Alivia's Birthday ride, which always comes around the longest day of the year, is a highlight of the Motorcycle season. This year she was hoping for a coastal run, but the weather was not looking good, so at the last minute we made a switch and headed east over the Cascade range with a destination of Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. It turned out to be a great choice. It was sunny, but not too hot for both days of the ride.

One of the goals of these rides for me is to ride hard enough long enough to get good and exhausted, crash and then get up the next day and do it again. This takes the starch out of my shorts and helps with my general level of contentment. I took Asfoloth Bucephelous, my big bad boy bike which pretty much guarantees the exhaustion part. He has a six gallon gas tank which means you can get where you are going without thinking about fuel availability.

Last years modifications have made riding this behemouth possible for me, and much of the day, both days, was unmitigated joy. It is still a challenge for me physically. It is clear to me that I have control of the bike, but not mastery. But we have just made it over the 2k mark, so there is time. It is clear that if I want to ride this bike, I need to be in the gym three times a week - no cheating.

Eastern Oregon is fun, the picture below tells you pretty much what you need to know about the culture.

I didn't take a picture of the place where we ate dinner, which was a combination dinnerhouse and taxidermy museum. They had geese hung from the ceiling over your table, and enoug critters for an ark staring at you from all sides, including, and I am not making this up, a two headed calf, a two headed lamb, a giant anteater and enough road kill to keep the county clean. Made me a little nervous to order the steak, but you know me - reckless!

But we did get to our destination by the middle of the second day. Crater Lake is really up in the air. They have very special West Coast snow that doesn't melt in the summer.