Bob's Hawaiian Coconut Lounge

There are two wonderful "secondary" roads running across northern Washington State for someone wanting to avoid the interstate on a trip to Seattle. State Route 20 looks more enticing, but we decided to stay on US 2 in the service of completing our chosen task. The passes through the Cascade Mountains behind Mt. Rainier are not as dramatic as the Continental Divide in the Rockies, but they offer great long sweeping curves and excellent road surface that makes motorcycle travel a joy. Finding the terminal point of US Rte. 2 was a bit anticlimatic however.

 

Rte 2 enters the greater Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area east of Everett, WA through the typical jungle of McDonald's, Target, Appleby's, Walmart, and Shell. As it passes under Interstate 5, its signage seems to disappear and it becomes Hewett St., on of downtown Everett's main east-west thoroughfares. At the end of Hewitt are the commercial docks and facilities of a major Pacific port, the longshoreman's union hall, and Bobby's Hawaiian Style Restaurant & Coconut Lounge. We had arrived. 2,727 miles from Chelsea...another 600+ miles for Uncle Jimmy... And this was it.

Western end of US Rte 2, Everett, WA

 

A couple of nights in Seattle, bikes serviced at RideWest BMW, outstanding seafood, and the hospitality of new friends Randy & Alison made the visit good. Soon to be off for Mt. St. Helens, sight of the catastrophic volcanic eruption in 1980. One of 160 active volcanoes in the "Pacific Rim of Fire," its eruption was the most economically devastating and deadliest in the history of the United States.



Mt. St. Helens before 1980

...after 1980

Our route was to take us along the back side up to Spirit Lake