Four day solo ride- Central Oregon
 

Christmas Valley Ride and Rabbit Hunt
May 23 to May 25, 2009

I went motorcycle camping SE of Christmas Valley, Oregon. The whole ride was a little over 510 miles, round trip. I stayed three nights and rode home on Monday. It was quite a trip for the little Honda (CB250 = 20 hp).

I left Lebanon on Friday morning (vacation day) with my saddlebags full, a tent, thermo-rest mattress, sleeping bag, food, cooking gear, and my rabbit hunting 22 rifle. I stopped in Sweet Home for fuel and rode over Santiam Pass on Hwy 20 to Sisters, Oregon and stopped for lunch. That was about a 90 mile trip.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59122970/200.../100_1719a.JPG

On to Bend 15 miles, and south on Hwy 97 about 30 miles to La Pine for more fuel. Just south of La Pine, I turned east on Hwy 31 and rode the 80 miles to Fort Rock, Oregon. I stopped at Fort Rock State Park for a drink etc. It felt good to wash my face. The day was getting warm, so took off the First Gear insulated rain suit and tied it over the top box. It looked like a mountain of gear.

Rode on to Christmas Valley, Oregon and stopped for fuel and drinks. I rode until getting to the gravel road south of CV where I’d decided to go rabbit hunting. The gravel was easy to ride, but when I crossed a cattle guard, the road turned to deep powder dust. I was all over the road and even in the ditches, but got slowed to about 10 mph and ended up riding on the cow trail that was beside the road for about 6 miles.

Found my friends with the RV's set up for camping. The road had puff dust for miles. I ended up riding in the ditch some to try and miss the deep dust.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59122970/200.../100_1728a.JPG

This is at camp after using a whisk broom and shaking off some of the dust.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59122970/200.../100_1736a.JPG

I had dust shooting up my pant legs as my feet were in the dust on the dirt road. Everything got pretty dirty, including sand in my lace up boots. Seems that cattle trucks had beat the road into ankle deep flour dust and made riding pretty hard.

We went rabbit hunting for four days and I even got a rattlesnake.

The bike stayed parked all weekend. My neighbor hauled most of my gear home to make the load lighter for the nasty dirt road. That helped a lot, and the thunderstorm the last night helped pack the dust too.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59122970/200.../100_1751a.JPG

The bike ended up getting 71 mpg for the whole trip and used $14 dollars of fuel. Later, Dave

More about solo trip
 

The yellow plastic piece under the side-stand helped the bike from falling over in the soft sand and dirt. I found it along the road (RV leveling setup) and it worked better than the scrap of plywood that I carry in the tank bag.

This picture is of the rain packed road on the way out. It still was rutted and dusty, but much better than the ride in.

At the Christmas Valley gas station, I met several ADV riders that came over from their cage and talked. They couldn't believe it was a Honda CB250 out desert riding. You do what you have to... the poor bike was caked with dust and mud.

Dave

More solo trip
 

The solo trip turned out to be six of us. Me on the bike and the rest RV camping. They shared their food, beer, whiskey, water and we had a great time.

I got more than a dozen jack rabbits and a rattlesnake. The others got more rabbits, but we all had fun.

The flowers were blooming after the thunder storm and rain.

Dave

Now that's livin'.:thumb

Nice! Sounds like fun. Four days and only two pics............had to be great riding. Thanks for sharing. :D :clap

i've been out there at least 3 times to hunt jack rabbits and only ever got one, and it was the wrong kind, cute little bunny rabbit.

I gave up on rabbit hunting.

Everybody else always talks about how they shot dozens of jack rabbits in a day. I don't get it, my group must be doing something wrong or just real un-lucky.

Glad you had fun. Did you know your neighbor was going to be out there? Quite a coincidence if not!

long weekend ride/rabbits
 

Yeah, I knew my neighbor was going to be out there somewhere. He was just at the camping site that I'd had in mind.

I took about 40 pictures, but this uploading one at a time is boring.

I'll put another one now. This picture is a sleeping jack rabbit. It's a Ruger 10-22 with a VX-1 Leupold scope. Open sights would be quicker to get on target. Most of the rabbits I got were sitting way out. I'm glad to have been silhouette shooting for years to have gained the needed skills. Nothing much past a football field, well maybe a few shots.

David

Classic Oregon!

Boy, that is my kind of ride!:clap I have one of those great little 10-22s myself. Swapped out the Bushnell scope for an AimPoint--even better for getting on target fast.:wink:

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