Selling Cycles

Today my friend Sean sold a little Honda trail 90 motorcycle to a man living in Oak Harbor. We loaded it up in the van, with his dog Aslan and headed out to deliver the yellow machine.

We arrive at the man's house. To start with his mailbox was an orca whale. His fence had an orca windsock attached to it. There was an orca mural and various other orca items. He sounded a little wishy-washy over the phone too so Sean and I weren't expecting to be dealing with an individual of sterling character or anything like that.
The man comes out to greet us. The lines on his face and the glasses he wears remind me of my late step-grandfather. This gentleman is rather quite as he thoughtfully inspects the motorcycle. We unload it and he and Sean begin to talk business.

The transaction is easy and flawless. Then the gentleman starts to tell us about himself. Turns out that this guy is a Naval surgeon. (as in, he is a surgeon in the Navy, not like a surgeon who works on bellybuttons or something)
He goes on to tell us about his multiple tours in Afghanistan. He jokes about how there's only one road there. The people are very primitive, he says, most of them cannot even read, most don't even know they're Afghani or where they are located on a map. He tells us about the abundance of opium fields and marines' claims of fifteen foot tall cannabis plants.
I could see the outline of his dog tags beneath his shirt.
The most common kind of injuries he treats are men they bring in who've had both legs blown off above the knee.
"These guys are twenty years old and they'll bring them into me with both arms and both legs blown off. Everyone talks about how high the survival rates are for us over there, but is it really worth it to live with no arms or legs?" He says everyones' first question when they're brought in is "Did they get my nuts?". As soon as the soldiers are reassured that they still have their testicles they're administered a sedative so the surgeon can start his work.  
The man tells us some of the rules of war. "Don't fire unless fired upon and don't use deadly force."
These rules came as quite a surprise to me but apparently this is totally standard. (color me ignorant)
This surgeon has two more years left in the service. My van reminds him of one he bought while he was in San Diego, says he misses the thing like crazy.
After talking about war, vans and the way the world works the conversation starts to come to an end. Sean and I load back up into the van. The surgeon's parting advice, about the world, is this.
"It's all about money dudes.......and don't get married."

On our way back we stop at deception pass.

Urinating off the bridge is mandatory.

Deception pass bridge connects Whidbey Island to the mainland. Deception pass is Whidbey Island's closest point to the mainland. The bridge takes you over a space of about one hundred yards. As the tide recedes tons and tons of water is coming through this bottle neck which creates these massive currents that rush out to sea.

After all this we saw some cows and a red moon (both of which can be seen under "Photos"). Then we stopped at Longhorn Saloon (which can be seen under food)

Sold a motor cycle, heard crazy war stories, ate a burger, had fun.