In June 2008, Robyn and I took our trusty BMW F800ST motorcycle for a trip down the west coast.
Day 1, Sunday, from Vancouver to Seattle. We drove highway 1 from home
to Mission, BC, to pick up a hat (the store was closed, so we didn't get
the hat). We then went through Abbotsford, BC to the border crossing,
and into the USA at Sumas, waiting about an hour at the border. From
there, we went down hwy 9, 544 to Bellingham, then 11 from Bellingham
to Burlington. We took I-5 to Everett, then 2 to Carnation, just for
fun. After leaving Carnation, we went into Kirkland to meet with Brian
and Rhonda's place. We spent the night there.
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Day 2, Monday, from Kirkland to Portland. Next morning, we met up
with Beth, Stephan, Anita and Tim (you don't know them) for breakfast.
From Kirkland, we went down 405, then got off the freeway at 167
through Summer, to 512, to 161, to 7. We went through Morton, onto hwy
12, to Randle. At this point, we wanted to take state road 25 south to
go around the East side of Mount St Hellens, but it was closed because
of a mudslide. We turned around, took hwy 12 to I-5t, and then went
down to Portland. We spent the night in Portland.
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Day 3, Tuesday we stayed in Portland. We saw the zoo, police museum,
and I had some work done on the bike.
Day 4, Wednesday, from Portland to Lincoln City. We drove up highway 30
to get to Astoria, then met with highway 101 (the famous coast
highway). Once we were on the coast, we noticed it was a lot colder:
around 15 to 20 degrees, where it was 27 to 31 inland.
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Day 5, Thursday, from Lincoln City to Florence
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Friday, drove from Florence, OR to Chemolt, in the interior. We started the day at the Sea Lion Caves, which was really good. It is a stellar example of private commercial conservation. The owners of this (entirely private) site know that if they do anything to drive away the sea lions, customers will stop showing up. They put a huge effort into striking the perfect balance between protecting the wildlife people are there to see, and making the wildlife accessible to the people. After the caves, we're started on our way to Crater Lake.
There was a cabin available at the fancy lodge near Crater Lake for only $230 per night (or something like that), but for some reason, we thought that the motel 20 miles away for $43 per night was a better idea.
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Saturday, we spent much of the day at Crater Lake park in Oregon. We
went on a boat trip around the lake, and did some small hikes. Then we
rode to Medford OR, where we found a Super 8 with a really fun indoor waterslide.
We came dangerously close to The Oregon Vortex, several times this trip, but it was closed each time we drove past it.
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