Purple Mountains Majesty

8/9/2011 - What an amazing three days of riding I've had since Sunday. Bright and early Sunday morning Laela and Miranda departed San Francisco and I was back on my own. What did I do to celebrate my bachelorhood? I did my laundry at 6:30 in the morning. I took my time packing things up and getting out of the hotel because I knew it'd be the last time I stayed in a GOOD hotel on this trip. I finally got on the road about noon and started making my way towards Nevada. I started by hopping on US-101 Northbound and rode over the Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic was tight for a Sunday at noon, I was surprised by that but what else should I have expected in California? It didn't take long after getting away from the coast for the weather to start warming up. When I left the hotel, I looked like I was on an Arctic expedition and by the time I got to Sacramento I'd pretty much stripped off all of my extra layers and put my summer gloves back on. I spent the majority of the day traversing California and it was pretty run of the mill until I got close to Lake Tahoe. The roads got twisty and threw me back into the mountains. Perfect riding. The south shore of Lake Tahoe was super touristy but in a classy way. I started seeing Casinos and I knew that I had crossed into Nevada. Riding away from Lake Tahoe I encountered my first accident of the trip. It was a three vehicle affair, one of which was a Harley Davidson Road King. There were lots of first responders on the scene and it was yet another reminder not to get cocky on roads that I don't know. I hope everyone was okay. The Chevy Avalanche and the Mazda 626 hadn't fared too well. They hadn't uprighted the Road King yet so I have no idea what kind of condition it was in. I pulled over into the first RV park I found in Carson City and set up shop for the night. The weather was perfect for sleeping and I was very comfortable. The staff at the RV park was very friendly and helpful.

I got up the Monday morning, had my coffee and oatmeal and I was back on the road. I'd put 3500 miles on the bike since my last oil change and wanted to get it done again before I headed into the Nevada desert. The Carson City O'Rielly auto parts oil tank was full so I couldn't do it there. I found another one about 30 miles down the road and I was in business. Fresh oil for the bike and I was on my way again. The desert landscape was something not at all what I expected. I thought I was going to be inundated with sand and nothing. That wasn't the case at all. There were mountains a plenty and open range cattle EVERYWHERE including ON the road. It's a little unnerving rolling up to a full grown bull with horns and being only 10 feet away and being stared down by it. I'm glad my bike isn't red. Lots of space in between gas stations too. At one point I went 225 miles between them. I wasn't nervous yet but I was really glad when I found one. I stayed the night at the Little Al'E'Inn in Rachel, NV. It's a few miles away from the infamous Area 51. Rachel is a sparsely populated town and the Inn is nothing but a cluster of about 8 or so mobile homes. The biggest one is the restaurant/bar/office. The people working there were extremely nice and accomaditing. It wasn't someplace I'd stay with my family but I'm glad I stayed there by myself. I went to park my bike and unload my bags and I was in the gravel. I went to put down my kickstand plate (the one I got when I took Ohio's Motorcycle Safety course) and then it dawned on me. I left it at my campsite in Carson City. I was bummed but hey, what are you going to do. After getting settled in I went back to the restaurant and had an Alien Burger. The Alien Sauce is Thousand Island dressing. Spooky. After eating I went outside to the picnic tables with a Boston Lager and was greeted by a cloudless night sky. With it's lack of light pollution, it put on an amazing show. The stars were super bright; unfortunately, efforts to capture that sky with my camera failed miserably. Lack of cell service but having wi-fi, I chatted with Laela for a while on Twitter and then turned in for the night.

Staying in a room has the advantage of not having to break down camp and tetris everything back onto the bike, so after getting my directions straight I was on the road right away Tuesday morning. Again, first order of business was fuel. I'd gone 125 miles since my last fill up and I was 88 miles from the nearest service station. One thing is for sure, I couldn't have done this trip without carrying copious amount of extra fuel on any of my other bikes. En route to the gas station I was greeted by more desert mountain ranges tinged with the early morning haze. I had never really understood the phrase "purple mountains majesty" before this morning. They were a beautiful sight to behold. After fueling up, I made my way to Utah. As soon as I crossed the state line, the roads turned to shit. Very gravelly and with a speed limit of 40MPH. Again, I wasn't going to push it on unfamiliar roads especially since I was still in "open range" territory. I took a rest stop in Cedar City and when I got going again I happened upon a Suzuki dealership. I went in to see if they had any kickstand plates available because I never know what kind of surface I'm going to be parking on. The lady behind the counter was very nice and said "I've got one but you probably won't want it because it says Suzuki." I explained to her that would make me extactic because I'm riding a Suzuki V-Strom and went on to tell her about my trip and that my other bike is a Suzuki Savage. We had a nice chat and she let me have the plate free of charge. Being as directionally challenged as I can be at times, I asked her where UT-14 was because I had made a wrong turn in town. She informed me that I was on it. So I hopped back on and started travelling east. It was then that I took back my previous cursing of Utah's roads because UT-14 is a twisty mountain road flanked on either side by canyons and other gorgeous scenery. I couldn't stop to take enough pictures. It was awesome. I finally ended up in Arizona and found a campsite at Jacob's Lake. I got my camp set up, had dinner, and wrote this blog entry. You are now all caught up on the adventures of kid gorgeous.

Goodbye SFO

August 7, 2011 - It's Sunday morning. Laela and Miranda have just departed from the SFO Holiday Inn for their flight back to Ohio. I miss them terribly already. It's going to be a lonely ride back to Columbus from here. I'm currently doing my laundry (which by the way is DAYS overdue). We've had a fantastic time as a family on the west coast. The last two days we've spent exploring San Francisco. I have two observations: 1) Two days is not nearly enough to take in all that San Francisco has to offer. 2) I am NOT a big city person.

On Friday we arrived in San Francisco (actually Thursday night but we really didn't do anything but sleep). After we woke up on Friday we drove across town to the hotel we booked for the weekend. Once we got settled in, we took the hotel shuttle to the airport so that we could pick up the BART and go downtown. Naturally since Miranda was with us, our first order of business was visiting Chinatown. The first thing that struck me about the city as soon as we disembarked the BART was how crowded the city streets were. It is amazing how many people crammed the sidewalk. The girls were darting in and out of stores enjoying the shopping while I spent my time on the sidewalk people watching. The stores all seemed to contain the same items so after I went in a couple of them, they all seemed the same.

After Chinatown we made our way to Fisherman's Wharf (because that's what you're supposed to do in San Francisco right?) So we spent some time walking around taking in the sights and shopping there too. The weather was in the 60's and windy the whole time we were here and made it feel more like fall in Ohio than the first week of August. It was quite refreshing and I'm sure that I'll be missing it as soon as I start to travel inland. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant. It was fair, kind of what I expected. How does one mess up fried shrimp and fish anyway? (you can take the boy out of Ohio, but can't take Ohio out of the boy) After dinner we continued walking down the street until we went sea lion watching at Pier 39. We got some cute pictures.

They're really loud and watching them wrestle and play "king of the hill" on the docks was a lot of fun. When we finished watching them we found what? You guessed it...a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium! We spent the remainder of the evening there. It was MUCH nicer than the one in Newport, OR and much more spacious. We had had enough walking around at this point and decided to go back to the hotel. Looking at the map, I hadn't realized how far we had walked and I ended up submitting the girls to an almost 3 mile death march back to the BART. Once back at the airport, it took almost an hour for the hotel shuttle to come and pick us up. That was more than a little frustrating, but we finally made it back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Saturday morning we got up and were advised by the hotel staff that the best way to get to the ball game was to use the CalTrain rather than the BART. The CalTrain had a station close enough to the hotel to drive to. We parked there, boarded the train and were down to AT&T Park in a short four stops. AT&T Park is a great facility for baseball and every bit as picturesque as it appears on television. It was a sold out game vs. the Philadelphia Phillies so I was going to be happy no matter who won because it was my favorite NL west team vs. my favorite NL east team. We stayed in our bleacher seats for the first three innings and then got up and really spent the next four innings exploring the park. Laela and Miranda both went down the slides in the Coca-Cola bottle. When we went back to our seats in the 8th inning they were occupied by some elitist assholes (they reminded me a LOT of the girls we encountered in DC Five Guys last year). They were made aware that they were in our seats and made to move. They grumbled and bitched the rest of the time they were there. Fortunately they decided they'd had enough by the 9th inning and beat it.

After the game we didn't really have a plan for how to spend the rest of the day so I decided that we should do a "Ride the Duck" tour of San Francisco. It was pretty cool; although, of all the duck tours I've been on I'd have to say that was the least entertaining captain we've had, but the first that I'd want to go have a beer with when he's off duty. The other thing about this tour was that over the course of the past two days, we'd walked most of what we drove through. It was nice to get the history of the places on the tour though. The water-born portion of the tour was right through McCovey Cove so we got another fantastic view of the ball park.

We got finished with the duck tour, hopped a cab back to the CalTrain station and were back in the hotel before 11:00. 4:00 am this morning came too soon and it was then that I bid farewell to Laela and Miranda. I really loved getting to hang out with them on the west coast and am glad I got to be with Miranda the first time she went to the Pacific ocean. It's going to be a long 13 days before I get home. I'll probably leave at about noon today, but right now I have to go get my laundry out of the dryer. Until the next time I have intertube access....

California Cruising

Good Morning! It's August 5, 2011 and I'm sitting in a Holiday Inn lobby in San Francisco, CA. It's been a great couple of days of riding since I last wrote. Wednesday night we stopped and stayed in Newport, OR. While in Newport we took in the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, a wax museum, and an Undersea Adventure "show". Almost every time we vacation with Miranda we stop and visit a Ripley's museum because she loves them. Tickets to this one included the wax museum and underwater adventure. The wax museum was a little bit dates with exhibits such as the M*A*S*H tent. They did have a bitchin Star Wars and Lord of the Rings section. The undersea adventure was just sad. It was in a building that was actually submerged under the water by about 10 feet or so and they had a big window that went around the perimeter and looked out onto their "aquarium." It had a few fish in it but they all looked diseased or sick. There were a bunch of crabs that were fighting and eating each other though, so that was kind of interesting.

The next day we continued to travel south down US-101 through Oregon, enjoying the view of the coast and taking in some tourist attractions. We stopped to see Sea Lion Caves near Florence, OR and actually got to see some sea lions basking in the sun. Again, we continued to travel south and eventually found ourselves in California. We stopped at the Redwood Forest information center and got some tips on how to see some old growth redwoods from the car/motorcycle and were also informed that during the course of our journey, we'd cross the Klamath River. It just so happened that there was a whale that had made it's way into the river and was playing by a bridge on the river. Sure enough, about 45 minutes later we were staring right at a real live whale. Pictures can't possibly do justice to how majestic it was. Given the area it was "playing" in, it almost seemed like it knew there were people watching it and was putting on a show on purpose.

We stayed in Arcata, CA Wednesday night at a janky Comfort Inn, but it was the only hotel that had a room available with two double beds. Thursday when we woke up, we continued on US-101 until it intersected with CA-1, the Pacific Coast Highway. We rode the PCH for several hours. It was beautiful but we weren't making very good time and a couple of us were getting car sick from all of the twists and turns the road took as it followed the mountains on the coast line. We did get a chance to go to the drive through tree though! I kind of felt like Clark Griswold.

We finally arrived in San Francisco after night fall and another HARROWING bridge crossing. The Richmond San Rafael Bridge is longer than the Mackinac Bridge. Actually, I just confirmed that it is 5.5 miles long. After a couple of missteps, we ended up at our hotel for the evening. Most everything was closed for dinner, so we all tried Jack-In-The-Box for the first (and last) time. It was pretty gross.

Portlandia

¡Hola, Mis Amigos! It's Tuesday morning August 2nd. I'm writing from the breakfast room at the Fairfield Inn in Portland, OR. It's been a busy few days since I last wrote. After staying the evening on the Idaho/Washington border, I got up on Saturday with about 12o miles to go to get to Seattle. Friday night, when I was at my campsite I set out to oil my chain as I do most days after riding any significant mileage. Much to my dismay, I discovered some of my chain links were binding up. I spent the rest of the evening attempting to "adjust away" the kinks but it just wasn't happening. So I put my tools away, and decided to just ride my motorcycle to the Holiday Inn in Renton, WA where I'd be staying the night. I was at the hotel four hours too early to check in, so I grabbed my laundry and decided to work on that for a while. As I was washing my clothes I decided to call some nearby motorcycle dealerships to see if any of them had the chain I needed in stock and a service tech available to install it. Fortunately for me Renton Motorcycles was 5 miles from my hotel and had both things I required. I figured it was probably in my best interests to get a new chain rather than ignore it and have it break on me mid trip or even worse, with Miranda on the back. So I rode over to RMC, bought the chain and sprockets, and had them install them. They also went so far as to wash my very dirty machine too.

I was in and out of there in a couple of hours. In the meantime, Laela and Miranda's plane had landed and they had made it to the hotel. I got back there and they were already checked in. It was a very happy reunion. We then went and had a crappy dinner at the restaurant at the hotel. Will I ever learn to NOT eat at a Holiday Inn restaurant?

Sunday we got up and headed into Seattle on the light rail system they had. The hotel had a shuttle to run us over to the station and it took us right downtown. We went to the Space Needle, took a Duck Tour of Seattle, went to a Mariner's game at Safeco Field, went to the fish market, and then had dinner at the Crab Pot. The Pirate store next to the Crap Bot was pretty bad ass and we had a good time perusing it. Miranda was wishing that we could have shopped there before her school musical.

Monday morning we got up and headed out on the road. Since Portland was our next destination, we just hopped on I-5 so we could get there in a straight shot. It took a couple about three hours to get there and when we did we met up with my friend from back in the day, Brian Pickering. It was really nice to be able to catch up with an old friend. It's easily been 16 years since we'd seen each other and there was a lot of catching up to do. He's very knowledgeable about the entire Pacific Northwest Area and had lots of pro-tips for us on things to do and see. He also helped us score a reasonable hotel for the evening which is where I'm writing from right now. Today we're going to visit some bookstore, a donut shop, and Chinatown; after which, we'll hop on US-101 and start making our way down the coast.