DAY #01 - The Start of the Three Flags Classic (TFC)

Thursday, August 31st, 2017

If you are just picking up on this journey, I ran the Four Corners TRUE-X when I left for the first Corner on August 8th. After 11,713 miles and 20 days, I completed the trip. A trip like this comes with some wear and tear physically my body but also the motorcycle, On Tuesday, I slept most of the day but made an appointment to get the bike prepared for the next major ride for Wednesday. Thursday was all about preparing for the upcoming ride.


That means that the laundry must be taken care of, the daily segmented pillbox for all my prescriptions must be refilled, and the bags must be repacked and ready for the trip to start. The laundry room was a busy place so I had to work around other folks loads. This ended up taking about a half-day. While the last load was drying, I went and completed the registration process by signing in.


I am rider number 17 of over 300 that will be riding as individuals and small groups. As a first time participant it was an interesting process. I attended the happy hour reception at five followed by the dinner. The hotel I have been staying at did a great job. Since I hadn't eaten for most of the day, I thought the food was great for a simple buffet. I scarfed down on three deserts.

DAY #01 - Friday, September 1st, 2017

I got everything together so that all I had to do was load the bike. I checked out of the hotel, and dropped off the poker chip with my #17 as proof of my departure in the allotted time period. I heard bikes leaving at 5:00 AM while I was getting ready to go. I left the hotel shortly after 6:00 AM and headed out on the 15-minutes ride to the US Border. By 7:00 AM, I had cleared customs and had travelled a total of 10 miles.

This was to be a 500-mile trip, I started out in my leather jacket because the temperatures were in the low 50's. This was a physically demanding trip since the vast majority was on very twisted two-lane highways through the Cascades. It was a beautiful drive but I couldn't use the cruise control so throughout the afternoon by hands were cramping up.




Much of the afternoon was spend on National Forest Roads. These roads are notoriously rough and my bike bottomed out several times. It was moving out of bright sunlight and dark shadows. As I was starting out, I had to stop and put on the clear safety classes so that I could see in the shade. I had brief glimpses of Mount Reiner and Mount Saint Helens. I finally crossed the Columbia River and hit the Day's Check Point in Hood River, Oregon.




I got checked into the hotel around sunset. Once I got the paperwork for the day completed it was 11:30 PM and I wanted to get as much sleep as possible since I wanted to leave early in the morning

WHATS NEXT:

Saturday will take me through the remainder of Oregon. It will be cool in the morning and extremely hot in the afternoon.