farewell bend

aloha. aloha. the day has come and gone i am now in klamath falls oregon. it is in the south central of oregon, about 20 miles from the border of california...or so it appears.

i picked up my passenger, rubin, who was great, around 10 am this morning in portland. we opted to take highway 26 east to 97 south, instead of going i-5 south to highway 22 east. i think we chose the better route. we went up to mt. hood, but that is a heavily trafficked area so there wasnt any problem. the other highway goes through three sisters mountain and apparently would have been much windier and taken us to a higher elevation.

the truck held up pretty well, although i forgot about my ne'er used fifth gear until after i had dropped rubin off in bend. i was cruising at 70mph in fourth gear and the truck didnt seem to really want to do that, but i was testing the limits. there was a brief time when i thought that the truck was just going to fall apart, but it persevered.


rubin was a talker, which wasnt bad at all. it helped me to forgot about being so nervous for a little while and just be. we chatted about a number of different things, mostly small talk and politics, some familial history and other get to know you stuff. he was a great first rider on my trip and i was certainly happy for it.

i dropped him off about 10 miles past bend and i deliberated for a moment about keeping on since i was already past it and it didnt look like much from the highway or going back and exploring. i was just about to keep on and then i remembered that the deschutes brewery was in bend, so i set off for wireless to find. and i found it just in time to kick back some free samples and take the tour of the factory.

there were only two other people on the tour, and the tour was just okay. there wasnt that much going on in there of note, but it was real interesting to watch the bottling process! i took a number of pictures inside the facility and specifically of the bottling, but none of them came out worth anything.

after that it was almost five and the cool nature things i wanted to do were about to close, so i hightailed it out of there to try to catch them before five and before they closed...but i went the wrong direction! so by the time i got turned around and found the right way it was past five and i had to just drive by the cool looking lava monuments and petrified forests because i wanted to get further than bend for my first day. grin and bear it.

so i continued on 97 south and my plan was to go to crater lake tonight and just stay at a campground near there. foiled again. the road to crater lake was closed due to 81 inches of snow in the ground. i was directed to go to the NEXT entrance which was 40 miles south and then i would have to drive about 60 miles north from there just to get to the base. i decided against it and just kept driving.

and highway 97 is barren. i cruised at 70 most of the way and there was just nothing to speak of. i drove and drove, i kept wanting to stop at the next town but the next town was always just a gas station and a mini mart, nothing to speak of. klamath falls was a bit further than i wanted to go but i was going fast and there just wasnt anything else.

i made it to k falls about 7pm and i was hungry! i hadnt eaten really at all during the day. i had some gummy worms and a snickers bar that rubin had bought me, so i started looking for something that would quench my hunger and have wireless so i could do some typing. eventually i found a little place on the old main street, a micro-brewery called "Waldo's" that had food and wi-fi. i found some parking and came in.

now i am eating a sandwich, haveing a beer, watching a basketball game and writing about my day. all good things. when i am done here i will go off the street and find parking somewhere, hopefully level, and climb in the back of my truck to enjoy my first night on the road!

we'll see what tomorrow brings.