Day 8 - July 26/2010
Today we headed south on Hwy 93 past Flathead Lake throught the Flathead Indian reservation to Missoula, Montana.
Then we took Hwy 12 through the Bitterroot Mountains over the Lolo Pass. This was an awesome ride. The highway was excellent, perfect biking highway, except for about half of it we rode in a thunderstorm. It was raining so hard it sounded like it was hailing, and the thunder was deafening along with the lightning flashing. It was scarey as hell, but it cleared up after about an hour.
The Lolo Pass was the route taken by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805. There was no road there then, and seeing how thick the forrest is, I marvel at the fact that they crossed here. They must have been some pretty tough dudes.

Lolo Summit


Going over Lolo Pass
They had a really nice Ranger Station at the Lolo Pass Summit, and we got free coffee.




A model of Lolo Pass at the Ranger Station.
After we got through the pass, we stopped for gas a a little town called Kooskia. Instead of carrying on up to Lewiston, we took a kind of backroad highway 13 south through the Nez Perce Indian reservation to Grangeville, the onto hwy 95 South.
We got to a little town called Whitebird where we camped for the night. It was quite hilly here. There was an 8 mile downhill stretch with a 7% grade before we got to Whitebird.
There is a historic battle site here as well.
The Campground was right on the Salmon River. In the campground there was quite a few vehicles parked there, with nobody around, and I wondered where the people were that belonged to all these vehicles.
In the morning there were more vehicles, and people unloading rubber rafts and camping supplies. It seems that rafting down the river is very popular in these parts.
I spoke to a lady who was preparing her raft, and she said they raft down the Salmon River to the confluence of the Columbia River, then raft about 40 miles down the Columbia. She said the trip takes about 4 days and they camp along the riverbank. That sounds like something I would like to try one day.


Campground at Whitebird, Montana

 

Day 9 - July 27/2010
After leaving Whitebird, we headed south down Hwy 95. Instead of going straight south to Boise, we headed southwest on 95 to Ontario, Oregon right on the Oregon-Idaho border.
On the way down we passed through some small towns. I took a picture of this City Hall.

and the house next-door to it.

That's why I don't like Interstate Highways & freeways, I much prefer all the secondary roads, because you miss out on all this kind of stuff.

We camped at a campsite called The Oasis Capground. It is right on the banks of the Snake River, with Idaho on the other side of the river. Here is where I had the time of my life.
When we got our tents set up, I saw some good-ole boys fishing for catfish about 50 ft from my tent. I went down a talked to them for a while, and the the campground owner came along and I asked him if I could rent a fishing pole. (around these parts thaey call them fishing poles)
He said no there wasn't, but I could use his, and he promptly jumped back in his golf cart and came back with his fishing pole, a 5$ package of hooks, a 5$ package of crickets for bait and a few lead weights. I told him I would be happy to pay for all this stuff, and he wouldn't take a dime from me. He just said to have fun. He gave me about $15 worth of fishing tackle, and he only charged us about $10 to camp there. Super nice guy.
He introduced me to all the guys that were on the riverbank fishing, and they helped me get my fishing pole hooked up and I was catfishing on the Snake river. Cool.
There was older guy named Rick who was mostly deaf and you had yell right into his ear to talk to him, and another guy named Gary who was fishing beside me and a guy named Kevin that I fished with after everyone else went to bed. The owners name was Jeff and they were all super nice guys. You couldn't find nicer guys anywhere. They called us the Canadian boys, and every time we caught a fish Gary would say: "That's a mighty fine lookin catfish right there, I'm proud of ya".
We caught about a half a dozen or so, and Mike, Dave and I took turns reeling them in, By now it was getting dark, and the wind was picking up. Then Mike came and told me my tent was gone. **** in my haste to go catfishing, I neglected to put in my tent pegs and the wind blew it away. I had to take a short break from fishing to find my tent in the dark and haul it back to our campsite and put in some tent pegs. lol
Then I had to get back to some serious fishing.
When you're fishing for catfish, you just cast out your hook with a cricket on it, and set your rod in a holder on the bank. At night they have these mini cayalume sticks that clip on the end of your rod so you can just sit back and wait until your glowing rod tip starts jerking back and forth, and you reel them in.
ABout 3:00am most of the guys went to bed, but me and fella named Kevin stayed up and fished past 4:00am. We caught about 6 or 7 more catfish.
I got a few pictures of this as it was a highlite of the trip for me. BTW, catfish are one ugly looking fish, but they sure are mighty fine eatin.

This was our fishing spot in the daylight. That is the Snake River. Oregon on this side and Idaho on the far side.
Lewis and Clark paddled down this very river in 1805.

This is Mike with Rick the campground owner on the left and Gary on the right.


Because of my enthusiasm for catfishing, my new nickname for the rest of the trip was "Catfish". In fact Dave still calls me "Catfish" when I talk to him on the phone. lol

This is a cricket on the hook that they use for bait. (don't worry, the cricket is already dead, you buy them frozen)


This is Gary and ole Rick. Rick had to go into the river to get someone's fish that was stuck in the weeds and he kinda sank in the mud.

These are Rick's shoes.

These are Rick's feet.

This is Kevin, when he and I were fishing till 4 am. This one spit out the hook, and Kevin had to charge into the water and catch him by hand while I held the flashlight.

Filleting the catfish the next day.


They are butt-ugly looking fish.
But then as Gary would say: "That's a mighty fine lookin catfish right there, I'm proud of ya"
I've gotta go back there sometime. Finer folks you won't find.

 

Oh ya, I almost forgot, on the way down through Idaho, we stopped in a little town for lunch, and across the street was a pawn shop so we decided to check it out.
The old guy that ran the place was really nice good-ole boy. He had showcases full of hanfguns and wall full of rifles of all kinds.
We told him that we're not allowed to play with handguns where we come from, so immediately started hauling out a bunch of guns for us to play with. He even hauled out the bullets to show us. He was a very tusting guy.
I asked him what it takes to buy a handgun in Idaho, and if there was a waiting period. He said the waiting period was about five minutes. He just had to make a phone call to check for a criminal record, and if your record was clean you could walk out with as many guns as you want.
Of course we wouldn't risk bringing guns back with us, but he said we could buy a gun and some ammo and go out and do some shooting, and then we could come back and he would buy it back from us.
We didn't take him up on his offer, as we had to get going, but it would have been fun. Maybe next time.
Here's us with a huge pistol that he had on layaway for a guy. I think he said it was a .54 cal. It weighed about 5 pounds.
I wish Frank could have been here, he would have loved it.

 

Day 10 - July 28/2010
When we left The oasis Campground in Huntington, Oregon, I hate to admit this, but we headed up the slab.. I84 towards Portland.
Since we did our laundry before leaving the Oasis, and we stopped at a couple rest stops to along the slab to cool off, we didn't get very far today.
We ended up at a campsite on an island in the Columbia River close to Hermiston which is about halfway between Ontario, Oregon & Portland.
The campground was really nice, at least I think it was, because we had to stay at the overflow camping by the boat ramp, and it was really nice. The lawn was so soft, in a tent it felt like a Sealy Posturpedic.
We pulled in here in the dark, and out on the main road about a half mile from the campsite, a guy in a golfcart flagged me down. I almost didn't see him. Turns out he was the manager of the campsite. He asked me if we want a campsite, and I told him yes, that would be nice, and he said the campsite is full because they were having a big Christian revival thing going on with over 500 teenagers. He said we could camp in the overflow section, (we were the only ones there), and he wasn't going to charge us anything, because he said we weren't going to get any sleep anyway, because these christians were going to be singing and hollering all night.
This Christian Revival group had a full outdoor stage complete with a professional sound system and lighting. Their setup would have been suitable for a rock concert. They had a full band that were actually very good, and they had the whole thing pointed right at where we were camped, across a fairly large lawn.
We got to listen to the preaching, the amens, the hallelujas and music, it wasn't too bad actually. The manager said they were going to go all night, but about 3:00am they seemed to shut it down, and we got some sleep.
It was kind of a bonus. What's the odds of just riding along on your motorcycle minding your own business and stumble on to a free soul revival meeting?
oh ya, since we didn't get a lot of sleep that night, I woke up in the morning to have a pee. (Nothing worse that sleeping in a tent and have to pee.... its such a hassle to get up) Anyway, I was still tired and went back and crashed in my tent for an extra snooze, and I left my tent door open. I could hear all this commotion going on like squawking sounds, and I could hear Dave and Mike chuckling.
I thought what the hell is going on, and I looked out my tent door, and I had seagulls all around my tent.
These two ******** (Dave amd Mike) were throwing potato chips to the seagulls and trying to get them into my tent while I was sleeping. What a couple of ******. lol
It would have been funny if I had woken up with a tent full of seagulls.

 

Day 11 - July 29/2010

We were kinda trying to get to Sturgis, but when you spell the name wrong in the GPS, you can end up in a place that sounds almost the same,(hey...it could happen to anybody right?) such as:

Oh well, we did get to see some really cool fish. This was a fish hatchery on the Columbia River, and they had some sturgeon's we could see through the glass that were 10 feet long.



These fish are prehistoric. The fossil records show that sturgeons have hardly changed in 200 million years. (make sure to take notes, because we'll be asking questions later).
(BTW, just kidding about the Sturgis thing, that was actually the fish hatchery at the Cascade Locks on the Columbia River.)
Also in the same area, we came across the "Bridge of the Gods". It is kinda a cool bridge. Its about 40 miles east of Portland, and spans the Columbia River between Cascade Locks, Oregon and Washington State.

It was first built in 1926, at a lenght of 343 meters, but when they built the Bonneville Dam, and raised the river level, they had to raise the bridge and lengthen it to 565 meters.
(like I said before, don't forget to take notes)


We didn't have to go that way, but we rode across it and back anyway just so we could say we did, even if it did cost us 50 cents for the toll.

Here is a paddlewheeler on the Columbia River just went under the Bridge of the Gods.
Why its called Bridge of the Gods is because in ancient Native Indian history, about 500 years ago the bridge looked like this, and in ancient Indian history they called it the Bridge of the Gods. Apparently it was destroyed by a big landslide caused by an earthquake and actually dammed up the Columbia River and eventually the river breached the dam and started flowing again.


When we were on the Washinton side of the bridge, there is a little paved spot were we parked to take some pictures of the bridge, and we wandered into the bush beside this spot to have a whiz, and we stumbled upon an old grave from 1863. How cool was that?
There was an old headstone that was unreadable, but someone put a new stone there as well which says this lady was a pioneer of 1852, so she was obviously a member of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail at one time.
In 1852 & 1853 there were about 50,000 people came out west in wagon trains on the Oregon Trail. I find this kind of stuff very interesting as I love old west history.
(remember the notes?)

Here is the grave we found.

The old headstone was unreadable.

Someone put a sign on it with a brief inscription.

Then someone added a new stone with more info.
I think this was a very cool piece of history to stumble upon, as it was just in the bush and not in tourist attraction.

Since we didn't get a lot of sleep the night before because of the Revival Show, we decided to find a campsite early, and stayed at a KOA at the Cascade Locks.

 

Day 12 - July 30/2010

Today we headed into Portland, and went to the Cycle Gear store just to look around. They've got a lot of cool stuff here, but we already had everything we needed, and everything we could carry. You can't do a lot shopping when you're travelling on a bike.
Then we motored on down to the Harley dealer in Portland. Latus Harley. It was huge. When we got there, they had a band playing under a tent in the parking lot, and free hotdogs. I don't know how they knew we were coming.
I was going to buy a set of chrome lower wind deflectors for my forks to stop the wind buffetting from under my windshield, but they wouldn't fit my bike with the aftermarket Memphis Shades windshield. Bummer... I really wanted them. But I splurged and bought a new rubber bumper button for my kickstand instead, so I could replace the pinecone I had taped on there with electrical tape.

Latus Harley Davidson in Portland.
We could have got cool Harley tattoos here too.

Then we headed NorthEast on Hwy 26 toward Seaside, Oregon on the coast.
We had a hell of a time getting out of Portland. The GPS had us going in circles all over the place, and we crossed the same bridge 3 times, but eventually we found our way out.
I got a kick out of a homeless guy standing on the bridge holding a up a tattered piece of cardboard with a hand written message on it in felt pen.
His sign said "Your Ad Here", and below that in smaller writing it said something like "Subscribe to Hobo Advertising". Hey the guy was trying to make an honest living. You have to give him credit for that.
I wish I'd have gotten a picture of him. That would have been a perfect one for ilovebacon.com or acidcow.com.
As we were heading up hwy26 toward Seaside, it started cooling off, and the closer we got to the coast the chillier it got. Our windshields were wet just from riding through the dew.
By the time we got to Seaside, it was quite late. I think it was close to 11:00pm, and it was too late to find a campsite.
First we went to a pizza place that was just about to close, but the guy let us in and locked the door behind us. He let us stay there and eat while he cleaned up the place before going home. He was a nice guy.
Then we decided that we'd better get a motel room for the night. We went to one motel, but they had no vacancy, but they gave us a list of the other hotels/motels in town and let us use their phone to call around. There are dozens of hotels and motels in Seaside, but there was only one in the whole town that had 1 room left and it had 4 beds. We were in luck. (Turns out I think it was the same one that Lewis and Clark stayed at when they got here in 1805).
Anyway, we told the nightclerk that we would be there in 15 minutes. When we arrived there, there was no nightclerk to be found. We kept ring the buzzer for about 20 minutes and even tried phoning the place from my cell phone and got no answer. After about a half an hour, the woman who was the night clerk came and opened the door and checked us in. Apparently after we talked to her on the phone and we said that we would be right over, she went back to bed and fell asleep. Good thing she finally woke up, it was cold out that night.
In the morning, we took in the sights of Seaside, Oregon. This is a very quaint little tourist town. They say all the people from Portland and area, when they want to get away for a weekend, they go to Seaside.
It has a beautiful beach, all kinds of tourist shops and attractions all over town.


The beach at Seaside, Oregon
There is also a statue of Lewis and Clark at the end of main street by the beach comemorating the "End of the Trail"



Captain Lewis even brought his dog on the trip. He was a Newfie dog and his name was "Seaman".
I can just imagine Lewis running around calling his dog yelling "Here Seaman, Here Seaman". lol

They also had all kinds of pedal vehicles to rent to ride around town on.
We wandered around town looking in all the cool shops. There was a small mall that had quite a few stores and a carousel in the middle.

Here's Dave going for a spin.

I thought this was funny, and also a sort of child abuse. This kid was scared to death and was screaming the whole time, and his mother wanted him to have fun and kept him on the carousel for the whole ride while the kid was screaming his head off. He'll probably have a phobia about carousels that will last in adulthood. lol

There was also a funny hat shop in the mall that we had to check out.





I was going to buy this and mount the horns on my helmet. That would look cool.

Anyway, when we were done screwing around in Seaside, we headed North up to Astoria and stayed at a KOA
near Astoria.
They gave us a site where we didn't have any immediate neighbors. I guess they thought we might be a
noisey bunch, but there was a camper truck about 3 campsites down from us and we could here the guy snoring
all night at that distance. Jeez he sounded like Husqvarna chainsaw.



We graduated to real meat instead of tuna and burnt hotdogs. We're really living high off the hog now.
Life just doesn't get any better than this.

 

Day 13 - July 31/2010
Then we headed North again and crossed the Astoria Bridge. It is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. The bridge is 21,474 ft (6,545 m) in length.



On the Washington side of the bridge was a little sort of reststop/viewpoint at Dismal Nitch (which was named by Lewis and Clark). Here we met a Park Ranger sitting at a picnic table with a box of assorted brochures to hand out to people. I don't think many people stop to talk to him, because he was sure happy to sit chat with us, and he gave us a bunch of brochures and information.
We were starting to head North on the 401, but he told us that there was the second best Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in the US at Cape Diappointment, on the 101 so we backtracked and took the 101 instead.

Our friendly Park Ranger

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center was very interesting. The whole Lewis and Clark Expedition gets more interesting the more you learn about it.
It's hard to imagine anyone making that trip in those days, 1805, by boat, canoe and on foot. They must have been some tough dudes, although they say that they probably wouldn't have made it without the young Shoshone Indian girl named Sacagawea who guided them much of the way and showed them what kinds of roots they could eat when they had no food, etc. If you ever come across the book called Sacagawea, it is one of the best books that I have ever read.


The Interpretive Center was built on top of a WWI & WWII coastal defence bunker.
This is it from the back side.


Check out this biker

One of the exhibits in the center.


Cape Disappointment.

It was still only mid-afternoon, so we decided that maybe we should see if we could catch the Coho Ferry from Port Angeles over to Victoria and home. I checked the schedule and the last ferry was at 9:30pm so we though we better break like the wind... I mean ride like the wind to catch it.
We stopped at a small cafe a few miles off the highway to have a bite to eat.
When we came out of the cafe, I llooked at my odometer and it just turned 50,000km. I had to get a picture of it.

To quote Bobby Elvis in The Sons of Anarchy, "This old Fatboy hasn't even seen its prime yet."
It still hauls my fat *** around, and does a pretty decent job of it.

After lunch we headed north again, up the 101. We took the inside route along Puget Sound. We thought we might not make it in time as we had to stop for gas along the way, but we arrived at the Port Angeles ferry terminal with about 15 minutes to spare.

Our bikes on the ferry.

After arriving back in Victoria and clearing customs, we pulled over for the group hug thing, and went our separate ways. Dave and Mike had to go to Sidney, and I had to go to Sooke.
What can I say, but it was an incredible ride. We saw so many things, and the ever changing scenery along the way was breathtaking. We met so many great people. All I can think about is how totally awesome the whole trip was, and already thinking about where I'm going next year.

We put on a total of 4400 kms, and went through 2 provinces and 4 states.
I mainly wrote this trip log so I can go back and relive some of the things we did and places we've been. The old memory isn't what it used to be. They say that when you age, your memory is the second thing to go... and I forget what the first one is.
I hope some of you found it interesting or possibly of help in planning your next trip.
A couple of pointers that I can offer are:
1. Don't plan your whole route ahead of time. Each day decide which direction you want go.
2. Don't just ride. Stop along the way to see and do cool things.
3. Stay off the slabs, (Interstates & Freeways). They are ok if you're in a hurry to get somewhere, but you see much more taking secondary roads and highways, that actually go through small towns instead of having to take exit ramps. I won't ride or drive a freeway unless I really have to or if I'm in a hurry. Driving the freeways are not much of a vacation.

Take care everyone and ride safe.

 

Nice thread. Great pics.

 

Thank you for sharing your adventure. I can't wait to do one of my own someday.

 

Thanks for the compliments. I must say that everywhere we went in the US and everyone we met were just the nicest people. Everyone treated us so good. I can't wait for next years ride. I would like to do a trip down the west coast and across the southern states.