Day sevenTy, Madras,or to klamath falls, or

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.