- Joined
- Nov 20, 2005
- Messages
- 9,512
- Location
- Cedar City, Utah
- Bike
- 12/04 ST 1300s
- 2024 Miles
- 000148
- STOC #
- 5901
The Planning
Dave calls me and tells me he found his old high school buddy up in Hillsboro Oregon. That's near my son, Justin, who lives in Beaverton, some 5 to 7 miles away. So we start talking about doing a motorcycle ride up there. After looking over dates, we decide to head up on the weekend of June 17th. Then I find out that my oldest grandson is graduating on that date! I moved my departure time to after the graduation.
During the planning stages, we talked about the best routes to take. When we first started talking about the trip. We had plans to just go straight up I5. Then as we got closer to the day of departure, the heat was going to be a problem. So we changed the route going up to 101, which we could follow up to Lincoln City and then go inland.
Day 1, June 17th
I took off at 9:30pm on Saturday, June 17th. My destination was 200 miles away, at the Vagabond Motel on I5 west of Bakersfield. I arrived at about 12:30am. Checked in and went to bed, I just didn't sleep very well!
200 miles for that day.
Day 2, June 18th
So, at 5:15am I was awake and decided to go ahead and get my shower. No water! Yikes! Seems the city had turned off the water and was supposed to be back on, after I left.
So I got dressed, packed the bike, checked out and rode to the Chevron next door. I filled up and got a roll to eat and a Pepsi to drink. I ate half the roll and drank one third of the Pepsi and off I went. The next stop was 233 miles to my north.
Dave called me when I was about one hour away from Stockton, I was about to call him. He was surprised I was as far north as I was. As I was ridding up, the wind was getting pretty bad. As I was getting close to Stockton, I looked at my gas gauge and I was using gas much faster than I was expecting! I was already on reserve and it said I had 30 miles left of fuel, and I still had 20 miles to go. So, for the last 20 miles, I slowed way down and I was afraid I wasn't going to make it to Lodi.
Dave and I were to meet in Lodi, where the I5 & SR12 cross, at the Denny's. But we never made it. I stopped at the Chevron there and that's where Dave met me. And with a McDonald's right next door, what the heck.
The night before, when parking my bike at the Vagabond Motel, I noticed my rear tire was getting pretty close to the end of its life. So before Dave and I were ready to go I texted Justin the information on my tire and he started calling around to see if he could find one. He wound up ordering it and it as to be there by Wednesday.
From there, we headed west on Hwy 12, and it was already starting to get hot. This stretch of Hwy 12, is long and narrow, no passing and even a couple ole draw bridges, which we got stuck on one for about ten minutes. Just West of Travis AFB, we jumped on the I80 freeway until Hwy 37 which would take us to Hwy 101 to Fortuna, our stop for the night.
We had ridden some 95 miles, to Santa Rosa when we decided to take a break. By then the temp was 108F. We gassed up, had some water and ate something. While we were standing there, we heard sirens and then saw some smoke. Not sure what was burning, but it didn't look too good!
Dave pulled out his cooling vest and I pulled out my cooling towel. We jumped back on the bikes and continued towards Fortuna. Once out of the Santa Rosa area, the traffic thinned out, so we weren't fighting it anymore. And about 100 more miles, we found a rest stop (Cherry Creek Rest Stop) so we could take a break and recharge our cooling stuff!
After that break, it was on to Fortuna, 103 miles. At one point, we came across the area that was damaged due to a rock slide. But we weren't delayed, and we just kept riding. On the most part, the road was a nice and easy to ride. It had some sweepers, but nothing tight. And it really didn't have that many cages on it!
We finally got to Fortuna, and we were glad to see the temps were way down from the earlier temps we saw (Dave said he saw 110F at some point). We were just as glad to get to the room in the Humboldt Redwood Inn on Main Street, that had been recently re-vamped, so it was really nice!
After getting settled in our room, we checked the area for some dinner. I found some place 5 or 6 miles away, called Pepper's. It was Father's Day and they were having a Prime Rib special, so both of us had that. It was a big piece of meat and very tasty.
So by the end of the day, I had ridden 529 miles. And Dave rode 295 miles.
Day 3, June 19th
Dave and I woke up at about the same time. We got dressed and packed our gear and then backtracked about a ¼ of a mile to the Redwood Café. When the waitress tried to seat us, I suggested a table in the corner and she said it was dirty (had two cups on it) and tried to seat us at two other tables. I walked over to the corner table, took the two cups and put them on the dirty table next to it and we sat down at the corner table. I could see both bikes from there very nicely, thank you!
After breakfast we loaded things up and Dave was having problems with something (I can't remember what), but that delayed us by 10 to 15 minutes, getting out of there. Since we gassed up after dinner the night before, we just took off, heading north on 101. It was overcast and cool, not that we were complaining… 100Fs off to the east.
We found ourselves riding through Eureka, and up through Crescent City, where we passed the hotel where we would be staying on the way down. The temps were pretty much around 64F, cool, but we had our gear, so we were fine. Somewhere's along the way, we found this castle made from an old hollowed out tree. It was really cool!
And not too far from there, we came across this heard of Elk getting their morning meal!
From there, it was on to Gold's Beach, where Justin, Dave and I stayed four years prior, when we were riding with Justin so he could get home with his new ST1300, my old one. As we continued up US101, the sky continued to be overcast (the entire time we were on 101) and the temps stayed around 64F! The highway was really slow and there were a number of landslide areas where the road was wiped out (one lane for both directions, so we would have to wait for the lights to turn green so we could continue north). We went through Coos Bay. That place was a little crazy, as far as the roads were concerned. We continued north a little farther and we spotted a McDonald's and stopped for some lunch and a break.
Again it was back on the slow hwy heading north. Because our ride seemed to be getting longer and longer, and as it was starting to get a little later than we had hoped, we stopped in Newport to use the McDonald's there and check our distances. We were trying to figure out how much farther we had when Justin called. He was as surprised as we still had over 100 miles still to go. The good thing was we only had about 30 miles or so before we would turn off 101 and get away from the cloudy coast. Inland temps weren't too bad that day, and we were getting tired of the 64F and overcast and SLOW traffic!
After that quick break, we were on our way. Once in Lincoln City, we started looking for Hwy18 so we could head up to McMinnville. I was really hoping to get there early enough to stop in and see the Spruce Goose, but it was too late and getting later. We rode right past it! We trudged on and a few miles out of town, we turned on to Hwy 240, which went through a number of REALLY SMALL TOWNS! Which means SLOW…
We finally got up to Hillsboro around 9pm and following my GPS to the motel, well that's where I thought it was taking us. Instead it was taking us to Phil's house! Somehow I got Phil's address mixed up with the Hotel's, and it didn't take long to figure that one out and we turned back around and got back out of Phil's track. We then passed right by the Honda Dealer that Justin and I used their loading dock to unload my 2012 ST1300 a few years back. But I didn't realize it at the moment!
As we were approaching the motel, I spotted another ST1300, then realized it was Justin! LOL He had gotten there just a few minutes before we did. A few weeks before, I had called the hotel, to request a room on the first floor and in the back so we didn't have to hear the aircraft taking off and landing from the airport across the street.
Our room was the one on the left, next to the door. Worked out great!
After getting all of our gear in the room, we jumped on the bikes for some dinner at McDonald's (these things are everywhere!) just down the street. From there, Justin headed home and Dave and I went down to a store to pick up a few things, then back to the motel.
For the day, we rode a total of 439 VERY SLOW miles!
Day 4, June 20th
Dave and I got up and dressed, ate and then headed over to Phil's house. Phil was waiting out front with his dog (Miss Peabody), when we pulled up.
- Talk about bringing back memories...Phil driving, Dave riding shotgun and me in the back seat...LOL
It was great seeing Phil again, it had been a long time!
We mainly just talked about old times and Phil's wife passing away just a couple of months before and Dave loosing his wife back in 2007. For not seeing each other for some 40 years, they had a lot in common!
Justin got off work a little early due to a dental apt and so he came over too. He brought a helmet with him for Phil to use the next day. It was one of my old helmets that I had given Justin many years before! With the helmet there, Dave took Phil for a little ride on the back of his ST1300, to see how Phil would do on the bike.
Justin's $500 Jeep. The owner had spin out and ripped up the rear end. Justin bought it cheap and then fixed it, I think he spent a total of $500 to get it in good working condition before converting over to his off-road vehicle. Justin built the rack and other assorted parts for it.
After that, Dave, Justin and I took off, back to our room, but we stopped and gassed up first, so we were ready for the next day.
Phil's house was only 2 miles from our motel room, so we only put about 5 miles on for the day.
Day 5, June 21st
After we ate, Justin met us behind the motel, where our bikes were parked. We worked at getting all of our Sena's to talk, but only Dave and I could communicate. But we finally said heck with it and off to Phil's we went!
Once Phil was boarded on Dave's bike, we took off. With Dave and Phil covering the back and Justin leading. As we were riding down the road, Justin did something, and all of a sudden, we could all talk. It was great!
Justin led us north, out of town and on a little two lane road called Skyline Blvd. He said it was an old timber trail, and I could believe him, since it was in pretty rough shape. At one point we stopped on a gravel turnoff. Earlier, I had told Dave that he needed to put down his sidestand when Phil was getting off, did he listen to little Bro? Of course not! I kept Phil from hitting the ground, but there was no way to stop Dave's bike. (My video recorder caught it, but stopped right before the bike touched down!) No major damage to either of them, nor the bike, so we all picked it back up, took a look at the view from “above†and then Dave rode over to the road, before having Phil get back on…with his kickstand down this time!
Soon, we were heading northwest on NW ST Helen's Rd (US30). We continued for quite a few miles until we came to the Lewis & Clark Bridge, that took us into Washington. A number of turns and over the Cowlitz river and we were soon on I5 heading north to Castle Rock, Mt St Helen's Way NE, where we turned off and got some lunch.
After eating, we followed 503 out to Mt St. Helen's, stopping first at the Mt St. Helen's Forest Learning center, where we took a break and some pictures.
We then rode the next 18.5 miles to the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which was just over 51 miles total. We took more pictures there and some old guy had a Monocular set up on some Elk. I figured about where they were and pulled out my little Sony X50, and was able to capture them.
We took more pictures and then Dave and Phil walked into the building and when Justin and I did, they were busy collecting $8 from everyone. Justin and I found out later, that was just for the theater, which we didn't want to go in any way! Oh well, a small donation! BUT they didn't have any shot glasses!
We hiked back to the bikes and loaded up and were soon heading back. It took a while, slow speeds and only a two lane road, so it was slow going. Once back at I5, we gassed up and took another break at the Chevron.
We followed our trail back to Oregon, but we didn't take that old log road back to Beaverton. Soon Justin peeled off to go back to his house and pick up my tire. Dave and I dropped Phil off at his house and we were just getting ready to go to the motel, when Justin called, gave me his friend's address where we were going to change the tire at, so Dave and I went directly there.
While he was home, I had Justin order some pizza, so after getting to John's house, and waiting for the pizza to arrive, I took off the rear wheel. Justin grabbed his tire irons and went to work on getting the tire and rim separated.
My rear tire...I still had over 1,100 miles to ride to get home..It was not going to make it
The pizza came so we stopped to eat, and after eating, got back to the tire. We discussed the best way to balance the tire and decided to use the “Jeep†tire way. John's jeep has oversized tires on it and they use the Airsoft pellets to balance them. We figured out how many we would need (420) for 3 oz of weight, so Justin and I counted out 420 pellets. That's a lot of pellets!
As Justin and I were putting the tire back on the rim, Dave started having a shaking attack, a real bad one. We sat him down and put blankets on him and kept an eye on him while we finished up the tire; we aired up the tire and I remounted it on the bike and took it for a quick spin.
It was all back together so Justin took Dave back to the motel and I rode Dave's bike back. Then Justin took me back to get my bike. On the way there, we stopped at WalMart and picked up some water and Gatorade, thinking maybe Dave was dehydrated. I got my bike back and Justin took off for home.
We did a total of about 260 miles for that day.
Day 6, June 21st
The next morning, Dave still wasn't feeling good, so I let him sleep and I took off for Brake-Away to see about a throttle lock I bought off eBay. I got a couple of screws and an idea how to make it work on my bike. Then stopped off at Honda of Beaverton and looked at all the old bikes on the ledge above the showroom, including upstairs. Nice collection. I say “Old bikesâ€, some of them were bikes like I owned or had ridden, or drooled over many years ago! But it was neat seeing them!
When I got back to the room, Dave was still not doing very well and he really seemed to be totally out of it. When I said anything about the hospital, he just shrugged it off. I decided to go get some lunch, but before I left, I called Chris and talked to her. She suggested to get him to Emergency. I knew she was right, but I didn't have a car and that meant I would have to wait for Justin to get home.
I jumped on the bike and took off, looking for some lunch. I had only gone a couple of blocks when I decided I should go check on Phil. He had told me that he had a spine issue (after our ride) and Dave tried calling him and didn't get an answer. So I rode over to Phil's and found him doing just fine. I then informed him of Dave's condition and Phil said “let's go get him!â€
I followed Phil back to the motel and when we went into the room, Dave was just getting dressed. Phil informed Dave we were going to Emergency. Dave didn't argue. Once at Emergency, Phil grabbed a wheelchair and we wheeled him in. The Receptionist said that they would get a nurse to check Dave out right away, which they did.
He had a high temperature of 103 and said they would get him back there as soon as they could. Once back there, they took some tests and found that he had some sort of urine infection and that they would be keeping him a couple of days. Ah…we are riding home tomorrow…nope, he won't be! He had to stay three days, and then stay with Justin & Barb for the week, until Dino could come and get him! I think he planned all of this. So he and Phil could spend some more time together!
Dave and Phil chatting in the Emergency room.
Justin, Phil and I went to dinner, and then Justin took me back to the motel where we gathered all of Dave's stuff, put it in Justin's Jeep and I rode Dave's bike over to Justin's house. Justin then took me back to the hospital so I could give Dave things he needed, like some clean clothes and his meds. Then Justin dropped me off at the motel. It was a weird feeling not having Dave there.
I put on maybe 50 miles.
Day 7, June 22nd
So now, it was just me, to ride back home! First, I would be heading to Elk Grove, I had told my mom I would stop by so we could go have some dinner. So I had to plan my ride home around that and the fact that it was going to be HOT!
For that reason, Dave and I had already discussed about riding back down US101 thru Oregon and Northern CA, so I made reservations at the Lighthouse Inn in Crescent City, thinking it would be a good place to stop! I was studying the map and started looking at the temps down I5. I figured if I went down I5 to Grants Pass, and then take US199 to Crescent City, I could bypass most of the slow going down through Oregon on US101. Which turned out to be a great idea!
That was about 250 miles and the temps stayed below the mid 80's until I got to Grants Pass where they went up to 90F. I gassed up, then found a McDonald's and had lunch. By the time I was done eating, the temp had climbed to 97F. I mapped out getting to 199 and Crescent City from there and off I went!
US199 was a nice little two lane road. I had to do a little passing, but not too bad. It took me about 2 hours to go the 85 miles, so it was slow going on the most part. I arrived in Crescent City around 4pm and checked into the Lighthouse Inn. VERY NICE place! And what a view!
I rested up a bit, then headed over to WalMart for some water and such. I then stopped near the city's old lighthouse and walked around that area a little, including walking to the end of a pier that was there.
Then on my way back I stopped off at an understaffed restaurant and had some fish & chips. The two gals taking care of everyone were needing some help. It took forever for the waitress to get to me, then when I went to pay the bill, I stood at the counter for 10 minutes. I finally just paid in cash and left.
There was a Chevron station was across the street, so I filled up and then went back to my room.
Total miles for the day was about 346 miles.
Day 8, June 24th
This day turned out to be a Marathon day for me!
I got up and dressed. They had breakfast dowstairs, so I grabbed some and took it back to my room while I packed and then left by 8:30am. I figured it would be a semi-hard day of riding, since I was going to get into some heat and TRAFFIC!
I followed US101 south through Eureka and then stopped in Fortuna, at the gas station next door to the motel Dave and I had stayed in the week before. I gassed up and took a quick break.
Then it was back on the road again! 101 had some issues, including a one lane road mess, due to a rockslide a month or so back. It took us 20 minutes of waiting to get through it. When I initially stopped, I was a ways back, but could see a couple of motorcycles up ahead. I decided to go talk to them, so I slowly rode up the shoulder to them.
They were from Fort Brag and had been camping up in Oregon and I think Washington too. About 5 minutes before we were given the go ahead, one of the guys said something about riding to the front. Sounded good to me, so I followed them up to the front of the line. Funny thing, NOBODY gave us any grief about it either!
We were the first out of the gate! There was a pickup pulling a utility trailer at the front of the pack, so everyone else was way behind us after a very short period of time! We came to a two lane section going our way and the two other riders were going about the speed limit, so I gave it some gas and passed them. They stayed with me (five or so over) until we came to the Fort Brag turn off and they went west as I continued south.
The rest of the ride down 101 was uneventful, until I came to Santa Rosa when my GPS told me I needed to go on Hwy12! What? I pulled off at a gas station and used the restroom, then checked my maps. (I'm glad I linked my tablet to my cell phone and had a map in it. I went back to 101, until a few miles down the road it has me taking off on 116? This time I stayed on it. Found a really bad one lane traffic jam, so I started riding between the cages and the double yellow line, staying to the right of the line. Most of the people would move over for me, a couple wouldn't, but it didn't take me long to get around them.
Finally I hit some clearing and I80 heading east, near Fairfield. I continued until I found 99 south. I pulled up in my mom's driveway around 4 pm.
I had gone about 410 miles by then.
After visiting and having dinner with her and my two sisters, I took off to Stockton, for a motel room. I had chosen this motel, due to its vicinity to Dave's place, less than a mile away!
As I rode up to the motel, I could see that there was a BIG Bike Group (more like a gang, of the Cruiser types) there, having festivities in the conference room, and the parking lot.
While most seemed okay, I felt uneasy around them. After getting my room key, I proceeded to the building my room was I and was greeted (if you could call it that) by a couple of non-biker gang looking types! Great!
Then I walk into my room where a thick smell of stale smoke awaited me. I sat my tankbag down on a table and my jacket over a chair, looked the room over and went out to get my bike and park it closer to my room. The closer to that parking spot (right out front of my room) the more I was thinking I really didn't want to stay there! Once parked, I text Dave and said something to him about it. At that point, I went back into my room, grabbed my tankbag and jacket and walked back to the front desk.
The gal behind the counter was busy informing three ladies (They looked like they might have been part of the goings on with the bike group) that she was booked up. I reached over, handed her my key and said that one room just opened up, and I walked away. About 10 minutes later, as I was prepping my bike to leave and she came out to me and asked why I was not happy with the room. I told her and she said that the motel will verify to Booking.com, that I didn't stay in the room and I should get a full refund. I've since contacted Booking.com and we'll see what happens! (Which I did a couple days later).
At this point, it was close to 10:30pm and I wasn't too sure I would be able to find a good room between there and Bakersfield. So I just got on the US99 freeway and rode south.
Yeah, it was about 85F out, prefect riding weather, compared to what it would be in about 12 hours!
After 100 miles or so, I stopped at a Chevron and filed up. I then went to go in to use the restroom and found they had closed the door 3 minutes before! I asked the guy if I could use it and he let me in! Thanks guy! I rode for another 50 miles and decided I was getting tired, so I stopped at a rest stop and took my last five hour. I sat there for maybe a half hour, until I was wide awake again and off I went.
The next stop I made was just south of Bakersfield for another gas stop. When I got to the gas station, some sort of action was going on. There was a food truck feeding about 50 people or so, soon a couple of rice burning cages went screaming down the road, racing. At that time I decided I needed to get out of there, without getting hit by more racers! Sheesh and I didn't see any cops there at all!
Back on 99 south and I was soon climbing the Grapevine. At the top, before Frasier is a rest stop, and I was getting a little groggy, so I stopped there to drink some water and take a break to wake me up some more. Some guy started talking to me about the bike and where I was heading, so I told of the little trip I had just done. After he left, I put on more gear, since it had cooled down a little, to the low 70F's. And off I went again!
I stopped again about 40 miles down the road because the gear was now getting too warm, so I took ten minutes there and off again! Another 90 miles down the road and stopped one last time at an Arco to use the restroom and get something to eat & drink. I was there a good 45 minutes, trying to wake up enough so I could get home safely.
At 7:00am I pulled into the driveway, opened the garage and pulled the bike in. Boy was I tired! Now one thing I did before I left was to leave my keys upstairs, “why would I need them?†is what I thought! DUH! I didn't expect to be pulling in this early and after getting the dogs out of the garage, I had to call Chris to come unlock the garage door, waking her up!
For that round, I rode about 462 miles!
I had left at 8:30am from Crescent City and got home at 7:00am with a total of about 872 miles, in that period of time! And no sleep! :22yikes: Here it is two weeks later and I still feel I haven't recovered completely!
Overall, with the exception of Dave getting sick, it was a good trip. Dave did get home, about a week after I did, and is recovering at home now. I'm not sure what this will do for future rides for him, but if he does do more long distance rides, means he'll have to stop more often.4:
I'm just thankful that Justin and Barb were able to take care of him like they did. And that I was able to get home safely after doing that Marathon ride I did. I don't plan on doing that again, anytime soon!
Dave calls me and tells me he found his old high school buddy up in Hillsboro Oregon. That's near my son, Justin, who lives in Beaverton, some 5 to 7 miles away. So we start talking about doing a motorcycle ride up there. After looking over dates, we decide to head up on the weekend of June 17th. Then I find out that my oldest grandson is graduating on that date! I moved my departure time to after the graduation.
During the planning stages, we talked about the best routes to take. When we first started talking about the trip. We had plans to just go straight up I5. Then as we got closer to the day of departure, the heat was going to be a problem. So we changed the route going up to 101, which we could follow up to Lincoln City and then go inland.
Day 1, June 17th
I took off at 9:30pm on Saturday, June 17th. My destination was 200 miles away, at the Vagabond Motel on I5 west of Bakersfield. I arrived at about 12:30am. Checked in and went to bed, I just didn't sleep very well!
200 miles for that day.
Day 2, June 18th
So, at 5:15am I was awake and decided to go ahead and get my shower. No water! Yikes! Seems the city had turned off the water and was supposed to be back on, after I left.
So I got dressed, packed the bike, checked out and rode to the Chevron next door. I filled up and got a roll to eat and a Pepsi to drink. I ate half the roll and drank one third of the Pepsi and off I went. The next stop was 233 miles to my north.
Dave called me when I was about one hour away from Stockton, I was about to call him. He was surprised I was as far north as I was. As I was ridding up, the wind was getting pretty bad. As I was getting close to Stockton, I looked at my gas gauge and I was using gas much faster than I was expecting! I was already on reserve and it said I had 30 miles left of fuel, and I still had 20 miles to go. So, for the last 20 miles, I slowed way down and I was afraid I wasn't going to make it to Lodi.
Dave and I were to meet in Lodi, where the I5 & SR12 cross, at the Denny's. But we never made it. I stopped at the Chevron there and that's where Dave met me. And with a McDonald's right next door, what the heck.
The night before, when parking my bike at the Vagabond Motel, I noticed my rear tire was getting pretty close to the end of its life. So before Dave and I were ready to go I texted Justin the information on my tire and he started calling around to see if he could find one. He wound up ordering it and it as to be there by Wednesday.
From there, we headed west on Hwy 12, and it was already starting to get hot. This stretch of Hwy 12, is long and narrow, no passing and even a couple ole draw bridges, which we got stuck on one for about ten minutes. Just West of Travis AFB, we jumped on the I80 freeway until Hwy 37 which would take us to Hwy 101 to Fortuna, our stop for the night.
We had ridden some 95 miles, to Santa Rosa when we decided to take a break. By then the temp was 108F. We gassed up, had some water and ate something. While we were standing there, we heard sirens and then saw some smoke. Not sure what was burning, but it didn't look too good!
Dave pulled out his cooling vest and I pulled out my cooling towel. We jumped back on the bikes and continued towards Fortuna. Once out of the Santa Rosa area, the traffic thinned out, so we weren't fighting it anymore. And about 100 more miles, we found a rest stop (Cherry Creek Rest Stop) so we could take a break and recharge our cooling stuff!
After that break, it was on to Fortuna, 103 miles. At one point, we came across the area that was damaged due to a rock slide. But we weren't delayed, and we just kept riding. On the most part, the road was a nice and easy to ride. It had some sweepers, but nothing tight. And it really didn't have that many cages on it!
We finally got to Fortuna, and we were glad to see the temps were way down from the earlier temps we saw (Dave said he saw 110F at some point). We were just as glad to get to the room in the Humboldt Redwood Inn on Main Street, that had been recently re-vamped, so it was really nice!
After getting settled in our room, we checked the area for some dinner. I found some place 5 or 6 miles away, called Pepper's. It was Father's Day and they were having a Prime Rib special, so both of us had that. It was a big piece of meat and very tasty.
So by the end of the day, I had ridden 529 miles. And Dave rode 295 miles.
Day 3, June 19th
Dave and I woke up at about the same time. We got dressed and packed our gear and then backtracked about a ¼ of a mile to the Redwood Café. When the waitress tried to seat us, I suggested a table in the corner and she said it was dirty (had two cups on it) and tried to seat us at two other tables. I walked over to the corner table, took the two cups and put them on the dirty table next to it and we sat down at the corner table. I could see both bikes from there very nicely, thank you!
After breakfast we loaded things up and Dave was having problems with something (I can't remember what), but that delayed us by 10 to 15 minutes, getting out of there. Since we gassed up after dinner the night before, we just took off, heading north on 101. It was overcast and cool, not that we were complaining… 100Fs off to the east.
We found ourselves riding through Eureka, and up through Crescent City, where we passed the hotel where we would be staying on the way down. The temps were pretty much around 64F, cool, but we had our gear, so we were fine. Somewhere's along the way, we found this castle made from an old hollowed out tree. It was really cool!
And not too far from there, we came across this heard of Elk getting their morning meal!
From there, it was on to Gold's Beach, where Justin, Dave and I stayed four years prior, when we were riding with Justin so he could get home with his new ST1300, my old one. As we continued up US101, the sky continued to be overcast (the entire time we were on 101) and the temps stayed around 64F! The highway was really slow and there were a number of landslide areas where the road was wiped out (one lane for both directions, so we would have to wait for the lights to turn green so we could continue north). We went through Coos Bay. That place was a little crazy, as far as the roads were concerned. We continued north a little farther and we spotted a McDonald's and stopped for some lunch and a break.
Again it was back on the slow hwy heading north. Because our ride seemed to be getting longer and longer, and as it was starting to get a little later than we had hoped, we stopped in Newport to use the McDonald's there and check our distances. We were trying to figure out how much farther we had when Justin called. He was as surprised as we still had over 100 miles still to go. The good thing was we only had about 30 miles or so before we would turn off 101 and get away from the cloudy coast. Inland temps weren't too bad that day, and we were getting tired of the 64F and overcast and SLOW traffic!
After that quick break, we were on our way. Once in Lincoln City, we started looking for Hwy18 so we could head up to McMinnville. I was really hoping to get there early enough to stop in and see the Spruce Goose, but it was too late and getting later. We rode right past it! We trudged on and a few miles out of town, we turned on to Hwy 240, which went through a number of REALLY SMALL TOWNS! Which means SLOW…
We finally got up to Hillsboro around 9pm and following my GPS to the motel, well that's where I thought it was taking us. Instead it was taking us to Phil's house! Somehow I got Phil's address mixed up with the Hotel's, and it didn't take long to figure that one out and we turned back around and got back out of Phil's track. We then passed right by the Honda Dealer that Justin and I used their loading dock to unload my 2012 ST1300 a few years back. But I didn't realize it at the moment!
As we were approaching the motel, I spotted another ST1300, then realized it was Justin! LOL He had gotten there just a few minutes before we did. A few weeks before, I had called the hotel, to request a room on the first floor and in the back so we didn't have to hear the aircraft taking off and landing from the airport across the street.
Our room was the one on the left, next to the door. Worked out great!After getting all of our gear in the room, we jumped on the bikes for some dinner at McDonald's (these things are everywhere!) just down the street. From there, Justin headed home and Dave and I went down to a store to pick up a few things, then back to the motel.
For the day, we rode a total of 439 VERY SLOW miles!
Day 4, June 20th
Dave and I got up and dressed, ate and then headed over to Phil's house. Phil was waiting out front with his dog (Miss Peabody), when we pulled up.
- Talk about bringing back memories...Phil driving, Dave riding shotgun and me in the back seat...LOLIt was great seeing Phil again, it had been a long time!
We mainly just talked about old times and Phil's wife passing away just a couple of months before and Dave loosing his wife back in 2007. For not seeing each other for some 40 years, they had a lot in common!
Justin got off work a little early due to a dental apt and so he came over too. He brought a helmet with him for Phil to use the next day. It was one of my old helmets that I had given Justin many years before! With the helmet there, Dave took Phil for a little ride on the back of his ST1300, to see how Phil would do on the bike.
Justin's $500 Jeep. The owner had spin out and ripped up the rear end. Justin bought it cheap and then fixed it, I think he spent a total of $500 to get it in good working condition before converting over to his off-road vehicle. Justin built the rack and other assorted parts for it. After that, Dave, Justin and I took off, back to our room, but we stopped and gassed up first, so we were ready for the next day.
Phil's house was only 2 miles from our motel room, so we only put about 5 miles on for the day.
Day 5, June 21st
After we ate, Justin met us behind the motel, where our bikes were parked. We worked at getting all of our Sena's to talk, but only Dave and I could communicate. But we finally said heck with it and off to Phil's we went!
Once Phil was boarded on Dave's bike, we took off. With Dave and Phil covering the back and Justin leading. As we were riding down the road, Justin did something, and all of a sudden, we could all talk. It was great!
Justin led us north, out of town and on a little two lane road called Skyline Blvd. He said it was an old timber trail, and I could believe him, since it was in pretty rough shape. At one point we stopped on a gravel turnoff. Earlier, I had told Dave that he needed to put down his sidestand when Phil was getting off, did he listen to little Bro? Of course not! I kept Phil from hitting the ground, but there was no way to stop Dave's bike. (My video recorder caught it, but stopped right before the bike touched down!) No major damage to either of them, nor the bike, so we all picked it back up, took a look at the view from “above†and then Dave rode over to the road, before having Phil get back on…with his kickstand down this time!
Soon, we were heading northwest on NW ST Helen's Rd (US30). We continued for quite a few miles until we came to the Lewis & Clark Bridge, that took us into Washington. A number of turns and over the Cowlitz river and we were soon on I5 heading north to Castle Rock, Mt St Helen's Way NE, where we turned off and got some lunch.
After eating, we followed 503 out to Mt St. Helen's, stopping first at the Mt St. Helen's Forest Learning center, where we took a break and some pictures.
We then rode the next 18.5 miles to the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which was just over 51 miles total. We took more pictures there and some old guy had a Monocular set up on some Elk. I figured about where they were and pulled out my little Sony X50, and was able to capture them.
We took more pictures and then Dave and Phil walked into the building and when Justin and I did, they were busy collecting $8 from everyone. Justin and I found out later, that was just for the theater, which we didn't want to go in any way! Oh well, a small donation! BUT they didn't have any shot glasses!We hiked back to the bikes and loaded up and were soon heading back. It took a while, slow speeds and only a two lane road, so it was slow going. Once back at I5, we gassed up and took another break at the Chevron.
We followed our trail back to Oregon, but we didn't take that old log road back to Beaverton. Soon Justin peeled off to go back to his house and pick up my tire. Dave and I dropped Phil off at his house and we were just getting ready to go to the motel, when Justin called, gave me his friend's address where we were going to change the tire at, so Dave and I went directly there.
While he was home, I had Justin order some pizza, so after getting to John's house, and waiting for the pizza to arrive, I took off the rear wheel. Justin grabbed his tire irons and went to work on getting the tire and rim separated.
My rear tire...I still had over 1,100 miles to ride to get home..It was not going to make itThe pizza came so we stopped to eat, and after eating, got back to the tire. We discussed the best way to balance the tire and decided to use the “Jeep†tire way. John's jeep has oversized tires on it and they use the Airsoft pellets to balance them. We figured out how many we would need (420) for 3 oz of weight, so Justin and I counted out 420 pellets. That's a lot of pellets!
As Justin and I were putting the tire back on the rim, Dave started having a shaking attack, a real bad one. We sat him down and put blankets on him and kept an eye on him while we finished up the tire; we aired up the tire and I remounted it on the bike and took it for a quick spin.
It was all back together so Justin took Dave back to the motel and I rode Dave's bike back. Then Justin took me back to get my bike. On the way there, we stopped at WalMart and picked up some water and Gatorade, thinking maybe Dave was dehydrated. I got my bike back and Justin took off for home.
We did a total of about 260 miles for that day.
Day 6, June 21st
The next morning, Dave still wasn't feeling good, so I let him sleep and I took off for Brake-Away to see about a throttle lock I bought off eBay. I got a couple of screws and an idea how to make it work on my bike. Then stopped off at Honda of Beaverton and looked at all the old bikes on the ledge above the showroom, including upstairs. Nice collection. I say “Old bikesâ€, some of them were bikes like I owned or had ridden, or drooled over many years ago! But it was neat seeing them!
When I got back to the room, Dave was still not doing very well and he really seemed to be totally out of it. When I said anything about the hospital, he just shrugged it off. I decided to go get some lunch, but before I left, I called Chris and talked to her. She suggested to get him to Emergency. I knew she was right, but I didn't have a car and that meant I would have to wait for Justin to get home.
I jumped on the bike and took off, looking for some lunch. I had only gone a couple of blocks when I decided I should go check on Phil. He had told me that he had a spine issue (after our ride) and Dave tried calling him and didn't get an answer. So I rode over to Phil's and found him doing just fine. I then informed him of Dave's condition and Phil said “let's go get him!â€
I followed Phil back to the motel and when we went into the room, Dave was just getting dressed. Phil informed Dave we were going to Emergency. Dave didn't argue. Once at Emergency, Phil grabbed a wheelchair and we wheeled him in. The Receptionist said that they would get a nurse to check Dave out right away, which they did.
He had a high temperature of 103 and said they would get him back there as soon as they could. Once back there, they took some tests and found that he had some sort of urine infection and that they would be keeping him a couple of days. Ah…we are riding home tomorrow…nope, he won't be! He had to stay three days, and then stay with Justin & Barb for the week, until Dino could come and get him! I think he planned all of this. So he and Phil could spend some more time together!
Dave and Phil chatting in the Emergency room.Justin, Phil and I went to dinner, and then Justin took me back to the motel where we gathered all of Dave's stuff, put it in Justin's Jeep and I rode Dave's bike over to Justin's house. Justin then took me back to the hospital so I could give Dave things he needed, like some clean clothes and his meds. Then Justin dropped me off at the motel. It was a weird feeling not having Dave there.
I put on maybe 50 miles.
Day 7, June 22nd
So now, it was just me, to ride back home! First, I would be heading to Elk Grove, I had told my mom I would stop by so we could go have some dinner. So I had to plan my ride home around that and the fact that it was going to be HOT!
For that reason, Dave and I had already discussed about riding back down US101 thru Oregon and Northern CA, so I made reservations at the Lighthouse Inn in Crescent City, thinking it would be a good place to stop! I was studying the map and started looking at the temps down I5. I figured if I went down I5 to Grants Pass, and then take US199 to Crescent City, I could bypass most of the slow going down through Oregon on US101. Which turned out to be a great idea!
That was about 250 miles and the temps stayed below the mid 80's until I got to Grants Pass where they went up to 90F. I gassed up, then found a McDonald's and had lunch. By the time I was done eating, the temp had climbed to 97F. I mapped out getting to 199 and Crescent City from there and off I went!
US199 was a nice little two lane road. I had to do a little passing, but not too bad. It took me about 2 hours to go the 85 miles, so it was slow going on the most part. I arrived in Crescent City around 4pm and checked into the Lighthouse Inn. VERY NICE place! And what a view!
I rested up a bit, then headed over to WalMart for some water and such. I then stopped near the city's old lighthouse and walked around that area a little, including walking to the end of a pier that was there.
Then on my way back I stopped off at an understaffed restaurant and had some fish & chips. The two gals taking care of everyone were needing some help. It took forever for the waitress to get to me, then when I went to pay the bill, I stood at the counter for 10 minutes. I finally just paid in cash and left.
There was a Chevron station was across the street, so I filled up and then went back to my room.
Total miles for the day was about 346 miles.
Day 8, June 24th
This day turned out to be a Marathon day for me!
I got up and dressed. They had breakfast dowstairs, so I grabbed some and took it back to my room while I packed and then left by 8:30am. I figured it would be a semi-hard day of riding, since I was going to get into some heat and TRAFFIC!
I followed US101 south through Eureka and then stopped in Fortuna, at the gas station next door to the motel Dave and I had stayed in the week before. I gassed up and took a quick break.
Then it was back on the road again! 101 had some issues, including a one lane road mess, due to a rockslide a month or so back. It took us 20 minutes of waiting to get through it. When I initially stopped, I was a ways back, but could see a couple of motorcycles up ahead. I decided to go talk to them, so I slowly rode up the shoulder to them.
They were from Fort Brag and had been camping up in Oregon and I think Washington too. About 5 minutes before we were given the go ahead, one of the guys said something about riding to the front. Sounded good to me, so I followed them up to the front of the line. Funny thing, NOBODY gave us any grief about it either!
We were the first out of the gate! There was a pickup pulling a utility trailer at the front of the pack, so everyone else was way behind us after a very short period of time! We came to a two lane section going our way and the two other riders were going about the speed limit, so I gave it some gas and passed them. They stayed with me (five or so over) until we came to the Fort Brag turn off and they went west as I continued south.
The rest of the ride down 101 was uneventful, until I came to Santa Rosa when my GPS told me I needed to go on Hwy12! What? I pulled off at a gas station and used the restroom, then checked my maps. (I'm glad I linked my tablet to my cell phone and had a map in it. I went back to 101, until a few miles down the road it has me taking off on 116? This time I stayed on it. Found a really bad one lane traffic jam, so I started riding between the cages and the double yellow line, staying to the right of the line. Most of the people would move over for me, a couple wouldn't, but it didn't take me long to get around them.
Finally I hit some clearing and I80 heading east, near Fairfield. I continued until I found 99 south. I pulled up in my mom's driveway around 4 pm.
I had gone about 410 miles by then.
After visiting and having dinner with her and my two sisters, I took off to Stockton, for a motel room. I had chosen this motel, due to its vicinity to Dave's place, less than a mile away!
As I rode up to the motel, I could see that there was a BIG Bike Group (more like a gang, of the Cruiser types) there, having festivities in the conference room, and the parking lot.
While most seemed okay, I felt uneasy around them. After getting my room key, I proceeded to the building my room was I and was greeted (if you could call it that) by a couple of non-biker gang looking types! Great!
Then I walk into my room where a thick smell of stale smoke awaited me. I sat my tankbag down on a table and my jacket over a chair, looked the room over and went out to get my bike and park it closer to my room. The closer to that parking spot (right out front of my room) the more I was thinking I really didn't want to stay there! Once parked, I text Dave and said something to him about it. At that point, I went back into my room, grabbed my tankbag and jacket and walked back to the front desk.
The gal behind the counter was busy informing three ladies (They looked like they might have been part of the goings on with the bike group) that she was booked up. I reached over, handed her my key and said that one room just opened up, and I walked away. About 10 minutes later, as I was prepping my bike to leave and she came out to me and asked why I was not happy with the room. I told her and she said that the motel will verify to Booking.com, that I didn't stay in the room and I should get a full refund. I've since contacted Booking.com and we'll see what happens! (Which I did a couple days later).
At this point, it was close to 10:30pm and I wasn't too sure I would be able to find a good room between there and Bakersfield. So I just got on the US99 freeway and rode south.
Yeah, it was about 85F out, prefect riding weather, compared to what it would be in about 12 hours!
After 100 miles or so, I stopped at a Chevron and filed up. I then went to go in to use the restroom and found they had closed the door 3 minutes before! I asked the guy if I could use it and he let me in! Thanks guy! I rode for another 50 miles and decided I was getting tired, so I stopped at a rest stop and took my last five hour. I sat there for maybe a half hour, until I was wide awake again and off I went.
The next stop I made was just south of Bakersfield for another gas stop. When I got to the gas station, some sort of action was going on. There was a food truck feeding about 50 people or so, soon a couple of rice burning cages went screaming down the road, racing. At that time I decided I needed to get out of there, without getting hit by more racers! Sheesh and I didn't see any cops there at all!
Back on 99 south and I was soon climbing the Grapevine. At the top, before Frasier is a rest stop, and I was getting a little groggy, so I stopped there to drink some water and take a break to wake me up some more. Some guy started talking to me about the bike and where I was heading, so I told of the little trip I had just done. After he left, I put on more gear, since it had cooled down a little, to the low 70F's. And off I went again!
I stopped again about 40 miles down the road because the gear was now getting too warm, so I took ten minutes there and off again! Another 90 miles down the road and stopped one last time at an Arco to use the restroom and get something to eat & drink. I was there a good 45 minutes, trying to wake up enough so I could get home safely.
At 7:00am I pulled into the driveway, opened the garage and pulled the bike in. Boy was I tired! Now one thing I did before I left was to leave my keys upstairs, “why would I need them?†is what I thought! DUH! I didn't expect to be pulling in this early and after getting the dogs out of the garage, I had to call Chris to come unlock the garage door, waking her up!
For that round, I rode about 462 miles!
I had left at 8:30am from Crescent City and got home at 7:00am with a total of about 872 miles, in that period of time! And no sleep! :22yikes: Here it is two weeks later and I still feel I haven't recovered completely!
Overall, with the exception of Dave getting sick, it was a good trip. Dave did get home, about a week after I did, and is recovering at home now. I'm not sure what this will do for future rides for him, but if he does do more long distance rides, means he'll have to stop more often.
4: I'm just thankful that Justin and Barb were able to take care of him like they did. And that I was able to get home safely after doing that Marathon ride I did. I don't plan on doing that again, anytime soon!
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