Colorado Cruiser: 2019 Pacific Coast Highway

2019 Pacific Coast Highway - Day 6 - Klamath Falls to Crescent City

I woke up at 5:00 again, but because I went to sleep around 9, I got a full 8 hours and felt great.

I lay in bed reading and found a couple errors in yesterday's blog, so I fixed them using my phone. It's really not easy typing much on a phone while laying in bed. I also finished the story about my helmet cable. I'd talked about it, but never said what ultimately happened.

At 6:00 I decided to get up and start packing for the day.

Over the last few days and even as far back as the last couple of weeks I've had occasion to think about my father. My daughter's dogs got into a fight and I thought about my dad being a vet and some of the work he's done. I got to talking about flying last night and remembered my dads airplane and war experience. And I've been wanting to go through Blanding to visit my aunts and see my parents grave sites.

So I carried a bunch of stuff out to the bike and loaded it, then began wiping the dew off and cleaning. I was listening to music and the song "Leader of the Band" by Dan Fogelberg came on. As I polished and listened to him sing about honoring his father's legacy, I was really struck by the question, Am I honoring my father's legacy.

I have really missed my father and his words of widsom over the years. He was truly kind man and held many positions of service in the church and community. I've not given half of the service he did, but I've tried to give all that has ever been asked of me.

I spent an emotional time think of him, then of my mother who passed away just over 2 years ago. Then of a brother who's love and compassion was an example to all of my family. I just teared up recounting it.

After I got myself back together, I went to meet everyone else for breakfast. This time I didn't have a waffle, I had pancakes. Automatically cooked at the touch of a button.

While we ate, we looked at the weather and the live web cam from Crater Lake. There was no indication of rain on the weather map, but some cameras showed wet roads, and the lake camera was solid gray.

No solid consensus came either way but Ross, Scott, and D'Nette all said they were going to Crater Lake no matter what. Brent and Barb also said they wanted to go, and since I've wanted to see Crater Lake for a long time, I decided to join them.

So the group split. 4 bikes going to Crater Lake and 4 bikes going to ride the Bigfoot Highway. We had our group prayer and each headed our own way.

The temperature was in the mid 40s, so everyone bundled up. I switched from my mesh jack to a hard shelled jacket, and I turned on my heated grips.

Ross was elected to lead the ride. The road toward Crater Lake was a nice highway. We followed it for 40 miles until we spotted a set of waterfalls off to the side of the road and Ross pulled over. The views weren't great but we got a few pictures.

We were about to begin the climb up to the lake and the road were now wet, indicating recent rain. We all put on rain gear so we wouldn't have to stop again, then took off.

It was a nice road with some fun switch backs. We got stuck behind a couple of motor homes but each of them pulled off as quickly as they could and let us pass. So we got to ride up at a good speed. I took some video of the twists and turns with my GoPro (bought for me by one of the best daughters in the whole world).

Maybe I should address twisties and speed. As everyone knows, roads have speed limits. Often when you approach turns, there will be a sign indicating whether it's left or right, and often a suggested speed. The tightest hairpins are usually listed at 10mph, and nice sweeping turns might be 35 or 40.

On the first day of the ride, I was probably riding turns at 5 miles over the suggested speed. You just can't ride, for example, a 10 mile per hour hairpin or the bike will fall over because you're riding too slow. So I was riding them at 15mph but that was still almost too slow because hairpins are almost always used on a steep climb or decent.

After 5 days of pretty intense practice, I'm now riding 10 to 15 mph over the suggested turn speed, which means I'm often riding sweeping turns at 45 to 55 mph. Some guys, like John, could easily take most of these roads at 15 to 20 over the suggested speed and feel very comfortable. I don't think I'll ever be that good because I started riding so late in life and I don't practice enough.

These numbers are really just guesses, but it gets the point across. I was pokey riding and now I feel allot more comfortable. But 3 months from now I'll be pokey again.

Anyway, back to the ride. We climbed up to the rim of Crater Lake on some fun roads. The temperature dropped to 40 degrees at the top and since we were no longer surrounded by trees and could feel a breeze, the wind chill was easily in the mid 30s.

If you don't know what Crater Lake is, it's a collapsed volcano that has very high wide walls and a very deep center. Over the centuries it filled with water, so it's a lake in a volcano crater.

When I first got to the rim to look down I could actually see some water. I was excited because we had been sure it would be pure fog.

We walked a bit around the rim, then walked down a small path to a scenic viewpoint. By the time we got down there, the fog had lifted more and we could nearly see the far side.

It continued clearing and eventually we could clearly see the island and the far side. The sun even peaked through and the sunlight really brought out the colors. There were so many shades of blue from really pale and green near the shore to a very dark, nearly black in some places. It was gorgeous.

Because there were clouds over us and the sun was hitting far out into the lake, I think we actually got better color because we weren't dealing with glare or reflection from a bright sky.

Everyone else eventually hiked back up but I stuck around another 10 minutes, just mesmerized by the play of light and watching the pattern of wind on the surface of the lake. In hindsight I probably should have taken a video, not just still pictures.

We took a few group photos on top, then headed to the visitor center and gift shop. My hands had gotten cold standing out on the edge of the lake so I headed for the cafeteria. I got a hot chocolate then looked for somewhere to sit and drink it.

A couple of ladies were at a table. I asked if I could join them and they said yes. We one just nodded because she had a big bite of sandwich in her mouth. They were with an elderly tour group out of Eugene Oregon on a day trip.

They were starting the trip with a snack, then going down to the lake. I told them the lake was currently clear and might be clouding over, but they didn't care. If they saw the like it was fine, and if they missed it, that was also fine. It was more about the friends than the destination.

They were curious about our trip so I explained it to them. Other than being on motorcycles, or going long distances, or hot, or cold, the thought it sounded fun. I wished them a fun day and headed to meet up with the rest of the group.

We all decided to keep our rain gear on as we descended. When we left the parking lot, I reached up to turn on my video camera, but instead of turning on, it turned off. I had turned it on, on the way up and never turned it off. So I have an hour and a half video of the parking lot.

We rode down the mountain and back out the front gate, then turned right on the highway to head for Crescent City. We got some sprinkles for 20 or 30 minutes, then a brief shower for 5 minutes. Not enough to drench us, but more than enough to be glad we had the rain gear on.

We eventually stopped for gas in the town of Prospect. As we entered town we saw a motorcycle officer giving out a ticket so we slowed way down.

At the gas station we really couldn't self serve because the nozzles were literally paddle locked to the pump. The attendant came out, unlocked the nozzles and handed them out. Scott waved me to pull up next to him and handed me the nozzle, then he went and paid the bill and wouldn't let me reimburse him.

We asked about a place for lunch and they suggested a cafe in town. The waitress was quite a character. She and Brent fed off each other with snarky comments. We heard another couple leaving and commenting about the rude waitress. I guess some people can't handle snark and sarcasm. The food was pretty good. I got fried chicken.

As we were getting ready to leave, an elderly gentleman walked over and informed us that there were motorcycle officers in the vicinity and that we should be careful of our speed.

We got back on the road, this time with me in the lead. We had only gone about 40 miles when Brent signaled that they needed to stop to remove more layers, so I pulled into a Dollar General parking lot. The temperature was up to the mid 70s, so I switched back to my mesh jacket.

After some ice, snacks, and bathroom break we took off again.

We stopped one more time for gas, then got onto highway 199 with about 80 miles to Crescent City.

The road started as a pretty normal 2 lane highway. It was wide, with shoulders, and mostly straight. But after 30 miles it narrowed and got very twisty. I was still leading and felt really good in the turns. My eyes were always far down the road and not concentrating on the turns, just letting them happen. It felt really good (for me).

Far too soon, the road came out of a canyon and the GPS told me to turn left. It was almost a shock to slow down to town speeds and stop at stop signs.

We pulled into the twisted redwood hotel. The whole hotel was built from a single redwood tree. It was very 50's ish. Individual car ports for each room, keyed locks, tube type TVs, and a princess phone. All that was missing was shag carpet.

2 couples had gone to a move, so the rest of us got together and decided to walk down the street for dinner. There were 10 of us and we said it was OK to split us up. The waitress add an extra chair to 2 tables to make it 5 and 5. So they had to choose from the Clay table or the Ross table.

After looking over the menu, John and Angela decided they couldn't find anything they wanted and were going to try another restaurant. I told my table that I could switch so that they could sit normally around the table. They all said "Great Idea". There was "Oh no Clay, we want your here" or "It won't be the same without you". Just "Great Idea, go ahead".....

Fine, I didn't want to sit there anyway. Remember how some people couldn't handle sarcasm and snark? I'm not one of them.

I'd already placed my order at the first table so the waitress did a double take when she saw me at the other table. She did have to go change my order so it would come out at the right time. I think she was mostly put out by someone not wanting something on their menu.

Most of the food was good. My tacos weren't off the charts great, but they were good. But Scott's chicken was undercooked and he didn't want to wait for it to be redone.

We walked back to the hotel and I started writing the blog.

At 8:30 they sent out a message for the evening meeting. They had bought Ice Cream on their way back from the movie, so we scooped out ice cream and talked about the next day's ride. We would begin riding down the Pacific Coast Highway and touring the Redwoods.

The hotel doesn't have a breakfast, so after a long and furious discussion, we decided on meeting for breakfast at 7:30.

It's hard to believe we are really on the last legs of the journey. Just 3 more days of riding with friends for me, then I start for home.

Preparing to leave Klamath Falls