Sunday, April 5, 2009

Another Dam Tour Trip


Fishhawk Dam

So I decided to take advantage of the fantastic weather today (sunny and 70!) and rode down to northwest Oregon to pick up another dam. This one was more remote and required a bit of a trip that included some freeway riding, a bit of gravel on the road and a fair number of frost heaves to keep my back in the game. The gravel made some of the trip pretty stressful and I slowed way down to make sure I kept two wheels on the pavement.

The dam was purposefully built to make a lake for a housing community. These people live there just because they can - there isn't much anywhere nearby.

There was a light cloud cover (filtered sunshine) for much of the ride but you could see for a long ways. I managed glimpses of Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens and Mt Adams today. Not bad for spring time in the Pacific Northwest.

I stopped at an elk preserve on the way back to stretch my legs and a funny thing happened. There were about 15 bikes parked and as soon as I got off my bike this older gentleman comes marching over with some purpose and asks me "How much does a Roosevelt Elk weigh"? Huh? Apparently his group was doing some kind of rally and that was the question you needed to answer to get the clue to the next destination. I was confused for a moment but managed to eat my banana without being beaten up by anybody :)

Went on up to Astoria afterwards and then back up 101 to get home. All told it amounted to about 370 miles and 9 hours of riding. I am a bit saddle sore but feel accomplished!

1 comment:

Mike Gregg said...

Sounds like a great trip! I'm glad you were able to take advantage of the nice weather.