Escape From the Prison Planet

[BLUE]

Re-purposing is great. I’ve been doing a little myself. Fencing is a good move , and I’d do that to if it was laying around. What’s life without strawberries ?..addicting

I put one of those cheap replacement carbs on my 13hp Honda horizontal shaft pressure washer. Worked ok.

The Vibe being put to full use. Seeing it in the pictures makes me miss my old 91’ legacy Subaru 2.2 wagon.

[DRIVEN]

The Vibe works harder than most pickups where we used to live.

[wayno]

Can you mow between them raised beds?

I think I like big gardens where I can eat/graze for a while, the one I have is less than half the size it was, but I ran out of room for Datsun's so I down sized the garden, now I am thinking about putting it back the way it was.

[DRIVEN]

Yeah, I spaced them enough for my mower. I really need to get after the area with a weedeater and take it down to bare dirt. I'll probably do gravel eventually. It'll be a work in progress over the years.

[DRIVEN]

I cleared out the remaining area next to the well shed. It had been separated by a hog panel, some barbed wire, and random junk. Then weeds had grown over all of it. It was really only about a 20 x 20 area, but a totally jumbled mess. Once I got it cleared I discovered a sink hole by stepping into it up to my thigh (remember the hose that ran for 5 weeks straight?). That necessitated pushing a bunch of dirt around and using the tractor to compact and level it. Now I'll be able to keep it all mowed down and once I've got all my final fencing finished it'll be annexed to my yard.



When I bought the place there was cyclone fencing around the back yard for a dog kennel, around the side of the chicken house that I gave away, and around a small garden spot. It was all just scabbed together and nothing seemed to match. I took it all down and stacked it against a tree and it's been there for about 2 years. Yesterday I separated it into like types and put up my garden fencing. I reconfigured my garden layout a little and left a little room for expansion. There is a gate at each end.




I've still got (7) matching 10' panels as well as (3) odd gates. I may just put that stuff on CL and turn it into cash since I really can't think of anything to use it for.
The previous owner worked at the dump and I suspect that that's where a lot of things around here came from. He was also a half-asser but I've almost erased his entire legacy.



I added a Bing cherry tree to my orchard on Friday. I'll need to drop a medium sized willow before I add any more.



I still can't get over how poorly thought out the tree placement and fencing was done here. I'm making an effort to clear out anything that grows tall from under power lines. The willow trees will be replaced by either fruit trees or evergreens of some sort. I'll also be stringing my fencing so that if I need to drop trees I hopefully won't need to drop wire first.

My Google street view looks to be about 10-12 years old. It's really changed a lot here since then.

[DRIVEN]

119 miles of wilderness awesome.


Wild horses...



Three fingers wild horse trap...

It's a box canyon with some stone corrals.




Then Devil's Gap.




Still not dead.

[BLUE]

I need more cherry trees in my life.

119 miles ....nice....maybe Alaska’s not the last great frontier after all

[wayno]

There is some fairly rugged/desolate terrain in Idaho, I flew Hanggliders over some of it and I didn't see a lot of roads down there, lots of places to walk/hike or possibly ride motorcycles to where normal people will never venture, I seen some small lakes where only the adventurist and wild animals would likely frequent, I thought it would be cool to see some of it up close, but I was too busy Hanggliding on my free time.

[DRIVEN]

Same can be said about Oregon. I did almost 400 miles today with my dad along. We ran a loop through Vale, Unity, Baker, Halfway, Brownlee reservoir, then back into Idaho over to Cambridge and back home. Lots of twisty roads today. In fact, I was having too much fun to take more than 2 pics.



We rode past lots of really nice empty campgrounds on the Oregon side with big virus closure signs on the locked gates. I guess we know who to thank for that.

[DRIVEN]

Did a ridiculously badass ride with my buddy Jerod today. We blazed a trail to the airstrip at Pelican Point on the Owyhee Reservoir. There is no road. There used to be but it's been abandoned for decades and much of it just washed away. I'm not exaggerating when I say it might have been decades since anyone has been through there. Jerod thinks the winter of 1984 probably ruined the road. The last 3 miles down and back were just a dry creekbed. There's no way that you can appreciate it through phone pics.







Also, I'm still not dead.

[wayno]

Roughing it, gotta pay your dues.

[DRIVEN]

Really, Wayno, this was probably the most sketchy ride I've ever been on. We spent a lot of time on foot scouting before we dropped in. We had a couple sections where we had to double up and lift/drag/push/carry the bikes over obstacles. It would have been an impossible solo ride and we both discovered just how out of shape we are. It was no joke.

[wayno]

But now you have done it and know what it takes, perhaps there are other ways around the worst sections to make it a nicer ride.

[DRIVEN]

What's silly is that that road (Deadman Gulch) still shows up on all the maps -- including Google. But there's nothing there at all. The road peters out into a trail and dead-ends at a washout. You detour uphill about 20 yards and drop into, then out of, a 5' deep and wide gully. There are several more like that, then some steep side hilling along the edge of the creekbed for a mile.
After that you drop (slide) into the creekbed and it's not too bad until you hit a pile of Lazy Boy sized boulders that slid in. It's a two man job to drag the bikes around that spot. Then it's more creekbed and that section is about a mile long.
Once you get to the mouth of the canyon you can tell where the road bed was by the unnatural contour against the hillside. The while area is completely covered in 3-4' sagebrush so it's slow going as you weave through. Actually, the cattle trails made it passable but it was really hard to make out the road for the natural terrain for the last mile until you reach the airstrip.

The airstrip is owned by the state but only maintained by volunteers. There's an outhouse there and some tie-downs and there was a plane camping there when we pulled in but we didn't see the people, just the tent. Right after we got there another plane circled and landed. We chatted with the pilot, who had flown in to survey the damage to the crashed plane. I guess it happened a couple days ago and the guy walked away okay but they're going to have to take the plane apart and take it out by boat. He seemed really familiar with the area so we asked if there were any other ways in and he said there are game trails but it's impossible to tell how steep from the air.

[DRIVEN]

I did a turn and burn to Portland to deliver some stuff to my brother and pick up the buffer I inherited from him when he bought a new one.


I'm in a pretty aggressive prep mode for my OBDR ride in July. Almost all my stuff is here so I welded up some saddlebag mounts for some quick release waterproof bags.





Pro tip: Bicycle, ATV and horse gear is always cheaper than motorcycle gear. My brother's Giant Loop bag was $450 and my bicycle bags were $90. I'll see how they work out. Still waiting on my dry bag to put my sleeping bag in. I packed all my stuff except for water and some cloths and weighed it at 25.5# so I'm considering HD springs. Planning a couple practice overniters in the hills week after next. I'll have a better idea after that.

[DRIVEN]

I guess it probably doesn't really matter much, but I just realized that I ran every piece of running equipment I have this week. 1 Venza, 2 Vibes, 1 Cutlass El Camino, 2 TWs, Indian, BroHauler, mower, tractor, tiller, leaf blower, hedge trimmer, and 2 weedeaters.
No '35 pickup though.

[DRIVEN]

I had intended to spend the day on my wagon but just wasn't feeling it. Tinkered on bikes instead. Both got carbs adjusted and cables adjusted on the blue one.


I also extended both SAE connectors for the tenders from behind the side covers up to the clusters so I can use them for aux power supplies.




Easy way to charge while riding.



Then I fueled up and trailered up for tomorrow's ride. Trailer needs some love soon.

[DRIVEN]

My last dry bag showed up yesterday so today I decided to make an essential taco run. Really, I just wanted an excuse to see if it rode any different with all the luggage loaded. I've got about 35# on the back including the brackets. It's everything I'd have with me for a week except for a medium size water jug. A bee stung me on the inner thigh but I'm still not dead.

[DRIVEN]

Today's ride report...

My buddy was supposed to come over from Portland for a couple days to prep ride for July. Then he got the sniffles and pussed out at the last minute. So I decided I'd just do the shakedown ride alone. Today's objective was to simply ride a full day with a week's worth of gear to see how many miles I would realistically cover and test the bike and gear under full pack mule load conditions. I would run a mix of asphalt, gravel road, decent 2-track, and rough 2-track.

I've traditionally been a paper map guy but I'm auditioning OnX Offroad. Truthfully, I'm running pretty fast and loose with it. I downloaded it last night, then this morning I just started dropping pins. I had no set route but I'm somewhat familiar with 70% of what I covered today so I put my trust in technology. My wife was super unimpressed with my plan to run solo.

Well, it started off pretty awesome and I made decent time.





Between Leslie Gulch boat ramp and Fisherman's Road I got violated by a surprise trench across the road. I didn't have time to slow down or go around. All I could do was brace myself and try not to crash. Me and my trusty TW did okay but every single Chinesium rivet on both saddlebags sheared off and they tumbled to rest behind me. Luckily I had enough straps and tow rope with me to anchor them tho the bike. This was mile 67 and I needed to stop every 10 miles or so after to reconfigure or tighten straps.

I made it to Fisherman's Road and rode down to the lake then proceeded to the dam.

[DRIVEN]

I ran to the Owyhee store for a delicious gas station burrito then hit Tunnel Canyon.


If I can locate the front half to this Model A I'm coming back for this thing.



I don't completely trust OnX yet. I made a few side spurs that ended up going nowhere. There was one that maybe used to be a road but I eventually ended up just following a cattle trail. It did eventually get me to a real road though.

On my way back though Succor Creek I nailed a couple big rocks. One bent my shifter forward and the other bent my left peg mount back. Made for some interesting shifts. About 10 miles from home I came to a water crossing I did about 3 years ago. It was deep and I stalled out. Since I'm 3 years wiser now, I bypassed that and found another that looked to be only about 8" deep. Well, the water was, but the silt on the bottom was another 12" deep. I ended up knee deep in sludge and high centered on a rock but managed to climb out the other side.
I found this if any of you guys are interested.




Last landmark I passed on the way back to the barn was the Poison Creek stage stop. I fear this building probably won't be around much longer.


And here's where it all settled out.