Trip #5 - Timothy Lake Dam

The plan for this Saturday ride was to go get the Timothy Lake dam and combine that with another tour we are doing. Let's see, it's about 550 miles RT. We'll leave at 7am and we can be back by about 6pm. (11 hours at 50 mph). Would that work out? Stay tuned.

Leaving at 7am from Seattle with friends, Bob & Merle, it was a brisk and cool ride down to our refueling stop in Woodland. There wasn't much traffic and there were lots of low hanging clouds. With a weatherman projection of mid 70's, it was getting hard to believe it would finally get warm. Fortunately Gerbings came to the rescue for my wife. I was comfortable in my LDComfort under my Kilimanjaro Air with it's very comfy liner. The brief breakfast stop at the Golden Arches was refreshing.

We noticed that one of Bob's Bushtec trailer tires was developing a bald spot, so we decided to add a brief stop at Wingman Enterprises in Portland (near the airport and just north of Sandy Blvd.) to see if they would have a tire. Of course, putting a Wing rider in a Wing store is like putting a person in a candy store. While they didn't have the tire, we left several hundred $$ there on other goodies.

Leaving Wingman, it was a busy & traffic filled ride to 26 where we headed for a stop at Mt. Hood since it was along the way. Today I received an email from friends who said, "Was that your twin on the Mt. Hood highway yesterday? We saw your bike as we crested the Mt. Hood highway" Wow, one can't even escape into Oregon!!

Here are a few pictures as we reached the location.




It was by this time getting warm and meeting the weatherman's projection. The area was very busy, but we found a place to park. And I discovered the bike had a milestone which I documented.



Since it was not much after noon (we're right on schedule, yup ), we decided to have lunch. And it was a lovely lunch as the pictures indicate. I heartily recommend the RAMSHEAD Bar & Grille on the 3rd level.


That's one big piece of smoked salmon.



Cheese fondue.

The happy travellers:



Looking around, I see that I don't need a GPS.



At least while I'm stopped.

Continuing on south on 26, we turned on the road to Lake Timothy. We hadn't been there in around 6 years, so it was a set of pleasant memories to re-ride the road down to the lake. We snagged the obligatory photo, and my first Oregon dam had now been snagged.



I rode over the dam and snapped this cool photo of the spillway. I loved the flower looking way that the engineers designed the outflow of this dam. I suspect they were trying to aerate the water before putting it in the stream.



Leaving the dam, we retraced our route back out to 26 and plotted a course north on OR35 to Hood River where we needed to cross the river and snag a photo on the other side. There were great vistas of Mt. Adams and the orchard country on the area above Hood River. Lots of cottonweed was in the air. At that stop on the Washington side, we enjoyed some cold drinks (the root beer float was soooo good on a warm day). It was then time to refuel the bikes and head back across the river to head west on I-84. It's now about 5pm. And what a picture we got of Mt. Hood.




You're guessing by now that the plan came apart: we won't be home at 6pm. Oh, and did I mention the temperatures were now in the low 80's. NICE!!


So we head down I-84 in a moderate amount of traffic, but with the sun in our eyes. We found our next stop after taking this nice and twisty road up the gorge wall just off Exit 22 and found our next photo opportunity and enjoyed an appetizer before heading on the final stretch home with one more stop before home.

There was a fair amount of traffic heading north on I-5 and we pulled into the rest are north of Battle Ground to put on warmer gear. At least some of us did.

We did a refueling and further donning of cold riding gear stop in Centralia at around 9:30pm. Yup, the plan had come totally apart, but we are really enjoying the day together. It's been a great ride so far. Let's see, it was 9:30pm, we should be home around 11pm. It sounds good for the new plan and that'll work.

Heading north, we get to around milepost 127 and traffic comes to a halt with a message that the right three lanes go away 2 miles ahead. We then did stop and go riding for nearly 2 hours through this section. Total bummer! And all of that warm clothing was so warm.

We finally rolled into home at around 1:00am Sunday morning with 548 miles. Yes, the plan came totally apart. But it was a great day riding with my wife and friends. One more dam done. Seven more Oregon dams to go. Another dam fine day.