When is a speeding ticket not always a bad thing?

Back in the mid 90’s my wife wanted to go over to the Washington peninsula for a short vacation. I think she read about the place on Lake Crescent in Sunset magazine or something. I was thinking that it didn’t sound like all that much fun unless I could take the bike. So she being the accommodating person she is, drove the car and I rode my Honda CBR600F2.

After riding part of the day in the rain we got to the little cabin at Piedmont (North side of the Park).

The next day I decided to go for a ride and my younger daughter wanted to go as well.  This back in the day when you looked at a map for all the little squiggly lines for the best ride.  Jessica and I are very similar and if I wanted to dial it up a notch or two, it was certainly alright with her. We found a couple of nice back roads and cruised out to Neah Bay at a fairly brisk pace.

This area is Washington’s rainforest and the scenery is stunning.  During the mid-90’s, most of the logging industry had fallen on hard times (Spotted Owl anyone?), thus the forests were largely dense.  The Olympic Mountains are spectacular as are the roads; and the law enforcement was as thick as the trees!

As we were coming back through the National Park, everything was perfect; beauty all around us, perfect pavement, lots of nice twisties, and sweeping curves.  Then we got behind a Ford Crew Cab Diesel with a bunch of loggers in it. This was not really a problem as they were going 35-50 and I was sure they knew the road as well as anyone.

We followed them for maybe 10 miles until we all caught up with the tourists that were gawking at the lovely lake and doing the speed limit (which I think was 30mph).  Even though it was a double yellow line, the Ford and I are picking them off as safely as possible. Finally we got around the last one and we were back on pace. I followed the Ford for another mile or so and got tired of inhaling diesel fumes and decided pass. Just as I got around the truck, we met up with Smokey the Bear (park ranger) with his radar on.

The good news was that he did not see the pass over the double yellow line, but we got it for 20mph over the limit.

My wife wasn’t too happy about my new award nor about the poor example I was setting for our daughter.  There was an upside to the incident besides the really great ride. Jessica tells her older sister, who tells all her friends, and now the word is out!  All the young men she knows now think her dad is ‘pretty cool’ as he is known to ride ‘briskly’.

Unfortunately, sometimes you pay to be "cool".