Gassed up then Jon led us out of Portland, across the river into Washington State. First stop was at his friend Joel's who is a crazy clever inventor sort of guy. He showed us around his shed and explained how some of his inventions worked. He then took us to see his very old wood chopping machine followed by his goats and a kunekune pig called Faye.
His ride on mowers were something else.
From there we headed east along a very scenic winding route which kept giving us glimpses of Mount Adams. We were heading to one of Jons favourite roads - Windy Ridge but when we got near the turnoff there was a road clossed sign. Marty and Maree were quite a while arriving at the regroup point. The road was very rough with huge potholes, subsidences and the odd gravel patch. After hitting or should that be submerging in one rather deep subsidence a pannier let go so they had to stop and do a quick repair.No problem revert to plan B. Foiled again. Road closed.
Ah but we have Plan C so we head off for Trout Lake to fill up and have lunch. Not necessarily in that order. We head down a lovely canyon road then Jon swings off and we are heading down a gravel road. Very corrugated with the odd pothole so not much fun for Marty and Maree. I had quite a wait for them at the fork in the road.
More pannier problems. Eventually we all stopped at a lovely waterfall and the boys were able to carry out repairs to the pannier.
Did the trick because the pannier never fell off on the way out. Back on the main road we had a great ride to Goldendale
where after some light refreshments in Dairy Queen we said our goodbyes to Jon and Andrew.
We decided to carry onto Toppenish where we eventually found a motel to stay. The first one we checked out was pretty crappy and the stink of what smelt like cintronella was totally over powering. The Quality Inn has proved to be way better Had tea at Dads restaurant and it wasnt that great, but the banana splits made up for the rest.
We all rather tired. Did 270 winding miles today. Were on the bikes for 9.5hrs including stops but in reality we are only 2 hours from Portland as the crow flies But the scenic route beats the I 5 any day.
No comments:
Post a Comment