FOOLS Rush In series

VROC - FOOLs Rush in to Coos Bay 08 11 07

2009-04-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

Pics are from top to bottom, text for a pic is under the pic, click on a pic for a larger pic.

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Well, I started out on the "great adventure" Friday 8/10/07. Went around SF over the San Rafael bridge, where 2 lanes went down to on and met with another road that merged with 101, and it was pretty much a mess 'til after north of Santa Rosa, I'm talking slo and go, even some walking, !#)%#)#$)%#!$)%*#%).

Happy Wanderer can tell you how much he likes this area...GBG Stopped in old town Petaluma for lunch, quaint place, lost my skull cap.. I lost lotsa things on this trip!!

101 never got much better, at Willits where 20 peals off to the coast, I walked Ruby for about 4 miles... sigh. But I'll bet Happy had a better ride!!! Tells us... GBSEG

So I got to my hotel inGarberville, Ca... A really quaint place!!! Small but... well quaint. Decent hotel... I liked the Sherwood Forrest title!! At night they had music playing on the streets, almost like the ol' 60s hippy area.. did remind me...

This is where I had breakfast, short counter with individual chairs, good food!!!

Main street, think it was THE street...

As I left, I took the route of Avenue of Giants road, and it was gorgeous!!! No traffic and I was able to ride slow with my helmet up and enjoy the view and smell of forrest!! On this trip, I'd say I must of seen about a billion trees, Or must have enough fresh air for all the states!!! GBG

I found that it pays to take a sandwich on your scoot, and you can stop anywhere, so I picked this rough it spot!! Absolutely gorgeous!!!

So there was this tree.... And my alter ego was watching me... Thanks to a delayed pic...

Hey, you're on the coast, you gotta take a pic of the coast... gee only 1????

Bandon, this is a pic out of my buddy Dave's place. Had to stop and do a look see and "let" him buy me a couple beers!!! Had to let him hear my 139 and 125 db horns! He's a race car driver and has a gorgeous 66 T bird among other play toys.....

Dave gave me the tourist view, out to the bay, OK, you can't do one beach pic...

Ok, how you have to click on this pic.... right in the middle of that rock, look at that tiny hole.... Dave said when the surf gets "good", that thing shoots one great shot of water!!!

Linda, Mario, Karen and Happy Wanderer hands, GBG.

So we get to Coos Bay, and the next day is Breakfast!!!!!! BTW, I told Dave where we were going for breakfast and he said to get the meat lovers skillet... it was fantastic!!! And it had great cottage fried potatoes under it all, and cheese!!! It was so good I went back Tues AM on the way out for one more!!!

Kozy Kitchen!! Great place... I got there and I saw this wave from the counter.. There was Happy Wanderer Paul Shoop... He got there first and came from a camp ground in the trees about 40 miles away, good for him!!

So left CW, is Karen, Paul (Happy Wanderer) Shoop, Cranky!!! and wife Donna, Pat, Sherm, and Pat's brother, I hate getting old, I'll call him Fred, sigh, hell I might be right..

So our first ride was the Umpqua light house... Donna on the left by Ruby.

'k twist your neck... duh, the lighthouse..

The view out to the beach, you can't just take one...

The story of the light house. Click on it....

Here you can see the V shape of the oyster farm. Mario by sign, "Fred", Karen, Pat, Donna, Sherm, and Happy Wanderer. Happy fell in love with the coast of Or!!!

We came by SCP shop to see Guy's VN2K he's building, heckof a place! I wanted him to do some work, but I have a cardinal rule, you don't do repairs on the road... no, no...

So by the beach, we're looking down at....

These little fellers...

The bikes.... have to take a pic of the bikes..

So we get to Ol' town Florence... I think we crowded that parking space quite well..

Down town...

Up town and Sherm said the IC words.... Ice Cream!!!!!!!!!! We sniffed the barn door!!

Here we sit after GREAT ice cream, sorry for the pic. The ice cream was fantastic, soft and great!

Headed back to the bikes... dualing pics, I know, I lost... GBG

Now you will notice there are one heckofa lot more bikes!! I don't know which bike was messing with which bike but the crowd got a LOT bigger.... I KNOW Ruby did NOT participate!!! She still has virgin pipes... GBG ('course that's not true..)

Another beach shot, you can see the V of the oyster farm.

Sherm had a buddy that turned 93 and we went to the sports club to wish him a happy birthday from the "hells angels" GBG

The Man of the hour!!!!! He was in France in WW2!!!! Demolition and explosives...

So on we went and we went by 2008 RIDE TO OREGON!!! CAPT JOHNS!!! Sherm went in and said "we're here"!!! Gave the guy a start... 1 year early....

'k, water and boats...

Next stop old town Bandon....

the husstle street...

Pretty dangles..

The wind must drive these folks knuts!! BTW, Dave said about twice a year, they get BIG winds there, 'k I'm talking 100 mph. They have special regs for roof support...

Love the name of these two stores..

Out of town we went and around the Umpqua river.

A rest stop... How can you not drink a iced glass of A+W frosted root beer and have an frosty cone? Don't ask me... GBG

I forget the route... not new.... but the water was great! You can see some folks down there playing in the water. Sherm said when Karen and hubby go up there on a ride, she jumps in clothes and all and float a bit to cool off! The water was crystal clear!

More river and folks playing..

The story of the man that helped to make it happen..

Got to see some elk on the way back!!

Gorgeous trip! Thanks to Don and Sherm for making it happen! After I left, I went to Bend, La Grande, Gladstone, Klamath Falls, Susanville, Chico......... and I'll do that in another blog.

I took the back raods, drove slow, and had the time of my life!! Thank you all for letting me have the best time of my life! Shiny side up!!!

VROC - FOOLs Rush in on to Bend

2009-04-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Pics are from top to bottom, text for a pic is under the pic, click on a pic for a larger pic!

So headed out of Coos Bay north on 101 to 38, hung a right and started to see some smoke a few miles in. About 1/2 mile off the road, a small fire, nothing leading to it so not sure how it got started.

This 'copter was dragging a water bucket, look at the red dot under the wires after clicking on the pic.

Wasn't big, too bad I didn't have a good point to stop back a ways, I had a great view of the fire but we were by a creek and no place to pull over. There was hardware just flying up the road to fight it...

This is the little stream by the road, very clear water...

I've learned to take a sandwich for lunch, that way I can stop where it seems to be a good idea. Went by this little park and pulled in, the water was gorgeous, crystal clear, and as you can see folks enjoyed it.

I was going to take a little "scenic" road and missed a small sign at the beginning of the turnoff... wondered why no body was around... I stopped in the middle of the road for this shot, a great little road.

Then I got to the sign by a wide spot in the road... ALL TRUCKS TURN AROUND!!!
So I thought, hey! This is going to be a goodie!!! The next sign I saw was ROAD CLOSED 4.5 MILES AT SNOW GATE! #*$)%!#$%&#$&#$%&#!%*

But it was beautiful... and I was all by myself!!! sigh

I took this one to id the park, the next one shows the sadness..

It was all burned, sigh

So I got to 3 sisters and took a few pics.. looked like a town made for a tourist trap!! GBG

It looked like it had all just been built, clean, modern, spiffy! And On to Le Grand next...

VROC - FOOLs Rush in on to La Grande

2009-04-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Pics are from top to bottom, text for a pic is under the pic, click on a pic for a larger pic!

So out of Bend east on 20 to catch a back road to take us up to 126 over to 26, past the John Day Fossil Beds National Park on 19 and 395 at Mt Vernon. It was then 244 over to La Grande, we thought, sigh... My short cuts were NOT panning out...

Got to cross a lot of "hills", hi 4xxx to 5xxx feet. Stopped here for a vew, we were traveling together, wife Donna and I, so got a pose... She was grousing about my asking her to back up.. GBG

This is at the John Day Nat Park. I guess they have a gazillion bones out there to collect...

One of the displays..

I guess this guy got the center named after him. They had a large glass walled off section just to the right where they were working on some rocks...

Lunched at Mt Vernon at the 395 junction.. This one if for Don VSP and Sherm! I forgot and Donna reminded me to take a pic.

Nice quaint place.

It was the Silver Spur, GBG

395 is a gorgeous road, very nice, slow turning curves and by golly, you are out there by yourself!!! Noticed this cloud.. dum dum dum Smokey's getting nervous!!!

Lots of plains at the upper hills, Hi Plains Drifter came to mind....

OK, Smokey's pissed now!!!! On we went to 244 where we were going to short cut a scenic route over to La Grande. Luckily, Donna needed a pot stop, this was right after she had a nice chat with a Or State Policeman...... dum dum dum...... sigh We pulled into a Ranger Station, good choice!

They had just closed 244 when we pulled in, had we not stopped, lot of wasted time and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" stuff!!! GBG

Back to 395 and over 84 to La Grande....... On to Gladstone and home..........

VROC - FOOLs Rush in on to Gladstone and home,,,

2009-04-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

Pics are from top to bottom, text for a pic is under the pic, click on a pic for a larger pic!

So out of La Grande on 84 for Portland and 205 south to Gladstone...

Let's see, I think I said in my on to La Grande, Hi Plains Drifter comes to mind...

The might Columbia!!!! big sucka!!

I kept track of my mileage for the trip, this leg west across Or was the worst! Check out the flags...heckofa wind!

John Day Damn, the first of 3, they milk this sucka for all it's worth!

Pretty tho.......

Got to Gladstone and my buddy Ken's place. This is his daughter, Stacy. She professed that she IS NOT a bike person... Look at that smile!!! GBG

Ken had these funny looking birds in his yard, Wife looked them up in her look up book, they're Chukar's.

So that night we went out for supper, and we stopped at where else: Rivers Edge! GBG

Donna in front, Ken, only way to remember the other two is they weren't Ted and Alice,
so they had to be John and Carrol! GBG

So here's another one of the I don't like bikes group.... see that smile???????!!!!!!!!! GBG

This Ken at home, His table in his "adopted" bar!

So we went to a Evergreen Aviation and Space museum the next day, http://www.sprucegoose.org/ Home of the Spruce Goose, 'mungst other things. Now that is one TINY plane!

This looks like the Wright stuff...

Can you imaging getting up the courage to fly this thing?

The glue that binds... The goose was one big aircraft kit project!

You could step in side the plane, it made you winder how it got off the ground, all that wiring, staircases, etc.

The kit instructions... GBG

A model, about the only way to get a shot of the entire plane.

Hey!!!!! They had scoots there!!!!!!! A military and civilian Ural. Both looked great. Just a couple days ago I was at Rode Rider on Monterey and there was a military Ural there. The guy says you can get 'um cheap. Send the stock ones to a redo shop and they make 'um good to ride here.

Aahhhhhhhh the ol' Ford Trimotor....

The lap of luxury! No heavy weight stew's here! GBG

They even had some out of this world flying machines here.

The Lunar Lander!

They had some Bxx's

And some Pxx's I didn't try to do this but it looks like Ken is about to have a problem!!!

The only shot of most of the goose.

RB 71 I believe, buddy of mine used to fix the radios in 'um.

Long and lean...

This is the drone it carried on top to release.

Heck, everyone should have an ICBM laying around..

The control cabin of this thing was huge, the wiring harnesses were also! Amazing that it really flew!

------------------------------------ AND ON THE WAY HOME!!!!! ---------------------------

So out of Klamath Falls, down 39 that turns into 139 at the Ca border, I was choosing the back roads, did NOT want to mess with the super slab!

Took 139 down by Eagles Lake, into Susanville, great road, I just was loving the ride, the remoteness, not much traffic, decent weather, just damn nice riding!!! Grabbed 36 out of Susanville past Lake Almanor to 32 south to Chico.

32 south was a giggle, just gorgeous! And good too!! Where 36 went past 32, there was nothing but gravel, heavy construction! whew...

So after much traveling and tank running low and bladder full.............. #$%*&!#$)%*!#$)! road construction!!!!!!!! Had to wait for a land ferry to shuttle folks back and forth, sigh This was north of Susanville, I had about two more like it before hitting Susanville and the head!!!! Whew Whew (double whew!)

This was out on 36, didn't know this, but wife explained it as she was a Blue Star Mom. They make dedications in various places, a very nice rest stop!

This was Deer Creek that ran along the side of 32, OK, turn your head!!! The water was gorgeous!

This was a giggle shot, I've GOT to clean that %*)!%*!) glass! The trip computer was reading 140 and still 1/2 tank, think that tank went to about 180 before touching the red dot!

My entire trip mileage was 43.7 mpg! The Modified Caddmann is well paying for itself! Plus I was running mostly at 55 mph speed limits and was not inclined to go faster, and I hardley EVER got out of 4 th gear! Maybe that was the ticket!

So out of Chico west on 32 to 45 and south.... Nice little back road. thru Colusa and 20 over to Yuba City. 99 south to 113, over to Woodland and got lost! !#)$(*%!#$*&%!#($* Missed 16 and had to head back to catch it.

Over to 505 and trip was over...... super slab, 5th gear, hammer time. sigh...

Waaaaaa / Yeah!! Trip over / there WILL be another one!!!! Let's see..... how far is Eureka Springs..... hhhhhhuuuuuuummmmmm