I'm blogging from the cyber cafe at the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America International Rally in Spokane. There are about 5,000 of us at the rally, sweltering in the blazing sun with a high in the mid-90s expected today.
Those of us who chose to camp don't dare go anywhere near our tents as long as the sun is up because they become like a sauna on steroids.
I hooked up with my friend Wayne this morning and it looks like we're going to ride together post-rally to Crater Lake and Big Sur and then double back to Portland to visit my son.
The ride up was uneventful. I rode about 670 miles Wednesday from Alma to Twin Falls, Idaho. I skirted thunderstorms in eastern Utah and finally ran through a small, but intense, shower just north of the Utah-Idaho border that temporarily shorted out the controls of my Delphi Roady XM radio receiver. Fortunately, an hour of drying time in the hot arid desert air put things right and it was working perfectly by the time I got to the Twin Falls Motel 6.
I woke up a full hour ahead of my 5 a.m. wake-up call, had breakfast at the Twin Falls Flying J truckstop and got on the road as the sky was beginning to lighten. Thanks to the hour gain by crossing into the Pacific Time Zone, I was in southern Washington by noon and arrived at the fairgrounds in Spokane by 2 p.m. I didn't check my mileage, but I'd guess it was between 500 and 600 miles.
The campground is nearly full to the point where I'm afraid to move my bike for fear of coming back to find a tent in my parking space.
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