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Best Bike Ride
In Southern Oregon
Ride Report
SILDE SHOW
"It's The Climate," proclaimed a banner stretched across
the main street. We didn't know palm trees grew this far north. As it turns out, both Palm trees and tandemists were happy
to not be in Portland this memorial Day weekend. Portland was 50 degrees and raining while Grants Pass was in the 70's
with just a sprinkle or two. Gwen and Dale were complaining that we web footers brought our rain with us, but what was
happening in Grants Pass did not look like rain to us, just a little moisture in the air.The Prohaskas filled us up with pancakes before rolling us out to do either a short ride or watch the parade before the big boat trip down the Rogue River. Louie loves a parade so "off we rode" on the Gooseberry with me in back holding a huge umbrella to keep off the drizzle. The parade was a tremendous town affair with everyone either in the parade or watching.
Grandpa, who was standing beside me said, "Hi, this is my grandson. He is so smart he tells the teacher what to do!"
"No doubt," I said back and gave the kid the OK sign. The proud Mayor went by, sitting high in his spiffy luxury car.
City Council went by in an old fire truck waving at all their constituents. I heard someone say, "That is the most work I have
ever seen City Council do." Others around chuckled. The town beauties in their fancy dresses floated by doing the light bulb wave.
Up the street lumbered the big floating alligator balloon. The antique car club's crayon bright best of class drove past in formation.
The sheriff's posse's equestrian unit pranced by. The town's high school marching band stepped in time blowing and drumming down
the street. Louie wandered in and out of the crowd taking pictures until he finally wore down. We had come directly from his work so he had not slept at all on Friday night and was beginning to show wear. We decided to find our hotel and get some rest until it was time for the boat ride. This was easier said than done since the jet boats were roaring up and down the river and could be heard from miles away. When trying to sleep, jet boats even far away sound as if they are racing from one ear to the other in side of your head.
We found our way down to the Jet boat loading ramp just in time to board. I confess, we got lost trying to find it. I am not sure what to do about us, and this getting lost thing. I think we need some sort of directional pathfinder or something attached to us. We have discovered that the GPS unit we bought didn't even help. Does anyone want to buy a slightly used GPS unit?
We have one word to say about the boat ride down the Rogue River - WOW! It was so much fun. The boats travel at 45 mph in as
little as six inches of water. We saw deer swimming, beaver paddling by, and all sorts of birds including an osprey that plucked a
fish from the water right in front of us. We stopped halfway into the boat ride at the OK corral for barbecue. Louie liked the
"home style" potatoes. I liked the barbecue chicken. The local deer thought it was the place to be because they hung by
waiting for table scraps. We love to feed the animals so Louie wandered over to give them a bread stick. I was more interested in
eating the food than sharing it so I stayed sat and munched happily away. On the way back up the river, the boat captain gave us
a thrill by making the boat do whirligigs in the water causing the whole boat load of people, me included, to squeal with delight.
We give the boat ride a 4 blueberry rating. 
Sunday turned out to be perfect weather for riding a bike. We all started out together. Gwen and Dale had concocted a game so
of course, Louie and I had to play. We missed one of the questions so we U-turned to go back to look at a mailbox and get the
answer. As we were trying to catch back up with the group we came across Rick & Joanne Constantine changing a flat. They
required some kibitzing so naturally we stopped to oblige. We rode along the Rogue River for a long way getting glimpses of the jet boats racing below. People lined the river for miles, some camping, others sitting on their lawn chairs watching the boat races. The water alternated between smiling calmly back at us and hissing angrily at the rocks just below its surface. The jet boats barely held onto the water. I kept expecting them to fly off into the air at any moment and then one did, missing it's turn entirely and then paying a close visit to a group of trees!
The ride took us past many scenic overlooks of the River. I love riding next to water so this ride was the best since more than half of it was along the Rogue River and it's tributaries. At some spots, the river and the hills hogged up all the available land leaving us with only a single lane that was not much wider than a bike path. Occasionally a car would squeeze by but not too often. We were surprised to see gold mines along the river. Alas, me without my gold pan!
We were riding in to see the Applegate Museum, an Oregon Trails interpretive center, when we saw Terry and Liz climbing onto I-5. How wonderful to see them. It meant the group was not too far ahead of us.
Before stopping at the Museum we rode over to
the Grave Creek Covered Bridge. Louie has taken a fancy to covered bridges and has started a collection of photos of them.
The story behind the creek's name is that a beautiful young woman died before her wedding day so they buried her by the creek,
thus the name Grave Creek. The guide at the Museum was very lonely and talked up a tale or two for us. He made us stay and watch the movie acted out by local townsfolk. He told us that horses don't like to cross bridges. To them the covered bridges looked like barns so they would go right in. That sort of felt like a tug on my leg story to me. I believe the covered bridges were built more to protect the wood of the bridge. As we were leaving the Museum the curator said sadly, "I couldn't get the rest of the bicyclists to come in past the gift shop, though I tried. I am very glad you guys decided to come all the way in."
Back, on the trail, we followed Terry and Liz's example and began the climb to the summit of Sexton Hill on I-5. At first it seemed 'a most suitable road' then we realized that the very wide shoulder we were on was in fact a slow moving truck lane. Yowee! They were polite, though, and gave us all the room we needed to get up the hill. The truckers must have thought we were "crazy idiots" for attempting on bike a hill that their huge rigs could barely crawl up.
Down the other side we hit over 50 mph keeping pace with a truck in front of us. We had to slow down because the air wake behind the truck was making the Blueberry shake and weave a bit. When we go that fast, I just hang on and believe that we will live through it. I don't even want to think about the alternatives!
The last question on the game was , "How many dead people are there in the cemetery?" Louie wanted to go in to count them. "We do not need to be that exact," I told him. "It has to be 'all of them'. They are all dead." He would not believe me. It took all my skills of persuasion to keep him from pulling in there to do the head or should I say skull count. I like perfectionists. They help the rest of us clean up our acts. Not that Louie is a perfectionist, mind you.
When we finally pulled up to the Prohaska's home everyone had just put their meat on the grill to cook. We had only been about 20 minutes behind them. Not bad considering that we spent about 1.5 hours trying to get out of the museum. We were the only ones who played the game so we got the grand prize. It was a big plastic hanging lamp ala 70's. Louie had another one just like it in his basement. We tried to sneak away without it because we couldn't carry it on the Blueberry but someone brought it to us at our overnight. I think it is the perfect item for the annual white elephant gift exchange. We could keep it in the club, perpetually making the rounds of the tandemist's homes, just like a rotating trophy.
We loved the opportunity to get out of Portland to ride unfamiliar roads. It was only about a 4 hour drive and Gwen and Dale did a wonderful job. We are hoping to get down that direction again some time and highly recommend it to all.