We Made it to Our Starting Point (Day 2)

Another long day of riding, but we've made it to our starting point.  Steve and I were on the road by 6:45am.  It was a balmy 47 degrees and dropped into the low 40s as we rode into Oregon and over Siskiyou Pass.

Interstate 5 just gets better and better.  The first half of Oregon was constant sweepers.  The car tire makes my bike a little sensitive to sudden acceleration/deceleration when in a turn. (which seemed to be all the time) Always in a turn is good thing, but the wobble is not.  It's forcing me to ride very smoothly, but if I get sloppy or caught off guard with cruise control in a turn, it will sometimes start the bike wobble by itself.

One good thing to come out of it is that applying smooth and constant throttle is becoming my recovery reaction, instead of the bad habit of chopping the throttle. I've worked on that technique for a while, but it is pretty nice when you can actually catch yourself before you chop it.

Enough of that, what I really like about Oregon, besides all the big green trees, rivers, and other scenery, is their 'move over' law.  Not sure if that's what it is really called, but there are signs posted as you enter the state that tell slow drivers to move over "it's the law."

Things are a bit slower in Oregon, and that includes the drivers.  With a posted speed limit of 65, most drivers will be doing about that.  The ones who go fast are about five over.  We rode most of the time at around nine mph over, and while 74 in a 65 doesn't seem like much, it really does when other cars rarely go that fast the entire day.

The "move over" law though is great!  Every car we approached in the fast lane, except maybe 2, moved to the right immediately to let us pass.  After a while I could count on the fact that I wouldn't have to slow down when I was approaching a car.  I wish they would train people to drive like this in CA.

About 125 miles south of Portland, my nav radar started warning me of rain ahead. For the rest of the day it seemed like we were riding from downpour to downpour.  We saw other bikes seeking shelter under bridges, but we just rode on.  We had a lot of miles ahead to get to our starting point. Since it was raining, there weren't many pictures from today.  Besides the camera not being waterproof, it's difficult to take pictures while riding as it is.

We ended up getting to Bellingham, WA just before sunset (9pm).  It threw me off when a the local restaurants were closing down before dark. I didn't expect the length of days to be very noticeable until Alaska, or at least northern B.C.

Tomorrow we picked an area just south of Prince George, B.C. to start looking for a camping spot.  We'll ride across the border into Abbotsford first thing in the morning.  From there we'll take Canada Hwy 1 North to the Carabou Highway (29).  That turns into Hwy 97 which goes into Prince George.

The general route will take us east on Hwy 16 and North on Cassier Stewart Hwy (37), but we'll figure out the specifics for the next day based on where we end up tomorrow.

We figured the trek through Canada will take about 4-5 days before we reach Alaska.  Updates will be dependent on campground wifi.

Also note that the trip pictures will be posted here as I have time to upload them: http://picasaweb.google.com/coder1/Alaska2010

27043