The weather the past several days has been amongst the coldest in the region for a couple of years, and each day the yellow Store light on the Yamaha’s battery tender has been an unnecessary reminder that out-of-doors fun has its limits. When the forecast for the daytime temperature today was above freezing, it was time to circulate the oil in the crankcase.
A favorite short trip is to make a run for Chuckanut Drive, and that is where I decided to go to see if I could make my radar detector pay for itself yet again. The weather adjusted the temperature to seasonal averages for the day, so while I had my heated gear plugged in, I was able to leave it off except for a few stretches through areas from which the previous week’s cold air had not yet been scoured. It did rain off and on, making for some wet tar snakes around corners that might otherwise have invited a bit more enthusiasm, but of course, any day riding a motorcycle almost by definition has to be a good day, even if it does not include the chicken strips, and this was a good day.
Each time I make this trip, I roll off the throttle as I pass Chuckanut Manor restaurant and think about Tim Floyd, who was killed on his motorcycle in a collision with a car in front of the restaurant in 2012.¹ I rode past the scene the following day; I think it is that proximity in time and place that bears homage to mortality.
I always enjoy riding among the family farms in the Skagit River delta. With the Cascade Mountains to one side and Skagit Bay to the other, it is a pastoral few miles to use to collect oneself before deciding it is time to head for home. This trip was no different: I used the time to be grateful that I live surrounded by such things and have the means to be able to take advantage of the fact — and a wife who does not begrudge my spending a Sunday doing so.