Day 16 started off at a brisk 58 degrees, with my sweatshirt on under my riding jacket. May have even turned the handwarmers on for a minute, you never know. But boy oh boy, by the time we got in to Pendleton, Oregon, our overnight stay tonight, the temps were back up over 100 degrees. But not to fear, Monkey Brother Rick has the ice chest filled with some cold tasty beverage for our cool down.
Yesterday afternoon, after Hedgehog and Monkey Brother mounted his new hard side box on his PanAm, which only took them 3 attempts, because “the paper instructions are useless”, we proceeded to tail gate in the parking lot. While the 5 of us conversed and consumed, we noticed a couple of young men, guests of the same hotel, were setting up their Webber Smokey Joe Portable charcoal grill in the parking lot behind their car. We were envious. We bought a cheapo gas grill, actually Truck/Trail Brian purchased it for us, in case we were in some bodunk place for the night and we needed to cook our own dinner, and we have yet to use it. Anywho, we struck up a conversation with the kind young men, discovered they were from up north near Portland, but are union electricians, and they were working with another Local in area, assisting with the rewire of the local hospital, and they were tired of eating fast food, so this was how they prepared dinner each night! And boy, did they do it up right. They had a big slab of fresh local salmon, and some great looking pork chops. They generously offered us a taste of their salmon, and the boys ooohed and ahhed about how good it was. We continued to banter with the young men for their entire cooking time, shared a few of our cold rocky mountains with them, and it was nice afternoon in the parking lot!
After tailgating the afternoon away, it was time for dinner. Ski Doo had a liquid dinner and missed the dinner bell, the rest of us went about a ½ mile away to a local sports bar. There was a 30-45 minute wait, and we weren’t really in the mood for a wait. So we grabbed some McDonalds’s value meals and headed back to Stick and Monkey’s room for our gourmet dinner. We ordered a couple cheeseburgers meal for Ski Doo in case he woke up hungry in the night, but apparently the bag was never opened. We ate, and off to bed we were, the afternoon had taken it’s toll on our group.
This morning our call time was around 8:30am, but it was closer to 9:15am when we departed the parking lot. It was nice cool morning for a ride, much desirable from the heat of the prior days. We rolled north to outside Portland, stopped at the local Paradise H-D dealer for our t-shirt, shot glass and sticker. While we were there, Hedgie had a conversation with the service manager about some cupping in his front tire. This has been progressing since Rapid City SD. They got it documented, and gave him a reference number so he can get it taken care of with his local dealer when he gets back to Indiana. So after about an hour, we were back on the trail.
The temps were now t-shirt weather, about 82 degrees and comfortable. But that would change as we progressed east and along the Columbia River. At some point, we crossed a steel grate bridge from Oregon into Washington state. We grabbed some lunch at Carmens Restaurant, in Bingen WA. We arrived when they were closing at about 1:45pm, but they were kind enough to stay open to feed us. During lunch, we looked at our plotted route to Pendleton, and determined that we were going to stay in Washington and run about 90 miles along the Columbia River, before we crossed back into Oregon, and this would allow us to avoid the busy I-84 expressway.
It wound up being a great choice of road to journey. To our left was the rocky mountains and pastures, to our right and below was a rail way, where we saw a locomotive hauling about 200 cars of coal going west, and below that the Columbia River, and below that the busy I-84 expressway. It was a great ride and view for us. The 2 lane road we were on was mostly desolate, with the occasional semi blowing by us, going west. And we did pass two friendly State Patrol officers who chose to remain parked when we blew by them. I am sure we were going the speed limit, is why (wink wink).
The temps were rising, my dash bounced from 99 to 103 degrees thru out the afternoon. We found a last stop convenience store about ½ way thru the 99 mile trek thru Washington, and took advantage of some A/C, fresh water for thermoses, and Ski Doo & Hedgie stood in the walk in cooler for a few minutes, at no extra charge.
Back on the road and about 90 miles to get in to Pendleton, OR around 5:20pm local time. And it was hot, we were hot, the asphalt was hot… it’s just plain hot.
Monkey Brother Rick had the room A/C’s on blast for us, in our adjoining rooms. I’m pretty sure Truck/trailer Brian would not be impressed with our local tonight. The horseshoe parking court, with out door pool near the entrance, and drive up rooms with outside door access reminds me of what, back home in Flint, MI, would rent for by the hour. But for Pendleton, this is the Hyatt Regency, baby.
There’s a bar around the corner that Hedgie said we have to visit this evening, the Rainbow Bar. I’ll get some pictures when there. We haven’t really discussed tomorrow’s destination, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be a hot ride for the next couple of days.
We shall see.
Bye for now,
Stick
