Hog-Duc Road Trip
Sep/29/2009 19:39 Filed in: RoadTrip
Hog-Duc Road Trip
When - September 2009
Where - Washington-Oregon
Who - Mark and Bryan
Machines used:
Bryan - 2010 Ducati Streetfighter (red bike)
Mark - 2008 Harley FXSTB Night Train, modified (black bike)
Why - This end of summer diversion was all about wandering around some of the northwest's curves. It's something I try to do every year. The infusion of air combined with the rush of the road recharges my batteries. If I add time in a place I love with people I enjoy, I count it as a great vacation... even if it's just a few days.
After countless hours of persuasion, I had Mark signed up to help push the asphalt around with me. :)
[Mark – Persuasion? Weren’t we supposed to be going to Jackson California until we decided we couldn’t take enough time off work? But yeah, making a road trip has been too long coming for me.]
Prep
This part was pretty easy. I had a brand new scoot, a Ducati Streetfighter, and Mark had his hotrod softtail. Both bikes were in great shape though neither would be considered a touring bike. We had four days set aside, and planned to do some exploring with Bend as our base.
Goals/Excuses
I had a few simple things on my list of things to do:
- Have a beer at Deschutes Brewery
- Have dinner with my friends in Bend
- Ride no less than three of the four days
Day 1 (Thursday)
Day one would start in Redmond and end in Bend. We started off with a coffee at one of many Redmond Starbucks. Our coffee break bought us a little freedom from the morning rush hour congestion as well as pumping up our nutrition. As the traffic appeared to be easing up, we got off our butts and, well, sat on our butts for the first part of our ride.
The plan was to work our way from Redmond to a spiffy road behind St Helens. At the end of that road is Windy Ridge, which is a great place to take a peek at the volcano. Windy Ridge completely lived up to the name. There was a pretty decent assortment of folks up enjoying the wind with us, and while they seemed impressed, I'm pretty sure we enjoyed it more than the rest of them. There were two sport bike guys in leathers, roughly four cruisers, and a half dozen car loads of tourists. One older guy spent a bit of time chatting with us, and it seems he used to ride long ago. It was a nice set of folks, and the traffic up there was light enough to fully enjoy the road.
[Mark – I distinctly tried to avoid making a plan, as is my modus operandi, but alas I eventually had to succumb to one once the actual wheels were rolling. Bryan chose a route I’ve never seen, via bike or car, so I had a ton of surprises ahead. If there’s gotta be a plan, I have to at least have an unknown road. Unfortunately the softtail’s lack of decent brakes and suspension really took their toll on the forestry roads around St. Helens. This ticked me off enough to start bike shopping when I got back home – even though I can’t complain about the softtail for smooth and mild curve road conditions. But for now I was trying to soak up the better parts of the ride and ignore the painful road conditions as much as possible. St. Helens (behind me in the photo below) is definitely one of those spots where nature humbles me in to speechlessness.]
After leaving the volcano, both of us were getting hungry and we also expected to need some fuel before too long. I was using my spiffy Garmin combined with some maps to help with our wandering approach to navigation. Our road choice would have been great if it weren't for the bizzaro road contruction crew. This group was digging numerous trenches across the road. While they did have signs up, they were still too harsh for all but someone running over 8" of suspension. Neither of us had anywhere near what was needed for this. These trenches may have thrashed an SUV, and they definitely sucked on my new scooter.
[Mark – Thrashing indeed. Literally like hitting a small curb head on, I thought my 21” front wheel would surely be destroyed, but in a testament to the sturdy nature of the softail, all wheels and tires still intact even after the fourth trench (by then I had got wise and slowed way down to crawl over them). The stomping did loosen up my steering head bearings, a known issue with Harleys, particularly newer ones that haven’t been “broken in” yet. Mine is now officially broken in, if not broken. On a humorous note, the road crew we saw working on one of the trenches (filling it with black dirt of all things) it looked like a bunch of hicks with a rental mini-frontloader. No safety gear I noticed or any other signs they were a real road crew. Thus explains the six inch curbs we had to jockey over.]
After the thrashing, we eventually made it to the border and some fuel. The town with fuel (Stevenson?) was lacking interesting food, so we continued on to a toll bridge to the promised land of chow.
[Mark – I swear that toll booth and the guy in it looked like some yokel who put up a private toll booth for his personal profit.]
Our late lunch happy place ended up being Hood River. Mark spotted a brew pub that had a pretty cool view, and since I could find a spot with a silly name (Chuby's?), it was a definite winner. My first challenge was that it had far too many stairs for a couple guys who hadn't eaten in far too long. The burgers were good and I dug the sweet potato fries. They had an interesting selection of beer, but we had too much riding left to enjoy it. So, when skipping potentially good beer, I find that I get focused on the replacement. Ice tea was my choice, and sadly, it never made it past the brew point. It was a minor ding and I'm planning to visit again when I can stay near by and try the beer.
[Mark – Sweet potato fries turned in to a theme for me a few more times on this trip, I’d never had them before and now I am hooked. The town surprised me, I really expected another crappy little interstate berg, but it’s actually a bit chic without being too overly touristy. Noticed several cars of what looked like college students cruising around, did they come all the way from Portland to parasail on the Columbia and hit the trendy bars and coffee shops?]
We left Hood River as the sun was setting. While I love night riding, I don't like it in areas known to have plenty of deer. I have a potentially irrational suspicion they are prone to hurling themselves at me. Other than the self-imposed hoofed rat related tension, it proved to be a nice ride. The closest thing to a deer was a domestic cow right along the road way up in the mountains. It was bizarre, but it was a mellow bizzare. We rolled through Warm Springs, Madras and Redmond (the dry one), we ended up in Bend around 12 hours after we met for coffee in the wet Redmond.
[Mark – I was very happy for the mellow pace and the mellow feel of the sunset light on the face of Mt. Hood as we went around her. That road, in both directions, is one of my favorites of the trip, and most of my other trips for that matter. There are several of those “come around the corner and stare up at the mountain” moments that just elevate me in to the next astral plane for a moment. Good thing we were going slower than usual because of “deer watch”.]
Ed was home, and ready for dinner. We piled in his pickup, almost got both doors fully closed and nabbed a light meal at Shari's on the south side of town. It wasn't great food, but it was welcome. Sleep came easy.
[Mark – Damn right it did, I had only a few hours of sleep the night before and I was in a coma for the next 10 hours. The cool night air in Bend is absolutely the best sleep aid I’ve ever experienced. No surprise there – many things in Bend are the best I’ve ever experienced.]
Day 2 (Friday)
As usual, I tend to wake early. Rather than sit around hoping anyone else would wake, I grabbed some quality time at Starbucks with a coffee and my net connection. From there, I dropped by to chat with Jim. We didn't chat nearly enough, but it's always good to see him.
After that short stop at Jim's, I figured Mark would be awake and we could start our day of wandering. He was, and we did. The day's riding was mellow and exactly what I was hoping for. Century Drive was our most used path and it was beautiful. It was almost too nice to even stop for pictures.
[Mark – This stretch of road is one of those rare wide open roads that doesn’t beg for triple digit speeds. Instead, there’s a quality to the light and air (due to altitude I assume) that is so peaceful and, well, “airy” that you just want to float through. That’s what I did.]
After this point, we made my most memorable stop. I had just taken an incredibly juicy bug across my face. It wasn't just juicy, it was stinky. Hell, it wasn't just juicy and stinky, and it seemed be a bag of blood. I don't know what it was, but now it was a dead splatter across my face. A rinse was high on my list. I was thinking i needed a bottle of water, or more likely a bucket of water, in fact, a hose was the best options. Seconds later, I was thrilled to find a classic looking bend in the river where we de-bugged, cooled down and generally took in the world. At this moment, I was refreshed in more ways than I had expected from the whole trip. It was perfection. That bug triggered a perfect stop.
[Mark – Definitely. I told Bryan at the time that spot embodied my dream world of an idyllic place I’d be glad to spend the rest of my days in, fishing and lazing about during the day, sleeping in a cabin at night, and eschewing all forms of technology happily ever after.]
We had originally planned to wander out to Fort Rock, but after melting in the heat while getting fuel in Lapine, we changed plans. Somehow, riding back up towards mountains with nice cold river sounded more interesting than hot dry desert. Go figure. I'd like to try that route when it's a bit cooler.
Later on, Mark shot a picture of me at a spot I've really come to associate with home:
To ensure we finished off the day properly, we stopped by a motorcycle shop to talk bikes and promptly headed over to Deschutes Brewery.
[Mark – Every time I go there, I expect that brewery to become like every other trendy brewpub I’ve seen, but somehow it manages to maintain a unique feel, from the less-than-pristine interior to the hired help to the beer and food. It’s definitely a must-stop when in Bend.]
The burgers were good, the beer was magical.
[Mark – Dare I say “heavenly”?]
This beer was great, ironically, I didn't shoot a picture of the even better tasting glass of Mirror Mirror.
After the Brewery, it was too nice to wrap up the night. Luckily, Starbucks near the Tower theater was open. We hung out on a bench on the corner while watching the night life. It was entertaining and Mark made a friend with the cement man that hangs out on the corner. He seemed down on his luck, but was good company. The cement guy was also fun.
[Mark – Har har, you’re such a comedian. My luck wasn’t so bad at all when you consider all the attention I was getting from the passers-by. Apparently people don’t lean on old Cement Fred very often. Never had so much fun just sitting around on a bench.]
Before we left, we even were entertained by a guy trying a bit too hard to be cool while dealing with his poor scooter parking technique. I'm thinking we need a set of Olympic style numbers to rate moments like this.
[Mark – Sometimes you try so hard not to be judgmental and someone comes along that reinforces the reason for stereotypes. You could tell just by looking at this guy’s bone-stock Anniversary Special Harley bagger, and the way it was parked, what kind of clown would come out and try to ride off on it. I am pretty sure that’s half the reason I wanted to hang out and drink coffee there for a while – just to see if I was right. I was. If he were reading this I would advise him to give up and sell that thing. Or not, I need the laughs.]
We rode back to Ed's and wrapped the night up with some movies and general hanging out. I definitely stayed up past my bed time.
[Mark – Trying my best to add to the vampire ranks every chance I get.]
Day 3 (Saturday)
Time for a new direction. We had a great breakfast with Ed and Kay, and then made our way out to the east and north of town. We put John Day down as a destination and left it loose around that.
[Mark – Yay for Pilot Butte Drive-In, breakfast as good as lunch and dinner there. Truly authentic, glad the new owners aren’t spoiling it.]
On the way, we stopped at the painted hills.
[Mark – After complaining about the softtail’s behavior on the rough asphalt from Day 1, I should be fair here and point out that it was stellar on the loose gravel and dirt of the road leading up to the painted hills lookout point. No trouble at all and in fact I was goofing around and trying to see what the bike’s limits were, only found out once, and as always the ‘tail forgives easily and quickly (low center of gravity cannot be over-credited here). We got up to the lookout and while taking in the vista, we looked around and noticed at the same time how many more people and cars were coming and going than we had seen on the way in for the past 50 miles. I have no idea from whence they came (there seemed to be only one road in and out). Weird.]
John Day had a DQ, which had the ever important A/C. After a break there, we decided to run down to Burns and then back to Bend. We had dinner planned with Ed and Kay at 9pm and it would be tight.
It was hot.
My helmet was definitely bugging my ears at this point.
Burns required another stop to cool and to top off the tanks. Soaking down and shooting a self portrait seemed like a great idea. With these sort of results, I'm thinking I may have to get into modeling:
On this trip, I came to really enjoy the canned coffee drinks. The one I inhaled in Burns may have been my favorite. I suspect the heat may have influenced this perception, maybe it was the way this Shell kept their coolers.
After Burns, we had a long ride back to town. By this time, my helmet was convincing me it was the wrong design for long, fast trips. It lifts up and annoys the hell out of my ears. It's an exceptional helmet for slower riding and I'll restrain it to those scenarios.
[Mark – By this point I recognized that old feeling: the “this is my limit today” feeling. Unfortunately we were still over a hundred miles from home base. Well, time to suck it up and bear down. Hey, at least it’s not raining.]
As day was leaving us, I figured I better score a shot of Mark riding into the sunset. It's a cowboy movie thing I've always dug.
[Mark – This is the point where that old “I’m at my limit” feeling just fell away. Suddenly I felt like I could ride on forever, and if that sunset and scene and road lasted forever, I believe I could have. This stretch became one of those unusually surprising spiritual sort of moments for me (which is almost certainly related as much to the endorphins of the day as the other factors). Amazingly wonderful high, and no illicit chemicals involved! When I think of this part of the day, I think “THIS is why I ride. THIS is why it’s all worth it.”.]
We actually made it to dinner with about five minutes to spare. I've cleared my GPS, so there isn't a record of how we achieved this. I'm sure it was just luck. :)
[Mark – I honestly don’t remember speeding excessively at all, although with the absurd “random taxation” limit of 55 MPH, we no doubt broke that limit and scattered it to the four winds. Still, I never felt we were pushing our luck too much. Or maybe I was just too high to notice (see previous remark).]
Day 4 (Sunday)
It was time to head home. Before leaving town, I needed to make a couple stops...
After my morning introspection, I met up with Mark and we had one more breakfast with Ed and Kay. I packed up my laundry and mailed it back to myself. We wrapped up the rest of the trip by taking a fun route through Maupin and then the long way to Hood River via Mt Hood. The toll bridge accepted another dollar to enable us to shuffle west along the Columbia. As we hit Vancouver, we took a boring section up I-5 to Kelso where we grabbed a burrito and some fuel:
With our last road trip meal complete, we continued to 12 where we let pickup trucks clear the deer path to Morton. By the time we hit Morton, it was cold and completely dark. The final stage after Morton had a twisty element I liked, but the cold and dark made the deer threat a bit tiring. I have to say that by the time I got home, I was ready to get off the bike.
[Mark – Another “I’ve reached my limit and I know it” moments, but the electric jacket liner saved me, first time I’ve used it in a long time. It’s not that it was all that cold out, 50 degrees I think, but the heat somehow energized me enough to make this last leg safely. That, and some hip lobster claw overgloves Bryan loaned me. I couldn’t stop laughing when I put those on, but they sure worked. Hey, at least it wasn’t raining, a major stroke of good luck in these parts for this time of year.]
The next morning, I topped off the tank and noticed a nice round number on the odometer:
It was a truly great trip.
[Mark – Indeed it was, looking forward to the next one, but until then my fall and winter will be more tolerable with the memories of these experiences fresh in my mind. Hey, did I get in the last word?]
When - September 2009
Where - Washington-Oregon
Who - Mark and Bryan
Machines used:
Bryan - 2010 Ducati Streetfighter (red bike)
Mark - 2008 Harley FXSTB Night Train, modified (black bike)
Why - This end of summer diversion was all about wandering around some of the northwest's curves. It's something I try to do every year. The infusion of air combined with the rush of the road recharges my batteries. If I add time in a place I love with people I enjoy, I count it as a great vacation... even if it's just a few days.
After countless hours of persuasion, I had Mark signed up to help push the asphalt around with me. :)
[Mark – Persuasion? Weren’t we supposed to be going to Jackson California until we decided we couldn’t take enough time off work? But yeah, making a road trip has been too long coming for me.]
Prep
This part was pretty easy. I had a brand new scoot, a Ducati Streetfighter, and Mark had his hotrod softtail. Both bikes were in great shape though neither would be considered a touring bike. We had four days set aside, and planned to do some exploring with Bend as our base.
Goals/Excuses
I had a few simple things on my list of things to do:
- Have a beer at Deschutes Brewery
- Have dinner with my friends in Bend
- Ride no less than three of the four days
Day 1 (Thursday)
Day one would start in Redmond and end in Bend. We started off with a coffee at one of many Redmond Starbucks. Our coffee break bought us a little freedom from the morning rush hour congestion as well as pumping up our nutrition. As the traffic appeared to be easing up, we got off our butts and, well, sat on our butts for the first part of our ride.
The plan was to work our way from Redmond to a spiffy road behind St Helens. At the end of that road is Windy Ridge, which is a great place to take a peek at the volcano. Windy Ridge completely lived up to the name. There was a pretty decent assortment of folks up enjoying the wind with us, and while they seemed impressed, I'm pretty sure we enjoyed it more than the rest of them. There were two sport bike guys in leathers, roughly four cruisers, and a half dozen car loads of tourists. One older guy spent a bit of time chatting with us, and it seems he used to ride long ago. It was a nice set of folks, and the traffic up there was light enough to fully enjoy the road.
[Mark – I distinctly tried to avoid making a plan, as is my modus operandi, but alas I eventually had to succumb to one once the actual wheels were rolling. Bryan chose a route I’ve never seen, via bike or car, so I had a ton of surprises ahead. If there’s gotta be a plan, I have to at least have an unknown road. Unfortunately the softtail’s lack of decent brakes and suspension really took their toll on the forestry roads around St. Helens. This ticked me off enough to start bike shopping when I got back home – even though I can’t complain about the softtail for smooth and mild curve road conditions. But for now I was trying to soak up the better parts of the ride and ignore the painful road conditions as much as possible. St. Helens (behind me in the photo below) is definitely one of those spots where nature humbles me in to speechlessness.]
After leaving the volcano, both of us were getting hungry and we also expected to need some fuel before too long. I was using my spiffy Garmin combined with some maps to help with our wandering approach to navigation. Our road choice would have been great if it weren't for the bizzaro road contruction crew. This group was digging numerous trenches across the road. While they did have signs up, they were still too harsh for all but someone running over 8" of suspension. Neither of us had anywhere near what was needed for this. These trenches may have thrashed an SUV, and they definitely sucked on my new scooter.
[Mark – Thrashing indeed. Literally like hitting a small curb head on, I thought my 21” front wheel would surely be destroyed, but in a testament to the sturdy nature of the softail, all wheels and tires still intact even after the fourth trench (by then I had got wise and slowed way down to crawl over them). The stomping did loosen up my steering head bearings, a known issue with Harleys, particularly newer ones that haven’t been “broken in” yet. Mine is now officially broken in, if not broken. On a humorous note, the road crew we saw working on one of the trenches (filling it with black dirt of all things) it looked like a bunch of hicks with a rental mini-frontloader. No safety gear I noticed or any other signs they were a real road crew. Thus explains the six inch curbs we had to jockey over.]
After the thrashing, we eventually made it to the border and some fuel. The town with fuel (Stevenson?) was lacking interesting food, so we continued on to a toll bridge to the promised land of chow.
[Mark – I swear that toll booth and the guy in it looked like some yokel who put up a private toll booth for his personal profit.]
Our late lunch happy place ended up being Hood River. Mark spotted a brew pub that had a pretty cool view, and since I could find a spot with a silly name (Chuby's?), it was a definite winner. My first challenge was that it had far too many stairs for a couple guys who hadn't eaten in far too long. The burgers were good and I dug the sweet potato fries. They had an interesting selection of beer, but we had too much riding left to enjoy it. So, when skipping potentially good beer, I find that I get focused on the replacement. Ice tea was my choice, and sadly, it never made it past the brew point. It was a minor ding and I'm planning to visit again when I can stay near by and try the beer.
[Mark – Sweet potato fries turned in to a theme for me a few more times on this trip, I’d never had them before and now I am hooked. The town surprised me, I really expected another crappy little interstate berg, but it’s actually a bit chic without being too overly touristy. Noticed several cars of what looked like college students cruising around, did they come all the way from Portland to parasail on the Columbia and hit the trendy bars and coffee shops?]
We left Hood River as the sun was setting. While I love night riding, I don't like it in areas known to have plenty of deer. I have a potentially irrational suspicion they are prone to hurling themselves at me. Other than the self-imposed hoofed rat related tension, it proved to be a nice ride. The closest thing to a deer was a domestic cow right along the road way up in the mountains. It was bizarre, but it was a mellow bizzare. We rolled through Warm Springs, Madras and Redmond (the dry one), we ended up in Bend around 12 hours after we met for coffee in the wet Redmond.
[Mark – I was very happy for the mellow pace and the mellow feel of the sunset light on the face of Mt. Hood as we went around her. That road, in both directions, is one of my favorites of the trip, and most of my other trips for that matter. There are several of those “come around the corner and stare up at the mountain” moments that just elevate me in to the next astral plane for a moment. Good thing we were going slower than usual because of “deer watch”.]
Ed was home, and ready for dinner. We piled in his pickup, almost got both doors fully closed and nabbed a light meal at Shari's on the south side of town. It wasn't great food, but it was welcome. Sleep came easy.
[Mark – Damn right it did, I had only a few hours of sleep the night before and I was in a coma for the next 10 hours. The cool night air in Bend is absolutely the best sleep aid I’ve ever experienced. No surprise there – many things in Bend are the best I’ve ever experienced.]
Day 2 (Friday)
As usual, I tend to wake early. Rather than sit around hoping anyone else would wake, I grabbed some quality time at Starbucks with a coffee and my net connection. From there, I dropped by to chat with Jim. We didn't chat nearly enough, but it's always good to see him.
After that short stop at Jim's, I figured Mark would be awake and we could start our day of wandering. He was, and we did. The day's riding was mellow and exactly what I was hoping for. Century Drive was our most used path and it was beautiful. It was almost too nice to even stop for pictures.
[Mark – This stretch of road is one of those rare wide open roads that doesn’t beg for triple digit speeds. Instead, there’s a quality to the light and air (due to altitude I assume) that is so peaceful and, well, “airy” that you just want to float through. That’s what I did.]
After this point, we made my most memorable stop. I had just taken an incredibly juicy bug across my face. It wasn't just juicy, it was stinky. Hell, it wasn't just juicy and stinky, and it seemed be a bag of blood. I don't know what it was, but now it was a dead splatter across my face. A rinse was high on my list. I was thinking i needed a bottle of water, or more likely a bucket of water, in fact, a hose was the best options. Seconds later, I was thrilled to find a classic looking bend in the river where we de-bugged, cooled down and generally took in the world. At this moment, I was refreshed in more ways than I had expected from the whole trip. It was perfection. That bug triggered a perfect stop.
[Mark – Definitely. I told Bryan at the time that spot embodied my dream world of an idyllic place I’d be glad to spend the rest of my days in, fishing and lazing about during the day, sleeping in a cabin at night, and eschewing all forms of technology happily ever after.]
We had originally planned to wander out to Fort Rock, but after melting in the heat while getting fuel in Lapine, we changed plans. Somehow, riding back up towards mountains with nice cold river sounded more interesting than hot dry desert. Go figure. I'd like to try that route when it's a bit cooler.
Later on, Mark shot a picture of me at a spot I've really come to associate with home:
To ensure we finished off the day properly, we stopped by a motorcycle shop to talk bikes and promptly headed over to Deschutes Brewery.
[Mark – Every time I go there, I expect that brewery to become like every other trendy brewpub I’ve seen, but somehow it manages to maintain a unique feel, from the less-than-pristine interior to the hired help to the beer and food. It’s definitely a must-stop when in Bend.]
The burgers were good, the beer was magical.
[Mark – Dare I say “heavenly”?]
This beer was great, ironically, I didn't shoot a picture of the even better tasting glass of Mirror Mirror.
After the Brewery, it was too nice to wrap up the night. Luckily, Starbucks near the Tower theater was open. We hung out on a bench on the corner while watching the night life. It was entertaining and Mark made a friend with the cement man that hangs out on the corner. He seemed down on his luck, but was good company. The cement guy was also fun.
[Mark – Har har, you’re such a comedian. My luck wasn’t so bad at all when you consider all the attention I was getting from the passers-by. Apparently people don’t lean on old Cement Fred very often. Never had so much fun just sitting around on a bench.]
Before we left, we even were entertained by a guy trying a bit too hard to be cool while dealing with his poor scooter parking technique. I'm thinking we need a set of Olympic style numbers to rate moments like this.
[Mark – Sometimes you try so hard not to be judgmental and someone comes along that reinforces the reason for stereotypes. You could tell just by looking at this guy’s bone-stock Anniversary Special Harley bagger, and the way it was parked, what kind of clown would come out and try to ride off on it. I am pretty sure that’s half the reason I wanted to hang out and drink coffee there for a while – just to see if I was right. I was. If he were reading this I would advise him to give up and sell that thing. Or not, I need the laughs.]
We rode back to Ed's and wrapped the night up with some movies and general hanging out. I definitely stayed up past my bed time.
[Mark – Trying my best to add to the vampire ranks every chance I get.]
Day 3 (Saturday)
Time for a new direction. We had a great breakfast with Ed and Kay, and then made our way out to the east and north of town. We put John Day down as a destination and left it loose around that.
[Mark – Yay for Pilot Butte Drive-In, breakfast as good as lunch and dinner there. Truly authentic, glad the new owners aren’t spoiling it.]
On the way, we stopped at the painted hills.
[Mark – After complaining about the softtail’s behavior on the rough asphalt from Day 1, I should be fair here and point out that it was stellar on the loose gravel and dirt of the road leading up to the painted hills lookout point. No trouble at all and in fact I was goofing around and trying to see what the bike’s limits were, only found out once, and as always the ‘tail forgives easily and quickly (low center of gravity cannot be over-credited here). We got up to the lookout and while taking in the vista, we looked around and noticed at the same time how many more people and cars were coming and going than we had seen on the way in for the past 50 miles. I have no idea from whence they came (there seemed to be only one road in and out). Weird.]
John Day had a DQ, which had the ever important A/C. After a break there, we decided to run down to Burns and then back to Bend. We had dinner planned with Ed and Kay at 9pm and it would be tight.
It was hot.
My helmet was definitely bugging my ears at this point.
Burns required another stop to cool and to top off the tanks. Soaking down and shooting a self portrait seemed like a great idea. With these sort of results, I'm thinking I may have to get into modeling:
On this trip, I came to really enjoy the canned coffee drinks. The one I inhaled in Burns may have been my favorite. I suspect the heat may have influenced this perception, maybe it was the way this Shell kept their coolers.
After Burns, we had a long ride back to town. By this time, my helmet was convincing me it was the wrong design for long, fast trips. It lifts up and annoys the hell out of my ears. It's an exceptional helmet for slower riding and I'll restrain it to those scenarios.
[Mark – By this point I recognized that old feeling: the “this is my limit today” feeling. Unfortunately we were still over a hundred miles from home base. Well, time to suck it up and bear down. Hey, at least it’s not raining.]
As day was leaving us, I figured I better score a shot of Mark riding into the sunset. It's a cowboy movie thing I've always dug.
[Mark – This is the point where that old “I’m at my limit” feeling just fell away. Suddenly I felt like I could ride on forever, and if that sunset and scene and road lasted forever, I believe I could have. This stretch became one of those unusually surprising spiritual sort of moments for me (which is almost certainly related as much to the endorphins of the day as the other factors). Amazingly wonderful high, and no illicit chemicals involved! When I think of this part of the day, I think “THIS is why I ride. THIS is why it’s all worth it.”.]
We actually made it to dinner with about five minutes to spare. I've cleared my GPS, so there isn't a record of how we achieved this. I'm sure it was just luck. :)
[Mark – I honestly don’t remember speeding excessively at all, although with the absurd “random taxation” limit of 55 MPH, we no doubt broke that limit and scattered it to the four winds. Still, I never felt we were pushing our luck too much. Or maybe I was just too high to notice (see previous remark).]
Day 4 (Sunday)
It was time to head home. Before leaving town, I needed to make a couple stops...
After my morning introspection, I met up with Mark and we had one more breakfast with Ed and Kay. I packed up my laundry and mailed it back to myself. We wrapped up the rest of the trip by taking a fun route through Maupin and then the long way to Hood River via Mt Hood. The toll bridge accepted another dollar to enable us to shuffle west along the Columbia. As we hit Vancouver, we took a boring section up I-5 to Kelso where we grabbed a burrito and some fuel:
With our last road trip meal complete, we continued to 12 where we let pickup trucks clear the deer path to Morton. By the time we hit Morton, it was cold and completely dark. The final stage after Morton had a twisty element I liked, but the cold and dark made the deer threat a bit tiring. I have to say that by the time I got home, I was ready to get off the bike.
[Mark – Another “I’ve reached my limit and I know it” moments, but the electric jacket liner saved me, first time I’ve used it in a long time. It’s not that it was all that cold out, 50 degrees I think, but the heat somehow energized me enough to make this last leg safely. That, and some hip lobster claw overgloves Bryan loaned me. I couldn’t stop laughing when I put those on, but they sure worked. Hey, at least it wasn’t raining, a major stroke of good luck in these parts for this time of year.]
The next morning, I topped off the tank and noticed a nice round number on the odometer:
It was a truly great trip.
[Mark – Indeed it was, looking forward to the next one, but until then my fall and winter will be more tolerable with the memories of these experiences fresh in my mind. Hey, did I get in the last word?]