Friday, July 18: Its clutch out at 0700 and heading north outta Bend. The first 50 miles were just getting out of the neighborhood and then it started to get interesting. There was some smoke from a fire in the hills but nothing too big. Another 50 miles and it got good and continued to get better. When we crossed the bridge from Oregon to Washington it got really good; riding along the Hood River with the wind blowing, watching the kite and wind surfers and running with the train and getting a shout out from the engineer. Through the tunnels and catching the wind ourselves was great fun. Then there was the hard right hand, uphill turn, to get on the road we wanted and the sign that said Motorcycles Use Extreme Caution; we knew we were in the right place. The road got better and better as we rode along and I got to thinking that this road belongs in the top five. Then it was up to Mt. Saint Helens; do it! Really fantastic. As we were coming down off of Mt. Saint Helens I was thinking of how I was gonna describe this whole thing to yous. Top 5, I thought. But then I started thinking about the road surface we were on which had quite a few abnormalities in it. As we continued down the road towards Randall, WA for lunch I was thinking that I cant really describe this as a top 5 cause some of yous may do it based on that recommendation and the road surface, depressions and break-ups, negated the fact that if this was a good road surface it would be great. Just as that thought crossed my mind, with me in the lead, we came up on a right hand curve that had a particularly nasty depression right in the slot. I made it through with no problem but checked my mirror to see how the rest cleared it and, sure enough, Tony Vercoe right behind me bottomed out and ended up doing a high side (bad thing). Short version for Facebook: 5 hours later we kissed Tony, who had sustained non-life threatening injuries, goodbye in the Morton, WA hospital and the rest of us took the short route to our motel in Auburn. Theres much more to that story I want to tell but not on Facebook. Buy me a drink to hear the Painful Truth. We got to see Mt. Rainer, but not on the planned scenic route, and then it was BBQ for dinner. Bonus days, my friends.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 05:12:28 +0000
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