After a bit of reflection on our awful day riding into Bremerton, Tim and I planned the next few days that would lead us into Oregon. After a second breakfast of a dozen donuts between us we rocketed into Shelton. Seriously the best thing about biking had to be the food.
Except for places like this of course... extra goop for me!
As you can probably tell from the pics so far, the weather was quite dreadful. Every morning we'd wake up to a mist that soaked our tents and equipment over the night before, and every day of riding the blue sky was just over the horizon, but never reached us. What a perfect metaphor.
The countryside was still pretty though.
This is me in my super nerdy safety glasses. Like most nashbar products they broke after less than a month of usage.
Tim "towel-butt" Bolwes. Tim needed some extra padding in his shorts so until he bought new ones, he used a hand towel we jacked from the hotel.
Marshmallow field! I still don't know what these things were all about.
We finally got some clear skies, and yet another pleasant surprise. As we were approaching Centralia we saw Dick's brewery. I tried some of their beer in Eugene, and it was quite exceptional. We decided to stop (who didnt' see that coming?) and found out that Dick's was also... ahem... a sausage shop. According to the slogan "You can't beat dick's meat." You gotta love it.
Our hotel in Centralia was super sweet. It was the old Olympic hotel, that looked straight out of a Western. The hotel and adjacent saloon was formerly a gambling hall and, during Prohibition, a speakeasy, as well as a brothel. It was restored into a McMenamin's brew pub and had a movie theater attached. The rooms were pretty cool, they were "european style" i.e. common bathrooms in the halls, and ours had bunk beds!
There was a lot of kitschy cool decorations that gave it a 19th century feel. There was also a movie theater in the hotel that was directly beneath our rooms. Guests got a free movie ticket, and you pretty much had to go, because if you didn't you'd hear every word of the surround sound as clear as day underneath your feet. I had the distinct displeasure of hearing the worst movie I'd ever seen, "Wolverine" complete with tacky score that conveyed the plot as clearly as the screenplay. We saw "Drag me to hell" which was worth a laugh, and that's about it. We also met some pretty cool people: a French-Canadian couple that was biking to Vancouver to check it out before maybe move there, and Bob our bike touring guru. This guy spent 2 1/2 years touring around the world in the '70s so he was full of old cyclist wisdom. We spent the rest of our tour asking, "What would Bob do?"
No comments:
Post a Comment