July 17 Day 1 Crater Lake, Oregon & Mount Hood       It's 102 degrees.     Inside the slipstream of air created by the bike, the temperature reads 108. The rush of air dries any hint of sweat on my skin. This desert climate stuff just plain sucks.     As I reach Redding, the temperature drops 10 degrees in 3 minutes. The elevation rises, and the bike purrs beneath me. This feels good, this feels really good. This enveloping knowledge that all that lies before me is open road.     The bike is loaded up. I have a 20-pound duffel bag of nonperishable food, sleeping bag, cycle cover, sleeping mat, and my shelterhalf. I even brought my ALICE pack with me just in case I want to do some serious hiking. There is a board on the seat behind me to be able to carry extra gas. Jerry cans sit one on each side of a board, which allows another 5 gallons worth of range. I have a temperature gauge, altimeter, illuminated compass, map light that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and an insulated drink holder mounted on the fairing. Now I can get a slurpee and still ride.     I even wired in a 30-watt amplifier and antenna booster to the radio to give me some extra boost in the tunes department. Arms outstretched, clad from head to toe in black leather, the boots out on the highway pegs, the radio cranked- there is nothing quite like this!     Second fillup of the day, a kid walks up to me and the loaded down bike as I roll into the service station.     "Looks like you're having the time of your life," he says.     "Yep," I reply, "the trip of a lifetime with nothing but endless road in front of me." I can't help grinning to myself as I fill up the tank. The excitement of having just left is very consuming. Knowing that I am on the motorcycle and just riding off northward is both exciting and relaxing.     I left late in the day so I've only made it to the Oregon border. Tomorrow the real miles will start to rack up. Ten zillion bugs are making a frontal assault on my position at this picnic table as I write this with a flashlight in Hagelstein Park just north of Klamath Falls, Oregon. At least the temperature is a perfect 70 degrees. Crickets chirp away in stereo surround sound. The bright half-moon sits in a clear sky, and countless stars shine above. The air is still, not even a slight breeze. Even the grass feels velvet soft beneath my bare feet. I have never been in Oregon or Washington before and tomorrow I make for Crater Lake.     I'm headed for Alaska...       July 18 Day 2

Southern entrance to Crater Lake National Park

Birds, birds, birds. They are everywhere chirping a sweet endless banter. Staring into the sky, I awake to the sound lying on my back. The sun is just starting to glow above the eastern horizon. I am beginning to realize that there isn't anyone looking over my shoulder. Out here all by myself, no work, school, duties, everything. This is a life where none of that exists. It feels like a parallel universe or alternate reality from the 9 to 5 life.     After a spartan breakfast of water and crackers with jelly, the bike gets repacked, bungeed tight and we're off. At the first town, I fill the tank and get a Slurpee. While riding, I can stick the long straw up through the bottom of the full-face helmet and suck away. Then I set the throttle lock and place the Slurpee back into the cup holder careful not to drop it as I ride. Now this is cool!

The road to Crater Lake flattens out as it heads north into Oregon. Off in the distance, the mountain begins looming before me. I take the turnoff and start climbing up the side of mountain to the rim above.  A sign for Rim Village appears but I decide to circumvent the mountain first. The map shows the road circling around the rim. I stop by the park entrance sign, grab a picture, and suck another gulp from my slurpee. Ooh, not too fast, little brain freeze there.     The elevation climbs quickly. On one side is cragged rock, the other is lined by a rock wall overlooking a view that begins to show off the plains and mountains to the south. At a waterfall sprinkled in green vegetation, I notice two people, mere specks at the edge of Vidae Falls. Its waters cascade down the side of the rock face, then beneath me and onward down the mountainside.   I crest the mountain edge and look out over Crater Lake. Overwhelmed is the only emotion that comes to mind. I pull to the side of the road to peer over and read the pictograms placed for curious visitors like myself.

Vidae Falls

Climbing up the south wall of Crater Lake

Chipmunks break the moment. Very fat chipmunks, chasing each other down the retaining wall. I go on reading the description of how the lake below me was formed and what a Pumice Castle is. The chipmunks scramble by again. Then one jumps up on the crest of the sign and just stares at me. Been fed lately I chuckle looking at its round little body. It waits for a morning meal, I respond by taking a picture of it instead. Typical tourist.

Somebody wants to be fed

Chipmunk exercise

The sign reads:     Mount Mazama the great volcano that preceded Crater Lake was built up by successive eruptions of lava over many thousands of years. Some lava oozed or poured from the volcano's top or sides. Some erupted as red-hot rocks that flooded down the slopes. Others expanded into the air and fell as cinders or globs.     There are a variety of Mount Mazama's lavas on the steep calders wall. Pumice Castle with its pinkish brown 'turrets' in the most eye-catching feature. It's made of layers of pumice and other rocks coughed up by Mount Mazama- some so hot they welded together. These air fall deposits were buried and compacted to the other lavas, then exposed when Mount Mazama collapsed. A firm foundation of andesite lava has kept Pumice Castle intact while surrounding pumice deposits have eroded away.

Crater Lake has to be one of the most beautiful wonders of the world I've seen. Even standing here at 8000 feet, the air is still and the temperature is pleasant. A sheet of blue glass unblemished by any ripple or wave rests beneath me. The lake is surrounded in sheer mountainous walls extending up for 1000 feet on all sides. Jagged barren walls reflect in the water's surface a perfect mirror image. In the middle of the lake is a cone with trees dotting its steep sides.

It's the deepest lake in the United States at 1,932 feet. The lake is so deep; it's considered the seventh deepest lake in the world. Originally, the mountain was 12,000 feet tall and collapsed about 7700 years ago. The signs say that the explosion of the mountain was probably the largest, estimated at forty times as powerful as Mount St. Helens in 1980, in thousands of years in this region and coated a massive area with ash.

Looking out from the wall of Crater Lake

The advancing trappers and pioneers didn't even know about the lake for many years. Indian legend and lore abounded regarding the lake. Some of them even forbade mentioning or talking about the lake that was considered sacred. In 1853, while the gold rush was in full swing mere hours to the south, some prospectors, including John Wesley Hillman found the lake. It wasn't for another twenty years, that a young nineteen year old from Kansas, William Gladstone Steel, set out to find the lake that he had read about two years earlier.     "All ingenuity of nature seems to have been exerted to the fullest capacity to build a grand awe-inspiring temple the likes of which the world has never seen before," said Steel when he found the lake finally with another man, John Beck. In 1902, the lake became a National Park, one of the first in the entire United States.  I ride the cycle to another vista and peer over the wall. Below me almost straight down is the tiny shape of a boat, so minuscule in comparison. Below it I can see the bottom of the lake extending from the shore colored in the deepest sapphire glow.

Note the size of the boat

Pivoting on my heels, a vista that extends northeast for miles across a volcanic plain until the horizon melds hazily into the sky. I stand here and gaze into the distance mesmerized. It reminds me again why I ride motorcycles.     At the highest point in the road, it dead-ends. Only one kind of tree seems to be able to grow up here, the Whitebark Pine. Many of the trees are rather odd looking.

Whitebark Pines

The sign describing the trees reads:    Because of strong, harsh, and nearly constant winds, many of the trees here are deformed and stunted. The almost never-ending pressure bends trunks and branches so they grow away from the wind. As the trunks thicken with age, they bury the curved bases of the limbs on the windward sides. Buds on the windward side may also die. The combined result is the grotesque lop-sided appearance typical of exposed trees at higher elevations. These trees are Whitebark Pines, one of the few kinds of trees that can survive under these severe conditions.

At Rim Village I devour two eggs and hash browns with toast. I study the roads north. See, my route isn't exactly planned out. I simply sit down every morning and conjure the day with roads that look interesting. All while headed in the general direction of Alaska. Where each takes me is half the fun. Seeing what's at the end of the road is the other half. I choose a route heading for Mount Hood, a few hours to the north.

About to leave the rim of Crater Lake

Leaving Crater Lake, I ride down Highway 138 to 97 passing the Mountain Crest National Scenic Trail. It's this little dashed line on the map running along the tops of the mountains. The thought is interesting. But then again, I'm not that much of a hiker. I brought my pack though just in case.     The terrain changes and I am reminded at how quickly different elevations equal different climes. Descending into the interior of Oregon, colors of brown, brown and more brown greet me. Everything is brown, dead and lifeless. It reminds me of being back in California in summers. I pull into La Pine on Highway 97 near the Newborn National Volcanic Monument. The gas jockey, about 16 years old, comes out to aid me in using the Texaco pumps. There's some sort of trick to it, old pumps, small town. In addition, I wasn't aware that in Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gas. No self-serve here, the gas is always pumped by some gas jockey like this kid here.     He circles round eyeing the bike and me after he hands me the hose.     "So what size is she?"     "1200 cc's"     "I like the Honda Magna but I think the V45 engine layout of Yamaha is better."     "Oh," is the only thing I can think to say.     "So how fast does she go?"     I can't even answer that. It's a touring bike, sheesh. What does this thing look like, a race bike?     Maybe he couldn't think of much else to say but neither could I. He doesn't ask where I am heading. Six month ago traveling through the south on a 6000 mile journey in 8 days, I got that question every time I stopped. Maybe traveling alone on a motorcycle in the middle of winter was a little more curious to the people I came across.     Away I go heading for Mount Hood. Through Bend and past Redmon, the 59 miles from Madras to Government Camp bores me to no end. Finally reaching Mount Hood, I deem it the ugliest mountain I have ever seen. Even as I start to climb from about 3000 feet, the mountain looms getting larger each mile. 11,235 feet the map says, the highest mountain in Oregon. Reaching its side, I welcome the curvy sweeping corners. I've noticed the bike handles completely different with all this extra weight I am carrying. I split off from 35 and make tracks for Dufur.     The road falls into a valley, pops out of the trees as the elevation lowers and then gently slops down into a broad wide valley. The wheat and alfalfa in the field along the side of the road sway gently in the wind. The moist air tastes wonderful in this irrigated green valley. Off to the right, the valley is smooth from years of disking and plowing these fertile fields.

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