Monday, June 18, 2007

Day 1 - "Lots O Logs"


Lots O’ Logs ....

Today we put in 70 miles from Astoria to St. Helens Oregon. I started with Rich and ended with Rich. Along the way however I spent several hours with some very nice and interesting new friends. There are 80 some people and 80 very interesting stories and today a number of them started to unfold for us.

The ride itself was chilly (48 degrees to start, warmed up to 60 by the end). The sun didn’t show its face until dinner time. It rained intermittently for most of the ride, but never really heavy. We left late and rode slow. Trying to “pace” ourselves and not get too carried away with riding hard to early in the ride. There are some hard core riders here. We met one fellow who told us he rode 9,000 miles over the past year preparing for this. Youch! Rich and I stopped to smell the flowers and had a great day.

We followed Route 30 along the Columbia River. A beautiful wooded road with lots and lots of logging trucks. BIG trucks with BIG trees on them. 5’ in diameter. We also rode along side a slow moving train that had 27 cars (we counted them) loaded with these big logs. Huge trucks with wood chips passed us along with the log trucks. We found it hard to believe there were any trees left in Oregon after seeing this sight.

My helmet cam got some action today, but I have to work on the settings. The videos are very very brief and not worth downloading yet. Hope to have more of that later.

Tomorrow we’re up early, breakfast at 6 am, bags loaded by 6:45 and on the road by 7am. We end up in the mountains at a lodge with a grand view of Mount Hood tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Ralph

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

SEE RALPH. SEE RALPH RIDE. SEE RALPH RIDE FAST! GO RALPH GO!

Anonymous said...

Ralph I am proud of you, you are doing something that I always thought of doing but never took the initiative.
Looks like you have some pleasant company. Have fun and keep us posted on your progress.
Jim Havens

Idaho Smith said...

Go Ralph. Excellent report. Can't wait to see how today's ride turns out. Keep your eyes on the road and stay away from those truck's! See you soon.