Day 44 Sunday 15th May 2011
By some lucky quirk of fate the hotel that we picked in Tigard had under cover parking and this served a very useful purpose this morning as we were able to pack the bikes without getting a soaking from the downpour that was in full swing. It was cold too as we left the city heading not north but south east towards West Linn and to the home of Simon and Veronica and their two children Sydney and Americk (sorry guys if I spelt these names wrong) – Simon being my second cousin and son of Cousin Penny who we stayed with in Gold Canyon, Arizona. We turned up rather embarrassed by our wet clothes but were warmly greeted by the family at their nice house set amongst a wooded area and we spent an hour or so over coffee and breakfast having a chat.
The rain had eased slightly by the time we left West Linn but a short spell on the Interstate 5 north soon had the cold rain lashing at us again and we also had a brief spell where it unleashed a full torrent from the skies giving the bikes their first real taste of water for nearly six weeks.
We left Oregon at the bridge crossing the Columbia River and we entered our final State of this leg of the trip, Washington State. Our final fuel stop in the USA was made sweeter by the pretty lady that served me – we had a cup of coffee on the house and very grateful we were too as the cold had started to get through the layers of clothing.
Tacoma and then Fife came quickly and we found the Motel 6, our home for the next 10 days, very easily as it sits aside the Interstate but is also very close to BMW Fife where our bikes are to be serviced before they leave for Russia. The final mileage for the States was a good 6,371 miles and we were very thankful that all of these passed without serious incident.
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