In my spare time, I plan trips. Some are large and unrealistic, like my Bowtie Alignment trip (Seattle to Miami, Miami to Maine, Maine to Southern California, Southern California to Seattle – a Bowtie!). Others, like a five day trip around Oregon, are pretty do-able if I get a few days off work and the weather cooperates (which means Summer).

Like many of my trips, it mostly involves roads and places that I’ve never been to before, but it also has an old favorite or two.

This is Day One. It’s a 338 mile wiggly way to get from Seattle to The Dalles. The first road is an old friend and part of the old Yellowstone Trail, Washington Route 202. I’ll take that to Snoqualmie and then head south to uncharted territories. I’ll hang a left around Mt. Rainier at the awesomely-named town of Enumclaw, winding up on US 12 heading west to Yakima. I’ll give I-82 a miss and zig-zag on some backroad till I’m heading west and cross US 97. Farther, I will go till this backroad dips south into the Columbia River valley. I’ll probably cross the Columbia and camp somewhere around The Dalles.

Welcome to Day Two. This day contains a fun road that I was on during Scoot 66. I’ll exit The Dalles on US 197 South. This is where I’ll enter Oregon’s desert. The road gets a little wiggly and then it meets up with Oregon Route 218 almost in its entirety. I’m pretty excited about that. The road ends in the tiny town of Fossil, where I pick up the John Day Highway for more desert driving. It takes me through some fossil pits and across some very beautiful high desert land. Eventually, I’ll wind my way to US 26 and a road that I was on in 2008 (Scoot 66). Then I traveled west, this trip it takes me east through the town of John Day, then up and out of the desert into Whitman National Forest and the Sumpter Valley, home of the Sumpter Valley Railroad. I’ll wind up in Baker City, hometown of Professor Gary Hardcastle. You can see my pictures of part of this route right here.

It’s only the third day and here I am heading north again! But not until a lovely stretch on Oregon Route 86, which I did last year. This is the home of the famous Sass Road and of that big rock slide that closed a portion of the highway. The familiarity fades as I head east, close to the Idaho border. I 86 route 86 and continue with the Hell’s Canyon Scenic Biway. It’s a bit of twisty fun through the Wallowa National Forest till I arrive in Joseph and am in a very prairie-like area. I cross back into Washington near Walla Walla and rejoin US 12, riding that baron little road to Lewistown. That’s in Idaho and I’ll find somewhere to sleep there, I bet.

Though you can’t really see it on this map, Day Four starts with a very fun road called The Spiral Highway. It’s an old alignment of US Route 95. I’m pretty excited about that one. From there, I cross back into Washington and roughly follow US 195 to Spokane. I say “roughly” because I’ll be taking a lot of old Yellowstone Trail alignments and really making a day of it. I have the research for this somewhere. I just have to find it. Once in Spokane, I’ll take US Route 2 west. This is also an alignment of the old Yellowstone Trail. There’s lots of abandoned sections and I’ll be taking those, of course. My day will end with a trip to Grand Coulee. That’s where I’ll camp for the night.

As for Day Five, well, GoogleMaps won’t let me map it out because it involves a road that is closed during the winter. So we turn to Mapquest. I’ll mostly be taking Washington Route 20, the North Cascades Highway. I’ve never been on this road, but have heard quite a bit about it. This is a very new road – it didn’t open until 1972, but the views, I hear, are spectacular.

The whole trip only takes five days and only covers a little over 1000 miles. It’s a short trip, to be sure. But in these tough times of working a normal job, I’ll take what I can get.

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Related posts:

1. Route 66 Trip Planning
2. The mathematics of the last scooter trip
3. Ring around Rainier – Planning a three day romp through Washington
4. Planning two tiny trips around King County
5. Tempting my dad with a motorcycle trip to Montana