Saturday, August 10th
We've been having an amazing summer full of sun and heat, but go figure the weekend we'd been planning on heading out was calling for Thunderstorms. Thankfully, we woke up Saturday morning to decent weather and moseyed on over to Martin's house to meet up.
Once there, Martin surprised us all with these awesome Rippin' Deuces decals! Designed by him and his gf, Sarah Omo:
Once we were all gathered, decal'd, and gassed up, we were on our way! We started off going east on Hwy 90, heading south east to Ellensburg. We sort of had an idea of where we wanted to go (south) but didn't have a GPS we could mount to our bikes, so the first day was a bit of "go, stop & check the phone GPS, go again". One idea was to follow the WA BRD route to cross into Oregon, but one of the main dirt roads in the hills was closed so we found our own path down through Selah ("get a real bike") and Hwy 12. There were a LOT of large, sketchy rocks on the path, but the views were great. I guess I didn't get a lot of pictures of that particular path, unfortunately. On these hills is where Jake christened my bike with a Sunflower, which is still on my bike, albeit dead, but none-the-less still purdy and now well-traveled.
That first night we camped near Rimrock Lake on the Naches riverbed. It thundered and sprinkled a lot that night- quite an adventure :)
Sunday, August 11th
On our second day, we broke camp, grabbed some supplies at the local general store, and headed down towards Oregon. We stopped just north of the Oregon border in a town called Trout Lake for some lunch and found a green spider friend, pictured below.
Rimrock General Store the morning after our first camp night
We met other dual sporters from time to time- people loved coming up to talk to us and ask us questions :)
Spider Friend joined us for lunch
Once we figured out our grocery and gas situation, we started heading towards Mt. Hood and ended up camping North East of the mountain, with an amazing view of it.
Jake and I set up our tent next to the bushes that had weird animal noises (bears?) coming from them. real smart, we are. somehow, we survived.
Mt. Hood with Martin & Josh
Mt. Hood!
Watching the sunset
Monday morning we woke up, broke camp, and decided to head towards Bend, OR. We made a few stops along the way, including "The Cove" where we took a dip in the green, algae infested water and played with the swimming snails.
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| Looking out on "The Cove" from my bike. Notice my pretty sunflower :) |
Splish Splash! Sooooo green! Martin & Jack playing in the water together. :)
Our next stop before Bend was this 300 ft cliff!
Wait for it....
Boom.
Lonnnnng ways down.
Jake and me! Don't mind the bandaid- my helmet was irritating my cheek the first few days. Very dirty and hot at this point. Ready for a nice shower in a hotel.
Later that night we got two hotel rooms in Bend and Jake, Jack & me met up with Uncle Gary & Aunt Siobhan for dinner and a quick stop at Crux brewery.
They drove us around in the back of their car so we didn't have to ride our bikes around town. :)
Tuesday, August 13th
We woke up the next morning after a nice night on real beds and packed up to head south to the "China Hat" recreation area. Jack decided to go home this day so we said our good byes and wished him well on his trek back home.
This day was probably my personal favorite because we hit a LOT of fun dirt trails, found an ancient volcanic lava field, and camped near a river/waterfall that was really peaceful.
Crazy lava field we found, South East of Bend, OR. We looked it up and it was ancient!
Our bikes at the lava bed site.
We then rode our bikes up a forest service road to the top of a volcano crater between Paulina and East Lake!
There was TONS of obsidian in the crater.
Set up camp for the night.
our bikes at our campsite for the night.
Cooling off in the river.
cheese?
pretty sky that night.
the waterfall we were camping next to.
just me & the falls.
and my blue tongue.
Wednesday, August 14th
The next day, we broke camp, found a diner for some delicious (and much needed on my part) breakfast, Then, we headed down to Crater Lake. This day was mostly highway, but seeing Crater Lake was really neat. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
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| Josh, Ryan & Martin. |
After Crater Lake, it was time to find a camp spot for the night. In our adventures, we found a fire watch tower with someone from the forest service on duty. He gave us a few pointers on where to camp (for free and possibly near water) and let us come up to the top of his viewing tower. They've been fighting a lot of forest fires this summer. We did eventually find a spot out in the woods...where it was stark quiet...and lots of deer droppings (poor Jake).
Thursday, August 15th
On this day, our plan was to make it to the Oregon coast. On our way over, we found this weird canal through the woods with a reservoir on either end, many, many miles apart. This is also the day where Martin's bike sprung an oil leak, and I believe this is when we discovered Josh's bike had an oil leak as well. They just made sure to keep their oil levels in a good range and we were fine.
My junior explorer from Crater Lake along for the ride :)
Ryan's bike picked up a sweet sign we found on the side of the road. "You are HOT!"
What was left of Martin's license plate at this point in the journey.
We finally made it to the Oregon Coast- Coos Bay, and stayed at "The Mill" casino. This is the night I turned $20 into $75 at Spanish 21! Martin doesn't look too happy, though. O.o
Friday, August 16th
After checking out of the hotel and going to the local Waffle/Pancake house, we decided to rent quads out on the dunes!! I was having a hard time steering my quad and ended up driving it straight off a 10 ft cliff and jammed my wrist really hard (still hurts...), but luckily I got away with just breaking the quad's steering column and the guy put me on a new one, which was MUCH better. It was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it, but I have to say I like riding bikes off-road a lot more than quads. Martin has more pics and video of the dunes experience, so hopefully he'll upload those soon.
booo :(
After rippin' up the dunes, we started our trek North, towards home, along US 101. We set up camp that night in a "horse camp", sans horses.
Saturday, August 17th
The next morning, we woke up to some light sprinkles, but weren't too wet, thankfully. This day was all highway. The drive up the coast was beautiful, even though it was a bit foggy in places. We eventually made it back up to WA state and Martin found a nice condo for us to stay on at the beach that night. We took a fun stroll out on the beach that night, too.
Oregon coast
Sunset at Long Beach, WA- view from our Condo
After the Seahawks game was over, we decided to take a stroll on the beach. My husband and friends aren't as creepy as this picture portrays them, I promise. Well, mostly.
Josh found some damsels in distress who needed a fire, so naturally he tries to help.
Still trying to flirt help.
It was a beautiful night.
Sunday, August 18th
This was our final day- we headed home from Long Beach. We made it!!! Roughly 1,500 miles total.
THE END!
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