Two More Bridges

The weather forecast for Thanksgiving called for a dry day. We didn't have any obligations to fulfill or traditions to uphold, we suspected that everyone was where they needed to be and off the roads, so what to do but go for a ride?

We went online and found a couple four covered bridges we hadn't been to so I grabbed the Benchmark map and quickly came up with a route. I'd travelled the route about ten years earlier and the best I could remember is that it was paved so off we went.

The first stop was Hayden Covered Bridge just west of Alsea.

Kissy kissy

When we pulled up and dismounted we heard a train whistle yet there are no trains up here, I know this because like bigfoot, there are no tracks. We walked through the bridge and discovered on the other side that one doesn't necessarily buy property in the country to be quiet. Believe it or not, some buy property in the country to make noise and this person was doing a fantastic job of dropping property value with every blast from his air tank. It was time to get getting.





We rode west down Hwy 34 to the Five Rivers turnoff and made our way south to the next covered bridge on our route.

Five Rivers Bridge or Fisher School Bridge

I was scoping out a possible future geocache spot and Brandy caught me, she's such a muggle.

We had two more bridges to get and were further south on our route. We had to get down to Hwy 36 via NF32. Like I said, I've been through here before but 10 years ago, the road got twisty but then the yellow centerline disappeared and it got narrow.

The narrower the road, the more leaves and debris build up. We recently experienced a serious wind storm last week and I started to wonder how clear our route would be.

Brandy was doing fine so we decided to carry on.

It was slow going and I have to hand it to her, she happily poked along behind me.

I eventually stopped to check our GPS reading and confirm we were still on the map.

Where are we?

A car went by while we were stopped so I knew we were close to some sort of civilization. Although I have to admit after passing some hunters and a lone mushroom picker I was considering leaving a trail of bread crumbs to find our way back.

A couple miles down the trail we came upon this. Ah crap, it's getting late and we've got to be 30 miles deep into 10 mph roads. I take note of the tripometer at start points, intersections and mileage posts so I knew we were only 10 miles from the main highway.  I checked the map again and found a gravel road that would get us around and out but we had to hustle. I don't mind the dark but my riding partner does not so we needed to get to a main road we were familiar with before dark.

It was a steep descent out of the woods and if I learned anything from watching Man vs. Wild, Survivorman and Dual Survival I knew we were on the right path. It wasn't long we were riding up to Triangle Lake where we stopped to to tinkle before mounting up and booking it for home.

She told me to make a face.

We had to surrender the last two bridges for another day, as it was the last 20 miles home was in the dark but we knew the road and made it safe and sound. What a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

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