Memorial Day ride

On Monday, for the first time in about two years, I went on a motorcycle ride for fun. This time around was much better than the first time, mainly because of the bar risers that make it so much easier to ride my bike for long periods of time. It was also more fun since there were friends of my own on the ride, rather than just my husbands' coworkers, as two people I've known for a long time via an online message board came along for the trip.


We took the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, then met up with the last person in Poulsbo before heading out 104 to 101 towards Port Angeles. This was the first time I've gone out that way, including going over the Hood Canal Bridge, and that is very impressive - and I'm very glad there was almost no wind that day! We rode up to the top of Hurricane Ridge, which surprised us with temperatures of 34F and more than five feet of snow still on the ground, as shown in the above photo. The road was a LOT of fun to ride, despite the cold, wet, and fog, and I'd like to give it another shot some time when I'm not holding back due to weather conditions. I was definitely the most comfortable of our group in my electric heated gear, however!


On our way back, we stopped on 101 in Port Townsend to visit Fat Smitty's, a burger joint recommended to us by another friend on the forum who wasn't able to join us. We parked our fleet of bikes - my BMW F800ST, my husband's Honda ST1300, a KLR, a V-Strom 1000, and two others I don't recall - outside of the joint and went inside. It's definitely a dive diner, with hundreds of dollar bills with sharpied drawings/comments thumbtacked all over the place, but it was a great stop after a lot of riding.


And that is their signature dish - the Fat Smitty burger, with three buns, two patties, cheese, bacon, and veggies. The advice the server gave was "to squish it as flat as you can, pick it up, and DO NOT LET GO" which was ignored with entertaining consequences by at least two people in the group. I did not get one of these, as I know better, and my regular sized burger and chocolate shake were perfectly tasty on their own.

Taking a motorcycle on the ferry is awesome, as you can skip the 1-2 hour wait that the cars are suffering through and go straight to the head of the line. There were about fifteen bikes waiting for this ferry, including our group pictured above (with another big BMW from another passenger) and a group of Harleys that was on the other side. The ferry was pretty crowded so we just stayed down below with our bikes for the ride over, especially since it's only about a half-hour once the ferry is loaded and moving.

We did a total of about 200 miles or so, and I really enjoyed the trip. I'm thinking another trip should be in the cards for this summer, maybe a visit to Mt. St. Helens, especially since we can't take the dogs there. We'll see!