Its Saturday morning and we are headed to the meet and eat breakfast in
Tri-Cities. Breakfast meet time is 9 am, so we prepare to leave home in
Pendleton by 7 am. It is still mostly dark and fairly cold, so we dress
warm. We will be giving our new heated jackets a work out today.
We stop a few miles out of town for a couple of pictures.
Close to sun rise over the Blues
Holdman
Got to stop to get a picture of the river
In case you haven't figured it out yet, we are going to be stopping for lots of pictures today.
Crossing over into Kennewick
We arrive for breakfast, but I fail to get a picture of the outside with all the bikes parked there.
Inside we get a good group together
The food shot
Visiting with friends
After breakfast, most go riding one place or another. Some went to
Juniper, others plan shorter rides. Katy and I, in usual fashion, plan
to make it a full day of riding. Katy had found a scenic route on the
internet that started in Othello and followed hiway 17/155 to Grand
Coulee Dam. That is where we are going.
In the middle of no where between Tri-cities and Othello.
Time to find hiway 17
Moses Lake (the lake, not the town)
Soap Lake
We stop for a cup of Coco in Soap Lake.
Downtown Soap Lake
The road north of Soap Lake runs along various lakes
Yes, that is ice on the lake
Dry Falls viewpoint
Was wondering how thick the ice was. On Banks Lake near Coulee City, we see this.
A group Ice fishing
Directly across the hiway
Steamboat Rock
As we got closer to the dam, it was obvious that we had just missed a
heavy rain storm. Hope we keep missing them for the rest of the day.
Grand Coulee Dam
We don't spend much time at the dam since it is already well into the
afternoon and we still have lots of riding we want to do. We have to
back track 30 miles. Along the way, we take a few pictures of things we
saw on the way up.
The frozen water falls caught our interest.
Stop to feed the beasts in Coulee City before heading west on hiway 2.
For our trip home, Katy wants to explore an area she saw on a ride
report by our friend Nick, AKA "Old Man Time" from Thumper Talk. He
rode an area known as Moses Coulee. It looked like an interesting ride
and since it was nearby .... well you get the idea.
Find what I hope is the correct road.
At the worst, we can catch a flight out if we can't ride out.
Then again, maybe not. At least there are no long TSA lines at this airport.
Recognize this sport from Nicks report. We are on the correct road.
We bought Stroms so we would not have to turn around at times like these. Time to break them in right.
Farm in the Moses Coulee
The road took us right through the farm
Lots of neat junk here.
According to the internet, a "Coulee" is a deep gulch or ravine with
steep sides. We are in one called Moses Coulee. It does have steep
sides.
Downtown Palisads
We come out on hiway 28 near Crescent Bar.
Look down towards Crescent Bar. We have ridden our off road bikes to
the spot in the middle of the picture before with Nick and other
friends.
We have never been on this side so we ride down to see it from this side.
Looking across the river from the Crescent Bar side
This is a picture of the "other" side taken last summer during the Ironbutt 150 looking towards the town of Crescent Bar
After leaving Crescent Bar, we head directly for home since it was
getting late in the day. So far, we had totally avoided the rain. We
head home through Quincey to George on the freeway to just before the
Vantage Bridge and then by Mattawa towards Tri-Cities. We were making
good time until we got by Mattawa. The wind was really blowing making
it difficult to stay on the road. We stop for a break at the Verneada
Bridge rest area.
Still no rain, but it looks like a storm was heading our way.
Once leaving the rest area, you soon climb up out of the river valley
and run along the edge of the Hanford area. We though the wind was bad
by Mattawa, but once on the flat plateau, the wind was really blowing.
We were riding sideways to the direction of the wind. There were tumble
weeds blowing all over the place. Tried to avoid the biggest ones. It
cut our speed enough that we didn't make it to Tri-Cities until it was
getting dark. Also by then, we was raining lightly.
Fed the beasts once more time in Tri-Cities before heading home.
It was raining just enough to make it diffcult to see. Avoided the
freeway as much as possible and headed for home. About 15 miles from
home, it started raing really hard. Glad we had the heated jackets and
heated grips. Nearly 14 hours after leaving, we make it home okay
without further incident. According to the gps, the total miles for the
day was 503 and the riding time was 10 hours and 10 minutes.
Could of done without the wind and rain at the end of the ride, but it was still a very good ride.
Thank you Nick for the info about the Moses Coulee
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Subject: After Breakfast Strom Ride - March 14 2009 
3/15/2009, 4:44 pm
True diehards.
need some sunshine
