I ended up getting about 5 hours of sleep, then jumping on the bike and heading over the pass (CA 154) just as the sun was coming up. I headed up to San Simeon on CA 1 and made my first stop at the elephant seal rookery.  There were lots of seals laying around on the beach, including the recently abandoned pups trying to learn the ways of the world.  Some of them were splashing around in the tide pools trying to learn how to swim.  Others were dragging themselves around the beach inspecting rocks, sticks, seaweed, anything to keep them occupied.  Most of them were sleeping in the sand.  The few females that were around were scratching and rolling in the sand trying to help themselves molt off their old fur.  The big males mostly laid around enjoying the fleeting sun.

 An adult male laying around.

A pup inspecting a stick. 

 Kissing pups.
After leaving the elephant seals, I cruised up the Big Sur coast.  It took me until 3 pm to read San Francisco because of all of the spring break tourists hanging around Big Sur and clogging up the highway.  I met Mark for lunch and debated whether to spend the night in San Francisco.  I finally decided to keep riding which I did until 9 pm when I got to Willits.

Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge.

 San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.
I woke up the next morning at 6 and it was 24 degrees.  Not the best riding temperature, but it was clear and the road was dry so put on all my clothes and kept going.  I rode one of my favorite roads, the Avenue of the Giants then headed up to the Humboldt  Bay NWR to shoot some photos.

The Avenue of the Giants.

 Standing in front of a giant Redwood. 

A great egret at Humboldt Bay NWR.

Another egret.

 The old barn.  The NWR used to be a ranch that was changed back into wetlands.

I was the only one at the NWR, which was cool.  I think I only saw two other people.  It was cold, with the wind blowing straight off the ocean.  Tons of birds.  It’s a beautiful refuge.I kept cruising, eating lunch in Eureka.  It was getting colder and windier as I kept going north.  I stopped at Redwoods National Park to shoot some photos of the elk herd that is resident there.  There was a big buck with 1/2 of his anglers broken off.

The big buck.

 The rest of the herd sitting in the sun.
I finally hit the Oregon border and Oregon welcomed me home by briefly dumping rain on me.  It had been beautiful and sunny until I hit the border.  I passed through that storm and it got sunny again.  I had a beautiful ride up to Coos Bay where I jumped over the coastal range and into Eugene.

Whaleshead beach in southern Oregon.

By the time I got to Eugene, it was getting dark and cold.  I stopped to get some tea to warm me up then got my aching butt back on the bike and road the last two hours to Portland.  I got home around 10 pm after riding since 6:30 am.  

I’ve decided that this is my last long-haul motorcycle ride.  I’ll never ride over 300 miles in a day again.  My body was sore for two days and I froze myself on the last leg.  It even snowed on me as I got into Clackamas.  Amazing ride though.  Now Mark gets to do the same ride at some point.  
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Oceanside is a nice little town with two restaurants, and some vacation houses. It has a nice beach looking over Three Rocks NWR. We watched the sunset there and had dinner at Roseanna’s Cafe there. They had excellent food and an excellent view. The crowds there were low-key and it was mostly families with their dogs on the beach.

A lone surfer getting out of the water.

Dusty bending backwards to get at his muse.

Seagulls in the golden sunset.

Waves breaking at Oceanside.

The moon overhead.

Blue sky.

The sun going down over Three Rocks.

Burning Horizon.

A long exposure of the rocks at night. It didn’t work as well as I wanted.

Golden sand.

After dinner, we headed back to the camp site. We started a fire that didn’t want to burn very well. It was getting really cold, so we played some frisbee with the glowing raver frisbee which got us a little warm. Some surfers a few spots down from us were playing a guitar and singing, which was nice to hear. Usually you get to listen to some idiot’s car stereo when you’re at a state park. The sky was really nice with tons of stars, even though the moon was pretty bright, so I took some star photos. Finally we got inside our sleeping bags and Dusty crashed right between us.

The Big Dipper.

Orion.

I woke up in the middle of the night and Dusty was shivering it was so cold, so I covered him up with my down jacket which kept him warm until morning. He usually refuses to be covered by anything, so I know he was really cold to actually lay under my jacket for most of the night. When we got out of the tent, the ground was covered with frost and the condensation from our breathing had left the tent covered with ice. We went down to the beach for the sunrise and the rocks on the beach all had ice on them. It was cold, but brilliantly clear and crisp.

The cold morning.

We broke down our camp and headed back to Oceanside for some breakfast, then went to Cape Meares and did some hiking in the, by now, warm morning sun. The Cape Meares Lighthouse is pretty cool too. They also have the Octopus Tree which is a giant Sitka Spruce that grew in like 10 directions instead of 1.

Cape Meares Light.

The Octopus Tree.

The bottom of the tree is huge. Some of the branches are like 6 ft. thick.

Basking in the morning sun.

We then headed north to Tillamook Bay. There’s a long dike that goes out to what probably used to be islands in the bay. Now it’s a long jetty. It’s great for bird watching since the bay is on one side and the ocean is on the other. We did a long hike, probably 6 miles or so, down the dike to the dunes. Then we crossed the dunes and walked back on the beach. We saw tons of different birds, including Bald Eagles, Puffins, Egrets, Snowy Plovers and lots of Cormerants and Seagulls. All through the dunes, we saw signs of Elk. When we were heading back to the car, crossing from the ocean to the bay, we found the Elk. A heard of 15-20 males and females. We kept our distance but I got some photos with my telephoto lens.

Puffins.

Bald Eagles.

Same Eagles.

Eagle perched.

Andrea watching from a log.

Coming out of the dunes on the ocean side.

Dusty and Andrea on the beach.

A doe elk.

A buck and a doe.

A shot on the beach.

We found lots of cool places on this trip, but, as always, we also didn’t stop at a ton of places that looked awesome. Places we’ll have to hit next time.

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The sunset heading up US 285 toward Colorado was amazing. Beautiful desert colors with a sliver moon getting ready to set. It was cold and windy on the high plains in Northern New Mexico and afters topping to take some sunset photos, I drove into a storm going toward Wolf Creek Pass over the San Juans. I decided to stay the night in Pagosa Springs just south of Wolf Creek and drive the rest of the way to Steamboat the next day.

A storm coming in over Sandia Peak in Albuquerque.

Artwork on the UNM campus that I’ve always admired.

Sunset with the moon over the New Mexico desert.

In Pagosa Springs, I wandered around in the cold night playing with my new Bogen tripod. The local cop was somewhat interested in what I was doing and passed by me several times to make sure I wasn’t terrorizing any of the locals with my tripod and camera at 10 pm. Pagosa is a nice little town with hot springs in the middle of the city just south of Wolf Creek Pass. It’s basically where all of the skiers heading to Wolf Creek stay and it’s also a stopping point on the way to Durango from US 285.

The Pagosa liquor store.

Old mining equipment in the snow.

Shadow self-portrait.

Orion in the dark sky.

The next day I woke up early and started driving up the pass. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I drove up the pass and found a skin trail where others had been skinning up a ridge line. I parked and followed them into the backcountry. I eventually got up over 11,000 ft. My lungs were burning but I managed to make some lines in a small bowl then ski out back to the car through the trees. Helicopters were buzzing around overhead looking for two snowboarders who had gotten lost in a storm the week before, so I played it cool and didn’t do anything crazy.

Pasture land heading up Wolf Creek.

Boar frosted tree.

Looking down the pass from the top.

11,000 ft. and breathing hard.

A buried tree.

Great day in the mountains.

Skin track up.

After skiing for about 2 hours, I jumped back in the car and kept cruising north. I came into the San Luis Valley north of Wolf Creek and stopped to shoot a bunch of photos of the valley and the amazing weather happening all around me. Many of the 14,000 ft peaks were obscured by huge storms, but you could also see a lot of them too.

While I was driving, I was flipping radio stations and came across a station playing a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. It was one of his lesser known, yet extremely important speeches that he gave in 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City. It’s a beautiful speech and I felt at peace with the world listening to Dr. King while driving through such an amazing place.  Here’s the text of the speech.

Storm coming out of the mountains in the San Luis Valley.

Beautiful view the other way. A bald eagle cruised over me at this point.

Dramatic clouds and wide open spaces.

Another whiteout storm that I’d end up driving into.

The road to Leadville leading out of the San Luis Valley.

Leadville, CO. The highest incorporated city in the US.

After going down the pass from Leadville to Vail, the roads got really bad and I was having to drive 30 mph for pretty much the rest of the drive. This afforded me a lot of time to check out the scenery and hike up some ridges near the road. I also got to witness another brilliant sun/moonset overlooking the Colorado River on CO 131 50 miles north of Vail.

The moon starting to set above the Colorado River.

Another shot of the same in B&W.

Driving through one of the blizzards on CO 131.

I finally got to Steamboat and met up with Mike and Steph. We went and ate pizza and drank beer then went to bed so we could wake up to hit the fresh powder the next morning. When we called the ski report in the morning Steamboat was reporting 22″ of fresh snow which seemed like a lot at the time. We got up to the mountain and got first chair on the Christie Lift then headed up into the trees where we quickly discovered that the snow was over waste deep. Perfect, amazing, Colorado powder and lots of it. The top was closed until around noon and when if finally opened we jumped on the first chair up and were quickly making tracks in neck deep powder. It was amazing. This day will live in my top 3 ski days ever. The other two also being neck deep days, one at Schweitzer in 1993 and the other at Alta in 2003. The first two were 10 years apart. I only had to wait 5 years for this one. Maybe I’ll get the next neck deep snow in 2.5 years this time.

Mike and Steph’s picnic table.

The sun setting on an amazing day at Steamboat.

The next day we all had breakfast and I started driving to Boulder to meet up with Chris and Kimberly. We had some phone issues so I ended up driving toward Eldora and skinning up a road for a few miles to check out the Indian Peaks Wilderness. It was fun, but cold and there wasn’t nearly as much snow in the front range as in Steamboat or the San Juans. There really wasn’t even enough to make tracks in the trees, so I just stayed on the road and had a leisurely cat track cruise back down to the car. I finally met up with Chris and Kimberly when I got into Boulder and we went out and had a great time on the town with Noah and Val, who I hadn’t seen since their going away party in Santa Barbara 3 or so years ago.

Looking into the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

Not too much snow in these aspen groves.

Monday, I drove back to DIA, returned the rental car and flew home to Portland. Another great trip with amazing scenery and great people. Thanks to everyone who let me crash at their places along the way.

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I started by measuring out the area and getting it all level. Because of the slope of the property, the front needed to be raised and the rear needed to be sunk into the ground. Excavating large amounts of dirt wasn’t really an option due to the roots of our large Pine tree.  I started building the floor on possibly the worst day of the year. I got snowed on, sleeted on, rained on and everything was blowing around. I managed to get the floor done though then I decided to sleep on it until after the holiday season.

After weeks of rain, it was finally nice this morning for a while so Andrea and I decided it would be a good day to get more done. I started the morning by going to Sears and spending a portion of the gift card given to us by Andrea’s mom (thanks Donna!) on a new sliding composite miter saw. This makes the job of cutting wall studs and the like much easier and faster.

Also, one of the decisions we made about the structure was that we wanted to build it from as much recycled lumber as possible. We went to the Rebuilding Center last week and got 70 2×4s of various lengths, the majority of which needed to be cut to 7′. The miter saw made quick work of this.We had intended to get the walls put together today, but the weather, once again, refused to cooperate. We got all the lumber cut to length, then it started raining and getting really windy, so we decided to bag it. Here are some pics of our progress so far.

Andrea standing in front of the shed floor with the lumber and her measuring jig.

Measuring and stacking.

Dusty helping out with the measuring process.

Dog kisses!

Cutting boards to length with my new miter saw.

My new saw.

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On Saturday I helped transport the 550+ bikes from various storage locations around town to the hospital where the give away event was today. It took 3 hours and 5 or 6 trucks with trailers to get all of the bikes to the hospital. They then had to be unloaded and stacked so that they could be easily accessed today by the volunteers who wheeled them into the main room where the kids got to choose from about 40 bikes.

After registering, each kid would get a few tips on safety, then get fitted for a helmet (everyone also gets a free helmet with their bike). They then got escorted by a volunteer to the area with the right size bikes for them. Once they chose their bike, other volunteers fitted the bike to the kid and performed a final safety check. The kids then got to ride in the “bike rodeo” where they got to practice starting, stopping and weaving around cones.

The Holiday Bike Drive is an amazing community event. It brings a lot of people together in true holiday spirit. It’s a day about giving then giving a bit more.

Loading trucks at the CCC.

Bikes piled high in the warehouse.

Loading bikes one by one.

The bikes getting re-stacked at the hospital.

Lots of little wheels.

An ad hoc bike shop setup to re-fix the bikes after storage and transport.

Trying out a bike.

The helmet fitting area.

Riding away with a new bike.

And helmet.

Riding in the bike rodeo.

Dave working on a bike.

A view of the whole atrium. Helmet fitting is in the back, bike choosing in the middle and the mechanical area in the foreground.

Ready to go.

Two of the dedicated volunteers.

Waiting for the mechanical checkout.

Trikes for the little tikes.

A little mechanical lesson.

Choosing a trike.

Wheel it away.

Pink helmet to go with the outfit.

Getting that buckle on.

Ride away.

Two new bikes.

And two more.

Painful wait.

Riding down the line.

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I was most impressed with the Jones bikes.   Jeff Jones designs and builds all of his frames.  They are spectacularly built and beautiful to look at.  I wish I could take one for a ride, but they’re a bit out of my price range (they start at $4300).  Here are some pics.

Jeff Jones showing off one of his bikes.

A Jones Bike with his (I think patented) H bars.

Some tall bikes.

People enjoying the bikes.
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I followed the line of thousands of fish probably a mile up the creek, until both I and the fish were stopped by a dam. There was no way for them to get over the dam so they were in a fish traffic jam in a pool below the spillway. Thousands of salmon, jumping, swimming, spawning and dying. Corpses littered the banks. It’s an amazing sight to see. I just wish I could be witnessing it as a natural occurance.

A resting salmon.

Closer shot.

The pool below the dam full of fish.

A better shot of the fish traffic jam.

A side pool littered with corpses.

Trying to get up stream.

Fighting over the ladies.

Tails up.

Moving up stream.

Wriggling in the rocks.

Tail swat.

More fighting.

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