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www. FavoriteRidesAndDestinations. com | ridermagazine. com
FALL 2016 ISSUE 02 / VOL. 01
We are over on the east side of the Cascades, on State Route 821 alongside the Yakima River— 25 miles of pure pleasure. Right: Good thing the Rocket III has a large gas tank, almost 6 gallons, as this little gas station was definitely out of business. underdressed for the ride, resulting in the freezing of my butt after dropping into the ocean fog north of Eureka. Of course, I told myself it would warm up pretty soon and did not stop to put on extra layers. By the time I got to Crescent City, 90 miles right along the beaches, I was pretty well frozen. All I wanted was sunshine, so I angled northeast on U. S. Route 199 toward Grants Pass, Oregon, and after less than 10 miles broke out into the sunlight at a wide spot in the road called Hiouchi.
It had one small café that served up good, hot coffee, meat locally made by Taylor’ s Sausages, and I imagine the eggs may well have come from a local farm. A 5-star breakfast— maybe the food tasted so good because I was so hungry, but the two-person staff was superb, and the cook kept flipping me different sausages that he thought I should taste. Highly recommended.
Rocky and I headed north to the house of old friends in the northern Willamette Valley, near Albany. The next day, friend Bob and I went off to explore some byways in the local national forest. A good two-thirds of the Cascades are part of our national forest system, with miles of nice paved roads, often single-lane and not plowed in the winter. The last time Bob and I had tried Forest Road 11 in the Willamette National Forest, in the late spring some four years back, we had been blocked by snow. This time, in August,