I force myself to stay in the tent at least till dawn breaks; otherwise our schedules will be incompatible. I have developed a specific routine to give Lori more time to sleep, while I start prepping for the days travels. It’s a compromise, I generally get up very early and start my day, Lori would prefer to sleep in. With this routine I’m not moving as fast as I’d like to be, but Lori is moving faster than she would normally, so we meet in the middle. Once coffee and tea is ready I wake Lori with a cup, it is just barely enough incentive to get her going. After breakfast Lori showers while I start packing the bike so we can be off at a reasonable time, with that said we are rarely moving before 9 am.
It’s not a matter of just ride, ride, ride, but we’re trying to cover a lot of miles and if we want to have the leisure to stop, then we need to budget our time. Unlike car travel, a 500 plus mile day is hard on a motorcycle, 350 mile days are what I like to plan for and 150–250 mile days provide opportunities to really see an area while traveling leisurely. Anyhow with these kinds of time/mileage constraints if we don’t start rolling till noon, we either aren’t going to get very far or we aren’t going to stop much.
Late last night a couple of motorcyclists pulled into the campsite across from ours. While we were both packing this morning we visited a little bit, the basic questions; where are you going? Where have you been? Turns out they had been riding around Yellowstone and were heading back home to Spokane; they were planning on taking a loop through northeastern Oregon but ran out of time. Since they weren’t going to be able to ride through northeastern Oregon and we were, they offered to let us take their riding guide book on the area and mail it back to them latter. We appreciated the offer but settled for letting Lori read through some of the routes so we could decide what route to take across Oregon. Over the years we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to help and generosity from fellow riders, this is not an exception. We wished each other safe travels and were both on our way within 5 minutes of each other.
I typically know where we want to end up at the end of the day, but don’t have a rigid plan of how we will get there. Today we are going to start by heading towards Enterprise, Oregon on highway 129, which will take us through the Grande Ronde River Canyon. I had hoped to make it through here last night and camp on the other side of the canyon, but we were worn out and the heat in the canyon would have been miserable.
It’s overcast, but the temperature is pleasant. We cross the river to Clarkston, Washington and turn south on 129. We ascend out of the out of the river bottom onto bench land covered in wheat fields that are being lit by the morning sun as it peeks through the clouds, the day is starting out wonderfully. After about 20 miles we start the descent into an arm of Hells Canyon formed by the Grande Ronde River. The road is tight twisties as it descends and ascends the canyon walls and there is no traffic, allowing for a pleasant spirited ride for about 20 miles. Once on the other side of the canyon the terrain changes to rolling bench land with occasional views of the canyon to the east, it’s here just after you enter the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest that I would like to explore as a possible campsite in the future.
We get to Enterprise about 10:30, the coffee I made this morning wasn’t the best and we are ready for a break. After riding around town a bit we find an establishment downtown named Gypsy Java, it looks interesting, we go in. It’s kind of eclectic, lots of seemingly unrelated things around, furniture, games, books, art work, musical instruments, we like it. We visit with the barista, probably the proprietor, as she gets our orders. Slow, but excellent, the day is still beautiful and we take the handmade mugs outside to enjoy.
Suzuki V-strom
Our bike sits on the street fully loaded with our discarded riding gear draped over it. It’s a dual sport motorcycle developed for adventure touring, a Suzuki DL-650 V-Strom. All of our supplies for a two week trip are packed onto the motorcycle. In the right side case are our clothes, the left side case contains our tent, sleeping bags and sleeping pads, the tank bag has our toiletries, electronics, and maps, the tank panniers carry water and tools; everything we need on our trip except food, which we buy as we go. We have a topcase on the back of the bike for storing helmets and gear when we stop, but it is usually empty when we are riding; this helps maintain the proper weight distribution for riding. I always enjoy riding into a campground filled with Assorted RV’s loaded with toys, towing other toys and am glad we don’t require as many things to enjoy traveling.
Adventure touring motorcycles are configured to be multifunctional, opposed to street racing or off road motorcycles, they are able to perform many tasks. Some of the characteristics common to adventure touring motorcycles include an upright riding position, wider handle bars and suspension that is more compliant and has a greater range of travel; this allows them to more easily travel on both paved and unpaved surfaces. Other than a few basic similarities individual makes can vary widely, from 400cc to 1200cc and from more dirt oriented to more street oriented. In reality any motorcycle can be used for adventure travel, the most important element is a rider with a desire and the skills to make it happen.
The V-Strom is at the lower end of the price curve for a bike that is configured for adventure touring and able to easily ride 2 up. The engine does seem to be working when we are droning down the interstate 2 up, but it is more than capable when riding the back roads, and we hate riding the interstate anyway. It’s not a dirt bike by any means, most adventure touring bikes aren’t, but we have ridden many miles on dirt roads and jeep trails, a nice option when traveling. Depending on how hard we ride we can go a little over 200 miles before we need to fuel up, and when there is a need we can ride easy and get 250 miles out of it.
The sun was breaking through the clouds in a few places to the east, but we were heading west towards an incoming front. We weren’t out of Enterprise more than 30 miles on highway 82 before we started feeling the change in the weather, the winds became strong out of the southwest producing a headwind as we got closer to La Grande. By the time we reached La Grande we needed fuel and a rest from the weather.
I realized this was going to be a hard day of riding. I wanted to make Bend, Oregon before stopping which was at this point about 300 more miles; it was already 12:30, considering the roads probably 6 more hours of riding. The fuel break turned into and hour, early in a trip there is no such thing a s quick stop, we are still getting into the routine.
The winds were not as big a factor after we left La Grande, but the temperature continued to drop for the rest of the day and we rode through a few rain squalls. The roads were good; I’ve ridden through northeast Oregon a number of times and have yet to find a bad road, apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so, local stores in the area have printed up a motorcycle touring map they give out. We picked up 244 to Ukiah and from there we headed towards Heppner.
From Heppner we took Hwy 207 south to Mitchell. We needed fuel and Mitchell is not much of a town; at one time been prosperous but not anymore. Mitchell is just east of the John Day Fossil beds National Monument on Hwy 26, I’d guess that much of their business comes from motorcyclist on day rides from Bend, enjoying the twisties through the canyon. None the less there was an old gas station, with not quite antique pumps. It didn’t look open, but as we rode up the attendant walked out from behind the building to fuel us. Oregon passed a law that doesn’t allow for self service fuel pumps, but it does exempt motorcyclist as long as an attendant starts the pump for them. Fortunately we had cash in small bills, the operation didn’t take credit cards and for a cash drawer there was an assortment of change spread out across the top of the gas pump. We kind of have to envy the ability for a business man to be able to say “the hell with modernization I’m gonna run it this way”.
We are both pretty worn out by this time, every so often the sun peeks through the clouds giving the hope that it will warm up; the hope is false. We are about 100 miles from Bend and there are two towns that may have lodging before we get there, Prineville and Redmond. I do a quick search on my phone to see if there are any decent lodging prices and find none. We will push on to Bend.
There is a State Park campground just north of bend on the Deschutes River called Tumalo, we’ve stayed there in the past. The State Parks in Oregon are nice; many have options besides tent camping such as yurts, tepees or log cabins which we have used in the past. We were both chilled as we pulled into Tumalo State Park. In our rush to get here we didn’t stop to put on heated gear as it cooled off. After hours of riding in falling temperatures you lose a lot of heat from your body and I have to say apparently we don’t learn very quickly because this happens once about every trip. I had hoped one of the yurts would be available, they have heaters and we would be able to warm up, but there weren’t. The price had also gone up, last year the yurts rented for $27 per night and now they were $39.
I looked up hotels and found some that started at $35, so we went into town and got one. I use an app on my phone called “Hotel Price Compare”, it looks at 30 different hotel booking sites for last minute deals, it came up with a good one at $42. While checking in the front desk attendant said the price would be $52, I told him it was advertised at $42 and he said that was for 1 person. I was too tired and cold to argue or go somewhere else so we checked in.
We immediately turned up the heat, got out of our wet clothes then took hot showers to get the heat back in our bodies. While Lori was showering I went across the street and got a Pizza and a bottle of wine and we were done for the night, all is good.
Tomorrow our pace changes.
