The Breakfast Club: MOA Rally 2015 [page 8]

Sunday, July 19, 2015

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Alberto’s tale… DAY SEVEN - BILLINGS

This day, somewhat surreal. Looking back, it is nothing I envisioned.

Last night I was told to buzz-off. No one wants to get up early. Earliest is 7:30 am? Okay. I can live with that. Still, I got up at 4:55 am and decided, since these turkeys will not get up…. What for should I get up? Went back to bed… Next thing I know it is 7:00 am. Got up and started my morning routine to load up.

Chris shows up and says, “Randy wants to lead today - okay, we can leave him behind!” Huh? He wants to lead, so we leave him? Strangest statement coming from Chris. Chris says one more time, “Randy, wants to leave today so we will just go” … Phew! Lead… Leave. Thank goodness I made no comments on the first pass. “Randy wants to sleep late, and then he will just catch up to us, wherever”. I made no comments.

Truth, I did not understand any of it, other than feeling bad for being the cause of his going solo all the way to Billings. “Alberto, do not feel bad, you did not cause Randy’s eccentricities. He is that way, and all you can do is give him the space to be.”. I heard what Chris said, and let go of it all, Randy is on his own. I am not happy with this - but, “at SMBC… you ride alone”, and I removed Randy from my head

Getting ready to depart. The three of us are rather excited. Saying good bye to Pat, when… Behind me I hear… WHAT DA F…!” No sugar coating this one folks. Yes, Harvey has done it again. But better than at any other time. He was ten feet away from his bike when it went down. How can that be?!

Whatever the reason. It went down, and…. Out came the cameras before any body came to his aid. Oh, YES, this gets documented! But, can you feel that drop-the-bike-kinship growing? Harvey, you are the best bike-dropper! My hat off to you.

Bike up… and off we go to the port and catch a boat from Port Townsend to the main island of Whidbey island After which… Deception Pass to Anacortez Island and finally to the main land at the city of Sedro Woolley.

From Sedro Wolley we will be on highway 20 East for the next two days, maybe 700 miles all the way to Missoula Montana.

While on highway 20, at some forsaken convenience store, who do we see go by? Randy! He did not see us. But it was good to see him go by, safe and sound. He’s made it this far. Later, while we are on our way, who do we see? Okay, you get 20 questions…. Go! - Correct! On the first one you guessed it… Good ole Randy getting gas. Again he did not see us. We went by, and passed him by some 15 miles…. When, one more time - Randy goes by, honks his horn as he goes by. No wave. No stop. Just a honk of the horn and continues without a gesture.

Like I said, a bit surreal, seeing and not communicating . Bizarre. The three of us continue all the way to the town of Winthrop. A quaint community that has preserved the town in the Old West manner. It is a fair size town, several blocks long. Needless to say a tourist attraction. We had lunch, and after an hour we mounted the bikes and continue our journey stopping at Tonasket.

Tonasket is a Small town with some facilities, and we parked near one of them. Good shade and at a store to get something to drink. There we are deciding how far to go today when the police shows up. Also the highway patrol. They approached us…. To quickly realize, these pack of gizzers are not loitering with the intent of breaking into the store. But then, they did not know Chris, Harvey or Alberto and before you know it we are telling jokes and having a good ole time. The officers had difficulty parting from us.

Surreal surfaces up again. Harvey’s phone rings. “Hello?”…. “No we are not there, we left about a hour ago”… “We are 100 miles east of Winthrop”…. “Camping at Winthrop? - not at all! - we talked about it, but never agreed to camp there”…. “You have a place to stay?”… “Good”, we’ll see you sometime down the road tomorrow”. Click.

This is my side of the conversation, and I needed no explanation, hope you, the reader, also need no explanation, because none is coming!

Still, we must decide how far to go. The town of Republic is some 60 miles. It is 5:00 pm. We ca make it, if we hustle.

Chris took it to heart - 80 mph was about the average speed. Yes, I had to take a picture of my speedometer to bring as proof. Never thought, EVER that I would drive this fast and take it as a ho-hum speed. But, when the road is open, straight, no cops, and you can see forever… Well, 90 mph would have worked for me. Chris…. Chicken! (But I thank you for not going there)

We got to Republic. Looked for a motel. They are all sold out. Worse, there is a power outage and services are disrupted. We found the Fairgrounds and a campground. Hurried to a gas station some miles further up for dinner…. They close at 8:00 pm the time now is 7:50 pm. We made it on time. Ate, satisfactorily and now it is time to close the day.

I have yet to write the story for you guys… Well, not any more. It now is done and it is 9:49 pm. You all had better enjoy this crap… Or else!

As usual, events, locales, and people quoted… Do not really exist, except in my mind.

There!