Heading east, but still in Oregon

Wow, what a weekend. I spent the weekend with my dear friends, Joe and Rebecca, in Ashland, Oregon. Joe and I started our relationship when he was a board member at CSI and I was the Executive Director. But since then, we have built a strong relationship....spending the Millenium New Year together in Alexandria, and then backpacking the week of September 11, 2001...never forgetting  the impact both had on us.

But the trip, let's start with the weekend. Ashland is quite a fabulous place. It is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Southern Oregon University. Beautiful city, lots of young people, fantastic art, community, theater and music. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is one of the top in North America, running from February through October every year. (http://www.osfashland.org/).  More than 250,000 tickets are sold for the performances. We attended a festival on the Green in the center of the city....one performance each night ALL SUMMER LONG. It was great!

Joe and I rode over to Medford for the Extreme Motorcycle show. It was an open street show of custom motrocycles, mostly Harleys. It was fabulous...lots of tatoos, and as Joe said, many Harley riders attempting to look solemn, or sullen, or something, instead of over the top with joy because their ride was in a competition. The show was really beautiful industrial art...amazing designs, and technology.

I left this morning and rode to Crater Lake. Whew! Never saw anything so beautiful. The lake is an extinct volcano...a caldera (Mount Mazama). It is nearly 2000 feet deep and has been fed only by rain water for nearly 8000 years. And yet, natural cyclical evaporation ensures that the depth varies no more than 3 feet each year. Fish and animal life did not exist in the Lake; it is now stocked with Rainbow Trout and Kokanee Salmon. I can describe it all. Check out the site. (http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm).

I had a great ride, through Natioinal Forests for more than have the day. They were amazingly pristine green lands. Now, I am in Burns, Oregon, just east of the Oregon Badlands. I turned east at Bend, and clicked into130 miles through high plains desert. It was long strips of two lane blacktop, with endless desert and basalt rock. The bio-diversity is amazing.

Well, I am exhausted..need to rest for another 350 miles tomorrow through Idaho, and more beautiful country. Stay tuned.

More later.