After our pretty durn tasty lunch in Mossyrock, we continued towards Seattle. Yep, Mossyrock, Washington, is a small town.
I saw signs for this town and asked Sooze to try to get a picture. I was amused and reminded of my niece, whose nickname is Ethel because she had a phase where she liked to streak, so my brother and sister-in-law started calling her Ethel, after the Ray Stevens song “The Streak.”
Not long after, we were off of U.S. 12 and onto I-5. I-5 sucked. Later, we found out why traffic was so heavy for an early Saturday afternoon: first of all, an event called A Bite Of Seattle was going on downtown, so people who otherwise wouldn't be heading into the city were; and there were one or two air shows going on (we rode right by Boeing's sprawling facility on our way into the city), so combine these and you wind up with heavy traffic, which I wasn't anticipating. I-5 still sucked.
Traffic was a bit nuts and the road condition was in less than ideal shape, but we did make progress towards Seattle.
Where the Mariners and the Seahawks play...
This is a helluva lot different from the wide open, sparsely-populated areas we rode through in Montana, THAT'S for damn sure.
This would become a familiar sight over the next couple of days.
Let me go on record right now: Sooze and I are two lucky mo-fo's. You see, as this trip was nearing and Sooze was posting up on one of those 'social-networking' sites about this trip, an old friend of hers, who Sooze hadn't seen in YEARS, let her know that she and her husband have a condo in downtown Seattle that we were welcome to stay in.
Wow! REALLY?!?
Sho 'nuf!
We found our way to the condo, unloaded all our crap, and I parked the bike in a private, secure, underground parking garage.
We were on the 9th story. Looking from the balcony, if we looked left, we saw Puget Sound.
Looking right we had the Space Needle.
The general view, looking out over the city with the hillside rising up in what I presume to be the 'burbs.
One thing I always find interesting in big cities, for some reason, is roof-top swimming pools. What can I say? I'm a geek!
We spent several hours with our kind and gracious hosts, Sooze catching up with her friend, and me talking geeky stuff with the husband. (He's a former Microsoft guy.) Out of respect for their privacy, I'm omitting their names and their pictures, but holy cow! Talk about being trusting, kind and gracious....
They'd had other visitors who didn't spend any time with them or make any kind of reciprocation efforts. Sooze and I don't operate like that, so we did take our hosts and their kids out to dinner at a little Italian restaurant a couple of block away. After riding for days and days, and finally making it to Seattle, it was nice to walk about a bit and start to get the feel of the city I'd been wanting to visit for so long.
OK, OK... FOOD PORN!!! I had the veal and it was purty tasty.
Sooze had some pasta.
So, after 248 miles through the scenery provided by Mt. Rainier, the chill which took us to Mossyrock, and finally to the big city of Seattle, we settled in for the night.