Day 49 Friday 20th May 2011
Another day of shame I’m afraid. We mistakenly thought today was Saturday so we had a lie in until about 10.30. Outside the day was bright, warm and sunny and only the gentle hum of the nearby busy Interstate 5 gave us the clue that it was in fact a weekday. We needed to burn off some fuel as last night we received an email from the shippers saying that when we put the bikes in the container they must be “on fumes” ie almost empty and we have to disconnect the battery. We had run almost 125 miles out of the tank already so we didn’t plan on going too far as the trip to the container packing depot in Seattle was 27 miles away from our motel.
We opted for a short trip back to the BMW shop to get some oil sump crush washers for when we do our own oil changes in Russia and then we headed to our favourite shop, Walmart, 6 miles away to get some toiletries to go in the container and some more peppered beef jerky which we have become quite partial to. Against our better judgement we also bought a big bottle of wine (which still remains unopened in the fridge) thinking that it may go well with the crackers and cheese already in the larder. For some unexplicable reason I got mixed up leaving the store and headed west instead of south from the Walmart store and it wasn’t until the scenery changed dramatically that I realised that we hadn’t arrived on this particular road. A u-turn and some 7 or 8 miles detoured later we were back on track.
I stopped off at the motel lobby for my daily liaison with Danielle the receptionist to get tomorrow’s wifi cards and that gave me the opportunity to avoid helping Mark bring in the shopping. We delved into the bowl of fruit (as seen splendiforously displayed in a picture on one of my earlier blog posts) and each had a huge plateful of pineapple, melon, strawberries, orange segments and apple – it was magnificently juicy and just right as we sat in the afternoon sun scoffing like pigs at a trough.
We repaired to the room where I read out some e-mails to Mark. Yuri in Vladivostok doesn’t mind being paid in US dollars or roubles for his custom clearing services in Russia. Bob Erion & James Pedersen of Radiant Logistics (our USA shippers) are concerned about hazardous goods in our container – more specifically batteries in our torches, Loctite threadlocking stuff and the syringe needles and my prescription drugs etc in our first aid kits – come on ! We will have to sort this out over the next day or so.
Other than that, just another lazy day at the office.
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