Ok, here it goes.
Day 1. Thursday 7:30 AM
Clackamas/Stevenson/Glenwood/Goldendale/Biggs/Mapo/Grass Valley/Maupin.
Met Eric at the Clackamas Denny's. The weather was blustery and threatened rain, but the report promised clearing by noon. We headed north on 205 to 84, then east to Cascade Locks and Stevenson. We eschewed the rain gear and crossed our fingers it would be dry. Road mist and a little drizzle started to get us damp from Multnomah Falls, but we forged ahead. We gassed up on the Washington side of Hood River then headed for Trout Lake, WA. Excellent twisties, but still damp. Arrived in the little town of Glenwood in the shadow of Mt. Adams and the sun started to come out.
Goldendale was the next stop for gas and grub, so off we went. The route follows the Klickitat River for a while. Just some awesome roads (for a motorbike) and beautiful eye candy scenery. The road climbs above the Klickitat gorge and makes for a thrilling ride as the drop-off is pretty dang scary.
Deep in the desolate woods is where the sticky throttle episode happened. I lost my tail bag rain cover and blew the CRG's back (I know, I know. Bad boy. 10 Our Father's and 10 Hail Mary's). Luckily, trusty side kick Eric retrieved my bag cover and returned it to me.
We fueled up bikes and bellies in Goldendale and headed for the Columbia. There are some gigantic windmills there - I wish I had taken photos of them - followed by a heart-jumping vista of the Columbia as you switch back down to the bridge at Biggs. The fact is, I never took pictures of the really good stuff because it is so awesome at the time riding and taking it all in that you don't want to stop and take photos dammit.
The first stop back in Oregon was the little town of Mapo, Oregon. The sun was finally out but it was still a little chilly.
We encountered one State Trooper outside of town and one of these in town, but we were good so we had no trouble:
We drove on through Grass Valley and turned off at ORP to see the track. But the access road to the track is not paved, all gravel, so we turned back to the main road disappointed. We promised to go back another day. It was on to Sherar's Falls on the Deschutes next.
We were getting closer to our destination of Maupin. The chilly air did more to tire us out than the miles, I think. We got to Maupin pretty early (about 3:00) and checked in to the Imperial River Co., right on the banks of the Deschutes. Burgers and beers never tasted so good.
Day 2. Friday 5/15
Maupin/Shaniko/Antelope/Madras/Post/Paulina/JohnDay
The beautiful dawn portended a fantastic day. It was cool at dawn but we knew it would get nice and warm later. From Maupin on, it was nothing but great, clean twisty roads and stupendous, clear, inspiring scenery.
Just outside of Maupin:
Between Shaniko and Antelope - check out those twisties!
Madras was the next fuel stop. We grabbed a quick power bar and were eager to hit the road for John Day because it was going to be a long stretch. With the short tank range on the Monster, I wouldn't have made it to John Day if we didn't gas up at both Post and Paulina. Here is Post. Yes, that's all there is:
Here's the inside. Way cool. Love the decor.
On the way to Paulina, there sat a bald eagle along the side of the road, on a fence post, just pretty as you please. I wish I stopped and took a picture, but again, you're so absorbed in the great ride and the vistas that you don't want it to stop. So, on to Paulina:
I love the sign over the saloon door.
From Paulina (named after Oregon's version of Geronimo), John Day is our next destination. The elevation climbed up some fantastic sweepers and twisties up to 5152 feet at this ranch. We encountered snow on the road shoulder, but none on the road. I had to stop to get the photo because it was so good. Eric identified the mountains in the background as the Canyon Mts just above John Day. Sorry for the glove in the photo - I needed it to stabilize the camera on the mailbox.
OK. Let's finish this sucker.
Day 3. Saturday 5/16 JohnDay/Mt.Vernon/LongCreek/Kimberly/Condon/Fossil/Mitchell/Prineville+Prineville/BowmanDam/Bend.
Spent the night in John Day. Pizza and beer - good riding fuel. Saturday was yet another great morning. Chilly and clear. Down the road to Mt. Vernon and had breakfast at a local greasy spoon. All the local cowpokes were there. Hit the road north towards the little town of Long Creek. Awesome twisty roads up to about 4500 feet I think. I wish I had some better vocabulary to do justice to the scenery. Little to no cars on the road either way, so it was fine riding. We followed the roaring John Day river to Kimberly where we gassed up at this fun place, which only takes cash, no credit cards. Typical of a lot of the remote gas stops - you better have green backs. The plastic is worthless.
Ever eager to take the side roads, we took a short cut and found more great seclusion in a verdant valley. Everything was that nuclear, radioactive green that only happens in the spring time before the summer makes it fade.
Heading towards Condon the terrain changes pretty quick. The trees disappear and your back on the prairie. It's pretty dramatic. This sign cracks me up. Hardman & Condom, er, I mean
Condon.
This stretch of road was pretty impressive. Note the total lack of guard rails. Run wide on one of these babies and you do an Evel Knievel into oblivion. Discretion was definitely the better part of valour when it came to these curves.
We rolled into Condon right about noon. It being Saturday, there were tons of bikes fueling up at the station. Lots of baggers and lots of adventure bikes. Guys from as far away as B.C. We headed south from Condon towards Fossil. Cool little town, Fossil. I want to go back again and poke around.
The next dot on the map was Mitchell. The roads were really great, but the weekend traffic had noticably increased than during the week. As were the LEO's. We found ourselves poking along behind one of them along this great twisty road going to Mitchell, so we let him go and pulled over and had a drink of water and scenery.
About 20 minutes later, we started again, sans Leo. By this time, it was after noon and the heat was on. We caught up to our Leo in Mitchell - he was having lunch with his buds. We fuelled up (again, cash only) and headed for Prineville through the Ochoco's. Wish I had a picture, but it was just too good to stop. We zoomed past the Painted Hills turn off, left them for another day. Got to Prineville about 3:00. It was hot so we had to take a break. After about an hour, we started up with the plan to follow the Crooked River up to the damn. Unfortunately, took a wrong turn and ended up at the reservoir beach - a dead end. We turned back to Prineville, having blown 30 miles on that loop. Finally made it up to the damn about 5:00 PM.
We were running late - we promised to meet up with Marvel and Amber no later than 6:30, so we motivated on down to Bend. We checked into our motel and met up and head out to dinner, just in time for the sunset. It was a great finish to a great trip.
It was good sleeping that night for sure. 3 days on the road and you're pretty tired. Again, it was an early start Sunday morning - on the road at 8:00 or so. Headed for Sisters. It was only a short jaunt from Bend, but the frequent stops were helpful on the sore backs, wrists and shaky knees. We hung out in Sisters for a while. I was trying to time the rendezvous with Ryan and Chuck and Bob(?). Made it to Detroit at 10:40 AM or so. We found the dudes at the gas station in Detroit - they'd been waiting about 10 minutes. Pretty good timing, I thought. Had we not stopped for this photo op after Sisters, we would have arrived exactly at the same time as the others.
Headed home to Portland from Detroit. We took the back way through Silverton along some excellent side roads. Got home to Clackamas at 1:30.
The trip was memorable. I had never been east of Bend and had been hankering to see that country. Eric turned out to be a great guide. I think it was the perfect time of year to go - the summer heat has not yet kicked in, the days are mostly cool. The week day traffic is piddling - there are no summer vacationers or RV's. The scenery is stupendous. Everything is intense green; the rivers are burgeoning with run off. The patches of snow are like natural air conditioning as you zoom past them in the woods. Totally awesome.
I really enjoyed the hell out of the Monster. Sure, it's not a touring bike, but it does pretty damn good. The wimpy fairing is a good thing, I think. It keeps your speeds down to a sane pace. A big fairing just lulls you up to silly speeds. We focused very hard on safety. We had fun out there, but we weren't stupid. It's a long way to help out there if something goes wrong.
The tail bag is more than sufficient for 4 days. I didn't even use all the stuff I had in there. Lesson learned for the next trip.
Ah, yes. The next trip.
Anybody want to head down the coast this summer?
JohnnyD
