Monday, August 04, 2008

Corner To Corner - Chapter 15, The Other End Of The Road

We went to dinner last night at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino. What is it about casinos that attract the mullet crowd? We had heard that the restaurant there was quite good and wanted a nice place for our final night on the road. If we’d gone with our first impression though we would have left. We first tried their sushi bar, however it had “run out of rice”. A sushi bar that runs out of rice? So we went to the main restaurant where there apparently was no hostess on duty. I was having a gut feeling this was not going to be good, especially after getting things sorted out we had 15 minutes to wander the casino until the table was ready. This place had gotten good reviews and the hotel/spa was quite nice and I was hoping my first impressions were wrong. They were. We had a nice bubbly waitress, and fantastic food, and lingered there for a good 90 minutes reflecting on the trip so far.

When it came time to pay the bill the waitress noticed my business American Express and asked what I did for a living. I explained and she told us she had a degree in “Political Communications”. She had gotten her degree and then went to LA for a few “fun years” but came back to the reservation with a two year old kid and this job paid the bills. She was as dismayed as I am about the state of political discourse in this country and said she wouldn’t take a job in her field now. I had to agree.

It was quite foggy and darn right cold when we pulled out of Ocean Shores this morning on the final leg up the Olympic Peninsula to the town of Neah Bay and the far Northwest Corner of the lower 48 at Cape Flattery. We left with every stitch of clothing we could have on to stay warm. In my case, a long sleeve t-shirt, our “commemorative” Corner To Corner t-shirts (still available at http://cafepress.com/tonyandgary), a zip-up hoodie sweatshirt, and medium lightweight leather jacket – and even pulled out the big leather gloves for good measure. It was that cold, and rather ironic since two weeks ago we were looking for a baptismal font in Georgia to cool off in, and after a few miles in this we were looking for a hot-tub! While riding through the rain forest I turned to Tony and asked him if he was sure it was August.

Neither of us had ridden up this section of US-101 before, as it skirts the Pacific shore and goes through the Olympic National Park rain forest. Although it was foggy, what we could see was magnificent, and we’d like to come back again. As the day wore on the sun burned the fog off, although it stayed cool, and we continued up the 165 miles to the far northwest corner of the US. We rode through the small logging town of Forks, and shortly after found the turn off to Cape Flattery. It seemed so strange to think that the journey was about to end as we motored down WA-112 into Neah Bay and around to the point.

We literally drove as far as we could in the parking lot for the short walk to the end of the earth. To tell the truth, I was actually kind of sad, and choked up. After all these days, and all these miles -- after crossing the entire United States of America, seeing things we'd never seen, places we'd never been, and meeting some great people, here we were – at the other end of the road. It was all coming to and end and I didn't want it to. As we pulled up with grins on our faces, the people getting out of the car next to us asked if we were having a good day. “A great day!” I replied, and they asked where we came from, and I answered “Key West”. The young lady who asked did a double take and said “Florida?” and we said indeed. We became instant celebrities in the parking lot – especially after we took off our jackets and they saw our commemorative t-shirts (still available at http://cafepress.com/tonyandgary – did I say that already?)

When we got to the point – which is a cliff overlooking the Pacific, there were a number of people there, and as we waited for a quiet moment to take a picture, people read our shirts and asked about them, so once again we said we’d just spent 15 days riding back from Key West. We had more than a few pictures of us taken, and then posed for one ourselves. So here we are, 15 days and 4,973 miles from the end of the road at Key West.
So, while the road ended at Cape Flattery, and at Key West, it really never ends as all you have to do is turn around and head out – and then just like the sky, the road never ends.

2 Comments:

At Tuesday, August 05, 2008 6:52:00 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats guys! Sounds like you had a fantastic experience!! --K&R

 
At Tuesday, August 05, 2008 8:56:00 PM , Blogger Bearfuz said...

I've learned so much about you two while vicariously enjoying your trip! Some of the places you've visited are places I've been to over the years (though most of my traveling is some years behind me). I was also very interested to find that you're originally from Salt Lake -- I lived there for several years. Oh boy, could we ever talk about that place. I do miss it, in many ways... though not in others. ;-)

Anyway, congratulations!!!! Woof!

 

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