Corner To Corner - Chapter 14, Dusty towns left far behind, mountains drawing ever nearer...

The title for this chapter comes from a song by Canadian Folksinger Garnett Rogers about a night drive across Canada. It is quite fitting for our ride today, as well as for what we have planned tomorrow since the next line is “Dreaming of the Western Ocean”.

We left Pasco, Washington (one of the Tri-Cities - the other two being Richland and Kennewick), or as I say “Try” cities since it “tries” to be a city) and headed West on US-12. At this point US-12 merges with I-84 for 70 miles or so to Yakima, but you know how we feel about Interstates, so we got off in the small town of Prosser and took WA-22 which is the old US-12, through the orchards of the Yakima Valley. This road runs parallel to the freeway, but it isn’t the freeway which is kind of the point. It reminded me of something Tony says while skiing and we have our choice of a blue run or a green run that get us to the same place, and he says “why take a blue run when there is a perfectly fine green run over here.” Same thing with this trip – why take the Interstate when there is a perfectly fine two lane.

This morning, as well as last night, the bikes started conversations. Last night we rode over to a Sonic Drive in for a late bite, and of course rode with the new LED’s glowing. A couple eating at the drive in came up and commented on the bikes, and asked about the trip. Then this morning a large contingent of Mexican wedding attendees were checking out of the hotel and two of the bridesmades wanted to pose with the bikes. It’s amazing how motorcycles start conversations and bring strangers up to you to ask questions.

The road this morning was familiar – at least to me, I’ve ridden it several times already this year, but it was new to Tony. As we curved around out of Prosser, I could see Mt. Rainier rising up in the distance. I knew then we were close to home. Even though the Mountain is several hundred miles away, it dominates our view at home, as well as out here on the opposite side of the state. About this time on my i-Pod came Johnny Cash’s version of “I’ve Been Everywhere”, which is a fun tune listing hundreds of cities and is quite the trick to sing. It was rather appropriate as we rode towards Mt. Rainer and neared the end of this journey.

In Yakima we turned West again on US-12 and headed up over White Pass and down into Western Washington. Mt. Rainier was close enough to touch it looked like, and it was a tad chilly on the pass and down the West slope. We stopped for lunch in Morton, and then continued on down 12 until it met up with I-5. Both the Yakima Valley and this part of Southwest Washington are the “Red” parts of a very “Blue” state. What few Republicans in the legislature are from here. There are billboards for the Republican candidate for Governor, Dino Rossi, that are too offensive for words, and every time I see one I tend to give it the one-fingered salute. They say “Don’t let Seattle steal the election again, Re-Elect Dino Rossi”. Now I’m not often proud, and in fact often wish I could de-annex myself from Seattle, but to say we “stole” the election or that Dino was elected to begin with is highly offensive. I was about to do it again here, and Tony was ready with the camera when an oncoming car pulled up and rather than risk them thinking I was addressing them, I skipped it.

When US-12 split off from I-5 just north of Centralia, we exited off and continued Northwest into Aberdeen, Washington. As we neared Gray’s Harbor it cooled off considerably and we had to get our jackets on. We rolled into downtown Aberdeen, which in it’s heyday apparently was quite the bustling town, but now feels like the worlds largest ghost town, with blocks of four and five storey buildings that are vacant and abandoned. This was a timber town, and years ago as the timber ran out, so did the town unfortunately, and now it’s just someplace to pass through on the way to the coast. It also is the literal end of US-12, which starts in Detroit, MI. We’ve run on a number of stretches of this road on this trip, in Michigan, as well as Minnesota, and have been on US-12 for the last two days since we left Billings, MT. It’s somewhat ironic and quite sad that this highway has it’s end points in two cities that are dead or dying.

Leaving Aberdeen we turned onto WA-109 for the ride out to the town of Ocean Shores and the Pacific Coast. This road is signed as a Tsunami Evacuation Route – just in case we spot a big tidal wave coming in from Japan.

Right at the coast we ran into some fog as is typical here, and then turned onto the beach itself and rode up to the tide line. We turned the bikes off and realized we’d reached the Pacific Coast – we had ridden coast to coast, a distance of 4,808 miles over the course of 14 days. And while we’ve reached the coast, we aren’t done. This would be like reaching the South Summit of Everest and not going for the peak. Ocean Shores would be the equivalent of what Miami is to Key West on the Florida Coast – at the shore, but not as far away as you can get. Out here that would be Neah Bay, up in the far Northwest Corner of the Olympic Peninsula, and still over 100 miles away. We’ll head up US-101 to that corner of the country tomorrow and have completed our journey.
Meanwhile, we’ll sit and look out over the ocean from a nice hotel room with a fireplace, relax, and know that tomorrow we will truly reach the end of the road on US-101 and the other corner of the US from Key West on US-1.