A Dinner Run, A Long One

My friend Phillip and his wife Gina, myself and my wife Scottie took a little ride for dinner. This involved OR7 to the Dooley Mt Hwy OR245 to US26 east to Ontario, OR and Mackey's Irish Pub and great food. Dooley Mt Hwy has a huge number of curves and this shot is on one of them and the blue grey bike is Phillip's 650 Suzuki Savage one lunger. It sure isn't much of bike but it is something to learn on, which he's done. Yes, my Harley is that much bigger.

***click pic for full size


From Ontario we took OR201 to Weiser to I-84W to Cement Plant Rd (old US 30) into Baker City. This shot is one I've tried to get for years, sunset over the Elkhorn Mts above Baker City. Really, click it to enlarge.


Oh yeah, 218 miles round trip.

One Of My Favorite Short Rides

Union Oregon is north of Baker City and it is the mid-point of one of my favorite shorter rides. Just outside Baker City north is OR203 known as Medical Springs Hwy. This picture is taken on the plains outside Baker City.

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This picture is shot north east into the Wallowa Mountains and was taken in early July. At Union you will find Poppa's Steakhouse and Saloon and on Thursday night you can get smoked prime rib and Friday smoked ribs and the smoking is in-house and beyond excellent. The route is OR203 to Union from Union south on OR237 to North Powder and US30 back to Baker City. It is a round trip of 85 miles with a really swell meal in Union. The roads are excellent and the traffic light to non-existent.

Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally - Baker City, OR

Thursday the bikes started rolling into town and though I don't have anything like a count I'd guess around 100 and that's well ahead of the weekend Rally. I've put over 38,000 miles on my 09 FXSTSSE3 (25 months) so I've been around a bit. I have not been anywhere with better riding for roads, traffic density, and scenery. Yes, it is my home and I'm a bit ... prejudiced, but I'm pretty confident that if you tried us you'd not be disappointed or feel over-sold.

The weather is looking a bit iffy, which is pretty much the norm for the second weekend in June around here. Road conditions are good, winter gravel is mostly gone and the surfaces wintered well. It is quite green thanks to lots of rain - rain I'm sick of.

We'll show the kind of hospitality that'll impress and make you want to come back. I hope it's plenty nice weather, looking forward to seeing you all.

*Update
I regard to weather guessers in this area - today (Fri) was forecasted day before yesterday to be sunny and warmer - reality of today was rain all morning and leaden skies. The forecast now has only some resemblence to two days ago - so who knows ... sunny Sunday. Who knows what they'll say this evening.

Takng A Little Ride

Some few people may have noticed a bit over a month of no posts on this blog. Well, Harley Davidson played a rather large role in that lack. Back in March two friends and I faced with the presence of snow and stinking weather forecasts trailered our bikes south to Las Vegas for a week of riding without frostbite.

***Click the pics for full size***

That would be the Grand Canyon shot from the South Face. We rode a 580 mile loop from Las Vegas around the North Face to the South Face through Flagstaff back to Las Vegas. The problem with the North Face was that it was closed due to snow, deep, deep snow.



This piece includes a bit of the problem with the whole loop - Flagstaff is about a mile elevation and the Grand Canyon is up hill from there - ie. damn cold on a motorcycle. You'd think that if there were two live brain cells talking to each other amongst three boys from Baker City, OR at 3500 ft elevation surrounded by mountains that this little factoid would have entered our thinking. Nope. Popsicles.

Riding around Las Vegas for a week certainly doesn't explain a month. That would have a lot to do with my thinking process that included being south of snow and my son's home in Bartow, Florida about 40 miles east of Tampa. A map was generated which used "other than Interstates" diagonally from Las Vegas to Bartow. Quickly, Las Vegas - Phoenix - Show Low, AZ - Roswell, NM - Lubbock, TX - Dallas, TX - Lufkin, TX - Alexandria, LA - Baton Rogue, LA - New Orleans French Quarter - and I-10 to Tallahassee, FL and I-75 to Bartow, FL. The return trip duplicated the route minus I-75 & I-10 running up into GA east of Tallahassee and cutting across GA & MS & LA by way of Dothan, AL to Natchez, LA. The entire trip, including the Las Vegas riding totalled just over 8,000 miles with the side trip down to Key West, FL and other tourist type things in FL.

My object in the trip was to use full access roads, primarily US Highways and to a lesser extent State Routes. A motorcycle is not a reasonable method of short travel times. Given that, the opportunity to stop in smaller places and meet folks from "real life" as opposed to Freeway stops and to see the country closely pays dividends. The freeway portion of the first route was the result of a cold front in TX and northern LA - I just had to get south to near the Gulf to get away from freezing my hind end off, highs in the lower 40s are pretty brutal on a bike with no windshield or other cover when covering hundreds of miles per day. Both ways I averaged mid-400s miles per day a bit short of my goal of 500 miles, but interesting places and some cold weather interfered.



The VLA in New Mexico, not all that far from the infamous Roswell. From a distance some very large strange mushrooms out by the horizon, kinda spooky.



Kayaking east of Tampa, and yes that guy is a rather large alligator not a stone's throw away. My son and I were in a two-seater and spent around 4 hours seeing things up close and quiet.



A couple blocks from here and you're swimming to Cuba or getting your bike very wet in the waters off Key West. Mainland to Key West is 140 miles. This place is a sort of R-rated Disneyland mostly dedicated to separating you from your money, fun though. I don't guess there's any way to get farther from Baker City, OR.



This is the second time I've seen my model bike on the actual road. This was ridden by a gal in the Lakeland, FL HOG Chapter. I spotted the bike on the way to a rally in Leesburgh, FL.



I have no idea how many bikes were at the rally. For about a mile the street was parked both sides with bikes backed in side by side and about 6 blocks of downtown also had bikes parked side by side on the center line.



Before I left Las Vegas I had a 30K mile service and on the return trip the next 5K had turned over outside Roswell, NM so after spending the night Sunday morning I went to the Harley dealer to see about that. Closed. Being shut out of my service and Harley coffee I went to a nearby gas station to at least get coffee. This bunch rolled in and as per usual my bike invited conversation and the up shot was I went on a run with the Roswell Eagle Riders and Scuffy put me up for the night.



Monday morning I got my service at this dealer. Yes, aliens are, well, a thing there.



At least it was pretty warm up here. I suppose just being here made it worth a picture.



Northern Arizona and southern Utah are the Navajo Reservation and the country is spectacular - so much so that a camera doesn't really capture it. The wind eroded buttes and plateau faces make it easy to see how people could get mystical about the country.

The last day was 620 miles from Price, UT home and it involved once being over a thousand feet above the snow line, lots of cold and rain off and on including a down pour in Boise. A rough last day and one that made me very happy to be home from a trip that started 3/19 and ended 4/20.

Every place I spent any time I found people being nice to me. More than a couple times I had people trying to kill me with their vehicles, which is why you stay very alert. The bike performed flawlessly and a hat-tip is due some Harley dealers - Henderson, NV Harley (service), Lakeland, FL Harley (tire replacement), Roswell, NM Harley (service). This is about absolute friendliness, timeliness, and quality of service. I stopped at too many dealers to note for coffee, a stretch, and maybe a T-shirt and found with only a couple exceptions the same dedication to customers or just a Harley rider from far away. As I noted, this bike starts conversations, especially being a rare cruiser bike* so far from home.

*A cruiser has no windshield, faring, or built-on bags, rare is 2500 in the world ever. This is the FXSTSSE3 - Screaming Eagle Springer Soft-tail CVO (Custom Vehicles Operations). Screaming Eagle is Harley's performance and pretties division and everything on the bike is from them other than the stock main frame. It is a pretty hot-rod Harley with outstanding handling and power.

Roswell Eagle Riders

Something To Do - Fun To Be Had

So, I'm on my way to Bend, OR to tear off a couple layers of composition roofing and install the stuff on the trailer on the back of my truck. I do have to cross three mountain ranges to get there, 200 miles away and it has been snowing and icing and stuff like that. This is a 1978 Chevy K20 4x4 automatic with a 400 CID small block with a covered utility bed full of tools. Behind it is my car trailer/work trailer with 4400 pounds on it. Fortunately it has trailer brakes and the truck has studded snows on all four, and it has been in 4x low range and L1 on a couple down grades. In case you aren't getting it, this entire show weighs about 13,000 pounds and stomping on brakes ain't a smart thing to do, and neither is riding them.

Damn, I know how to have fun. Especially now that I'm in Bend and it has snowed and rained and frozen and been pretty ... shitty.

And then there was Street Vibrations in Reno, NV and as you may be able to tell, at the end of September there wasn't any snow...


The bike is mine but I didn't get to keep the pretty girls. The professional that was shooting the models has some more on page three.

You want to try to guess which was more fun? No prizes for getting it right.

A Church Just Because

Nothing of particular note about this picture, it was taken not too far from the ND/MT border in ND.
(click pic for full size)

This church is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, if memory serves the nearest town was about 20 miles. My guess is that its location has to do with horse and buggy travel.

On the western edge of the Fort Peck Reservation in MT there is a Spanish style church also in the middle of nowhere but I had no good opportunity to get a photo thanks to no shoulders and a gravel entrance drive up quite a steep hill - something that never works well with this bike and especially with luggage piled high. That one was all boarded up.

As I've noted, there isn't much out here in ND/MT so missing the chance to get a good photo is disappointing. US 2 is fairly narrow and high speed (70 mph) so the entire lack of shoulders in sections means fooling around parked on the road is damn bad idea.

I'm getting ready to pull out of Havre, MT this morning and I'm posting this while waiting for the temperature to warm. 55F is a bit cool on a bike at 70 mph and it also looks as though I'll be riding into ... rain. Yuck.

Motorcycle Musings On Myths

The thing about riding solo for a long distance on a motorcycle is that your mind has time for thinking about, well, stuff. There certainly is the little matter of keeping the scooter where it belongs and watching out for things that could interfere with your continued breathing but with experience that becomes somewhat automatic and doesn’t occupy your entire intellect. So the, in my case, questionable occupation becomes mulling over somewhat larger concepts than food and drink.

Since I was spending a whole lot of time riding across the plains of Montana and North Dakota I needed something to occupy my mind – there is a really large amount of not much out there. “Oh look, there’s a tree,” quickly loses its novelty. So I reflected on the folks I was meeting along the way, friendly open folks - that was amongst us white folks. There is a real strong current of that "descendants of the rugged individualist Old West" theme.

I certainly won't deny that it was hard dangerous work ranching and homesteading the Plains, but it also has generated a myth of stand on your own and keep the government out of the way in that spirit. This ignores some rather inconvenient facts in service to the charges of socialistic Obama-ism. No cowboys or homesteads would have happened without a way to get the products to market and that way was railroads. Rails got laid out here because the government handed out right of way parcels to the railroads on each side of the rails - serious parcels worth serious money because close to rails is valuable to own. Lots of land to sell for lots of money. Importing cheap labor also wasn't a problem.

There is the little matter of the land the ranches and homesteads were put on, very nearly free or free from the government in pursuit of settling the land. The largest purchaser of the products from the lands was the government - in great part to supply the Army. That Army was very busy subduing, moving, or slaughtering the indigenous people, different religion terrorists called American Indians. The descendants of the beneficiaries of serious socialism are real busy crying about socialism now in the name of their history (er myth).

I take nothing away from their ancestors, but the government had an end in mind and didn't care a bit about seriously subsidizing the people who were accomplishing that end. It continues today as ethanol is subsidized to add to gasoline so that 15% power and mileage can be lost in search of ... well I'm not sure what. The math is very troublesome.

Weather Maker

I left Ashland, MI in pretty nice weather, temps in mid-60s with a light breeze. About 20 miles from Superior, MI the wind began to pick up out of the NE and the temps began dropping with increasing humidity. Here's the reason why.

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This is the port of Superior and north is the port of Duluth, WI - on Lake Superior. The largest body of fresh water in the world is larger than many states and over 1000 feet deep and stays 45F year around. It doesn't effect weather, it virtually creates it.

I expected to get 40 miles inland west and get away from that but I ran into another weather system packing wind and a ways back from that edge, rain. Just a bit into ND I found that rain and spent about 4 hours in the rain suit cooking along at 75 mph. The difficulty is that the rain suit is essentially a sail and the helmet attempts to drag the head backward. Fairly reasonably, I'm tired and bedded down in Rugby, ND.

Upper Penninsula

Lake Michigan seen from the Upper Penninsula, there is a whole lot of water thare. It is quite sufficient to seriously affect the weather in its neighborhood.
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The Mackinaw Straits Bridge is impressive no matter what man made structure you've seen. It is also usually windy which makes motorcycles and the steel grate lane interesting.

Yes, it pays to remember that people were here. Lots of casinos around here.


This stuff was taken on the way to Michigan.

MIA

I've been lacking an internet connection and this is short term so no posts until I get somewhere to do so. Arrived in Charlevoix, MI about 6PM Monday safely.

Finally

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I'm real sure you can't tell the difference but Montana is behind me. I made it to Rugby ND and it was too cold for as tired as I was to go farther in the dark. This puts me about 200 miles from MN. 1541 miles traveled since Thur morning so I'm holding to my 500/day. I lost track of the mile markers the last few miles but I believe it is 650 road miles across Montana on US 2, a long ways and not real interesting riding. I've sure met a lot of real nice people on food and gas and rest up stops. That is one of the things about lightly traveled routes, the locals still like new folks that are friendly and interested in them and their locale.

I've had fun and the bike is a hit with those interested in such a thing.

Crossing The Rockies

At the top of the pass there is a monument to Pres TR.

Then there is the rest of Montana, most of it - a long damn ways. I'm posting from Havre, MO and worn out. Quite cold tonight for August.

Outside Bonners Ferry

Read the sign for yourself
(click pic for full size)



I didn't realize until I posted this that I'd gotten the Walmart truck I played tag with for 300 miles.

Getting On The Road

If you start with a bike like this there are some things you need to do to use it for a trip.
(Click pics for full size)

Harley makes a quick detach seat back and package tray. Oddly enough, the dealer had this in stock - nothing else, ever, you order before you need.

You can then create a mess like this.

Now the truly odd thing about the last picture taken outside High Desert Harley Davidson is the other bike owned by the pretty lady - it is the black and lime version of mine which pulled in as I was finishing loading after the 20K mile service. You will probably never see one of these except at a bike show and rarely then - there were 2500 made in one year only. A fair number will have been bagged and garaged as investments but even without that this is a tiny number and just being in the same place at the same time as one is really unlikely. We were both stunned and spent a few minutes "competing" with how much we love our bikes.

I got away from High Desert HD at about 1:30PM and headed north on ID 55 to US96. Temps were climbing toward an expected 103F which wasn't too bad as long as I was moving at around 60 mph. It was a nice ride until I ran into a storm front that was packing 40-50 mph winds filled with smoke and dust.
This crap took most of the fun right out of this ride. You will note the entire lack of a thing like a windshield. The winds were coming from the range of the right side, head on, and left. The cross winds were enough to get most bikes parked and as stable as this one is it required attention. At one point a head wind was sufficient to make the front end very light on the road, like losing traction... Yes, I slowed down.

I am in Sandpoint,ID about 40 miles from my junction with US 2 which I'll take east. I checked in about midnight (too late and too tired to think about camping) and the miles logged from Baker City show as 559 miles. I fell asleep within minutes of getting into the room. I woke back up awhile ago and showered and posted this, now I'm going back to sleep...

A Major Harley Run

Assuming I can find connections I'll try to blog about this trip, which is from NE OR to Northern Michigan. My parents live in N MI and are 83 years old and also are in good health, physically and mentally - so far. I'm taking the Harley for the sake of the ride and to have something I like to get around on once there.

It's been hectic getting ready for this trip, especially since I made the decision early last week and departure is nailed down as Thursday the 26th for a couple reasons. One is that I need to go early enough to not have my construction season killed and another is that the bike is due for its 20K mile service which involves a 135 mile south and east ride to the nearest dealer and aims me mostly in the right direction and that appointment is for Thursday - today, and I'm there waiting.

It's been crazy getting ready since I had a roofing job scheduled and took Monday and Tuesday at 11 hours each and 1 1/2 hours Wednesday. Nothing in the line of business could get done the first two days so Wed was the day for that as well as trying to get squared around packing and loading. I live in PST and the dealer is in MST which means an additional clock hour to travel time. My appointment was for 8:30AM MST which meant leaving at 5AM PST to have time for delays and to unload the bike. I got the bike loaded and home from dinner and into bed at 11PM.

With the bike loaded the garage looked to be a difficult operation so I parked it on my front walk just outside the porch door with the light on and the inside door open - so my dog could lay up on the enclosed porch. He's a 150# Great White Pyrenees and an excellent alarm and guardian. Well, pretty much so. At 2AM I was awakened by very large barks so I put on some pants and went to take a look. Nothing in sight anywhere, just a diesel truck blocks away; and me wide awake. Very wide awake. I gave up at 3:30 and got up and drank some coffee and rode figuring to kill some time with breakfast. So here I am at High Desert Harley Davidson with a grand total of maybe 3 hours sleep after a very hectic day at the start of a 2500 road mile each way trip. I thought about beating the dog with something large and heavy but he was doing what he sees as his job.

I'll put up pictures as I move along and post whatever seems to interest me and hopefully, you.

This Is Florida

To be more exact this is Sand Key, FL just outside Clearwater. We are here to get my son Matt married off. The wedding is in Bartow as is the new home of the bride, Emily, and the groom. Matt's soon to be in-laws own a beach condo for get aways from Bartow and this is shot from that beach.
****click pic for full size****

I was last in Florida in 1971 as a hitch-hiker at the end of summer before my first year of College. Oddly enough, a part of that trip took me right through this same part of the state. Not to put it too severely, I haven't been back for the simple reason that I felt I'd had all the use of Florida that I cared for. So, I am not a tourist, I'm here with a purpose and wouldn't be other wise.

Now this having had all the Florida I cared for has to do with too many people, way too much humidity, too flat, and generally speaking not my sort of place. I don't have anything against Florida as a place, it just isn't on my list of places to be. My mother is down from N Michigan and along with my wife seemed to think that some beach time was called for if they were in FL. I took them to the beach and took myself to a blue collar tavern and sucked down unsweetened iced tea and shot the breeze with some locals. I just couldn't be less interested in tourist traps or in laying in sand in the sun.

I've really enjoyed meeting Emily's family and I'll be glad to see Matt get himself married to such a great gal, so this is a good trip.

Eighty Mile Pictorial Harley Tour Of NorthEast Oregon

This is one of my favorite shorter loops out of Baker City, Oregon with its apex at Union, Oregon and returning to Baker City about 2 1/2 hours later. The route is Oregon 203 to Union and Old US 30 back to town.

This is all two lane blacktop with no real shoulders and lots of curves. Oregon is pretty conservative with its speeds for curves; experienced riders won't find close to 150% of speed excessive - if you can see far enough around one for that.

****Click the pics for full size - miss out if you don't*****

Rising up out of Baker Valley gives you a vista of the Eagle Caps of the Wallowa Mountains across sage brush and cheat grass. This is dry country.



The apparent desolation gives way to farm and ranch land where there is water. The hilly land is cut by numerous creeks, the one at the base of this is Big Creek.


Pondosa was a thriving logging/mill town of over 500 at one time, the current Pondosa Store is what's left, a former residence. Pictured is my scooter and my buddy Aubrey on his '07 Kawasaki Concours.

Inside you'll find a warm old timey general store atomosphere and friendly proprietors and something to take a break with.

After winding down through Medical Springs, a one time therapeutic hot springs, you'll begin to climb into the timber and reach Catherine Creek State Park. This is a pretty site with multiple facilities and a large pretty creek.

Not far from Catherine Creek you begin to find the bare bones of the earth as you cut through canyons.

Without the afternoon sun in your eyes (and camera) this is what you're rolling through.

Union is a nice little town with multiple opportunities for food and drink including the turn of the century Union Hotel. There is more to downtown than this but it isn't a big place.

Old US 30 winds though canyons and past a wind farm and tops out looking into Baker Valley and the Elkhorn Mountains, the valley floor is at 3500 feet and the mountains rise to 10,000 feet.

There isn't a lot to North Powder but you can find a couple cafes and convenience stores and nice people.

Haines is about 14 miles outside Baker City and home to the much acclaimed Haines Steak House. This really is about all there is to downtown Haines.


If you don't stop to fool around this ride will take about 2 hours, but where's the fun in that? The road surfaces are quite good and traffic is very light. You never want to forget that you are in country where there may be critters on the road and where the road hugs up against slopes rocks can fall onto it. Temperatures rise and fall quickly in this country and elevation can mean real changes as well.

You will ride through near desert, farm land, towns, and timber all in a few hours and still end up right where you started without repeating anything. There aren't many places like North Eastern Oregon and if you haven't explored some of it you've missed some real riding, fine folks, and pretty scenery - don't do that, come see us.

A Harley, Chilly Weather, Rain, 350 Miles

What the hell is the matter with me? I ask that because I mostly enjoyed it. If it were a matter of public policy I'd call it a GOP kind of thing, but it was...necessary. Harley Davidson built a very cool motorcycle with the Screaming Eagle Springer Soft Tail but that came with a caveat, some of those parts are real ... special. I refer specifically to the front tire, a Dunlop D408F in 130/70R18 a wonderful tire that apparently is made of unobtainium. That is to say that they are on back order ... everywhere. Well, there was one, in Vancouver, WA at Columbia Harley Davidson and that is better than 350 miles from me here in Baker City, Oregon.

The tire issue was not a minor deal, the scooter had reached its 10,000 mile service schedule and the tires were in shape for no more than 500 miles of usage without getting flat out dangerous. Time was an issue, buck season opened 10/3 and closes 10/14 and 10/19 I need to be in Florida until 10/27 for a wedding, October is a scheduling nightmare. I talked to Columbia and the Parts Manager went to the shelf and pulled my tires and scheduled me for 10/1 for tires and service. So far so good, then came the weather reports and they sucked for motorcycling - 50s and rain showers ... and that's not in the mountains several thousand feet higher.

I don't much care for long underwear but I bought a set of poly propylene top and bottom and dressed a bit. At 5300 feet at Dixie Summit it wasn't enough at 65 mph in the driving snow. The operative word for that was, "Brrr." Things moderated a bit later as I dropped down into the valley to Prairie City and stayed pretty good until a ways past Mount Vernon where it began raining ... at a road construction flagger stop. The flagger assured me of a 10 minute wait so I broke out the new rain suit, yes new, I don't like needing such a thing. Ten minutes was a bit conservative, I sat in the rain for about twenty. It was a bit blustery with temperatures barely into the fifties and either high humidity or drizzle so I wore the suit - to Sandy, Oregon. I don't have anything polite to say about the weather crossing Mt. Hood at dark other than two words - rain and cold. The amber goggle lenses proved their worth as did the face wrap. My brother-in-law remarked on my status as "crazy son-of-a-bitch" when he put me up.

The ride from Sandy to Vancouver was pretty nice other than being almost all freeway. I got to Columbia at a few minutes after 9 AM and they pulled my bike directly in and started in on it ahead of some others because I was riding and they understood my situation. The 10K service is pretty extensive anyhow and when it involves that bike it is more so. I got to visit with the tech some as he worked on it and I learned some things that the service manual doesn't cover. Bill Green has a passion for motorcycles and his 30 years of working on them is evident. He corrected the torsion resistance on the springer axle moment arm, a condition that should not have existed and affected tire wear pattern and handling. From the beginning I've been impressed by this scooter's behavior on the road, the correction made a very real difference for the better.

I like family businesses and especially ones that endure, Columbia started in 1945 and is still in the Kreofsky family. I didn't buy the bike from them and I'm not in their service area but they treated me real well, so I pass out a kudo to them. Thanks all.

The return ride was a near replay of the one over, Mt Hood did its job on me and the last 20 miles were also in the driving rain. Some of you familiar with the state may wonder why I took OR7 to US26 to Sandy from Baker City. It is prettier than I-84 a ride and has a much smaller chance of forceful winds. It also allows a slower pace, the difference in wind resistance between 60 mph and 70 mph is astonishing to those who've never ridden and I have no windshield or farings or ... Add to that the idea of riding in the wet road spray of semis and others - well the two lane seemed a much better bet.

That trip tired me out, but in the end balance it beat sitting around picking my nose.

Motor Home Adventures Or How Not To Act Around Things Bigger Than You

If you've been following along the Adventure Series you are aware that the land whale is pretty big. Let me be a touch more specific, loaded weight is just under 20,000 pounds and I look down at the roofs of lifted full size pickups and make direct eye contact with drivers of tractor trailers and the width is exactly the same. That land yacht fills up a lane on a freeway.

The 454 Vortec Chevy is quite capable of powering the thing along at 70 mph, it also is quite capable of sucking the bottom out of an 80 gallon thank at that speed while at 62 mph or so it sips at nearly 10 miles per gallon. Think a bit, if nearly but not quite 10 mpg is good consider what bad is. This pace means that I'm moving at slightly under the Oregon 65 mph freeway speedlimit and a bit over the 55 mph truck limit (observed by trucks at generally 60 mph speeds). I dislike moving slightly slower than trucks forcing them to pass me at a couple mph, a long passing interval. I use the cruise control extensively and accelerate to pass truckers. I try to be a considerate driver, enhancing safety for all concerned.

Today's average bigger car weighs 3,000 pounds and big pick-ups weigh 7,000 pounds - the motor home is a tad bigger and occupies just a smidgen more room and handles little like a sports car. This disparity creates a situation where any mingling of body parts means someone else is going to be a big loser in that equation of mass and inertia. Apparently this equation loses all force of reason in the face of a desire to travel 7 or 8 miles an hour faster.

When highway work has signs out stating that the left lane is closed and barrels are angling across that lane it makes life interesting to wedge a Mercedes two seat sports car into the remaining couple feet beteen my fender and the barrels. It really won't make much difference that I have full ride insurance on the land whale or that the Mercedes is a really expensive car when I have concrete crash barriers to the right, a misjudgement will mean the tiny car either goes through the barrels or underneath the 20,000 pound behometh. Any contact at all means the sports car gets pulled under. Not so good. The traffic ahead is moving at the same pace I am and it is single file so the only gain is my 36 feet of length. Quite a risk for not much return - a crooked broker is probably a better bet.

If the turn signal is flashing and the motor beast is crossing the dotted line it does mean that I am serious about leaving that lane. A high speed dash in a Tacoma pick-up into that shrinking space means someone has to give suddenly. You've just gotten lucky enough to survive that move because I was watching for it, if I'd glanced out the windshield instead of at the mirror there'd have been mangled sheet metal - mostly Tacoma sheet metal and possibly driver. Just because your pick-up would fit in the space between the tractor trailer I just passed and my back bumper doesn't mean it is a good idea to shoot in there. I was getting out of your confounded way.

Honestly folks, the speed I'm driving is the speed I'm going to go. Your vehicle is not powerful enough to push mine faster and I'm not intimidated by that itty bitty thing right on my rear bumper. If I have to brake you're going to mess up the appearance of the back end and I'll hear it but it sure won't crash me, your results will be much worse. I really don't care where it is you think you're going and when you think you need to be there, if there are no pull-outs or passing lanes you'll have to try your luck with a pass. If the lines aren't in your favor or your vehicle doesn't have enough butt to do it you might as well relax because I'm bigger than you.

Here's the deal, getting squashed like a bug will cause a real delay in you getting there, where ever there is. At highway speeds it takes quite awhile for 10 miles per hour faster to make a difference, I will get 62 miles in an hour and you will get 70 miles, that is eight minutes at my speed. You could almost smoke a cigarette in that time and it would shorten your life a lot less than mixing it up with me.

It just isn't worth it, I can't stop real quick and I can't change directions real quick and you'll lose. Truckers will second this real emphatically, none of us want your paint on our vehicle or your blood on our mind - use that brain for something other than keeping your ears apart.

Motor Home Adventures Or How To Ruin A Perfectly Good Drive

The maiden voyage began, Baker City to a point about 60 miles north of Vancouver, WA for my brother-in-law’s birthday. A surprise birthday party was the object. We rolled out with me, wife, and Gus the Pyrenees as the crew. Up on the freeway I was a bit disturbed by the handling which seemed sloppy and not what I remembered, I shrugged that off. At nearly half way my wife mentioned a desire to go to a place in WA called Trout Lake past White Salmon, WA and to watch for signs for that and the bridge across the Columbia River. I’ve never been there or anywhere near there so that’s just what I did and the signs were to the Hood River Bridge, a steel grid roadway bridge. As we rolled into the toll booth I was disconcerted by the booth’s narrowness and looking out at the bridge it seemed pretty narrow also. Boy was it narrow. I put the coach body on the center line and my passenger side mirror showed less than a foot of clearance between the body and the guardrail. Really close for something the size of what I was driving, really, really close. Too close as I discovered a third of the way from the far end as apparently the center line moved a bit toward my side of the bridge and my passenger mirror found something on the side that gave less than it did. Result was the sudden and noisy removal of said power heated mirror and my utter blindness on the entire right side of a very large vehicle. Large is not an exaggeration and neither is blind, I look directly at the drivers of semi-tractor trailers and the roof of a full sized pick up is lower than the passenger window. A special mounted specialty mirror was now at the bottom of the Columbia River, an expensive and not to be found in short term item gone. Unhappy is an inadequate description of my mood.

Trout Lake it turned out is about 30 miles of heavy grade and sharp curves away from the Columbia and completely changed from my wife’s previous experience. I was clueless and map-less and still pretty … um … displeased with the river crossing and my utter blindness on the right side and narrow shoulderless roadway. My wife was pretty tired of my negative attitude and as lost as I was in a very dark town in a very large and blinded vehicle. I mentioned the bus like wrap around cab windshield without mentioning that the seats are almost in front of the front tires which creates strange riding sensations – you have to be there – and she can’t tolerate it so she was over thirty feet back in the bedroom. There was some … unpleasantness. The result was leaving Trout Lake and heading for Vancouver and not back across that bridge and not on a bet getting on a freeway. WA 14 runs along the Columbia, sort of, in a winding grading sort of way. Dinner was from a Subway in a little town, surprisingly open at 10 PM. Tempers were still a bit short of good. The night was spent at a Rest Area outside Vancouver on I-5 which was extremely nerve wracking with no mirror.

The morning revealed the reason for the poor handling, the passenger outside dual was now flat. The new $400 passenger dual had not a lick of air in it. Pretty nice to be on I-5 blind and with a load bearing tire quite incapable of bearing any load and heavy traffic. Fortunately anywhere of town size would likely have the tire store responsible for my tire and I found one with no more than two very close calls with drivers rushing up on my right before I could get into a newly formed right lane – the lane a blind on the right vehicle absolutely must be in. The malfunction turned out to be a valve stem, fixed for free and eating up only a couple hours. A NAPA store was almost directly across the street.

I had no hope a direct replacement for the missing mirror would be in stock and I was quite correct. Worse yet, was that I was also correct in my assumption that available mirrors wouldn’t be suitable. The mirror was a very stout housing hung from a single upper mount, no hoop or other brackets. No such thing. Directions to RV stores were available so off on a mirror hunt. The RV store was sympathetic and mirror-less but had phone numbers for big dealers in the area. Phone calls elicited sympathy and nothing else. It seems leaving a mirror on a large river bottom isn’t an anticipated result of owning a motor coach. (a convenience store on the other side of that bridge had assured me that it is a common occurrence in response to my … whining) Some more thinking and desperation convinced me that a possible way to use a NAPA mirror might exist, so back to the NAPA (now 30 miles or so later of driving in unfamiliar country and one sided blindness later). Some monkey business involving disassembly of the mirror and replacing parts with parts entirely unintended for such a thing resulted in a mirror I could actually hang from the mount and a mirror that would flap in the breeze at any speed above a crawl. Duct tape is wonderful stuff resulting in a wrap around the bottom of the mirror and a slather across the windshield to keep it from blowing back, a funny and slapdash looking cure, but one that worked.

On to the birthday party? Nope, my wife needed for us (me) to find a park where she could use the coach shower. This involve diving off the somewhat back highway road to the party location onto a much more back highway road and two passes at parks to find one that the land whale could actually get into with only two turn and back ups. The shower worked like a champ, sufficient hot water and comfort in usage. Now to use the wall mounted hair dryer after firing up the generator. Nope. No 110V electricity inside, odd. Check all the breakers, all on. Hmmm. Why would this thing have a 30Amp plug-in from the generator in the power hook up section? Plug the outboard coach 110V cord into it and magically have the generator provide power to the inside, how about that. A working dryer and plug for curlers and I’m somewhat redeemed from lowlife.

Oddly enough, with a working mirror and tires doing their job and a not quite pissed-off wife my attitude is improving. The land whale is eating up the narrow twisty roads and I can see what’s going on over on the passenger side and directions to the party locale work out just fine. The driveway proves that yes, I can fit the thing down a narrow and long and tree and bush shrouded lane without leaving parts in my wake. The brother-in-law is gratifyingly surprised and pleased to see us – and amazed that the land yacht made down the country lane he lives at the bottom of. Gus, my wife, and the coach are great hits and I manage to cope well with being in the mix with a lot of people a couple of whom I know. Disasters avoided, difficulties dealt with, what looked to be a catastrophic maiden drive ending successfully – well, I could have missed it all and maybe been happier (I do have to order a very expensive mirror and deal with broken wiring) but the drive didn’t end ruined just a good sized piece of it.