Travel review for June 1Route and Map
I left home at about seven in the morning and headed south on Interstate 5, riding opposite heavy north-bound traffic (the morning commute). Vehicular traffic was light going out of town in the morning. Only when I reached Salem (the state capital) did I encounter any significant congestion and that was only temporary. When I reached Albany, I turned west along OR-34 and skirted the town of Corvallis by way of a bypass. Corvallis, as you may know, is home to Oregon State University (go Beavers!). I eventually joined up with US Highway 20 at Philomath and continued west. My first stop was Burnt Woods and the Burnt Woods Cafe therein. About four miles out of town I came upon what looked to be the aftermath of a terrible accident. Highway patrol officers had reduced traffic to one lane in each direction and I could see, although I did not gawk, that several emergency vehicles had arrived. I wasn't able to see what exactly had cause the ruckus. When I arrived at the cafe, another patron was talking about the accident; apparently an SUV had left the highway and was sitting upside down in a ditch next to the roadside. I'm glad I didn't see that in person. After a stay of perhaps 45 minutes at the cafe I thought that the accident site would have been cleared, so I elected to head back towards the I-5 corridor. That turned out to be a mistake. The accident scene had not been cleared and, in fact, all traffic had been stopped to make room for the Life Flight helicopter that now stood perched on the road. Again, I was all too happy to be spared a clear view of the carnage. After waiting for a time, I decided that I would be more comfortable moving than I would be sitting perfectly still on a warm day in full riding gear, so I turned west again, passed back through Burnt Woods on my way to US Highway 101. This turned out to be a very beautiful ride that provided extraordinary views of an unusually sunny coastline.
For reasons that escape me now, I thought it would be a good idea to ride back to the I-5 corridor by way of Eugene, home of Oregon State University (go Ducks!) Just south of Roseburg, I turned west along OR-42 and then south on Powers road (also known as National Forest road 33.) This road would have been fun had it not been in such disrepair; the road surface was broken, uneven and occasionally made of gravel. Street bikes (and their riders) generally don't like gravel. When I reached the picturesque town of Powers, I found Jim's Fountain with little difficulty.
The sun was sinking lower in the sky and the coastline took on a eerie pink-on-green color. Looking out over the high cliffs of Hwy 101 south, the vistas looked to me like some kind of alien landscape; the moss on the shore wasn't green, it was purple. My mind ran away with me as I imagined the moss covered rocks to be sleeping giants that could at any time wake and stretch their tentacles in search of some unseen nutrient. I've been watching too much Sci-fi. The sun had set by the time I rolled into Brookings. The checkpoint was open for another thirty minutes and so I had time to collect a rally stamp and have a late-night snack. I spent the evening in Brookings and fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing against the beach in a relentless yet soothing roar. |
Spontaneity is not one of my strong suits (I rarely ever wear a suit) so it will come as no surprise when I say that I prefer to be spontaneous in very specific ways. On this leg of the tour, I had in mind a rather simple trip down the Oregon coast or along the Interstate corridor with minor diversions now and again to reach various checkpoints along the way. But as many military leaders have said, "A plan rarely survives contact with the battlefield." So too it was with my plan and this excursion.
