197 miles, 9.2 hours.

(post by Tamara)

After a supermarket breakfast in Powers, we rode back up the spur highway and grabbed the main route west.

In Myrtle Point, we stopped at the logging museum, which is an old mormon church building using balloon framing. The inside is just like a dome, and had interesting acoustics. It was a small place, and had some cool old logging stuff, like a dynamite thing like in the cartoons with the pump you push down on. I want one in my house now! :) There were some old engines and stuff outside that grabbed Ted's attention. It was a small place, and so we didn't stay long.

From there we kept heading towards the coast. Once we hit 101, we could feel the cold ocean air and if I knew we weren't stopping soon, I would have had to put on a liner. We stopped in Bandon for some fish and chips at a nice local joint.

From there we headed south several miles to the West Coast Game Park, which is an odd combination of zoo and petting zoo. The main draw for us was that they let you pet the little cubs, and I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to do that. The cashier let us stow our motorcycle gear behind the counter at the gift store, which was really nice. We got to see and pet a 1-year-old Siberian Lynx, and I loved its pointed ears and tufts. It had really long legs, and they can supposedly jump 10 feet straight up.

Its fur was very soft, especially compared to the other cubs we got to pet later. Next up was a 7 week-old snow leopard boy named Bentley. He had the biggest baby blue eyes and awesome spots. All of the baby cubs had those huge paws that just looked and felt so soft! The trainer would motivate the baby to come into your lap with a bottle of milk and then the visitors were allowed to pet behind the collar (back, stomach, back legs). When we got the baby leopard, it laid down in our laps with a toy, it was so sweet! We both just wanted to take it home with us.

Our next baby was a lion cub, maybe a few months old named Bella. She REALLY liked the patch of material on the knees of Ted's motorcycle pants, and kept biting it, even after the trainer would push her nose (which she really didn't like). She couldn't even be distracted from Ted's knees by toys, and we finally just had to push her off so the next people in line could have a turn, it was so cute! The rest of the animals were all in pretty tight enclosures, which was sad. I have a hard time with things like this - I want to see the animals, and especially the babies, but it is hard to know what kind of quality of life they have.

The other cats they had were black and spotted leopards - the black one kept pacing back and forth in front of one of the back doors, we figured it must be close to feeding time. He would scare everyone that would stop by the enclosure by running up to the fence and snarling. It was pretty impressive! There were a pair of lions, the parents of the little cub we got to pet, just sleeping in the shade. The other cats, tigers, white tiger, big snow leopard, were all sleeping too, doing what all cats do best! We enjoyed seeing some of the other animals - lots of pygmy goats, deer, peacocks, ducks, llamas, and wallabys. There were two black bears that would stand up and pose for treats, it reminded me of those organ grinder dancing bears. For $15 each, it wasn't a bad way to spend a 1.7 hours.

We took off again heading south, and crossed the neat Rogue River bridge at the north end of Gold Beach, and then turned east towards Grants Pass. The road followed the Rogue River and it kept getting hotter as we moved inland.

Ted did a stint on the FZ6, and decided it only need one gear - 2nd was perfect for 25-DoD nominal.. he thinks I definitely need one, yes, for me. hah. We took a small highway up past Agness which was a one lane, very narrow, twisty road. It was fun, with only 5-6 vehicles during its ~35 miles. There were a lot of bumpy patches, big creases in the road, and some gravel sections, but the scenery was gorgeous and the twisties were a blast. We passed 2 motorhomes going the other way- one was even towing a car, which is definitely NOT recommended on that road. I think that would be a pretty scary drive. The "fast" sections were only about 40 mph, but most of the road had to be kept at 20-25.

The road was actually the road that James Kim and his family were on when he died.

It continued to get hotter the further we rode, and when we got near Grant's Pass it was still hot enough that neither of us really wanted for camping. But my left hand was really hurting and I just couldn't go another 50 miles to get further into the mountains, so we stopped anyways at a camp next to the river. After a shower and some dinner, we felt a bit more human, though it was still a bit hot when we tried to turn in. All in all, it was a fun day with lots of twisties, pretty scenery and some awfully cute baby cats.