40,000 bikers and 1 rug

Huh? Yeah, the title refers to my Sunday. After waking up at 5:15am because the crazy alarm clock in our hotel room was somehow set, I putzed online, talked to mom for an hour (boy did I scare her when I called at 6:15 my time), and then convinced NavyGuy that we should continue our search for a livingroom rug for the new house. We had looked at IKEA on Saturday, but were wholly disappointed in the selection. We needed something fairly big, but also a good "fall" color to blend in with the color scheme in our new house, plus it had to past NavyGuy's scratchiness test (don't ask)...

In a preview of our future joint furniture/home decorating life together, we went to nine different stores in the past 24 hours, remembered that we have completely different tastes, price points, quality vs. quantity perspectives, and opinions on what constitutes a "scratchy" rug. God help us. I think those experts who claim so many divorces are because of money are full of it; I'm gonna write a book and get on Oprah showing that home decor decisions are to blame. The worst part of all of this is yes, we did find a rug, but it wasn't until the last store - WalMart! Gag. It is a sweet rug though, and we paid just enough money that I'll want to vacuum it and keep it nice, but no so much money that I'll commit homicide if one of the boy roommates spills beer on it.

In other news, we got our first taste of weekend life in Anacortes... and one weekend a year, that taste includes 40,000 motorcycles and 63,000 thousand pairs of leather chaps. Huh? Luckily, we arrived right in time for the annual Oyster Run. When a real estate agent first mentioned this earlier in the week, we thought, "Oh okay, like a 5K or something. Maybe a cutesy little festival for the anniversary of the first oyster caught (fished?) on the island." Ha! We were quickly informed that Oyster Run is the Pacific Northwest's version of Sturgis, but with more wind and I swear more leather. In the span of one day, literally thousands of bikers descend on Anacortes (a "town" of maybe 15,000 people) for this event, which seems to involve parking bikes along the street, gazing upon the bikes, and drinking. Oh, and snarling traffic from here to the mainland. Natch.

I'm sorry, but I was just never one of those girls who found motorcycle guys appealing. I never had the fantasy of being a rebel and cruising around town with the muscular, dark haired, biker guy, revving the engine, and stoppin' at the drive-in before breaking curfew. I find motorcycles loud, smelly, loud, annoying on the highway, recklessly dangerous, irritating when they park at the front of a parking spot and you think there's an open spot, but nope - cycle - , and oh, did I mention loud? Plus, I've never looked good in leather. So, realizing our cute little town was going to be invaded, we headed out of Dodge for the day to shop in the closest town with a mall. Along the way however, we had to stop for gas, and we entered the tattooed Twilight Zone. The gas station was overrun with cycles, and interesting people clustered in groups, staring at other groups, sizing everyone up. I swear, if Hell's Angels had driven up to the pump next to us, I would not have been surprised. And there seemed to be some sort of hierarchy or tribal order to the different cliques of bikers clustered throughout the parking lot. We didn't stay long enough for me to do an anthropological study, but I did deduce that wearing pink leather or eating organic chips did not boost your popularity.

NavyGuy and I have a busy few days coming up - we officially get keys to the house tomorrow. When the movers will come is still up in the air, but the time is getting closer when yours truly will finally have the important things again: a permanent address, her own bed, all of her clothes, her scrapbooking supplies, and her TiVo. It's been beautiful weather the entire time we're here, but guess when it's going to start raining... ;)