Day One – Starstruck… Out.

Today started before the sun rose and we were on the road by 6:15. We had over 400 miles to travel today so we hit it early.

We were rewarded by witnessing a beautiful sunrise over the foothills.

As we rode through Marysville, We started to get cold. We shivered until we got to Chico and then stopped for a stretch and added an extra layer.

It was a beautiful ride and when we got to Susanville, we were getting warm and sleepy. We stopped for gas and an espresso. With both the bike and our bodies fueled up, we continued on with one less layer.

The view as you are leaving Susanville is one of our favorites. The road rises into high desert and winds back and forth offering beautiful views of the valley below.

We encountered six stops for road construction. And at one point, we had to ride through dirt. Our beautiful, clean bike was dirty before we even got past the first day.

Lake Almanor was stunning in the late morning light.

Most of the ride after Lake Almanor was ranch land in high desert.

Soon we were in Oregon! We traveled along the Oregon Scenic Byway, known as the Oregon Outback.

The byway wanders through sage brush and hay fields.

Tom commented that this was so much better than riding through the Nevada desert… then we decided that it was very similar!

We passed Summer Lake on the way to the hotel. It was more like Summer dry-bed Lake.

Once we got to the lodge, hot and tired, we were delighted to see a swallow’s nest and four little babies welcoming us.

We unpacked, showered and headed for dinner which was very good. Especially the peach pie!

It is super windy here with gusts over 25 mph. The AC doesn’t work in the room but we’re getting good airflow with open windows. Noisy, but at least we’re cooling off.

Today was filled with relearning our limits, routines and frustrations when the technology we counted on didn’t work. We had the brilliant idea to use Siri via the helmet Bluetooth to take notes to use in our daily posts. We could not get it to work. It worked when we tried it at home, but not today.

But all of a sudden, Cathy was listening to Green Day on her helmet speaker. That was great until Josh Groban began signing Silent Night. No offense, Josh… when it’s 95 degrees out, this is not appropriate road-trip music.

Tom tried to figure out the problem and ended up unpairing the helmets. After a few cuss words, we were re-paired. We will just go back to the old school way of taking notes when we stop.

One of the reasons Tom wanted to stop here tonight was for the dark night sky. He’s an astronomy nerd. Summer Lake is a dark sky sanctuary. However, the moon did not consult us before we arrived and it is waning from a full moon a few nights ago. Too bright. We did see the Big Dipper, Sagittarius and a satellite. What he wanted to see was this…

We did not. We star-struck out.

The wi-fi is terrible here, so we may have to re-post pictures tomorrow.

Tomorrow, our destination is Carson, Washington which is situated along the Columbia River. Here’s our route!

Today’s Barn Pic…