Foreward

Inspired by a British BMW R1150GS Adventure rider, MikeO, and his wonderful trip report, "Coming to America".  It was so ironic that a limey "inspecting the colonies" could make me appreciate America so much--especially the West.  I cannot urge you enough to go click on that link and read yourself.  To follow Mike on his 9 month BMW ride across the United States is as close to truly seeing America as you can get without doing it yourself.

But, after reading for days through his 120+ page adventure I became bound and determined to take a quick stab at it myself before the winter months set in. 

I would try suggesting that it was a highly planned adventure and I had 9 months to wander the countryside, but the truth is that on Friday night I looked at the weather for the weekend and it promised to be clear and somewhat warm--a bonus for the Pacific Northwest in mid November.  Growing up in the Southeast corner of Washington State (Tri-Cities) I've always prided myself and having been lots of places in the region and I have, but the places I've been extend radially out from the Tri-Cities and the farther out one goes the more nooks and crannies I've missed.

One place I haven't been is some the area in Northeast Oregon.  I've been close to many of these places, but over 3/4 of my trip would be on new roads.  New roads all within 120 miles of my home.  This says something about the remote beauty of my region.

So I drafted up a route and a recap of final trip.

The Ride

Saturday, November 06, 9 a.m.  Foggy and phlegmy.  Both outside and my body.  I'm still nursing a cold that's 10 days old and the melting frost and brown leaves on the ground suspiciously  my upper chest.  I confirm this as I brew up coffee and do my morning Internet ritual sounding like a senior citizen.  That cat even looks scared.   I had posted my short notice the ride earlier on the FJR Owners Association, but no takers.  No problem, I'm increasingly comfortable as a solo rider.

The bike is all packed and I start donning my cold weather gear.  I'm out the door by 10 a.m. and rethinking my decision as fog vapor coats my helmet crossing the river into Kennewick.  Up the grind as fog starts to loosen up I forget the lesson of MikeO and pull over for a quick picture of the fog.  How does that guy pull over and take so many pictures?!

One of the new things I'm trying on this trip is trying for the best of both worlds when it comes to hearing protection.  It would be nice to suggest that cruising around on an FJR and you want to hear the fine notes of the beefy 1300cc engine, but combine that fact that this sport-touring bike whines quietly along like a modern freight train and FJR speeds are 90% wind noise.  One can hear through the little orange foam earplugs and that's OK, but a lot of FJR riders like to have tunes with them.  I bought a set of Koss "The Plug" and plugged them into my MP3 player.  Santana Supernatural, Almost Famous Soundtrack, and Sheryl Crow kept me company as I made my way south.

I was up out of the fog as I went into the Horse Heaven Hills and rode the I-182 slab towards Oregon.  Short of Pendleton I took the exit to Heppner and entered my first piece of virgin road.  Going was good, smooth, and there were farms all around.  Boring, regular farms like home, but somehow new and different.

I stopped once to reseat the Koss plugs.  Good sound while providing good hearing protection, but combine the short amount of foam and me fiddling with chin strap and drinking tube--the damn things just won't stay put.

I made Heppner by lunch and figure this little slice of Americana is where I should find lunch.  As Mike O. would say, "I had an unmemorable lunch."  Maybe my cheeseburger and fries choice wasn't bold, but them bringing tater tots instead of fries didn't help matters.   Still all amped up on being out in the middle of Americana I took it in stride and focused on the glass being half full.  I smiled when the waitress presented the bill and said, "Nice bike.  You should take me with you."  I paid and walked out into the warm sun and she came out and seemed even more serious when she handed me my missing keys and said, "You should take me with you.  I have an extra helmet at home."   Had she been cuter maybe I would have took her up on her offer.

Donning my gear minus a couple layers I tried some electrical tape on the Koss earphones and stuck them in extra deep.  I took a left right after getting out of town, up past a big Army Corp dam and found the road to be a great series of sweepers up a canyon.  15 miles later I ascended to treeline and was making good time to Ukiah.  A sign marked the road as being "not maintained" and switched to a coarse grade of asphalt.  Following a 4x4 Ford I came cruising around a shady corner at the 4,400 foot level and was confronted with what would be a recurring theme on this trip.  Snow and ice in the northern side of shadowy things.

I figured I was close to the summit so I pressed on for a few more miles.  I crawled cautiously around corners eventually getting to a stretch of road that even tire ruts were filled with ice.  At 10 mph I extended my feet in a sort of outrigger maneuver that made me look like a scared little girl.  Well, good thing I was a scared little girl because on that corner I chose the wrong rut and found my ass end sliding down the road crown towards the ditch.

Fuck me! 

Imagine taking your motorcycle to the skating rink and driving up onto the ice.  Now tilt the rink about 3 degrees to the right and ponder how you're going to turn around and get back off the ice without pouring yourself into the wall.   There's nothing that shatters confidence as sitting precariously on a 600 pound hunk of alloy and plastic spinning the rear wheel in absolute futility.   I wasn't going to hurt myself, but the prospect of being stuck all day in the middle of nowhere was embarrasing.

I suppose I should have taken a picture after the fact, but let's just say that there's a 100 foot patch of Willow Creek Road that scared the beejeezus out of me and I half-way considered setting the bike down on it's TOGs purposely and dragging it back to bare pavement.  However, my Oxtar training wheel technique held up and Metzlers finally grabbed enough snow to get the pig turned around.

Headed back to Heppner I figured this detour was affecting my plans of being in Enterprise by dark and kicked up the pace a notch.  I gassed in Heppner I took the alternate route and found yet another road I've never been on and frankly, nobody else was on.  I found 30 miles of great two-laner in the scrub lands of NE Oregon where cows outnumbered humans by a thousand to one.  I had given up on the Koss headphones at the last gas stop.  I'd need to do some tinkering at home.  Perhaps some longer, regular earplugs, a dremel, and some glue?

WIth the new silence I found myself getting into the zone and chose my apexes through the sweepers.  The road climbed up to nearly treeline and back down.  The roads found itself to have the perfect grade to follow the terrain for many miles and lazy I crossed lanes back and forth through lazy sweepers for miles.    Motorcycle commercials are filmed on this kind of road.

Back to the relative civilization of Highway 395 I pondered my choices of going back up through Pendleton or salvaging Ukiah.  I chose the latter and found yet another jacked up 4x4 Ford cruising along smartly at 80+.  I'm beginning to think Oregon is actually an Indian word meaning "Extra Tall, Detroit Made Pickup"

Ukiah came relatively quickly and I had my first near miss of the trip.  Beautiful black top on 395 and as I take a left across the road onto 244 in front of yet another Ford full of orange vested hunters my ass end slipped about 3 feet and I nearly bit it.  Only 10 miles an hour, but I got the most lean angle I've ever done without going over.  Ukiah is a half mile away and I pulled into this little berg that holds a lot of childhood memories.  My first mountain dirt biking was out of this town up one of these side roads.  I didn't have time to go explore, but 25 year old memories of riding my SL70 and XR75 are thick.

However, modern times slap me in the face and I find I can't not take a picture of this gem:

Warm and inviting promotion of the highest order.  I bet this gives the local Chamber of Commerce an acid stomach.  Seems one sign isn't enough.

And two isn't enough apparently.  How much farther before this owner moves to the woods, tarpapers his shack, and starts mailing packages to elected officials?  Oh, and if you look carefully under the corner of the house you'll see the ass end of a critter.  This bunny rabbit and a dozen of his family wander around loose.  Gotta love America!

The cruise from Ukiah to LaGrande was decidedly piney and I enjoyed the switchbacks of mountains and curvy sweepers of river valleys.  Still new road I've never been on.  I found more of those nasty northern shadows and was amazed at the little cold pocket microclimates that remained so still and undisturbed in an otherwise 50 degrees in the sun.  It made me understand a bit more what happens as the sun begins it's seasonal drop to the winter solstice.  There's just not that many of those sun rays hitting the Earth.

I rejoined I-84 just a few miles out of LaGrande and enjoyed the multiple lanes of a concrete slab and smiled to be back with cars sharing the road.  I turned off at LaGrande back onto a two laner and found gas again.  It had been many years since I had been to Elgin and I wasn't sure about gas stations being open on Saturday afternoons.

I found the nicest kid manning the pumps at a Chevron and he gushed over my motorcycle asking, "How big is it?".

"1300cc", I reported.

"More than my car!"

Figuring he was inflicted with a Metro I figured I'd rub salt in his wounds and said, "Yeah, and probably more horsepower since I have 145."

"Nope.  I have 255!", he replied back grabbing my attention.  "An RX-7".

He had got me and I chuckled.

Topped up I pointed North and in the long shadows of the afternoon I cruised my last leg to my planned destination of Enterprise.  The road was nice through the Imbler and the amount of agriculture in the valley surprised me.  Elgin came and went and the light began to fade.  I hit yet another mountain pitch and eased through wet stretches of pavement that were frosty ice a scant foot off the white line.  God, I hope the weather doesn't do something crazy and snow on me in the middle of the night or I'm going to be a LONG way from home without studs.

The town of Wallowa came and went and I saw my very first motorcycle on the trip.  This Dude is cruising a side street on a Gold WIng without a helmet or even a hat.  He looked at me like I was crazy for biking in this weather as I think he was driving the bike to some part of the town to put it up for winter.

Dusk was on me and I settled in behind an Impala that seemed like a local.  It was getting very cold, but I didn't want to stop and rebundle since I was about 15 minutes from Enterprise.  I did notice that one my new pieces of gear was working very well.  At the suggestion of Warchild I found some clearance Oxtar Goretex Matrix Boots and the one pair of wool socks I put on the morning were totally the right choice.  Warm piggies, in well fitting, and waterproof boots go a LONG way to a comfortable ride.

Around a corner I saw the lights of a bigger town than I expected.  It seemed to have a 3 by 3 block downtown area and kinda cute in a warm November oasis sort of way.  Hell, they had a Safeway and a Best Western!  I pulled into The Ponderosa which seemed to be within walking distance of the downtown.  I'd been thinking the whole trip that now that I'm single again I need to find a bar within walking distance and get drunk and/or hit on women.

Once checked in it was 5:30 and I warmed up watching TV and took a toasty shower.  I wandered downtown looking at the outlines of mountains and glow of snow on the peaks.  I bet this place is breathtaking in the day.

To say I had visited during low season would be an understatement.  This is a town that rolls up sidewalks at dark during the off season.  But, I found a restaurant called Lear's with a menu on the front door promising fare like a "Big-Ass Steak and Smashed Taters".  Tables with lit tea candles flickered soft lighting, and a copper bar was very inviting--except there wasn't a single soul in there.

I walked one more doorway and saw a bunch of people in a wood floored bar smoking away, bundled up for the winter, and watching the Oregon Ducks game.  The bar was called Lear's too.  What are the odds?  A laminated copy of a newspaper article taped to the inside window yellowed over time, but the guy in the picture matched one of the guys at the bar.  Well, I walked in and sat in there and sat down.  Turns out I could order off the same dinner menu and be with people.   Good choice.

There were precisely two woman in the bar, but they seemed reasonably cute and in their twenties.  Probably married, but I made sure to choose a table I could make eye contact and look interested...or from their perspective a middle-aged tourist eyeballing them.

The bartender was about 23 and seemed like a granola muncher transplanted from Eugene against his will, but helluva a nice guy and made a perfectly righteous Tanqueray and Tonic.  Turning to the menu as the Ducks flailed I thought the Big-Ass steak sounded appealing, but in the end it seemed to healthy for me so I ordered what would be the best chicken fried steak I had ever had.

I glanced at the women having some sort of debate and speaking in some NE Oregon dialect as they started a game of rummy.  The blonde kept yelling, "Peelk!" or "Piltz" or something while an odd looking Hallmark clearance item sat on the edge of their table.

My salad came and I was utterly impressed with the endive greens, walnuts, asiago cheese, and balsamic dressing.  Even the glass of house red the bartender brought was tasty.

The women then debated whether 10's were worth 5 or 10 points in rumy.  They chose five points and I smiled to myself again as I chalked it up as a local rule.  Besides one girl was sporting great cleavage and I was starved for attention.

Dinner came and the girls took a back seat again.  I cut into the steak and tasted the flavor of virgin olive oil and just melted into the whole experience.  Perfectly seasoned and expertly "hand-smashed" potatoes filled my fork.  Al dente broccoli and cauliflower for color, homemade sausage filled the gravy, and so I took stock of the day as I tipped back my glass of wine.

320 miles since the morning.  Icy shadows, but no splats.  I'm somewhere I've never been before.  Cheers.

With dinner wolfed down I wandered by the women's table and said said something that I can't at all remember, but seemed quippy at the time.  Young, attractive woman playing cards and a 6 inch tall porcelain gnome named "Piltz."  I asked how it was spelled and she just kept saying his name louder.  Could there be alcohol involved?  I was getting no action here so I resigned for the evening unable to understand the dialect.

Oh well.  Maybe HBO will have a good movie on in the room.  I drifted off to sleep counting FJRs....

Sunday, November 7, 08:30

Morning came and I lounged in bed knowing that things were going to be frosty.

I dressed up and decided to give Lear's a go again as they had $5.00 breakfast advertised from the night before.  On my two walk block I checked out the town in the daylight and found my guess about the mountain view was correct.  Pictures never do it justice.  Trust me--those mountains are tall.

This is snow and snowmobile country.  As I walked by the courthouse the local sheriff already had his old Bronco covered with studs and sleds are parked on the corner of the Courthouse.  I'm sure they become patrol vehicles in another month or so.

Walking back by the restaurant I see a person in the shadows and walk in thinking it's more lively on a Sunday morning, but I couldn't have been more wrong.  Besides myself and the waitress there were exactly zero other people in the place.

Oh well, the waitress offered to seat me and I couldn't help but notice this was the same well endowed woman from the night before.  She seemed hungover with gravely voice and I noted how deathly silent it was in the restaurant.  I felt like I had walked in on her sleeping.   She handed me a menu and and ordered the first of two choices, "Breakfast".  I asked if she, her friend, and the gnome enjoyed the evening.  She smiled and I noticed how beautiful this woman's eyes were.  How'd I miss that the night before?  Oh yeah....I couldn't get past the cleavage.

She brought back some coffee, turned on some music that made me feel like I wasn't in a morgue, and a Sunday paper.  Life was good.  Breakfast of sausage, eggs, sautéed veggies, and toast came out.  She brought out jelly and I pondered one more of life's mysteries: Why is there always so many extra grape jellies, why are they always on top, and why is it so hard to find the one strawberry one in the bottom?

Unresolved I finished my great breakfast, coffee, and left a $10 bill on the table for my $5 breakfast.

On my walk back I got another view of the very tall looming mountains.  The air was hazy woodstove smoke.  I felt like a ham curing up for December in the heady and sweet smell of smoldering pine.  Winter is in the air.

I mounted up my back and headed for the town of Joseph and Lake Wallowa. 

Joseph was similarly cute in that small-town-everybody-knows-each-other way.  I would suspect speeding is frowned upon:

Figuring I would slowly cruise through and head down to the lake I was dumbfounded as I looked over to one side and saw an '05 FJR parked by itself.  Doing a quick U-turn I decided I had to wait for the owner and sat for "a spell" soaking in yet another mountain vista.

Had somebody spotted my FJR Owner's posting and tried to catch up with me?  I had been out of Internet range for over 24 hours and wondered.  What I found coming out of a restaurant dressed in road gear was not what I expected.  Roberta from Ephrata, Washington was visiting sisters by total  coincidentally.  You've gotta appreciate a woman FJR rider.

She was headed back home and although I never did make it to the lake I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to ride.  Her sisters seemed very happy that she was getting to ride back with another person.  She let me take point and we cruised smartly back through the various towns and hung a right at Elgin up 204.  This was old ground for me at this point, but the ride up over Tollgate is always nice.  I grew up snowmobiling this mountain range and switched into guide mode.

The trip wasn't without interest though.  A four point buck crossed the road lazily near Ruckle turn-off and I flashed my brakes to Roberta.  Where there's one there's more........    He clambered up the slope towards his little harem and we cruised up the pass in loose staggered formation.  He was surprisingly unafraid for as many rifle toting locals as there were.

We stopped for a strawberry and chocolate milk at Tollgate and learned a bit about each other.  Roberta works for the Sheriff's department as a domestic violence coordinator.  Me being a councilmember and going through budget discussion next week I know we're considering adding a new dedicated coordinator Pasco and it's like we were professional chums.  Roberta told about her and her husband's stable of motorcycles including an FZ1 and Valkyries.  Travis a is a lucky guy with a wife that handled so deftly a big bike like the FJR.

We mounted back up and started down the mountain back to civilization.  It was so sunny and gorgeous.  It was a perfect weekend motorcycling.

One more interesting miss.  We come cruising around the corner to a pack of wild cows!  Hey, a doe is a scary thing to encounter while at speed, a buck looks like a big doe with sharp points to impale you, but a cow looks like friggin' Wal-Mart in the middle of the road.  Fortunately, the responded well to my Magnum Blasters and moved while mooing annoyed.

I made it back to the Tri-Cities about 1:30 and Roberta cruised on home.  She later wrote:

Matt

Thank you so very much for the great leadership! I appreciate your helping me through the pass and what a beautiful ride. Okay, dodging a 4 pt. buck and a few steaks wasn't in the plan, but you handled it with expertise. I just want you to know that wasn't the end of my trauma. I had to man handle my bike around two chiwawas...sp?...(okay, tiny, skinny dogs) crossing the road, and a truck hauling half a mobile home that blew a tire and flipped rubber and home insulation all over me(no, I didn't get a chance to check the "R" value)......it's tough riding up North....if that isn't redneck I don't know what is. It was a pleasure to meet you and maybe we can ride again sometime.....day before Christmas??? (grin) Let's get out the chains and head out over the pass for lattes!!!

Have a great week.

Roberta : )

Ride complete.  520 miles.  Time to take a nap.  Thanks again MikeO for the motivation.  It's nice living in the colonies with mountains and sweeping vistas in our back yards and even better to be able to go see them once in a while. 

Matt

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