Hours of Daylight – 14:53
It was like sitting in front of a big hair dryer for 7 hours. That’s the unromantic truth of my recently completed motorcycle trip from Boise to Portland. See, underemployment has certain advantages. One is the ability to go just about anywhere i want at a moment’s notice. In fact, i might ramp that up a bit as the summer progresses. A midweek ride to a fairly remote National Forest Service campground up in the mountains might be helpful in my continuing transition from what i was into what i’m becoming.
Concerning motorcycle travel: like anything in today’s world the marketeers have invaded and created a massive ediface around motorcycling. Like most critiques in undergrad photo classes degenerate into a discussion of f-stops and shutter speeds motorcycling discussions all too frequently focus on gadgets and gear and other things that can be bought for a dollar. But i shouldn’t complain seeing as how i’ve not joined any groups and, for the most part, hardly ever speak to anybody once i set off on a ride. So i like to think i’m practicing a “purer” form of two-wheeled self-expression. Whatever.
So, Portland. Oregon. Why now? Simple. A former coworker was in Portland as part of his job and he uncharacteristically agreed to take a full day off work. I have nothing holding me to Boise, so off i went. I chose to take i84 there, basically a one-road-ride all the way to i205 (the beltway of Portland). It was largely dull and fast. The best part of the trip was past The Dalles where the Columbia river cuts through the Cascade range. There are some spectacular hydro projects along the river and some equally spectacular waterfalls along the old highway.
Part of the reason the ride improved once past The Dalles is i’d stopped at a coffee/sub shop that had wifi, checked my email, and learned i did not get the most recent job i’d interviewed for. So, with that hurdle cleared i was free to think about other things. Also the air temp at The Dalles was about 114 degrees F. Dry heat or not 114 degrees is miserable. One has to be very mindful of dehydration on a motorcycle. The trap is you don’t feel as if you’re sweating. Your shirt is dry, you don’t feel damp. That’s all due to the near instantaneous evaporation. According to various authors the human body loses about a pint per hour riding in those conditions. I carried four pints of water with me and tried to empty one as near to hourly as i could. Truth be told i felt fine for nearly the whole trip there and back. I mixed up some powdered Gatorade at one point, but for the most part i just ate litely and drank copious amounts of water. I also shunned my two favorite beverages: coffee and ethanol. Both are diuretics that excacerbate dehydration. Plus i’ve begun to subscribe to the notion of “if you need the caffeine to remain alert you shouldn’t be on the road.”
Portland, like Seattle last month, was uncharacteristically steamy hot. My arrival evening was hot and dry. Saturday was humid and, once the sun burned off the overcast, blazingly hot. It was a humidity level i’d not experienced since leaving Minnesota. We did as much indoors in air conditioning as possible. The notion of walking the streets of downtown seemed nigh obscene, so we never even made it to Powell’s. But still it was a good time and seeing Scott was worth all the time and effort.
On Sunday i reloaded the bike and departed south toward Salem. i5 is, for the most part, a very boring road. It is straight and flat and far enough from the major landmarks that they don’t seem real i.e. “oh, that’s mt. st. helen’s? Seems kinda small.” Once in Salem i jumped off the interstate and took State Hwy 22 to Bend. That ride became very nice as i neared the town of Detroit. I knew there was a lake there, but i didn’t know it was a man-made reservoir. The Detroit Dam, a narrow, very tall concrete structure was quite a surprise. The massive hydro projects on the Columbia are impressive, but i prefer the smaller projects with a huge hydraulic head. Plus the Detroit Dam seems much more a part of it’s surroundings. The whole structure was covered with assorted mosses and ferns that seemed to suggest either nature was ok with it being there, or was in the process of digesting this invader. Either way i was impressed.
Next up was the town of Bend. Bend seemed, for all of the 20 minutes i was there, to be an ok, functional, kind of place. The main street has been renovated several times and is populated by trendy shops and cafes. I’m unsure what people do for a living in Bend, but whatever it is it seems to sustain a town i sum up as “Eugene lite.” That’s a reference to Eugene, Oregon, the only town in North America where i’ve been pulled over on my bicycle by a cop for going through a red light after stopping and checking the way was clear. Eugene is also where a vast number of fallen hippies settled. You can find “Intuitive Pet Therapists” there in the local paper.
Next came more hair dryer time and then the town of Sisters. Sisters is a fully re-created faux western tourist town with more shoppes than i could count. I used their well-kept public restroom and continued on my way.
Next stop Prineville, an honest-to-goodness western town that unlike Sisters isn’t rife with touristas. I continued out to the Prineville Reservoir, was greeted by a campground sign rarely seen during the summer in Oregon – “vacancy.” Later i actually went swimming in the reservoir. I brough a bunch of my plastic shirts with me and rinsed them all out in the lake. I think some of the other bathers took issue with my laundry activities. It was the very first time i’d been in water (not counting the trip to Key West) since moving out of Minnesota.
The next morning I got up as early as i could, packed up quietly, and departed for the last leg of the journey. Back into Prineville, top up the gas tank, then turn East and begin the stare-into-the sun portion of the journey. Shortly after departing Prineville the road ascends into the Ochoco National Forest. I was wearing my newly-purchased mesh jacket over my newly-lake-washed plastic shirts and quickly discovered i was freezing! Rt 26 had ascended more than 2000 feet up into the pines of the Ochoco and the combination of altitude, moisture, and blocked sunlight conspired to chill me to the core. Note to self: include jacket liner even when expecting 100+ degree portions of ride.
I pulled off into what i took to be a former forest campsite to make breakfast and warm up. There was no signage of any kind but the place was clearly at least a day use area at one time although the picnic tables were all gone and there was no water nor restrooms. No matter, i just needed a spot off the road. I found a spot with the least trash (most of the sites were a total mess of garbage and toilet paper wads) and a great big flat rock on which to set up my little stove to boil water for my breakfast of freezedried scrambled eggs. Hey, say what you will about such food, but it’s light, has nutrition, and tastes close enough to the real thing to get the job done. After the water boiled i poured it in the pouch and let the eggs re-constitute. I spotted several deer up on the slope watching me. I did push-up and jumping jacks to try and warm up my core temp while the eggs came back from the freezedried dead.
After the yummy sci-fi meal (the astronauts eat stuff like this) i cleaned up the site and began repacking the bike. I felt i was being watched and looked up. Some kind of a non-descript SUV had pulled into the site further down the road without my hearing it. Two people, a man and a woman, were standing next to the truck watching me.
“Howdy,” i said loudly.
“G’morning,” the man said in reply.
They continued to stand and watch from their postion about 90 feet away. I continued repacking, and didn’t look up again. When i began re-suiting up (i decided to wear my denim jack under the mesh jacket) my audience got into their SUV and drove down the center road toward my site. They waved as they passed. I returned the wave. “Nighthawk Security” was painted on the side of the SUV. Ah-hah! So, the Forest Service is outsourcing their “security.” Given the amount of trash littering the little roadside pull off i would think “Nighthawk Trash Collection” would have been a better use of taxpayer money, but that’s not my call.
After several miles of beautiful red, yellow, and white pine trees the road descended back into the hell of the dry valley and the temperature went from a lovely moist cool to a scortching dry blast. Add the aroma of kerosene and i could have been sitting behind a jet engine. I took the turn off to the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. I wanted to see the hills, but i also wanted to get off the road and get out of my denim jacket that was blocking the venting of the mesh. The morning sun made it difficult to take many pictures, but the hills are striking nonetheless.
After the painted hills i pretty much held a steady course for Boise. The day was beginning to get longer than i’d hoped and despite being careful with my water intake i was feeling a bit cloudy. A few more water and fuel stops later I rolled into the driveway about 4pm MST after having started my trip at about 6am PST. So, did some math: $76.25 spent on gasoline at an average of $3.15/gallon, 24.055 gallons consumed, about 1059 miles covered, average MPG 44.02. The MPG of the bike varies tremendously based on velocity. At 65 i get about 55 mpg. At 85 i get about 40 mpg. Hence the MPG going to Portland was pretty low since it was all interstate at pretty high speeds.
Anyway, i survived and intend more trips. What did i learn? First, watch the speed if you need to go for distance. Second riding in super hot weather is not exactly fun, but it can be done if one is mindful of fluids, food, and electrolytes. I found that my ventilated light hiking boots were more comfortable than my leather motorcycle boots. I was worried the hot air blasting my feet might become a problem, but no, my feet, often a source of discomfort, were quite happy. Am i totally converted to motorcycle camping, ready to eschew the VW Westy and other garish RV’s? Not for a second. Traveling light and fast and relatively cheaply is fine, but travling moderately heavier, much slower, cosiderably more expensively, but being more self-sufficient and able to carry enough supplies to vanish for weeks at a time will never be completely replaced.