Awakening in Lakeview, Oregon

we decide that we want to go a more direct route to Crater Lake than is offered by the "classic" TAT, but we also want to be riding in the trees and dirt. OK - we are fine with some pavement thrown in at this stage too . . .

Plotting a path in Mapquest that will take us almost directly west across some neat forested public and private lands, we embark, but not before Joe does a bit of electrical work to get his headlight working.



He is successful, but after the fact, we discover that Makotosun's headlight bit the dust the night prior and he is now riding without illumination. This creates not only a legal issue (motorcycles are supposed to run a light at all times) but a pragmatic one - we need to be in a hotel before the sun goes down tonight! We didn't know it then, but the headlight would remain "dark" for the rest of the trip!

The weather is once again overly cooperative, much to my sunburned hands' chagrin. The Solarcane is working though, so it's all good. We head into the hills with high spirits. Even the blacktop slab is good on knobbies in the sunshine!





The mountains are really beautiful and we meet little traffic. An hour or so into the ride, the droning of the two strokes, reminiscent of the whine of a pair of Zeros in a Japanese WWII movie, begins to lull us into a drowsy state. Joe decides to rest a bit on the gravel in the hot sun . . .

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Resuming the ride after some fluid intake, we discover what will not be our first brush with frozen H2O . . .







It didn't slow us down much, but did raise our concerns for our progress for the day.

We ended up on gravel and sand roads in some of the neatest riding area we found on the whole trip. It is in the woods Northeast of Klamath Falls, OR.



The issues we discovered is that a GPS unit cannot really discern the difference between an interstate and a goat trail, which got us into a lot of interesting pathways. It also does not show all major water hazards on the screen. This little river ford did not show up at all . . .



Not only did it not show up, but there was no way to really get around it and it appeared to be about 4-5 feet deep and running way to fast to try and ford. So off we go backtracking to another route.



Even though it was a big delay, the riding was amazing.

Next UP is a really big wet cold hole in the ground . . .