Preface
I'll be posting some canned verbage at the onset of each leg of my trip. I'm doing this for a number of reason, foremost being, I'm not a writer,nor have ever pretended to be one. The other reason is that I will be communicating via cell phone only. I hate writing anything over 20 characters on a cellphone keyboard, it takes too much time. I'd rather be riding. So Here we go...
I made it to the Bridge of the Gods today. I’ll cross it tomorrow morning, from Oregon to Washington, which happens to be the symbolic beginning of my adventure, but only after 230 miles of tarmac from home Today. As you can see from the graphic above (my route in cyan and created with Atlas 3D map generator, Google Earth Pro,Terrain height maps, and Photoshop) I'll be traveling north between Mt. St. Helens (yes, that St. Helens. The one that blew her top 30 years ago, much like Kate will she finds out that I'm enjoying a few cigars on this trip) to the west and Mt. Adams to my east. Weather permitting, I should be able to view the two previous mountains along with Mt. Hood to my south at various places throughout this route. I'm only taking my iphone and a drone, so there won't be jaw dropping landscape photos of any of them. I am packing a water color set, a medium I started learning a couple of months ago, so maybe you'll get some badly executed renderings of the views (along with others over the course of this trip). Lucky you.
I don't know much of the southern part of Washington, but I've seen a few thing on various and unsuccessful hunting/fishing trips. Once, on a turkey hunt, I was lost in this area, and took a wrong turn onto a poor excuse for a road, at the end of which I was met by 5 dogs, dust covered and barking as they chased my car. One of those vicious doggos, and I'll never forget the sight, (and will always regret not having a camera), had a dead chicken tied to it's collar. The dog's owner who came out to "greet" me told me the dog had killed the chicken for fun the night before and this particular practice was how they trained the dogs to not kill chickens. Okaaaaay... not gonna judge.
Sorry for the detour.
Speaking of detours, I've got a couple of those to hit on this leg of the trip, one of which I'm looking forward to; The Guler Ice Caves. History lesson: They caves were created over 20,000 years ago through volcanic activity in the the area. I can only hope they stay icy for the 30 minutes I explore them :) Pictures to come as I have signal.
Forgot the bon voyage pict
Ha! I had an Okie coworker (very experienced) animal trainer who schooled me up on that exact method of teaching a dog not to kill chickens. The key is to leave it tied to their collar until it rots off. Apparently you can tell by the look on their face how much they hate it towards the end...
I’m soooooooo trucking jealous. Maybe when I finally turn 50 I’ll do something cool too. But for now I’ll just have to settle on enjoying my beer while chilling and listening to Hawaiian music (J Boog) and the crashing waves on the lanai in Maui!