Sunday, May 31, 2009

No plan of battle survives …

Our first riding day started with a detour. Intending to ride along the western shoulder of Mt. Rainier and the eastern shoulder of Mt. St. Helens we found an avalanche of snow over the roadway on FS 25 (Woods Creek Road). So instead, we headed down I-5 where the straight conformation of the road was crushingly boring, the speed exhilarating.

Our boredom was interrupted by a truck-afire south of Olympia. We ran up fast on a semi that appeared to be on fire … like the trailer had cargo burning furiously … but as we passed, the acrid smoke was coming from its stacks. It was a minor diversion … but only briefly entertaining.

Our goal for the day was the “Bridge of the Gods,” at Cascade Locks, Oregon.

It turned out to be a dynamite ride as you’ll see if you ...

Flashing back to the beginning of the ride, it has become tradition to start these trips at the French Bakery in Kirkland. They serve café au lait in soup-bowl-sized cups and the best pan au chocolat in town.

The owner knows us and we chat briefly before we depart. He seems wistful of our impending ride. By now we are aware of the road closure and the need to detour down I-5 so we do without incident (except of course for the truck fire).
At exit 21 (Woodland) we leave the interstate, buy gas, use a restroom and head to Cougar. In a previous road trip my son-in-law and I stayed in Cougar at the Lone Tree Campground and Resort.  As we blow by in a cloud of decibels … I am reminded of our stay. I’m smiling because it’s here that our ride really begins.
Just East of Cougar we turn onto FS 90 looking for the Burger Buggy for lunch. But it was closed until Memorial Day. Missed it by 48 hours.
Shortly we turn onto Curly Creek Road and then onto Wind River Road and finally on into Stevenson. Curly Creek was my favorite road in the entire ride. It was wickedly twisty. Traffic was light. I didn’t take the video below, but it does a great job conveying the sense of the road.

By Stevenson, we’re pretty hungry. We pull up in front of the court house and try the Walking Man brewpub for lunch. Closed, argh. We ended up with burritos at the Casa de Sabor and an ice cream cone at Granny Gedunk’s.
Cascade Locks is just around the corner and across the Bridge of the Gods which spans the Columbia River here. Charles Lindbergh flew his Spirit of St. Louis under this bridge in 1927 on a publicity tour.

We arrive in time to walk down to the marina, through a little park, past an auto dealership, and back to the Bridge of the Gods Motel and RV Park.
We ate something forgettable, replenished our electrolytes, and hit the sack ready for another day.

I should mention, the bridge you see here isn’t “The Bridge of the Gods.” Rather the term refers to a land bridge formed here by the gigantic Bonneville Landslide around 1700. At the time, the area was inhabited by the “River People,” ancestors to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. This was before the land was resettled by American explorers. The Columbia was quite shallow here and the locks were built to bypass the 5 mile long rapids. With the construction of the Bonneville dam, the locks were no longer necessary and have fallen into disuse.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Motorcycles
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