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July 5th, 2012.
A day of leisure, pretty light on the scale of miles but huge on the pile of smiles. I had rendezvoused with an almost used up Honda Blackbird in Shasta and we only had ~290 miles on the plan this day, as we reluctantly weaned ourselves away from two days of feasting to get back on the road again. The plan being to stay away from the thoroughfares as much as possible and enjoy some back country scenic byways in Southern and Central Oregon and stop in Bend, OR for some nightlife.
Corinne sent us off in the morning with a scrumptious breakfast, so we were already loaded down a bit as we set off. Good thing we weren't riding far. We took I-5 to the Oregon border and the very first exit in Oregon is the Old Hwy 99. A road less(seldom) traveled, and it shows because it isn't in very good shape, rough and with a frequent sprinking of road debris. Also, heavily deer infested, in the short 5 miles that we were on this road, we had at least 4 deer spottings. One of them was a pretty big fella who bounded across the road when he heard us approach. Needless to say my attention was fully occupied and there were no pictures through here, and past Ashland, OR on Dead Indian Memorial Road.
This was a beautifully curvy road and a lot of fun leaning over the bikes, so much so that once again I didn't stop to take any pictures till we reached Lake of the Woods. We could tell from the GPS that we were running right alongside the lake, but true to it's name it is surrounded by woods so thick you catch absolutely no glimpse of it. So, I decided to take a little detour and headed towards the lakeside resort at Rainbow Bay. $2 "entry/day use" fee per motorcycle - no biggie!
Seemed like a good place to lounge about and watch some sail boats. I was surprised there were so few people here, considering that this was the day after the 4th of July holiday. It was a nice resort, with a store, a nice big restaurant overlooking the lake and I also spied some camping spots as well as some cabins near the lake.
