Princeton, Oregon

Sunday, June 9, 2002

Confession time. ...they say it is good for the soul.

Friends, it has been more than a month since my last trip report. I have had lustful thoughts about riding the highway and on more than one occasion, I coveted the free time of those who were not required to work on weekends. In recompense I offer this report and the two that follow it.

While I had made every effort to be ready to leave first thing this morning, I had also spent the previous evening with dear friends who have asked me to take part in their wedding later on this year. By the time I got home from that party, I had to scramble to get STraddle packed.

I left the house bright and early with, surprisingly, just about everything I needed. My first destination this day would be a checkpoint in Princeton. Although none of my new-ish maps actually represented my destination. Sometimes travel to new places brings double happiness.

I skipped along US-26 (well, I crawled through Sandy and then skipped) out of Portland and over the base of Mt. Hood at Government Camp. The morning weather forecast had suggested occasional showers and patches of fog. For once, unfortunately, they got it right. I got rained on and fogged around for most of my ascent. I get some perverse pleasure from riding in inclement weather, I suspect this is because most sane motorcyclists avoid the stuff.

The run along the Warm Springs reservation was anything but warm. However, unlike previous rides through this area, I was not pinned over 30 degrees by cross winds. The skies were dark and forboding making the sparse desert vegetation look as if it were caught in eternal dusk. Sureal, man. At Madras, I turned south along US-97 until I reached Bend and from there I headed more or less east along US-20.

The clouds did finally give way to patches of sun, a welcome occurrence as most of the surface heat had been pulled away from my body despite layer upon layer of protective clothing. There was a moment when, from somewhere in the back of my brain, a quite voice asked, "Why are we doing this again?" As if in answer, a curve in the road set in motion an almost automatic set of physical responses: look (into the turn), lean (on the handlebar in the direction of the turn), roll (on the throttle) and go (smile a lot). There are subtle shifts in weight, foot position on the pegs, and changes in posture that I cannot adequately describe. Man and machine dance as one. It is a beautiful thing. I answered the voice, "That is why we were doing what we were doing!"

About 130 miles out of Bend is Burns (the "B" sisters). Just east of Burns I turned south along OR-205, a perfectly straight road for about 20 miles. Devoid of traffic, STraddle and I got up to some relativistic hooliganism that is best left to your imagination (at least until the Statute of Limitations runs out).

I arrived at the checkpoint, Narrows RV Park Restaurant, with a smile on my face and an appetite. While I was enjoying a tasty cheeseburger, I collected a rally stamp and took some time to converse with the staff. It seems the gloomy skies had scared away the usual Sunday crowd. Their loss.