Chris had to work today and my vacation had begun. I really didn’t want to wait around for him and I certainly didn’t want to clean the house on my first day of my Vacation. So, I headed south a day earlier then Chris and I would stay the first night with my sister Nikole in Portland.

      Chris and I had both packed the night before and were ready for two weeks on the road. I saw Chris off in the morning with hopes of seeing him the next day somewhere in OR.

       I’d decided on the scenic route to Portland and left beautiful Kennydale around 11.30 am.

      The weather was perfect, Sunny and about 83.

      My ride down 167 and 18 were uneventful, I do them everyday – Monday thru Friday - so it was the same ol’, same ol’. I passed thru Auburn then cut off onto 410 to Enumclaw where I stopped for Gas and gave Chris a quick shout to let him know all was good. I then started my climb up and around Mt. Rainier. I had figured that the weather might get a little cooler the higher I went in elevation but it did not. It kept getting hotter and hotter. <sigh>

I only experienced a bit of roadwork on 410. It was a stop and a go light for a one-lane road. I would guess that the other half of the road has washed out over the winter months and the county road crew was busy repairing it before winter came again. The light was Green when I approached so I just kept on biking.

 Note: not one foot was put down in the making of this road, at least from me. 

       I rode 410 to 123. Now, 123 was bumpy as hell. The road had been patched so many times; it made for a wicked ride. I and four other cars proceeded to get hung up behind an older RV that couldn’t drive the speed limit due to the “bumpy-ness”, and for some reason he felt the need to hole us all up for another 15 miles or so. So, we watched as the backend of his RV swoosh on the bumps. He finally caught a clue and pulled into a turn out and we flew by and lost him within 3 minutes of the pass. 

I came to a stop sign and took the right onto 12 and rode into Packwood for a break and bought a subway sandwich. I didn’t eat it right then as I wasn’t really hungry yet, but I’ll tell you that that Gatorade sure did hit the spot. I spoke with an older gent from the Yakima area that had also stopped for a break and some gas and he was breaking in his new BMW F650GS. He wanted to know all about my DL650. Silly man, He should have just bought a DL! I could see the ‘want’ in his eye. 

I hopped back on my bike and was back on 12 heading to Randle. About 10 miles out, I could see some weird cloudy looking thing in the middle of the hwy. It ended up being a swarm of bees, and I rode right thru them. I had time to prepare, I just tucked in behind my windscreen and pressed my legs against my tank and through I went. I survived without one sting. Weird that.

A left onto FS 25 from Randle and then onto find a place to eat my Subway Sandwich. The long straight when you first turn onto 25 South is, well, long. When you finally start climbing and the trees start growing in on you, you finally become less bored with the scenery. I found a little picnic area called Iron Creek in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and I stopped to eat my lunch there with nature in attendance. All was good until a lady drove up and disturbed my perfect place of silence. I now know everything you would ever want to know about her…. She’s a school teacher that has to go back to school in order to make a better living, has 3 children that she raised alone, her ex has some disease that is incurable… I was as polite as I could be and said my goodbyes and hopped onto my safe haven and rode off into the mossy forest never looking back. She scared me.

My next stop was at Windy Ridge. It was so beautiful and so clear with a few puffy clouds making their appearance. Mt. St Helens had decided to let out a little steam while I was lingering around and it hung in the air for a good photo op.

Coming back down from The Ridge I found myself behind another bike. “One of my people” Chris would have said. It was a CX500 or something of the likes. The rider must have been new to riding. He was slower then a car in the corners and the cornering was a bit untrained and scary in my honest opinion. He would drift a bit into the on coming lane on a right hand turn or cut a corner a little too sharp and ride the shoulder. He motioned me by. And once I had passed, I was able to continue on at my own pace riding back to 25 and then South to Portland. 

I stopped a few more times, just because I could. There was no schedule that I needed to keep so I stopped to take pictures or to pee when and where ever I wanted.

25 spit me out onto 90 heading West, at this point I had read my map completely wrong and I thought I was heading to the Gorge on 30. Imagine my surprise when a town called Cougar is in riding range but not on the road I’d marked on my map in my tank bag.  (This is why Chris leads and I follow) Doh.

I stopped in Cougar and filled the tank. I called my sister and informed her that I’d be there in about 30 minutes. “Get Beer!” I told her.

The rest of the ride was slab, all slab into SE Portland. <Yawn>

I took the OMSI exit and did my usual back roads to the Sis’s who lives right off of 26/ SE Powell Blvd. On my way down SE 21^st Street, I see my other little sister sitting with some girlfriends at the Night Light. I honk and she doesn’t notice me so I flip a U-ee and head back to flip her shit. I stop in front of her this time and called her name. “Jany!” She sees me now! We went on to say our sisterly Hello’s and then I was off to ride a couple more blocks south to Nikole’s.

Nikole, the best sister in the whole wide world, had a beer awaiting me as soon as I pulled into her driveway.  Now that’s love.

 

That night I slept well.

 

 

Continue to Day 2...