WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

Maryhill, Washington to Reno, Nevada

Ah yes, leaving in the morning. A little adventure all in itself. We were packed up and had pulled out of the campsite about 6:30 AM. I really didn’t care if we woke anyone up, started my bike and putted out. I think Al tried to be a little more considerate and pushed his bike away from the site a bit before deciding to start it up. Anyway, we both got going and made our way down the access road to the entrance.  However, when we got there the gates were closed and locked!  What the F...?  We can’t leave until a ranger comes to work?  We had already been down to the other end of the camp and knew there was no exit down there. It was exit this gate or wait until somebody arrived to open it.

There was a space of about three feet at the end of the gate that I figured I could ride through, so wasting no time I drove through it and was out on the road next to the highway in a few seconds. Al was reluctant to ride through that space since his bike was lower than mine and weighed a lot more. Plus, there was no path, it was just a way through some tall grass over rough ground. You couldn’t see precisely what was under that grass, but I knew there was at least one large rock that I had not hit. Another consideration was the side bags. You have to take them into account too when negotiating tight spaces. 

The ground was a bit rough, but since it had posed no problem for the V-Strom I first told Al to just drive on through the same way I had.  I drew an imaginary line over the ground to indicate where he should steer the front wheel.  When that didn’t immediately appeal to him, I suggested that maybe a dirt road we could see from there went around behind some bushes we could also see and came out on the other side of the gate.  It seemed plausible from our viewpoint. Al drove down there and checked it out. Nope, no way out except through or around the gate the way I had gone. He decided to try it.  

I positioned myself on his right side in case he lost his footing and his bike started to fall that way while he made his way slowly over the rough ground. I suggested he give it some extra power, however,  to be sure the bike would make it over the uneven spot. He went in and did not fall one way or the other.  The front wheel went through the space and over the hump of grass-covered earth, but when his rear wheel went down in the depression in the ground the FJR high-centered on the hump and the rear wheel couldn’t get any more traction. Al spun the rear wheel some, but nothing happened. The bike was stuck. This seemed impossible. How could a motorcycle get stuck? Al’s bike weighs 650lbs, and since it was high-centered and the kickstand couldn’t be deployed, he couldn’t dismount the bike either. I got down on my hands and knees to see what I could see, and what I saw was that the underside of his engine area, frame and exhaust pipes had been driven into the soil and the bike was basically resting on that point. This made it impossible to go forward and also had the effect that when he spun his rear wheel it dug the hole deeper and deeper.  I saw that at least one of two things had to be done for him to be able to get any more forward movement. One, raise the ground under his rear wheel and/or two, dig the ground out from under and in front of where his bike was high-centered.

First, we tried pushing his bike backwards out of the hole. I pushed from the front and Al dug in with his feet pushing backwards. We tried several times, but to no avail. The bike was not going backwards either. I went running around the area looking for a board to jam down in front of the back tire to give it something to get traction on. No boards. Next, I went looking for flat rocks and found some.  I jammed them in between the back tire and the side of the hole the bike was in. Al tried going forward, but the stones were not enough. He was still high-centered and that was what was impeding forward movement. The ground had to be dug out from beneath the bike. Not only beneath it, but also somewhat in front of the point where it was stuck so it could get at least a few inches of unimpeded forward movement.

About this time, a park employee arrived. Not a ranger, some civilian. He came over to see what was going on. I told him we could use some help trying to push the bike out of the hole. Nope, he had a bad back, he said.  To me he looked like an alcoholic loser, anyway, who had come to work late, so I put him out of my mind. In the meantime he opened the gate. Shit, if we had left just 30 minutes later, we wouldn’t have had this problem. Well, we had it and nothing could change that.  I dug with a sense of urgency. Why exactly, I don’t know, but I felt it had to get done as soon as possible. Maybe I was thinking the real ranger would come and give us some grief over having gone around the gate. He’d never know about it if we could get out now. I was pretty sure since the guy had come to work late, he wasn’t going to bring the incident to the attention of anyone because that would highlight the fact he hadn’t opened the gates on time.

I clawed at the ground with my bare fingers. Luckily it was pretty soft ground. It came away with some effort, broken fingernails and skin, but it came. I kept it up, going from one side of the bike to the other until I could see light beneath it. I didn’t want to stop too soon just to have it lodge again because I hadn’t taken out enough dirt, so I dug for a while longer until it looked like it might be enough. In the process, I burned the backs of my hands several times on the hot exhaust pipes. This created another fear that they might start a grass fire. I hurried. I finished digging and drove the flat stones in under the rear wheel again and got behind the bike to give it a shove. Al fired it up and put it in gear. The bike gave a lurch and like magic was over the hump and out of there. It was suddenly like there hadn’t even been a problem. We were free to go.

Maryhill, Oregon

We intended to eat breakfast at Linda’s, but now my appetite wasn’t that great. Nevertheless, it seemed the best thing to do was to go to breakfast, which we did, and then we hit the road, going south on the 97 through Oregon. We took no more pictures and just drove south through Wasco, Moro, Grass Valley, Kent, Shaniko until we got to Madras, where we had originally planned to overnight instead of in Maryhill. We refuled in Madras where we met a BMW driver from Portland who was headed to Nebraska via the 20 and 26, he said. 

Al noted that if we passed through Sisters, he wanted to stop and go to a quilting store there to get something for Susan, but Sisters was 20 miles east of our road. We went on through Bend to La Pine, where we stopped and had lunch. Not long after we pulled back out onto the highway a sign suddenly appeared that said RENO and indicating the way was left onto Rt. 31.  I pulled over, checked the atlas and decided this was probably the best way for me to return home instead of going on down the 97 to Klamath Falls, which was where we had decided we would split up. Al and I said our brief good-byes, wished each other a good trip and parted ways.

The rest of my trip was pleasant. The 31 went through high country along the edge of the Deschutes National Forest and alongside Summer Lake. I stopped in Paisley for fuel. North of Paisley I photographed dust rising from the alkali flats. After Paisley there was a beautiful scene of the green valley, the barren hills and the roadside flowers. I took no more pics during the trip. In Alturas, CA, I refueled and drove straight through to Reno arriving before the sun set.  When I called Al in Weed, CA, next morning to inform him I was home, he couldn’t believe I had made it home that fast. It hadn’t been that fast. I pretty much drove the speed limit. I just kept at it. There was nobody to talk to, no reason to stop, and once I realized I could be home the same day that became my intent.  Al said he was heading on down the I-5 and figured he had another overnight somewhere before arriving home.

Alkali Flats, with Dust Rising

Barren Hills and Roadside Flowers

Next morning, life had returned to  normal for me. I had an overgrown lawn to mow, dead branches to cut from some junipers, spider mites to wash out of the junipers using my power washer, some Hollyhocks and daisies to plant and a dead rose bush to uproot. I also washed my motorcycle, my truck and my wife’s car, then took the Suzuki for a servicing. I had driven 3003.8 miles on the trip with Al and Joe. The bike had gone over 15,000 miles. I had stopped 22 times for gas, consuming 59.712 gallons at a cost of $230.04. My milage had averaged a tad over 50 mpg.  Not bad.

Tom at Home in Reno, Nevada, 
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