Peter Galea arrived at my home in Olympia, Washington from Vancouver, British Columbia on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010, having gone almost 200 miles for this segment of his ride.
On Friday morning June 4th, we departed Olympia on the beginning of our 'Ride to Infocomm' Circa 2010. This is our 3rd ride to Las Vegas for Infocomm. We also made the trip to Los Angeles for Infocomm several years ago.
We decided to take each day as it came with no destination in mind. Our first goal; to arrive back home safe was always on our minds and took precedence in every decision we made.
As we left Olympia, the skies to the south looked like rain. We've ridden in every type of weather, so we were prepared. However, as is often the case when riding motorcycles; you get caught by sudden weather changes. About 50 miles into our ride; just south of Chehalis, Washington we ran directly into about a 15 minute rain shower. Had we stopped immediately and gotten off the road, it would have been over in minutes. Instead we kept riding for some time in the rain. With many big trucks on this route, we soon became very wet, but not from the rain. It was mostly from the big splash of water caused by the trucks as they moved at 60 mph down the highway.
Peter was in blue jeans and he got soaked quickly. I had my leather chaps on and Joe Rocket jacket, so I fared much better.
We got off the highway in Longview, WA and went into a McDonald's to dry off. Peter was dry in about 15 minutes. We had some coffee and headed back to I-5 to continue the trip. We could see rainclouds all along the way as we decided to stop in Roseburg, Oregon. Miles Olympia to Roseburg = 292 miles.
We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. It's awesome. The entire back of the hotel fronts the Umpqua River and they have oriented the hotel to face that way vs. the street. It's beautiful and very quiet. We stayed at this same hotel 5 years ago on our first ride to Infocomm. Incredibly, they gave us the exact same room. The photo below is of the back side of the hotel which faces the river.
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