Carson City, NV to Rogue River, Oregon - 'the ride home from Infocomm'

As you head north from Carson City, NV you continue on US 395 as far as Susanville, California.  It's interesting that along this stretch of highway you go into and out of California/Nevada several times as it winds its way north.  Just west of Susanville you turn onto Hwy 44 and eventually onto Hwy 89.  It's an awesome ride with views of Mt. Lassen (above), and Mt. Shasta farther west.  It's truly hard to beat this area for beauty.  The route is about 150 miles to Weed, California (395 to Susanville, Hwy 36 out of Susanville to the turn at Highway 44 and then to 89 as you wind northwest toward Weed). There are only a couple of gas stations and only one or two restaurants on this entire stretch, so once again; plan ahead.


You need to be constantly vigilant for deer and other critters crossing the road on this road.  I had narrowly missed squishing two chipmunks on my way down this road.  I saw 5 deer alongside the road, and two dead dear that were freshly killed by cars in recent days.  So...watch out!  


It's so pretty along here.  High mountain plateaus, streams, huge green grassy water filled meadows, snow occasionally (in June), and spectacular mountain vistas.


As we cruised along, ever vigilant; we were totally freaked when from out of the brush on the left side of the road an animal burst onto the road.  After the initial shock, it was almost laughable that it turned out to be a wayward chihuahua.  Some folks on the right side of the road were stopped at a rest area and their dog had evidently crossed the highway in search of 'big game'.  You just never know what you'll see.


We always stop in Weed, California (Weed is the name of an early settler/politician).  There's a great restaurant and motel there.  It's called the Hi-Lo Motel and Restaurant.  The motel is spartan, but quite adequate.  The restaurant is awesome!  Great homestyle comfort foods and the kind of waitress that you only get in this kind of place; friendly and with the kind of experience in their job that everything goes just about perfect.  We stayed in the motel on one of our trips, and we've eaten here several times.  Weed has lots of great gas stations and motels and many fast food restaurants along with the local ones.

It's just south of Weed that you return to the Interstate Highway finally as you head north toward our homes in Olympia/Vancouver BC.

This stretch of I-5 is filled with wonderful views and wide open riding. The traffic has never been anything close to heavy from Weed north into Oregon.  You can zoom along and feel relatively safe as this road is well maintained and has wide open views.

Peter and I always say the same thing as we ride up thru Southern Oregon.  'I love Southern Oregon.'  It's a magical area.  The mountains and meadows are green and the hills and valleys are often with a beautiful farm and horses or cows strolling about contentedly.

You follow or pass over lots of streams and rivers heading north; often following a river valley for miles.  So pleasant....and a relief to be on a major highway with much less stress about deer and other things on the road. (obviously deer can be a problem even on the highway, but the visibility is so much more open here that it is much easier to keep aware of them)


Ashland, Oregon (where they have the annual Shakepeare Festival) is a place I could see myself living in somewhere down the road.  Medford, Oregon (just north of Ashland) is another place where I could easily live.  


Along the way on this day; we decided that we should make Rogue River, Oregon our destination for this night.  On our ride to Infocomm in 2008, I had a flat tire on the rear of my bike on a Sunday afternoon.  As motorcyclists know; it's nearly impossible to change a rear tire 'on the road' these days.  As a result, I ended up stuck in Rogue River that day.  When we finally realized that no amount of phone calls would bring help, we decided to make it to the closest motel in that very small town, and stay there until Tuesday.  Most motorcycle shops are closed on Sunday and Monday....don't know why...but it's the way it is almost everywhere.


The good news about the realization that you can do nothing about the problem, is you can then just relax and enjoy what the day brings you.  In the case of Rogue River, it was a special treat to discover this town.


Situated on the raging Rogue River (it's name fits perfectly).  We learned from a waitress at Karen's Kitchen - next to our favorite Best Western Hotel that lots of famous people have made this place their destination for the kind of amazing fishing that you can find in the rivers of Southern Oregon.  Clark Gable and many more came here to float the river from Grant's Pass out to the ocean near Brookings.  


Our stop at Rogue River this time yielded a huge cache of interesting people and once again we fell completely in love with RR.


I'm going to take the next post to describe our amazing afternoon and evening there.  See you there.

Day Two - Ride to Las Vegas - Roseburg, OR to Carson City, NV

We had a very relaxing stay in Roseburg along the river and awoke early on this day to continue our trip.  Once more, we had no goal as far as our destination for the day.  We decided early that we should take this ride much more slowly than our previous trips.  Each of the other two times we've rode this ride, we did it in 2.5 days.  We decided to take up to four days this time.

The skies were mostly blue and the temp around 60 degrees as we loaded up the bikes once more.

I have some really nice storage for my bike, but instead of using the saddle bags and a specially made leather box for carrying my goods, I elected to take my regular roll-around suitcase and its attachable bag instead.  With my saddlebags, you have to lift up the back of the seat each time you put them on or take them off.  Since we always strip the bikes down each night I was not looking forward to dealing with that each night.  In the end, my plan worked well, including the awesome ability to pull my suitcase along on its wheels when we arrived and departed from the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. (vs. carrying them).  So, you'll see photos of my bike....it looks strange without bags and with the suitcase strapped on...but at this point of my riding career I was not out to impress anyone other than myself.

Peter had his great zip off saddle bags (there's a zipper that releases the bags from the bike).

We both really enjoy this part of the ride thru Southern Oregon. It is normally very green in June and much more dry than all things north of there.  You ride mostly in a valley, but go up over several big passes (elevation up to 3000 feet) as you head south to California.  There are lots of winding roads going up and then back down each of these passes, and you can travel 70 - 80 mph very safely as the roads are exceptional interstate highway with great maintenance on them, and the traffic is relatively light.

As the day progressed we began to focus on Carson City Nevada as our place to stop for the night.  You leave I-5 at Mt. Shasta and head mostly east on US 89 from Weed, CA to Susanville, CA.  It's an awesome beautiful ride going thru the high country that runs to the south of the majestic Mt. Shasta.  The road from I-5 to Susanville is approximately 140 miles.  You are surrounded by nature's best, with mountains, valleys, streams, and lots of trees along the way.  Often you have trees immediately surrounding the road on both sides for miles at a time.  The downside is that you need to remain very focused and always on the lookout for movement from the sides of the road.  A deer crossing in front of you going 70 mph has potential for making your ride much less pleasant.  I usually take the lead on this part of the ride.  I'm all about safety.  I have a white helmet because studies show you are much more visible and much more likely to be seen by motorists.  I also have special running lights added to my Honda VTX 1300 to add to my visibility with a total of three forward lights always on.  Since this portion of the road is almost entirely two lanes, you have to wary of motorists making ill-advised moves coming from the other direction and watch for animals on the road.

This drive could not be more beautiful on a warm sunny summer day, and it was just that as we headed toward Susanville.  We stopped a few times to enjoy the surrounding views and were always glad when we did.

My Honda has been a great bike and has taken me on two Las Vegas roundtrips and one to Los Angeles.  I love how it handles and how it rides and looks.  However, it has a total range of just about 200 miles due to gas consumption, before you are out of gas.  We normally stop and get gassed up at Yreka, CA. as it is the first city in California coming from the north.  Oregon has strict laws at their gas stations; ie:  the attendant has to handle the transaction (even tho you are sitting on your bike right next to the credit card swiper).  They have those devices on the end of the pump that catch escaping gas vapors.  These are really hard to use on a bike.  If you want to fill your tank completely up, you have to stand your bike up straight while filling (they normally lean on their kickstands), and you have to grab the vapor trap and push it up to simulate that it's being pushed up by how its inserted into the gas tank.  This is the only way to get your tank totally full.  For the 140 miles across Hwy 89 plus the ride from Yreka to the turn off...it's getting close to 175 miles from gas to gas in Susanville.  I usually run out of my main tank at about 150 miles.  So...both of us were on reserve as we rode into Susanville.

Susanville is a working class town with nothing special other than its great location to take notice of.  We gassed up and then stopped at the Starbucks on the south end of town where you finally hit Hwy 395 south.  Starbucks became a normal stop on our ride this time.  A little cappucino in the afternoon really helped make the late afternoon ride better.

This ride is as pretty as it gets with every type of scenery you can imagine in the high mountain plateaus.  I do highly recommend taking extra precaution for fuel consumption and for the many deer and other animals that may decide to cross the road in front of you at any time.

Drive safe, stay focused, do not consume any alcohol or other things that would cause you to be less than 100% on this stretch.  You don't want to miss the beauty of have an accident.

We decided to make Carson City, NV our stop for this night.  It would allow us to get south of the Reno traffic in the morning so that we can start our next days ride without that hassle.  HWY 395 comes from Susanville and goes all the way down behind Yosemite National Park.  However, you have to go right thru downtown Reno, NV, and it is always scary and crazy as the many visitors to Reno add their lack of knowledge of the area to the huge onslaught of normal traffic....all trying to find your way to the next place.  I hate this part of the ride, and we decided to take it on at the end of our day so it was not in our minds for the next days ride.  Carson City is about 30 minutes south of Reno and is much quieter, so it worked for the end of ride on day two.  We stayed at an in-town old motel cause it was close to the restaurants and all.  We wanted to be able to walk to dinner.  BIG MISTAKE.  Lousy  air conditioning, bad pillows, and  more caused us both to have a bad sleepless night.  All of that factored into our ride on day three.

We stopped for about 30 minutes for roadwork along Hwy 89 (below photo)