I had a great time in Bellingham, WA and am now on my way home. After my first night in Bellingham staying at the Bellweather Hotel right on the harbor, I moved over to the house of an old Miles City classmate, Barbers Mathers-Schmidt, and her husband Bob. They have a beautiful house and I was warmly welcomed from the time I roared up their driveway on my Harley until I left yesterday morning. They gave me the grand tour of Bellingham including a drive up to Mt Baker, about an hour away. It is a truly beautiful area.
We had a great time catching up and trading “war stories” of our travels. They also love to travel around the world so we had no shortage of things and places to talk about. It was a truly pleasurable visit and, hopefully, we will have the opportunity to get together again in some corner of the world – Bellingham, Bozeman, Miles City, Timbuktu or wherever!
I took off yesterday morning (Happy Bastille Day!) in beautiful weather with temperatures in the high 60’s. I knew it was forecasted to be very hot in Wenatchee where I was headed but it was a very nice ride until I dropped down from Stevens Pass into Leavenworth. I stopped in Leavenworth to walk around and stretch a bit and it was pretty warm.
Leavenworth is about 20 miles from Wenatchee and, as I started down the road, everything looked fine. When I got about 10 or 12 miles from Wenatchee, I saw a huge plume of smoke rising and immediately knew there was a fire raging in the area. It was very hazy when I pulled into my hotel and the lady checking me in told me that all the rooms in town were booked because evacuations had been ordered in some areas near the city.
Things look a little better this morning in town here. I will be heading for Coeur d’Alene but instead of taking Highway 2 across the middle of the state, I’m going to go a bit south( away from the fire) and jump on I-90. It’s going to be another hot day but I think it’s only forecast to be 90 or so in Coeur d’Alene late this afternoon so it shouldn’t be too bad this morning.
It’s been a great trip and ( knock on wood) the Harley has behaved beautifully but I think the bike, Zippy and I will be happy to be home in a couple of days. And then I can start planning the next adventure!
