Our last day is a sad day in some ways, an end to what has been a magnificent adventure spanning almost 3 months, some 30 states and a tad under 22,000 kilometers, couple sets of tyres for two of the bikes. We have met some interesting, friendly, wonderful people along the way, both US locals and tourists from other countries alike., we have seen some amazing sights and as has been pointed out to us on numerous occasions by locals, we have seen more of the Continental USA in 3 months than many US citizens see in a lifetime. When asked on several occasions where we had been, many US residents gave us a blank look when we mentioned some of the places as they had not been there themselves. Almost every time we were advised of a great motorcycling road that was coming up in a state we were to visit, it was one already on the itinerary. When they mentioned some great roads in a State we had been in, we had been there as well. Goes to show all the books that were researched for the trip on great motorcycling roads in the various states, were on the money.

(All available in print ex Whitehorse Press….fyi)

Thanks to our team of intrepid riders, Horse and Janelle, Red and Corina, Mark and Tracey, and Bryn, for putting up with my rigid itinerary and the long and sometimes tiring days in the saddle, and yeah yeah, not enough rest days, I know, I know……. hope it was worth it, we saw some cool stuff and had a great adventure. Also to my partner Marie Hunter for tolerating the planning stages for the last year or so, as well as the riding stages and the stressful days when I had navigation glitches!!!!opps.

Did I digress? The last day was to get us into LA, so we can get the bikes cleaned up and returned to Kiwi Shipping tomorrow for the trip home on the nice boat. Pretty much a freeway run, about 160 Km’s in a straight line down the 99, followed by a coffee stop, followed by about another hundy km down the I5 and the 405 to get us to the Quality Hotel at LAX. We were lucky, we had a great run, Cooler temps than yesterday, no traffic issues, best ride we have had into Los Angeles yet.

We rocked around to Eagle Rider for Bryn to return his Harley, bit of communication with Marie who is having a spot of bother getting off the ground in Paris to return to LA.

I will conclude the journal in a day or so with some stats, I know you all love my stats, you know, number of Kms each month, number of summits and passes we crossed over, favorite rides of each couple/rider, that sort of thing, the team are giving some thought to their top 5 rides so we can blog our favorites across the 30 states.

Finally thanks to all our loyal blog followers for joining us on our adventure, we can see we have had followers from all over the world, including India, China, Canada, Australia, almost as many from the States as from NZ, all the regulars from NZ, including of course Mum Coulton who has religiously followed the blog from New Plymouth for 77 days in a row, cheers Mum.

I hope those blog followers that ride motorcycles in the States have picked up some new roads to ride from those we enjoyed or perhaps have been put off riding a long way to ride one we were not so keen on?? And that riders from outside the states who are planning a future trip may pick up the odd ride you might not have tackled before and think it might be worth a crack after viewing it on the blog.

Keep the shiny side up, every day vertical is a good one, as they say.

Being a Sunday, we suspected the parks would not be quite as crowded as Yosemite was yesterday, what with all those people that go to church and what not, nevertheless, we got an early start, circa 7.15 am and headed up Route 180 to ward Kings Canyon, some 90 kms distant.

The first 40 kms was on the flat but the last 50 kms was in the Sierra foothills and the 180 was a very cool ride in itself. Traffic was light, temps in the low 20’s, things were looking promising.

Well, let me tell you, Kings Canyon is jaw dropping in terms of scenery and riding enjoyment all rolled into one. It is 50 kms from the visitor center to Cedar grove at the end of the Canyon. We took photos on the way in, so we had an extra awesome 50 km ride back out to enjoy. Traffic columns were super light so it was a stunning ride, we were in this park for about 3.5 hrs. I have to say this would be my favourite National Park of the 15 we have visited on this trip. This canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon, in my view an overlooked park in that it eats Yellowstone and Yosemite for breakfast in terms of scenery, it is just a smaller park than those more popular ones.

Out of Kings Canyon, after having a look at the General Grant, giant sequoia and other giant trees nearby, we rode through Sequoia to see more giant sequoia,s before dropping down the side of the mountain the grove of the giants is on on the windiest, twistiest road we have ridden in this entire trip as well. Drops over 4000’ in altitude in a very short distance, just about got travel sickness and I was the only one on the bike, oh my god she was a twisting piece of road. From the bottom it was about 70 km into the Comfort Hotel at a town called Tulare where we booked in for the night.

What a stunning days riding and only one day from the end of the trip, awesome.

Tell ya what, if you are a motorcycle tourist , or in fact occupants of any form of vehicle while in California and you decide you better see the usual suspects such as Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Coastal Route one, don,t you dare leave California until you have had a look at Kings Canyon, you will not be disappointed, particularly if you are on a motorbike, it’s a nice day, it’s a mid week day and outside the tourist season, happy days my friend, happy days.

Day dawns nice and sunny, 5 degrees says the weather app for Mammoth. For reasons outlined on yesterday’s blog, we elected not to risk breakfast at the fine establishment we had chosen for our accommodation, but instead popped down town for brekkie and for once in many many days had real bacon, real eggs ( over easy of course) and some home cooked hash, outstanding. Wised the chef up while we were there about how what we call our venison bearing animals in Kiwi Land so he didn’t get sued for false advertising.

Full tummies we headed off back along the 395, heated grips on, to Lee Vining where we headed up Tioga Pass and into Yosemite. Tioga Pass is an impressive climb, huge scenery right in your face, just stunning stuff. Into the park, plenty of stops at overlooks for pics and stuff as it’s about 100 kms from the North entrance station at Tioga, through to Yosemite Valley.

Check our that pic below of the big towering rock followed by a closeup of said rock face, you might be able to make out the rock climbers in groups of 2 making their way up the rock face, nice way to spend a Saturday morning in September I spoke. Cool.

Down in Yosemite Valley, when we stopped to take a pic of El Capitan, the traffic congestion resembled rush hour in Manhattan, silly us, I hear you scoff, to enter Yosemite on a Saturday morning, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled on our tight itinerary, so Route 41, Wawona Road toward the south entrance station was our escape route of choice. When we stopped for coffee near the Wawona Visitor center, the traffic density was more to our liking, similar perhaps to rush hour, Tuesday morning, Main Street, Whanga.

Wawona Road zig zags it’s way south out of Yosemite but still at about 5000’ asl so happy days it was in terms of temp.

Gassed up at Oakhurst, warning signs the temp was lifting, now down to below 3000’ asl and sure enough, when we hit Fresno, it was like the earth had tilted on its axis and Fresno was the closest city on earth to the sun. Jesus wept the temperature was insane. I booked the Quality hotel near University in Fresno in advance, very judicious research as it was the only Choice Hotel in Fresno with a pool and I knew we would need one.

You guessed it, when we arrived we found the pool surround to be a concrete patio, no pool, we were informed. I advised the staff we only booked here as they had a pool. This is the second establishment that has had a pool concreted over. Frustrating to say the least.

This day is a very cool days riding in more ways than one. Lake Tahoe, our start point for the day at about 6300’ asl was about the lowest altitude we would ride at all day. Most of the riding in the Eastern Sierra’s is higher than this so makes for keeping the summer temps in the low 20’s all day, just where we like it.

Instead of going north to Carson city and down the 395, we struck out south of Lake Tahoe on Route 89, first of all climbing over Luther Pass and down into Markleeville where we had our first coffee stop for the day. Markleeville is a cute as a button wee village in the Sierra Mountains, pretty much servicing the travelling public with a Motel, restaurant, couple cafe,s you get the drift.

We hung around the village too long really, no real reason to leave, such a gorgeous part of the world, pic below of the Main Street, Markleeville, population 210.

Down the road a piece near the area of Loope ( named after my cousin from Douglas … clearly…….) we hung a left and climbed over Monitor Pass and on down to Route 395, which runs north/south. We cruised down the 395 to the town of Walker ( much bigger town, population 721) where we got some gas then on down the road a piece up and over Devils Gate Pass and down into Bridgeport for a spot of lunch. Nice part of the world, no need to hurry through it, scenery has been stunning all day, I like the Sierra’s, both sides of the range.

Now let me fill you in on 45 minutes of my life between the village of Walker, Devils Gate Pass and the town of Bridgeport. Near the Sonora junction we came upon some roadworks, as you do in this part of the world in the summer/Fall months. I point out at this juncture the temps had just hit 29.5 degrees and we were fully clad in Motorcycle safety gear, not my happy place.

Now the boys on this section of roadworks did not appear to be meeting their KPI’s when it comes to effective and efficient traffic management. As we arrived upon this scene, an approx 2 km long line of traffic had just started moving, obviously with us in the last 4-500 meters of this. the flagger man ( lollipop man we call them back home) was standing there with his stop/go sign, looking as intelligent as he could and as we approached he turned the sign around to stop us, even though he still had maybe 20 vehicles to get through.

I moved forward to engage this individual in conversation. Before I spoke, I had already made a visual assessment of this individual ‘s demeanour so my expectations of a successful engagement were low. I asked ever so politely if he would let the three motorcycles through on the end of that line of traffic due to the heat and what we were wearing, exposure to the sun etc. In a few guttural syllables he muttered that he had already radioed through the description of the last car. I mentioned we were clad in motorcycling clothing and would be unlikely to survive the next 45 minutes while his team got to us again and that perhaps he could simply radio through again that there were three bikes also coming.

As suspected however, such an onerous task was beyond this gentleman’s level of comprehension, I deduced that he may not have been top of his class, Class of 2018 at “Flagger school” It was outside this persons area of expertise to make a decision to let three motorcyclists through and prevent a health issue such as heat stroke or a heart attack at his station and on his watch, and that he was only qualified to simply turn his back and wave occasionally to truck drivers to make it look like he knew what he was doing.

We found some shade beneath the deck of a nearby Ute, while the smiling car drivers behind us turned down their aircon another notch. 40 mins later, several litres of water, an intravenous drip to prevent heat stroke, ingestion of both blood pressure and blood thinning medication and we were on our way. Isn’t it fortunate you don’t have to tip “Flaggers” in the USA.

Enough on recruitment and employment issues………….Moving right along

South of Bridgeport we took a wee deviation out to look over the ghost town of Bodie. Set up in the 1850’s in boom time gold rush days, had a reputation of being a rough and tuff town. The last people left there about 1942. There are heaps of relics, houses still furnished, shops still have goods on the shelves, they just walked out and left it. Full time staff actually live there to make sure it is not ransacked for souvenirs. Supposedly the best preserved ghost town in the USA. Pretty awesome to look around and a stack of tourists there when we were there.

Those two horse drawn hearses were in the old museum building. Now when I say they just walked out and left everything and this stuff is as it was found when the town was rediscovered, don’t be alarmed by the coffins in the hearses, I am told they were empty and that whoever was in them had been dutifully buried prior to 1942………. just for your info.

Bodie sits at about 8500’ asl but the whole mono basin that the 395 is on does not get any lower than 7000, so great temps all day.

Coming back out from Bodie, on down the road a piece we did the Grant lake, Silver lake, June lake loop, that’s a pic of Silver lake posted below, last pic, then on down to Mammoth for the night. This is a slutty wee ski town, sits at about 8700’ asl, a bit like Telluride in its expensive sluttiness and everything you buy is a piss take on the price, meals, fuel, you name it, they are there to bleed you dry. The Rodeway we stayed in was probably the worst motel the Choice Hotel chain would dare to have on their books in the entire 30 states and 73 other choice hotel premises, we have stayed at, yet one of the most expensive. Totally overpriced!! ( The Quality had no vacancies sadly or we would never have entered the semi sealed front yard of a building that actually looks like it belongs in Bodie…………..just saying…………..)seriously you think they could lift their game, the rest of the town is so up market!!!!

Fellow motorcyclists cruising the eastern Sierra,s and looking to stay in Mammoth ? best pretend the Rodeway Inn does not exist and move on, you hear what I am saying? If you visit Bodie before going in to Mammoth looking for a Motel, you will know which building I am referring to. I might add the sound proofing at the Rodeway is similar to the soundproofing you would expect of the average dwelling in Bodie as well, if you catch my drift. Amazing the similarities eh? Random?

Very nice meal up town however, despite thinking we had paid for 3 meals after eating only one, we even booked breakfast at a place that advertises “ New Zealand Elk” on the menu. We had to tell the chef he had been sprung by some Kiwi’s, did he mean venison as we don,t have Elk in New Zealand!!!!!!! Snapped.

Eastern Sierra’s Of California, nice riding, Mammoth may not be on your budget though! I am thinking Bridgeport could be the go next time eh?

Slight change of route today but same destination, South Lake Tahoe. It was pretty random that a Harley franchise the size of the one in Chico didn’t,t have a tire to for Bryn’s Low Rider, so start of the day was a 70 km ride down the 99 to Harley Davidson of Yuba City. The team at Yuba City Harley Davidson couldn’t have been more accommodating, they had multiple tyres in stock, got onto the fitting straight away, set us up with coffee at the coffee station and in less than an hour we were set to go. They get a few groups touring but not often from New Zealand, a team photo was set up out the front, see posted below. A great team and a great help to get us on the road again in double quick time. Bryn gave them one of our cards so they could have a look at our travels on the blog site.

Right, so from Yuba City, the plan was to take Route 50 across right into South Lake Tahoe, but this involved about 70 kms of suburban driving akin to riding the suburbs in Auckland as we made our way through, Lincoln, Roseville, Folsom, right up the backside of Sacramento.

Once onto Route 50, it started out like a freeway with 2 x 2 lanes but as we climbed into the Sierra’s it eventually dropped back to two lanes, usual nice scenery, river valley, road, trees, river, Twisties……..nice.

We gassed up at a wee village called Pollock Pines and the 100 kms from there to Lake Tahoe was a gorgeous ride, along the valley then up over Echo Summit and down the other side. I Like the Sierra’s, they are different scenery again to other mountain riding in other states.

We are staying at Stateline, Lake Tahoe, so Stateline ave is actually the California/ Nevada state line. I have posted some pics below taken from the corner, so looking south is California, no gambling so no high rises, just shops and condo,s. Looking north is Nevada, so massive sky rise casino’s and hotels, not my cup of tea, the Nevada side.

Have to say, right on the corner of Stateline ave and Highway 50 was a place called McP’s taphouse and grill. We had a couple beers there and a meal, bangers and mash with a rich gravy I had, best meal I have had in 73 days I would have to say !!!!!!!!

They love to take the piss here in South Lake Tahoe, the entire beach front for bloody kms along the South Lake Tahoe Lake frontage is barricaded with a steel fence like a zoo cage, yep you guessed it, you pay to walk on the sand, go to the beach, have a swim or walk on the beach to take a photo. Imagine what would happen in good old kiwi land if we tried to do that to tourists. Only in America for gods sake have hey got taking piss out of tourists and locals down to a pat.

Anyway we were given a voucher from the hotel to get onto the beach free, but the gate guard musta been in the pub or gone to do wee’s cause the gate was open and any random could walk onto the beach. Lake was a bit chilly for a dip, just saying.

Lake Tahoe, that’s Lake Tahoe………. onward tommorrow for more riding in the Sierra’s toward Mammoth Hot Springs, a ghost town and the devils postpile national monument, more on that next post.

The weather app on my iPhone told me it was 6 degrees in Burney when the alarm went off this morning. Sunny California eh? Yeah right.

To be fair, by the time we had popped in to glance over the breakfast offerings at the Green Cables, politely closed the door and gone next door to MCD, by the time we gassed up and left it was actually a mild 13.5 degrees.

We headed back to the very scenic route 89 up the road a piece and followed this into the Lassen Volcanic National Park, about 30 miles from Burney.

Burney sits at about 3500’ asl and as we gently weaved our way to the summit of the Lassen Volcanic public road, it topped out at 8500’ asl. With the mountain towering another 2000’ above you, there was still snow on the side of the road left over from last winter. Amazing to see snow in California at 8500’ when on the Beartooth and Independence Pass in Colorado and Wyoming, there was no snow at over 10,000’. There ya go eh, only in California. There’s even bubbling mud pools up in Lassen like Rotorua!

Another useless bit of Trivia that intrigued me is that on Route 89, say under 4000’, the native ground cover is Ponderosa Pine, Millions of them, but once you are riding above that, the native ground cover changes to blue and green Spruce trees, grow like a weed, thousands of them, seedlings thick as Manuka on the side of the road. Some of the old Spruce’s have old granddaddy moss hanging off the branches for much of the height of the tree. On our 72 days of riding across , now 30 states, this is the first time I have seen blue Spruce as the native ground cover, let alone in an alpine area.

Awesome eh, just some trivia for you to digest !!

Have posted some pics of the scenery through Lassen Volcanic, it was a gorgeous ride and up there with some of the nicest scenery we have seen on the trip, a very relaxing ride with plenty to see. Bryn had to give way to 3 deer again, I had a close call with a fawn. Coldest it got all day was 12 then 10 up near the summit of the Lassen road but not for long, it warmed up quickly as we descended the 89 on the south side of the park. It was 32 when we arrived in Chico, just saying………….

By and By we left the park , still on Route 89, one of California’s motorcycling honeys of a road and highly recommended.

Chico was our destination for the night so we left the 89 and turned down Route 32, the Deer Creek Highway, taken from the best motorcycling roads in California, the deer creek highway to or from Chico is one of those must do rides if you are cruising around north western California. It is 100 kms of motorcycling nirvana, in a valley, River, trees, no traffic, you know the drill, a great ride.

Bryn caught a puncture on the hire bike on the last 10 kms before we dropped into Chico so we had to do a roadside repair and cruise into town on a tubeless plug repair, but all good, looking at a new tyre from the Harley shop tommorrow. Dodged a bullet, it happening so close to the end of the day and so close to town! Consensus was today, the entire ride was great riding in terms of motorcycling roads and totally awesome scenery, again, very different to what we have encountered to date. If motorcyclists doing California choose to overlook Route 89 through Lassen, do so at your peril, it is a beaut ride, go do it, and head up there from Chico just so you can ride the 32, the Deer Creek highway, go on, get into it.

That wee comment passed on to us that summer has been turned off in Oregon pretty much sits right as we wake up to 6 degrees in Klamath Falls. Mark and Tracey head off today so we leave town on Route 97 to ride the 75 kms down to Weed, where we will do coffee before they head down to Sacramento.

I was expecting Route 97 to be more farmland and stuff, don,t know why, but it is called the volcanic legacy scenic byway, but it was quite an elevated ride all the way, coming over one of several passes and summits we were met with a stunning view of Mt Shasta, briefly, before it disappeared behind clouds. Looks a bit like a giant version of Mt Taranaki looked at from Manaia, with the Mountain on the left and a much larger version of Fanthams peak to its right. A nice scenic ride to Weed where we had coffee.

Now you can imagine all the logo shops at Weed and how they are making money from Tourism over its name, but Truth is Weed was the surname of a bloke back in the day who set the town up on the back of a successful forestry operation, not the weed you assume it might be named after. Cute town none the less.

We bade farewell to Mark and Tracey who rocked on down the 5 to Sacramento while we veered off at Mt Shasta to follow route 89, the Lassen Volcanic scenic byway to the wee town of Burney, about the size of Inglewood.

The accomm at the Green Gables Motel was OK, good restaurant across the road. I had 40 winks in the afternoon while Bryn, Red and Corina shot back to Burney Falls which they said was worth the ride. All in all a good days ride, even though it was only 12 degrees when we arrived and Mark and Tracey were reporting 29 degrees where they were south of Sacramento.

In our defence, we are still in the Mountains, right? We have to expect it to be a tad cooler. Needless to say, no swimming pool is needed and the aircon units in the motels have not been turned on for a few days now!!

On the morning of day sevenTy, it was still a bit brisk outside at breakfast time. The gent on reception told me that in Oregon, they turn the heat off on Labour day and summer turns to Autumn real quick. Happens consistently every year he was telling me.

We rugged up as it was about 15 degrees as we left, we headed down the main drag, route 97 to Bend about 75 kms away, veered off here to the start of the Cascade Lakes Scenic byway and stopped at a very cool coffee shop. It was 17 degrees as we left.

10 kms later, Cascade lakes scenic byway virtually climbs up to the slopes of Mt Bachelor to the local ski fields, we pulled over and extracted every bit of clothing we could muster as by now it was 6.5 degrees and we were freezing our arses off.

Nice scenery up in the mountains, but bloody cold. This was an alpine ride and the man at the motel reception was well and truly right about Oregon turning the heat off on Labour day!!!!!

The Cascade Lakes Scenic By way is about 110 kms long and ends when it intersects with Highway 58 and we headed the 25 miles down to the town of Chemult for a spot of lunch.

Still fully rugged up with everything we could muster from the panniers, we rode inland to shown Bryn, Mark and Tracey the wonderful views to behold at Crater Lake since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity eh?

You guessed it, Crater Lake was shrouded in fog and if we thought Cascade Lakes was a cold ride, it was drizzling and 4.5 degrees at Crater Lake. We stopped briefly at the Lodge, took a couple photos, not as good as those we took on the last trip but I have posted them below, you could still see the Crater Lake but the views were not a hundy.

Leaving there the temps improved as we dropped down, now riding Oregon’s Volcanic Legacy Scenic byway down to Klamath Falls, our destination for the night. This was quite a nice ride and a bit more comfy as the temps gradually climbed again.

Now this is Mark and Tracey,s last night with the team , as they branch further south tommorrow with a View to taking the Coast route back to LA and get there a few days earlier to have a couple days in LA then head back to San Fran for the flight home.

Dinner out was therefore on the agenda. The Thai restaurant we found on the Yelp app was now a hairdresser but the Red Rooster steak house next door looked the go . Had a couple wines and everyone had a nice meal, apart from yours truly who made a stupid blunder. I should have known that in central Oregon, 3 hrs from the coast, a meal of scallops is not going to be the meal of Scallops you get served back home in a South Pacific country surrounded by Ocean.!

The 12 scallops closely resembled potato croquettes in appearance. They were small and round, coated thickly in deep fried breadcrumbs and in fact tasted like scallop flavoured potato croquettes. in fact they tasted like nothing. Note to self, don’t order seafood in central Oregon, lesson learned.

The nice waitress lady asked us all if our meals were nice, I said nothing and remained poker faced rather then tell them the scallop meal should really be removed from the menu it was so disgusting, there you go. The rest of the team had a nice meal however.

Here endith day seventy.

We awoke on day sixty nine to a steady downpour of rain as ourselves and the 82 Triumph riders at the Baker City Triumph rally prepared to head home. Lucky most of them had their wet weather gear. I felt sorry for a few Tuff guy Harley riders who were heading off with their open face helmets and sunnies on, in the cold rain.

For us, the planned route for today was a circuitous route of Twisties roads meandering south, then north then west across Oregon to eventually get us to Madras in central Oregon, about 430 kms worth.

Practicality and Comfort ruled and we planned a re route to make the ride 285 kms of slightly less Twisties roads to make life easier in the rain. The 7 south and the 26 west was chosen, a route many of the Triumph riders were using to head home to western Oregon as well.

75 kms into the ride, raining all the way, it was time for a coffee break where Route 7 met Route 26 West. Temps were about 10 degrees at this point and we thought it was cold.

The rain stopped during the coffee break and the rest of the day was actually quite a nice ride, Route 26 turned out to be quite a scenic ride, getting us to the town of Madras about 3.30 pm. We won,t extol the virtues of Madras as there aren,t any, but there you go, that was day sixty nine.

Well technically speaking it is Clarkston, Washington, to Baker City, Oregon, since we stayed across the Snake River in Clarkston last night, but let’s not be picky. Now this is all new territory for me, I have not ridden this route before but it comes recommended out of a wee publication I picked up last trip on Motorcycling roads in Idaho and Oregon. Words in the book like riding the rattlesnake and the Oregon Dragon appealed, so off we went this morning in Sunshine and temps in the low 20’s to explore this route. I had also found in my wee book on scenic byways, that the Hells Canyon Scenic byway linked in with this ride so the original route in my trip book was tweaked to include the Hells Canyon ride.

We left Clarkston on the WA129 south………….Things looked up only 10 kms south of Clarkston, we rode thru a wee town called Asotin and immediately we were snaking and twisting our way up a hill onto a big plateau up high which was all cropping land, nice.

Cruising along here, by and By we go over rattlesnake Pass, entering the Fields Spring state park and some more fun begins. The road that curves and snakes it’s way down to rattlesnake creek and the first coffee stop of the day, Boggans Oasis ( Stop taking the piss, that has two g’s in it so pronounce it correctly kiwi’s) was a truly awesome ride. the first pic of Twisties I have posted below is a bit of an example of some of the riding on the rattlesnake. FYI, the rattlesnake, as this ride is referred to by locals, is in Washington State. The scenery out here is amazing too, huge hills, barren as, no green grass, just parched, but so very different to yesterday’s scenery it is like being in another country.

We stopped at Bogans for coffee…………… opps did I spell that wrong?…………but I am right……………… and then headed 4 miles down the road to the Oregon State line. There was a wee spot of roadworks here as we crossed the state line, but immediately after, we were snaking our way up and out of Joseph Canyon to get up onto another plateau and it is this climb that is referred to by Oregon motorcyclists as the Oregon Dragon. It certainly justifies this name, it is an awesome Twisties hill climb. hard to photograph but the welcome to Oregon pic and the couple that follow below, show the scenery in the valley the Oregon Dragon climbs out of.

Righteo, the rattlesnake and the Oregon Dragon are now behind us, we rock on down to the town of Enterprise for a bite of lunch before riding eight miles down the road apiece to the wee town of Joseph ( named after Nez Perce Chief Joseph of course). This wee town of Joseph is very slutty and upmarket, I could have a holiday there, nice, few ski fields nearby and the like.

We veered east at Joseph on the 350 and after 8 miles took US Forest route 39 to ride the next 37 miles to the Hells Canyon Overlook. Now this is one of the few Forest service roads that is sealed, due to its popularity, but this is a great Twisties wee ride…….. there is better to come.

By and By we made it to the overlook for Hells Canyon, great views into the big valley, posted some pics from up there.

Heading out of the overlook, we got to ride the best little Twisties hill descent I have ridden for a long time, as we made our way down to the town of ‘Halfway’ about 40 miles away.

I shit you not, this is the name of the town and a cool wee village it is as well, we had coffee there. I have to repeat that the ride down from the Hells Canyon overlook to Halfway is an outstanding ride, I would have loved to be riding it uphill, What a cool part of the world.

Righteo, re caffeinated at Halfway we rode Route 86 the last 100 kms to our destination for the night, Baker City, pop of just under 9000. Route 86 is a little treasure as well, twists and winds it’s way west, and the only Highway Patrol man on that route had already pulled over a Couple other bikes, it was good to see a couple Triumph riders taking one for the team while we cruised on By.

We arrived at Baker City, pre warned there was a Triumph motorcycle convention on and they were staying at the same hotel as us. No drama,s, a huge Triumph motorcycle convention but the USA folks don,t have the same drinking culture as Kiwi,s so we hardly heard a sound out of them, no drunk and disorderly, no burn outs, it could have been A Sunday School gathering if I hadn’t seen all the bikes everywhere.

Did I say a lot of these Triumphs were trailered here, taken out of their trailers to be parked on the pavement while their owners do the dinner and talk shit routine. I do not gest, only in America and only a Triumph rider would do this? You agree eh? Yeah yeah I know,………………….geez……….Triumphs eh, who would have thought?