You guys need to quit crashing and hugging trees.
Anyway.
Snuck out late last week for some ADV Rally fun in the Hood River area. After dropping the fam off at PDX during evening rush hour on Friday (and seeing lots of KLRs and DRZs and a 990 heading the other direction) I beat feet for Parkdale, arriving just in time to meet a very worried Mrs. Hostess (MustangShelly) heading for the hospital and get a text from a buddy (CrashGordon) telling me they'd just loaded Mr. Host (Applejam) into an ambulance. Turns out Applejam had smacked a Dodge full of hunters on his 950 and did himself pretty good, opening up his leg from thigh to calf. It looked bad. I tossed up my tent in a likely spot and then milled around with a rather stunned crowd until we got the fires going and the beers going, at which point things started to relax.
I was struck by the hospitality given the circumstances, and amazingly it kept getting better.
I may have had one or two beers too many but compared to some others I felt good Saturday morning.
The mid-20 night time low did make the obligatory pee-run a little hurried.
After rubbing the Hangover out of our eyes we all sat and gazed northward for awhile. The view from their front yard doesn't suck.
Given the previous night and the excellent breakfast things were pretty slow moving Saturday morning. I was lucky to stumble in with Neil (Squishy) and another ADVer named Kenyon and we headed for the ridgeline to the East.
*Really* nice track up to the vantage point. Rocky and nasty first gear stuff in a few spots.
Staggering view of the valley from the top. Apple and pear orchards clogging the valley to the north.
Squishy on his way up, and dang if he didn't ride a monster wheelie the rest of the way, just after my shutter closed. We're idiots for not doing it again, would have been a great shot.
We had a hard time tearing ourselves away.
This must be some kind of Maori salute to the mountain gods or something, because you'll see him doing it in a few other pictures I'm sure. (Squishy is a bit New Zealander.)
Had a good time coming back down. Did this shot over my shoulder in the sun and couldn't even see Neil in the screen. At least it provides some scale... things are pretty big in north west Oregon.
After that we headed vaguely north on really fun powerline roads. Finally got what could have been a good shot of Kenyon if I'd have pulled the trigger about .5 second faster. A pretty good little rubble climb.
See! The Maori Salute again! Really cool country heading north towards The Dalles. Super dry though... lots of very sorry looking oak? trees further up the valley.
Awesome views of Mt. Adams shrouded in forest fire smoke on the way north. Stupid me, taking a picture with a fence in it because I was having too much fun riding and didn't get off the bike for 30 seconds.
Hungry and thirsty! Time to get! Dropping back down towards The Dalles and the Columbia River.
After a nice lunch at Clocktower Ales in The Dalles (well... after Squishy lit a little fire under our waitresses' butt) we headed over a really fun piece of tarmac (Chenoweth Creek I think) towards Mosier. Only one bit of *not* fun as some lady decided to pass a tractor on double yellow coming towards us. I made sure she knew she was Number 1 and we all got off on the shoulder to let her by
From Mosier we tried route finding straight west to Hood River (old Hwy 30 is closed) until running into this sign. I was amused, but the gent we talked to in Mosier said it used to be a great ride.
Back to Mosier again, we took Husky Rd to Elder and back over to Hwy 35. Really nice road again. Here's a final glamor shot of the Three Stooges in a clear cut on the way out.
We cruised back to the AJ/Shelly pad and were very glad to see AJ "walking" and talking. I drank some more suds and stuffed myself with phenomenal food, including some excellent rabbit crock-pot action. Things got pretty festive and I could hear the party in my earplugs until at least 1:30 AM
There was one Golden Retriever moment when one of the goof balls smacked my drink, sitting comfortably in it's drink holder in my chair, launched it, and dropped it upside down in my lap. Thankfully I had an extra pair of long johns and my dirty riding pants or it could have been a chilly night
Woke to another brisk morning (love my new Mountain Hardware Switch 20 bag, BTW) on Sunday. Yes it's another hack "drawing in the frost on the motorcycle seat" shot
Had an excellent breakfast (again), washed some dishes and said my goodbyes. Really excellent group of folks these motorbike people. I'd loaded the bike in a buddy's trailer the night before so it was full Nurburgring Mode in the Passat on the way down a deserted Hwy 35 and out of the mountains the next morning, really fun. Shaved 30 minutes off the GPS estimated arrival time...