TWO BAD DAYS!
Our first clue should have been that the GPS would not bring up directions to Mount St. Helens. When we were leaving the Sportsmans Warehouse that we told you about in the previous post, we tried to get directions from there on the GPS to Mt. St. Helens. It spun its wheels forever and came up with a St. Helens in Jamaica and a couple of other places but not the one in Washington. We decided we would not let it get the best of us, so we put in the city of Cougar, which is near there. When we left Madras on Tuesday morning, we had both St. Helens and Mt. Ranier as our points of interest for the day. However, it was not to be. We never got there! The route that Ms. GPS took us had us going out into the country, and several times we decided that this was not the way we went into it the last time we visited. When Ms. GPS tried to get us to go down a dirt road, we knew she was really confused. The road got more narrow as we traveled (but the road did have a yellow line), until we decided to turn around when we found a wide spot in the road. This made our whole day a day of travel in the seat with the only times off the bike being when we stopped for gas. We then decided it was time to just try to get to Hells Canyon the next day.
We ended up at Hermiston, Oregon for the night. We stayed at a really nice motel that had a stone facade and was really nicely landscaped. There were big stone slab benches outside and just inside the door. There were large leather and cowhide couches inside the lobby with a large ottoman covered in some kind of hide.
We had a restful night and woke up to a cold morning of 47 degrees, with a very heavy overcast sky. As soon as we pulled onto the interstate, it started raining. This should have been another clue not to get off the interstate to travel on a two lane, but we were determined to see Hells Canyon. Soooooo, off we take down the two lane, traveling several miles on the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. We noticed several cars, trucks, and motor homes coming from the opposite direction but none going our way. (Another clue?). It was still raining, overcast, and foggy looking over the mountains, and we discussed a couple of times turning around, but bullheaded as we are, decided to go on. Never give up, right?
We got to within 22 to 23 miles of the Hells Canyon Overlook and a truck came up behind us that had 2 kayaks on top, so we were relieved that we were not the only idiots out there! LOL. We stopped them and asked if they had ever been there before and they had not, so they could not tell us the road conditions ahead of us, and we waved them on by us. A couple of other vehicles caught up with us and we waved them on by so we could go at our own pace.
The rain suddenly started looking thicker and falling heavier, and we realized that it was actually snowing - not raining! Then it began to snow really hard, like piling-up-snow hard! We were looking for a place to turn around and a fork in the road appeared, so we took the opportunity to turn around. Everything started fogging up and the windshield got covered with snow, sooooo we had to stop to clean it off. We were able to make it a few more yards and had to stop to clean it off again. The temp by this time had gotten down to 35 degrees! We stopped 3 or 4 more times to clean the windshield before we ran out of the snow, but it was still a cold rain. We knew we had to get out of there, so we did travel a little faster going out than we did going in - still at a safe pace, though. We finally made it back to a little town called Enterprise and stopped for gas. The attendant told us, "Oh yeah, they are predicting 3-6 inches in the canyon!". How did we miss that news?
We got a room at the Ponderosa Motel in town. There were several other motorcycle riders in town stopped for gas at other stations, most single rides, but a couple of others with two-up. By that time, our socks were beginning to get wet and rain was getting in other places that had been dry before. So by 1:30, we were in a nice dry room with the heat turned up as high as it would go! We are in for the night again and are praying for the rain to stop tonight as we head toward Cody, Wyoming tomorrow. It is supposed to be in the 80's there tomorrow! And sunny! Oh, and no pictures from these two days, so don't look for them! :-)
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