Oregon

I was never should what to expect with Oregon, I know little about it, apart from it has lots of trees. And it does, millions of them!

The ride from McDermitt to Lakeview is fairly relaxed with nothing too technical and easy fast roads. We have worked out that we should be able to arrive into town at a good hour and have an early day, giving us time for some man fence and laundry. You can tell the travel situation is getting desperate when the most existing building in town is the laundrette!

En route we pass a dried out lakebed that is perfectly flat. We ride on to it and blast around for a time, just for pure easier. At time you become so involved with the route that you forget that you are doing this for fun, you get wrapped up in the destination rather ghan the journey, each day can role simply in to another overnight stop and the rituals that go with it.

Lakeview is a curious little town, it had a strange unfriendly vibe where every second car is a pick up truck. Now there's nothing new in that, but everyone is jacked up with straight through exhausts, the driver wearing either a baseball cape it battered Stetson, even though there are no cattle around here. They are known as "yahoos" , wannabe Cowboys and hard men, it's all rather sad.

We get all the jobs done , but while testing his bike Brenton forgets to put on a helmet and in Oregon it's the law!

A brief conversation with PC Plod and everything is ironed out and yet another interesting conversation about guns and the "freedoms" they give the peoe of America.

The next day's ride takes us on to the town of Crescent . The mornings ride is pretty sandy and leads us to a town that is so small I can't even remember it's name. Simon decides to meet Brenton and in at our stop point, so we push on. He made the right choice! The trail is nothing but sand and dust, it's pine forest but scrubby.

For four hours all o see is the trail through the pines, no view what so ever, and I'm dropping in sweat, it's hot. Crescent is a little bigger than the towns we have stayed in reciently, apart from the regulation casino, motel and gas station, it also has a gun shop with a liquor store. You can buy a gun and some booze at the same time, oh what fun you can have in these parts.........

We head to a local hostilely, the only one in town, which like most bar in the yahoo areas of the U.S. has almost no windows, except one to display a few neon beers signs and another that says open, or closed depending on the time of day.

After a few fresheners we walk over to the Resturant/Casino which turns out to be a museum of stuffed animals. Not the nice fluffy ones for kids, but the real deal. I'm at a lose to understand the thinking behind it.

We wake to an amazingly fresh morning, bright sunshine but cold, which given how hot it was when we arrived is a bit of a shock. We divert off of the route today so that we can visit Crater Lake. I've seen many great sights around the world , most of which are described as breath taking or stunning, however few are. Crater Lake is all of that and more. At 6 miles wide , with the drop from the rim to the surface of 2000ft and waters the colour of lapis , how could it be anything else.

Our ride to Canyonville and our penultimate night takes us through the best forest we have seen in Oregon. Well surfaced trails help us keep a good pace as the trail rolls through undulating countryside of magnificent accident pine forests. And we are greeted with large gaps in the tree slowing majestic visas. The downside is the heat, as we depend towards the coast from 7000ft at Crater Lake, to 700ft by the time we reach Canyonville, our overnight destination.

Like many towns we have passed through Canyonville has had its glory days and it's time in the economic sunshine are but a distant memory. A town built on the timber trade being squeezed by both the environmental lobby and climate change. With a series of draught years, the forest pines have started to die , in their droves and once their gone their gone.  

Needless to say, due to the current economic situation of the town, Canyonville has become a hangout of the desperate and displaced. Anyone with the means and/or ability has already moved on.