Objects in the Mirror...

Jeffrey Butts

It's a long way to Tipperary. At least it is from here. Springtime in Oregon always has that few weeks of fits and starts where you have to wait for the right day and the right weather to coincide. After the cold and rainy winter, Spring brings more rain (it's what we're famous for) but just a little warmer. Then, usually about in late April or early May, you start to see some nice days. It can be frustrating when the weekdays are nice and the weekends are bad but it doesn't take long for the karma to change and you get what we had last week; a sunny Saturday with morning temps in the low 60's. This coming together of the right circumstances, especially for the first time in the year, rings like an alarm clock. Stephanie can see it in my face and the restless tapping of my foot and says, "Why don't you go out for a ride?" The words were barely out of her mouth and I was already in the garage.

What a wonderful dilemma I am faced with. I can pick my weapon of choice. Do I take the 914? Do I take the 911? Do I hop into the Volvo and go get the Brick out of the hanger? Now I have a new option, the Harley, and it was an easy pick as the weapon of choice.

Today I thought I'd re-run a portion of a great road that I drove back in 2004. At the time I was in the 914 and I had a slightly over the speed limit run with a guy on a Ducati. I took the freeway out to Staley's Junction (Hwy 26 and Northbound Hwy 47) where I turned off for Vernonia. I'd been on this particular section of road before, and knew it to be well paved and fairly easy. I did almost all of my riding in 5th gear. The big twin has plenty of torque so my careful approach to corners never really resulted in bogging down the engine upon exit. I have to remember it has been more than 30 years since I have had a street bike and I probably didn't have but a couple of hundred miles on other bikes (the Bultaco and the Triumph) in all the intervening years. I am rusty and I know it. In the two months I have had the Milwaukee Vibrator, I have put about 650 miles on it. I don't know if it is a combination of my age (AARP), my understanding (high) of my skill level (low), or just paranoia, but I am not about to engage in any street racing. Well, I have wicked it a time or two just for the rush.

Following Hwy 47 out of Vernonia, I had planned on going as far as the Mist Junction (Hwy 202 and Hwy 47) and then follow Hwy 47 over the mountain to Clatskanie. Hwy 47 follows the Nehalem River and it is a wonderful road in either a car or on a bike. About 10 miles before Mist, I glimpsed a road branching off towards the mountains with a sign that pointed to Apiary. I remembered reading about that town somewhere in one of my books and so I turned around and decided to follow Apiary Road. Hwy 47 is pretty much a N-S road and it parallels the Columbia River, which is about 20 miles to the east. In between is a mountain range that drains to the Nehalem, and eventually to the Pacific on the west side and to the Columbia and the Pacific on the east.

The 23 mile long Apiary Road was once the best loggers link between the Willamette Valley and Washington, including the mills in Longview. It is possible to come up the Willamette Valley, skirt the Tualatin Valley by going west on what is now Hwy 47, and continue to Vernonia. Stay on Hwy 47 out of Vernonia and take the Apiary Road cut-off out of the Nehalem Valley, over the ridge to the lower Columbia at Rainier and then use the Lewis and Clark Bridge to cross to Longview and points north (Longview is just west of I-5). Now, practically speaking, that is not the fastest way today. However, for over a hundred years, the Nehalem and the surrounding mountains have been home to loggers and you are highly likely to come around a corner and find yourself behind a double trailer chip truck (like I did) or a log hauler.

Apiary itself is about eight miles due south of Rainier. The town was founded in the late 1880's by a beekeeper named David Dorsey. In those days, the only way to get mail delivered was to establish an official post office and Dorsey did just that, naming the community after his vocation and appointing himself the postmaster in 1889. Not much remain these days except for a few farms. I remembered reading some of the history of the community school. I won't bog you down with the details of who the teachers were, but I did find it interesting that they didn't get indoor plumbing until 1950. We're pretty rustic up here in Oregon. The memory was brought back to me as I stopped to take a picture of the Harley and made my own contribution to outdoor fertilization. In 1972 the school was closed due to costs (there were only six students and they were sent to another school closer to Rainier) and the property was put up for sale. The sale included the building and all the contents (except the bell) and one acre of land. It went for less than $9000.

It was a great road for the bike and would be for a sports car as well. As mentioned above though, you have to watch your sight distance because big trucks, big SLOW trucks could be around any corner. The Columbia side is a little shorter and certainly more populated. Eventually the road pops out at Hwy 30, the main road between Portland and Astoria. You have an eagle's eye view of the Lewis and Clark Bridge across the Columbia. Mills add their contribution to global warming on the Washington side and the bridge spills traffic into Rainier on the Oregon side. I gassed the bike up there, pretty much at the maximum cruising range. I had been on reserve for the past 15 miles. The gas tank is the same dimension as the XR-750, holding just under 3 gallons and the cruising range is somewhere around 120 miles. On the way back towards Portland I stopped in Scappose at the middle school, the same place where I met the previous owner of the 914 and made the offer to buy 19 years ago. From Scappose, I rode with another Harley as far as Cornelius Pass. He continued on to Portland and I hopped over the hill for a lunch at McMenamin's in Beaverton before heading home. It was really a nice day and this was the longest single ride I have had on the bike, about 135 miles. It's a long way to Apiary.