Rainbows were all over the place last Tuesday, a big shipment must have come in with the dark rain clouds on the weather semi-truck that seems to visiting the Rogue Valley frequently and off-loading all its merchandise at the atmospheric loading dock here in town.
This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday I took advantage of the warmer weather, some of it wet, some of it dry, and made a trip each day on the bike up to the Mt. Ashland ski lodge. Each day provided different experience, as the weather, riding partners, and all changed each day. Here is one of them, more to come of the other trips.
I called up my friend John, and used my best phone sales-man technique to convince him that a ride up Mt. Ashland would be nice weather, warm, and dry. Turned out this was the most blue sky we saw all day, and as for the dryness, well, it was dryer than taking a bath. I guess that weather truck shipment had unloaded a bit of merchandise to distribute through the week. John and I kept climbing, lured by thoughts of a warm ski lodge waiting at the top.
A little less than halfway up the 15 mile climb is Callahans Lodge, they have a beautiful lobby and seating area that usually features a big roaring fire, as you can see, there is no smoke from the chimney, means no fire, means we gotta keep pedaling up up to keep our own fire burning. Just after seeing this sign a large, multi-colored semi truck whizzed past us at a high rate of speed...
And a couple miles later we saw that it had crashed, leaking precious rainbow batter all over the road. Refer back to the first pic of this post, rainbows just don't come from anywhere, they come from the factory, which delivers them on trucks, and sometimes those trucks crash.
Riding through the snow, just near the top of the climb at 6,850 feet. Not bad weather considering it's the middle of December.
The lodge. All they need is: a hot tub, a good restaurant and espresso bar, a fire place with real wood. Though this will have to do.
HOT. GOOD. TOP. GOOD. FIRE. GOOD.
John on the left, me on the right, fire at our backs making us feel more alright. Miles of smiles make the raindrops worth-whiles, even rainbows on the ground and clouds in the sky couldn't hamper our spirits or make us question our try.
It was wet, it was cold, but it was a lot of fun. I wouldn’t have missed it.
Alex, John,
Looks like a remarkable ride. I miss the climbs around there!
Cruised the decker loop yesterday evening. Don’t know if taking a bath would have been dryer or not, guess it depends on your bathing techniques… I need to get to know the people that live at the top so they can make me coffee and stoke the fire before I get there.
-Patrick