Strange Brew: Day 5-July 13, 2007
Vancouver, BC to Seattle, WA
Today we rode our final stretch to Amerivespa. MJ & Shayne didn't want to ride on the highway after our experience before, so we went a little bit longer route of side roads and such to get to the border. We left Vancouver around 9 a.m. I think and hit the border around 11 a.m. We went to duty free first and then got in line at the border. It went pretty fast. I went first, since I was traveling on an expired passport. I told the border patrol person when I handed her my passport that it was expired. She asked me to remove my sunglasses, looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at my driver's license, and asked me why I had been in Canada. Then she gave me everything back and waved me on through. How easy was that?!!
We did the Chuckanut route which is absolutely gorgeous! Then we headed a little east and took Hwy. 9 into some other side roads and eventually ended up in Seattle around 3:30 p.m. We immediately rode to the Amerivespa venue, got our rally packs and hung out for a bit. Then I called up my buddy Ivan to see if he was home. He was just getting off of work and we met him at his house in Queen Anne. Boy oh boy! Talk about hills! I got some great helmet cam footage I hope to post soon of our ride to Ivan's place. He let us stay at his place for the weekend, what a guy!
He had a BBQ going on to celebrate his birthday from earlier in the week so we hung out there until about 10 p.m. then headed to the Showbox for the show. Neville Staples from the Specials was supposed to be performing, but on Monday they found out he did not have the proper visas or something. So it was some local bands that played. They were pretty good, however I ended up outside talking with people. I kept running into scooterists I knew from other parts of the country, lots of the Cannonballers were in town.
After a bit of this, around Midnight, MJ & Shayne wanted to go out and do some other stuff. They ended up hanging out with Julie from the Belladonnas and have some pretty funny pictures displaying what they were up to! I had the unfortunate task of going to find an Emergency Department to get an x-ray of my left elbow from my spill on my scooter in Victoria. I ended up at Swedish Medical Center because their ED waiting room looked pretty empty. I was in and out in under 2 hours, which I thought was pretty good. I checked in, had a seat for a few minutes, was triaged, had a seat for another few minutes, then was registered, had a seat for another few minutes, then the x-ray tech came to get me, then as I was coming out of x-ray, my nurse was calling my name. As usual, the doctor was the slow-down factor in this. I waited for about 30-45 minutes for the doctor to come in, ask me a few questions, push/pull/squeeze my arm and then tell me the x-ray was negative. I think I got out of there around 2:00 a.m.
I tried to get back to Ivan's the fastest way I could find on the map, but the damn Seattle streets are worse than Portland. They are doing a crapload of construction in the downtown area and they had the one street I needed to cross completely shut down! It took me almost 45 minutes to get back to Queen Anne!!! I was so mad. I finally made it back and MJ, Shayne, Ivan and his roommates were still up. We all got to bed around 3 a.m. I think. I was exhausted!
Today we rode our final stretch to Amerivespa. MJ & Shayne didn't want to ride on the highway after our experience before, so we went a little bit longer route of side roads and such to get to the border. We left Vancouver around 9 a.m. I think and hit the border around 11 a.m. We went to duty free first and then got in line at the border. It went pretty fast. I went first, since I was traveling on an expired passport. I told the border patrol person when I handed her my passport that it was expired. She asked me to remove my sunglasses, looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at my driver's license, and asked me why I had been in Canada. Then she gave me everything back and waved me on through. How easy was that?!!
We did the Chuckanut route which is absolutely gorgeous! Then we headed a little east and took Hwy. 9 into some other side roads and eventually ended up in Seattle around 3:30 p.m. We immediately rode to the Amerivespa venue, got our rally packs and hung out for a bit. Then I called up my buddy Ivan to see if he was home. He was just getting off of work and we met him at his house in Queen Anne. Boy oh boy! Talk about hills! I got some great helmet cam footage I hope to post soon of our ride to Ivan's place. He let us stay at his place for the weekend, what a guy!
He had a BBQ going on to celebrate his birthday from earlier in the week so we hung out there until about 10 p.m. then headed to the Showbox for the show. Neville Staples from the Specials was supposed to be performing, but on Monday they found out he did not have the proper visas or something. So it was some local bands that played. They were pretty good, however I ended up outside talking with people. I kept running into scooterists I knew from other parts of the country, lots of the Cannonballers were in town.
After a bit of this, around Midnight, MJ & Shayne wanted to go out and do some other stuff. They ended up hanging out with Julie from the Belladonnas and have some pretty funny pictures displaying what they were up to! I had the unfortunate task of going to find an Emergency Department to get an x-ray of my left elbow from my spill on my scooter in Victoria. I ended up at Swedish Medical Center because their ED waiting room looked pretty empty. I was in and out in under 2 hours, which I thought was pretty good. I checked in, had a seat for a few minutes, was triaged, had a seat for another few minutes, then was registered, had a seat for another few minutes, then the x-ray tech came to get me, then as I was coming out of x-ray, my nurse was calling my name. As usual, the doctor was the slow-down factor in this. I waited for about 30-45 minutes for the doctor to come in, ask me a few questions, push/pull/squeeze my arm and then tell me the x-ray was negative. I think I got out of there around 2:00 a.m.
I tried to get back to Ivan's the fastest way I could find on the map, but the damn Seattle streets are worse than Portland. They are doing a crapload of construction in the downtown area and they had the one street I needed to cross completely shut down! It took me almost 45 minutes to get back to Queen Anne!!! I was so mad. I finally made it back and MJ, Shayne, Ivan and his roommates were still up. We all got to bed around 3 a.m. I think. I was exhausted!