I woke up ready to enjoy to enjoy the coastline of Oregon. What I didn’t know was that I was about to experience the only failure my trusty BMW K75 would ever suffer in 65,000 miles of service.
Day 3 – Crescent City, California to Lincoln City, Oregon, ~250 miles
Day 3 begins!
The gift shop and museum of the Ship Ashore Resort – unfortunately the ship is temporarily closed.
This was my first time in Oregon – and I have a rule to take a picture of the welcome sign from any state I’ve never been to before…
A beautiful coastline, though the whole day was overcast and wet.
I didn’t realize that in Oregon, an attendant has to come fill up your vehicle. Luckily, motorcycles are exempted from this rule. With that said, this attendant came up and was helpful to a fault – he insisted on taking the credit card from my wallet and swiping it for me…in the pump that was all of one foot away from me. Seemed a little absurd.
Trouble! For some reason the sensor that stops fuel flow didn’t work and I dumped a good amount of extra gas all over the tank. I cleaned up as much as I could, so all you see here is soapy water. Unfortunately, the gas took off a little bit of the paint from the top of the tank, but I was too annoyed to bother taking a photo.
Bridge over the Rogue River. This is excellent news, because it means I’m slowly but surely getting closer to Rogue Ales & Spirits!
A map at the Prehistoric Gardens, a tourist attraction that apparently combines ‘nature, science, and adventure’. You won’t be able to read details of the map, but I learned from the cashier that each major city on the Oregon coast is about 27 miles away from each other. The reason for that is that’s the distance a person could (can?) comfortably cover in a day by horse. Cool.
Inside the Gardens you’ll apparently find a bunch of model dinosaurs. I couldn’t justify spending more than 10 minutes there, though, so I didn’t bother paying for admission to the whole thing. Instead, I got comfy with this T-Rex model that was outside.
Leaving the Prehistoric Gardens. Thank you!
Before I left, I met Tomas and his family. They’re Austrian, and oddly enough, doing the same trip as me – Los Angeles to Seattle. They rented a Suburban to do the trip. It was his first time in America, and he wanted to check out the Pacific Coast. Good choice, I say.
Baaaa.
A statue of the old StarKist logo, Charlie the Tuna. Apparently the statue was stolen in 2008 and then chopped up when the thieves were scared they were about to get caught. Thankfully, the town created a new one.
I LOVE bridges, particularly drawbridges. There were a ton to check out, unfortunately none were in action.
I didn’t know if there was anything exciting to see in North Bend, but I did enjoy the unique ‘welcome’ sign.
Right after I took that photo, a deer jumped out in front of the bike while I was slowly moving in traffic. I rushed to get my camera out but could only snap this blurry shot before it went back into the trees.
Sick of bridges yet?
No? Good, here’s another drawbridge.
This bridge had been rotated, but I couldn’t tell why – there wasn’t any boat traffic to be seen.
Close-up.
Haha, what are the chances? Yes, an Indian dude runs it. And yes, I went by it and had to turn around just so I could take a picture of it.
Abhi’s a smart dude – American flags so no one can call him anything but a patriot, and obvious signs like “Do Not Hit” so people don’t do dumb things!
A lighthouse across the bay.
The wind was creating some huge waves. In fact, the day after the storm, the weather was so nice that they had a surf competition – apparently there are people that are on call and have to be able to show up from anywhere in the world within 24 hours when they call one of these competitions – one of them ended up staying in the same motel as me this night.
When I first bought the K75, I thought the bike was terrible looking. It’s slowly grown on me.
Whale’s tail and blowhole. Every once in a while the blowhole shoots out a jet of water straight up, but I didn’t have the time to wait for it.
Finally, Rogue Brewery! Not just that, but my K75 has some company. Two guys from a local Ducati dealership were waiting for a guy named Paolo Pirozzi. Ducati sponsored this guy to take a new Multistrada around the world in 80 days (see the bike named Lidia?), and he was supposed to show up at the dealer today for a promotional event. We were following him on a SPOT tracker but at some point he turned around so the employees bailed to find out what was going on. I wish this photo did a better job of showing you just how damn wet it was outside.
My gear is drying at Brewer’s on the Bay, which means I’m about to have some beer from my favorite brewery in the world – Rogue!
You have to walk through the brewery to get to the restaurant. One of their mascots is a black lab, hence the sign.
I decided I’d rather just go drink beer than bother with a tour.
Yum. All hail Dead Guy Ale!
The current list of available beers at the restaurant. Now we’re talking.
In an effort to try as many new beers as possible, I tried a sampler. They give you the piece of paper, you write down which 4 you want to try and it all comes back to be enjoyed.
Haha, this is not a duplicate. I just wanted to try more.
Okay, this needs some explanation. After my joyous moment of enjoying beers at Rogue, things went south. 5 miles south of Lincoln City I noticed that the instrument panel on the bike had gone completely dead – but the bike was still running. I decided to wait till I get into the city to try and figure out what’s wrong. I parked at a Chevron and realized that fuse #1 has blown. No problem – I replace it with another 7.5 amp and…it immediately blows as well. Crap.
I walked 1/2 a mile to the local hardware store to pick up more fuses.
For a minute, I have some success, then the fuse blows again. Well, I’ve clearly got a short, but without diagnostic tools (and frankly, other tools), I’m not going to have much luck finding it.
The dreaded fuse block. I give up, pull out my BMWMOA Anonymous book and look to see if there’s anyone in Lincoln City that’s willing to help. I luck out and get in touch with a gentleman named Wayne who drives out to meet me. Once we determine that we’re pretty much SOL, he sets me up in a motel down the street, gets me the local’s rate, and tells me about a mechanic buddy of his that might be able to help next morning.
I put the bike away for the night. Tired, wet, and incredibly pissed off, I wasn’t in the mood to take photos of what was going on while things were apart.
The Historic Anchor Inn. Very kitschy and dirt cheap, although the amenities reflected it. The inn was opened in 1946 and is apparently now going through a sympathetic restoration. My cell phone got wet and was acting up, and the wireless internet barely worked. I downloaded a wiring diagram for my bike and left a message for the BMW dealership in Portland, 80 miles away. Wasn’t looking forward to getting it towed and having to pay dealer labor rates.
I got a couple of portable heaters because the normal room heater was busted. I was fairly dry myself, so instead I used them to dry all my personal belongings. Didn’t work that well. Nothing left to do at that point – I went to sleep, hoping for better luck the next morning.
Back to Day 2 – Sacramento, California to Crescent City, California, ~420 miles
On to Day 4 – Lincoln City, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, ~300 miles
Want more ride reports? Check out my Travel page!