The final day and conclusion..

I've come to realize that one of my favorite things in life is being able to have a decent cup of coffee with a friend.  Ben and I grabbed coffee around the corner of his place.  When my barista asked what I was doing in town, I casually mentioned that I was visiting Ben, my boyfriend.  As she asked for me to repeat myself, both the look on her face and the response from my friend were priceless. Ahh, to allow yourself to be immature at choice moments in life can be immensely self-satisfying.

Unfortunately, Ben had to go to work and I needed to head home in order to write an essay or two and DJ a wedding in the upcoming weekend.

The trip was long and as the last leg home generally goes, a little sad and nostalgic.  I made sure to get my last dose of In-n-Out in Redding for lunch, but as I cruised up the forested, rolling terrain of southern Oregon, I went over different points that I learned during the trip and thought about what I would have done differently or rather will do differently on my next journey.

First of all, a link to my photo album from the trip is here.

1) Make sure to not include any 11 hour segments- I think ideally I could run 3-6 hour days with maybe the occasional really long one.  What I did, pushed my adventure more towards a self-styled endurance ride, or as one older gentleman put it, "a young man's ride." While I did cover a lot of ground and visit many a friend, my seat took a while to forgive me.

2) Ride with a friend.  This would have made it easier in the segments between locations to just say, "hey, lets camp here," and have fun doing it. Granted, it's always easier to make friends and divert from your original plan by yourself, but I also wanted to do some more off the pavement trails in Moab and along the way.  One friend would be all that would take.

3) Bees are bigger on the road.  I swear that I had some that hit me that were about the size of golf balls. Unfortunately I have no evidence of this.

4) After my stretch in Colorado, handguards seem like they would be a life saver, they will be added to my bike.  Feel free to make suggestions if you have some for my V-strom.

5) Once again, from my stretch in CO, make sure you have at least one pair of wool socks on you.

6) As a guest crashing in someone's home, always act like you are the biggest inconvenience and go out of your way to let your hosts know how thankful you are.  Because, well you are an inconvenience no matter how charming you think you are and you really should be grateful for your awesome friends.  One of the ways you can show this is by simply sending a thank you note or postcard. Another is by keeping hairs out of the soap in the shower.

7) 2008 Suzuki V-strom dl650. I approve.

8) Make friends.  I met so many great, friendly, supportive people along the way. Some of whom I have even become Facebook friends with (oh my!)  But really, I have found with a little effort of initiating a conversation, asking for or offering help, just flashing a smile, you can greatly enrich your experience (yes it is selfish, but in a good way) and brighten someone else's day as well.  People are amazing.

All in all it was a great adventure.  I thank you for following at least a little of my blog and leave you with a couple uninspiring photos along my last few hours along I-5 in Portland.  I will continue to update this blog on things loosely related to my motorcycle, but doubt it will be epic again for at least another few months or until Discovery Channel sponsors my trip down to South America.  Think about it Discovery Channel.

Happy riding, or happy whatever you do with your life.

Pleasanton, CA, where you too can live in your nice little Bay Area suburbia

I was still kinda sick so took the liberty of sleeping in while Ben took off for work and his roommate Jon for school.  It was Monday, and I was excited that I was on vacation, but aware the rest of the world was not.

I got up and reheated some of the coffee Ben had made for me that morning.  Ben had a clean and nice little place right off the downtown strip of Pleasanton.  Apparently they were a biking household, as there were 5 bikes and one bike frame strewn about the little apartment. Aside from the bikes, his place was cozy. I also found my friend's parents book - Love & Respect - on his bookshelf, which is always fun.

I walked around the neighborhood.  Quite a few restaurants and mainly shops that older women with money would shop at.  The market there was quite clear.  It was a sleepy little suburb with no misconceptions of what it was.  While relaxing, I wasn't too concerned about exploring it too much.  Actually after reading a little I was pretty tired and went back to bed for a little.

I failed to mention earlier that the night before as I rode down the main strip in Pleasanton I realized that somehow my hydration tube had came off of its mount and was blown back and pressed against the muffler.  Obviously it wasn't too long, but enough that damage had been done and the tube was melted.

This obstacle didn't prove to be too large, as I just ran down to TrueValue after my nap and grabbed 3 feet of non-toxic tubing, plugged in my end pieces and it was good to go. And I just realized if I could have dealt with the tube being 3" shorter, I could have just cut that off.  Really, that took a lot of problem solving to come to. I find myself too smart too late too often.

After this I went home, wrote a blog entry and watched some of the Wizard of Oz synced with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.  Never seen it before, and if you haven't, the link is here.  Some of the transitions are more than eerie.

Ben had a long day.  Not only did he have to work overtime (in his new profession as a plumber) but he had a family crisis that was emotionally draining.  So we just grabbed beer and mexican food.  Complaints? None.

LA to SF, with a slight misdirection...

After a late farewell, a blog post, packing and some laundry done I departed from my friend's place in Huntington Beach up the valley to Pleasanton, CA in the bay area.  The trip was to be fairly straight forward and mostly boring.  I would go up I-5 and turn on 580 into Dublin/Pleasanton.  This was the less scenic route.  I wanted to save time, though, quite honestly, if I were to do this with someone else, I would be making it a two day trip on the coastal route.

The road was fairly boring.  I listened to my music heading up I-5.  The scenery was interesting, but not too exciting, and I focused on gas mileage and not being too bored. My main concern was finding someplace that I could get In-n-Out for lunch along the way.  After miles of this, I reached Fresno.

Wait, Fresno? Fresno is not in I-5.  Never has been.  And apparently I missed that fact when riding along and somehow ended up on 99.  So I just add maybe 30 miles onto my trip up to Pleasanton.  Another 70 and you could have an argument that I should have taken the coastal route for sure.  I did manage to see an amazing sunset over Fresno though, for which I pulled over and took a picture.

But I hopped right back on my bike, fueled up, and trudged the rest of the way into Pleasanton.  Ben had a spot for me laid out in his living room and I was pretty excited to get off my bike, as the long segments have been starting to take their toll.

Huntington Beach

A cool soft breeze through my open window, the sun shining outside, my bed nice and comfortable.  Southern California has a lot to offer me this morning, and I love it. Its Friday and Damien had to head work, so my day involved a lot of lounging around.  I cooked up a breakfast burrito, went to the beach, walked around.  Not too much to complain about all in all.  Not too much to write about either.  I had a fish burrito for lunch.  I read and hung out on the pier and beach. Damien got back from work and we had In-n-Out for dinner. I worked on getting over a cold.

The next day was not too different.  I had another lazy morning and Damien's dog Kelcy came in during a morning thunderstorm. Damien then toured me around the area trying to convince me how awesome the area is.  He's right, a lot of it is awesome.  Not too bad for a couple of days in SoCal.

Zion, heatstroke, Vegas, Huntington

This sets out as being one of the longer days of my journey.  I woke up after the sun came out,  but before it was able to warm up everything too much.  As I packed up my site and talked to my neighbor, I could not get over how stunning the rugged southwestern scenery was. Following is a picture after I packed camp and was about to head out.

I headed into town and sat down at a coffee shop to pull myself together and plan out my day.  I'd ride the bus tour, ride my bike through a different path, and then make for the 8 hours towards SoCal.

After a quick perusal of the visitor center, as I was about to hop on the one of the guide buses, the driver came up to me and asked, "what type of bike do you ride?" Turns out, she spotted my backpack as a tank bag and herself rode a 05 BMW 650GS.  She was pretty nice to me, turns out her name was Gene and she had lived in Portland a ways back, and settled here for the past 9 years, as she needed somewhere with more sun.  Funny thing, I can totally understand where she is coming from.  But as we got to the final trail before headed back, I took her picture.

The park itself was gorgeous.  Every corner was something new and beautiful.  I threw in a few pictures, but just don't think that they did justice to it all.

There were tons of signs directing me to not feed the squirrels under penalty of fine and putting down the animals and what not, yet they seemed to get awfully close and friendly along the way. I finally turned the corner and this old man was tossing peanuts at a squirrel and scratching its belly with a stick.  He told me the squirrel really liked it, then looked at me seriously and said, "do you have a problem with this?" I was laughing inside but said no and turned around. At this point he noticed a wet spot on my pants (from my hydration bag) then says to me, "don't worry I won't tell anyone about it."  Then not two seconds later, he yells at his friend down the path, "Ralph, look at this guy walking past you, he wet his pants!  ha ha!"  It was like I was in a movie or something.  Just feel sorry for the guys family for having to deal with him, for me its just amusing, his grandchildren are probably going to end up bombing something. (Yes that is the picture of the old man's stick.)

At the end of the paved trail is where I diverged from the masses. The path carried on through the river, and I had to limit my time in Zion.  I sat down and opened up a granola bar only to be accosted by a squirrel  The sucker was fat and hungry, and ended up trying to pull the food to himself.  He actually tried to bite me to get to the wrapper, and at that point I has lost patience and just flung him off the bench.  Just glad he didn't get a solid bite in me.  Though I did get a couple pictures of the cute fat little piece of fur crawling around on my lap.

I got back to the bus, filled my hydration pack with a some Zion spring water, and got onto my moto.  I was looking forward to the tunnels that I was told about.

The ride was amazing going up to the tunnel, though on the other side, the area was less impressive.  My opinion could be slightly tainted by some of the idiot drivers riding my tail as I followed a train of traffic to the other entrance.  On the plus side, I did see some big horn sheep.  Other than that, it wasn't too great. (last pic is on the park side of the tunnel.)

The way out was beautiful.  I stopped by some whole foods mart nearby that Gene has suggested that I visit and ran into a gal and her mother who had been in the park filming a movie that they could not say anything about.  That were from New York and that explained all the New Yorkers I had met and the annoying hipster with a bandanna and a macbook who looked at me ironically when I asked if he'd watch my bag as I used the restroom. Hipsters. I bought a bandanna to soak with water for the road. Shhh.  But anyways, I took a picture of the gal and her mother in case she gets famous or something.  They seemed nice enough.

And that was my last interaction with Zion.  I got on my bike and took off for a long, straight and hot ride towards SoCal.  The ride was uneventful and HOT.  We were pushing 110 degrees in places and it just felt that I was riding into walls of heat.  I had to pull over every so often and literally pour water in the visor of my helmet, on my jeans, all over.  This would feel great for the next 5 minutes.  I drank and drank out of the hydration bag, but still felt thirsty and pulled over in Las Vegas for a smoothie, as I knew that I needed some solid food, but nothing seemed good.  I wasn't sweating, still hot to touch, and a tad disoriented/confused... all signs of a slight case of heatstroke? After about 30 min in the AC I felt good to eat, so grabbed a pita, a coffee and got on the road again.

The sunset and moonlight were beautiful and I had toyed with the idea of pulling over and taking a picture of the sunset silhouetting a Joshua tree.  It would have been an artistic triumph, I'm sure. There was a nasty dust storm that I rode briefly through as I entered California. I'm sure everyone in their climate-controlled Escalades were laughing at me. I was. It was dark as I rode through the Mojave, for which I was thankful, it was still a hot ride. I started to realize a runny nose and sore throat, so I grabbed some Zincum Gluconate at a pharmacy while I gassed up in Barstow.  I finally made it to my friend's at 11 or so that night.  He had a room for me, a cold beer, I was thankful that I was in Huntington Beach.

Day Moab to Zion 09/07/11

So I slept well the night before watching the moonlight drift on the walls of the Colorado river canyon.  In the morning I had finished packing and having a piece of Melissa's bread when Ellen yelled at me to come over and eat some sausage.  So I had to get up and say goodbye to Steve and Ellen over a few pieces of Canadian Bacon, breakfast sausage and coffee. As I loaded my bike I met some of the campers who had arrived late to our campsite - they were headed back to Colorado and Texas from Burning Man.  I had guessed that from the looks of their bikes the night before.

I then headed into town to talk to the visitor center about what to see that day before I hit the road.  As I came out to my bike I ran into Con and his wife taking a look over my bike. Con had a DR650 and his wife a little Kawasaki Sherpa - she was looking at switching over to a V-strom.  They were retired, from AZ and pretty pleasant to talk to, directing me to a local coffee shop, WakeNBake, where I checked email, let my phone and ipod charge and met a web series author named Amy who was moving from New Mexico to Vancouver, BC. Overall Moab was a pretty fun little tourist town that had a lot more than I had expected in it, with a cool little vibe and people from all over.

I decided I would drive through Arches park, walk around and take a few photos before heading down to Zion.  Up the road I passed an interesting US department of Energy site called the UMRA project; a quick search on the web showed that it is a Uranium mining site.

Arches was fantastic.  Really hard to describe the beauty of the park past pictures you have probably seen, and I only drove through a portion of it.  While I was here I decided that I would need to come back at some point and spend more time appreciating all of it.

Met an Israeli and his girlfriend, they were pretty nice, taking pictures on their iphones and ipad.

From Moab I drove back to 70, and fueled up in Green River.  I was a little concerned, as the previous day I was told the stretch without services was 200 miles, but I have come to learn on the trip, while asking people is a good way to find out information, never take it as a hard fact.  It turned out that the stretch was 105 miles, which is much more in my range than 200 (maybe possible on my bike, not sure?)

The ride to Zion was beautiful as we skirted entrances to Bryce Canyon, but not as notable as Moab had been.  I wasn't sure the fastest path into Zion, so asked a fire and rescue truck out of Leeds, UT who informed me I was only 25 minutes or so away from the entrance.

I took a few pictures on my way into the Canyon/ park area.

At a gas station close to the park entrance I purchased a couple beers for camp that night and a couple locals let me know a place I could camp out for the evening for free just back up the rode 10 minutes.  Which beat the $18 fee in the park.  It was already dark, but I set up my tent in spite of my initial impulse to sleep under the open clear moonlit skies.  One of the neighbors had mentioned the idea of Scorpions out which was enough change my attitude towards the tent that night.  I did hear some rodents or something through my stuff outside the tent that night as I read, and felt pretty good about making the best decision at that point.