Category Archives: Photos

Photos from traveling around the globe but also our home, near Seattle, WA, Puget Sound

Greenwater to I90 2nd motorcycle attempt on dirt

We have tried last week of June only to get stopped very early by snow. I needed to do a test run after doing valve adjustment on my BMW R1200 GS so we set with Michal for a 2nd try. On google maps it looked liked there are multiple ways around the snow roadblock – we were wrong.

We made it 0.5 miles further on FS 7036 only to find 5 feet of snow visible for couple miles. We tried the first way around. Only to run into a corps of something big – probably deer that reminded us we need to be careful – one mistake and we would join it in its afterlife…. All of the other ways we looked at were dead ends. So back to FS 7030 and trying via the other valley. The GPS shows we can connect on FS 7035 and while I am skeptical since this is very close to Tacoma watershed we are going to try it.

The road very quickly becomes overgrown and almost a single track. The first issue comes when we get to a washout. We push standing next to the big bikes in a gear and after 30 minutes are over. The next issue are fallen rocks – again 30 or so minutes later we have path.. The next block was above our ability with big bikes – basically washout with 3 places where we would have to get the bikes over and not enough time/energy to do it in the highly probable case of returning the same way. A group of rides with a shovel or on lighter bikes would have no issues. So we go back and negotiate  the washouts once more.

I noticed there are reports of people making it from 410 to I90 via FS 7037 but can’t find it on any map – anybody would be able point where it starts?

Full GPS map here

Nella was born …. At Fire Station!

We knew the 2nd child would be born faster. We made plans to accommodate. We didn’t wait and drove as soon as contractions started. And yet we still didn’t make it…

Hi, I am Nella and I was born at Renton Fire Station 16 on June 10th at 2:54 AM!

As soon as we got into our car in front of our house the water broke. I knew it would take about 35 minutes of swift driving to get to the hospital. But after getting on a HWY169 we ran into a cop sitting on a side. Doing about 90mph in 50mph zone I was thinking, oh no I am going to jail so I pulled next to him and asked if he would accompany us to the hospital so we can get there faster. He drove at speed limits, no flashing lights and when he turned onto a side street Lucie yelled go to the freeway! I decided to follow him and we ended at the fire station. Thinking good, they are going to get her into an ambulance and we will go. Never-mind their ambulance is not equipped for baby delivery. We were told paramedics will come and take her. Marc, who was the EMT on that shift never delivered baby, so it was him,me and of course Lucie with the other firemen assisting. By the time the paramedics got there it was too late for any transport. 7 minutes later Nella was born into Marc’s hands. They gave me something that looked like a small box cutter but it was sealed in a bag so I assumed it is sterile and I cut the cord. After Nella was crying thus breathing and very alive.
I will spare you the details but 2 hours later we were all safe in the hospital and the doctor said everything is fine. Now we are at home, all healthy, happy and Lucas a bit jealous he is not the only one any more.

Thanks to our parents for the help, friends for visiting and support and all of you for your wishes.

Tomas, Lucie, Nella and Lucas

Motorcycle offroad traning and Mt. Rainier trip

On Sunday April 8th we met at 8:15 near HWy 18 in Hobart. The goal was to find and explore some new dirt routes before our 2PM motorcycle offroad training in Roy, WA. I have spent hours on Google Maps in street views trying to find which roads may not be blocked and lead us to some more rugged area. Unfortunately I have not expected signs like the first photo below – we agreed we are not going to push our luck if though on the map it seemed that road connected to a nice system of fire roads.
The next road was gated off because of the Tacoma watershed area – OK that one I understand. But all of the other DNR gates I don’t. Why can’t street legal motorcycles travel on dirt routes, when there is no active logging??!! The same goes for the Hancock managed land – there are so many roads that would be great to travel but all of them are off limits. So the only dirt road was 165 to Evan’s creek ORV area where we found Ford 150 stuck in snow/mud. Went back for help and left before the rescue was finished. Beautiful views form up there!
Next we went to Roy, WA for the Puget Sound Safety motorcycle offroad training. We started with their smaller Kawasaki KLX 250 bikes but quickly switched back to our big Vstrom 650 and my BMW R1200 GS for some of the exercises…

At the end we decided to try jumping the logs with big bikes – something we have not imagined would be possible even with the small once before the training – it worked! Just look at the videos below 🙂

great day, great ride!


Fast Tube by Casper


Fast Tube by Casper

BMW and Vstrom 650 off road in Nort Bend, WA

Today was another great day for riding – while it was raining so hard at most Eastside, the North Bend area based on the radar was dry – we even got to see sun through the clouds at some moments. As you can notice a week later compared to the last moto trip the snow line was much higher so we were able to find out why the road was closed – wash out from a stream.

Since this was Karel’s first real time off the pavement he pushed his bike and while I wasn’t sure about the strength of the mud I decided to ride – it was fine and it held the heavy BMW R1200 GS just fine.

Or course it looks so easy in the video:


Fast Tube by Casper

Lucie’s Graduation

It’s a bit complicated… Especially since Lucie is still going to school 🙂 But the short story is that during her studies at Bellevue College, the school has changed to a 4 year institution thus allowing those in existing programs to “upgrade” their 3 year Interior Design degrees (as well as others) to a 4 year BAs just by adding the last year and change. So Lucie has graduated from the original program but has 2 classes left in order to get her BA but those have to be taken subsequently in different semesters. So final, final date will be sometime in January 2011…

Skiing Olympic Whistler 2010

After being in Vancouver for the Olympics we drove up to Whistler to continue watching some of the downhill skiing and were able to ski and share lift rides with some of the sportsman like Zahrobska, Body and their teams. Thanks to our friends we had an incredible accommodation in 5 million $ house on Blueberry hill and the only drag was the “no parking” rule in the Whistler village