Day 9 – Sunday, July 8th (700 miles, Santa Barbara, CA to Medford, OR):
What a long day of riding! I left Santa Barbara around 6am and began riding north, with the goal of making it as far as possible by the end of the day. Ive been to California many times before and there weren’t many new places I wanted to see on my route for the day. Coming out of Santa Barbara and riding through the middle of the state with mountains and farmland was beautiful. The temperature was much cooler in the morning, around 60 degrees when I left, but quickly warmed up to the 90’s by the afternoon and hit 100 as I drove through Sacramento.
Although I didnt stop for any sightseeing today, it was still a great day of riding due to the amazing scenery. As I rode up through Northern California and Southern Oregon, the scenery changed from farmland to mountains with thick forests. This was the best scenery of the day, especially as I drove past Mount Shasta in northern California, which is a huge mountain still covered in snow!
About 10 miles south of the Oregon border, I rode through an area on Highway 5 that had recently been destroyed by wildfires. In fact, there were still fires during just off of the highway! Cars, homes, and businesses had all been burnt to the ground, thick smoke covered the entire area, police and the National Guard had nearly every exit off the highway closed, and helicopters flew overhead with large buckets of water to drop on the fires. It was a surreal experience to say the least, something that looked like it was straight out of a movie. It was sad to think about the loss of property and possessions for the people in the area, some literally lost everything they owned to these fires.
I arrived in Medford around 8:30pm and got a hotel room for the evening. It was a tough day overall due to the heat earlier and the amount of time on the bike, but overall a great day with amazing scenery.
Mt. Shasta in Northern California
Day 10 – Monday, July 9th (535miles, Medford, OR to Bellingham, WA):
Today started out well, riding through the mountains in Southern Oregon with cooler weather (about 55 degrees) and light rain. I had to put on quite a bit of my cold weather gear due to the temperature and light rain in the morning, but shed all of it by the afternoon. The mountains in Southern Oregon have some of the thickest forests I have ever seen. It was extremely pretty and one of the most beautiful places I have ever ridden through.
About 20 miles south of Portland, highway 5 begins to run through suburbs and bigger cities all the way up to about 20 miles north of Seattle. This was not an enjoyable ride as the traffic was very heavy and I was almost twice by car drivers when I rode through the Seattle area. Both times the cars almost hit me, they were coming into my lane without the drivers looking or turning on their blinker signals. Because I was paying attention, I was able to lay on my horn both times and put on the brakes enough so that I could avoid being hit. It was definitely a scary situation both instances! Needless to say I will never ride through the Seattle area again on a motorcycle.
My final destination for the day was Bellingham, WA, where my brother, his wife, and their son live. I arrived in Bellingham, which is a smaller town right on the Pacific coast, around 5pm. I ate dinner with my brother and his family and then ran to the nearest Walmart to gather a few last minute items I needed before heading further north into Canada tomorrow.
My brothers Sheepadoodle, Bruce.
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