Over the Cascades - Again!

A little video treat to start today's post, although for us it should be called 'Born To Be Mild'.

 

Steppenwolf's anthem to Harley riding. Even in the imagination of 'geezers'.

 



Today was Day 3 of our trans-mountain ride.  In contrast to the past two days, the weather this morning was cool and overcast but pleasant nevertheless.  We began the day by fuelling up and heading to the local Burlington H-D dealership, Skagit Harley-Davidson. 

 

I'll preface what comes next with an observation about businesses that exist to provide a service.  Some businesses understand how important it is to connect with their potential customers and make the effort  to engage anyone who comes into their places of business.  Others just don't seem to get it and treat customers as an intrusion, rather than the reason for their existence.  Having said this, we entered Skagit H-D, looked at new and used motorcycles, and checked out jackets and T-shirts.  We were in the store for at least ten minutes and not one of the people working there said, 'Hello,' or asked us if they could help us or even acknowledge our presence.  We walked out the door without once having an interaction with any Skagit employee. 

 

Leaving that dealership, we rolled onto I-5 and headed south to Marysville, WA to drop in to Sound H-D.  The experience there was totally different.  By the time I walked across the store to the clothing section, I had been greeted three times and offered help twice.  Talk about extremes in customer service.  In addition, Jim had a question for the service department.  The counter man not only offered to find out the answer, he was careful not to interrupt a mechanic who was working on a bike in the service entrance and walked back to the work area to find the answer to Jim's question.  Jim was impressed with the quality of the service for an important question. This is the dealership where I get most of the service done on my H-D and I was pleased that they treated him as well as they did.

 

Back on I-5 we rode south to Everett, WA, where we exited to Highway 2 for the ride through Stevens Pass.  We passed through small towns along the way before rolling into the mountains.  At the turn of the last century the Great Northern Railway pushed their tracks through Stevens pass to Seattle.  The route followed the Skykomish River on the western side of the Cascades and climbed out of the Okanogan Valley along the Wenatchee River.  Route 2 also follows the two rivers so we paralleled the river and railway tracks for a good portion of the distance from Everett to Wenatchee.



 

The west side of the Coast Range receives a great deal of rain and consequently there is heavy vegetation.  It looks great but one drawback id that all you can see is trees and green along the highway.  Mountain views are hard to come by on the west side of the mountains so it is difficult to get striking photos along this highway.

 

One of the towns along the way, Skykomish, WA, proudly advertises itself as the Great Northern town and without the railroad it would probably not exist.  It seems, like many other towns off the beaten path, like a town that time has passed by.  There seems to be few new buildings, although the old ones do have character.  And, considering the size of some of these towns it seems surprising to see substantial building in them.  It would seem like the people who built them did so in anticipation of a boom of growth that never came.

 

 

 

 

Entrance to Skykomish, WA

 

 

Skykomish River

 

We eventually climbed about most of the tree line and crested the Stevens Pass summit at just over 4000 feet.  We stopped at the ski lodge for a short break and look around.  The slopes seem quite steep and there is still snow on the northern slopes.

 

 

 

 

Approaching the summit of Stevens Pass, WA

 



 

Stevens Pass ski hill

 

Stevens Pass ski slope



 

The highway began to drop and soon we were running along the Wenatchee River.  Just as with the Skykomish, the water ran fast and was a beautiful deep green colour whenever it wasn't foaming white as it crashed over rocks in the river bed.

 

 

 

Wenatchee River



 

The road to the summit and down the east side of the pass was a real delight to right with curve after curve.  It seemed that we spent a lot of the ride on the sides of our tires and it was fun.  Soon, however, as we lost altitude, the temperature began to rise and when we reached Leavenworth, WA, the heat was similar to the temperature we experienced yesterday.

 

Leavenworth is a tourist town.  Its fame rests on the fact that it a complete Bavarian themed town.  Even the Safeway on the edge of town, far from the centre  was built to a Bavarian theme with murals on the walls.  The downtown was packed with cars and people and it was difficult to even find a parking spot.  We eventually found one on a side street, ditched our leathers and walked through the downtown, stopping for an ice cream cone in 'Das Sweet Shop'.

 

 

 

Hanging basket in Leavenworth

 

Hotel in Leavenworth, WA

 

Main Street in Leavenworth, WA

 

 

Street scene, Leavenworth, WA

 

In the park an entertainer was singing and playing the accordion to a rapt audience of about six people.  I must be a Philistine because I just can't appreciate 'oompah' music. 

 

Wenatchee is close to Leavenworth so it was a short run to get on to Highway 97 heading north.  The twists and turns we had to take to get from Highway 2 to Highway 97 were quite complicated.  Once again, however, my trusty Garmin GPS came to the rescue and we made all the turns without any misses and were soon heading north to Orondo where Highway 2 split off from 97. 

 

The ride to Grand Coulee was great.  We climbed out of Waterville and came out in fields of wheat that stretched to the horizon.  Some of the fields had been cultivated and were bare soil. At one point a farmer was using disks to cultivated the soil, but it was so dry there was a plume of dust that rose at least fifty feet in the air.

 

Thousands of years ago huge floods occurred when ice dams in Montana burst sending volumes of water equivalent to those in Lakes Ontario or Erie rushing across Washington state.  Near Grand Coulee the waters gouged out a deep valley which runs for miles.  As we approached the town the highway dropped down to the bed of the old river, crossed it and climbed out the other side.  The rock cliffs were several hundred feet high with varied colours.  The geology is impressive and it's unfortunate that there was no place to stop to take photos.

 

It was 92 degrees F in Grand Coulee when we stopped to try to find a motel room. The motel in town had no vacancies so we checked out the bar on the main street where we were told to check out a motel on the highway.  Fortunately they have lots of rooms at a reasonable price so we stopped for the day.

 

Since we were outside of town we figured that we'd have to find a restaurant but fortunately there was one in the Shell station next door.  We had pizza for dinner, and it was excellent, before we wrapped it up.  Tomorrow it's on to Spokane, then into Idaho before returning to Canada.  The past three days have shown us some really excellent roads and we're looking forward to more of the same when we get into the Kootenays.