39 County Tour of Washington

[Ignacio]

Just got back after visiting every single county seat in Washington and taking a picture of the courthouse. I was hoping to do it in about 44 hours or so......it took me 52 and I'm a whipped doggie. Going to go to sleep, but a sneak peak at one of the pictures.

Colville, Washington way after dark on Saturday night...with an 8 second exposure.

More to follow.

 

[beerme]

Interesting concept! Jim Simms did a similar thing in Texas, but it was a process that took a few years, rather than a marathon run. 'Course, with 170+ some odd counties, who'd blame him? I got to thinking about doing something like that here with our 17 counties... should be able to do it in a day or two. Nice job, Matt! What was your total mileage?

 

[RenoJohn]

....visiting every single county seat in Washington and taking a picture of the courthouse. ........it took me 52 and I'm a whipped doggie.

+Awesome! nice job. That sounds like a great fun challenge.

Oh, geeze Matt, sorry to be the one to tell you ...you missed Klickitat County .......get up, get up ...get back on the bike and finish LOL LOL

Nice job, thanks for sharing the fun and look foward to the pics.

..renojohn

 

[vectervp1]

Good job Iggi! Glad to hear you made it back home in one piece.

 

[kaitsdad]

Gald you're back, and in one piece.

Looking forward to seeing the ride report - once you've caught up on your beauty sleep.

:clapping:

 

[dabayliner]

I feel like such a slacker.

Great Job Iggy!!

 

[Rogue]

Congrats! I'm sure you could have done it in 44 on a faster silver bike!

 

[Ignacio]

....visiting every single county seat in Washington and taking a picture of the courthouse. ........it took me 52 and I'm a whipped doggie.

+Awesome! nice job. That sounds like a great fun challenge.

Oh, geeze Matt, sorry to be the one to tell you ...you missed Klickitat County .......get up, get up ...get back on the bike and finish LOL LOL

Nice job, thanks for sharing the fun and look foward to the pics.

..renojohn

Bastard gave me a jolt until I remembered vividly that I rolled into Goldendale....the seat of Klickitat county at about 3 a.m. in the low 30's and failed electric gear. Checked into an overpriced hotel room and instead of a planned 4 hour sleep I got all 8 hours and took this picture in the morning. Seems half of Goldendale was out Saturday walking the streets against meth.

1760 FJR miles total.

 

[skyway]

Bastard gave me a jolt until I remembered vividly that I rolled into Goldendale....the seat of Klickitat county at about 3 a.m. in the low 30's and failed electric gear.

Just curious as to which brand of heated gear failed on you?

Sounds like your riding season is in full swing. B)

 

[beeroux]

Awesome ride Iggy, way to go.

Now who is gonna try and beat 52 hours?

The madness never ends, thank god.<G>

GZ

 

[RenoJohn]

Oh, geeze Matt, sorry to be the one to tell you ...you missed Klickitat County .......get up, get up ...get back on the bike and finish LOL LOL

Bastard gave me a jolt until I remembered vividly that I rolled into Goldendale....the seat of Klickitat county at about 3 a.m. ..............and took this picture in the morning

fun stuff Matt....and now I believe you

.... great fun idea and I like the spirit of your challenge. It'd be fun to see your route sometime, you'd have to do some pretty serious "zig's and zag's"

Going to each of the Thirty-Eight sorry, Thirty-NINE, county seats, taking the pic ..etc etc ...takes much more time than many realize. Much more than just waving at the town as you ride by at a brisk pace.

......Did you set each courthouse's EXACT location in your GPS or were you stumbling through towns looking?

.....Did you ever ask yourself: "Why am I doing this?" LOL

In hindsight:

--what preparation, luck or other are you happy/proud with??

--If Leaving again tomorrow morning to do it again ....what would you do differently??

...renojohn

 

[greg97224]

sounds like a challange, maybe I will try it in Oregon.

 

[dcarver]

Very, very inspiring Sir Iggie! I am now so filled with enthusiasm that I am going to find the two bars, 1 church, 1 library, 1 small store, and 1 skool in Creston, CA, and... I am going to do ALL this in ONE day in true Candy Butt Association fashion!

Good ride Iggie.. :clapping:

 

[Ignacio]

Bastard gave me a jolt until I remembered vividly that I rolled into Goldendale....the seat of Klickitat county at about 3 a.m. in the low 30's and failed electric gear.

Just curious as to which brand of heated gear failed on you?

Sounds like you're riding season is in full swing. B)

I overgeneralized. The gear didn't actually fail.....I stepped on the power cable in my frenzy to get the morning picture taken and somehow disconnected it. It's probably still laying on the ground in Chehalis. It was a modified Widder cable I had made to plug into a Powerlet.....was a bit too long anyway. When I get a new one I will have to rethink the design a bit.....which I had lots of free time to think about during the ride with my teeth chattering.

 

[Ignacio]

fun stuff Matt....and now I believe you
.... great fun idea and I like the spirit of your challenge. It'd be fun to see your route sometime, you'd have to do some pretty serious "zig's and zag's"

Going to each of the Thirty-Eight sorry, Thirty-NINE, county seats, taking the pic ..etc etc ...takes much more time than many realize. Much more than just waving at the town as you ride by at a brisk pace.

......Did you set each courthouse's EXACT location in your GPS or were you stumbling through towns looking?

.....Did you ever ask yourself: "Why am I doing this?" LOL

In hindsight:

--what preparation, luck or other are you happy/proud with??

--If Leaving again tomorrow morning to do it again ....what would you do differently??

...renojohn

Most of it's written up at my blog including maps and that stuff. I spent many months researching and planning this ride and had almost every single address to courthouses. The route in Microsoft Streets and Trips was that exact. However, I had a glitch the morning of the ride and assumed my new purchase of a program called GPSU would transfer those coordinates over. It did the first 9 and stopped.

I had each county and address printed out and in my tank bag so I ended up entering each one manually as I rode and stayed 2 or 3 counties ahead most of the time.

Because I was going to have a riding partner that was keen on also getting 2K in 2 days for IBA certs....I had to set the schedule very aggressively with sliders to max in S&T. However, that just plain didn't work in the traffic of Western Washington. Too many two-laners with people doing what seemed like less than the speed limit.

Did I ask myself why?

Yeah, when it started to get dark the first day somewhere about South Bend, pretty much the whole evening until I found a room in Goldendale, and again in Ritzville as I sat in a 24 hour gas station trying to revive my frozen toes. When you bed is 70 miles away at that point it's really hard to take the long way home of 370 miles.

 

[RenoJohn]

Most of it's written up at my blog including maps and that stuff. I spent many months researching and planning this ride and had almost every single address to courthouses. The route in Microsoft Streets and Trips was that exact. However, I had a glitch the morning of the ride and assumed my new purchase of a program called GPSU would transfer those coordinates over. It did the first 9 and stopped.
I had each county and address printed out and in my tank bag so I ended up entering each one manually as I rode and stayed 2 or 3 counties ahead most of the time.

When you bed is 70 miles away at that point it's really hard to take the long way home of 370 miles.

Great job on the Blog. Hmm, GPSU is on my list of chores to dig into being that I also use S&T but have yet to use GPSU to convert. At least manual entry gave you something to do

Ya, interesting your start/stop locations so far apart ..gives a hint to the planning involved. Yep, I can imagine being way into this thing, cold and dark and an hour from home ......."oh, but I gotta go thataway instead" LOL

 

[Ignacio]

Ya, interesting your start/stop locations so far apart ..gives a hint to the planning involved. Yep, I can imagine being way into this thing, cold and dark and an hour from home ......."oh, but I gotta go thataway instead" LOL

S&T was a great tool for this and was indispensable for figuring an optimal route. I figure I had three general options of starting in my home location (which would have me doing Eastern Washingon first), starting in Chehalis because it worked best for a mutual starting point for Doug and I, or possibly starting in Friday Harbor and perhaps gaining an hour because you'd only have to take the ferry one way (although you'd have to brave Seattle traffic twice). So, there was an extra 250 miles involved at the beginning to get into position and I only started with about 3 hours of sleep. Making this all fit into a 3 day weekend with no days off work was part of the challenge too.

Me thinks Oregon could be a next try.

 

[RenoJohn]

Me thinks Oregon could be a next try.

Ya, well maybe this time you wont' be such a pussy and will do them in alphabetical order

Or you could come down to Nevada and hit every brothel ........(ya, really put that new camera to use!). LOL LOL (any bets on doing it in under 52days?)

Good job on WA Matt ....only 47states to go!!

 

[Ignacio]

Ya, well maybe this time you wont' be such a pussy and will do them in alphabetical order

The very, VERY scary thing is that I thought about that exact idea. If memory serves it was between Ritzville and Colfax at about 3 a.m. on the second day. I reasoned that kind of challenge would be acceptable for a person to choose two options and be fair....alphabetical from A to Z and reverse alphabetical Z to A.

Sick, twisted, and dark thoughts..... :dribble:

When I saw that it was 31 degrees in Colfax....I stopped thinking about alphabets. "May and 31" then stuck in my mind and chattered in my teeth until I hit Lewiston and took a picture at the top of the Spiral Highway.