Today after refueling, we left around 8:30am to tag our first dam which was only about 23 miles away from our motel. Arriving at the Wolf Creek dam after a 3-4 mile ride through some farm country, we took our documentary photo.
It was then a nice morning 50 mile ride down I-84 to Baker City and then up to the Mason Dam which is located on OR7 near Sumpter. It's another dam that can be ridden across, which we did and took our photo.
Since Sumpter (an old gold mining town which has a very nice preserved gold dredge). is only 3 miles off of OR7, we took a little detour to get a photo of the dredge and the equpiment display. This is a historic town not to be missed. They have several restaurants, motels and RV parks. Also, there are miles and miles of tailings from the dredging operations that date back to the 1800's.
Continuing on west on OR 7 (one of Oregon's top motorcycle roads) we connected with US26 and rode on into John Day for a little lunch at Subway. It was a refreshing meal and soon it was time to head south to Burns (an hour away) where were were to connect with an amazing road. US 395 to .Burns is another amazing road similar in twistiness to it's northern section north of John Day.
In Burns we re-fueled and re-hydrated (did I say it was warm?). It was then time to connect with OR 205 which runs south to the California border. It was to be 132 miles of the Oregon High Desert Discovery Scenic Byway to the next known gas stop at Fields, OR.
OR 205 runs south across miles and miles of plateaus, fault mountains, dry lake beds, range cattle, mountain ridges. It was again a magical road that was miles and miles of little to no traffic We did find that there was fuel at French Glenn, site of a historic hotel, but we didn't stop there. There's also a very nice dual sport ride up and around the Steen Mountain..
Arriving at Fields Station, we refueled and enjoyed the trademark menu item: a milkshake (Banana for Tim and Cherry for Angela).
As we were heading for the Swan Falls Dam in Idaho, we needed to get to OR95 which was east of Fields some 50 miles. There were 3 ways to get there: back track a few miles, ride 11 miles of pavement and then 50 miles of gravel road and end up way north of the Burns Junchion, take a 50 mile gravel road called the Whitehorse Lane or a long paved route south into California and back up US95. Plus a thunder storm was developing to the south. So we elected to ride the 50 mile route which started about 8 miles south of Fields Station.
About a mile south of Fields Station, we came across a rollover automobile accident that had just occurred. There were two other parties there to assist the 2 girls who appeared to be un-injured. Would we see more carnage on this trip?
Satisfied that the parties that stopped would be able to help the gals, we continued on and encountered a fellow (parents of the red car driver) who flagged us down asking about the red car. We directed him to the site and turned off on what was to be a bone chattering 50 mile gravel ride on Whitehorse Lane. Actually it was only the first 20 or so miles that were washboards, but fortunately northing vibrated off.. We were constantly being chased by the thunderstorm and eventually the storm caught us and we got a bit wet but didn't stop for fear of getting wetter. We eventually rode out of the rain. Crossing the 50 miles took us 2 hours and it definitely felt good to be back riding on pavement. Heading north on US95, we came to Burns Junction and found the gas station permanently closed. We were glad to have fueled up in Fields.
One of the treats while riding 95, Angela saw her first Jack Rabbits (Long Ears). We saw several of those in the evening crossing the road in front of us.
Heading east on 95, we soon came to the turnoff (what's another 6 miles of gravel - (VBG) for another historical site we wanted to visit. It was Jean Baptiste Charbaneu (Sacajawea's son affectionately called Pompy) who was born on the L&C trip and later travelled throughout the west. Below are a few pictures from the site.
Leaving the site we continued east on 95, we reached Jordan Valley, OR and found the Basque Motel and got a room for the night as we didn't want to camp with the prospect of a night time thunderstorm. I know we're wimps, but there's a time for camping and a time for moteling it. The Basque is an inexpensive, nice clean family-owned motel that I would recommend.
Daily Stats:
Miles 456 (56 were gravel)
Game: a few deer, several jackrabbits
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