Ride Report : Gearhart
This was originally written for a mailing list, but turned out to be far too long, so I'm posting it here, instead.
I rode to Gearhart two weekends ago. Packing space was tight - two days in Portland going to Jack's promotional events, followed by a trip to his mom's cabin on the coast..what to pack, what to pack? I used up entirely too much space packing silk blouses and skirts in blown-up freezer bags.
Eyeing gear, and the weather report, I decided to wear my spiffy new electric jacket under my mesh jacket, with raingear in the bags. Odd choice, perhaps, but my mesh has the best armour, all our riding was going to be sunny, and I had raingear if Oregon let me down on that count. ;-) I could almost hear jenner's eyebrows shoot up over the phone, but damn it, that jacket is HOT. I was sure I'd be fine, and I had a nice wool sweater to layer over it if I needed to.
Riding up to Portland Thursday, I didn't even zip up the electric jacket as I blasted through the sunny afternoon in high spirits. I arrived at the downtown hotel to discover Jack running late, and no convenient parking. The bellhop helpfully suggested that two of the valets had their endorsements. I think HE heard my eyebrows shoot up even before he saw them. I went around the corner and parked in public parking without incident, so I thought, and grabbed my tankbag and computer to sit in a cafe sipping a mocha while I waited.
Thursday night found us racing out for dinner with two of the publicists, without even the time to retrieve my bags from Tweety. I wore my ripped and paint-stained riding jeans, an equally rough riding shirt, and motorcycle boots. So much for my carefully packed blouses. The publicists seemed rather charmed by the oddball couple, and we had a fabulous evening.
Friday Jack was surprisingly event-free. One fifteen minute call-in radio show and his duties were over, so we wandered Portland. Thankfully we were standing across the street from a boutique chocolate shop when I got the call from Moto Intl. that Sal also needs a new camshaft. (Hey..only $4-500 more...) Jack administered chocolate and coffee compresses at emergency room prices, and I survived. That night found Jack doing a reading in his childhood bookstore - Powell's. Some things are bigger than the sum of their parts, and this was one of those things. He was, of course, spectacular, and the reading went well, with several WLites and members of Jack's family in attendance. I did wear one of the silk blouses to this one - good thing I brought three as I managed to water spot two before I was ready. Leaving the silk skirt and heels in the bags, I rendered more than half of my packing space irrelevant. Ah well...so far the trip had been a spectacular break from reality.
Saturday we packed up and got ready to head for the coast. The plan was to meet for a quick business lunch in McMinnville around 12:30, and then take an interesting route to Gearhart. Already pushing our departure time, we grabbed one of the three hotel keys (three? Ok Jack...who slipped you a hotel key?) and headed to the garage to load the bikes. I stayed to pay parking while Jack headed back to check out. Approaching the gal, I explained that I didn't have my parking stubs (still in the helmets at the hotel) but that we'd arrived Thursday afternoon, and I'd like to pay. Her trepidation should have been due warning, but I suppose I was too cheerful to comprehend the impending doom. She was reluctant. I pointed to the "missing tickets will be charged one full day" and pointed out that I was offering to pay more than the missing ticket minimum. She was finally persuaded, so we began to calculate what I owed.
First I had to fill out two missing ticket forms. Ok. Next, she had to laboriously calculate the fees for two full days. This was harder than I thought it should be, but I assumed that I wasn't understanding the nuances of the fee schedule, so I waited patiently. Finally, she arrived at a number, showed it to me, and asked if I agreed. Baffled, I said "I guess so." Then, even more laboriously, she began to divide the number in two, explaining that motorcycles were half price. I pointed out that I was paying for two of them and waited expectantly. The dreadful arithmetic continued, and I decided it might simply be better to let her follow her thought process to conclusion. Finally, she had divided by two.
She now wrote this number down twice, and began to add it together. Unable to take any more (and wondering where the hell Jack was by now) I said, as though it were relevant "Motorcycles are half price, right? And I'm paying for two of them..."
My irrelevant commentary ignored, she finally managed to add the numbers, and I paid, relieved. I headed back to the bikes and waited..where the hell WAS Jack? Had he gone off to meet the distributor of the extra key? Eventually he returned, sheepish and laughing. He said "Logic problem..if there are three keys, and one is not to your hotel room, how many do you need to grab to insure re-entry?" Worse yet, we'd left the gear, with all the ID, in the hotel room. It took a while to persuade the hotel that he was in fact an author staying there on the promoters' dimes, and not some scruffy rogue. Nice snow job, Jack.
Meanwhile, the gate-gal had returned to ask for the tickets. I was surprised, since I'd already filled out all the paperwork for missing tickets, but since they were right there in our helmets we gave them to her. I had a bad feeling as I did it.
Finally ready to leave, I called Dean to tell him we were running (very) late, and we headed for the gate, Jack in front. Oddly, the gate didn't open, and as I approached, the woman walked up to me and reproachfully accused me of having paid too little. By now my patience was gone and I pointed at my gloves, helmet, and zipped bag and was about to mention that SHE calculated the total when my sense returned. I geared down, told myself this would make a great story, and paid the $1.25 she was so upset about. FINALLY we left Portland.
At lunch Jack chatted with his stepdad, a lifetime rider and Newburg resident, about roads, and they settled on something. All I heard was "ten miles of dirt at the end", and I thought "Ah...a chance to try Tweety out." Off we set, around 3pm; still plenty of time to arrive before dark.
============
In very short order, we were on a tasty road, which quickly became a technical road. Quick roadside chat, and I assured Jack he was welcome to ride ahead and have fun. Five years plus an F650GS was no match for thirty years and an R1200S. Not long afterwards the road became mossy with detritus. Then the potholes started. Before long I was picking a gingerly path across the damaged but still technical road, now entirely dirt.
I wasn't riding well, and I was tense and already tired. It was my first real ride of the season, and my first real ride on Tweety. And I was a bit chilly on the forested road, so I decided to plug in my jacket at the next stop. I started to wonder if the cabin was really going to be a three hour ride, and I started thinking about the ten miles of dirt at the end. Ah well..dual sport, eh?
Eventually I loosened up, and as the road reversed its regression, moving from dirt to potholes, and finally returning to a stunning technical road following a beautiful river, my mood lifted. I was still a bit chilly though...damn it, I'd forgotten to plug in the jacket.
Arriving at the coast, we turned North. The chill-factor increased, and I finally plugged my jacket in and cranked it up as we picked up the pace a bit, headed for Gearhart. It was a lovely ride, but I wasn't really warming up. I felt foolish, thinking about jenner's brief "You really think the mesh is a good idea?" On the next stop I layered on the wool sweater, over the jacket, to help trap the warmth. By now I was shivering a bit, it was getting late, and we were still ninety minutes out. We stopped at a chowder-shack for something warm, only to find they had stopped serving food over an hour before. The gal took one look at the two of us, peeling gear as we walked in, and offered to start up the coffee pot and feed us. We took her up on it, left a big tip, and grabbed a business card so we could properly thank her in front of our friends.
[Need to get info from Jack]
Refreshed, we decided to back-track a bit to grab a nice side road. Well worth it, we stopped at the top for a scenic view of people soaring on the updrafts in seats suspended from enormous kites. It was here that I finally verified that my electric jacket was entirely non-functional, and I was slowly becoming hypothermic. Jack tried to insist I ride Betty for a while so I could plug in, but I don't ride other people's bikes unless I'm feeling in top form. This isn't just about respect, it's also for my own safety. I layered on everything I could find, eyed the half-bag of nice clothes ruefully, ignored the bag full of tools and bike-related stuff like rain gear, and hunkered down to be a rider as the wind ripped through my mesh and snuck under my defunct electrics.
Heading north again, we waved at the chowder shack and raced for Gearhart, the sun sinking and taking my blood temperature with it. We stopped again for soup and coffee as the sun dropped below the horizon, and then we sped the last hour north under a full and glorious moon. I was a little worried about that last ten miles of dirt at this point, but one can hardly complain about travail in the service of fun, so on we went.
We finally got to Gearhart around 9pm and to my astonishment, turned off a fully paved road in a very suburban area, into the field surrounding a quaint offset cabin. Apparently the ten miles of dirt on the first road were what I'd overheard discussed. I was too exhausted to be relieved just then, but had to admit the full moon peeking through the trees around the cabin was stunning. Somehow it was hard to imagine modern conveniences waited inside. If you blocked out the nearby houses humming with light and heat, the cabin looked like something in a black and white photo. Perhaps the cover-art for a story about a haunted bayou. The frogs croaked loadly as we approached.
In we went, to be greeted with the musty smell of an unused domicile. Jack flipped a switch, and perhaps my expectations were simply too strong, because we were greeted by a brief pop, and then the dark silence of croaking frogs. He waded in, bumping into half-remembered tables, to find another switch. Flip. Pop. Croak. Four bulbs later, my expectations fulfilled, we jumped on Tweety to go buy candles and matches. I was relieved to climb on the back - I was simply done.
Refreshed by the hum and heat of Safeway, we grabbed rustic supplies and a cherry pie. I'd determined the stove was gas, and figured the smell of baking pie would warm the place up nicely, since firing the furnace was now unlikely. Turns out the burners were fine, but the oven didn't want to fire, so as Jack fussed with the furnace, I attempted to build a dutch oven with some crab-crackers and a cast iron pot. Forty minutes later we both gave up and decided to get some sleep in a single-wide cot dressed with coast-damp sheets. I fell asleep persuading myself that adventures are worth more than mere vacations.
Waking to our breath visible in the air, we breakfasted on cherry pie filling and partially baked crust. At the time it seemed a very cheerful start to the day as we dug in with spoons and joked about how I would never let my children do such a thing. I can only blame the fact I was still bone-cold on my failure to track the fact that I have these rules for a reason. The bonk was hard enough to consume the center of the day, and it was late afternoon before we traced the cabin's electrical problem to a leg into the cabin and called the power company. We headed for town and did laundry, drying the sheets a little longer than really necessary, and determined that my electrical problem was not something simple and easy to repair. We returned to discover that small town service remains alive; on a Sunday afternoon they restored power to the cabin in just a few hours. I still had no jacket-power, and the furnace blower had burned out due to the power problems, but spirits were high. The gas water heater had done its job, and I drained it, nearly getting warm in the process. Not only was this a vacation, by G-d, but we'd put up the proverbial tent without so much as a small spat; cheerfulness ensued.
Monday, after a too-slow packing process, we hit the road late. Within an hour I was cold. Too much cold, damn it. I started thinking about the chowder-house. As we got closer, I made a point of staying right behind Jack, intending to signal him to turn in. I kept thinking we hadn't travelled far enough to justify a stop, but damn it, I was DONE being cold, and I wanted chowder. Jack had the same idea and admitted he'd been thinking up excuses to get me to stop and warm up for thirty minutes. Gentleman that he is, he merely blushed when I waxed on enthusiastically about his qualities as a riding companion.
Leaving, I finally remembered my rain gear. The rest of the ride was warm and delightful. We carved up 22, with not too much traffic on a Monday afternoon, splitting off in Salem so that one of us could ride back to the 'wrong damned state'.
- Shasta
The postscript to the story is that jenner tracked the problem down to the jacket itself, which I've worn perhaps three times since receiving it in January. It is going to take six weeks to get the warranty work done. I am quite unimpressed.
I rode to Gearhart two weekends ago. Packing space was tight - two days in Portland going to Jack's promotional events, followed by a trip to his mom's cabin on the coast..what to pack, what to pack? I used up entirely too much space packing silk blouses and skirts in blown-up freezer bags.
Eyeing gear, and the weather report, I decided to wear my spiffy new electric jacket under my mesh jacket, with raingear in the bags. Odd choice, perhaps, but my mesh has the best armour, all our riding was going to be sunny, and I had raingear if Oregon let me down on that count. ;-) I could almost hear jenner's eyebrows shoot up over the phone, but damn it, that jacket is HOT. I was sure I'd be fine, and I had a nice wool sweater to layer over it if I needed to.
Riding up to Portland Thursday, I didn't even zip up the electric jacket as I blasted through the sunny afternoon in high spirits. I arrived at the downtown hotel to discover Jack running late, and no convenient parking. The bellhop helpfully suggested that two of the valets had their endorsements. I think HE heard my eyebrows shoot up even before he saw them. I went around the corner and parked in public parking without incident, so I thought, and grabbed my tankbag and computer to sit in a cafe sipping a mocha while I waited.
Thursday night found us racing out for dinner with two of the publicists, without even the time to retrieve my bags from Tweety. I wore my ripped and paint-stained riding jeans, an equally rough riding shirt, and motorcycle boots. So much for my carefully packed blouses. The publicists seemed rather charmed by the oddball couple, and we had a fabulous evening.
Friday Jack was surprisingly event-free. One fifteen minute call-in radio show and his duties were over, so we wandered Portland. Thankfully we were standing across the street from a boutique chocolate shop when I got the call from Moto Intl. that Sal also needs a new camshaft. (Hey..only $4-500 more...) Jack administered chocolate and coffee compresses at emergency room prices, and I survived. That night found Jack doing a reading in his childhood bookstore - Powell's. Some things are bigger than the sum of their parts, and this was one of those things. He was, of course, spectacular, and the reading went well, with several WLites and members of Jack's family in attendance. I did wear one of the silk blouses to this one - good thing I brought three as I managed to water spot two before I was ready. Leaving the silk skirt and heels in the bags, I rendered more than half of my packing space irrelevant. Ah well...so far the trip had been a spectacular break from reality.
Saturday we packed up and got ready to head for the coast. The plan was to meet for a quick business lunch in McMinnville around 12:30, and then take an interesting route to Gearhart. Already pushing our departure time, we grabbed one of the three hotel keys (three? Ok Jack...who slipped you a hotel key?) and headed to the garage to load the bikes. I stayed to pay parking while Jack headed back to check out. Approaching the gal, I explained that I didn't have my parking stubs (still in the helmets at the hotel) but that we'd arrived Thursday afternoon, and I'd like to pay. Her trepidation should have been due warning, but I suppose I was too cheerful to comprehend the impending doom. She was reluctant. I pointed to the "missing tickets will be charged one full day" and pointed out that I was offering to pay more than the missing ticket minimum. She was finally persuaded, so we began to calculate what I owed.
First I had to fill out two missing ticket forms. Ok. Next, she had to laboriously calculate the fees for two full days. This was harder than I thought it should be, but I assumed that I wasn't understanding the nuances of the fee schedule, so I waited patiently. Finally, she arrived at a number, showed it to me, and asked if I agreed. Baffled, I said "I guess so." Then, even more laboriously, she began to divide the number in two, explaining that motorcycles were half price. I pointed out that I was paying for two of them and waited expectantly. The dreadful arithmetic continued, and I decided it might simply be better to let her follow her thought process to conclusion. Finally, she had divided by two.
She now wrote this number down twice, and began to add it together. Unable to take any more (and wondering where the hell Jack was by now) I said, as though it were relevant "Motorcycles are half price, right? And I'm paying for two of them..."
My irrelevant commentary ignored, she finally managed to add the numbers, and I paid, relieved. I headed back to the bikes and waited..where the hell WAS Jack? Had he gone off to meet the distributor of the extra key? Eventually he returned, sheepish and laughing. He said "Logic problem..if there are three keys, and one is not to your hotel room, how many do you need to grab to insure re-entry?" Worse yet, we'd left the gear, with all the ID, in the hotel room. It took a while to persuade the hotel that he was in fact an author staying there on the promoters' dimes, and not some scruffy rogue. Nice snow job, Jack.
Meanwhile, the gate-gal had returned to ask for the tickets. I was surprised, since I'd already filled out all the paperwork for missing tickets, but since they were right there in our helmets we gave them to her. I had a bad feeling as I did it.
Finally ready to leave, I called Dean to tell him we were running (very) late, and we headed for the gate, Jack in front. Oddly, the gate didn't open, and as I approached, the woman walked up to me and reproachfully accused me of having paid too little. By now my patience was gone and I pointed at my gloves, helmet, and zipped bag and was about to mention that SHE calculated the total when my sense returned. I geared down, told myself this would make a great story, and paid the $1.25 she was so upset about. FINALLY we left Portland.
At lunch Jack chatted with his stepdad, a lifetime rider and Newburg resident, about roads, and they settled on something. All I heard was "ten miles of dirt at the end", and I thought "Ah...a chance to try Tweety out." Off we set, around 3pm; still plenty of time to arrive before dark.
============
In very short order, we were on a tasty road, which quickly became a technical road. Quick roadside chat, and I assured Jack he was welcome to ride ahead and have fun. Five years plus an F650GS was no match for thirty years and an R1200S. Not long afterwards the road became mossy with detritus. Then the potholes started. Before long I was picking a gingerly path across the damaged but still technical road, now entirely dirt.
I wasn't riding well, and I was tense and already tired. It was my first real ride of the season, and my first real ride on Tweety. And I was a bit chilly on the forested road, so I decided to plug in my jacket at the next stop. I started to wonder if the cabin was really going to be a three hour ride, and I started thinking about the ten miles of dirt at the end. Ah well..dual sport, eh?
Eventually I loosened up, and as the road reversed its regression, moving from dirt to potholes, and finally returning to a stunning technical road following a beautiful river, my mood lifted. I was still a bit chilly though...damn it, I'd forgotten to plug in the jacket.
Arriving at the coast, we turned North. The chill-factor increased, and I finally plugged my jacket in and cranked it up as we picked up the pace a bit, headed for Gearhart. It was a lovely ride, but I wasn't really warming up. I felt foolish, thinking about jenner's brief "You really think the mesh is a good idea?" On the next stop I layered on the wool sweater, over the jacket, to help trap the warmth. By now I was shivering a bit, it was getting late, and we were still ninety minutes out. We stopped at a chowder-shack for something warm, only to find they had stopped serving food over an hour before. The gal took one look at the two of us, peeling gear as we walked in, and offered to start up the coffee pot and feed us. We took her up on it, left a big tip, and grabbed a business card so we could properly thank her in front of our friends.
[Need to get info from Jack]
Refreshed, we decided to back-track a bit to grab a nice side road. Well worth it, we stopped at the top for a scenic view of people soaring on the updrafts in seats suspended from enormous kites. It was here that I finally verified that my electric jacket was entirely non-functional, and I was slowly becoming hypothermic. Jack tried to insist I ride Betty for a while so I could plug in, but I don't ride other people's bikes unless I'm feeling in top form. This isn't just about respect, it's also for my own safety. I layered on everything I could find, eyed the half-bag of nice clothes ruefully, ignored the bag full of tools and bike-related stuff like rain gear, and hunkered down to be a rider as the wind ripped through my mesh and snuck under my defunct electrics.
Heading north again, we waved at the chowder shack and raced for Gearhart, the sun sinking and taking my blood temperature with it. We stopped again for soup and coffee as the sun dropped below the horizon, and then we sped the last hour north under a full and glorious moon. I was a little worried about that last ten miles of dirt at this point, but one can hardly complain about travail in the service of fun, so on we went.
We finally got to Gearhart around 9pm and to my astonishment, turned off a fully paved road in a very suburban area, into the field surrounding a quaint offset cabin. Apparently the ten miles of dirt on the first road were what I'd overheard discussed. I was too exhausted to be relieved just then, but had to admit the full moon peeking through the trees around the cabin was stunning. Somehow it was hard to imagine modern conveniences waited inside. If you blocked out the nearby houses humming with light and heat, the cabin looked like something in a black and white photo. Perhaps the cover-art for a story about a haunted bayou. The frogs croaked loadly as we approached.
In we went, to be greeted with the musty smell of an unused domicile. Jack flipped a switch, and perhaps my expectations were simply too strong, because we were greeted by a brief pop, and then the dark silence of croaking frogs. He waded in, bumping into half-remembered tables, to find another switch. Flip. Pop. Croak. Four bulbs later, my expectations fulfilled, we jumped on Tweety to go buy candles and matches. I was relieved to climb on the back - I was simply done.
Refreshed by the hum and heat of Safeway, we grabbed rustic supplies and a cherry pie. I'd determined the stove was gas, and figured the smell of baking pie would warm the place up nicely, since firing the furnace was now unlikely. Turns out the burners were fine, but the oven didn't want to fire, so as Jack fussed with the furnace, I attempted to build a dutch oven with some crab-crackers and a cast iron pot. Forty minutes later we both gave up and decided to get some sleep in a single-wide cot dressed with coast-damp sheets. I fell asleep persuading myself that adventures are worth more than mere vacations.
Waking to our breath visible in the air, we breakfasted on cherry pie filling and partially baked crust. At the time it seemed a very cheerful start to the day as we dug in with spoons and joked about how I would never let my children do such a thing. I can only blame the fact I was still bone-cold on my failure to track the fact that I have these rules for a reason. The bonk was hard enough to consume the center of the day, and it was late afternoon before we traced the cabin's electrical problem to a leg into the cabin and called the power company. We headed for town and did laundry, drying the sheets a little longer than really necessary, and determined that my electrical problem was not something simple and easy to repair. We returned to discover that small town service remains alive; on a Sunday afternoon they restored power to the cabin in just a few hours. I still had no jacket-power, and the furnace blower had burned out due to the power problems, but spirits were high. The gas water heater had done its job, and I drained it, nearly getting warm in the process. Not only was this a vacation, by G-d, but we'd put up the proverbial tent without so much as a small spat; cheerfulness ensued.
Monday, after a too-slow packing process, we hit the road late. Within an hour I was cold. Too much cold, damn it. I started thinking about the chowder-house. As we got closer, I made a point of staying right behind Jack, intending to signal him to turn in. I kept thinking we hadn't travelled far enough to justify a stop, but damn it, I was DONE being cold, and I wanted chowder. Jack had the same idea and admitted he'd been thinking up excuses to get me to stop and warm up for thirty minutes. Gentleman that he is, he merely blushed when I waxed on enthusiastically about his qualities as a riding companion.
Leaving, I finally remembered my rain gear. The rest of the ride was warm and delightful. We carved up 22, with not too much traffic on a Monday afternoon, splitting off in Salem so that one of us could ride back to the 'wrong damned state'.
- Shasta
The postscript to the story is that jenner tracked the problem down to the jacket itself, which I've worn perhaps three times since receiving it in January. It is going to take six weeks to get the warranty work done. I am quite unimpressed.