‘You’re such a child Papa’

It was pretty cold once again and I packed up as quickly as I could. I was keen to make some miles and wanted to be well into California by nightfall.

The route I chose was south through the mountains. It was all bitumen and looked perfect for a morning of fast riding. This certainly proved to be the case with close to 200 km of lovely twisty roads winding through green forest and along rivers and lakes. There was some traffic, but I had it all pretty much to myself, arriving in Klamath Falls just before lunch. I’d only been 40 km from Klamath before heading up to Crater Lake the day before, but the detour had certainly been worth it. Klamath Falls wasn’t though. It was Sunday, it was deathly quiet and the streets were hot, empty and silent. A bit of a downer actually. The gas stations were closed, I couldn’t find a grocery store that was open and the eating choices were a decidedly dodgy looking Chinese restaurant or a pizza place. I hadn’t planned anything at all route wise beyond this point and needed to do so. Also, I hadn’t been able to source a Californian road map of any sort – this was surprising as I hadn’t had any trouble doing this previously. I asked the girl in the pizza joint (which was surprisingly good) whether there was a decent sized gas station / services centre heading south where I might find one? ‘Which way’s south?’ she asked. Well, that obviously wasn’t going anywhere. I’d met a couple of backpackers at Crater Lake and they’d mentioned the lava bed’s just over the state border. That sounded like an option. I left town and passed a large tourist centre where I pulled in and got some info and a very basic National Park map. It wasn’t great, but it would do the job. The lava fields were pretty isolated and without any services at all, so I needed to stock up on everything before heading out there. Hmmmm, that was looking like being a bit difficult. The nearest large town was Weed in California, about 100 km to the south, while the lava bed’s turnoff was only about 20 km away! I did find a gas station a little further on that also advertised itself as a ‘Mini – Mart’. It had some cuppa noodles and tinned peas – that was about it. I had baked beans as emergency rations already, so I went a little past the turn off and a few km on to Doris where I found much of the same. So, it was with the bare, bare basics that I turned back and headed east on the Tulelake Road and into the early afternoon.

The horizon was flat and went forever with quite a heat haze. I didn’t hold much prospect for the afternoon, until the dead straight road started to run through what was called the Klamath Drain. It wasn’t a very nice sounding name, but it did aptly describe a wetlands that all the surrounding plains ‘drained’ into. It was very green and covered a lot of area, with seriously spectacular birdlife. A 90 degree turn south and I was riding through proper conservation areas by Tule Lake. There was a massive expanse of water with ‘photo hides’ to my left and a huge (and quite high) lava flow to my right. It really was beautiful, with vibrant colours, a significant drop in temperature and wildlife everywhere. Unfortunately, it was hard to capture this fully in the photos.

It was then into the lava fields proper. The official name is the Lava Beds National Monument and, as the road gained some elevation, you could see the rock stretch for miles and miles in  every direction. It turned out that the lava covered hundreds of square kilometres with some vegetation growing through it in places. The soil is exceptionally fertile but, despite it being a National Park, it would have been impossible to farm as is done in Coalstoun Lakes, a volcanic area to the north of Toowoomba. They do a lot of rock picking at the Lakes, but you’d have never got through it all here.

I rode through the area and got to the Visitor Centre which would have provided a lot of information had it been open. Feeling a little weary and a bit uninspired, despite the uniqueness of my surrounds, I decided to push on rather than set up camp for the night. The last month was starting to take a toll, my food supplies, while adequate, were not great and I needed a bit of a break. There was an interesting looking dirt road out of the park to the south west, so I decided to take that down to Highway 89. It turned out to be FSR and pretty gravely, but the forests were spectacular, especially with the influence of the lava in and around them. I hit the highway right on dusk, where it was a further hour’s ride west on a very straight and relatively major highway. There were a few little towns that I contemplated pulling up in, but I decided I was going to stay put for 2 nights, do some washing, bike maintainance and have a bit of a blow. A decent sized town was needed and Weed intrigued me – it  seemed to be the place to make for. I arrived there at about 9.00 pm and checked into the Hi Lo Motel having done a good 500 km for the day.

I’ve found that most of the motels are pretty willing to negotiate price-wise. However, they invariably give you the worst room they have when you’ve beat them down by $20 per night. I soon discovered that the trick in that case is to go back and complain about what you’ve been given. You then get a much better room at the same price.  I did so in this case, saying, genuinely, that it was supposed to be non-smoking but reeked of cigarettes and that the main light didn’t work. He was very apologetic and ‘upgraded’ me to a large room much closer to the reception (the original one was way down the back). The new room was spot on – couldn’t have been better. It’s all a bit of a game that everyone plays.

The motel was also an RV Park and had a laundromat so, after doing my washing the next morning, I went for a wander around town. It was an interesting little place, having once been a thriving timber town. It was a bit abandoned in places now and didn’t offer much outside the main ‘strip’. Weed was bit different to a lot of other timber town’s in that it also milled ‘lumber’ and manufactured boxes from what was cut. There was a very well kept and comprehensive museum that I spent quite a bit of time in. Compared to today, everything had been unbelievably manual in the past. Timber was cut by hand, they climbed trees to ‘top’ them and the logs were slid down mountainsides in huge chutes that were constructed for that purpose. The old curator was a wealth of knowledge and was happy to escort me through the place. From the look of the guest book, I was his first customer for a couple of days!

The town burned down a few times over the years and the timber operation was gobbled up by a larger company with the processing ceasing. The industry went from employing over 2,500 people to just 16. You can imagine the impact that had on the town! Tourism is a pretty big thing and they do really make a play on the town’s name. I couldn’t help myself and bought a t-shirt. I know, ‘you’re such a child Papa’.

I’d also done some badly needed maintenance on the bike. She was holding up well, but the chain was loose again and the rear brake lever was badly bent from a particularly rocky bit of track on the BDR. With some help from a garage across the road, I had it straightened out pretty quickly and repacked the bike ready to head off the next day.

A little shopping was in order and I found a great supermarket with plenty of fresh fruit. They also had a decent selection of wine. I know you shouldn’t buy according to the label but, like the T-shirt, I just had to do it. It was French, believe it or not, and tasted pretty good for thirteen bucks. Think it would sell well back home.

My last objective of the day’s R & R was to organise a flight to New York. I’d found the info on the internet to be very complicated, confusing and expensive, so I resorted to a travel agent. I got onto the equivalent of the Flight Centre back home and sourced a ticket into JFK for around $500 return. It’s a fair way (over 6 hours) so was pretty happy with that. I managed to avoid Delta which have a terrible safety record and was booked with American Airlines. It’s going to be a bit of a logistical nightmare – leaving the bike somewhere, getting to and from airports, sorting accomodation, etc, but am looking forward to it very much.

It was here at Weed that I was offered the opportunity by Steve Wakelam (from back home) to be a part of the ‘Pushup Challenge’. This involves doing 22 pushups for 22 days. The objective is to record yourself regularly, nominate others and, finally, to have some fun with it all. The real aim is to raise awareness of war veterans committing suicide. In the US at least 22 take their lives every day and our Aussie veterans are suffering in this way as well. I’ve seen numerous people do the challenge and, while I don’t have a military background, having walked the Kokoda Track a few years back, I do feel an affinity for military personnel and have a huge amount of respect for what these men and women do. It was a pleasure to get involved although, on review of my first video, my pushup form has slipped over the last 4 or 5 weeks.

Craft beer is big in Canada and even bigger in the US. I found the Mount Shasta Brewery on the edge of town and went up there for a couple of brews and a burger that evening. It was a fantastic place with a lot of regular out-of-towners stopping in for dinner. It was a cosy, friendly environment and I had a really enjoyable evening with everyone, including Marty, a rep who always stopped in Weed for the night so be could eat at the brewery. The beer was provided in tasters (until you decided what you wanted to drink) – 4 oz of each. Again, they were all quite different and really good. The burger was too. Every establishment has their own take on what a great hamburger should comprise and they go to great lengths to differentiate what they come up with, taking a lot of pride in what is ultimately produced. I can’t say that I’ve had a bad one so far and this was as good as any to date. I haven’t had much in the way of vegetables for a while though.