Day one - the rain begins
We begin our voyage with the poor 599 loaded down with some laughably huge saddlebags, packed with all the heavy items as far from the bike as possible. That's how we roll.
We spend a boring day heading south, taking the superslab most of the way. Well, what counts as superslab around these parts:
Look at those manly men, about to take on the road with nothing but themselves, their motorcycles and 300 pounds worth of electronics, cell phones and maps. Pure masculinity, fearing nothing!
Moving on, we take a union-mandated smoke break along the Salmon River. We hit up an empty boat launch/rest stop area to enjoy the weather.
We continued south on 95 and zipped to McCall, ID, where we filled up.
Nothing like having to ride over compacted snow to get to the gas station. We were both a bit chilly at this point in time, but nothing too bad. The road south continued through some snow-covered farming area. It was quite impressive to be riding on the only clear area you can see in any direction. Perfect, flat white everywhere else.
Pressing on through Boise, we stop at Mountain Home, ID for our first evening. I believe Todd had found the Thunderbird Motel earlier, so we stopped there. We checked in with an interesting guy as our host. He liked his muscle cars, evident by his calendar and rusting hulks on the side of the motel, but I was afraid his incisors were going to fire directly out of his mouth into my eyes. They had the correct firing angle for it, no doubt.
Our host explained how to operate the room's heater by pressing some red buttons and muttering arcane sounds. We ended up just turning on the space heater instead. As we were heading out of the office to our room, he kindly demonstrated to Todd the checkout procedure of locking the door. Yes, he showed him how to lock a door. Thank you, sir, for we have never seen one of those twisty-knobs inside the doorknob. By what magicks does it work?
We acquire food next door at a steakhouse. The food was decent, but our server disappeared for at least 30 minutes. We wanted to get our check and leave, so when we asked where she was, the other servers mentioned something about her "going to check something in the barn." I suppose when your favorite cow is birthing, you get to ignore customers.
After that, we returned to the room for some drinking fun. This is how we roll:
Some excellent conversations were had as we destroyed a sizable amount of our alcohol. A very sizable amount. I ended up in the bathtub, because I was drinking like I had my "A" game going. I did not, and paid for it that evening. Todd also felt the sting of overconsumption.
The next morning we plan our route while being angry at the bright sun and any loud noises.
Day two: Gettin' off the superslab.
We head south towards Elko, NV. On the way to Jackpot, NV I take a few shots of Todd riding:
We stop down at the store/gambling, next to another gambling, across from a hotel/gambling and another gambling. A gas station (probably with a gambling inside) completes the entirety of Jackpot. Once again, Todd takes his smoke break as I walk into the store to grab something to drink:
As I get back, he's on the phone, trying to tell a fellow grad student to F off, he's not going to recommend laptops. We're on a god damned ROAD TRIP.
We trade bikes for a little bit on this busy stretch of road:
As we switch back bikes, I follow Todd south and notice my bike kept weaving back and forth and was generally unmanageable at 15 MPH. I stop, noting a car was coming up behind me. I rock the bike forward while on the brakes to check the front tire, that was fine. I look back and see the rear tire was laughably low. That would be the problem. Bloody 1/2" gash across my rear tire, through the thickest part of it:
As Todd continues off to the south, over the horizon, I do a three point turn in the middle of the road when the car was still approaching. I ride directly towards the car, then pull back into the gravel pit where I park the bike, strip off my riding gear and break out my tire repair kit. About five minutes later, the car passes by.
Todd returns to give moral support as we try to figure out how the "fudge" the tire repair kit works. He also takes pictures of me slaving away at the poor Pilot Road:
The bustling road stretching to the horizon wasn't much consolation. Thankfully, someone stopped as we were repairing the tire, but we told 'em we were fine, we'll just patch the bad boy up and be on our way. A few minutes after they left, I inflate the tire with one of the CO2 containers in my repair kit. After that filled up the tire so quickly it almost tilted the bike over, we noticed air leaking out the plug right away.
The gash was justtoo long for the plug to do anything. I try another one for care and giggles, same deal. We were going to fill it up, ride slowly back to town and see about getting a new tire when Frank showed up.
Frank was a character. He was apparently retired and spends a lot of time driving around the west side of the US visiting friends and family. The guy did a whole lot of stuff, including some first responder or other paramedic-like things. He certainly saw his share of gruesome things.
Anyways, he offers me a ride in his 150k+ mile turbocharged K-car to help us get the situation under control. I grab my cell phone, wallet and bike key and hop in his car as Frank throws Todd some peanut butter crackers. Todd doesn't like those, but after he took his many pictures of the desert, he ate them out of boredom.
Frank and I check in with a few local ranchers and finally find someone who not only spoke English, but was willing and able to help us. We explained the situation and had a truck with an air compressor heading back in about 20 minutes. We get back to the bike, air up the tire and decide we'll go back to their place and call the bike shop back in Elko.
So I gear up and get on my bike, which was rapidly losing air pressure in that rear tire. Cruising at a blisteringly fast 30 MPH, I pull into the ranch without a problem. We get my bike into their shop and hoist the back end up from the grab bar with the pulley from the shop roof. I make a note to pick up that aftermarket centerstand for my bike when we get back.
The tire is pulled off and off Frank and I go to Elko's bike shop with Todd following on his reliable BMW. We get to the shop where all the mechanics are on lunch and I'm third in line for a tire, so Todd decides he has to do something silly like ride to Reno to pick his girlfriend up at the airport. We part ways and Frank and I go to lunch. I treat him to Taco Time's finest.
We returned to the bike shop and power-napped until the shop called my cell and I got my tire back with fresh Dunlop D205 Sportmax meat. We haul back to the ranch where we start installing the tire:
All bolted back together and good to go, as one of the ranchers looks on:
Ranchers Larry and (Joe? Jim?) wouldn't take any money for them helping me out. I even offered them some of the booze in my saddlebags as payment, but they wouldn't hear anything of it. Frank got a $20 bill and my profuse thanks for all his help. He follows me back to the town just outside Elko where we split ways (with lots of thanking him).
As I was filling my bike up with gas, a group of guys piled out of a minivan on a road trip and threw a wooden sheep out on the ground and yelled, "Look! A Wyoming hooker!"
... you can't make this kind of stuff up.
I finally make it to Todd's buddy's place in Reno after some, err, spirited riding across the desert of Nevada. I called ahead and they had some Chinese food waiting for me. You guys rock!
Erica and Lindsay had the cutest puppy I've ever seen, too. Todd kept claiming she didn't look real, and I agree:
Day three: Sweet, sweet California. Where every two miles is a new road surface, in worse condition than the last.
I look over the bikes in the morning and notice Todd's bike is weeping something from his final drive. Todd promptly gets angry because he had it in for service not too long before the trip. He guessed the leak was from his zip across the desert at a high rate of speed caused a viscosity change in his oil, letting it seep out. To make sure it's not a problem, he wipes it down and takes it for a quick test ride:
But things look just fine:
We decide to just keep an eye on it and press onwards. So, with Todd's GF Virginia perched on the back of the BMW and everything else loaded on top of my 599, we press onto California. We take I80 into Cali and suffer through the worst road I've ever been on in any vehicle, ever. I'm still finding tooth fillings in my helmet.
We stop at a rest stop overlooking Donner Lake, just before peaking at about 7,500 feet in elevation. Nice view of the snow-dusted mountains:
For those of you who haven't been on I80 west (don't), it drops in elevation fairly rapidly. We went from ~7,500 feet to 2,000 feet in elevation in about 20 minutes. Fairly quick drop for a superslab! As a bonus, we get warmed
up from that extra insulation in the sky:
Yeah, that's 90 degrees F. After gassing up the bikes, getting some snacks and water, we convert to high-temp mode. Todd broke out his perforated jacket and I swapped to a tshirt and opened the vents in my Roadcrafter. After hearing Todd's horror stories of the highway turning into a parking lot for no "procreating" reason, I'm mentally prepared.
Then, of course, there was only one time in Cali where we slowed below 70 MPH on the freeway.
The best part about California was the gas pumps. Nothing like pulling back that vapor-guard foreskin to get gas flowing into your bike:
Gas was also about $0.80 a gallon more expensive in California than most of the other places in this trip. Boo!
Going in to Fort Bragg, CA involved a beautifully twisty road through the woods, but the road surface was sub par and both our bikes were loaded heavily and/or awkwardly. Still, some great riding and excellent scenery.
We arrive at the hotel and look over Todd's bike. The rear tire is covered in something wet and nasty. An inspection shows the final drive not leaking, but the rear brake line was leaking. The metal crimp over the rubber line w
as leaking more than a bit when the rear brake was used, like through those 20 MPH corners with a pillion through which we just finished riding. We're tired and hungry so we decide we'll tackle it in the morning. A quick wipe-do
wn and a bit of acceptable seafood and we call it a night.
Day four - WHERE IS THE GOD DAMNED DOT4 BRAKE FLUID?!
People's cars just do not break down in California. There must be some kind of special magnetic field that causes this. At least, that's what I figure. Let me start this properly. In the morning, after a breakfast of champions
:
Todd starts the repairs of his brake line. Since the closest BMW dealer is 100 miles in the wrong direction, we gets started on fixing things as I go off trying to find some DOT4 brake fluid. Neither of the gas stations bracketing the motel had any. In fact, they had the bare basics: DOT3, power steering fluid and radiator repair. Oh, and HEADGASKET REPAIR FLUID, with NANOTECHNOLOGY. For some reason, every place has that crap.
What really struck me was the fact the Safeway in town had the same selection. Coming from a town where Safeway sells different kinds of JB Weld, this is a bit odd.
Todd's morning wasn't brightened by my discoveries of that magical magnetic field:
However, his New York breakfast of coffee and cigarettes did make him feel better. After he patches up his brake line with a McGuyver job of electrical tape and zip ties, we find where the nearest NAPA is and head for it. For so
me reason, he didn't take my advice of what the real McGuyver would use: bubble gum and the moon's gravitational pull. "Ok, it's fixed, but we can only ride between the hours of 8 to 9 AM and 11:30 PM to midnight."
Todd tops off the reservoir and stays off the rear brake in all but emergency stops:
We hit the coast, where it was decided we would stop at every. God. Damned. Stop. Along the way. Living 300 miles from the coast does strange things to you. Well, we hit the coast and ever. God. Damned. Stop.
So here's Todd and Virginia walking out to greet the ocean:
It's been so long since I've been to the coast, I had forgotten how beautiful it really is.
Not to be outdone on this trip, Virginia's cheapie Icon helmet starts to fall apart, starting with the rubber lining going across the bottom of the helmet. Virginia makes McGuyver proud and uses bubble gum to keep it in place:
We stopped off at the Chandelier tree in the Redwoods park to take our turn driving through it and buying kitschy crap at the gift store.
Todd enjoys his Unicorn Sandwich:
We press north to our destination of Crescent City, CA. Stopping in the gas station for a Gatorade, Todd and Virginia inform me they have HARLEY DAVIDSON beef jerky for sale in there. I didn't believe them, but I'm a believer now:
It tastes like freedom and the open road. "fudge" yeah, bro. "fudge" yeah.
At the next beach stop, there were horses on the beach. Why, what a picturesque sight if I've ever seen one!
After an increasingly chilly ride, we arrive at our motel in Crescent City, which was made out of one Californian Redwood. I was quite impressed. The wood looked marvelous and I was amazed they could make concrete out of a tree. While I was being a smartass, Todd was enjoying the heater in our room:
More "bloody"' ocean!
Standard "artsy" shot of water flowing past your feet:
Day five - Sir, you have consumed all the fish in the ocean
I took a nice morning walk along the pier across the street from our hotel. Very nice scenery. A sea lion was cruising through the pier about 20 or 30 feet from me. That's the closest I've been to one, despite hearing them almost every summer night back home near the Puget Sound.
We continue north towards Florence, Oregon. Still on our mission to stop at every scenic spot ever along the way, I start following signs to some state parks. After more than ten miles of following the signs and not seeing a god
damned state park, we get off the bikes, stretch, curse the civic planners and head back north.
Arriving at our cheapass motel, we get restaurant recommendations and chow down. That was the best steak and prawns I've ever had. If the steak wasn't overcooked I probably would have had to commit suicide because no meal could have compared.
Returning to the hotel, Todd and I stay outside drinking and talking into the evening. At the late hour of 9:15 PM, the manager comes out and claims he was listening to our conversation for the past 30 minutes and was tired of be
ing able to hear us, and was sure the rest of his patrons were, too.
We should have broken a window with our HARLEY DAVIDSON brand beef jerky and start charging the shopkeep for insurance, but we just went inside our respective rooms to continue drinking.
Day six - parting of ways
Todd recalls he has about 3.5 metric tons of graduate level homework he has to do soon after he gets back, so he bails on our plans to ride to Portland, Oregon to stay with a friend of mine. We arrange the luggage on the bikes so I'm carrying all the non-essentials and we split. Todd and Virginia head to the Dalles, OR and I head the 150 miles north to Portland. I continue the proud tradition of stopping at every scenic place:
I plan on using this as an album cover, titled STARING PENSIVELY INTO THE SEA:
I arrive in Portland, where fellow goon CountOfNowhere, or Adam, graciously allows me to stay at his place. We arrive, unload my bike, I meet his great parents, and we go hang out with some of his friends. We eat from excellent
Mexican food and consume some green pisswater beer (Bud Light with food coloring) for St. Patty's Day, or a bit early. Whatever, it got me nice and drunk and the empty stomach with which I started drinking. Excellent time had th
ere, learned a lot about Portland and had a nice time being chauffeured around Portland. Adam, your 330 BMW is a very nice ride, I am jealous.
Day seven - Coming home
I woke up, showered and said my thanks and goodbyes. I hustled back into Washington so I could pump my own gas and started heading east.
I also visited Stonehendge:
:patriot:
Well, the Stonehendge memorial was made by some guy who liked the real Stonehendge and hated war, so he made this war memorial, scale Stonehendge.
Rolled over the odometer to a nice round number:
425 miles from Portland, I arrive home, unload my items and am tempted to burn half my laundry. Instead, I just threw it at my girlfriend and laughed. I mean, girls like that stuff, right?
The trip was somewhere around 2500 to 2600 miles. We left Saturday morning and came back the next Saturday evening. Also, despite Todd and Virginia's 100 mile head start on me, I rolled into town less than 30 minutes behind them. Then again, my stops were dictacted by fuel range rather than an angry, saddlesore woman behind me.
Here are some bonus pictures, such as:
Todd being dominated at Pac-Man on hard:
Both bikes:
BMW doing what it does best:
Any complaints about typos or words not spelled correctly should be aimed at Todd. I keep wondering why we have the CS guy doing the writeup while the guy going to graduate school for non-fiction writing just hands off his
photos.
that was a hilarious comment by Holiday)
there are only 2 kinds of bikes: It's a Ninja... look that one's a Harley... oh there's a Ninja... Harley...Ninja...
. 
