My USA &UK Trip (26-07-2013) I woke up slowly aware that I was in unfamiliar surroundings; the bed felt wonderful, thick duvet covers and the material feels so soft and nice, I lie there for a while, gathering my thoughts and becoming familiar with my surroundings, my thoughts slip back to the events of the past day, and I eventually begin to wonder what time it is, the room is pitch dark and there is only a very slight glimmer of light through the blinds hinting that there must be a street light or some other similar type of light outside. I turn over and find that there is a bedside clock on the stand next to the bed, it is exactly 3 am USA time, not too bad I think remembering that I probably went to sleep at around 11 pm USA time and had managed to get a good solid 4 hours sleep after not having slept at all for a little more than a straight 24 hours. I lie in bed for a while longer and then my watch beeps twice indicating that it is on the hour, it is still set at South African time to I get up and have a look, exactly 2 PM back home. I begin to understand the implications of changing time zones, I also start to remember various mentions of jet lag and exhaustion from friends and family who have traveled on business trips, it seems more real now and I start to understand just how exhausting it can be. I had left the hotel in London at a few minutes before 6 am, caught the underground and arrived at Heathrow after about 50 minutes of travel, and then immediately the madness started, getting a trolley for my luggage, asking directions, landing up on the wrong floor, back tracking, up and down escalators, finding the correct check in area, my ticket was valid but they could not allocate a seat yet for some reason, off to the departure gate, more waiting and wondering if there was a problem, finally getting a new boarding pass and a seat, relief at knowing that all was well, more waiting, onto the plane like cattle and eventually it all becomes an absolute blur of moving from place to place, standing in queue, having to half undress to get through security checks and unpacking and repacking hand luggage over and over again, customs checks and lots of questions. The airport authorities are always polite, very firm and often you can sense the exasperation on their side as they try to explain requirements over and over and people do not understand or will not. It is definitely not glamorous, I think there was a time when if you traveled by air, you felt special and the experience was one of grandeur, like staying in a very expensive hotel or going to the theater all dressed up for the part, now not even first class passengers could surely feel like that as they also get pushed and x-rayed and dragged through queues although I have never been so lucky as to travel first class I think it is not that much better. But having said all of this, there remains an undertone of excitement, people rushing here and there, a buzz of activity wherever you go and most certainly as a traveler you feel as though you get a lot of attention even if it is not specific to only you as an individual, it is still very personal, and so I can understand why so many people just love the thrill of travel, even though it is very hard work and totally exhausting. By the time I reach Seattle it is late afternoon, 6 pm USA time and I have been awake for about 20 hours, after supper and a chat with Dave and Linnea it is almost 25 hours without sleep, but strangely I am tired but not exhausted as I imagined I would be, must be the excitement. Dave and Linnea live in a really beautiful area, on the road driving up to their house there are beautiful views of the sea, yachts sailing in the bay and all is green and beautiful. I immediately get the impression that everything is perfect, the gardens look trimmed and seem to have been the focus of immense attention and it all looks immaculate, the same impression I get from the house and the style and my first impressions of the construction of the houses is that they are almost European by design, Dave explains that there is a specific developer who has designed and built the houses in the area, I am very impressed with the style and area. Behind their house they have direct access onto an golf course and from my understanding, it is a part or the area where they live but as home owners directly on the boundary they have no obligation for the upkeep and maintenance. There are no fences and people walk happily with their dogs and golf carts glide silently past in the not too far distance. It all looks so ideal I battle to comprehend the magnitude of what I am seeing. This being the first day of my time in the USA I am faced with the prospect of finding a bike, getting maps for my GPS and there was also some discussion of trying to have a go at getting my Canadian Visa which I managed to completely mess up when still at home by believing that it was being handled by an agency, (and also by my spending days fighting with Garmin to try and get maps for my GPS, but that is another story which I will share later) there was a massive misunderstanding on my part regarding the visa and when I followed up they were actually busy with the process of preparing documentation for an application to immigrate to Canada, rather than simply just a visa to visit, they did not assist with an application to visit and so by then there was also too little time left to start the process over, so I have decided to travel along a number of smaller routes which run all along the area just below the Canadian border. I have the feeling it will be just as interesting, but different. Dave has offered me the use of his BMW 1200 GS on more than one occasion, I have always graciously declined because I have lent my own bikes out on a number of occasions and to be honest, when I received them back there were always little scuff marks, small chips and sometimes they were not even clean and I eventually have come to realize that lending my bike out is never a happy event, I am always a little sorry afterwards. So with the thoughts of my own personal experience in mind, I would really not like to have my friend feel like this. I must confess however that Dave told me on the way back from the airport that he intended to trade the bike in a new bike and that he really would not mind. After seeing it standing in the garage, GPS, full luggage system and completely meeting all my needs, I am really having second thoughts and have started to wonder if I am not being silly with my response to his very generous offer; it would after all be a perfect solution. I am in two minds and know that I will again need to have the discussion with Dave in some detail, or perhaps first I should check to see how easily I can get my own bike and if this appears to be problematic, then we will have to find a solution where I can feel as though I am not taking advantage or more importantly, not at risk of disappointing myself and my friend. It is the morning of the 28 July 2013, Sunday, I have been awake since 4 am, and I have noticed that my sleep pattern is slowly adapting and that each night I am able to sleep for a half hour longer. I am camping at a place called KOA in the town of Winthrop, Winthrop is a town which when you walk or ride down the main road, looks exactly like the towns used to look in the times of the wild west, all the facades are wooden and there are wooden boardwalks and the shops have verandahs, I was truly delighted when I first rode into town and saw the main street, it looks and feels just like the wild west. But I have skipped a few days so I am going back to Friday morning and start from there. On Friday morning I felt truly honored in that both Dave and Linnea had applied for a day’s leave and were going to spend the day with me, it was a really nice surprise and a very nice day. Dave and I had discussed again using his bike, and I realized that truly this was the sensible solution and I suspect that Dave had known this all along, To buy a bike and register it in my name, fit a GPS and do all that is required would have not been impossible I do not think, but certainly pushing the limits. After our discussion I took Dave’s BMW GS 1200 for a ride just to be sure I was comfortable as he has had the suspension dropped at the back, and to be honest I felt like the bike had been set up for me specially, I did not even need to adjust the rear view mirrors as they were exactly right. Having settled the matter of the bike, I felt hugely relieved and realized that more than 99% of my needs had suddenly been met and Dave and Linnea also knowing this, suggested they show me a little of Seattle. It was by now mid-morning and we set off to the city center. While driving there it was suggested that I do the underground tour of the city, not knowing what this meant I was keen to try something new and afterwards very pleased that I had had the opportunity to do the tour. During the very early part of the last century there had been a massive fire and almost all of Seattle had been burnt to the ground, for various reasons it was decided that the town would be rebuilt on the same area as where it had previously been but they would raise the height of the town because it was almost below sea level and on occasions parts of the town actually flooded, there were also problems with drainage etc. and in particular the sewage which often pushed back in the system and then resulted in a reverse flow with sewage coming back out of the toilet systems. They then built all the buildings with the new entrances at first floor height, and the old entrances which were originally at ground floor height were then underground as they slowly raised the level of the streets and pavements up to the new level. What is interesting is that it is still possible in many cases to access these now underground rooms and this is what the tour focuses on. There was obviously a lot of other information about the characters involved and businesses concerned and also the gold rush which was a major part of the history of Seattle. All in all it was very interesting and well worth it. After the tour we went to the market and saw a place where they sell fish and the throw the fish and play the fool a lot, I have previously seen a video of the exact same store, sadly during the time we were there they did not throw any fish, but it was very interesting to see all the activity and goings on. The rest of the market was equally interesting with a shop specializing in very old magazines and pin up posters from the 60’s and seventies, there was also another shop with all the Star Wars and other similar stough as well as fruit stalls, art stalls and many times too much stough to mention. My impression however was very positive, there was a lot of fruit and preserves and almost everything which can be imagined, and all the stories I have been told about Americans eating only Mac Donald’s and that they are all grossly fat etc., is absolutely not true. I eventually ended the day with a totally different opinion about the people and just generally everything to do with the USA and it is truly a wonderful place in my opinion and the people are equally as nice and friendly. I have always wondered why we do not have lots of visitors from the USA in South Africa and I always imagined it was because the distance to travel was so much, but in truth hunting is about the only thing we have which they do not have better and more off. Just before we went home there was one last shop we went to visit and I found it fascinating, they had a glass case with a mummified person in it, the person had been shot and had died in the dessert and because of the extreme heat and dryness, and he was perfectly preserved. Mustache, finger nails etc. all still perfect. There was also a type of fish with hands and a head which looked remarkably like a person; in fact there were two of them the second one being a lot smaller. They had three headed animals, and a calf with two bodies but one set of back legs and many other very unusual things, it was truly a fascinating place. I think inspired by the things we had seen and the mysteries of the unknown we later sat around the kitchen table at Dave and Linnea’s house talking late into the evening about religion, the unknown and many other things, I went to bed feeling it had been a really wonderful and amazing day, thank you so much Dave and Linnea. The next morning I was pleased because I slept for a half hour longer than the night before and I thought that it was good because I was slowly adjusting to the big difference in the times, I awoke feeling excited knowing that my trip was truly about to start, and even though I had said that my departure time would be by lunch time, by 10 am I was packed and heading out onto Interstate 5. Dave was once again a true friend and drove ahead showing me the route out of town even though I had his GPS programmed and working, and I was very grateful because it gave me the chance to become familiar with the traffic and the bike and GPS etc. I continued up the interstate until I reached the turn off to highway 20. After going through the town and making my way out into the country I became really aware of the absolute beauty of the route, the mountains were snow capped and the sun shone brightly onto the snow, the trees and rivers and country side were beautiful beyond what I can describe in words and the pictures I have taken are not even one tenth of how beautiful it really is. Although the speeds were really slow and in some places the speed limit is as low as 30 miles per hour, I very quickly formed a bond with the GS and soon we were riding as one with perfect harmony on absolutely wonderful roads and through some of the best sights I have ever seen. I stopped so many times I had to really rush towards the end to get to my destination before dark and had to force myself not to stop again before getting there. On one stretch I saw a truck in a yard which I immediately recognized as being a 1920’s model and I stopped, asked an old guy working in a garage on the property if I could take a picture, sure he said you just go ahead. While taking my pictures of the truck which turned out to be an International, I was amazed when he suddenly appeared from behind the garage driving a 1927 Ford AAA, it was beautiful. He then went on the show me three amazing wood cutting saw’s which had been used at the start of the last century for logging, they had water cooled engines and used a Model T Ford connecting rods, I was fascinated, he then took me into a back room and showed me a 1915 washing machine which was powered by a two stroke engine, he gave it a kick on the starter which was much like a scooter starter and sure enough it fired up and ran like a clock, he told me that he uses it regularly. All in all a truly wonderful and exciting day full of surprises. In fact I can say the same of my entire trip in the US so far, most wonderful.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:34:07 +0000