WA & OR Motorcycle trip - May 15-18, 2005

: Day 1         : Day 2         : Day 3         : Day 4

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Funny how things work out sometimes. My friend Dave Sutter from Bainbridge Island and I planned a 4 day motorcycle trip through British Columbia using the Destination Highways books to ensure a great route. By the time we got to Everett in the rain, realizing that it was supposed to be sunny down in Oregon, we turned around and headed south. No Destination Highways book covers Oregon, but I had a highlighted map showing roads described as "twisties" and "sweepers" from a variety of different websites. Neither Dave nor I had been south and east in Oregon and were ready to check it out. Well, in short, it was awesome. I try to ride FS25 and FS99 around Mt. St. Helens every year, and I was amazed to find the quality of roads in Oregon equal to or (dare I say) better than FS25 and FS99. Yeah yeah the scenery was beautiful, fantastic even most of the trip, but the high concentration of sweepers and twisties on many roads along with the excellent engineering and pavement quality made for a superb ride. Fun, fun fun. Nothing like winding deep down into a canyon on clean, linked S turns, winding on up the other side, and turning around and doing it again because it was so crazy-good (see picture).

Traffic on Sunday was moderate as expected, but the rest of the days it was so light that we'd go for half an hour or more and not even see another car. Spooky almost. Gas and lodging were not a problem, and we actually had some great meals too. Dave and I both used radar detectors on this trip for the first time, which was kind of interesting. We had different brands and often compared them by seeing if we both received the same signal. There was at least one point where they probably saved us a ticket.

Well, what are you waiting for, check out the pictures!