Not all who wander are lost

Fun times! I'm glad your trip is proving to be so memorable. It is bringing back memories for me - driving up to Grant's Pass in my dad's Miata, driving and hiking among the redwoods, roadside stops along the coast, Petaluma, etc. Perhaps you can check out the Tillamook Dairy as you head north or if you have more time the Boeing Plant Tour is very interesting.
 
Highway STar said:
OK. So eventually you get to Crescent City and have to choose between 101 up the Oregon coast or 199 to Grant's Pass in Oregon.
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Not sure what your route or time available is like, but the section of 101 in southern Oregon is amazing, as is 199, so the real answer is to choose both!! If you can get a chance to ride the southern Oregon coast while on this trip, try to do it.
 
Sounds truly amazing the roads you are riding on and the scenery. Enjoying your trip reports and pictures.
:mcrider:
 
Thanks for taking us along Jock! Keep 'em coming.
 
Well, after a full 8 hours handling the clutch and throttle yesterday my hands needed a break so I ran up I-5 from Grant's Pass to Portland. My companion needed a shorter day in the saddle too so it was a good route. Quite a number of mountain passes before you hit the plains of middle-Oregon (the grass seed capital of North America, and likely the world). A bit strange to drive past fields of grass that has been left to go to seed. And have you ever seen a bag of grass seed? Like how do you even get that stuff through a combine harvester?

The roadside continues to be strewn with gorgeous flowering plants as it has been since we headed out of LA. From California poppies to azaleas to roses and many I couldn't name. I have o say that this is definitely one of the prettiest parts of the planet I have been to. And I have been literally around the world.

Oh, and Portland? Rivals Toronto for traffic madness at rush hour. Another reason to get to your destination before everyone is on the roads for rush hour. Would have saved me an hour of travel time. The weather smiled on me and was overcast, so we did not quite melt before we made it to our destination for the night.

I will have to come back again to these parts. There is no way to see everything we need to see this time around. Like a mushroom that's 2.4 square miles? Um, wow...

Oregon, where hippies go to retire....It rocks.

Ride safe.
 
Yeah, if you wanted a short riding day then I-5 vs. 101 was a good call. The Oregon coastal scenery is quite beautiful, but 101 is cluttered with small towns and traffic lights for the northern 2/3rds of the state, so it takes a lot of time to travel that route up to Astoria. Its one of my favorite places to ride, but not fun if you're in a hurry to get somewhere else. If you can, take the road over to Tillamook from Portland and then take 101 north to Astoria and cross over the Columbia River into WA there.
 
Looks like a great trip. If Seattle isn't one of your destination head up to Port Townsend and take take the ferry, easy ride to Vancouver from there. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express near the airport, free secure parking and you can take their shuttle to accompany your wife to the airport and then return to the hotel on it to pick up your bike. I would have returned via highway 20 in Washington state but my out of province health insurance was only for 30 days and that detour would have meant that I would have been out of Ontario for an extra couple of days so I took the most direct route home via the Crows Nest Pass and the Trans Canada Highway.

Gerhard
 
catcher said:
Nice report on your excellent experience!
So which is more awe-inspiring - the ocean, or the trees?
Ride safe, indeed.
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That's a hard call. The trees would be my first choice. To be among things that have been living since before the birth of Jesus, and a forest of them, it's hard to imagine a more spiritual location. They are mute, but still have a presence you can actually sense.

The ocean is a different kettle of fish, if you'll excuse the phrase. To see the waves roll in from Hawaii, breaking on the rocks of Northern California, gives me the longing to travel across the seas to the other side. It offers endless possibility, constant motion, ebb and flow. Very interesting to see both the motion of the sea and the stillness of the trees in one day. Both were humbling and invigorating experiences.

You can hug a tree, but you can dive into an ocean...
 
Arrived Vancouver, BC. I-5 is a pretty unremarkable route but my Garmin was determined to make it more interesting by interjecting little forays onto collector lanes, off-ramps to on-ramps and so on. I'm sure it's all my fault but really, not very inspiring of trust.
 

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Day 16. Vancouver to Oyama, BC.

coming out of Vancouver to the highlands is pretty unremarkable but fairly scenic as you drive up the Fraser river valley. It started to rain at the east end of Chilliwack but this let up when I stopped for gas and espresso in Hope. From here you can get on the Coquihalla Highway which takes you over the mountains in sweeping curves up and then down the mountains. In Merritt I switched to 97 to take me into Kelowna and there was more high mountain, curvy, scenic and fast roads to ride. If you are into alpine vistas, tumbling rivers and fast riding this is a route for you.

Still a a lot of snow on the ground up there in the passes. I wouldn't care to ride these roads in a snowstorm, but they are great right now.

Met another Victory rider in Kelowna and have seen several more in town here.

Spent the afternoon adrift in a boat on the lake. Ready to continue the ride tomorrow.
 
A nice red Vision!
 

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I assume you're probably going through Banff, but if you happen to get further south, the Frank slide on Hwy 3 just east of the B.C./Alberta border is worth seeing. Its quite surreal, as you approach it from a couple miles away you just can't figure out what happened, then when you read the signs that describe the magnitude of the slide its pretty amazing. As you exit Banff to the east you can take hwy 22 south to hwy 3 and you're pretty much there, its just a short backtrack to the west from there.
 
I have been to Frank Slide and for years had a piece of rock from there. It was kind of like Canada's Mt. Saint Helens, without the lava and pyroclastic clouds.

I often wondered what happened to the baby who was found there. She was named Frank Slide, which is a terrible thing to do to a child, but would be a great name for a girl otherwise.
 
Somewhere I have photos of my dad standing beside the roadside historic information sign in the pull off that he and his road building crew erected while they were upgrading the road through Frank Slide.

Years later my brother named his rock band “Frank Slydeâ€.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Dawn in the Okanagan.
 

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On the road again. Highway 97 from Mara to the TransCanada (highway 1) in Sicamous, BC and then up and over the Roger's Pass and the Kicking-Horse Pass (continental divide).

What a day; perfect weather, perfect roads, on a bike.

The only way this day could have been improved would be to have company while doing it. Nothing very technical but the scenery was unbeatable from the start. A lovely winding road, 97 follows the lake shore up to Sicamous, the house-boat capital of Canada! Once you get into the TransCanada you almost immediately see the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies standing in wait. From Golden, BC to well past Banff, Alberta, it is one breathtaking vista after another. There are numerous points of interest to stop, the Last Spike, the spiral train tunnels through the mountain, Emerald Lake, it is really worth getting there. The odd spot of construction and cleaning the sand out of the snow sheds ( where the avalanches run over a tunnel built for that reason.) Still a lot of snow on the ground in places. Waterfalls everywhere.

After Cranmore it is pretty much show-over as you descend to the foothills of Alberta and pretty immediate prairie landscapes. Still worth it to see those mountains.
 
One of many vistas today.
 

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