Dave rides his bike to school

Above: My last view of the Columbia River before it heads north.

Above: Farmland west of Walla Walla, WA. A farmer told me that these are alfalfa fields. It smells like perfume.

Friday, 6/16 7pm
Location: Walla Walla, WA
Coordinates: couldn’t get a reading

Yesterday’s mileage: about 56
Today: Rest day in Walla Walla
Tomorrow’s destination: Dayton, WA

I rode into Walla Walla, Washington, after a fairly uneventful day’s journey. My plan was to check in to a cheap motel that offers a computer for guests to use, so that I could check email and update my blog. However, after 4 unsuccessful attempts to find such a motel, I gave up and checked into the cheapest motel I could find. Everyone said, “Oh, don’t worry, the library is open until 9pm.” Perfect! Well, except that the library really closes at 5pm. Doh! The café with Internet access was also closed, so I gracefully conceded defeat on that quest and decided to just explore the town instead.

As it turns out, Walla Walla is a groovy little town. There are vineyards/cellars/wine bars all over the place, there’s a fun ice cream/candy store right on Main St., several coffee shops and bakeries, and there are a few decent-looking restaraunts within a few blocks of one another.

Anyhow, after seeing the 5th wine merchant or so, it occurred to me that maybe I was in the middle of a wine region. So, as I was walking back to the motel after dinner, I decided to poke my head into a wine bar that had a bunch of people sitting outside on a patio, sippin’ wine and kickin’ back to some funky tunes.

You wouldn’t believe the characters I met there. Before long, I was talking with everyone at the bar! One guy owns and runs a 600-acre farm nearby, one guy works at a concrete plant and also operates www.wallawalla.com (if that’s not an unusual combination, I don’t know what is), one guy publishes a wine review magazine, one guy owns a vineyard, one guy was the cook at the bar, and so on.

I started telling some stories (stop snickering, Mike) and they started telling some stories, and pretty soon the guy who runs the wine review publication hands me a bottle of wine and says, “Take this bottle of wine, drink it on your trip, email me your review of the wine, and then I’ll publish your review and sponsor you on your trip.” Knowing a good deal when I hear one, I snatched the wine and his offer of sponsorship. Granted, the offer was coming from a guy at a bar who had had a few glasses of wine, so who knows what’ll come of it. It was pretty cool nonetheless.

I started chatting with this one guy from Montana about which route to take from Missoula to North Dakota, and he planted a gem of an idea in my head: travel by canoe! Apparently you can rent canoes in Great Falls, Montana, and float them down river eastward, and leave your canoe there when you get out of the river. The rental company takes care of the rest. It might be interesting to transport a steel bicycle in a canoe, but hey, is drowning any worse than getting run over by a big rig on the highway? Er, scratch that. I mean, “but hey, I’m sure it’s perfectly safe”.

Everyone in the bar had an interesting history. The bartender, for example, grew up in Alaska in a house that she helped to build, and her family didn’t have electricity until she was 10. They lived off the land, and she was homeschooled until high school. Then, she managed to get a music scholarship to a historically black college in Alabama. In the school’s history, she was the 17th white person to graduate. You know, that’s the kind of thing I just don’t hear about in my normal everyday life.

I also found out that there is a big classic car festival happening this weekend in Dayton, WA, which is the next town that I’ll pass through. So, I think I’ll probably plan my day tomorrow around arriving in town for the celebration.

When it was all said and done, I stayed at the bar until closing time. Oh, and by the way, I cracked open the bottle of wine and drank it at the bar with my fellow patrons, who kindly offered me bits of literary genius for my wine review (like this gem: “At the wine’s foundation is the acidic soil of Washington’s Paloose region.”). Hey, I told the wine guy that I have no idea what I’m talking about, so I had to get some help!

By the time I walked back to the motel, I hadn’t done my laundry, written my day’s entry, nor updated my blog. I also didn’t plan out where I’ll be for the 4th of July, which I had wanted to do by yesterday. In practical terms, I didn’t accomplish anything yesterday. On the other hand, I heard some incredible stories from the people of Walla Walla, Washington, and I created some new ones of my own in the process. And, after all, isn’t that what a cross-country bicycle trip is all about?
Musings:
– Every day, I get passed by a half a dozen Walmart big rigs, regardless of where I am, or what highways I’m riding down. Every once in a while, I get passed by a Safeway truck or a Sysco truck, but by and large, Walmart trucks are the single most common truck that I see. They’re everywhere. As a result, I think it’s time to rename our nation’s highways to more accurately reflect how our highways are used: instead of Interstate highways, they should be called “Interwalmart” highways. From what I can tell, highways mainly serve to transport goods between Walmarts and people to/from Walmarts. And in between Walmarts, you basically have gas stations and mini-marts that allow people and vehicles to fill up during their journeys to/from Walmarts.
– My friend Rob Lee gave me a great tip recently on how to amuse myself while riding. He said that as cars and trucks drive past, you should preface the name of the vehicle with “anal”. Well, it may be a 3rd grade potty game, but damn if I didn’t giggle for 20 miles as I played. Some examples:
Anal Explorer
Anal Probe
Anal Ram
Anal Wrangler
Anal Expedition
Anal Excursion

Well, you get the idea. The Europeans (and some of the Japanese companies) must have been learned about this game years ago, because they cleverly named their cars giggle-free names. Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Saab, Lexus, Infinity, etc, all use stupid numbers to name their cars (eg, 325i, SL 500, A4, LS400, etc.). Oh well, I’ve still got the American SUV’s to provide miles of amusement!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.