Where did they put the straight bits?

The word for today is twisty! Another word is long. We left our hotel at 7:30 and finally got settled in tonight's hotel at 8:20. Long, long day. We are both worn out and our butts are worn out. I think the only thing that's being toughened is my scoot's seat.

It was cold again in the morning and overcast, 53 chilly degrees. We progressed to Herb's Burgers and Beers where we ate a very good breakfast. Herb's never disappoints! No, we did not have burger or beers, although they have lovely burgers and a large selection of beers.

Then on the road again. It got as cold as 51 when we were crossing the coast range and we ended up with all our warm stuff on again, including the Frogg jackets. The road went up and down and round and round and had many fine twisties. In fact, the road through the coast range was all twisties. We passed many fine bridges, but having such a long way to go and being on a narrow road with no wide spots we did not take any pictures. We'd like to come back and take our time some day.

We peeled off some layers at gassing up time in Carlton, Oregon. It was finally sunny and 65 there. As we were feeding engines dozens of Porches of all kinds passed by on the way to a Porche Festival of some kind...there were old ones and new ones and they were all neat to see streaming by.

Almost as soon as we left Carlton the sun disappeared and it got darn chilly again. We perservered in spite of the chill and made it to some place that had a A&W in a convienient spot and feasted on chili dogs and onion rings....although I appreciated the opportunity to walk around a bit and sit in a different place almost more than the food.

After lunch we had some curves and interspersed short straight bits and went through some nice small towns, places with real tree-lined Main Streets and real, thriving downtowns. At Sweet Home we started in on the twisty bits again.

We went into one curve a bit fast, it was posted at 30, and we don't know how fast we were going, but we do know it was too fast. Ray put a bigger lean on that Guzzi than I'd ever seen him do and I pushed that handgrip and hung off like I was taught to do and we stuck right in the lane all the way through the curve and didn't slow down either, until it was over and then we said, O my gosh! We were both a bit startled by that curve. I'm proud of myself for sticking on that curve! TJ, rest assured that Ray has not yet put your status as Family KneeDragger in jeopardy. But you better watch out.

We stopped at the one summit we saw all day that had not only signage but also a place to stop. So we took pictures just to prove we were really there and that ol' Wrex really can make it over the mountains.

All day long, we saw beautiful things we'd have loved to take pictures of, but the point of this trip is to marathon, so we didn't stop often. Part of the road went through Deschutes National Forest and part of that was badly bitten by forest fire. Acres of dead trees! It was so sad.

It was all twisties until we got to Sisters, where the road straightened out and shot us into Bend. We actually checked into the hotel at 5:30, then went to eat at a place called Johnny Carino's that was about a mile from the hotel, and the closest place. The food turned out to be Oh My Gosh Awesome and we brought half it back to the hotel and may eat it for breakfast. That's the plan anyway. We'll see in the morning. The shopping complex the restaurant was in had one of those nasty parking lots that you can't get out of in the direction you want to go. Miserable thing and we had to spend a few extra minutes on those bikes because of it! Grumble.

As usual, everywhere Morphous parked, a crowd was sure to follow. While we were having lunch 2 different people took his picture (watch for Wrex on the internet!) and earlier in the day a woman had asked if she could take his pic. Many people had questions. Lots of middle aged and older women like it because it's something they can see themselves riding too. We get a kick out of watching people look him over while we're in the restaurant. Twice today, people came back for a second look. Too funny!

We think we'll get a sign made that we can clip to the windshield: This is a Yamaha Morphous 250cc automatic transmission scooter with a Tow-Pac trike kit. It will go at least 83 miles per hour on the flat parts and gets 73 miles per gallon if you stick to the speed limit. It's kind of slow up hill, but you do get up hill. No, it doesn't tip over very easily. No, the extra wheels don't ruin the gas mileage. Yes, you can have one too. Take a trike training class first.

We went 275 miles today. We are currently at 3450 feet and it's supposed to be 43 degrees at sunrise. I think I won't bother stuffing the Frogg Toggs back in their sack tonight.