Impulse Buys and a Dog Named Atlas

Our road trip is quickly coming to an end.  It's kind of funny in a way, that when I start a journey like the one we have been on it stretches out before me and the end seems far away.  When the journey is almost complete I am astounded by how quickly the time has passed and by all the riding, scenery, reminiscing, laughter, and conversations that have taken place over the past eight days.  As with any experience like this, there is an impending sense of loss.  The camaraderie of the road, which the four of us have enjoyed for the past eight days, will continue for a while longer, then it will evaporate as we go our separate ways. 

 

Kerry will leave us first and ride on to Vancouver, while Jim, Garry, and I will ride to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal where Jim will take the ferry to Patricia Bay and then ride home to Sooke, while Garry and I will take the ferry to Duke Point then make our way back to Campbell River.  The past eight days will become part of our memories and while some events may in future be shrouded in the mists of time, this blog at least will serve to keep us honest about some of the things that happened.  The typical occurrence of, 'The older I get, the better I was,' will be moderated somewhat, I hope.

 

I any case, we got off to a leisurely start this morning because the plan was to visit Beaverton Honda Sports where Jim wanted to buy a new Tourmaster jacket.  I programmed in the destination and led the group up I-5 to Tigard where we turned off the main highway, through a maze of turns until we arrived at the dealership.

 

Jim and Garry went to check out the jackets while Kerry and I looked at the old motorcycles that were on display above the showroom floor on a specially built rack that encircled the building.  While there were some older motorcycles, including a 1914? H-D and two 1930s Indians as well as some British bikes, most of the motorcycles were Hondas. the earliest dating to 1957.

 

There were some BSAs on display downstairs, but upstairs was where the most interest motorcycles were.  There were several Matchless motorcycles, a Norton, several Triumphs, including a 1973 X-75, a three-cylinder 750 that had never been ridden and had been assembled out of the crate and put on display.  In addition there was a 1970 Royal Enfield Interceptor with a chrome tank, only the second one I have ever seen.  In all there must have been more that two hundred motorcycles, most dating from the early 1960s and most of them Hondas, on display.

 

 

 

1973 Triumph X-75 750 cc triple

 

1970 Royal Enfield Interceptor 750 cc.

 

Meanwhile, Jim had made his decision and bought the jacket.  He was surprised when he went to pay for it, because they were on sale at 20 percent off.  What was a good deal became even better, and to top it off, there was no sales tax! That got me thinking about buying one as well because the price was right and it is a great touring jacket. When I went to pay for mine, the sales person was surprised because it was priced at twenty dollars less than Jim's. Same jacket, just older stock and a lower price. Sweet!  As I was making the purchase, Garry was trying on one of the jackets as well and he bought one as well.  We went in the front door of the dealership expecting to come out with one jacket and came out with three.

 

Jim is looking at new Hondas and today he had the chance to sit on three of them to see how they felt.  After buying a 1977 shovelhead he might not have much room left in his garage and Kim may have some input as well!

 

 

Jim on the 660 cc Honda.

 

Jim on the 1300 cc Honda

 

Jim on the 1800 cc Honda Valkyrie.



 



When we got back to our  motorcycles all three of us immediately put our old jackets in our saddle bags and wore the new ones.  They were great! The jackets are comfortable and were great for the cooler temperatures we had today so we wore them all day.

 

Twice in the last two days I have had problems missing a turn in the maze of highways that go through Portland.  Kerry, on the other hand, has never had a problem, but Garry and I apparently convinced him that it was easy to miss a turn because he asked me to lead.  Once again my Zumo GPS was perfection itself and we breezed through Portland and crossed the Columbia River into Washington State without any problems at all. 

 

It was time for our daily coffee fix so we pulled in to the Starbucks in Kelso, WA.  I pulled up beside an SUV with a large, friendly, brown dog hanging it out the car window.  I started a conversation with the owner who said it was OK to pet the dog.  This dog was one of the friendliest dogs I've ever seen.  he loved being scratched under the chin and when the woman, Brianna, asked if I'd like to pet him outside the car I agreed.  This dog was great.  He just loved contact.  Jim came over and asked if the could get his 'dog fix' and the dog loved him too.  And top it off, as I was telling Brianna about my son Ian's dog, I asked her the name of her dog.  She replied, 'Atlas.'  I was astounded because Ian's dog is named Atlas as well.  We had to go so we said goodbye and they headed off to Portland.

 

 

Me with Atlas in Kelso, WA

 

Back on the road traffic was quite heavy but flowing smoothly.  Jim and I stopped at a rest area while Kerry and Garry carried on.  Back on the road we made good time to Seattle. The ride through Seattle was one of the easiest I have experienced and we made good time north.  On a whim, I made the turn to Sound Harley-Davidson because I like the dealership and because Garry and Kerry might be there.  They were.  We checked out the bikes on the showroom floor and were amazed at how much less, even with exchange factored in, American H-Ds are.  Deeley Imports must be taking a good cut of each H-D motorcycle they bring in to Canada.

 

We left after listening to a salesman try to sell me a 2014 Street Glide with 400 miles on it for a ridiculously low price and made it to Burlington and our motel for the night after covering 434 kilometres today. After settling in we walked to The Outback Steakhouse for 'The Last Supper'.  Once again it was a great time with lots of reminiscing, conversation, ribbing, and laughs.  These are some of the best parts of this trip.  There's a reason that the three of us have remained friends for more than forty years and Garry fit right in.

 

Tomorrow we cross the border and go our separate ways, but I suspect there may be more rides like this in the future.

 

 

 



 

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me...?

Today is a memorable day for at least two reasons and I've opened today's post with words from the Beatles song 'When I'm 64'.  'Why?' you may ask.  Well today is Jim Knight's birthday and the words from the song are there because it is his 64th birthday. What better way to spend it if he couldn't be with his family than to be on the road with friends? 

 

 

The guys getting ready to roll once again.

 



Secondly, on May 23rd 1973, Jim's 23rd birthday, he, Kerry, and I met at his parent's house in Toronto before pointing our motorcycles north and west on one of the great adventures of our lives.  So today is Jim's birthday and the beginning of a journey that led us to Grant's Pass, Oregon exactly forty-one years later. It's unfortunate that we don't have photos from that day because I'm certain they would be in contrast to the ones that we took this morning.

 

 

Me. Jim, and Kerry, ready to roll.

 

 

We looked a lot different forty-one years ago.

 

Jim and Kerry

 

After the heat of yesterday the day started off somewhat cooler but it looked encouraging. We stopped at the local coffee shop and I had a spectacular cinnamon bun as did Kerry and Garry.  That place made extraordinary cinnamon buns.

 

We left Grant's Pass in partially cloudy skies but it didn't take long until the clouds rolled in and it began to shower.  However, the rain was light and didn't slow us down.  We stopped at Canyonville for gas then continued on.  At one point Jim turned off to a rest area and I followed while Kerry and Garry continued on.  We weren't concerned because we had reservations for the night at a motel in Wilsonville, just south of Portland so that was our meeting point. 

 

Over the past few days we have been slowed down by road work but we haven't experienced many delays.  However, today we were funneled from two lanes doing 105 kph into one lane doing between fifty kph and 75 kph for about twenty-five kilometres.  The signs read 'Road Work'.  We saw the 'Road', but we didn't see the 'Work'.  For that whole stretch of highway there was not one worker on our side of the divider and only three workers standing around a truck looking at what appeared to be two metre lengths of eight-inch culverts.  We never saw anyone actually doing work in the whole twenty-five kilometres. 

 

Jim and I stopped at several rest areas just to get off our bikes and stretch our legs.  At one we saw a truck that seemed worth a picture.  Jim was a good sport and let me take the picture below.

 

 

His name but not his truck.

 

This stop beside the Santiam River was one of the best yet.   Most rest stops are beside a highway with trees around it.  This one was right beside the Santiam River which was flowing strongly.  It was a nice change from the usual rest areas we have stopped at on this trip.

 

Yesterday when we were separated Kerry and Garry arrive about twenty minutes ahead of us and because they were ahead of us when we made our first stop we expected the same.  However, when we weren't taking short breaks we were rolling along at 65 mph making good time and when we arrived at the motel they were nowhere to be found.  They did arrive about half an hour later, having stopped for lunch, which Jim and I didn't do.

 

Because it was his birthday, Jim chose the place to eat so we walked over to the Red Robin, one of my favourite places for more than thirty-five years.  On the way there we passed Wanker's Corner, arguably one of the strangest names for a café/saloon that I have ever seen.  I just had to take pictures because otherwise it might not be believable.

 

 

The sign on Wanker's Corner Café/Saloon

 

The side of the Wanker's Corner van.

 

After dinner we strolled back toward our motel with a stop at The Beer Station.  Whoever came up with the idea for this place is brilliant.  Oregon is famed for it's fine microbreweries and there are a lot of really excellent ones in the state and in particular, the Portland area.  The idea was to get a selection of these craft beers on tap and sell them in the bar.  Patrons are allowed to bring their own food or to order in so they can eat what they want while drinking beer.  They also sell an assortment of growlers from the standard 67 ounce glass bottle to insulated stainless steel ones with tops that can take up to forty psi pressure.  The beers are great so we stopped and Jim and I sampled one each.  In the window there are the logos for the companies whose beer they sell. Some are great and others are average so I've included the better ones here.

 

 

 

 

 

The sign for The Beer Station

 

 

One of the beers being sold.

 

And here's my favourite logo from the Stone Brewing Company.

 

We found a Starbucks this afternoon and beside it was a market.  Kerry bought a local favourite, marionberry cheese cake and brought it back to the motel. When we returned fro the Beer Station he brought it out, the three of us sang 'Happy Birthday' and then we had some cheesecake.  It was a rather low key birthday celebration but the best that could be arranged at the time.  It was a thoughtful thing to do and Jim did appreciate it.

 

 

 

Jim's marionberry birthday cheesecake.

 

Tomorrow is the last day the four of us will be together for the day.  We'll ride to Burlington, WA, tomorrow then on Sunday, we'll be back in Canada going our separate ways.  Still, it was been a great ride and we have done almost 3 000 kilometres since we left home last Friday afternoon.









 

All Over the Map

For the past five days for the four of us, this journey from Victoria down the west coast of the United States has been ridden at a rather leisurely pace.  On several occasions we made less than three hundred kilometres in a day. But oh, the things we have seen.  Giant redwoods, the wild Pacific coast, roads that are a motorcyclist's dream, and sometimes, nightmare, and all sorts of people, all of whom have been friendly and open.  In a word, this week has been incredible.  And to add to it all, in the almost two thousand five hundred kilometres we have ridden, we have always managed to end up at the same place each night.  No one has been lost or left behind.  That is probably amazing too.

 

Surprisingly, this morning was sunny and warm because the forecast told us to expect overcast, although there was still the slight nip that the marine air brings to places along this coast.  We tend to think of California as a warm place but along the coast of northern California, the cold ocean currents from the north moderate the temperatures so that it never seems to get too hot.  However, once you move inland it' is a different story.

 

As we were preparing to leave an English gentlemen began talking to Kerry about his bike and about the scooter that he was riding.  He had to give up motorcycles because his left hand couldn't handle using the clutch when he had to change gears.  Rather than give up motorcycling he bought a scooter and was using Fort Bragg as a base to take rides up and down the Pacific Coast highway and inland.  Yesterday he actually took the same road that we did from the Chandelier tree to Fort Bragg on his scooter. It was rather humbling to see that he did what we did on our big bikes with brutish power while he rode the same route on a small scooter.  He has just retired from being a school night shift janitor and says that he's never going to give up riding.  I like his attitude!

 

As an aside, the motel here is own by a man from India and the décor of the office is, shall we say, ornate.  Lots of golds, silvers and ornate carvings.  In our room one of the walls was covered with a fabric that actually moved when I pushed against it.  However, outside our door was a planted with a beautiful calla lily which was in bloom.  Seeing this was a great way to start our day.



 

 

 A blossom from the calla lily outside our door.

 

The plan for the day was to ride east across the pass to Willitts, a distance of about eighty kilometres on Highway 20.  Then we would ride on to Williams, a further 130 kilometres where we would turn north on I-5 and head home.  The ride from Willitts was an amazing one.  For the whole ride there was never a stretch of more than a quarter of a mile that was straight.  I think I probably spent more time on the sides of my tires than on the middle during this ride. 

 

At one point a big Ford truck pulling a fifth wheel was right behind me so I pulled off into a turnout to let him go by feeling embarrassed that I couldn't ride faster than a guy pulling a fifth wheel!  When we stopped at the viewpoint below, Jim said, "I can't even ride faster than a guy towing a fifth wheel!"

 

 

The mountains that we crossed from Fort Bragg to Willits.

This flower is similar to the ones on the tree in front of the Shaw House in Ferndale, CA.

 

After fueling up and taking on some Starbucks coffee we headed toward Williams.  I had never heard of the place so I didn't know what to expect.  The road wound through terrain that was not as severe as the previous section, so although we had lots of curves and hills, they were not as extreme.  One section took us along the north side of Clear Lake, a reasonably large lake for California. We stopped for a break at Davis Park before resuming our ride.

 

 

Clear Lake, looking west

 

Clear Lake, looking south

 

On the way in to Williams we passed several miles of fruit trees, probably apples, then rice paddies before we arrived at the town.  After stopping for lunch at the Black Bear Restaurant where Jim changed into his Hawaiian type Harley shirt we headed north on I-5 passing miles of trees with small green fruit on them.  It took me a while to figure out that they were olive trees.  I've never seen an olive tree before.  The scale of these farms is immense and only a large corporation could afford the land, the labour, and the time it takes for these trees to mature before the produce their first crop.

 

 

Jim with his doo-rag and his Hawaiian Harley shirt in Williams, CA



 

When we arrived in the valley where Williams is situated we noticed that it was quite warm. In fact it was warmer than at any previous time during our ride.  As we rode north it seemed to get hotter.  When I checked the air temperature gauge on my motorcycle it read close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Jim and I stopped at a rest stop for a brief break.  I realized that I was becoming dehydrated so I drank most of a bottle of PowerAde.  A man that I was talking to at the rest stop told me that the thermometer in his car was reading 94 degrees! With my chaps and black leather jacket, it wasn't surprising that I was feeling the initial stages of dehydration.

 

We were also reminded that there are rattlesnakes in this area by a sign that was posted in the play area of the rest stop.

 



 

As we rode north the highway began to rise past the 200 foot then 2500 foot level.  At one point we crossed a bridge over a narrow part of Lake Shasta.  The rocks on the edges of the lake were a beautiful combination of yellows and oranges, but those rocks are usually covered with almost ten metres of water.  If there was ever a good visual representation of the drought in California, this is it.

 

The next rest are we stopped at was a viewpoint where we could see Mount Shasta, one of a series of volcanoes which include Mounts Baker, Rainier, Hood, Addams, St. Helens, and Lassen that run down the west coast of the US.  They are all quite beautiful and Shasta is impressive.  Beside it is a smaller volcanic feature called Black Butte.

 

 

Mount Shasta

 

The Harleys with Mount Shasta in the background.

 

 

 

Black Butte, near Mt. Shasta, in northern California

 

The ride was going smoothly and we were covering a lot of ground quickly. However, just when things are going smoothly along comes someone who does something to mess everything up. 

 

Just after crossing into Oregon, about ten or twelve miles south of Ashland, we came upon a sign indicating that there was a wreck ahead.  Further on traffic slowed almost to a stop but crawled along at under ten kilometres per hour it took us more than an hour to go about eight kilometres there was so much traffic backed up.  Fortunately, we were on a downhill grade so we were able to shut off our engines and coast down the road using a our brakes to slow us.  I shudder to thing what it would have been like had we been stuck on an uphill grade.  I suppose that was the only good thing about the whole episode.

 



 

 

Truck wreck south of Ashland, OR

 

Eventually we came upon and passed the wreck.  apparently, at about four o'clock a tractor trailer rig loaded with what looked to be boxes of produce flipped over and slid down the highway spilling boxes, pieces of the trailer, and insulation down the northbound lanes and across the median into the southbound lanes.  By the time we arrived the workers had filled a garbage truck with just the stuff that was on the other side of the highway while more were shoveling stuff into the overturned trailer.  It was quite a scene and the first serious incident we have seen on our trip.  Garry and Kerry were ahead of us so they saw the whole thing as well.

 

Eventually though, we arrived in Grant's Pass, OR, after dark and found Garry and Kerry already at the motel.  Once again, we all arrived at the same place at the end of the day so it was a successful one.  Today we were on the road for almost eleven hours and with the mountain roads and traffic delays we still made a respectable 642 kilometres today.  That is the greatest distance we have travelled in a day on this adventure.

 

Tomorrow is Jim's 64th birthday, and we have a shorter ride planned, hoping to end up in Wilsonville, OR, just south of Portland. 

 

This has been a fantastic experience and now that we are running back north it's end is becoming much closer and real. 

 

 





 

Peaches & Redwoods

Sometimes random events occur which take on a life of their own.  Such an event happened this morning before we even made it to breakfast. Jim was up early so he strolled over to the restaurant next door to get a coffee.  The waitress gave him the coffee in a real cup, didn't charge for it, and, according to Jim, when he arrived in the restaurant asked, "What can I do for you, Peaches?"  Jim was quite pleased with this and told us as we were getting ready to go back to the restaurant. 

 

We wondered why she had referred to him as Peaches so we asked her.  Her response, "I could have called him something else, but I'm in the service industry."  She was funny and quick witted and at the end of breakfast she received good tips from all of us.  That wasn't the end of it, however.

 

We left Eureka and headed south to the town of Ferndale, CA.  Ferndale's industry has disappeared so it has had to reinvent itself as a tourist destination.  It has done this by capitalizing on the Victorian mansions and buildings that lumber barons and companies built here late in the nineteenth century.  It has become a local tourist destination as a result.

 

The main street has a large number of buildings which date from the late 1800s and which remind me of the Hallmark ornaments that my wife buys for her Christmas village each year.  They are painted beautifully but the level of ornamentation must take a tremendous amount of work to maintain.

 

 

The Palace Bar in Ferndale, CA

 

 

The Ivanhoe Hotel is the oldest most westerly hotel in the continental United States.

 

The Rexall Drug Store in Ferndale, WA.

 

In the Palace Bar window & I have no idea what a Cow Pie Bingo is.

 



We stopped on the main street, then visited the Gingerbread Mansion that was built in 1894 and the Shaw House which dates from 1854.  Both are beautiful examples of the architecture of the time and have been turned into B&Bs.  The Shaw House has some trees which probably date to the building of the house, including a huge flowering tree that seems to stretch halfway across the front of the house.

 

 

The Gingerbread Mansion, built in 1894

 

Detail of the Gingerbread Mansion

The entrance to the Gingerbread Mansion

 

 

The Shaw House, built in 1854

 

The huge flowering tree in front of the Shaw House

 

We left Ferndale and headed to the Starbucks in Fortuna for our morning coffee.  After several days on the road I believe that we have made a Starbucks convert out of Jim.  Before the trip he totally dismissed the idea of drinking Starbucks coffee.  He has discovered Blonde Roast now and may never be the same.  We'll have ot make a vow of silence concerning this matter whenever his friend All is around.

 

Our major goal for the day was to ride the Avenue of the Giants, a thirty-one mile ride through some of the largest trees/living things on the face of the planet.  Our ride through these trees gave me a sense of how insignificant we humans are in terms of size and longevity.  Some of these trees must be much more than a thousand years old.  Some were probably growing when the Roman Empire fell more than fifteen hundred years ago.

 

 

Kerry, Garry & Jim in front of an average sized redwood on The Avenue of the Giants.

 

Me, in fornt of a regular-sized redwood tree

 



 

Kerry, Garry & me in the redwood forest.

 

These trees are incredibly tall.

 

These trees are at least 10 metres behind the motorcycles.

 

 

Riding through the giant redwood trees

 

Later on, we came across a tree which had fallen perhaps even before the road was built.  The tree was cut to allow the road to pass through and even twenty or twenty-five metres from the base it is at least three metres across.  When this tree was standing it must have been massive and there is no telling how many hundreds or even thousands of years old it was when it fell.  And one can only imagine how the ground shook when this behemoth hit the ground.

 

I decided to climb onto the tree just to see what it looked lie on the top and to show how large it was. It always amazes me how some people can create beauty, others can appreciate it, and others deface it.  When I climbed to the top of the trunk, I found evidence of the latter.  Someone had taken the trouble to climb onto the log and then defecate on it, leaving a roll of toilet paper behind to evidently mark the spot.  Disgusting and disgraceful are only two of the words I have for the twisted creature who committed this atrocity. 

 

 

Kerry & Garry in front of the fallen redwood.

 

 

Kerry in front of, and me on top of the fallen redwood.

 

 

Another idea of the size of the redwoods.

 

Shamrocks on the forest floor.

 

The ride took us through a large number of redwood groves. It is amazing that these trees exist.  It seems to me that they would have provided an appropriate background for dinosaurs.  My guess is that these types of trees have probably been around since the time of the dinosaurs.

 

 

Probably not a relative of Jim's.



 

Leaving The Avenue of the Giants we rejoined Highway 101 and rode into Garberville where we stopped to gas up and have lunch.  The restaurant was across the street from the Hemp Connection, a store that sells hemp products, although not the one you would expect.  Humboldt County is apparently one of the prime marijuana growing areas in the United States but there is no medical marijuana distributor there.  As the cashier said, the powers that be want to leave distribution as it is and forego the tax dollars that it would generate.

 

 



The restaurant has many pieces by a local artists that seem to be parodies of popular cultural icons including Mickey Mouse and others.  The are somewhat whimsical and funny is you have that type of sense of humour. 

 

 

Lunch in Garberville

 

A takeoff of the famous painting of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart at a diner.

 

Minnie Mouse?

 

Familiar?

 

Leaving Garberville, we headed to Leggett to see the Chandelier Tree that has been famous for ninety years as the tree that people drive their cars through. It was not disappointing and I took photos of the guys riding through the tree, a once in a lifetime experience.

 

 

Kerry in the tree

 

Garry riding through the Chandelier tree.

 

 

Kerry & Garry riding through the Chandelier Redwood

 

 

Jim riding through the tree. Love the doo rag

 

Me riding through the Chandelier tree.

 

The tree itself is massive.  It stands 96 m (315 feet) high, is 21 feet in diameter (70 feet in circumference) and is 2400 years old.  Truly one of the natural wonders of the world.

 





 

On the way out we took a wrong turn and had to retrace our ride back to the road that took us to Fort Bragg. This road rose about 1500 feet to the crest then dropped back down to the Pacific Ocean where it joined Highway 1. The ride was incredible! Even with a heavy bike like a Harley it was fun, but it would have been amazing with my Norton. 

 

We finished the day by riding the thirty-five or so kilometres to Fort Bragg where we got rooms for the night at a good price.  The Guy who checked us in had a great sense of humour and even called Jim the youngest guy.

 

We had dinner at Denny's and as we were recapping the day, we got to talking about the day's events.  The matter of Jim's nickname from the morning came up and we recalled that the night before we arrived in Eureka, we had pie for dessert.  Guess what kind Jim had?