Another day of riding and another day of limited cell service so I am, again, writing this offline with hopes to update it tomorrow.
This morning was cold. Both Bill and I remarked that it had been a cold night and neither of us brought enough warm gear. This was probably because we were focused on the hot riding we would do across the desert and weren’t really thinking about how cold it can be when camping at elevation. By the time I got up, Bill had a fire going and we stood around that as we acclimated to the day.
I made myself some cocoa and warmed up my oatmeal mix. I pre-made both the cocoa mix the oatmeal and put them in zip-lock baggies so all I have to do is add water. If I add the water the night before to the oatmeal, it’s called “overnight oatmeal.” If I forget to do do that, I just add some warm water right to the baggie in the morning. A single serving has something like:
1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal
1/4 cup powdered milk
2 Tablespoons flax meal
2 Tablespoons oat bran
1 Tablespoon chia seeds
1 Tablespoon roasted almonds, whole
1 Tablespoon roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), whole
1 Tablespoon roasted cashews, chopped
1 Tablespoon raisins
To that I add about 3/4 cup water.
It tasted great and is a good way to start the day, camping or not.
The cocoa is a premix I make:
1 part cocoa
2 parts instant milk
2 parts powdered sugar
1 part powdered peanut butter
I put about 2 Tablespoons of that in a cup and add hot water. Yum.
Our campsite was really quiet since we were the only ones there. It was about a 3 mile ride off Hwy 395 and most of the way was paved. The sites were pretty good sized and we were surrounded by heavy forest.
We got packed up and left about 8am and headed north on Hwy 395. We are 3 days from home and now it’s about getting the miles done while enjoying the scenery and curvy roads when we could find them. Our first stop was at a rest stop, about 60 miles out for several reasons, one being obvious, but I also wanted to turn on the dashcam.
The rest stop was really small, with only a few parking places and two pit toilets. There was a picnic table and on it was an older guy was sitting there busking. No kidding. Here with very little traffic he has his acoustic guitar out, an amp, and his guitar case open for tips. He was playing well enough but I didn’t pay much attention as I ended up talking to a woman who was waiting for the guy she was traveling with to finish his business. She’s from Eugene, OR and traveling with her brother who has a ranch in Gardiner, MT but lives in Great Falls. They had a very little dog with them of the boutique variety.
The next part of the day turned into a bit of an adventure. Bill has a shorter range on has bike than I do, something we definitively established the other day in Julian when he sucked air instead of fuel at 198 miles. We, well he, has to keep track and we sort of plan where to stop. We’d gassed up somewhere and figured the next place would be OK but when we got there, a village called Likely, their pump was broken. The woman at the shop was very apologetic and said the repairman was on the way but it could be a hour or more.
A guy from across the street at the fire station came over and told us that a guy back down the street, around a corner, sort of by the church, had a pump and might sell some gas.
Next door is the town bar and guy sitting out front comes over and gets involved and
ends up offering Bill some gas out of a plastic gas can. Bill takes him up on the offer.
While sitting there I saw this:
I am working on series of drawings back home on the theme of "abandonment" and this might make it into the series.
The ride to the next town is a little less than 20 miles away, Alturas. At the first gas station we pulled in to, all the pumps were out of service. At the next one only half the pumps were broken so we gassed up and charted the next leg of the ride. On the way out of town I spied the county courthouse and got another photo for my collection, my FJR in front of county courthouses.
We rode past Goose Lake which looked pretty dry but the roads alongside it was fun.
We stopped at a rest stop, near Lakeview, for a butt break, and shot a few photos, including some of the cattle across the way.
A few miles up the roads we had to stop for construction and this one was the longest waits we’ve had on the trip, about 20 minutes. Might as well take some photos.
We got to Burns, OR and gassed up again and went to a Subway for lunch. We planned the next piece of the day and also discussed options should Bill’s bike need gas when it wasn’t available. Siphoning from mine is a possibility so we went next door to Shiptons and he bought a length of tubing that should work well for that.
From there we headed to John Day, OR, a ride that took us up though some beautiful canyons and forested sweeper curves. Great stuff.
We gassed up in John Day and popped into the grocery store next door to get liquid refreshments to go with the evening meal.
About getting gas in Oregon….the state passed a law decades ago that was a make-work thing that masqueraded as a safety effort which says that customers cannot pump their own gas. Many station have islands labeled “Full” and others labeled “Mini.” With the former, the customer gets the treatment like it was 1950, possibly check tire pressure and oil level, however, I think just gets windows cleaned. The mini service is someone just taking your credit card and pumping your gas. This became an issue with many motorcyclists since the employees know nothing about bikes and would either under-fill or over-fill that gas tank. I’ll let your mind imagine the scene when a certain type of rider, say on a Harley, sees gasoline running out the top of his tank onto his paint job. A few years ago, the legislature make an exception to the law for motorcycles and, I think, certain vintage cars. Anyway, we are able to pump our own gas in Oregon.
While I’m on the gas issue, California has its own thing, a vapor recovery boot on all gas nozzles. While using these on a car is not a problem, on a bike it causes the pump to shut off when the tank is only half full. To get around this, the boot has to be defeated/tricked by pulling it back far enough so it thinks it’s pressed up against the tank filler tube. I won’t go into the reason behind these boots but it’s area I was deeply involved in during a previous career lifetime.
So, we ended up at Bates State Park campground, a place I camped on my Northwest Adventure last September.
A great 425 mile day.
A couple photos inside my tent.
No comments:
Post a Comment