Day 5: Lakeview, OR - Ontario, OR

A game of two halves, Brian, except for the weather, which was uniformly cold, wet and BLEAN.  No roof-down motoring for Mr L today chiz.  Part the first ran from Lakeview to Prineville via bend, and was dull except for the bits of US-97 which are surfaced with cheese.  This has allowed passing lorries to carve bloody great ruts into them, which in turn means that Flash 'arry in his fat-tyred sports car has to hang on for grim death just to keep the bugger pointing in a straight line.  So instead I shall talk about Hair,for reasons which will become apparent when you, Constant Reader, reach the bottom of this post.

There are two types of hair which work in a convertible, viz. short hair and hair long enough to be tied back.  Mine is neither.  Therefore it either whips about my face, to the detriment of forward vision, or else has to be stuffed under a hat.  I have a fine IHPVA bucket hat, but wearing this at the wheel of a Corvette would make me look a right knobber.  I also have a Cat Diesel Power baseball cap, but my hair still sticks outs at odd angles and makes me look like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 2 or, put another way, a right knobber.  I am thus forced to conclude that, far from feeling sorry for Dr Hook's Lucy Jordan, one should be relieved.  Because if she had ridden to Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair, she'd have arrived looking like the wreck of the Hesperus.


Part 2 the second of today's run was altogether more fun.  US-26 is entertaining, OR-245 is a fully-fledged Daft Wee Road, as is OR-86 and its continuation into Idaho, where the speed limit on roads such as US-95 is 10 mph higher than it is in Oregon, where the Safety Nazis live.  The fun was a bit spoiled when the "Range" display on the motor-car's dashboard stopped telling me I could do another 80 miles and starting muttering about "Low Fuel", the electronic git.  However some restraint with the right foot allowed me to reach Baker City on fumes.  Following which there was a Deluge of Biblical proportions.  And a corner which, in his state of Being-a-Bozo, Mr Larrington attempted to take at least 10 mph faster than conditions would permit.  Big slide.  Wooo!  Scare-eeee!  Note to self: you are not The Stig.

OR-86 leads into the depths of Hells Canyon.  Here is a view of what it shouldn't look like,

but does, because the White Man came along and buggered things up by building Hells Canyon Dam some way downstream.  Also here is Oxbow Dam, which was another means by which the White Man buggered things up royally:

Anyhow, I am now in Ontario, of which there are a Several outside Canada.  I am fed and watered and in need of a kip, because this corner of Oregon runs on Mountain time instead of Pacific, and I am not going to get it, because there is a crying baby next door.  Bah!

Curious thing seen on the road: Bret Michaels'¹ tour buses:

They're parked outside the Super 8 across the road.

1 - former front-man of 80's hair-metal bozos Poison, that's who...