It seemed like a good idea at the time.  First long weekend of the year, nice quick ride down the coast, opportunity to relax a little, enjoy the salt air, sunshine (see, there was supposed to be sunshine...) and time away from town, work, the house, and on and on and on.

It wasn't a bad weekend overall, not actually.

But, it's still February.  And while it's not Minnesota / Maine / Canada / Alaska cold, it's certainly not Florida either here on the Oregon coast.

So I plan to take off first thing Saturday morning and head out some of my favorite roads, stop wherever I am at supper and get home sometime Monday, with enough time left to do laundry and get ready for work Tuesday.

Good plan.  Then I woke up Saturday morning and it's 28 degrees at the house, and the weather reports from where I'm headed are no higher than 35.  I decided to have a long cup of coffee, do some errands, tune up the bike a little and then hit the road.  I was out of the garage in 45 degree weather around 11:30 in the morning.

I decided that it's only a long weekend.  I didn't bother to pack anything other than the clothes on my back and a wallet.  The ride out of Portland was uneventful - well, the whole weekend was uneventful, but this is a story, after all - and I headed for the coast on US 26 eventually turning on to Oregon 53 about 45 miles out of town.

This is when my "plan" started to go south.  See, it's February and this is the coastal range of hills where it had snowed previously this winter, even though we're currently havin the driest witner in the last 50 years.  Well, with snow, comes gravel.  Lots and lots and lots of gravel.  I'm 2 miles in to a 19 mile VERY twisty ride when I realize that the gravel isn't getting lighter, it's getting heavier.  I'm only able to take the corners, the sweet, sweet corners, at about 20 MPH - and all the while I'm staring in to my mirrors to see which 1 ton pickup is going to come careening around the corner and up my tailpipes.  At about 4 miles in, I decided to hang it up.  Pissed off and frustrated, I turned around and headed back to US 26 to continue west to the coast.

Oh well, at least I got to the coast.  On President's day weekend.  At the start of spring break.  RV heaven, in other words.

So I decided to take a picture or two.


Tillamook Bay

I Continued down the coast, making Newport on the first night, and finding nearly every motel in town booked up.  It's a holiday weekend, in fishing season, spring ... well, we covered all of that already, right?

I found a place to stay for the night about the time my fingers were giving up for the day.  The sun had long since disappeared behind the clouds and the wind had shifted onshore, and since I hadn't packed anything - including my fleece jacket liner - I wasn't really prepared to be out in the real cold.

Sunday was to be a romp up several other coast range roads, but to my disappointment, all of them were in the same condition as I had found OR 53 on Saturday.  Gravel and sand everywhere, impossible to get any real riding in.


That's OK though, Highway 101 is good enough for a mid-winter romp without having all of the great summertime roads.  Oh well.

The seagulls were even having slow day - this one never moved the whole time I was there - even when I started the bike up and roared off -


Sunday evening found me in Crescent City California, at the very far northern end of the Redwoods National Park.

Monday morning, I was bound and determined to get some twisites in and the roads up in to the redwoods are just the thing.  No sand, no gravel, EXCELLENT dry conditions.  However, since I had to get home, and home was a 6 - 7 hour slab ride up I-5, I couldn't spend all day playing.  But, from about 8:30 am until 11:00 when I popped out of the woods on US 199 headed for Grants Pass, Oregon (itself not a bad road) I ripped up the pavement pretty well. even if I was freezing up around the summits.  I arrived at Grants Pass around 12:30, stopped for lunch at a local diner and got back to Portland around 5:30 PM.

Didn't pack anything, didn't bring a map, got cold, got tired, got frustrated, but I met the basic goal of the original plan - I got out of Portland, away from the house, the job, and so forth.

It was worth it.

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