Picto Diary - 01 June 2017 - Back Country Oregon
Above: Desserts. Oak Tree Inn. Ashland, OR. 01 June 2017.
What I didn't have for breakfast, but these desserts are what I'm talkin' 'bout! True, deplorable and clinger desserts.
Above: Bishop at Oak Tree Inn. 01 June 2017. Ashland, OR.
Bishop poses with Bob Peterson's Southern Pacific Railway cap, hung in place of honor at Oak Tree Restaurant, Ashland, OR. Uber Clinger Bob died at age 92 two years ago.
Over the course of 15 years of coming to Ashland I'd divide my breakfasts between froo froo Brothers and clinger Oak Tree.
At Oak Tree I looked forward to joining Bob at the bar. Apart from a stint overseas as an army engineer during WWII, Bob Peterson lived all of his life in Ashland, "workin' on the railroad."
Bob Peterson. Obscure life. Played by the rules. Served his country. Scorned and ignored by American elites.
Above: Bishop and F800GS at Crater Lake National Park. OR. 01 June 2017. My routing on this fairly long, back roads riding day, diagonally northeast across the state of Oregon:
Ashland
Dead Indian Road to OR SR 140
County Road to Fort Klamath
OR SR 62 to Crater Lake National Park
OR SR 230 to OR SR 138
OR SR 138 to US 97
US 97 to OR SR 218
The remainder of the route to Walla Walla, WA is described elsewhere in this note.
About 500 miles total back road riding today. Not iron butt, but, getting up there for this old geezer. My longest day ride was ten or so years ago: Monterey to Park City; 900 miles.
Above: Bishop Fossil National Monument, Clarno Unit. OR SR 218.
The park is known for its well-preserved layers of fossil plants and mammals that lived in the region between the late Eocene, about 45 million years ago, and the late Miocene, about 5 million years ago. The monument consists of three geographically separate units: Sheep Rock, Painted Hills, and Clarno.
Few people out here. Very obscure location. Chatted with one fifty something couple who were returning from a hike as I arrived. They were from Indiana. Western travel junkies, they had been to Utah frequently and knew Walla Walla, my destination today, very well.
Above: BMW F800 GS motorcycle. OR SR 218.
OR SR 218. Great road. Blissfully obscure. Few travelers on this road. I was thrilled to be riding this endlessly curvy road and seeing this new area. Curves and meandering went on for 90 virtually traffic free miles.
I gassed up in Madras, OR. I left US 97 20 or so miles north of Madras, OR taking OR SR 218 East. Image captures what much of the terrain was like. Road meandered over hillocks and down into arroyos. I took a break at Fossil, and fueled up at a ma and pa, the only gas between US 97 and Condon. From Condon I rode OR SR 206 to Heppner. From Heppner I took OR 74 to join US 395, south of Pendleton. At Pendleton I joined OR SR 11 for a straight shot into Walla Walla.
Towns out here... Fossil, Condon and Heppner appear as if out of the past. There seem to be no modern reference points. The general store in Fossil was made of stone and was over 100 years old. The gas station was a ma and pa with two old, battered up pumps, one for diesel and the other for 87 octane.
These towns would be good for filming a movie set in 1930's small town America.
Above: Bish, Earp, Dagny, John Galt, and Mother Goose. Touchet, WA. 01 June 2017.
Bish arrives Touchet end of 500 mile, back roads, 11 hour riding day. New towns. Fossil, Pilot Rock and Happner.
Black Cod for dinner at Galts'.... See More — in Touchet, Washington.
I joined Earp and Galt on a motorcycle ride to Alaska a year ago.
Galts wonderful hosts. A big thank-you.
Addendum:
"Honor is a mere scutcheon, and I'll none of it"
One if my favorite Falstaff lines.
F16,
Park City, UT
Et tu, Brutae?
I agree, great play.
And because he was ambitious, I slew him.
F16,
Park City, UT
“There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” Act IV, Scene Three. Julius Caesar. Spoken by Marcus Brutus.