Travel Log Archive

March 8, 2008 RIDE! the Wild Surf - 400 miles for lunch

This RIDE! was originally intended for later in March, closer to my Birthday. But between Easter coming a little early this year, my work schedule, and a wedding on the last weekend, this was the only option. For several years now I’ve been heading to Long Beach, WA with some of my favorite people for a Corral Drive-In burger as a way to celebrate the theoretical end of winter and my getting another year older. It’s not that the burgers are the best I’ve ever had, or anything. Rather, Long Beach is just a good destination for March, with not much chance of snow along the route. That, and by March I’m so ready for a long RIDE! I don’t mind taking a chance on getting rained on. There’s a quote that I heard somewhere that Dale, one of my oldest, dearest friends and frequent riding companion, and I like to reference, “Sometimes it takes a whole tank of gas before I can think clearly.” We’ve taken turns telling one another, “I just need to go burn some fuel” so often that now one of us just has to tell the other, “You know” and the meaning is clear. It’s this time of year, when the proverbial light at the end of the wintry tunnel can be seen that we’re most apt to utter the phrase. Dale was already at the Car Club in Covington when I got there and Terry showed up just a little while later. It was just the three of us heading off to Lakewood where Rob and his friend Lloyd would meet us for the trip to the coast. The sky was gray and dreary but dry. The temps were in the mid forties so the Aerostich vest was plugged in and the grip heaters were set to stun. Rob and Dale are ready to RIDE! We're waiting at the Lakewood McDonald's. Our new friend Lloyd arrives at McDonald's. After a short prayer for God's hand of safety on us and thanksgiving for the opportunity to go riding today, we dispatched with the boring I-5 portion of the trip pretty quickly and headed for Montesano on the nearly as boring US-8/US-12 section. At least there’s some scenery to keep one occupied on 8/12. Montesano is a good place to stop on this RIDE! because it’s roughly halfway from Kent to Long Beach and it rightly divides the roads between the straight, boring bits at the beginning and the not-so-straight, fairly entertaining bits towards lunch time. Plus, it’s a good place to use the restroom, top off the gas tank, get a coffee or whatever. Taking a break at Monte Square in Montesano. Photo courtesy Rob Green The aroma from the lumber yard just south of Montesano never fails to greet me and signals the beginning of my second favorite part of this trip. From here it’s a short jaunt on WA-107 to US-101 and lots of little elevation changes and nicely flowing curves. By this time, the sky had cleared up somewhat but it was still a bit chilly. Rob had warned me before we left that he would be pulling over to shoot photos from time to time and that we shouldn’t wait for him as he would catch up. This was fine by me and I appreciated him telling me ahead of time. Rob has his own website dedicated to motorcycling in Washington State and he has lots of good quality pictures there, as well as a bunch of ride destinations with detailed maps and descriptions. So when he pulled over before we got to Raymond, I wasn’t concerned. When we passed the Trooper, having a roadside chat with another motorist on the south side of town, however, I was little concerned. No worries though, as we found out later that Rob made it through with his dignity and driving record both unscathed. Willapa Bay, near South Bend, WA. Photo courtesy Rob Green After some more hills and curves, we came to the junction with WA-4. At this point I decided we should pull over and wait for Rob. It’s not that I thought he’d get lost but this was a group RIDE! after all and I didn’t mind waiting here for a bit. In a very short time I saw Rob’s GoldWing making the right hander onto Hwy. 4 and we were on our way. If the section from Montesano to WA-4 is my second favorite part of this RIDE!, then WA-4 from US-101 to Seaview is definitely my favorite. This short stretch offers some very nice twisty bits. With the speed limit going between 50 and 55 mph and some of the turns marked 25 mph, you can have a blast here without ever breaking the limit. Besides that, the scenery is nice enough so as to discourage anything faster for fear of missing it. Before long we were through the Long Beach “congestion” and the familiar sign for the Corral Drive-In could be seen just a short ways up the road. I have eaten here more than a half-dozen times and I would classify the burgers as good. They probably aren’t worth the trip all by themselves unless, like us, you are really just itching to put some miles on your motorcycle seat. If that’s the case, they are good enough to be used as an excuse to go to the coast and back for lunch. Unfortunately, on this day, my patty was a bit over cooked and a little dry. Why does it seem that a favorite establishment will pick the day that you bring friends by for a taste to have an off day? Oh well, I didn’t hear anyone complain nor did I see any leftovers as we departed. The Corral Drive-In. What it lacks in posh elegance it makes up for by having no inside seating. It's hard to tell if Terry looks hungry or cold, or both. Terry, Lloyd and Dale, deciding what to order. How are those burgers gentlemen? After stopping at the Chevron near the Corral to make sure our tanks were as full as our bellies, we chose to avoid the Long Beach traffic by heading east on Sandridge Rd. out to WA-4. From there, back up to Raymond was pretty much the same as the trip south had been. I think Hwy. 4 is even better going away from Long Beach, though, than it is heading towards town. Somehow the scenery is just better. Over lunch, we decided that we’d turn east out of Raymond on WA-6 and head towards Chehalis. This is a very nice route when the sun is shining. The highway snakes through some very pretty farmland and there’s a view of Mt. Rainier around almost every turn. Alas, the mountain was under a thick layer of clouds this day but there was still plenty to look at. There are still lots of reminders of the December ’07 floods that ravaged this part of the state. The road surface is still broken up in spots with what I can only assume are temporary repairs everywhere. Rob got some very good pictures of much of this damage and many of them can be viewed both in the Spoke N Word photo gallery and on Rob’s own site. Of particular interest were the stacks of downed trees that littered the river banks as well as areas where the river had been rerouted by the raging torrent. This gives an idea of the damage that still remains in this part of Washington State. Photo courtesy Rob Green A home displaced. Photo courtesy Rob Green This herd of elk were grazing just off the road. Photo courtesy Rob Green At Pe Ell, Terry took the lead and showed us the back roads to his property near Toledo. We left WA-6 and turned onto Pe Ell-MacDonald Rd. and then Wildwood Rd. through Vader and on towards the property. Terry’s wife Donna was there as they had planned on working on some projects over the weekend. Donna had coffee and cookies waiting for us and we got the tour of the grounds and the cabin they are building. Terry and Donna entertain the troops on their vacation/retirement property. Photo courtesy Rob Green Unfortunately, when we pulled up to the motor home, I neglected to switch my ignition off, allowing the sidestand switch to kill the engine instead. Needless to say, by the time we were done getting the tour and eating Terry’s cookies, the ST was dead. Luckily, Terry had a battery booster/charger in his motor home and, after a few minutes on the charger the battery was fine again and we could be on our way. This is the entrance to the place. Photo courtesy Rob Green It really is a beautiful setting. You can see my headlight burning in this pic. I wasn't smart enough to switch the ignition off when we arrived. Photo courtesy Rob Green We left Terry there with Donna to finish their chores and we headed northeast on the back roads to which Terry directed us. These were really nice motorcycle roads. Not fast but just scenic and twisty enough to keep us interested. We took Spencer Rd. up to US-12 and rode east for just a few miles before turning north onto WA-122. 122 was supposed to take us to Cinebar Rd. and then to WA-508 East. This would have spit us out right at the north end of the town of Morton. I had set the town of Cinebar as a waypoint in my GPS and it was directing me exactly as Terry had suggested. While traveling on WA-122 the voice, (I’ve named her Betty), said to “keep left” when we were coming to Cinebar Rd. Normally, this is the instruction when the aim is to stay on the road one is traveling on when coming to a curve where there’s also a side street. If the aim is to actually turn off of the road on which one is riding, the instruction normally states to “turn” at that point. So, I was looking for the road to veer left and change to Cinebar Rd. I was a little surprised to see that 122 veered right and Cinebar Rd. was actually a left turn. Not wanting to get on the brakes hard enough to make this left with everybody following me, I elected to skip it and stay on 122. The result is that we just made a big loop past Ike Kinswa State park and ended up back on US-12. After a few more miles we made the left onto WA-7 in Morton. This took us past a true Spoke ‘N’ Word favorite and landmark, Spiffy. The burgers at Spiffy aren’t the best around but they’re good. I rank them a few steps above the ones at the Corral but probably not in my top ten. I can’t explain why we like the place so much. We just do. Recently, reports have surfaced that Spiffy had been closed down, never to reopen. I knew from riding past here a week prior that those reports were inaccurate. The Shell station next door is closed down but Spiffy remains. We’ll be riding there on May 3rd, after the Solid Rock Men’s Breakfast, in case you want to see what all the fuss is about. The foothills north of Morton were still dusted with snow as we rode by on WA-7. This stretch of road, between Morton and Elbe, is 17 miles long. The southern part is pretty good with some curves and a fairly large elevation change. After the first ten miles or so, it straightens out and levels off, leaving one to look forward to Elbe and the fun that awaits north of there. We skipped the Eatonville cut-off at Alder Lake that we normally take and continued on 7 through the La Grande area. We had great fun for most of the way until we caught up to a Ford Expedition towing snow mobiles. Despite several opportunities to pull off and let us by, this guy cluelessly lumbered through some of the best bits of this section of road. With such a large group I felt there was no choice but to stay put and wait it out. There are few passing lanes out here and it would have been difficult to get all four bikes out and around this guy. As the RIDE! was winding down, I knew that Rob would be staying on 7 as the rest of us, who live in the Kent, Auburn, Maple Valley area turned onto 304th Ave. and headed for Kapowsin. I pulled us into the Shell station at 304th and WA-161 so that we could say our goodbyes. The three of us then took the Orville Rd., WA-162 loop through Buckley before turning left onto 244th and riding more back roads past the bridge park and across Green Valley Rd. Lloyd peeled off to the right at Auburn/Black Diamond Rd. to head for his home. This left Dale and I together until the Brookside Store, where Dale went left toward his place and I continued straight toward mine. When I shut the bike off in the driveway, I cleared the trip odometer on the GPS, noting that the total mileage for the day was 398.5. A good, long day’s RIDE! that provided everything I had been looking for in the way of seat time. I hope the rest of the group had as much fun as I did. I really enjoyed meeting Lloyd and sharing this day with a great group of folks. I’m ready to go again, anytime. For more photos from this RIDE!, check out the Photo Album in the Photo Gallery.