The weather forecasters had been calling for a windy, although sunny and dry, day.  It supposed to be in the low 70's this afternoon.  Fairly common around these parts at this time of year is the dry east wind that barrels through the Columbia River Gorge, picking up steam all the way, before it slams into Portland and the surrounding areas.  A really good one will affect the passes through the coast range of mountains too, but normally the coast gets very little of the east wind - unless it's a real doozey.

It's a Saturday morning in mid October and I've been thinking about a ride to the coast for a while now.  Portland is about 60 miles inland (as the crow flies) up the Columbia River at the mouth of the Willamette River.

As usual, I don't really have a plan in mind for where I'm going or when I plan to get there - this is how my road trips usually work.  No sense in planning too much, that takes the fun away.  The only time I bother to plan days on the road is when I have to be somewhere (like home in time to go to work) at a particular time on a particular date.  Otherwise, if I'm truly in vacation mode, I'll go somewhere between 200 and 600 miles in a day and then find a motel for the night - or a campground if the weather allows.

I do have something to do at noon on Sunday, so if I do decide to stay overnight on the coast, I simply have to be back in town early enough to get cleaned up and ready to go.  I have a feeling that this will be just a day trip, but I just simply haven't decided yet.

Packing is fairly light - I take both face shields, a sweatshirt, my camera, my cell phone and the regular stuff (tools, tire gauge, etc.)  I figure that if I do end up staying overnight, I'll be able to live with myself wearing the same underwear two days in a row ...

While I'm finishing up my coffee, I make a quick look outside at the thermometer - ooh, yeah, it's October ... it's ... 43 degrees out.

Hmm.  OK, so the first part of the ride will be a little cold.  I'm OK with that.  I have insulated gloves and heavy leathers and a full face helmet and warm boots.  Worst case, I always have the pipes right below my right thigh.

I head out the back door and as I let out my first breath, I can see it thick and steamy folding into the morning air.  OK, so the first part of the ride is going to be a bit chillier than I thought it would, but I'm still OK with it.

I slip out of the neighborhood at 8:00. The sun has cracked the blue sky open for the day - looks like the weather dudes might be right after all.  The bike's running just a smoothly as if it were 90 out.  I pull in to the gas station around the corner and notice that in three blocks, my fingers are already a little cool.

After gassing up, I settle in for the road for a while.  The route this morning, I decide, will be up Oregon highway 30 out of northwest Portland through Scapoose, St. Helens, Ranier and Clatskanie to the City of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Once I get to Astoria, I'll decide what the next section will be.

The first part of the trip takes me out through the industrial district of northwest Portland.  Here, they make train cars and offload giant ships filled with grain and cars and lumber.  The road is built for semi's, is a wide four lanes accross and has train tracks crossing about every 1000 feet or so.  Still, at a little before 8:00 on a Saturday morning, it's a terrific place to open the bike up and let her scream for a bit on the empty, long, straight stretches of VERY wide pavement.

Rolling out of the indistrial area, I turn north on to the 55 MPH section of highway 30 and start stretching my legs out while I wait for Scapoose to come along.  My neck is a little chilly, but my hands are getting cold.  By ten miles south of Scapoose, I can barely feel my right hand anymore.  Hmm, this IS colder than I thought - realizing at that moment that while it may have been 43 at my house IN THE CITY, it's probably more like 38 or so out here in the countryside.

Scapoose comes up none too soon.  I need to stop and get my hands working again - this is not good.  I spent the last couple of miles in to town thinking about things like electric gloves, heated grips, down mittens ...

It took about 20 minutes stopped in a Fred Myer parking lot in Scapoose to get my hands thawed while my gloves spent the time wedged in between the pipes and the engine.  I felt MUCH better when I pulled back on to highway 30.  But only another 40 miles went by before I had to pull off in Clatskanie and thaw my fingers again.  Since nothing else is remotely cold, including my feet, I vow to solve my glove problem and after getting the circulation back again, I continue on to Astoria.

Coming out of Clatskanie, I hit wet, misty, cold, low visbility conditions.  Jeez, what happened to the sunshine?  For some reason, there is a very wet fog bank that has settled in to this part of the river valley.  Rolling on up highway 30, I feel like I should have a white cane out in front of the bike.  I'm actually getting soaked just from the heavy, wet, dew in the air.  This continues for almost 20 miles and I'm plodding along at about 25 to 30 MPH, so this goes on for almost 45 minutes.  All the while, of course, I've got cagers running about six inches off my tailpipe.  I figure they were using my taillight to see where the road was, 'cause they couldn't see it any better than I could.

Then, just as suddenly as I hit the pea soup, I clear it.  Now the morning has turned out perfectly.  As I round the last corner in to the City of Astoria, I can finally feel the sun on my shoulders - it's actually WARM.  In Astoria, at 99.6 miles, I pull in for gas at the local Chevron and as usual, spend 2 minutes putting gas in the bike and 20 minutes talking to everyone about the bike - not that I mind, I kinda like the attention.

Astoria, named for the old millionaire John Jacob Astor, is an old fishing town and frankly kinda behaves like it too.  Don't get me wrong, the people of Astoria are really nice and they're hard working, salt of the earth types.  But, the city fathers of Astoria can't seem to get it into their heads that the salmon ain't coming back and the canneries that they keep saying will reappear on the waterfront won't.  As a result, Astoria is a town with a terrific oceanfront location, but with an economy almost totally based, still, on fishing.  This wouldn't be a problem if the fishing indutry was what it was fifty years ago.  But, since the town hasn't diversified much over the years, it's showing it's age and hard use.  Like many other places, the locals sometimes refer to Astoria as "poverty with a view."

While I'm gassing up the bike, I start thinking about fueling myself.  Seaside, Oregon is about 30 miles down the coast on highway 101.  I figure I'll head to Seaside and then see how far it is to Tillamook from there.  There's an air museum in Tillamook that I've never had a chance to visit - I think I might go there.

It was as I rounded the last turn out of Astoria for highway 101 that I noticed the wind for the first time.  Probably not the big east winds due in the valley later on, these were more likely just morning onshore flow as the land heated up.  Didn't matter, as I cross the bridge over Willapa Bay toward Warrenton and highway 101, I'm getting blown around pretty good.

I see the fist mileage sign for Tillamook - 62 miles.  Cool, I can stop in Seaside for lunch and mosey down to the air museum in just a couple of hours.

Seaside is crowded today.  It's probably one of the last sunny, warm days we'll be having for a while - the winter rains should be settling in for a long stay any time now.  So people are taking advantage of the nice day.  I putter through the center of town dodging little kids, car doors, bicycles, dogs, cars and just general people.  I find a parking space not too far from the front door of Nora's Diner - never tried Nora's before, but it looks like a happenin' place, so I lock up the V-Rod and head on inside.

Unfortunately, Nora's had just opened for the day (it's about 11:30 now) and only one poor beleaugered waitress was on duty - and the place was filling up fast - faster than this overworked lass could keep up.  I waited about fifteen minutes for a glass of water and another ten for my order to be taken.  By that time, the manager had come in and a couple of other wait staff had arrived, so the load was decreasing some.  Nora's has pretty good coffee and the fish 'n chips ain't bad either.

Back in the street after a good lunch and I find a guy leering at my pretty girl sitting by the curb.  Worse than learing, he's taking pictures.  The little lady is sitting right there soaking it all up in chrome shined glory.  It turns out that I've attracted a small crowd.  OK, I haven't attracted the crowd, the bike has, but you know what I mean.  I had parked in an end spot near the diner right on the corner of two very busy streets at lunch on a busy Saturday in an oceanside resort town on the Oregon coast.  My baby was being looked at, drooled over, pointed at, pictures were being taken, people were whispering.  I almost felt dirty swinging a leg over her and squeezing her levers.

I rode out of Seaside with a full belly and a very full ego (yes, I know they weren't looking at ME...)

Seaside to Tillamook is about 50 miles.  The ride takes you through some of the best scenery on this part of the pacific coast.

This is Nehalem Bay:



It was on this part of the ride that I once again started to encounter wind.  Nothing all that bad, but certainly a reminder of what was coming later on.

When you're travelling highway 101 on the pacific coast on a sunny Saturday, you meet all sorts of people as you stop to take pictures.  Many today are driving recreational big-rigs with cars in tow.  This slows things down a bit on 101, but since the speed limit drops to 30 about every five miles for another wide spot in the road known as a town, you don't really notice.

At one stop, I'm sitting on the rock wall of the parking area about twenty feet from the bike.  I'm just staring at the ocean and relaxing a bit.  A little kid comes up to the wall next to me and says "Hi!  What's your name?"

"Ed," I tell him, "what's yours?"
He thinks about this for a moment.  He's probably been told a million times by mom and dad not to talk to strangers.  At this point, he's proabably wondering if he should answer me or not.
"Daniel," he says.
"Hi Daniel," I say.  Then I go back to staring at the ocean.  Then I take a picture of the cove I'm sitting above.
"What are you taking pictures of?" Daniel asks.
"The ocean" I tell him.
"Why?" he asks.
Oh boy, this is going to be fun ...
"'cause I like the ocean," I tell him.
"But why are you taking pictures of it?" he persists.
"'cause it's nice to look at and I like taking pictures of it, that's all."  I figure circular logic is OK at this point with this particular audience.
Then I start to understand why he ACTUALLY started taking to me.
"Is that your bike?" he asks.  This is the bike that I'm sitting twenty feet from.  It's the only bike in the parking area.  I'm the only person in the area with leathers on a helmet in my hands.
"Yes," I tell him.
"Neat bike," he says.
"Yup, it is," I tell him.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Tillamook," I tell him.
"Where's Tima - Tilmuk - ... where's that?" he asks.
"About 45 more miles that way," I tell him, pointing south.
"Can you REALLY ride that far on that bike????" he asks, amazed.
"Yup, easy." I tell him.
"Where do you live?" he asks.  For a kid who's probably been told a million times not to talk to strangers, this kid's one talkative little soul.
"Portland," I say.
"Hey WAIT A MINUTE! WE live in Portland too!" he exclaims, again amazed.  He probably didn't realize that half the people standing there looking at the ocean were probably from Portland too.
"We live on the other side of Portland," he says, "where do you live?"
"I live in Southeast," I say.  He is silent at this point - I haven't turned to even look at him during this conversation, so I don't know that he has just run over to talk to his parents who are, apparently, standing not far away.
Now little Daniel is audibly amazed and excited - "HEY! WE LIVE IN THE SOUTHEAST TOO!!!" he nearly shreaks.
"That's cool," I say.  Then I go back to staring a the ocean.  At this point, Daniel's parents apparently wanted to leave, so he runs over to them.  Then he runs back to me again.
"BYE!" he shouts as he runs back to his parents.  I guess they've taught him to be polite to the strangers he talks to...

I revel in the relative peace and quiet that descends upon the area once little Daniel is safely ensconced in his minivan again.  I sit staring at the ocean for another ten or fifteen minutes and then decide that it's time to press on.

About 5 miles outside Tillamook, I stop to take one of the obilgatory "bike-in-front-of-the-scenery" pictures - and to look at said scenery for a bit.



Then on through Tillamook to the air museum.

You can see the museum long before you get the turn off for it.  I've seen it a hundred times from 101.  It's housed in one of the blimp hangars remaining from Naval Air Station Tillamook (NAST).  Back in the day, there were two hangers and a dirigible mooring field roughly the size of 30 or 40 football fields square.  You can't miss the museum because the words "AIR MUSEUM" are painted on the side of the blimp hangar in white letters that have to be 50 feet high if they're an inch.

Aside from a terrific history of the US Navy Dirigible fleet of the 20's, 30's and 40's, the museum houses a fine collection of FLYING warbirds and other vintage and somewhat more modern planes.  The collection includes helicopters and other rotorcraft, piston and turbine engines and one of the first two Cessnas to land on Antarctica.


Boeing DC-3



F-14A Tomcat



Grumman Hellcat



P-51 Mustang



Boeing Stearman PT-17

By the time I'm done purusing all the exhibits, two and half hours have gone.  I wander back out into the sunshine and warm air.  The weather dudes were right - it's turned out to be a perfect day.  In fact, if anything, for full leathers and all, it's almost a little warm.  My opinion on all of that is about to change, however.

I head back to Tillamook (the museum is south of town a bit) and stop for a tank-topper.  It's about 75 miles back to Portland from here and I'm down to less than 1/2 tank and gas stations are few and far between as you head through the coast range.

It's about 3:15 PM when I hit the road eastbound into the coast range.  Oregon highway 6 runs through the hills from Tillamook to North Plains where it joins US highway 26 that then takes you back in to Portland.

On the west side of the hills, things were very nice.  Oregon 6 is nice and twisty and has plenty of straight stretches where you can let the throttle wander to the high side a bit.  As long as you take the corners seriously, it's a pretty cool ride.  You go about 35 to 40 miles or so uphill until you get to the top of the pass.  The only problem with that particular milestone today, however, is that once you're not on the west side of the range anymore, you're heading straight in to those dry east winds that the weather dudes were warning about yesterday.

Oh boy, did I run in to the east winds.

The portion of Oregon 6 from the top of the range to highway 26 begins slowly to get less and less twisty as it goes.  This is the part where it's coming back down into the valley and it's flattening out, straightening out and getting generally more like a highway that a mountain road.  On a normal day, hitting most of the corners at at least 50 wouldn't be a problem - today, however, it's blowing 35 to 45 with gusts to 55 and 60 MPH.  Just getting set up for a corner is a bitch.  Going through one at speed is simply a "pucker your butt to the seat" kind of experience.  So, in situations like this, I tend to slow up a bit.  The ride becomes one in which you have no trouble keeping up speed on the straights, but in the curves, you tend to tone it down considerably.  So much so, that on a curve posted at 35 MPH, you may ACTUALLY take the curve at 35 ish.  This is no problem as long as you don't have impatient cagers on your ass.

Let me go off and rant a moment on tailgaters.  Folks, you don't intimidate me.  You worry me a little insofar as I think about what would happen if I dumped it in a corner and you ran over me because you couldn't stop in the 18 feet you've given yourself between your grill and my tailpipe.  But you don't intimdate me.  I'm not going to go ripping through a corner any faster than I'm comfortable going or that my bike is capable of doing.  See, I know what happens when you do that - you want to see my surgical scar and the screws in my ankle???

So folks, if you are prone to tailgating and can't understand why this damned biker can go 70 in the straights but has to slow to 35 for some curve, you can just bite my big, fat, leather covered ass.  Deal with it!  So you'll get where you're going 38 seconds later than you would if you weren't behind me.  Too bad.  But none of you want to go the speed limit anyway, because when you DO pass me, I'm already doing 65 in a 55 and you blow by me like I'm standing still in your 30,000 pound 2 gallons-to-the-mile Lincoln SUV.

There, I feel better now.  Back to the ride.

So between the tailgaters and the wind, I'm starting to not have a very good time at this point in the ride.  Then, about 15 miles from the junction with highway 26, the wind REALLY picks up.  It's being funneled down a couple of the canyons that make up the foothills that I'm riding out of.  By the time I actually get on to highway 26, which is a four lane divided freeway at this point in its route, I'm ducking behind the windscreen, have my knees planted firmly against the frame of the bike and I'm fighting what I later learn is a steady wind of about 40 MPH with gusts to about 65+  Jeez, it's nasty.  Luckily, I'm riding pretty much straight on into it - I'm not sure I would have bothered to continue if it had been a crosswind that bad.

I go about 20 miles on US 26 before I decide it's time to get off and take the back roads the rest of the way home.  I exit the freeway at a local road that I'm familiar with and ride up over Portland's west hills and down into town at the stately pace of 30 MPH, mostly in sheltered areas, big groves of trees, lots of forest.

I didn't plan to do it this way, but I finish up the ride for the day at precisely 5:00 PM in my driveway.  It takes me another hour or so to clean the bugs off the bike, my helmet, me and my leathers.

Totals for the day - 285 miles, 9 hours, home for dinner at 6:00 PM.

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