Day 351 – Puget Sound

We used the International Motorcycle Show in Seattle, Washington as an excuse to get away for the weekend and what a fabulous, entertaining weekend it was!

We took the train, which means getting up at 4:30am to get ready, deal with animals, and get across town for the 6:40am departure. We fell onto the train with all the other sleepy passengers and rolled out of town. It’s the prettiest ride along the coastline, with the sun creeping up over the horizon and bathing everything in a golden glow. The sea birds were still resting on the water, like floating armies waiting for a bit of warmth and some light to see by. The train rocks from side to said as it moves along the tracks, part of you wants to fall asleep to the motion, but you don’t want to miss the wonderful views, so you fight it. You can wander down to the Bistro car and get a pretty good cup of coffee and something for breakfast – oatmeal, granola, a bagel with cream cheese…

When the train finally rolls into Seattle we hail a taxi and head for our hotel. Along the way we pass a park in which all of the trees are wrapped in colourful knitted sweaters. A rather fun public art display that I never did get back to for a photograph. We’ll have to come back next month and catch a photo then. Our taxi driver tells us that our hotel is at the top of the hill which means that everything is down from it…of course that means that at the end of the day it’s all uphill to get home. But it’s only a 10 minute walk to the Market, or pretty much anywhere else.

After we check into a very nice hotel room, we grab our tickets and walk down to the Convention Center for the International Motorcycle Show. We can tell we are getting close because there are more and more motorcycles driving past us. We didn’t really expect much out of the show, neither one of us really needs anything, and the style of motorcycle I am looking for now doesn’t seem to be a hot ticket item on the market anymore. Everyone wants cruisers, multipurpose, or rocket ships. No one makes a sport touring bike that I like that is under 1200cc’s and less than some stupid horsepower to weight ration, and I just don’t need that much weight under me. Just because you CAN ride something, doesn’t mean that you should! Looking at kids under 20 sitting on a Ninja ZX14 just horrifies me. A bike with 200 horsepower has no business being for sale as a street legal ride.

So I didn’t really expect to find anything of interest. Ducati stopped making the ST I like back in 2007 and they are hard to come by. The Yamaha FZ1 is interesting, but it doesn’t come fully faired. The Triumph feels to big under me, and I can’t ride the same ride as Kirk anyway :). I’ve sat on the BMW 800 ST and there is just something I don’t care for about it. I think the Suzuki VStrom is about one of the ugliest bikes on the road, so definitely not going that direction, and similarly, although the functionality is nice, I also can’t stand the look of the BMW8 800 GS Triumph Tiger, or the Kawasaki Versys. I love the Honda VFR Interceptor, but like so many other good bikes, the manufacturers seem to have capitulated to the public idiocy that seems to have taken hold – bigger numbers must be better – so what used to be a sane 750cc bike is now 1200cc. Same thing for the Suzuki Bandit. What started out as a 25 and 400cc bike that evolved into a 750cc contender has ballooned to 1200cc now. It seems that no one is satisfied with smaller engines anymore. Riders have been crossing the world on bikes, yet now everyone seems to think they need a bigger, more powerful bike. Why? All you end up with is a heavier monster that eats more fuel. Is there nothing left at the 750-1000cc range that suits me?

Turns out that there is! Kawasaki has come out with a new Ninja – that bears a resemblance physically, but not functionally with their other similarly named bikes. hey have come out with a real contender in the sport touring market, at least in my eyes. I may just be falling in love with the new Ninja 1000 ABS in candy lime green and ebony. Anyway, it’s something to think about when I get to that point. Unless the Ducati dealer comes through and finds me that ST3 I left my name for.

After the motorcycle show we wandered down to Pike Place and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. We had a fabulous lung/early dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Sound. A salmon BLT with a spicy salsa instead of tomatoes, and a bowl of curried split pea and roasted eggplant soup. Yum!

We wandered Pioneer Square and found some fabulous shops to browse through. And then we saw something odd. Santas. Lots and lots of Santas. I don’t mean one or two, I mean hundreds and hundreds. We thought that maybe there had been a concert or something. Then we stopped and our jaws dropped when we looked into a pub up on Pine Street. The pub was full to capacity, and everyone inside was dressed like Santa! We finally stopped a pack of Santas and asked one of the women “WHY?” SantaCon she said, it’s “Santarchy“. She took hold of my hand and earnestly urged us along. “You MUST come” she said. Kirk’s back was bothering him so we bowed out and when we returned to the hotel we looked it up. Santarchy! Never heard of it before!

We rounded out the day with a stop at a recommended wine bar down a few blocks – Purple Cafe & Wine Bar – Fabulous place! They have wine tastings that they call “Flights“. Series of 3-5 2.5oz tastings of selected wines from everywhere. We tried a 3 white flight (called the “Hard to Say”) and a 4 red flight (Called “Filthy” – for their earthy taste). We asked our sommelier how many wines they stock – 500 labels he told us. On the island in the middle of the bar area I estimated that there were approximately 200 open bottles being poured from. How they keep it all organized was beyond me. Oh, and the cheesecake was amazing! We spent several hours there savouring the amazing wines that we’d chosen before we climbed the hill and collapsed into bed.

Fabulous day!