So here it is the 4th of July and I am still here waiting for the weather to change!!!! and what should my eyes behold but a change in the weather!!! It actually was going to be a nice day!!!!!
So up early in the morning, have my coffee, start packing Mr. Blue for what would be the longest trip that we had ever been on together. I have put a few miles on him, but never to this extent. We were going over what is known as BEAR CAMP ROAD which is a road between Merlin and Gold Beach, Oregon with a stop at Agness, Oregon. Sort of a back way to the coast. Of course the last time I was on that road it was not paved, and no we did not go by horse and wagon, but as it turned out it definitely made the trip a lot more exciting!!!
I would recommend that you pull up MAPQUEST and put in Merlin, Or. as a start point and then put in Agness,Or. as the first destination, then add Gold Beach, Or. and then add Brookings, Or. and then add Merlin, Or. as the final stop and you will be able to see the whole trip from start to finish.... and we did this all starting the morning of the 4th and getting home the evening of the 5th in VOLKSWAGEN'S!!!
Well some of the OLD VOLKS and Folks make that annual run on the 4th and there ain't no better way to do it than just going fast!!!!! Unfortunately due to family sickness some of the people who would normally make the run were unable to so there were only 3 vehicles. This road has a lot of twists and turns that don't even begin to show on the map, but it is definitely a road that is fun to try and straighten out!! It is about 80 miles from Merlin to Gold Beach, give or take a few curves?? But getting over that 80 miles was a real HOOT!!! Unfortunately there are no pictures to show since driving in the mountains on a real curvy road and trying to take pictures can make things get a little dicey at times.
So with Larry the Leader in a hot rod dune buggy and me right behind him in a cloud of dust and WHOO HOOOO!!!!!!! we headed on down the road.....(see the first picture) We took the first turn off the pavement at about 45 mph. Now I know that does not sound very fast, but when you come off of pavement on to gravel I can tell you things start to happen in a hurry and you better be ready or you will be looking at the car that was behind you, not only does that give you a thrill, but everything you own starts to PUCKER UP!!!
The fun part is that Larry had a GPS so he knew where the curves were before they got there. Unfortunately I did not, but once I figured out how he shifted, then it was off to the races as he took off and I stayed right behind him and we left the others in a cloud of dust!!!! Of course we would slow down to allow a catch up, but I gotta say that just trying to keep up and not go off the road and avoiding oncoming traffic on some of those curves made this run nothing short of interesting!!!!
What really made it fun for me was that following his souped up buggy would have been fun, but he was also towing a small trailer!! and you have not seen anything until you see a hot rod buggy with a trailer going down a curvy mountain road at better than 50 miles an hour!! because every now and then the curve was so sharp that I would lose site and then come around and there he was going like a scalded dog and me on his tail lights!!
I am not exactly sure how long it took to get to Agness, Or. because we made a stop at about 5000 feet up. There is a rest area there, yes folks I said a rest area, not exactly like what you find on a highway, but a potty stop on this trip is definitely required!!!!! Since not only are you climbing until you get to this stop, but you are also trying to keep from going off the mountain because going over there you are always on the outside of the road!! But everything from the rest area on is downhill so you know what that means????? MORE SPEED!!!! Oh yeah, it was really interesting then.
So we got to Agness all in one piece and stopped and used the facilities which you can see in the pictures. Well this is where this part of the story ends as I am limited by pictures so you will just have to go to part two for the REST OF THE STORY!!!! and yes folks, the OUT HOUSE is the facilities in Agness, Or.!!!
{;-)
