May 31, 2008! What a nice day for a ride!

If you click on either picture; they will explode to full screen. I'm no big photographer, but the scene with the bike is just plain spectacular (thanks to nature). I think you'll enjoy it.


Joyce and I headed north out of Shelton, Wa this morning for Port Townsend, WA. Port Townsend is exactly 100 miles from Olympia and a two hour ride for us. We like to ride up on a Saturday for lunch. Its really pretty and right on the water. You can see across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

BUT..............it got kind of chilly as we headed north.

So, we decided to turn back around and head up the Skokomish Valley just outside of Shelton. We had made a quick ride up a few years ago. This time we wanted to 'drink in' the entire valley slowly and savor its beauty.

There were fields full of millions of yellow buttercups that just were amazing! We stopped and watched some beautiful horses in a field and enjoyed the view including the house and barn in the background. What an idyllic little valley.

I hope you all can come some spring or summer and ride up the valley with us.

Send me your photos and/or just a snippet on what your weekend had for you so far.........

We're at 93 members with steady growth!

I'm happy to see the WMA continues to have steady growth each week.

Please send us pictures of motorcycle related things. Your bike; you and your bike, etc. Also, I love to post 'ride' stories.....even better when they have pictures with them....Take a ride today; take some pictures, send a note describing the ride and the pictures.....let the rest of us share in your ride!

I wish more members and/or visitors to the site would send me their motorcycle pictures. I love to post shots of your motorcycle (or your old motorcycle) and you and yours to the Motorcycle Photo Gallery that's association with this page. (click the url on the right to go the the gallery).

I'm off on another long ride this morning. (that's my wife and I in the picture) I haven't decided which direction yet. I'm getting tuned up for my annual long ride. I'll be going from Olympia, WA. to Las Vegas, NV for my industry's big trade show in June. (Infocomm.org). My friend Peter and his wife Francis will be riding. There may be some others as well. I'll keep you posted and take pictures along the way.

Ride Safe!

Jason Talley - WMA Member # 85 - Spokane - Cool picture!

I ride with my wife in the Spokane, WA area and race with the Washington Motorcycle Road Racing Association (http://www.wmrra.com).

Best Regards,
Jason Talley

A ride in the country and an unexpected visitor.....

We had an amazing thing happen this afternoon. While on our Saturday ride thru the backcountry south of Olympia, we spotted this deer. I have many shots....We saw it in this field. We stopped to see what was around its neck. Turns out, someone must have tied this bright orange thing around its neck to protect it. It was loosely tied on, and was definitely done on purpose. Initially Joyce walked up ahead of the bike to see if she could get close enough to evaluate the situation. The deer would have nothing to do with that. It just decided to walk right up and visit us. After receiving lots of water from Joyce's water bottle, and smelling the seats of the bike real good.....it decided to give Joyce a kiss. We visited with it for about 30 minutes......and then it walked into the field next to us and we rode away......wow....nature! We love it, that's the main thing we get from riding our bike; is getting out into nature.

Howard Meiseles - New Member - Great Ride Story!

Contributed by new WMA member Howard Meiseles.

Click on the picture to blow it up to full screen. You can see several more of Howard's trip shots by going to the Photo Gallery. Just click on the link to the right to go and see the more than 80 shots from members around the world!

Thanks so Much Howard....I love the story about your ride....and the great pictures.


Robert,

Ellen and I love to ride together. The pictures enclosed were taken in 2006 during our 3 week vacation ride to the eastern provinces of Canada. We were living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time and our itinerary took us to Portland, Maine, a ferry ride to Nova Scotia where we rode for three days, a ferry ride to Price Edward Island for another three days of riding and onto Quebec, Montreal and to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. From there, we were off to our real destination at Burlington, Vermont for the BMW Motorcycle Owners annual gathering. After the gathering, we traveled back to Georgia via a stop in NYC for dinner and theater.

Upon leaving NY, we decided to travel one of the great motorcycle roads in the eastern United States, the Blue Ridge Parkway. The ride on the Parkway is amazing. The Blue Ridge was authorized in the 1930s as a Depression-era public works project, the Parkway was more than a half-century in the making. It was the nation's first, and ultimately longest, rural parkway, connecting Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. The Parkway winds for 469.1 miles (755 km) through the famous Blue Ridge Mountains, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. There is no fee for using the Blue Ridge Parkway and other than tour buses, commercial vehicles are prohibited. The parkway was built so that it appears that the road grew out of the ground instead of being place on top of it. There are no billboards or commercial establishments other than those provided discreetly by the National Park Service. I recommend that if you are on the east coast during the late spring, summer or early fall that you ride this road.

Regards

Howard Meiseles

81 members now....in 3 weeks! You're invited to join!

It's free! To join just click on one of the two links on the right side of this page; one for LinkedIn.com members and the other for those not in LinkedIn.com.

It's only about sharing motorcycle stories via posts on the web AND sharing motorcycle photos via our collection.

Please send me your latest pictures; of you, you and your bike, your bike and some scenery.....just anything bike related. I'd love to post it to the photo gallery.

To see the photos; just click on the link posted on the right side of this page.

Thanks for stopping by.

Free at last, free at last, good lord almighty, I'm free at last!

I hereby declare this to be a bike riding weekend for all.....

It's a three day weekend here in the USA....

All persons who view this statement are authorized to put aside all work; and focus on the true meaning of life!

The Worldwide Motorcycle Association hereby declares this to be a weekend for riding! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

and one last thing......be sure to visit the huge collection of motorcycle pictures...just click on the link to the right. Ride Safe!

A weekend made for riding!

The weather has been spectacular thru the last weekend! My wife and I rode every backroad in southwest Washington State plus some more.

We rode Thursday night out to Montesano on all back roads. There is a great hamburger spot out there......need I say more?

Friday night we ended up at the same spot!

Saturday was a day for working in the yard, but that evening; while the temperatures were still in the 80's we rode out to Boston Harbor. It is a little suburb of Olympia, Washington where we live, and only about 20 minutes from our house. The evening was just plain gorgeous. I only had my cellphone camera, so the pic quality isn't good enough to really portray the evening and the water behind our bike.....use your imagination.

Sunday we rode straight south on I-5 from Olympia to just south of Chehalis, Washington. Then we cut across to the west and headed down thru Boistfort Valley winding our way around to the west and ending up in Raymond, Washington. Then just a few more miles to Arctic, Washington and Clark's Restaurant. Clark's has some of the best hamburgers, blt's, malts, etc.....AND THE Blackberry Pie with ice cream on top......whoa.....that should be illegal.

What a great weekend! Where did you ride?

Weekend - 90 degree temperatures; THE RIDE IS ON!

First gear, it's all right;
second gear, lean right;
third gear, hang on tight;
faster.....its all right!

I'm gonna ride my Honda tonight!

The words to a 60's song.....well; they're true for us. We'll be riding all weekend. I need to do a lot of cleaning this morning. I've been slack about keeping the dirt off my bike all winter. It's time for a long cleaning session this morning. We'll be riding the backroads of Southwest Washington this weekend. Cars are rare and the roads are full of twists and turns.....and plenty of scenery. Ride Safe!

75 Members as of today!

Welcome to the latest members! We are now at 75 members worldwide!

The motorcycle picture collection is also at 75 pictures! Go figure!

We've got some great enthusiastic members and some great motorcycle shots from around the world.

Make sure to take a peek at the pics when you have a moment.

RJGrawet
rjgrawet@yahoo.com

One of my favorite rides! 'The Moonset Ride'

In mid September of 2005, Joyce and I rode up the Hood Canal in Washington State to Port Townsend. We then took this ferry (see picture) across to Whidbey Island, Washington. From there we rode north to cross the border with Canada at Bellingham, Washington.

We rode to our friends; Peter and Francis Galea's house in North Vancouver and spent the night with them at their house. Peter always cooks up a great breakfast. After that breakfast the next day we jumped on our bikes and rode over to the ferry dock in North Vancouver to cross the water and head north up the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. There are a series of ferries (3, I think) as you go up the coast to the city of Powell River. We didn't have reservations anywhere, so we pulled into a resort like facility to check for rooms. They had two nice rooms right next to each other facing the Strait of Georgia and looking across to Vancouver Island.

We freshened up and went into PowerRiver to find dinner. There was a very nice little place on the main road right in town; I'm sorry I don't remember the name. It was in an old house that was several levels. They had a deck on the back side facing the water. The four of us each enjoyed our dinners and a glass of wine and then jumped on the bikes to ride back to our home for the night.

There is a liquor store right on the resort property so we bought a couple of bottles of wine to have while sitting on the deck. As the sun set and it turned dark; we really enjoyed our water view; the beautiful evening, and the friendship we share as we talked freely and shared stories.

Somewhere near the end of several bottles of wine; we all noticed that the extremely big bright moon we were watching had progressively moved across the sky and had now 'set' behind Vancouver Island. WHAT!!!!!! The moon doesn't set!

We were freaked out! What!!!!!! The moon does NOT set! The Sun sets......the Moon doesn't set!

I ask you now; does the moon set? Does it?

We walked down to the lawn in front of the complex to the boat docks where many people were out strolling on this warm September evening. One after another; we asked people if they had seen the moon 'set'. When asked; not one person had ever seen the moon set; and we all began to wonder what in the world had just happened. Was it a disaster? (we really didn't think that for long). Was it some phenomenon? Was it a hallucination? (we did drink several bottles of wine). The more people we asked the more strange it seemed........no one on that night had ever seen the moon set, and no one was sure that it was supposed to.

Luckily we had consumed enough wine; to eventually move on to another thought and finally we all went to bed later.

In the morning; I went for the local newspaper; and ......... lo and behold! There on the back page was the posted daily times for:

The Sun Rise and Set times.

and

The Moon Rise and Set times. Holy Moly! The Moon DOES set!!!

So......at an age where one of us at least should have known this; not one actually did. Neither did anyone walking that night. Since that day; on a regular occasion; I'll ask a new person if the moon sets. So far; of the 100 or so folks I've asked; only about 5% are absolutely sure that the moon does set. It's probably something every farmer knows....but no one in our group did.

We decided to make 'the Moon Set Ride' a regular event. This last year we rode to Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island to watch it. What an amazingly beautiful city; and some of the finest surfing on the west coast. (really)

Joyce and I continued on from Powell River on that first ride. We took the ferry across to Vancouver Island and landed at Campbell River, B.C. Peter and Fran had to return back to Vancouver for business. Joyce and I rode down the east coast of Vancouver Island and stayed the night at Sidney, B.C. right on the water. The next morning; we took the Washington State ferry from there to Anacores, Washington. After that beautiful 2 1/2 hour ferry ride, we rode back down the Hood Canal to our home in Olympia, Washington.

A 3 night/4 day trip. 5 ferry rides. THE MOONSET! Fantastic weather. Great Friends. Plenty of wine (never when riding). This will be a trip to always remember!

We haven't decided this year where we'll go for the moonset ride. Maybe the Oregon coast.

Tell me about one of your favorite rides. Send your post to me: robertgrawet@worldwidemotorcycleassociation.com I'll post it for all to read. Also; send me a picture of you and your bike to post with it.

Ride safe!

My first Motorbike

Here I am on my first motorbike. In the neighborhood where I grew up on the extreme far west side of Denver, Colorado, back in 1963/4 all the guys on my block had some kind of bike.

There was no way to get around. It was miles to walk anywhere and there was no bus transportation. So, we were all able to convert that into getting our parents to let us buy a bike. Back then, you could get a driver's license at age 14 (me in the pic at age 14), if your bike was 6 hp or less.

I still love this Yamaha trail bike. I rode it for miles, over all kinds of terrain. There were the mountains to the west. We regularly rode up one of the narrow canyons of Bear Creek or Deer Creek and went swimming in the creek. Or sometimes we would use inner tubes to float down the cold creek waters on a hot summer day.

What was your first bike, and what did you do on it?