate our westbound passage via the WA-14 along the north (WA) side of the river rather than following the main traffic flow to the I-84 on the south (OR) side. |
Mission Objective #2: I was keen for a rear tire swap, recognizing that today would be the day with a window of non-riding hours during regular business hours, meaning that for a small sum I could pay a shop to use their machine to do it. Brief Google Mapsing and a phone call led us to the neighbourhood Ducati dealer, MotoCorsa, down the street, where as we arrived and were unfolding ourselves out of the backseat of an Uber (with 18" wheel plus knobbly new tire in hand), an absolute downpour was unloading in the streets. Just as well we called the half day riding, because it was no time to be caught in the rain now. Anyway, the shop was class, and the boys in the service end were more than happy to swap the tire on, while salesman Graham was more than happy to tour us around the showroom and keep us entertained and caffeinated in spite of the circumstantially-obvious 0% chance of a sale. (Turns out this ethos is precisely how they've managed to be the top-selling Ducati dealer in the USA, six years running, as this highly interesting article explores.)
We re-Ubered back to the hotel, where I satisfyingly re-lubed my axle bolt with grease from my travel kit, and re-installed my wheel. Sadly, in the excitement, I missed the classic photo op of Badger parked on his centre stand under the hotel front lobby canopy with no rear wheel. (In other phototragedy news, it was also noticed during way-too-late map reading that Badger was unwittingly within a few mere miles of "Badger Mountain" -- of course, the namesake of that hotel room sign -- as we rode out of Richland this morning.) (Aside: A pretty epic URL held by that conservation group!)
To tick Objective #3, we ended up drinking some Pyramid Apricot Ale at the source, and more Ubering to catch a blockbuster movie playing at a little neighbourhood theatre.
Day total: 365 km, 3h40m Trip total: 3,006 km | Start: Richland, WA. End: Portland, OR. Soundtrack: Bottomless banter & s*it-talk via in-hemlet communicators. |