Sex in the Bathroom ?

Day 40  12^th May 2011

Sorry about the delay in posting but the blog update website has been down for a number of hours....

What a contrast. Yesterday’s rain was replaced with blue sky an sunshine and not wishing to fester in the hotel room we went for a walk along the boardwalk and read a little about the history of Coos Bay which seems to have been centred around the logging industry.

We took a few pictures but in my haste to get one particular shot of log stumps in the water I dropped and smashed my digital camera to the extent that it was totally defunct so no pictures of wooden stumps I’m afraid unless Mark lends me one of his.

Images from Coos Bay

With the dilemma of continuing the trip without a camera on my mind we headed back to the motel where we searched for camera shops in the area and found that there was a Walmart a couple of miles away so we climbed aboard our trusty steeds and went in search of shopping heaven. The Walmart sales assistant soon steered us towards a replacement camera and, minus the extended warranty, I parted with $147 but came away with a new toy.

Back at the motel in true manly fashion I emptied the box and tried to figure out how it all worked before reading the manual but there were a few questions that only the technical assistance of this knowledge base would answer so I had to read to be enlightened (as usual). A full battery charge and a few test shots and videos saw me ready to take a short ride to the Pacific coastline. I left Mark in the land of Nod and set off towards the azure blue of the sea where I tried to capture the essence of the day in an everlasting image but failed in this task miserably.

I made it back to base just before one of our fellow riders, Dick, turned up on his 800GS below our window. We introduced ourselves to each other just as Ron and the other members of the Myrtle Point guys turned up and the group was swelled by the introduction to Barry and Jerry. We made our way to Charleston, a small town on the route around the coast and parked up at the High Tide Cafe where we both had what can only be described as a wonderfully cooked tuna steak rather generously paid for by our host, Ron, to whom we are very grateful for organising a very pleasant evening. As we were leaving he restaurant the owner of the next door gift shop, Kinee's Gifts'n Shells came over to us and gave us a Coos Bay pin badge each which we will wear in memory of a good night. So if you are ever in the Coos Bay area take a small detour to Charleston and have a meal at the High Tide Cafe and buy some trinkets from Kinee’s Gift’n Shells.

Table for 6 please (Barry is hiding somewhere around the corner)

Dick invited all back to his house in North Bend for coffee and dessert of a delicious apple pie which was served with a helping of ice cream – thank you Dick & Janice for inviting us into your home. Dusk had arrived and it was time to make tracks back to our room and allow the Myrtle Point guys enough time to get back home before the night closed in and the animals come out to dance in the headlights. 

We settled down to sort out our shipping with Yuri, our fixer in Vladivostok. He needed all kinds of information sent to him which, fortunately, was mostly to hand pre loaded on a hard drive already. Shipping at a huge $6,354 was paid for online and some forms will need to be completed by telephone with James at Radiant Global tomorrow so the bikes are petty much sorted now. That just leaves us to get to Vladivostok. We have looked at several options have to choose between flying directly to Vladivostok or flying to Seoul on the west coast of South Korea and then making our way somehow to the country's east coast at Dong-Hae and catching the weekly ferry to Russia. We decide to deal with this aspect of our journey tomorrow but not before I discover that the noise of the couple in the next room having a really long sex session is in fact not that at all but an off centre extraction fan in our bathroom. It really has been a long dusty road !