Butte-iful

Day Thirty Two: Bend to Vale OR

We clean up our hotel room in only 2 hours, a miracle considering it's Haz Mat status. The Girl looks so pretty with her gear back on and her fancy new duds. I'm so ready to get on the road I can't stand it. Settling onto my “throne”, as I like to call it, is soothing second nature by now. I feel like I have cowgirl ass. The weather today is clear and dry, and the temps will stay in the mid 80's. This is riding weather.

The Breakfast Club

We stop at a Goodwill and a Military Surplus store before finding breakfast. On 20 E heading out of Bend is The Breakfast Club, advertising famous 75 cent coffee. It looks and feels like the locals' place, so we're extra happy. The coffee is actually really good, and the servers are about as nice as they come. We order the breakfast sandwich with hash browns, a seriously good choice. First, there is a hunk of rosemary foccacia which has been sliced open and then grilled to crispy, crater-y, golden perfection. The grilled portion goes on the outside of the sandwich so as not to get soggy (it blew my mind too). Then, a fried egg, a fresh tomato, a spicy piece of sausage and some grilled spinach are layered within. Yowzah. The hash browns were also perfect, especially when garnished with a little orange puddle of Cholula.

From Bend to Burns we are back in high desert. Meadows full of sea foamy sage perfuming the air and hot, dry, sunny weather. The sun is to our backs now as we ride, helping prevent the afternoon sunburns we were getting on the first leg of the trip. After Burns, we ride through a beautiful canyon with hills ranging from cinnamon to cayenne to paprika. That may sound contrived, but truly, some of these colors are familiar, yet placed differently than I am used to seeing them. I have to stare at the thing and think “what is also that color”? Anyway, accompanying this spice colored canyon is a sweet garter snake of a river, providing cool green contrasts to the warm hills. This is another ride that I would put on the “to do” list of any biker.

Three Sisters

We roll into the Bully Creek Resevior right around cocktail hour. This is a county park, and seems to be a locals only place. I found it because I am becoming a clever navigatrix. It's literally a giant pool that serves to irrigate all of the corn and onion fields in the deserts of eastern Oregon. It's deep and dark blue, and looks totally refreshing. Folks are mainly fishing and riding around in motorboats, and grilling out at night. We have a sweet little picnic dinner of sourdough grilled in olive oil, guacamole and some local grass fed tenderloins. Perfection. It's only $15 to camp here, so we settle in for the night. Long eared hares graze nearby, blackbirds goof around in the trees, and as we fall asleep, some coyotes sing in the distance.