Date: 03/09
City: New York, New York State
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, humid

We didn’t get a phone call during the night so we went down for breakfast and asked for information at the desk. As it turned out, we would leave tomorrow morning. Great, that meant we have another day in New York. During breakfast we decided to try to meet Belinda, and old friend from the time when we lived in Berlin. As it turned out, she only had something planned in the evening, so we hopped onto public transport and arrived  at her place around noon.

We decided to have breakfast, and from the last time we met I remember that there was ‘Tom Dinner’ nearby, so we used the chance to have breakfast there. The special thing about Tom’s Diner is that Susan Vega made a song about it.

I really enjoyed it here, large coffees and eggs, really nice. After breakfast we walked around Belindas neighbourhood a bit and then went back to her flat.

Since I didn’t know when we would arrive in Berlin, we decided to go to the Australian Consulate in N.Y. so I could vote. Around four PM we said good bye to Belinda and hopped onto the subway. Well, Belinda walked with us and told us which direction and how far we had to remain on the subway. We arrived at Central Station in time, so there was still time to spare before the consulate would close.

When I arrived I was surprised that there was a line up.

After half an hour or so my duty was fulfilled and we walked to the Times Square… actually we walked to the M&M shop to buy some gifts, i.e. personalised M&M’s. Below is Sigrid selecting the colour and pressing the print button, technic pure J

At night we got the new flight schedule and we let Klaus know that we will be late

Date: 04/09
City: New York, New York State
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: sunny, warm

 

We arrived at the airport 3.5h before the scheduled flight and found a long queue but the airline counter was still closed, so we joined the queue and I started to get comfy since nothing had changed in the last 30min.

It turned out that the flight schedule had been altered again but nobody bothered to let us know. The flight would start two hours later. In the end it did and we really left the ground this time 🙂

Date: 31/08
City: New York, New York State
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

Packed up in the morning, everything fit somehow. We did throw plenty of stuff away, my lovely hair clipper which accompanied us the whole trip, my lovely hot sauce….., all that helped us shed a couple of kg. We were ready just in time, and got dropped off to the airport.

Not much happening, except that we flew to New York. The last leg was with a small airplane.

Stephen picked us up from the New York airport. We were really happy that we didn’t have to use the public transport after a day of traveling. Karen and Stephen have the ability to make you feel at home. While exchanging some stories, we had dinner and Stephen was pouring a nice cold beer, what a great welcome.

Date: 01/09
City: New York, New York State
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We had a really relaxed Sunday morning and in the afternoon we were invited to Stephen neighbours to a – start of pension- party. On the right is a picture of the whole party bunch.

It was a nice party, we felt  home here as well, I guess it must be something in the water or beer which causes this area to be so welcoming J.

Date: 02/09
City: New York, New York State
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We had another pleasant morning with lots of talking. After a great dinner – Karen cooked some caramel pudding, I couldn’t stop eating it – we ask our self, why should we leave at all J?
But then we thought of Silas (our grandson who was born just before we left) and packed our stuff. We sent some stuff home, so we needed to print a label. Here are Sigrid and Stephen troubleshooting a printer problem.

They solved the problem in no time and I started to carry our bags upstairs. It went well until I picked up the hand luggage on which Sigrid had orgotten to close the zipper. That created an additional chance to have a look at the contents 🙂

After putting everything back, we said fare well and took a couple of picture.

Just before we hopped into the car, Stephen came with a farewell drink. I think he tried to make it easier for us to leave the US since this was clearly showing that our journey comes to an end.

When we arrived we found a long queue which was not moving at all.

After standing there for an hour or so, the queue started to progress again, but everybody was leaving the counter with their luggage… strange. As it turned out, the airplane had a technical fault – I promise, it wasn’t me – and the plane hadn’t even left Stockholm yet. So we got a voucher so we could by something to eat and we should be back at nine. We told Stephen and Carole that and said good bye.

So we went to have something to eat and around nine we walked back to join the queue again. As it turned out, this time we queued for hotel vouchers. We got a voucher and a description of the way with another couple. When we arrived at the hotel, we got a room together too. They were a very nice Swedish couple, but we tried to get a room for ourselves which eventually worked out. The reception promised us they would give us a ring early enough for us to catch the plane.

Date: 29/08/2013
City: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We decided to have a relaxing day today, no rush. We will get a trolley to the beach and have a look how the Florida beaches compare with the Adelaide beaches.

When we walked along the beach we found these squares closed off with red tape, so we had a look what the sign was saying.

It turned out to be turtle nests and they are closed off so people don’t lay on them. This is certainly something that we don’t have in Adelaide.

When it started to get dark, we had a look at a couple of shops before we stumbled over a nice pub, which  also sold fresh Oysters. I’m starting to see a pattern here, we seem to be drawn to hot springs, Irish pubs (in special locations) and pubs where they sell fresh Oysters.

Before we could eat the first Oyster, a fire alarm went off. It reminded me of Vancouver, where we were in a shop when the fire alarm went off. In Vancouver the whole building was evacuated, whereas here in Fort Lauderdale, everybody seemed to ignore the alarm, so we did as well. When we went home the flashing lights were still going, but we could see guys from the fire brigade working franticly to switch it off.

Date: 30/08
City: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We had a quiet morning and looked for a tour to the Everglades. Finally we found one we liked and they had still places available so we booked it. After lunch we got picked up and shortly after arrived at the Everglade Holiday Park, were the air boat and the gators were waiting for us.

 

We hopped on board and off we went. It was a bit noisy on full blast, but an interesting experience. The guide showed us some particular plants growing in the region, particular some nasty grass that had edges similar to a sharp serrated knife which would cut straight to the bone. The weather was great, no wind or rain, so the sky reflected nicely in the water.

And finally we found the Alligators, just swimming along and checking us out.

The alligators live in fresh water, in contrast to our Salties in Australia. After the excursion we had a look at an Aligator show, where a women was handling an Aligator. These animals were in this sanctury for different reason and they are used to humans, but they are animals after all and each of them could have a bad day.

The trick to holding an alligator is using your head… Literally.  You then have your hands free and can tie a rope around the alligators snout with both hands.

It was fun to watch what you can do with an Alligator, but I must admit I appreciated the fence between us. After the show we hopped on our shuttle bus and got dropped off at the beach, where we had a swim before returning to the hotel.

Date: 25/08
City: Key West, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 257
Cumulative kilometre: 58133
Street: Highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

Sigrid called another hotel in the morning. We originally had earmarked that before but it had been booked. We were lucky, now they had room for when we would return from Key West. Even better, they offered to pick up our luggage from our hotel and store it at their hotel until we check in. So we send the luggage off and walked to the train station. The train looked pretty impressive, and the interior was really nice.

The train brought us close to the airport and after taking a shuttle bus and a taxi we arrived at the Eagle Rider. I had booked a 750cc honda shadow and the guy on the phone told me it comes with a sreen, luggage panniers and a sissy bar. When we arrived, there was no screen and no sissi bar. As it turned out the guys on the phone are sitting somewhere elses and haven’t seen any of the bikes they rent out. The guys at the shop were really nice and swaped the Honda with a Harley, a Fat Boy. They quickly fitted the screen and gave me a short run down about the Fat Boy, including that it is common not to be able to find the neutral and that the gear switching relsults in a massive clunck noise. That which doesn’t mean that the gear box is broken… That is a Harley standart issue gear box. I was happy that they warned me , otherwise I would have thought I broke th gear box. So we packed the bike and off we went.

Had a short break at a coffee shop and grabbed some breakfast.

I forgot the GPS bracket in the other luggage, that one in the hotel, darn! The Harley even had a Ram mount where I could have fitted it. …After driving onto the Keys I wouldn’t need the GPS any more (there is only one large road), but getting out of Miami was more of an issue. However we managed and we arrived at Key Largo.

And not long after that we needed to fill up the bike (no 60L tank here) and I had a power nap.

From our road, we could see the old road, mostly in good condition (from the distance), but all of the sudden there was a gap. Trap for the unsuspecting rider.. 😉

Anyway, not long after we arrived at Key West.

We found the tourist office and they recommended a nice hotel. We really liked it, so we dumped our gear in the room and went to the sunset point, not far from where we were. On the way to the point we saw a funny guy riding around with an Emu on the back of his bike. At sunset point they had a restaurant with life music and a sign that showed how close Cuba really is.

The sunset was not too good, there were just a bit too many clouds around.

After strolling through a couple of shops and getting Sigrid into a nice dress J

we decided to have a look at a restaurant that sold freshly opened oysters for 50 cent/ peace. We were in heaven.

.

Date: 26/08
City: Key West, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 58133
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We liked the hotel so much that we decided to stay a day longer. The heavy rain in the morning may have contributed a bit to that decision as well. So we waited until the rain cleared and after taking some pictures with the motorcycle we went on a discover tour.

Upon leaving the hotel, we found another guest not far from our balconey. On the left picture you can see the bigger dot on the top of the tree, and the right picture is zoomed in.

There was a church we had a look at.

And then we went to the most southern point in the continental US.


Around the corner there was a beach and Sigrid was keen to have a dip before we had a look at the shops.

An there we stumbled over the Mc Connell Irish pub! That must be the most southern Irish pub in the US, we had to check it out…

Then we found a croc shop, thinking Sigrid could do some advertising with her pink ones.

After all that shopping we hurried to get again to the sunset point, and today the sunset looked great. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries so I only got a couple of pictures.

Tomorrow we will leave and see how far we go, we have no destination yet.

Date: 27/08
City: Key Largo, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 167
Cumulative kilometre: 58300
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

A couple of pictures and

a short look at Ernest Hemingway’s home before we continued.

On our way back we stopped at points where we could see the old bridge.

At the end of the seven mile bridge we cold walk on the old bridge, which we certainly did. On the left is the new bridge, on the right the old one.

So we continued until we reached Key Largo and here we stayed at a dive resort. We had to be carefull, otherwise we or the bike could get hit by a nut.

Ah, I nearly forgot. I almost started to doubt that Harleys are loosing oil. Well, I noticed that this nearly new bike started to loose oil, so there seems to be still something to it. The other bit that I noticed was the rust on the chrome. Having said that, this Harley had the same number of cyclinders and the same capacity than both of our DR’s. I must admit, it was fun to ride.

The weather was fine, so we went shopping, had a dip in the pool, before we sat outside and watched the sunset.

This was our last day with the bike, tomorrow we’ll have to return it.

Date: 28/08
City: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 90
Cumulative kilometre: 558390
Street: Highway
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

We packed up, took a couple of pictures of the surrounding and the bike and then left. The challenge was to reach the shop without seeing the GPS, just by voice announcements.

We managed without too many detours and somebody form the shop took a picture of us.

To get to the other hotel we booked before we rented the bike we used public transport.

The new hostel was great, particular that they had a pool, which we immediately tested after we arrived.

We have two days before we leave for New York. We will see what we can organize in this time. I would like to have a look at the Everglades, but it seems to be too hard to get a shuttle to the glades.

 

Date: 23/08
City: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57876
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, humid, warm

We found out that a taxi fare to the airport would be very expensive, so we planned to use the public transport to get there. Eventually we used a bus and a train to the airport, which worked like a charm.


We had repacked everything to make sure that we are under the 23Kg limit per bag. We couldn’t find scales in the hotel, so we packed them by guess work and I was still convinced that the big bag was too heavy. So we made sure that we were  at the airport early enough so we could repack our bags if need be.

I was right, we were a couple of Kg over the limit and the lady at the counter couldn’t be convined that the weight of both our pieces of luggage was below 46Kg (two times 23kg). So we repacked at the side of the counter. We took out our boots, and that was enough to get the weight under the limit. We arrived in Detroid and had a couple of hours lay over time. The Delta terminal was so long that they had their own electric train system.

From there we flew to Ft. Lauderdale and when we arrived it was dark and humid. Sigrid called a Shuttle bus from the hotel and an hour later they picked us up.


We arrived in the hotel and tried to organise leaving part of our luggage there when we travel to Key West on the rented motorcycle. The manager was not very helpful. He said something about ‘only for less than 24 hours’ but he couldn’t really explain why. Bummer, that makes things more difficult for us, well we’ll have to sort that out later.

 

Date: 24/08
City: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57876
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, sunny, humid

In the morning we had a look at how we could get to Eagle Riders, the company we’d rented the bike from. Turned out that a taxi fare would be close to $100, so we checked out the public transport system. It would take us two hours, and it would be around twelve before we would be there. So I called the guys at Eagle Motors to change the booking to one day later, no problem. We opted to stay for the day and leave tomorrow. The weather was nice and warm, if a bit humid. From the hotel entrance we could see the water tower that said that we are in Hollywood, Florida. I didn’t know that there is a Hollywood in Florida, you see travel educates J

In the hotel there was a nice pool and a hot tub to explore and that’s what we did.

So tomorrow we will use public transport to get to Miami, pick up our rented motorcycle and ride to Key West.

Date: 21/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 2
Cumulative kilometre: 57876
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today was the first day in a long time that we looked out of the window and there we no bikes anymore. All gone, done and dusted. Since we sold them in a relative short time, we had a couple of days to spare before we would say good bye to Stephen and his family and the American Continent. But first we had to organize some packing material to send our things back that we didn’t need anymore, like all the tent and camping equipment. Since the plan was to ride Hugos Bike in Europe, we still needed everything bike related except the spare parts and the mechanical tools. Below we finally found a shop which sold packing material and cheap suitcase type of bags.

After organizing the pickup for tomorrow morning we organized a meeting with Joel at a Mexican restaurant close to us. As we found out it was a special birthday yesterday, we organised a birthday cake – that is to say a muffin with candles. When the waiter found out that it was Joel’s birthday he came back with a Mexican hat and some sort of liqueur and all the personnel sang happy birthday in Spanish. It was a lovely evening.


 

Date: 22/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57876
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, sunny, warm

Today was the day where we would send our stuff home so we’d be ready to fly to Florida. The pickup truck arrived earlier than booked, so we had to send him back because we were not ready. Finally, when all was packed and ready to get picked up, the truck arrived again.

The pickup went without a hitch, off goes our stuff. See you back in Adelaide!


Now the flight to Florida was booked, and we were ready to pack the rest of our things. The new travel bag was huge and so was the weight. As there were no scales in the hotel, all the shuffling around was done by picking up the bag and saying a number between 20kg and 35kg 😀
We were really happy that the new bags had wheels, otherwise it would be hard to carry them on public transport tomorrow morning. In the evening we used Google maps to find the way to the airport via public transport and the suggested start time was 5:15AM… Well it’ll be an early start.

 

 

Date: 19/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 143
Cumulative kilometre: 57868
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We were lucky and there was no rain in the morning. Nevertheless, the inner tent was still wet, so we packed it up but we’ll have to dry it again later on.

Since everybody was talking about the Hurricane ridge, we decided to have a look at it. The road to the visitor canter was fantastic, nice curves with a breathtaking landscape around.

And here are some pictures of the trail.



On our way back we stopped at McDonalds, to use the free Wifi to send Joel a mail that we will arrived pretty late today. So we continued to travel close to the place where we would meet with Joel. In the hotel we received a mail from Joel that we shouldn’t stress and we could meet up tomorrow instead. Ok, that gives us a bit time to clean the bikes again..

Date: 20/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 6
Cumulative kilometre: 57874
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

In the morning some fire brigades stopped at our motel, it turned out that one of the occupants fell sick.

We also received a mail from James, who was interested in both bikes in the first place and noticed our price drop on Craigslist and was keen to have a test ride with Sigrid’s bike. In the beginning he didn’t want the luggage, but after the test ride he wanted to keep it as well. So we agreed on a price and we decided to meet with Joel and James in the same restaurant to finalise the deals and do the paper work.

Which also meant emptying Sigrid’s bike for us, and to start packing stuff which we would like to send home. Around 4PM we said good bye to our noble steeds and hoped on for the last ride.


So we meet Joel and James in the restaurant, did the paper work, got the money and handed over the keys.

We dropped my bike off at Joel’s place, and when we said good bye he mentioned that it would be his 60th birthday tomorrow. So we congratulated him before James and his friend dropped us off at the hotel.

 

What a day, now we are ‘Bikeless in Seattle’!

Date: 17/08
City: Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 132
Cumulative kilometre: 57726
Street: Single lane paved
Weather: Cloudy, sunny, warm

In the morning we had a look and again found some people interested in our bikes. And again, most of them would only pay via Paypal, which got really annoying. There were a couple of other legitimate offers, but they were all on the way down in San Francisco. So plan B was to go two up to San Fran and pass through the towns to show the bikes. If somebody buys the second bike, we will then try to get to a larger airport to fly to N.Y and then to Germany. Unfortunately, that would mean that we can’t visit Key West, Florida. After all the emailing mail was done, we packed up and started around 11AM, on a Saturday. You can imagine the queue for the ferry, it was really long. We passed all cars and went to the front as they said on the ferry web page, keeping a watchful eye on all the car driver to ensure that nobody was pissed off and tried to shoot us J.
A guy at the front told us how to get to the booth where we purchased the tickets. Back to the both, we got told to use the left lane to get onto the boat. We went on, another car followed and then the ferry left. I like the VIP treatment for bikes as well as the price, it was 7$/bike.


Once we were off the ferry we followed the way to the hot springs, looking at an amazing landscape, even though it was cloudy.


When we arrived at the hotspring we organize a spot on the campground and pitched our tent.

We decided to skip the hot spring for today, since the fee was only for a day, which left us with only two hours of usage today. So we organized some wood and cooked dinner on a bonfire.

Date: 18/08
City: Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57726
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, Sunny, warm

After breakfast we walked to the hot spring and soaked there for a couple of hours. In the afternoon we decided to walk to the waterfall nearby.



We thougth finishing the walk entitled us to another dip in the hotspring. There we organizing some more wood at the same time.


It was surprisingly full at night, but there was still enough space to soak. At night we again cooked  dinner on the bonfire, I really enjoy this type of cooking.

The sky looked clear and we were hoping that it doesn’t rain so we can pack the tent away dry tomorrow.

Date: 16/08
City: Edmonds, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 74
Cumulative kilometre: 57594
Street: Single lane paved
Weather: Sunny, warm

Today was the day; we would leave Seattle and start moving towards San Francisco. Gaila had an appointment with a friend of hers for a ride, so she got ready, we said goodbye to our generous host and off she went.


We finished packing our bikes and just before Sigrid closed the laptop, we got a mail that somebody was interested in one of our bikes. We sent him the requested details (VIN and registration) and after a while he came back and said he would like to have a look at the bikes around 4PM. So we decided to stay in Seattle and waited until 4 to meet with him. We tried to be on time at the meeting point, but the traffic during the rush hour in Seattle is, let’s say, very relaxed. Not too much movement at all…J.

Which brings me to another point, why is it called it rush hour when nobody is moving? Ok, so I digress.
We called Joel and told him that we on our way but stuck in a traffic jam and that we would be there 20 minutes or so. When we finally arrived, Joel took both bikes for a test ride and it turned out that he liked my bike better J and he would like to take it, inclusive of the H&B luggage. Sigrid and I decided on the spot that we would stay in this area, have a look at the Olympic peninsula over the weekend, get the bike ready and call to make a time that suits both sides. We talked a lot about our trip, the bikes and the setup, so that we left a bit late. The fastest way to the Olympic peninsula was with a ferry, but when we arrived there is started to get dark so we decided to stay here overnight and take the ferry tomorrow morning.

Date: 12/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 243
Cumulative kilometre: 57321
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We packed the bikes and got on our way before the black clouds arrived. We arrived at the border around lunch time, which is not desirable. The sign predicted a waiting time of 45 minutes, which was pretty close to reality. We continued to Gaila’s and Tad’s retreat and got a warm welcome. We met Enrice, a traveller that Gaila and Tad met before who booked into Gaila’s and Tad’s resort with his camper van. We found out that Tad was working for Microsoft again, but this time in a different role. Gaila, meanwhile, was working for the Council. It is really impressive how fast they got  jobs. At night, Gaila cooked a Gazpacho, a cold tomato soup, which tasted fantastic and as desert we got an s’more cooked over the bonfire, just for us. Below are Tad and Gaila preparing the s’more.

The s’more consists of two cookies, chocolate and melted marshmallows and it is hard to stop eating them, I guess that’s where the name – some more – comes fromJ.

We went to bed well fed J

Date: 13/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 123
Cumulative kilometre: 57444
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We brought Sigrid’s bike to the workshop to get the neutral switch replaced. We ask if they would like to take the bike into consignment and the answer was no. Additionally, the price they were willing to offer had they been interested was too low for us in the first place and they would like to have 20% of the low price on top of it. Well, there goes the idea of the consignment. We went shopping in the mean time to get some plugs for the GPS and the Spot, so we can fit them both to one bike and easily remove them when we sell the last bike. In the mean time we got a couple of people who would like to buy the bike and pay via Paypal, none of them were reachable and the bike was always a gift for somebody else. We know the scam since the time Sigrid tried to sell our tent in Australia and let these guys know that we accept cash only. We didn’t hear from them again.
Gaila was preparing chicken cooked Argentinian style which meant that the chicken was slowly cooked for several hours. Below a picture of Gaila after she got on top of the fire J

Well, I had my draughts first, if that was really worthwhile the effort, but I must admit it tasted awesome and I will give it a try at home. After such a nice meal, Tad offered to start the water pipe, which was an appropriate finish to the great meal.

We sat together and talked for a long time, it was really enjoyable and relaxing. What hospitality. (Booking.com ***** 5 stars).

Date: 14/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57444
Street: N/A
Weather: Cloudy, rain, Sunny, warm

It did rain in the morning, so we decided to stay today and get the bikes ready, which meant cleaning them and removing all parts that we didn’t want to sell. It is amazing how long it can take to clean a bike thoroughly. In the evening we went to an Italian restaurant with Tad and Gail, where we met a friend we’d met on a ride before. After the meal we went over to the coffee shop for coffee and dessert. We finished the night with a rented video for a quiet evening at home.

Date: 15/08
City: Seattle, Washington
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 57520
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We started to get a bit concerned about how and when we would sell our bikes. We contacted Suma and Hoa, motorcycle travellers we met on the Stahlratte and later in Buenos Aires. Hoa mentioned that we should come to San Francisco when we try to sell our bikes. He offered to store them in his garage and put them up on Craigslist frequently, until sold. So we though about leaving Casa Tad’n Gaila and start moving towards San Francisco, with a short stop in Portland, Oregon. Someone from Portland responded, but it was too far for him to get to Seattle to have a look at the bikes, so we decided to meet him on our way down.