We started out this morning at around 0900 in order to hopefully avoid traffic in the Seattle area.  John tried to get us to just go on without him since he wouldn’t be able to go as fast in a U-Haul as we could on the bikes but Rich and I were having none of that – all for one, and one for all.  Seattle did have some traffic but it wasn’t bad – certainly not by Los Angeles standards.

Everything was going along just fine until we got to Portland.  We were going very slowly (about 10 mph) because of some construction that I never did see, and  just about to go over the Marquam Bridge when my bike quit running.  I knew it was electrical because the speedometer was stuck at 10 mph and the only way to make that happen is to turn the key off while the bike is moving.  It was pretty easy to get over to the side of the road since it was down to two lanes & I got the bike restarted in less than a minute.  That however was long enough on the side of the road for John to pass us in the U-Haul.  I was concerned that he might try to turn off somewhere and come back so when I got my bike running we went as fast as we dared to catch up to him.  We caught up with him within a mile or two and we made it to Salem with no more incidents.

Salem is where we will continue south on I-5 and John will turn left and go to Sisters, OR.  We got off the freeway at the exit for Sisters and found a Mexican food place for our last lunch together.  The food was acceptable as were the margaritas.  We wished John well and he was off to his daughter’s house while we were off to our friend’s house in Winston.  I was hoping that my bike’s little problem was an anomaly and would never be seen again; that was not too be.  Once more on the way to Winston it quit.  This time, because we were at freeway speed, I got it restarted on the shoulder while I was still coasting along at 20 mph.  Hmmm, now I’ve got to start thinking about what could be causing this….  But we aren’t stopping, or slowing down.

Our friends in Winston met us with a glass of Don Julio for me and a beer for Rich.  We moved to the back patio where we enjoyed conversation, more adult beverages, and pizza.  We should have called it a night much earlier than we did but hey, we haven’t seen these folks for a long time.