For various reasons I‘m staying in Yakima for several nights. It‘s a good hub.

Saturday night: attempt to eat at the neighboring Mexican restaurant. It is packed. Not just the tables, but the waiting area. No masks. I leave so quickly that another group of five coming in is offended by my elbow work. I just have to get out of that crowd.

Got in on another night, though. Therefore the following photos. They include a birthday at the neighboring table. (Note the sombrero):

Mexican restaurants with giant portions and a nightmare exit for parents with small children

While eating, one group of diners is celebrating a birthday. Three waiters assemble, and sing a Mexican birthday song. Followed by the American Happy Birthday, with three claps after each phrase:

Happy Birthday to you [clap-clap-clap]
Happy Birthday to you [clap-clap-clap]
——-> Happy Birthday dear Francesco [clap-clap-clap]
Happy Birthday to you [Yeaaaaaah; insanely happy clapping all around]

The problem with the Happy Birthday song is line 3, marked with an arrow above. It’s when every participant picks a key, and continues in that chosen clef. The result sounds like a herd of cats in agony or heat.

Nonetheless, the singing and clapping makes for a festive atmosphere. And seen from my view behind them, the waiters seem really into it. But as soon as they turn around to hurry back to their serving duties, I see their faces. They instantly fall into an entirely disinterested, neutral expression. I think that to be so sad. Here it is Francesco’s birthday, and the waiters don’t seem genuinely happy.

After the third Happy Birthday [clap-clap-clap] episode, however, I understand. It would drive me insane to sing that song 10 times a day.

Chinook Pass Excursion

A seven hour excursion up to Chinook Pass. This really is my landscape:

I appreciate an ocean view, or a desert tableau. But I feel connected to a landscape like this. It’s the childhood summer vacations in the Black Forest.

Along the way: breakfast part way up to pass. I get the last warm meal! While mine is on order, the power gives out. The waitresses keep apologizing, as if they had cut the cable while digging the road work downhill. But my meal has heated up just enough before the outage. Yessss! It is a funky place:

Why a picture of that men’s room door? Because that sign says it how it is. No pictographic euphemism, like a triangle, or lately a triangle on top of a circle. No, if you’re a guy it’s behind this door that you go.

At the pass, a parking lot where I balance my 500 pounder on its side stand, and walk a ways into the woods on the side to pee. I pass a sign that deceptively says:

A sign a bit further in adds that a 1.5 mile distance is involved. I’m not a hiker, I’m a biker. So I ignore that sign, and continue in search of a tourist free spot behind a tree. I find one, but decide to saunter just a bit further, and suddenly I find myself on that Naches Loop. Heck, how hard can it be? … 1.5 miles in full motorcycle outfit. What I learned is this:

Before you walk a mile, ask what kind of mile it is.

Alternatively, pay attention to outfits of hikers that are coming towards you, having finished the trail. Do they carry hiking sticks? Yes. Are they dressed in specialized REI clothing? Yes. Are they carrying not one, but two hiking sticks? Several of them. Water bottles? You bet. Do they all seem younger than you? Well, yeah, mostly, actually.

I just bid a cheerful ‘Hello’ to each of these walking warning posts, and continued. I can always turn around, right? Problem is this: it’s a loop. Yes, that trail keeps climbing relentlessly. But at some point I must have passed the halfway point. I just don’t know when. So, if I were to turn around, I might be a fool. Like any other gambler, I keep throwing good money after bad, and keep going. And this keeps happening: I see beautiful sights:

Plus, hikers are coming towards me, and I have nasty thoughts about them:

“Hah, hah, you think you’re mostly done, don’t you? “

Retrospectively I know, of course, that the joke was on me most of that time. And while I do attain a hiking rhythm, and after a while don’t need to stop for breathe as often, eventually I am damn happy to see my motorcycle. And! The very last of the trail signs, whose number totaled three says:

Naches Peak Trail Loop

Remember the initial sign in the picture up above? There is a difference between a Loop, and a Peak Loop. The former you see in resort areas. They run around the golf course, or some pond. The work ‘Peak’ changes the meaning, you know. And what also changes the meaning is a sign towards the very end:

Had I know I was on the PCT, I would have stopped right after peeing.

I ride back to the hotel, and sleep for 16.5 hours. I’m not kidding you.

Dinner at Water Fire

After that massive sleep I am hungry, and take an Uber to the Water Fire restaurant. The food is very good; much more normal portions than at the Happy Birthday place.

But the best are the Uber drivers to and from. On the way there I get a retired Navy Seal in a Jeep. When he was 15 he won the marksmanship contest at the nearby army base where his father worked. He shot with his Dad’s first M14, modified to be a hunting rifle. When he won that medal, his father, who ran the contest asked a prime shooting soldier to go one on one with my then young driver.

The soldier did a good job, but left a tiny paper flap that the boy had to shoot away to get into the target. I‘m thinking „hanging chad,“ though I don‘t mention that to my driver. Well, as you can imagine, the boy hit that chad, and the soldier gave him one of his own marksmanship medals in recognition.

Now, given that that the organizer of the shootout was an officer might have had something to do with the soldier‘s courtesy. But still, this event is in this man‘s mind even now. In retirement after 20 years in the Navy Seals, and many years after.

Once a seal, he asked his commander whether he could use his father‘s converted M14 instead of the standard issue. He could.

„As long as you can get the silencer on the barrel”

That is, my driver became a Navy Seal sniper. I didn‘t know that you can have silencers on rifles. In the movies it‘s always screwed onto pistols.

But no, I looked it up. Not only can you, but from Quora:

Can a silencer effectively be used on a sniper rifle? – Quora. Yes, suppressors silencers) are now ubiquitous on sniper rifles. Suppressors do not make you silent on the battlefield, but they do make you disappear.

So my driver isn’t deceiving me. He explains further:

“You have to use a silencer. The target must just silently [makes a falling over gesture]. There are snipers on the other side that are looking for you. It’s you or me. And it’s always me!“

He is quite matter of fact about the whole thing. After learning that I prefer the US over Germany in part because there isn’t so much formality here:

“Yeah, in Germany you get asked for your papers a lot. We didn’t show papers a lot. ‘Just passing through.’”

He commanded five people, and they did ‘jobs’ together throughout. And then they “moved on.” Once the youngest of them was hit by a 45 caliber. But it wasn’t bad. My driver took him over his shoulders. They evacuated him. But the medic on the helicopter already took out the slug, and on base he just needed a couple of stitches.

Then: dinner:

A gorgeous wine rack, and the polar opposite of Burger King.

On the way back, my Uber driver is Brenda. I wait in the restaurant parking lot for a woman. Pulling into the handicapped parking spot is a car with a man driving, and a woman in the passenger seat; late 60s. Handicapped placard.

The man calls out:

“You waiting for an Uber? Brenda?”

Turns out he doesn’t let his wife Brenda drive Uber gigs alone. He is one of the largest persons I’ve seen. Quite large. He is the man behind the handicap placard. And when it comes to danger, he’s the man to know. Before Uber driving he had a business for 20 years. Bail bonds. And before that he was the enforcer for someone else’s bail bond business.

“I used to hate everybody. I was not a good person. You can’t run that business straight. That’s just not how it’s done. But now I’m retired. I’m fine. I’m with the church.”

“The way it works is, say, your bail is $10,000. I charge you 10%, which you pay ahead of time. Depending on the charges and my impression of you I may also get collateral. Then, if the guy doesn’t show at court, I have 30 days to find him. I used to be the guy who did the finding. Then I started my own business, and hired a younger guy.”

“I did a lot with gang bangers. They had my back, actually. There was one guy, though. Nobody wanted him. He was illegal, but his country didn’t want him, we didn’t want him. The police asked me to take care of him to make things simple. But I told them. I said I’m not goin’ to do your job. If he pulls a gun on me, then sure. Self defense. But I’m not doing your job for you.”

Worth the dinner!