We were a little late leaving Winthrop this morning. The bed was so comfortable, and after Jody brought coffee back to the room, we opened the balcony door and sat around drinking coffee and listening to the river. We probably could have just spent the day relaxing on the balcony. After coffee, we packed up the bike, talked to another motorcycle couple from Alberta, Canada for a while and headed over to Sheri's Sweet Shop for some of her famous cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Delicious! By the time we actually headed out it was after 8:30.
     We left town continuing on WA-20W, the northernmost scenic road, part of the North Cascade Loop . The scenery was breathtaking as we came through three passes over 5000 ft along the way. The scenic overlooks at some of these was very well developed, and you could get off the bike and hike a short distance to a wonderful overlook. We took lots of pictures as we stopped along the way all day. There were also a couple of small dams, mostly the Ross Dam and the Diablo dam that you could see from the road. The Diablo Dam actually had a side road that you could travel down that let you ride across the top of the dam to the other side. It was a great experience.
     Eventually we stopped at the Visitors center to get our passports stamped. There were lots of places to hike in the cascades, but most were day long hikes and required registering with the ranger. We just didn't have the time, so we settled for the overlooks. One thing we did notice were a LOT of bicycles! It seemed like that was the thing to do on the Cascade Loop. I'm not really sure the attraction, but there were definitely more bicycles than motorcycles, and there were a LOT of motorcycles .
     From Winthrop to the western edge of the Northern Cascades National Park is about 100 miles, and is some of the best riding other than the Going to the Sun road in Glacier.   Diablo Lake had the same kind of blue-green color that we saw in Glacier, and supposedly the color change is due to suspended rock particles in the lake water caused by the glacier action. All I know is that the color o Diablo Lake was really strange, and I'm sure no wonder they called it Diablo Lake.
     As we came out of the cascades and got our first glimpse of the Pacific and Peugeot Sound, the temperature began to drop. We continued west on US-20W which took us out onto Whidbey Island. I think the temperature drop was due to the water on both sides of the narrow strip called Whidbey island. We did pass by the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, and waved at the CASS Stations there, and maybe there are eCASS Stations there by now. Don't know, we just waved from afar, and did stop for a second to snap a couple of pictures at the entrance .
     WA-20W turned into WA-525S, and if you look on the map, or in mapquest, it just magically comes to an end at the tip of Whidbey Island, and then dotted lines over the water, and resumes on the mainland. The real way this is done is to take a ferry. Having never taken a motorcycle on a ferry, we weren't quite sure what to expect, but why not. Turns out there are a couple of cool things about taking a motorcycle on a ferry. First, it turns out it is very cheap. $4.65 to take myself, Jody, and the bike across the bay for about 3 miles. Second, motorcycles load on the ferry first, so when you pay your $4.65, the lady tells you to drive past all the other waiting cars to the special spot for motorcycles in front of them all. Third, when all the other cars coming the other way have gotten off the ferry, the attendant signals the motorcycles on first, right to the front of the boat, so when they dock, the motorcycles are also the first off. How cool is that!
     There were about 20 motorcycles that got off from going the other way, but there was only me and one other bike going from Whidbey to the mainland . We let him go first so we would know where to go and what to do. The ferry was huge, and ran continuously all day back and forth. It had two levels of cars and held about 100, but all the motorcycles were on the bottom deck. Once we got on and shut off the bike, we were free to wander the ferry and take pictures. They even had a little snack bar in case you were hungry. It did not seem like much of a cruise though without a continuous buffet available for the passengers!
     Once we left the ferry, we quickly changed roads again to WA-99S. Now WA-99S looked exactly like Semoran, or OBT, or Colonial in Orlando. It was almost one continuous strip mall on bot sides of the street until we were with a couple on miles of downtown. Same homeless people, same seedy motels, same everything, I guess all metropolitan areas look about the same.
     When we arrived at the hotel, about a block or two from the Space Needle and most of the tourist attractions, it looked pretty good from the outside . We try to look a little harder when we know we're going to be staying in a place for a few days, and in the case of Seattle, we are staying for 5 nights. We'll do the Super 8 or the Rodeway Inn for a day or two but for five nights, we picked the Hampton Inn. Now the basic room at the Hampton Inn was nice, but for an extra $30 a night, you could upgrade to a suite. So we cashed in some Hotels.com points and upgraded. Are we glad we did! When we opened the door, the suite was really a one bedroom apartment. It had a full kitchen, with full-size stove and refrigerator and granite countertops. It had a separate living room with fireplace and balcony. It had a separate bedroom with a king-size bed and a door. The bathroom had two doors and was either accessible from the bedroom or the kitchen. This place was larger than my first apartment!
     Tomorrow we will start exploring Seattle. My credit card company is sending me a replacement card. Cindy is shipping us Jody's 90-day medications. And the bike now has 24,000 miles on it and needs to be serviced. So in addition to playing tourist, we do have a couple of other things to take care of. It should be a great few days! We will begin to look for restaurants tomorrow, so for tonight, sandwiches at the pizza bar across from the hotel was good enough for us.

234.7 miles today
8507.5 miles total

4.707 gallons today
202.233 gallons total