Run for the Wind motorcycle rally 2006

On Friday I rode my Suzuki V-Strom 650 to the Run for the Wind motorcycle rally at Chinook Winds Casino, in Lincoln City, Oregon. I saw these two girls sitting on one of the bikes, and they looked photogenic so I asked if I could take their picture.

There was a group ride up the coast to Tillamook along the Three Capes Loop and back. Along the way I saw a large group of pelicans flying over the water. Though it was sunny most of the time, in a few places there was dense fog hanging over the road. The area near Cape Kiwanda looked interesting; I'll have to go back another time and spend the day there.

Later there was a motorcycle stunt show featuring circle-wheelies, no-hander wheelies, superman stoppies, a "slow wheelie contest," and other dazzling tricks.



Of course, all the bikes on display were fun to look at, too.

Riding to the coast from Portland, doing the group ride, then getting home made for about 6 hours of riding yesterday. That is a lot for me, but the V-Strom is so comfortable that it didn't feel like too much.

Sea Lions at the Oregon Coast

I saw these sea lions on the beach at the Oregon coast, near Florence. Though I was on the cliffs above the beach and they were far down below, I could smell them! They have a strong smell. They were also making that funny "ork ork ork" noise. One of them was bodysurfing.

Etta James

Last night I went to see Etta James in concert. Amazingly, on stage she rubs her own crotch more often than Michael Jackson and Madonna combined. But she has an electrifying voice, and she did a version of "Born to be Wild" that was a lot of fun.

Egret

Egret at the Oregon Zoo. This bird let me get up very close to take this picture.

Portland Bridge Pedal

Today I took part in the Portland Bridge Pedal, along with about 18,000 other people. Bridges were closed to automobile traffic so that bicycles could cross them, even some freeway bridges. It was a strange experience to be in such a large mass of bicycles.

I was riding along with my mother and father, my brother, and my sister-in-law. My brother and I tend to joke around a lot, so during uphill sections as we were passing slower-moving riders, I would yell out, "Yeah! This is when all that steroid use really pays off!" On the bridges I would turn to him and exclaim, "I filled my Camelbak with olive oil and it's great! I have so much energy!"

So many people do the Bridge Pedal, and the traffic can be so dense, that it can be easy to get separated from other riders in your group and not be able to find them. To help prevent that, some of my group wore feathers attached to their bike helmets, to make them easier to spot from a distance. They got compliments on the feathers. I also saw other people with stuffed animals attached to their helmets.

Leopard

At the Oregon Zoo.

Chillin'

At the Oregon Zoo.

Butterfly

There were a lot of butterflies like this near our campsite at Olallie Lake. Getting this sort of photo was more difficult than I thought, because the butterflies sit on the ground with their wings closed, and only open them for a brief instant before closing them again. It took some patience and some luck to get this shot.

Olallie Lake

We went camping in a yurt at Olallie Lake. This was a great weekend getaway. I did some mountain biking, and later we rented a canoe and paddled across the lake. We saw two bald eagles and a half-dozen osprey fishing in the lake. This picture was taken only a few feet away from our campsite, so this was basically our view for the weekend, with Mt. Jefferson in the background. Next time I go I want to stay for at least 4 days.

Washougal Motocross Nationals 2006, part 3

Washougal Motocross Nationals 2006, part 2

I like the way this photo turned out, because it almost looks like a time-lapse shot of a single rider, but it is six different riders who happened to line up this way.

Washougal Motocross Nationals 2006

James Stewart (7) gets sideways as he comes over a jump just ahead of Ricky Carmichael (4) in the first moto at Washougal.

Wind Lake, Part 2

Wind Lake is a quiet, isolated place. I think this picture captures its moody quality.

Wind Lake

Yes, the lake theme continues. On Sunday we went horseback riding on Mt. Hood, up to a place called Wind Lake. It was about a 4 hour trip to get there, have lunch, and come back. There were great views of the mountain, we got to see some wildflowers in bloom, and I took pictures around the lake.



The trip was run by Bar G Ranch and Ride. This was my second trip with them, and I think they are great and would recommend them. My girlfriend thought that this should be the new "standard adventure" when we take out of town visitors to see Mt. Hood.

Munson Creek Falls

My V-Strom 650 is billed as an "adventure touring" motorcycle, so yesterday I decided to try a little adventure tour. From Portland I rode to Tillamook, Oregon, then south on Highway 101 to the turnoff to Munson Creek Falls, the highest waterfall in the Coast Range. The road to the trailhead is a narrow, bumpy, rocky unpaved road. The V-Strom handled the terrain just fine. A quarter-mile hike in from the trailhead is the view of the falls.




The waterfall is impressive, and it seems very weird because you just don't expect to see such a big waterfall in that area. And without the signs pointing the way, you would never think to go there because the road seems more like a private driveway than the route to a scenic attraction. It was fun, but I liked Falls Creek Falls better, because it is more spectacular, you can get closer to it, and you can see more of it from the trail.

From there, I rode north along 101 to Garibaldi, Wheeler, and then Cannon Beach.



Since it was a summer weekend, Cannon Beach was extremely crowded -- it feels like a packed outdoor shopping mall. I was glad to be on the motorcycle because I was able to find a small parking spot right on the main street. I wandered around and stopped for coffee.

(As you can see from these pictures, I put the Suzuki hard luggage top case on the bike. This is great. It locks, it's waterproof, and it can fit my helmet with room to spare. I was able to take along my camera and other goodies without even using a tank bag.)

Then I headed back to Portland. By that time it was very hot and I was really feeling the heat in full motorcycle leathers. I had my Camelbak on, so I could sip water while I rode. It turned out to be an over 200-mile day, but today I feel great -- the V-Strom is so comfortable, it did not strain my back at all.

Timothy Lake

You may notice a pattern to my travels lately: I've been visiting many lakes in the Mt. Hood National Forest. I've decided that they make a great summer destination. This weekend we stayed at the Gone Creek campground on Timothy Lake. It was great. Some very noisy Steller's Jays woke us up at 5:30am this morning, but that wasn't really a bad thing. I went for an early morning walk and saw lots of birds and some amazing views of the lake. Early morning is a great time to walk around there, because aside from a handful of fishermen, nobody else is awake. So it feels like having the whole place to yourself. Later on when it got warmer, I set up the inflatable raft and rowed around on the lake.

We came home via Hood River to avoid the traffic jam created by the Sandy Mountain Festival.

Petal Power

What I Learned About Driving

1. You know those Jeep commercials? The ones where people drive off-road into some crazy scenic wilderness to find Real Manly Adventure? Well it's all true, Jeeps can do that just fine. Just not on the stock tires.
2. I had the stock tires. For some reason I was smart enough to put off-road tires on my previous Jeep, but not on this one. "It'll be fine," I thought. "How bad can it be? I'm sure these will work."
3. When you're in the outdoors and you find yourself saying "it'll be fine, how bad can it be?" this is basically the same thing as when a character in a horror movie says, "hold on, I'll just go outside and see what that noise was."
4. When a light on your instrument panel comes on, and the icon has a big exclamation point on it, this is not a good sign (!). It would be bad enough if this happened on a main highway, but it is even worse when it occurs deep within sasquatch-occupied territory in the middle of nowhere.
   
5. In fact, I came to realize that even the exclamation point is a bit too subtle. I would personally redesign that indicator to be a flashing light in the shape of a hand extending the middle finger. And it should play a loud sound effect that begins with demonic laughter "muahahahaha!" followed by that quote from the Aliens movie where the guy says "That's it man, game over man, game over!"
   
6. What that light means is that one of the razor-sharp rocks you just drove over punctured your tire and gave you a flat. Or in my case, two flat tires. You see, the stock tires give you a nice comfy ride on the freeway, but off-road they transform into 4 tire-shaped pinatas, and mountain rocks become thousands of hyperactive kids with sticks, gleefully giving them a savage beating.
7. You know those fix-a-flat cans, that promise to reinflate your tire and seal the hole with special goop too? They might work in other situations, but when the tire hole is the size of a chipmunk, they are mainly useful as comic relief.
8. After you finally make it back to the main road, when someone asks you what happened, a funny thing to say is, "I hit a sasquatch."
   

Lost Lake

Lost Lake, near Mt. Hood, is not a very lost lake. Many people seem to have found it -- the place was pretty crowded when I went up there today. But the crowds are only on land, and the lake itself has plenty of room, so I took my inflatable raft out and rowed it around.

On my way back, I found that it was 98 degrees in the town of Welches. Just a few days ago it was 65 degrees and raining in Portland, so it seems like the weather has made a giant leap into summer.

Ghana 2, U.S. 1

When I was a little kid playing soccer, my mom would tell us, "don't mess around with the ball in front of your own goal. Clear it out of there." The U.S. team could have used my mom's advice in their last game. Claudio Reyna, standing just outside his own penalty area, chose not to pass or clear the ball, but stood there frozen while a Ghanian player stole the ball, dribbled in one-on-one against Keller and easily scored. Reyna was injured on the play, but instant replay showed that the two players had collided knee to knee as they passed each other. I don't think there is any way that could have been intentional on the part of the Ghanian player, and the referee was correct to not call a foul.

The penalty kick awarded to Ghana later in the game was a bad call. But U.S. coach Bruce Arena seemed to think it made the game unwinnable. "It left us chasing the game when we had worked so hard to get level" he said. But there was plenty of time left in the game. That's soccer -- sometimes you're down a goal, sometimes you have to come from behind. Can you imagine some of the other teams in the tournament expressing this attitude? Brazil was down 1-0 to Japan, but came back to win 4-1. Picture Brazil saying, "yeah, once Japan took the lead we were screwed. We were just chasing the game at that point." Ridiculous, right? Australia was also down 1-0 to Japan but scored 3 goals at the very end of the game to win 3-1. The real problem was that the U.S. team wasn't able to score goals in this tournament.