Travels 2

Originally posted Dec. 30, 2005

More motorcycle diaries... Here's the write-up I did a while ago of our visit to our neighbors to the north.

Well, on a whim, we decided about two weeks ago to take the motorcycle up to Oregon over the Labor Day weekend. Crazy gas prices, you say? Yes, but the bike has a 6-gallon tank that's good for 200 miles (if you remember, we found that out the hard way on the last trip, loosely dubbed "Desert Madness 2005"). Holiday traffic, you say? See "crazy gas prices" above. It seemed that just about the only people who went anywhere were either on a bike or had a giant boat tethered to the back of their SUV. All good.

DAY 1 (Sept. 2): Fremont to Redding.

Both Ryan and I had to work, so we "slabbed it" (that's motorcycle speak for "took the freeway") up Highway 5 to Redding. On the way we stopped at a charming trucker diner (for some reason, stopping at such places is only OK when traveling...ever notice that?) called "Bill & Kathy's." I will lovingly refer to our waitress as "Hosebeast." Hosebeast obviously had not been to waitress school. We were greeted with a delicate "Y'want anything to drink?" and sent off with the ever-so-elegant "Y'want anything else?" Not to mention our dear, dear booth that was patched with duct tape. That was peeling off. That stuck to my belt. And is still there. $#(*&! duct tape. And it's not as if we were in Podunk, Texas! Anyway, we finally invested in MP3 players before the trip, so I listened to music all the way to Redding. Once there (it was about 10 p.m.), we collapsed on our long-awaited king-size bed. Only to find that the "softness" of said bed was equivalent to laying on the floor. Mmmm.

DAY 2: Redding to Crater Lake to Medford.

We left at 10 a.m. under great weather and headed north to Oregon. The roads were clear and good, we were starting to see more trees and we even spied Mt. Shasta. We stopped at various places to snap photos, had lunch in Klamath Falls (awesome little lake there, BTW) and finally made it up to Crater Lake. Unfortunately, we were at the top, which foiled my wish to touch the water...but it was still beautiful. Met a guy from Stockton who was delivering his friend's bike to Washington, via Oregon and Idaho. It was Saturday and he was hoping to get there by sometime Monday because he had a flight scheduled for Tuesday morning. Wonder if he made it? Anyway, here's something to blow your mind. Long ago, there was a GIANT volcano called Mt. Mazama. It erupted, blowing pumice and volcanic rock all over the place (indeed, we still found tons of pumice everywhere). Mt. Mazama then caved in, forming a caldera, which is what Crater Lake sits in. So if you think about the vastness of Crater Lake -- and the fact that it's the bottom of a volcano -- imagine how big Mt. Mazama must have been! Yikes. After hanging out there a while, we had to head back down to the park entrance to catch the highway to Medford. But there were multiple "road construction" projects going on, which I can only imagine were efforts to repave this poor road. Half of the ride down was through extremely rough gravel, and I could feel every shimmy of the bike. Luckily, we made it through, although we had to stop so Ryan could regain control of his heartbeat. Haha. Made it to Medford and sat in the hotel hot tub. Bed was much better, but we shared a door with the next room and they had what sounded like an 8-year-old perpetually high on Pixie Sticks. Hotel guy told us there had been a recent Bigfoot sighting nearby. Sweet!

DAY 3: Medford to Arcata.

Left at 10 a.m. again and set out on what became the prettiest day of the ride. Our short-term destination was the Oregon Caves National Monument, and there was a gorgeous twisty road that led there. You could tell summer was disappearing and fall is on its way -- everything had the beginning of that certain autumn brown color, and the air was a little sharp and cool. I had some great piano music playing on the MP3, which was perfect for that part of the ride. A stream followed us alongside the road for part of the time, then gave way to yawning gullies and cliffs full of trees and rubble. It was beautiful, but one false move and you could end up driving right off the side of the road. At the caves, we met up with our tour guide, Jeremy (who looked like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo). He explained that in the 1870's, a guy named Jeremiah and his dog, Bruno, went hunting in the area and shot a deer. But while Jeremiah was tending to the deer, Bruno -- a trained bear-dog -- gave out his "bear bark" and ran off. Jeremiah chased him until he was led to the opening of the cave. He didn't want to go into a dark, unknown place that held a grizzly bear, but he didn't want to leave his dog. He heard Bruno yelp, so that decided it. In he went.

As he entered, he began using some of the 5 or 6 matches he had with him. He only made it to about the second "room" when there was only one match left. Finally, he decided to crawl out and wait for Bruno to exit on his own. But now there were no matches left, and it took him 3 hours to crawl to entrance, following the sound of the "River Styx," the stream that flows within the cave. Eventually, Bruno came out, and Jeremiah ended up being able to shoot the bear for food. He started telling everyone about "his cave," and he was later given credit for discovering it. In the early 1900s, President Taft set it aside as a national monument. It is one of the two largest natural calcite cave systems west of the Mississippi, and encompasses 3.5 miles. The tour is 90 minutes and covers 6/10 of a mile, 546 steps and at times passes under a ceiling of only 45 inches. And it's 42 degrees down there. And wet.

The tour was awesome and a great learning experience. If only my college geology class had been that interesting! It's amazing the things nature can do. If you ever get a chance to go there, I highly recommend it. I hadn't expected it to be the highlight of the trip, but it was.

We headed back to Cave Junction for lunch, then continued on to Arcata. Along the way, we stopped to take a photo on the road and had a somewhat scary experience. We both got off the bike, and Ryan had forgotten to put the kickstand down. We watched in horror as the bike tipped over onto its side. It was partly in the road, so we had to scramble to upright 600 pounds of metal and plastic. There was only minor damage, and we had a good laugh about it later, but it does suck to watch a pretty red bike fall onto the road. Oh well, live and learn! We were freezing by the time we got to Arcata, so we sat in the hot tub again and enjoyed our soft new bed. Yay!

DAY 4 (Sept. 5): Arcata to Fremont.

Once again, 10 was the magic number, and we left to head home. On the way, we decided to pass through a "drive-thru tree." It was a giant redwood with a hollowed out spot. I can now say I've gone through a tree. Woohoo! Headed down to Fort Bragg for lunch, where we sought refuge from the cold weather in a Denny's (seems like we're always escaping extreme weather in a Denny's). Worst Denny's ever. It was packed, the service was slow and the waitress was being very rude to the kitchen staff. Not to mention we were sitting in front of a table full of more 8-year-olds hopped up on Pixie Sticks. Got the heck out of there and decided that since Highway 1 was proving to be too cold, we'd take 101 back. From there, we tried to make a straight shot, since it was getting late (thanks, Denny's). Had to stop in Willits, then slabbed home to Fremont. Arrived around 7p.

Well, there it is. The end of another episode of the Adventures of Ryan & Kim. Never a dull moment! And if you think gas prices are bad here, try Oregon. We saw one place that had regular for $3.49 a gallon. Crazy. Anyway, 1,100 miles later, we're back in the Bay and scheming for our next vacation. And no, we never did see Bigfoot. Damn.

Here's the link to Ryan's write-up and pics:

http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18159