observations

I spent a cou­ple of days with Matt and Jodi in Austin, hang­ing out, eat­ing, and doing main­te­nance on the bike. New tires and an oil change were on the list.

Matt and Jodi have a gor­geous place SW of Austin: lots of room, a really cool house, and lots of trees!

wednes­day was tire chang­ing day, and thurs­day was for oil changes:

The dogs took the whole thing in stride:

through­out the entire 2 days, Matt and Jodi kept tak­ing me places for excep­tional food, and thurs­day after­noon, Matt showed me the sights of austin. This is Lake Travis:

all in all, a great break in teh mid­dle of my trip. Fri­day morn­ing find me rested, ready go, and com­pletely stuffed with two days of excel­lent BBQ and TexMex!

No travel today. Hung around Matt and Jodi’s place, changed tires on the bike and helped Matt put new tires on his Black­bird. That was after Matt so kindly ran me all over Austin get­ting a replace­ment phone lined up, some oil for the bike, and a new bite valve for my hydra­tion bag. So in the after­noon, we had us a tire-changin’ party. didn’t go too bad, about an hour and a half for four tires. It was get­ting warm, i was get­ting tired, so i decided to put the oil change off until tomor­row. So tomor­row is oil change and laun­dry day.

For din­ner tonight, Matt and Jody took me to a place called the Salt Lick BBQ. Really good Austin BBQ, yum!

sorry no pics today, i’ll try to take some of this gor­geous area tomor­row, and maybe some oil change pics too.
till tomorrow.

black­dog

Had a bit of a shock­ing real­iza­tion a few min­utes ago. As I write this, I am sit­ting in a McDon­alds in Gatesville, Tx. I am here on a motor­cy­cle that was sit­ting in my garage in a Seat­tle sub­urb 12 days ago. I am as far from home on a motor­cy­cle as I has ever been. Hmmm, pretty cool.

Today’s ride so far was from Lub­bock to my cur­rent loca­tion. About 320 miles, count­ing a cou­ple of sign-reading fail­ures. I am going to meet my sis­ter for din­ner tonight, last chance to see each other before she ships out to Iraq for a year. Then I’ll ride down the road a piece to visit my friends Matt and Jodi. I have new tires wait­ing there for me, will do an oil change on the beast, and relax for a cou­ple of days. It will be good to not ride for at least a day. Fri­day, I’ll be headed north to viist fam­ily in Panora, IA.

Well, the last 110 miles of the day held most of the excite­ment: first, about 45 miles north of Austin, a piece of OSB about 12x16 came fly­ing out from under a truck and hit me on the left foot. Just a glanc­ing blow, but I still had to pull over and let my vision clear. Ow. Doesn’t appear to be any dam­age done, though, mostly just shock. It hap­pened so fast, there wasn’t time to take eva­sive action. Good thing it wasn’t a TV!
Then about 10 miles north of Austin, traf­fic on I35 comes to a dead stop, all three lanes. I sit there for a few min­utes, watch­ing the tem­per­a­ture on the bike rise, and watch­ing folks cut across the grassy strip that seper­ates the free­way from the frontage access road. Even­tu­ally, I decide to fol­low across. As soon as I get to the frontage road, it stops dead. 3 min­utes later the free­way starts mov­ing again. But the frontage road got mov­ing pretty soon, and I’m back on the way.

But the crown­ing excite­ment for the day hap­pened ½ mile from Matt’s dri­ve­way. I get to the entrance to the devel­op­ment where they live to dis­cover to my sur­prise, a gate. While I’m stand­ing there, look­ing at email on my phone, try­ing to remem­ber if Matt said any­thing about a gate, a gen­tle­man dri­ves up in a big caddy, and asks if I need help get­ting in? I explain I’m look­ing for such and such an address, and he “says, sure, fol­low me”. I don’t have my gear on, so I push the bike through the gate. As I do so, I knock my phone off of the seat. The dis­play hasn’t been seen since. Phooey, It’s only 2 weeks old, too!

So this wraps up what I’ve been call­ing ‘Leg 2’. I am now at my far­thest point from home, and at about the ½ way point, time­wise, as I intend to be home on the 2nd of June. This first ½ has included: a bunch of great roads, a few bor­ing roads, only one day of dif­fi­cult weather, good friends, and many parts of this coun­try I haven’t seen before. Today, with matt’s help, I’ll put new tires on the Turbo Giraffe, and change its oil, and relax.

Some pic­tures from day 11..
The wind blows here…

And the roads start to get bet­ter…

I just had to take this for Ms. Shooz (aka shiny mag­pie) and many of the other wet­ladies…

My sis­ter. We got a chance to have din­ner together before she is shipped to Irag for 11 months. I told her to keep her head down, i didn’t want to have to do all the paper­work! she said not to worry, she has body armor for body parts she didn’t know she had!

An aeros­tich at 93f. right before this, i rode 6 miles with­out it, and it’s hot­ter rid­ing with­out it than it is with it. just keep drink­ing…

It is 3566.1 miles from my dri­ve­way to matt’s house, via sun­fire and misc other points. i think it’s only about 2950 home from here, via iowa, nebraska, and salt lake city.

Left Taos slowly this morn­ing; had to pack up all the camp­ing gear, find break­fast, etc. The new high-tech cot works pretty well. It’s still hard on my back to have a lim­ited num­ber of posi­tions to lie in (due to the lim­i­ta­tions of a mummy bag) but accept­able. Found a local diner called Taoseno’s to grab break­fast, and had an absolutely awe­some break­fast bur­rito: eggs, bacon, hash browns all wrapped in a tor­tilla, and cov­ered in Green Chile sauce. Awe­some!
Had a pretty slow ride to Las Vegas, NM, the roads are pretty, the lim­its are low, the pass­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties are sel­dom. Took 2.5 hours to make the 135 miles. Then when I got to Las Vegas, it took two gas sta­tions to find all three of the require­ments: fuel, trail mix, and a restroom. Pretty nice roads, though.

The road from there through Clo­vis, NM to Lub­bock, TX, how­ever, not so much. Pure unadul­ter­ated bore­dom. I did see a B-1 bomber make sev­eral 40 mile cir­cles around me just out­side of Clo­vis. Later caught sight of a C-130 depart­ing Can­non AFB; noth­ing else has a pro­file like that!
On the pos­i­tive side: the weather was great. A bit chilly this morn­ing, then about 80 as I got into Lub­bock. Really nice rid­ing weather, not too hot, but warm enough to allow the light gloves.
I took a pic­ture of the road out­side of Lub­bock. I wanted to make sure no one com­plained that I didn’t take any pic­tures of NW texas. Ok, here’s Texas, now you’ve seen it.

And this is … ummm, er….. I have no idea. Any­one know?

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356 miles today, Kayenta, AZ to Taos, NM. Stel­lar weather the whole way, 60s and 70s and no clouds. Much of the morn­ing was spent cross­ing the east­ern hald of the Navajo nation. It’s fairly obvi­ous that, at least in this area, the Navajo are not get­ting rich off of gam­bling, maybe a few, but many of the rural Navajo still appear quite poor. Some­where in east­ern AZ, (I think), I crossed the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide.

Then I headed for Dulce and Charma, to get to high­way 64. Phil rec­om­mended that road, OMG was he right! miles and miles of long, flow­ing switch­backs climb­ing up the moun­tain side like a home­sick angel. from 7000ft in Tierra Amar­illo to 10,586 at the top. And it was chilly up there. Still, if you get a chance to ride this road, take it. You will not be sorry you did. Well, maybe if you’re on a DRZ-400, I’d guess it’d get seri­ously wheezy and down on grunt at 10,500ft!

Taos is a cute lit­tle town, old time ranch­ing town, now made artsy by the influx of artists and $$$. Still, not a bad lit­tle town. And the nice RV park on the south end of town has WiFi!

rub­ber side down, every­one!
black­dog

385 miles today, King­man to Kayenta, AZ. An absolutely beau­ti­ful day. Temps from 65 to about 80, clear skies with the occa­sional cloud. Rode to Grand Canyon National Park, took a bunch of pic­tures, bought the req­ui­site lapel pins. Had ‘a moment’ on the way there though: about 15 miles west of Williams a 2 ton dualie flatbed in front of me blew it’s out­side right tire at about 70mph. for­tu­nately, I was rid­ing in the left 1/3 of the lane, like we were all taught, and dodged all of the debris and the rapidly slow­ing Ford. Whew! Got my heart going for a moment there!
Not too long after that, a guy on an orange Moto Guzzi, with a Pump­kin for a hel­met passed me on I-40. I caught up with him at a gas sta­tion later. His name is Jim, and his hel­met was made by a com­pany called Head Trip. Wow.

Need­less to say, Grand Canyon was stun­ning:

The absolute hi-zoot way to see the Grand Canyon would be to book a room at one of the lodges on the rim, leave the car in Williams, and ride the train up. Looks really cool!
Left the main lodge area and headed east, stop­ping at Desert View, where they built a really cool obser­va­tion tower in the 30’s.

It was then across the Navajo nation to Kayenta, where I paid through the nose for a hotel room. Tourist sea­son, dontcha­know. There’s a bus of Asian tourists that checked in right behind me. After show­er­ing and grab­bing a bite, I decided to run up to Mon­u­ment Val­ley to catch it in the late light of the day. Glad I did:

Today’s cul­tural note: I go into a Sub­way here in kayenta, which is deep in the Navajo nation. When I open the door, there’s a very loud, very clear DING! from the door. Every head in the place swivels towards me, most swivel away, but there’s a cou­ple of folks obvi­ously won­der­ing if I’m lost. Felt very much the out­sider, I did. I sat down and had my din­ner, and watched the scene replay itself every­time some­one came in. In most cases, the entry drew no more notice. I won­der why they have such a loud and attention-getting door bell there?

Left­over mus­ing from yes­ter­day: enter­ing King­man, passed an absolutely Ginor­mous fac­tory; sign said Nucor. Turns out it’s an old steel mill, shut­down decades ago when it was North Star steel. Nucor bought it in 2007 and restarted it as a rebar plant last year. Good to see at least a few basic indus­tries still in this country.

Had a leisurely after­noon yes­ter­day with mark and the dogs. Got a pair of tires ordered, and it looks like they are going to the right place in texas, and will beat me there. yay!

Got a fairly early start this morn­ing, leav­ing Sun­Fire at about 7:30. Headed up to Warner Springs, then over the hills into the Coachella Val­ley (Palm springs, etc.)

Sat through a few stop­lights in Palm Desert and stopped for gas in Indio, and it felt way hot­ter than I was expect­ing. Started cool­ing off as I gained alti­tude going east, but upon drop­ping into Blythe, it got warmer. Stopped for lunch in Blythe, my ther­mome­ter read 93. Stopped just north of town to take a gan­der at the Intaglios there. It was a short gan­der, as wan­der­ing around on that exposed butte at 2:30 in the after­noon was a blaz­ing experience.

Even my GPS was ready to go

After that, it was pretty much a hot grind north­ward to King­man. I saw a bank ther­mome­ter in Parker, AZ that said 97. My tankbag ther­mome­ter never read higher than 95.8. That was hot enough, thanky­ou­very­much! It was cool to watch the scenery change from com­plete flat low desert to craggy, high desert here in king­man. I feel bet­ter now that i’ve had din­ner and a shower, and i now know that i can sur­vive, pretty com­fort­ably, a day of rid­ing in near 100 degree temps, on this bike, in this gear. That is confidence-inspiring. I think in a few days, I’ll be ready to tackle Tejas!

Woke up early this morn­ing, but not in any par­tic­u­lar hurry, as my des­ti­na­tion for the evening was my friends Mark and Ln’s place, Sun­fire, in Escon­dido. GPS says 202 miles. I get a road rec­om­men­da­tion from Mark (Fort Tejon road up into the Ange­les for­est, highly rec­om­mended), and head out. I avoid the free­way and wind up rid­ing through the wind farm:

Then it’s up into the moun­tains, where I spot one of the most beau­ti­ful rain­bows I’ve ever seen, just a line of color in the clouds. The pic­ture doesn’t really do it jus­tice, though.

Then on over the moun­tains, through beau­ti­ful for­est, on one of the nicest roads I’ve rid­den so far. Flow­ing turns, sur­pris­ing switch­backs, it had every­thing… except for a vis­i­ble LEO pres­ence: per­fect!

After an awe­some ride through the moun­tains, it was a very unevent­ful cou­ple of hour ride through the east end of LA basin, down through Temec­ula, and on into Escon­dido. Arrived early in the after­noon, hav­ing plenty of time to get tires ordered, check the bike over thor­oughly, and relax with Mark over a beer, and later with Mark and Ln over a good ital­ian din­ner. Life doesn’t suck.
Tomor­row, the Blythe intaglios, and on to King­man, Ari­zona. Sat­ur­day, the Grand Canyon!

Arose this morn­ing at Chez Grrrl­dogs in Galt to a beau­ti­ful morn­ing, at least out­side. Inside my head was a dif­fer­ent story, I was a bit blue and home­sick. This usu­ally hap­pens to me on a trip, about day 5 or 6; I wake up in the morn­ing, and won­der why the heck I didn’t just stay home in my nice comfy rut! But cof­fee helped, and the first 200 miles of the day were spec­tac­u­lar scenery and won­der­ful roads. Joined CA-49 at San Andreas and rode it, and a few of it’s cousins all the way into Fresno. This part of Cal­i­for­nia is nice! You can keep LA, but the Sierra Nevada rocks. Here are some exam­ples of the roads and the scenery:

After hit­ting Fresno, it was a cou­ple of bor­ing hours to Bak­ers­field (today’s trivia: obvi­ously there is a Buck Owens Boule­vard in Bak­ers­field, but did you also know that there is a Merle Hag­gard Drive?). At Bak­ers field, I hung a left into the Tehachapi maoun­tains, and ended up in, oddly enough, Tehachapi. Cool old rail­road town, a bit down on its luck, and windy! The entire east­ern hori­zon is wind tur­bines, and there here for a rea­son!
(yeah, it’s a crummy pic­ture and hard to see. i was tired…)

307 miles today, but it felt a lot longer, mostly due to toren­tial rain, cold, and even a lit­tle snow just north of Lay­tonville, CA. Yikes. Wait­ing this morn­ing in the hotel in Eureka, I real­ized that I hate doing noth­ing. I could have spent the day in Eureka and avoided all the unpleas­ant­ness, but I was already rest­less in the 20 min­utes I waited, and felt ener­gized when i got on the road. Every­thing went fine except that my gloves were soaked by 60 min­utes in, and get­ting cold. I stopped in Gar­berville for gas, and bought a pair of cot­ton gloves and ‘Marigolds’, you know, big rub­ber kitchen gloves. used those for the next 40 miles, but it was the cold­est 40 miles of the day. up to 1800ft. above sea level, and I actu­ally saw a few snowflakes going over Rat­tlesnake Sum­mit. Got to Lay­tonville, had cof­fee and lunch and thawed my hands out: they never got numb, just painful.

Two cold and weary bik­ers are inside get­ting warm

I also used the lit­tle local ‘free ads’ paper to help dry my gloves out, by rip­ping up the pages and stuff­ing the gloves full, wait­ing 15 min­utes, rinse repeat. Got them somwwhat dry. Got back on the road and felt good. but soon it became obvi­ous that the gloves are get­ting colder faster than the heated grips can heat them. So I stop in Ukiah and pull into a Honda dealer; not open. there’s another gent there com­plain­ing of the same thing. Turns out he’s a cop from eureka, and a big fan of the Fly­ing Spaghetti Mon­ster!  yay for ran­domly met friends! but no gloves will be had  there today. Down the road I find a sur­plus store, where I score a pair of ladies ski gloves, size large, gore­tex, for $35. I call them my Tom Rob­bins sig­na­ture mod­els, as the thumbs are longer than any I’ve ever seen. In any case, the offer­ing of $35 must have been big enough for the gods as I only had about 35 min­utes of rain the rest of the day.

gor­geous views like this were everywhere…

The rest of the trip was grey and blus­tery, some blue sky, and gusty winds.

your obe­di­ent scribe, at some famous bridge

Espe­cially on the point above the Golden Gate bridge. just about blew the hel­met over, sit­ting on the ground! yikes. And I had to get back in the groove of CA free­way rid­ing: leave no space and go 80mph! riiight!

another 30 miles of really pretty light Bay Area traf­fic, and I’m safely landed with my friend Mark in San Car­los. A hot shower and some chill time, and now it’s time for din­ner. see ya tomorrow!

black­dog