Bicycles and Poop!

It should have been a great day for a ride on the Harley yesterday--After all, the signs all pointed towards a killer day of mid-80's sun. We had been looking forward to visiting Melinda and checking out the newest member of her miniature donkey family, and decided that this was the perfect day to do it.

But we didn't expect the bicycles.

Unbeknown to us, we had chosen the same day that all the masochistic bicycle riders of the Pacific Northwest chose to do their annual Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride (also known as the STP). While this normally wouldn't be a problem, we had chosen, for obvious Harley-riding & scenery-enjoying reasons, a path of travel that crossed with theirs. Picture yourself in rural, small-town USA on a road that winds through small towns, now add 10,000 people on bicycles. Seriously, that's what the paper reported--Just shy of 10,000 of them. All shapes & sizes, on bikes of all types, all ages, all levels of expertise, some considerate riders and some not--All "sharing" the road with people in or on motorized transportation. Sharing would be putting it mildly. What actually ended up happening in the little towns was total gridlock. We sat in the nice, little town of Yelm, Washington for what seemed like ages, moving a few feet at a time, in 80+ degree heat. We were hot, the Harley was pushing 230°, and I was rapidly losing my cool in other ways as well. We finally had to abandon our scenic trip and take alternate route that took us to the freeway. I conceded defeat to them in a last-gasp effort to salvage our day and still be able to spend some time at Melinda's house.

Our visit to her house was killer. We always enjoy our visits to White Hawk Farm (her ranch name). There is always something new and interesting to see and enjoy, and in our cases, to photograph. We always take pictures at her house, and usually lots of them. What took us there this time was to see a new arrival in her donkey stable, just born this last week. Roy Rogers is his name, and he is the cutest little donkey baby! He's not even 2-feet tall at the shoulders yet. Check him out:


There was also another new one there that we hadn't seen yet. It was born a couple of months ago, but due to wedding plans and the like we never got to go see her (I think it was a her). The new critters also included a beautiful brother/sister team of Border Collies named Rex and Fly. They were very beautiful dogs, and very smart and energetic. After enjoying a great photo session with all the critters, she treated us to a great dinner of fresh-caught salmon from the barbecue. Danny (her husband) is still in Alaska on business (his crew is building the second in a series of 3 bridges) and caught it himself and had it shipped down to her. Good stuff! After we ate, we had a great time picking up donkey poop (seriously!) in her field. Sue got to drive the John Deere Gator that she has for that purpose, and the two dogs had a hoot of a time trying to "herd" it as she drove around the field from pile to pile where Melinda and I scooped up the little "field apples" and tossed them in the back. She looked really good driving it too--Dressed for summer and her blond hair flying. Here are a few shots of our poop-slingin' fun:



Our trip home was fine until we got to a certain point on I-5 where the glorious Washington State work crews had a lane closure to do a bridge repair. When I saw the "left two lanes close ahead" sign, my first thought was, "Jeez, they only have 3 lanes to start with--Here we go again." Yes, it was much like our ride amongst the bicyclists earlier in the day, but fortunately it was much cooler and there was actually an end in sight. It wasn't long after that when the moon made it's dramatic appearance. Suzie pointed it out to me as it rose over the eastern horizon. It wasn't a complete full moon, but it was HUGE and it was colored a deep yellowish-orange that looked cool. Had we both been somewhere with full use of tripods it would have been quite a dramatic shot.

Home at midnight and beat. Our first Harley ride as a couple in almost a year. Although it was far from perfect, it was a good ride.