Springfield Ride Report, Part 3

Party of the Third Part.

I’ve always been a morning person, so there’s never much wasted daylight when I ride. Besides, morning air is crisp and morning traffic is light, my morning mood is good and there’s nothing in my way for the first tank of the day. Once I-5 is added from Redding north to Green and I bordered on elation. I had left the oppressive heat in the lower altitudes and thoroughly enjoyed the most non-boring stretch of Interstate that I’d ever traversed. It seemed to be nothing but high-speed interconnected reverse curves for a hundred miles as it wound its way up and down through the Cascades. Another IMMHOTPSLCHBR to be sure. Only once was my elation deflated – that during a poor restaurant choice. I try to avoid the chains when I ride, butt that rule of thumb wasn’t enough. This was all error on my part – a faux rock and roll chromium diner, next to the highway, with empty parking lot and C&W on the muzak. I’m embarrassed just thinking about it.

Immediately east of Eugene, Oregon was my next Springfield, and I had to ride all the way through town to find a “Welcome to” sign for the annals. A block away from the city sign was one erected by the Chamber of Commerce, proclaiming the community as one of “People, Pride, Progress” and, for further alliteration, one Picturesque Periwinkle Paintball, left splattered on the Chambers propaganda by a less than satisfied customer.

I turned off of the Interstate at Corvallis, and followed US 20 over the coastal range to Newport. I’ve always enjoyed a ride up the northern Oregon coast, butt anticipate that this will be my last. Not that I’m that close to death today, it’s just that there are so many other places to ride, another ride here means one less ride there, and there’re too many places I have yet to see. Regardless, this ride was as stunning as the last, especially during a little seaward detour to Cape Lookout and through the dunes south of Tillimook. What’s with the ship outside of the cheese factory, anyway? Is it a remnant of some ancient curd trawling fleet?

Approaching Astoria on US 101 I came across a nasty accident involving an inverted convertible and big rocks. By the time I got there, the government was busy getting things under control, so there was only a ten minute delay in working through the site. Shortly thereafter, I came across another accident on the causeway over Youngs Bay. This time, the delay was markedly longer, owing to the larger pool of gaping morons available in town. By the time I was through, my clutch arm was aching and the skies were darkening. My maps showed little civilization on the Washington side of the Columbia and it was starting to rain. I’d have to kick it up a bit if I wanted to find a dry campsite before dark, so I motored over the bridge and continued north along the Pacific.

A very small “Campsites yonder” sign immediately preceded some very hard braking and the left turn to (Willapa) Bay Center, where I had a choice between a mostly primitive, poorly graded, moist, awfully mossy, sort of run down County campground and a pristine, RV filled KOA. I went the County route and was rewarded with a quiet, private site beneath a canopy of monstrous redwoods. I finished supper in the dark and slept well, pleased with the day’s progress and anticipating a shorter ride the next day into Seattle.

When I awoke, I realized that the rain I dreaded yesterday was the same rain as this morning, and it was just the Olympic Peninsula doing its thing. I can deal with moist.

I would have like to have seen Mount Olympus. Unfortunately, during the brief moments that the fog and drizzle would clear, the upper level clouds obscured the peak. Ah well. The ride was great – not too crowded, not too wet for visibility, electrics on half power. The gods of the ride were smiling on me that day as the skies cleared during my approach to Beaver, warming my spirits and drying the pavement so that I could fully utilize a brief detour onto SR 113/112, which runs along the Strait of Juan de Fuca for about 50 miles of intense, scrape the metal bits, laugh like hell, brain working overtime to keep the experience from blowing out the back of your head, laugh like hell some more riding. We just don’t have roads like that in Minnesota. By the time I was back on US 101 and reached Port Angeles, the clouds and spit were back.

The Edmonds-Kingston Ferry carried me over the Sound (I love the first-on-first-off treatment of bikes) and I arrived at my brother’s place in Seattle/Queen Anne in time for a late lunch. I would stay here for a day, rest my arse and see the sights.

Thirty-eight hours later and I was on the road again, over the floating bridge, back on the slab and heading to Sunnyside for a new set of Avons. [Why mounting and balancing took over two hours is well beyond the ability of my tiny brain to comprehend, but it did.] I continued east and found US 12 at Waitsburg, then Lewis’ and Clarks’ towns, then up the Clearwater to Kooskis, and then that beautiful seventy-seven miles of curvy road that follows the Clearwater’s middle fork up to the Lolo Pass. This is a road I’d do again, butt I’d get the electrics on sooner the next time. As it was, I could feel that my core was chilling, so I called it a day/night in Missoula, finding a not-so-cheap Ponderosa Lodge on the east side of town. Rooms would have been cheaper the week before, but school wasn’t starting the week before (Go Grizzlies!).

The next morning I woke up as a home horse. My plan had been to go to Great Falls to check out a project site, then travel US 2 across the Northern Plains, butt as soon as I thought of being home, I had to be home, and nothing was going to delay that fact. Okay, there was some delay, butt I was still headed directly home. I was on the road about 0500, and into the Rockies shortly thereafter, and then into the fog, then thirty foot visibility, and I was still headed uphill into the clouds. There was no way I was going to stop and wait it out, I’d be rear ended for sure, so I switched on the flashers and crept along at 20 miles per hour – into the sleet - into the snow. During this hour, the F-word was my mantra, and I kept on keeping on. By the time I got to Butte I had cleared the precipitation, butt I was also cold and damp, and needed a good thaw, hot coffee, a donut six pack, and another layer before I could move on. By the time this business was done, the rain had caught up to me, as had my mantra and my will to sleep in my own bed. I pressed forward.

Once out of the rain, I entered the heat and shed a few layers. For the rest of the slab through Montana I enjoyed a steady thirty knot north wind, which pressed my helmet so hard against my left ear for so long that I thought I’d be deformed. Fortunately, through all of North Dakota I enjoyed a steady thirty knot south wind, which flattened my right ear uniformly. Night was falling with the temperature by the time I got to Fargo, so I added another layer, scarfed down a couple of Oatmeal Cream Pies and a Red Bull, gassed up for the last time, and made the run to the barn, completing nearly twelve hundred miles on my last day out in just less than seventeen hours, in spite of the time I had lost early in the day.

In total, I made it to four more Springfields during eleven days out. Only twenty-six to go.