North America: Riding a 21 year old Goldwing: 43 - Northeast to Oregon: Crater Lake & McKenzie Pass

My buddy Michael from Seattle insisted that I check out Crater Lake & McKenzie Pass. It didn't suit me to do so on the way south, so I headed back into Oregon for a few days of riding the interior portion of the state.

I left Blue Lake CA at 8:00 am. It was cold. So cold. My first full day without my gear was pretty tough. The riding was beautiful and soon I was able to focus on the gorgeous surroundings. The thought of my lost gear loomed large though. It could rain. It could get colder. Oh well.

I made it to Crater Lake in late afternoon after riding a hundred miles or so of very obscure roads. It was a good day of riding; when it was warm that is. Before camping, I rode the entire loop around the Lake and took a lot of pictures.

Check out these cool geological formations!

Crater Lake is beautiful. The steep walls around the lake are drop off drastically.

Joel, the bartender from the Rogue Brewery in Newport had suggested that I do has he and his girlfriend had done weeks earlier. Take a boat tour of the lake.

Perhaps tomorrow.

The lake is so blue. No camera tricks.

I like the silhouette photo above. It's not shot in Black & White. I learned the technique from Jesse, the photographer intern from Black Hills State in Spearfish SD. I'd met Jesse two months earlier at 5:00 am in the Badlands. It's a cool effect, though not nearly as cool as it could have been with a DSLR camera and a fast lens (f1.8 or f2.0) My max shutter speed is 1/1000, not fast enough for direct-sunlight shots.

After riding for a few hours in the National Park, I made way to the campground and set up camp. With my leftover loaf of bread from the Arcata, CA grocery called Wildberries, my dinner plans were bread and cheese and soup. In the morning, I'd use the leftover bread for breakfast. I'd picked up 1/2 & 1/2 and cream cheese and butter in the camp store and was excited for breakfast!

When I left Linda in Oregon, she sent me on my way with two great things. A can of tuna. Make that freshly caught and home-canned tuna. Before I met Juniper in Girdwood at the Chair 5, the bartender figured I was hungry and gave ma a can of King Salmon. Someone had caught the fish and put it directly in a Mason Jar. It was delicious. With good bread, what would surely be great tuna, good coffee (from Fairbanks) with real cow-juice and butter, breakfast would be GREAT!

Until this stupid blue jay out-smarted me and came in and stole my bread!!!

Having grown accustom to being filthy, one may question my reasoning in regards to drawing the line at bread that's been previously picked over by birds. Question it all you like. I'm not eating something that a bird has pecked at. People germs are fine with me, I've built up quite the immunity. Bird germs are for the birds.

So much for breakfast.

The bird had swooped in after dinner and before coffee. My lighter had quit working and I needed it to light the stove to make coffee. The camper nearby had a nice fire set up near their tent and I walked over to ask for a light.

I said hello and she did the same. It was a girl! In all my nights in a tent, I'd never camped next to a girl camping alone. Two girls set up next to me in Seward and also in Humboldt County, CA. But never just one girl. I felt bad that I'd gone over there and tried to let her know that I wasn't an axe-murder, but just a guy with decaf coffee grounds and no lighter.

She was really nice. Turns out Sarah was on her way to visit friends in Portland and spent the day in Crater Lake on her way up from Northern CA. We talked for about twenty minutes or so and then I left to make coffee (with a pack of matches.)

In the morning, I took another coin-operated shower. It was way too cold to ride, so I had to hang out for a bit. Around 8:30, Sarah walked over as I was packed to leave.

We'd exchanged contact information the night before, so maybe she came so that we could see each other in the daylight. (I could barely see shadows by firelight.)

Turns out, she is really cute. Unfortunately, I'd just covered the front of my face with zinc-oxide and looked like I was preparing for a Kiss Concert and had been caught in the middle of applying costume makeup. Given our conversation the night before about musical tastes, I'm pretty sure she didn't dig the Gene Simmons look.

Oh well. Thanks for the matches Sarah.

These folks had climbed down quite a ways to get to their picnic spot.

Isn't the Lake beautiful?

I left the park and was cruising down this gravel road at 4,000 rpms in 4th (55 mph) when I saw a sign for a mushroom buyer.

After the great conversation with Robert & his wife Lisa in Chicken Alaska, I had to pull over and take a picture. Robert, Lisa and their kids had hunted morel mushrooms all over the West Coast and explained how the fungi make it from forest, to hunter, to buyer, to wholesaler, to chef, to the table. What a fascinating way to make a living. Robert had given up mushrooms and had been commercial fishing and mining for gold for the last few years. He changes profession based on commodity prices. The supply of morels went up, so he moved on when compensation fell. Interesting guy for sure. He rolled his cigarettes with tobacco he carried around in a one gallon Ziploc bag. The tax rate on loose tobacco is nowhere near as high as on rolled tobacco. Coming from the Camel City, I wished he smoked Camels, but given the $7 per-pack price tag, even a Winston-Salem kid couldn't hold it against him.