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Day 1 Sunday - I had some other commitments on Saturday so I ended up packing and leaving Sunday around noonish. My goal for day 1 was to ride to the Sisters City Park and camp overnight. I-5 was uneventful except for being hot and slow around Portland to Salem. There's sections of I-5 through Oregon that are two lanes in each direction. You have to practice patience when you get someone who wants to practice formation driving, or drive just at or below the speed limit in the left lane - plus the occasional semi race where one eighteen wheeler is passing another with a closing speed of several miles per hour.
I headed east at Salem onto highway 22 to go over North Santiam Pass. The more interesting route to Sisters from a motorcycling perspective is to head east from Eugene but I'd ridden that way last year and only had the afternoon to get to Sisters City Park and set up my tent.
The campground in Sisters is a good deal. Nice ground for putting up a tent and within easy walking distance of downtown. It's pretty quiet and a creek runs through it as well - so for 12 dollars a night it's a pretty good camping bargain. Not sure what it would be like finding a place in the peak times of summer but I imagine if you showed up early in the day you could claim a spot.
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Day 2 Monday - My goal on Monday was to ride to, and around, Crater Lake National Park and then continue south to get fairly close to Lassen National Park for the next day's ride. Sisters to Crater Lake is only about 130 miles so it's a pretty short jaunt. Crater Lake was pretty awesome.
I spent a few hours at Crater Lake riding around the rim (on the road) and then headed south on 97 to Weed, California where I caught I-5 for a short trip to get onto highway 89 south to Lassen. My stop for the night was the Hat Creek Campground. That place looked pretty good from the internet because it had showers and wifi but I wished I would of stayed at one of the national forest campgrounds nearby. The rate for a tent site was $30.80. My main reason for staying there was so I could take a shower. The national forest service campground would have been 16 bucks, so I ended up paying 14 bucks for a shower and what ended up being almost no sleep. The people at the desk were real nice and told me they gave me the "best" campsite in a private spot by the creek. Sounds good so far.
Once I drove in, the campground had a weird vibe to it - quite a few people who appeared to be permanent residents living in dilapidated RV's/vans of one sort or another, wandering about in the dust, staring at me as I entered their domain. I couldn't keep myself from imagining that if there is ever a zombie invasion in the U.S. it may very well originate in that campground.
One of them who seemed to have some official power offered to lead me to my campsite on his four wheeler - nice guy but I couldn't hardly see because of the dust he was kicking up. The wifi didn't work in the campground - it may have been accessible in the main office but not where I was staying. When I checked in I asked the check-in ladies if there was a password and they told me you just make up your own password. I think they meant it wasn't password protected but whatever.
Day 3 Tuesday - I was up before the sun and headed off bright and early. It was a nice ride. Hardly any traffic at this time of year. On one isolated stretch of road I saw a guy walking and pulling a small wagon loaded with what might of been camping gear and food. I wish I would have stopped to see what the story was but I wanted to get to Lassen. Later in the trip along the coast I saw a younger guy riding a skateboard in a fairly remote area with a backpack on his back, looking like he was on an extended trip...people in the U.S. really like to get out on the road.
I think I was one of the first people at the entrance to Lassen National Park that morning because the ranger was just putting up the flag. It's 5 dollars to ride a motorcycle into Lassen (same for Crater Lake) so that's a benefit since it's twice that or more for a car.
Lassen National Park is a good place to ride - the roads are clean/smooth and there are some fun curves. There's enough to see that it's interesting and not at all like Yellowstone in the busy season with the huge traffic jams when someone stops to look at a moose/buffalo/bear.
Day 4 Wednesday - The area west of Clear Lake is nice - lots of vineyards with the harvest in swing. It took me a little while to figure out the main road but I got to see quite a bit of nice grape country. This part of the trip took me to one of the most "interesting" roads of this trip - highway 175 from Kellseyville to Hopland Ca. I hadn't planned on that route but I didn't want to hit traffic in Santa Rosa so I decided to get onto 101 by that road. Highway 175 is also called the Hopland Grade. It is steep and really curvy. I saw a few Mini-Coopers on the road which looked fun. The curves are so tightly packed together that I had the feeling of slalom skiing rather than riding a motorcycle. The road is narrow and I found out later from a barista at Starbucks that it is the site of not too few accidents where someone crosses over the centerline or goes off the edge. It was a pretty good workout.
From Hopland I headed south on 101 to Santa Rosa and then west on 12 to Bodega Bay. This turned out to be a long (fun) day. Bodega is a cool little town - especially the week after the Labor Day crowds have gone home. The school there was in Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds. It's got a surf shop, a cool market/cafe and a strange looking ramshackle casino (which I later read is not a casino but rather a pretty cool bar that serves good food). Now that I know that's not a casino it doesn't seem so strange that it would be in such a modest building. Looking at it from the outside I thought it must be one of the poorest casinos I'd ever seen. Bodega is about 60 miles north of San Francisco but it seemed like a world away from the city on this particular Wednesday.
I had a 3 seaweed salad made with hiyashi, wakame and hijiki seaweed for lunch (figured I should eat some local food and I was real close to the ocean) in Bodega and then headed north on Highway 1. The section of Highway 1 north of Bodega is beautiful and a good road for riding with it's twisty bits.
My destination for this night would be MacKerricher State Park a few miles north of Fort Bragg. This was the nicest campground I stayed in. They had showers, a pretty beach, seals and a gray whale skeleton. Some critter tried to take my bike or maybe the partially eaten Odwalla bar in the tank bag but all I saw after the fact was his paw print on the seat the next morning.
Day 5 Thursday - Up bright and early and on the road north out of MacKerricher State Park. Lots of natural beauty and good riding on CA-1. I like the photo with the fog and the stand of stately redwoods.
There's lots of towns that seem to have a population of 492 (or so) people on highway 1. They are all the sorts of places that look interesting but I only had a week so I couldn't stop at every one. I did stop at Elk which had this funny sign.
Did I mention I saw a lot of Naked Ladies alongside the road?
You see them in the most unlikely places - all alone in some remote dried up grassy areas, bunched together in random spots beside the road or sometimes like these lined up along a fence.
The lady (not naked) in the store in Elk gave me the scoop on these pretty pink flowers. They were grown commercially at one time in some areas along the coast. They bloom twice a year. They are a type of lily known as naked ladies because they drop all their leaves and then the pretty pink flowers show up. Apparently squirrels pick up the bulbs and move around with them in their mouths and then decide they aren't good to eat so they spit them out some time later where they grow in odd random spots beside the road. They have a fragrance which people find pleasing, but apparently not deer so that keeps them from being eaten. I'm kind of wondering if part of the reason you see them beside the road by themselves is the bulbs fell off a truck at some time...but I like the idea of squirrels planting them so I'll stick with that story.
I was planning on camping near Florence Oregon on Thursday night but by the time I got there it was getting a little late and the state campground seemed like a hassle. They wanted you to pay for two nights and it was self serve and people were dallying around, so I headed to the Park Motel in Florence where I've stayed before during a torrential rain storm on my way up the coast in February 2010. It's the quintessential Mom and Pop motel - friendly, clean and relatively inexpensive. The rooms have a fridge and microwave and that knotty pine paneling that always reminds me of being on vacation. They encourage you to park your motorcycle right at your front door and on this particular morning the owner gave me a towel to dry my bike off.
Day 6 Friday - Took a leisurely ride west from Florence to Eugene. That's a nice road too.
It follows the Siuslaw River which was filled with salmon fishers in boats. There's a cool little stop in the road somewhere along the way too for coffee and snacks.
After my leisurely ride to Eugene and looking around the city for awhile I headed back north on I-5 for home. If I had the trip to do over again I'd plan to not come into Seattle on a Friday afternoon. Traffic was terrible and added an hour or two to the trip.
All in all a really great trip though. I'm glad I got to see Crater Lake, Lassen, and ride CA-1 north of Bodega. I wanted to ride from Crescent City California to Grants Pass Oregon but it was so hot in Grants Pass that day I decided to stick to the coast. I've heard that's a good motorcycle road...also read that the road west out of Red Bluff to the coast may be the best motorcycle road in California so there's always the next trip.
I posted the pictures I took on this trip at Crater Lake, Lassen and Cali Hwy 1 - a set on Flickr
I thought it was sort of odd that the check-in lady asked me to not give the shower combination to anyone else..? Who? The tent site was covered in a layer of crushed (sharp) gravel - not the best. It was still fairly dusty even with the attempt to make a bed of gravel. I'm wandering around looking for the shower and some nice hispanic guy sees I have a towel and says "you looking for a shower? It's right over there - the combination is 1002" Oh okay thanks.
The picnic table at my campsite was really dirty even by campground standards, it looked like someone had been working on an engine or something with a fair amount of oily greasy parts to lay out and the picnic table made a convenient work bench.
The real kicker was that I've camped beside roads before and had to deal with the noise, in this spot I felt like I was camping on the road. Yes my campsite was beside the creek which was also beside a highway used by logging trucks all night coming down a grade and using their engine braking techniques to slow down and make a heck of a lot of noise. Ear plugs helped some but the headlights shining in my tent and wondering if the sharp gravel was going to puncture my Thermarest pad or me kept me from getting much sleep at all.
The real kicker was that I've camped beside roads before and had to deal with the noise, in this spot I felt like I was camping on the road. Yes my campsite was beside the creek which was also beside a highway used by logging trucks all night coming down a grade and using their engine braking techniques to slow down and make a heck of a lot of noise. Ear plugs helped some but the headlights shining in my tent and wondering if the sharp gravel was going to puncture my Thermarest pad or me kept me from getting much sleep at all.
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Day 3 Tuesday - I was up before the sun and headed off bright and early. It was a nice ride. Hardly any traffic at this time of year. On one isolated stretch of road I saw a guy walking and pulling a small wagon loaded with what might of been camping gear and food. I wish I would have stopped to see what the story was but I wanted to get to Lassen. Later in the trip along the coast I saw a younger guy riding a skateboard in a fairly remote area with a backpack on his back, looking like he was on an extended trip...people in the U.S. really like to get out on the road.
I think I was one of the first people at the entrance to Lassen National Park that morning because the ranger was just putting up the flag. It's 5 dollars to ride a motorcycle into Lassen (same for Crater Lake) so that's a benefit since it's twice that or more for a car.
This is a picture near the geothermal area in Lassen called the Sulphur Works where you can see the road in the distance - it's pretty and has some twists and turns to keep things interesting. The geothermal stuff isn't anywhere near as impressive as Yellowstone but it's interesting and has a real strong sulphur smell. The boiling mud in the picture below looked like it was being pumped by an aerator in a man-made fountain it was bubbling so perfectly.
In the afternoon I headed out of Lassen heading west to Red Bluff and I-5 again. I road south on I-5 to Williams California where I headed west again on 20 to Clear Lake. I camped at the Clear Lake State Park on the south side of the lake. It was great compared to the place I stayed the night before and it had showers that take quarters. Lots of squirrels and crickets to keep me company, no logging trucks or shining headlights at night. One of the other nice things is that the park employee suggested I pick a campsite and then pay. I was tired from not getting much sleep the night before so I went to bed early.
In the afternoon I headed out of Lassen heading west to Red Bluff and I-5 again. I road south on I-5 to Williams California where I headed west again on 20 to Clear Lake. I camped at the Clear Lake State Park on the south side of the lake. It was great compared to the place I stayed the night before and it had showers that take quarters. Lots of squirrels and crickets to keep me company, no logging trucks or shining headlights at night. One of the other nice things is that the park employee suggested I pick a campsite and then pay. I was tired from not getting much sleep the night before so I went to bed early.
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Day 4 Wednesday - The area west of Clear Lake is nice - lots of vineyards with the harvest in swing. It took me a little while to figure out the main road but I got to see quite a bit of nice grape country. This part of the trip took me to one of the most "interesting" roads of this trip - highway 175 from Kellseyville to Hopland Ca. I hadn't planned on that route but I didn't want to hit traffic in Santa Rosa so I decided to get onto 101 by that road. Highway 175 is also called the Hopland Grade. It is steep and really curvy. I saw a few Mini-Coopers on the road which looked fun. The curves are so tightly packed together that I had the feeling of slalom skiing rather than riding a motorcycle. The road is narrow and I found out later from a barista at Starbucks that it is the site of not too few accidents where someone crosses over the centerline or goes off the edge. It was a pretty good workout.
My destination for this night would be MacKerricher State Park a few miles north of Fort Bragg. This was the nicest campground I stayed in. They had showers, a pretty beach, seals and a gray whale skeleton. Some critter tried to take my bike or maybe the partially eaten Odwalla bar in the tank bag but all I saw after the fact was his paw print on the seat the next morning.
______________________
Day 5 Thursday - Up bright and early and on the road north out of MacKerricher State Park. Lots of natural beauty and good riding on CA-1. I like the photo with the fog and the stand of stately redwoods.
There's lots of towns that seem to have a population of 492 (or so) people on highway 1. They are all the sorts of places that look interesting but I only had a week so I couldn't stop at every one. I did stop at Elk which had this funny sign.
Did I mention I saw a lot of Naked Ladies alongside the road?
You see them in the most unlikely places - all alone in some remote dried up grassy areas, bunched together in random spots beside the road or sometimes like these lined up along a fence.
The lady (not naked) in the store in Elk gave me the scoop on these pretty pink flowers. They were grown commercially at one time in some areas along the coast. They bloom twice a year. They are a type of lily known as naked ladies because they drop all their leaves and then the pretty pink flowers show up. Apparently squirrels pick up the bulbs and move around with them in their mouths and then decide they aren't good to eat so they spit them out some time later where they grow in odd random spots beside the road. They have a fragrance which people find pleasing, but apparently not deer so that keeps them from being eaten. I'm kind of wondering if part of the reason you see them beside the road by themselves is the bulbs fell off a truck at some time...but I like the idea of squirrels planting them so I'll stick with that story.
I was planning on camping near Florence Oregon on Thursday night but by the time I got there it was getting a little late and the state campground seemed like a hassle. They wanted you to pay for two nights and it was self serve and people were dallying around, so I headed to the Park Motel in Florence where I've stayed before during a torrential rain storm on my way up the coast in February 2010. It's the quintessential Mom and Pop motel - friendly, clean and relatively inexpensive. The rooms have a fridge and microwave and that knotty pine paneling that always reminds me of being on vacation. They encourage you to park your motorcycle right at your front door and on this particular morning the owner gave me a towel to dry my bike off.
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Day 6 Friday - Took a leisurely ride west from Florence to Eugene. That's a nice road too.
After my leisurely ride to Eugene and looking around the city for awhile I headed back north on I-5 for home. If I had the trip to do over again I'd plan to not come into Seattle on a Friday afternoon. Traffic was terrible and added an hour or two to the trip.
All in all a really great trip though. I'm glad I got to see Crater Lake, Lassen, and ride CA-1 north of Bodega. I wanted to ride from Crescent City California to Grants Pass Oregon but it was so hot in Grants Pass that day I decided to stick to the coast. I've heard that's a good motorcycle road...also read that the road west out of Red Bluff to the coast may be the best motorcycle road in California so there's always the next trip.
I posted the pictures I took on this trip at Crater Lake, Lassen and Cali Hwy 1 - a set on Flickr
