This article is part of the series Recalculating, a 28-day motorcycle journey along the Pacific Northwest coast and through its volcanic landscapes.

I think this was my latest departure ever: 12:45 PM. If I’d left any earlier, I wouldn’t have met Bruce. Bruce and I had been trading text messages for a little while, but I dropped the ball for a bit because I didn’t know what the fire, smoke, and weather were doing—or whether I would fare well on Washington’s NFD-25 route around the backside of Mount Saint Helens. At the time I wasn’t sure if I’d meet Bruce in Portland or Hood River.

Bruce was one of my biggest supporters back when I was president of the Bay Area Rivian Club. He’s a solid dude. He lives nine hours north, but despite the distance, we developed a kinship that I quickly came to value. I’m glad I was able to cross paths with him on this trip back from Vancouver, BC. We met at Geraldi’s, the Italian deli next to my hotel, and each got more meatball sandwich than our stomachs could handle. That being said, I do love a good meatball sandwich, and Geraldi’s is in my top five. Plus, Bruce told me Geraldi’s is in the Portland Rivian Club, too. #supportingYourOwn.

Bruce is an Oregonian. A true Oregonian. We covered my trip, his experiences, Rivians (of course), our clubs — but mostly, we covered Oregon. Somewhere between bites, he told me about the Best Western next door (my Best Western, as it turned out) and a murder mystery attached to it. I’m glad I met Bruce for lunch on the way out rather than dinner on the way in. He’s a fantastic storyteller—the kind who can give even the most courageous person pause.

He continued with the Eagle Creek Fire — the one that tore through the Columbia River Gorge and closed thirty miles of I-84 for weeks. He talked in detail about driving through the Columbia River Gorge when it was open in only one direction eerily filled with smoke, in a unique car he’d brought back from Denver to add an extra smile to his garage.

The Eagle Creek Fire started with a careless teenager and some fireworks. The canyon went up fast. Bruce wasn’t just recounting a memory. There was real heartache in how he spoke about it, the kind that comes from watching a place you love get hurt by something so careless and avoidable. My heart broke with his. These scars take generations to heal, much like the Park Fire near Chico, where I saw the devastation from similar carelessness on the Shasta Cascade tour.

Somewhere in all of it, he and I ended up giggling over squiggles on a map. I swear Bruce had a motorcycle in a former life, with real motorcycle karma. My plan had been Highway 101, same as my northbound run twenty years ago — beautifully cloaked in fog, but a lonely kind of beautiful: a corridor of campers, minivans, cars leaving California and heading towards Washington.

“Skip US 26,” Bruce told me. It was a boring four-lane freeway. Take Highway 6 instead, the squiggly motorcycle road through the mountains. “Bruce, are we sure we only know each other through a Rivian club?” Because I swear we met in a former life, on two wheels.

Highway 6 was absolutely the right call. The road scribbled through deep evergreen forest, construction everywhere — and whoever runs transportation logistics for the Oregon Department of Transportation deserves a high five from me personally. At the first one-way closure, the flagger got everyone lined up and I slipped to the front, which bought me 42 miles of glorious, unrestricted pavement. This was the Oregon I’d been looking for.

Then three more one-lane sections back to back. Even better — all three flaggers were working in sync. All I had to do was stay in line, ride the pace, and arrive at each one to find the sign already turned. It was truly incredible. That guy needs a raise!

Cheese and a Rough Wrong Turn

I stopped at Tillamook because I remembered liking it twenty years ago. It’s been significantly upgraded since — part showroom now, part gift shop, part ice cream sampling station. The ice cream line was packed, which made that an easy diabetic pass. The gift shop delivered instead: cheese-themed swag in every direction. A magnet was mandatory for the wall of travel back home, and I added a pepper jack T-shirt because what middle-aged man doesn’t need one?

Leaving town on the Three Capes route, I caught a glimpse of Cape Meares Lighthouse off the beaten path and found some of the best pavement of the whole day — empty, fast, and mine. Yes. Yes. And yes. Bruce the motorcycle man delivered!

Bruce had one more road up his sleeve, too — Sandlake Road. The air was light, the weather easy, and my 700-pound bike felt free and flickable under me in a way it usually doesn’t. Somewhere in that stretch I realized I was falling for Northern Oregon — a place I’d known almost nothing about a week earlier.

US 101 became front and center again: painful, with campers, minivans, and cars that just didn’t want to go anywhere. Bruce… where are you?

I mistranslated something from our previous chat when entering the route into Google Maps near Cape Kiwanda, and it walked me straight up a steep bluff on a dirt road that was well above my skill level. The town below was Pacific City — quaint, genuinely lovely, the kind of place I want an excuse to stop in. A couple of young guys were out on bikes near a shop in town — good energy, gone before I could catch more than that. The road up out of the same town was not that.

The transition to gravel was gentle, seductive, even. Seconds later, by the time I understood what was happening, I was already committed, and by the time I reached the top, I’d confirmed what I already suspected: not for me. I turned around and got out. I just needed to get out and not dump the bike. Gentle braking. A little front, a little rear, and just a touch of throttle to keep the motor happy.

A Ride from the Security Guard

At Yaquina Head, the park was unfortunately already closed. A security guard told me I could walk in and find the lighthouse myself, so I did — full gear, on foot, all the way to “too far.” I turned back with a consolation photo of the beach instead.

She asked if I’d found it. I told her no.

“Get in the truck.”

Apparently she had a fondness for motorcycle riders. She drove me out there herself. I was floored at her kindness and we had a light, but deepening banter back-and-forth about my adventure down the highway, and her adventure warding off tourists from a park that was already closed. It was clear I had a massive hall pass.

As much as I wanted everything to work, the light wasn’t doing the lighthouse or my photos any favors — already low, already the wrong angle. I asked Google Maps for another viewpoint, and Google Maps, apparently trying to right the wrong from earlier, routed me down one more gravel road. Flat, at least. I didn’t love it. I got through it. The picture was way better.

Heceta Head

By six, the road finally emptied out — campers back at camp, minivans off to dinner, the Priuses parked at the beach — and for a stretch I had it to myself. Bruce’s directions were back and better than ever.

I paid my twelve dollars at the gate to Heceta Head. The ranger on duty was busy with a tourist unhappy about the fee; she just smiled at me and waved me through. I got photos of the water, then a quick one of the lighthouse and Cape Creek Bridge arching underneath it. When I tracked her down again to ask where to actually see the lighthouse, she sent me to an overlook that turned out to be worth every cent of that twelve dollars.

While I was up there trying to get a shot before the light went, a couple pulled up in a car and tried to tell me something — gesturing, talking fast, clearly trying to communicate. We, however, couldn’t get through the language barrier between us. I couldn’t work out what they needed. I was in full gear, on a schedule, running out of both daylight and time, and I never did figure out how to help. I felt bad about it. I still do a little. Sometimes I just don’t know how to navigate through a situation and I need to learn to let go.

The fog came in after that — gentle at first, then stronger as the minutes went by, everything in front of me going soft and muted. I stood there working the shutter, hoping the good photo was in there somewhere, and the longer the sun took to go down, the better it got. I knew the ride ahead was only getting colder and darker. I couldn’t make myself leave. I probably annoyed everyone else up there with the shutter going — oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, it was THAT beautiful.

Someday I want to stay in the lighthouse keeper’s house itself. It was clearly in the same category as Timberline Lodge, twice the price, and the kind of place I’ll lust after for a year or two before I actually book it.

Into the Dark

There was no getting around the last stretch. I fell in love with the lighthouse as the sun dipped behind the horizon. This was the first real night ride of the trip. It was disorienting for the first twenty minutes or so, and then, somehow, became peaceful as twilight ceeded into night.

At some point the front camera caught me mid-ride — headlight smeared, me a total blur. Not a good photo. I love it anyway.

Got to the Best Western in Reedsport beat — properly beat, in a way the trip hadn’t managed yet. This was the first journey long enough that my body started pushing back: stiff neck, stiff back, the kind of ache that a couple of massage balls in my luggage weren’t going to fix on their own.

One more long day tomorrow — and, for the first time on a motorcycle trip, a massage booked for Friday.