Lama Sabachthani

I heard once; "if you try and don't succeed, try! try! try again, if you continue to fail, quit! don't be a dang fool about it".
There is a little town Brinnon WA (home of the Shrimpfest) that straddles US101 on the west bank of the Hood Canal. Brinnon serves as the halfway control for the out and back RUSA 0202. Brinnon the northern tip of this route sits just north of the Dosewallips river, which runs north of the Duckabush, which runs north of the Hamma Hamma. These rivers run from the Olympic Mountains to drain into the Hood Canal under the bridges of the 101.
Dr C's paper made reference to the brackish waters and tide flats of the mini-estuaries of these rivers, in fact I was inclined to believe without any concrete evidence that the "said conversation" took place here. Close examination of the paper also suggested that the whiny Osprey was most likely at this point annoying Hugo Chavez and his countrymen with his screeching.
The last day of the year, Olympia is still sleepy at 0630, Top Foods is quiet, I suspect it will later be thronged with revelers eager to chase away a year of record low consumer confidence with lots of alcohol.
I wonder if the state and local police are up calibrating their breathalyzers. I start to think that most folk would find this last gasp grasp for the Osprey foolish, I reassure myself that Karl Jung would have called it synchronicity.
The Black Lake roads were icy and the lake was a black hole that early in the day, it was smart to rig up Little Wing with big 25 Armadillo's running 100PSI and an outrigger from her fork for the Light in Motion lamp. Lucky traffic at this section was almost non existent.
I was happy to get past the info control and get unto the 101. I like riding the 101, its rollers have just about the right gradient and wavelength for me, it has a decent shoulder mostly and the cavitation created by highway traffic facilitates displacement. Careful! there are some problems. Rumble strips from Olympia to Shelton, not fun to hit at speed, but if you find yourself on the wrong side of the strip slow down and cross it: Debris on the shoulder, usually wood from logging trucks but at this time of the year sand and gravel: Exit points, and you have to stay on the 101, requires pre-planning the crossing and vigilance: One dangerous underpass at Hwy.8 on the southbound lane.

It starts to rain as I get on the 101, forecast called for winds and precipitation, but the wind is now at my back and I make progress. Past Shelton the shoulder is sometimes not so good.

As I go further north into the peninsula it gets milder and the wind and rain subside.

Potlatch, I find the Hood Canal and the sun is rising east of the waters.



Got to Brinnon before noon and before my heart rate came down, in came two Raptors swooping down from Walker Pass, with SIR mud flaps. "Vincent"! Joe calls in surprise. I feel like a kid caught with his hands in the brownie jar. Geoff flashes a big grin and announces that they have come to set up a secret control. "Whatever", I quipped "you are two certifiable's, just like myself". We all laugh.
Short Business at Brinnon and we are off now into the wind, I believe they had been fighting it for some time and it is always better done in a group.
I realize that I did not get a pic of my Raptors and pull out and power on my cybershot still on the fly and inadvertently put it on video mode which I never really use and captured a moment in the last gasps of 08, my first year with the randonneurs. As well as this still shot.

Too little and too good for a randonneur, the time we had together, a brief stop at Hoodsport, Potlatch and they split east on the 106. I wished them fairwinds and stayed on the 101 passing the cow sculptures of the Mud Bay area

there was still a liitle daylight at the final control.

Driving home amidst a plethora of flashing red and blue lights, part illuminating sobriety tests, I realized that I had forgotten all about the Doc's Fish-Birds.

Congrats Geoff on the 10K (no re-name needed).