Day 14 - Florence, OR to Milwaukee, OR

Today was to be our shortest day of actual riding during the trip.  We got another late start at around 10am after chatting in the motel parking lot with a couple of fellows from California on vintage BMW's.  It turned out that they were just ahead of us on the trip west from Denver and followed a similar route through Gerlach and up the Old Mckenzie Highway.  They had the same positive impression as we did about the Old Mckenzie Highway.

Our route took us north along the rugged Pacific Coast Highway (US101). Initially there wasn't much traffic, but around Yachats, that changed.  I also found that much of the US 101 highway road surface to be in disrepair.  

We made a stop at Bob's Beach where we took a photo to document the biggest dam (the seashore - )

We refueled in Lincoln City and enjoyed a brief chat with a fellow on a HD who was heading from Coos Bay to the Kite Festival at Long Beach.  He had a total of 5k miles on his bike and we had almost 5k on just this trip alone.  His riding buddy was on a Honda 650 dual sport bike. 

Just north of Lincoln City we exited US101 and headed east on OR18.  The first 30 miles or so were wonderful and twisty.  At McMinnville, we stopped for  little lunch at Los Molchahetes in the center of town where we ate using the sidewalk cafe.

Several fellows walked by the bike and commented, "Wow, 2 GPS', satellite radio, radar detector, SPOT, and ABS brakes."  They didn't realize that I could hear them from across the street, but it fun to hear the comments.

After lunch we headed for our friends, Jim & Louise, who live in Milwaukee.  Much of that part of the ride was in heavy traffic which was not much fun riding in.  However, a fun highlight was riding by the Evergreen Aviation Educational Institute with the 747 on the roof.

Daily STATS;
Miles:166
Game:  None