Editorial note: this was in August but I've been too busy having fun to bother writing about it...
Our plan was to meet out there in Southeast Oregon for lunch on Saturday, then stay the night in Lakeview. I would start a day earlier and go by way of John Day. The first half of my Friday was mostly playing stuck in traffic out over the mountain (Central Oregon is the playground of Western Oregon and basically all routes are crowded as heck around weekends) and on to Prineville. The last time I'd been to Prineville was more than ten years ago, back then it was a small town like any other, now it looks like its been Portlandified like Bend, Sisters, and Madras. Organic vegan bicycle shops and the like along with Portland traffic everywhere. Too bad.
Past Prineville the riding opened up. Road 380 meanders out east past ranches, ranches, and more ranches. Traffic is minimal and you can easily find yourself (at least on my bike) going license remover speed without really planning to. Without the frame of reference of traffic, you just go as fast as you can. I like Eastern Oregon for that.
It was fair weekend in John Day and I was lucky to get one of the last rooms in town. The Dreamers Lodge is a nicely refurbished motel run by a polite and hospitable Indian fellow. As I was the last one to check in, when I walked into the office he greeted me by name! Nice fellow. John Day was a nice change from Sisters and Prineville. It still seems like a real small town. I wandered around and saw the sights, had pizza and beer, and turned in.
Saturday morning I grabbed some breakfast and hit the road. Highway 395 also has the opportunity for going entirely too fast, the problem is there are speed traps. One such trap near Seneca Oregon I saw coming and slowed down to the posted speed, and gave a friendly wave to the OSP officer waiting just behind the 25mph sign.
A few miles later I was cooking with gas again and made fantastic time down to Burns. The road south from Burns gets less twisty and fun and is more long straight stretches where its difficult NOT to go a million miles an hour. Since I was making too good of time I stopped at FrenchGlen and bummed around for a few minutes.
Hops growing all over an old covered wagon.
A few minutes (or was it hours? I can't remember) past FrenchGlen I got to Fields Station. There's really not much more there than a few houses, a few hotel rooms, the Station itself, and a Forest Service outhouse. I set about waiting and drinking Gatorade while Dad caught up. The burgers at Fields station are pretty good, and so is the milkshake. If you go, do yourself a favor and share the shake with a friend because its HUGE. In case you're worried about gas, they have clear premium as well as 87/e10. I noticed one of the guys working there was wearing a coyote brown beanie, in 90 degree heat. I commented "You must have deployed to Iraq. Only Iraq war vets wear a beanie in this weather". He laughed and said "yeah, don't underestimate the tactical significance of the beanie".
We seriously didn't plan wearing the same MotoQuest shirt and Honda hat.
Just south past Fields I was fighting the urge to go 90+ when oncoming was an OSP truck. Hah, dodged another one. We crossed into Nevada at Denio Junction (pretty much just some run down houses in the middle of nowhere and a Gas Station) and headed west on Highway 140. I can't overemphasize how easy it is to go too fast out there.
We stayed at another Indian owned motel in Lakeview and chatted with the owner, other riders at the motel, and explored Lakeview on foot. The next day working our way Northwest through more ranches and grass land we saw of all weird things a tree next to the road that was filled with bras. I parted ways with Dad when we hit the traffic cluster-fuck known as highway 97 on a weekend. I got stuck in the worst of it for most of highway 58 until I spotted just enough clean pavement to leapfrog past the endless RVs and heavy haulers into open air for the last leg home.
