Day 14 (May 27): All Fixed Up and Somewhere to Go

My parts came in Wednesday morning and Dave at The Zen House had everything repaired within a few hours.  The axle that we received wasn't the right one for my anti-lock brake model, so Paul and I had to run to the nearby town of Gualala to have part of it machined down to fit.  It all worked out and Dave did a great job getting the bike back on the road ASAP.

We continued down the coast and headed towards Yosemite National Park.  We had originally planned to go a little south of San Francisco, but we split off further north through Oakland to make up for lost time.

We got our first exposure to lane splitting (only legal in California) while driving on the interstate through Oakland.  Lane splitting was an absolute rush, and a big time-saver.  It was pretty intense considering how wide our bikes are with all the touring luggage, and there were times when I must've had only inches of clearance.  Pretty much anytime the traffic dropped below about 40mph we moved between lanes and passed right between the congested lanes of traffic.  Most of the cars were pretty good about sharing the road, giving us room when they saw us coming down between the lanes.  We were surprised that there weren't more motorcyclists on the road, considering it was such a time-saver in heavy traffic, and with a narrower bike it would have been downright fun.

We continued east for the rest of the day.  We made decent time and had nice weather, and it was great to get back on the bike and on the road.  We camped just outside of Yosemite for the night.

Days 12-13 (May 25-26): Point Arena

Monday morning we went back into town to the motorcycle shop (The Zen House).  Dave, the owner, already had most of the front end of my bike taken apart and was making a list of parts that needed to be replaced.  He had to leave, but I spent a while on the internet and phone trying to locate new or used replacement parts.  Unfortunately everywhere was closed since it was Memorial Day.  After exhausting all the options, we called it a day and walked down to the wharf for lunch.  We had sandwiches at a cool coffee shop and spent a few hours relaxing on the coast.

We walked back into town and remembered that there was a really cool old art deco theater that had been turned into a single screen movie theater.  They only change the movie once every week or two so we didn't have much of a film choice.  This week they were showing "Angels and Demons," which ended up being pretty decent.

After the movie, we rode back down to the pier for some great pizza.  We also picked up some ice cream which we took back to share with the couple who had taken us in during our unplanned stay in Point Arena.  Dave and Jamileh were great.  They made us feel incredibly welcome and really helped make a bad situation as pleasant as possible.  Since they were both motorcycle riders, we spent a bit of time talking about the great roads we'd all ridden.

The next day (Tuesday) I was finally able to get ahold of people on the phone.  It turned out that new parts would take 7-10 days to arrive, so I turned my attention to salvage yards in the area.  I gradually expanded my search area and after calling 30 or 40 salvage yards finally found some parts from an '04 model in LA that sounded like they would work.  I paid an arm and a leg to have the parts overnighted and hoped they'd make it early the next morning.

Home at last, will try to catch up on posts/photos tomorrow

Back in Texas, only 600mi to go!

Day 11: Man Down!

We broke camp on Sunday morning and left Eureka, continuing down the coast. The roads and weather continued to be great and we were making good time towards San Francisco.

In the afternoon, about 130mi north of San Francisco, we were riding down Hwy 1 when I went down. I was taking the turn a little wide, and right at the outside edge of the lane my front tire lost traction on some dirt and gravel from the road. This caused me to slide off the road where unfortunately there was no shoulder. My bike went into some thick grass and soft dirt which really bogged the bike down. The bars were going left and right to full lock and I was barely able to keep the bike upright when it threw me off, still going what must have been 30-40mph. The next think I know I'm rolling and sliding along the pavement. I don't know exactly how, but both my bike and I ended up back on the road next to each other.

I made it through with barely a scratch, just a couple of small bruises. My helmet and jacket showed signs of taking the brunt of the impact. My bike, however, had a severely bent fork tube and my trunk had broken off and cracked open. Most of the rest of my luggage was okay, and actually did a pretty good job of protecting the rear of my bike. We hauled my bike upright and the front wheel was tweaked so badly that it was only pointing straight ahead when my handlebars fully to the right. Among the other damage, the windscreen, the shifter foot lever, and the left foot peg had sheared off.

A couple in a pickup stopped and helped us gather up the loose pieces. We asked if there was a motorcycle shop nearby and to our amazement the only one within a couple of hours was in the next town of only 500 people. The ride in was interesting with the missing foot peg and having to fool around with the broken shift lever. The inability to turn the front wheel to the right was a little concerning at first, but luckily most of the turning of a motorcycle is done with the leaning motion at any reasonable speed. I managed to tackle the curvy road all the way into town up to the motorcycle shop.

It was Sunday and the shop was closed, but someone managed to get a message to the owner and he came in to take a look. The damage was pretty bad and he said the tube was bent too much to bend back and would need to be replaced. He said he'd come in the next morning (Memorial Day) and tear the bike apart to check everything out and see what needed to be done to get me back on the road.

While we were standing outside the motorcycle shop trying to figure out what we were going to do, a couple came by on their motorcycles. They offered to help in any way they could, and ended up putting us up for the night in their beach house. There wasn't anything else we could do that day, so we called it a night.

Zion NP, check.

Thursday night: Camping in Valley of Fire State Park. Lots of bugs, but I brought my friend DEET.

Leaving Las Vegas, getting tired, another hour to go tonight

Dam, Hoover.
Next stop: Vegas, baby!

Paul wussed out and stopped for gas. Lame.

110 degrees and negative altitude

Entering Death Valley. Will Paul have enough gas to make it through? Stay tuned to find out!

In Yosemite!

Day 10: Back on the Road

Saturday morning we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the comfy beds and began loading up our bikes. After another great breakfast courtesy of Uncle Joe, we said our goodbyes and got back on the road.



We headed west until we hit the coast and began following it to the south. We rode the rest of the day with the ocean to our right. There were a lot of really fun roads along the cliffs, and the weather was great most of the time. We only stopped once for photos, but got some pretty good ones:





After a long day of riding, we made it to our destination at the Eureka, CA KOA and made camp (in the dark, again).

Day 9: Vacation Vacation

Today was our day off, although most of it was spent working on the bikes. We awoke after a good night sleep in beds and were treated to a nice breakfast by Joe. We did a few loads of laundry while we worked on the bikes. We changed the oil, oil filters, air filters, and spark plugs, and then washed off the week's worth of accumulated bug guts and road grime. They looked nice and sleek again after being freshly washed and stripped of their luggage.



That evening Paul met up with a friend that lived in the area while Uncle Joe and I went a dance hall for some great live music.

Day 8: Midpoint

We woke up at the KOA RV site and saw just how out of place we really were with our tents. Paul's tent had a lot of water pooled under it, but it hadn't rained and there was too much water to have come from dew. We were puzzled until I went to the office to check out. Apparently they can't control their sprinkler system and that's why they don't have tent sites.

We got on the road and continued south through Washington and across the Columbia River into Oregon. We followed the river to the west until we split off to ride around the Mount Hood area.



There's skiing year-round, so the US Olympic ski team trains here during the summer. We wound our way partway up the mountain to the Timberline Lodge. It looked like they had just closed the lifts when we showed up. The outside of the lodge was used in "The Shining," or "The Shinning" as the historical timeline showed. I'd like to think that was a nod to the Simpsons episode, but it was probably just a typo.



We continued into Portland, stopping at a Harley dealer for a couple bolts, oil, and filters for Paul's bike. We made it to my Aunt Darlene and Uncle Joe's house around dinner time and Joe cooked us a great meal. We slept indoors in beds for the first time since we started the trip a week earlier.

Driving down the Pacific Coast, just ate lunch in Newport, OR.

Day 5 Video: Heading to Yosemite National Park

Day 5 Video: Grand Teton National Park

Day 7: Trouble in Paradise

We semi-reluctantly packed up and left the Dillon KOA. This is not any credit to the campground, but because later in the day we were going to start a long stretch on the interstate heading west.

The Montana that was so great the day before dropped 20 degrees and even in the middle of the sunny day we were freezing while riding on the bikes. When we stopped for lunch we realized that we were still shivering even after being inside out of the cold for a while. I was pretty sure that wasn't a good sign, but we pushed on. Later that day Paul ran out of gas and died of hypothermia. :(

Ok, not really, but it was unpleasantly cold and he really did run out of gas. We exited to Melrose, MT just after Paul had to switch to his fuel reserve, but didn't see any gas stations so we got back on the road for another 10 miles to the next town of Divide. My GPS showed a gas station in this town, but after driving around we didn't see anything and followed my GPS to it's exact supposed location: a bridge. Great. The next town with gas was 30 miles away, so we had to go back. Paul should've been able to make 25mi or so on his reserve, but heading back to Melrose his bike ran out of gas. Luckily Paul carries a liter of gasoline in a small bottle (for making Molotov Cocktails, I suspect), and I think he actually got almost half of it into his gas tank. The rest was left in a puddle on the side of the road as offering to the petrol gods. We continued to Melrose and finally found the gas station we had missed earlier.

We had lunch in Darby, MT and then got on the interstate in Missoula, MT. Sometime around Custer State Park Paul's bike had started to sound louder in a clacking sort of way. We thought it might have been his valves, but a few days later Paul realized that he had lost both mounting bolts on one of his exhaust pipes, causing the loud rattle. We stopped at a Harley dealer in Missoula, but they didn't have the bolts in stock. We did get a wrench to adjust the rear suspension preload on his bike. This compensated for the extra weight he was carrying and finally kept the bike from bottoming out over bumps.

We continued into and out of Idaho and into Washington. We were supposed to stop at Ritzville for food and gas, and to warm up before the last hour and a half to the camp. Instead, Paul missed the exit and we had to keep going. Now, we were tired and cold and I'd been looking forward to this stop for the last hour. I checked my GPS and the next food was almost an hour down the road. I could almost taste the bitterness I felt. I'll admit that it took longer than I had expected: as of Day 7, Paul and I were no longer on speaking terms.

We stopped for gas in the tiny town of Lind, WA where we had to drive for several miles through nothingness to the oldest gas pumps I've seen. Pump 24 (as the place was called) wouldn't even take my credit card, so I declined to fill up on principle. I can make it almost twice as far as Paul on a tank, so it wasn't a big deal for me. At this point, the best option was to continue all the way to the camp, so we got ready for another hour-plus of cold.

We got back on the road and kept riding to Richland/Pasco where we finally were able to eat and make camp at a KOA. It turns out that this KOA had only RV spots. The office had closed 4 or 5 hours earlier, so we just set up camp in an RV spot and decided to sort it out in the morning.

Day 6: Big Wind Country

Tuesday we woke up, packed, and bid farewell to Jason. Since we hadn't had time to see the park much the previous evening, we decided to backtrack a bit to see Old Faithful before heading out the northwest entrance to the park. I think the geyser blew 15 or 20 minutes late, apparently it's been getting longer between eruptions.

It took a while to get out of the park due to several traffic obstructions. We had to stop for a while for several buffalo crossings and animal sightings. We almost saw some older tourists mauled by a bear, but it decided their meat would be too tough and dry. Would've made a great video - our loss.

We left the park through the stone arch at the northwestern entrance and then had lunch a few hundred feet away with a nice view back over the park. The arch reads: "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People"

We avoided the main interstate and enjoyed some beautiful small roads through Montana for the rest of the day. The weather was great and this was by far my favorite long stretch of driving yet. Despite Montana's nickname, the sky was approximately the same size as Wyoming's. The wind, on the other hand, was relentless - we had to keep our bikes tilted over into the wind to fight being pushed off the road.

We made pretty good time and pushed on to a KOA in Dillon, MT. We could see the free wifi, but could actually get on the internet. It seems that every camp site we choose based on wifi availability backfires on us. Not much to do without internet, we cooked some dinner and got some sleep.

Lunch in Hood River, OR

Another really long day - stopping for the night in Richland, WA. I'll upload posts and photos from the past few days tomorrow.

Day 5: Grand Tetons and Beyond

After waking, showering, and packing, we left the Worland Campground a little after 9 in the morning. We were sad to see that the shirtless man drinking beer in front of his trailer home from the night before was not there to see us off. I'm sure he had other matters to attend to.

We hopped back on Hwy20 and rode down along the Wind River through the Wind River Canyon. This is a beautiful canyon with great scenery and fun twisty roads. We went through a couple of tunnels in the canyon along the way and finally came out with a view of the Tetons in the distance. Any French speakers know where the Tetons got their name?

We proceeded northwest towards the Teton Range through the Teton National Forest and then south into Jackson Hole. After a quick gas stop at the edge of the town of Jackson, we took the scenic route north through the Grand Teton National Park. There were great views of the Tetons the whole way (which are more impressive from a distance than the Colorado Rockies we saw) and the road took us right along Jackson Lake for a bit, offering more great views of the Tetons across the water.

We continued heading north and got caught in some pretty serious construction just south of Yellowstone. After several miles of gravel and broken roads we finally made it into the South Entrance of Yellowstone. It was just a little before dark so we pulled over to take a look at the map and figure out which campsite we were going to try for. It turned out that all of the southern campsites weren't yet open for the season. It is precisely at this moment that we realized just how big Yellowstone really is. The campsite at the northern end of the park was 90mi away, which would take over 2 hours at the park speed limits. We picked one of the closest open parks and headed towards it. We didn't have a reservation, but were hoping they'd still have open spots.

Although it was after dark, we made it to the campground office a few minutes before they closed at 9pm and they still had room. While about to reserve a tent site, we ran into another guy, Jason, who was touring on his Harley and offered to share his camp site with us. Jason was also on a long motorcycle tour, covering around 8000mi in two weeks. He was more hardcore than us though, he was making the trip solo and had done more than 1000mi in a single day. He was on the tail end of his trip, heading home to Michigan, and had already been out towards the coast where we were heading next. The camp site was nice with plenty of room for the three of us and no burn ban. We had a good time eating dinner and swapping ride stories by the fire. The night was pretty cold, but we managed to bundle up enough to stay plenty warm through the night.

Currently in Idaho

Not able to update yet, we were supposed to have wifi last night but no luck. We're eating lunch in Darby, MT on our way through Idaho into Washington. The weather's been pretty cold today, and riding at 75mph in 50 deg weather isn't much fun. I thought this was summer?

Day 4: Worland Campground - We Put the Shady in "Shady Tent Sites!"

We slept in a little later than planned, but broke camp and headed out earlier than we had so far on the trip. Even though the camp site was pretty primitive it was nice to be camping in the park forest instead of a commercial campground. We continued our way East through Custer State Park and ended up spending around an hour touring around some of the winding roads that ran through the park. We saw a bit of wildlife including a couple of herds of buffalo before we headed out of the park.


Exiting the park we took the Iron Mountain Road which runs from the East side of the park up to the Mount Rushmore National Monument. This road was great to ride on the motorcycles. These were the twistiest roads we'd been on and forced us to keep our eyes on the road with the constant tight turns and the one-lane tunnels with blind corners at the exits. The only drawback was getting stuck behind slow-moving cagers. Although we didn't get any photos along the way, Paul took another time-lapse video that we'll try to post at some point.

We made it to the Mount Rushmore National Monument and spent a little over an hour there taking photos and walking around the loop in front of the sculpture.



We left Mount Rushmore and headed up to Sturgis, home of the famous Bike Week. Even at this time of year we saw tons of motorcycle riders, probably more bikes than cars.


Next we left South Dakota and headed back into Wyoming to Devil's Tower which was pretty cool. We didn't have time to walk around the whole monument, but we walked up as close as we could and took a few photos. Apparently you can climb it (I wonder if you can do that on any other National Monument?) and we saw several climbers almost half-way up the formation. We also got to test our National Park Pass that we had bought at the Rocky Mountain National Park. For $80 the pass covers the entrance fee to all National Parks, Monuments, and Forests for one automobile for a year. The best thing is that instead of a car, it can cover *two* motorcycles, so this worked out perfect for us.




The rest of the day we spent driving West through Wyoming until after 11pm again. So far we've yet to make it to our camp site before dark. Our daily schedule calls for around 8 hours of driving plus around 3 hour for stops (gas, lunch, scenic pullouts, etc), but I think our stops are adding up to well over 5 hours a day and we're starting at least an hour late, meaning we have to keep driving several hours later into the night to hit our trip waypoints. We've made camp at a small campground/RV park in Worland, WY (still 100mi short for the day). Tomorrow we'll continue to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. We're supposed to get there in the afternoon so we should finally be able to make camp in the daylight, and spend some time touring the park.

Day 3: Custer's Last Camp

We got up in the morning at Estes Park and were surprised to find the great view we had from our camp site - we couldn't see anything the night before. We packed up camp and headed out, actually able to enjoy the twisty mountain roads in the daytime.




Some of the roads in Rocky Mountain Park were closed, but we were able to make it in about 15 miles before we had to go back out the way we came. We went from no snow on the ground to 12ft walls of snow on the side of the road by the time we reached the closed part of the road around 11,800ft. You can see from the photos it's a little different from Texas in May. We also have some great time-lapse videos that we'll post when we have the chance.




We left the Rockies heading East and then headed up into Wyoming, which was a nice relaxing ride. As far as we could see, there were great rolling hills with white rock features jutting through the ground and lots of livestock. The roads were in great condition and we made good time into South Dakota.


Once in South Dakota we headed up to Custer State Park. It was late by the time we got there and we set up camp in the dark again. The facilities were pretty minimal with just chemical toilets, no sinks or showers. We used our camp stoves for the first time to cook dinner, and built a wood fire to eat in front of. It had been another long day, but we slept well that night.

Day 2: Into the Rockies

We stayed the previous night at the Amarillo KOA, which was a first for both of us. I don't know if all KOAs are the same, but this was a pretty fancy place to stay as far as campgrounds go. Although we didn't take advantage of them, there was a pool and laundry facilities, and the restrooms were the cleanest public ones I've ever used.

After riding over 500mi the previous day and still being in Texas, we were looking forward to finally hitting up some other states. We crossed the border into New Mexico around noon and made it into Colorado about 3 hours later.

Here's a photo of Paul and I with our bikes and the Rockies in the background. Funny note: since my bike sits pretty straight up and the side of the road was fairly tilted, I couldn't get off my bike without it falling over.


We had been planning on camping in the Arapaho National Forest, but when we called in the afternoon we got a recording that said all the camp sites were not yet open for the season - oops! We called around and checked maps and finally found a campground in Estes Park, CO. It was further than we had planned on going that day, but we decided to push on. In retrospect this was a pretty bad idea. We were driving through twisty mountain roads in the pitch black, exhausted at the end of a very long day. Unfortunately there was nowhere to pull over or stay, so we had to push on until we finally made the campground. Did I mention it was raining a bit and extremely cold? We also decided to forgo dinner and just hit the sack as soon as possible. Despite being exhausted, I don't think Paul or I slept very well due to the cold, but it was good to get off the bikes for a while.

We're back in Wyoming, hopefully camping in Worland in a couple hours. Sorry about the few brief posts, I've just been updating from my cell phone. I'll hopefully find some wifi tomorrow and post photos from the past few days.

Ok, we're in Sturgis... when's Bike Week?

From my phone: Very long day, ended up in Estes Park, CO

Day 1:The Journey Begins

Paul got into town last night, and after loading up and eating some breakfast we made it out of College Station around 10:30AM. With the exception of lack of sleep and a minor luggage mishap, the day's ride went pretty well. The bikes seem to handle just fine with all the luggage and the 2hr range on Paul's gas tank works out about right for stretching our legs. We stopped for the day in Amarillo after about 10 hours and a little over 500 miles. That's all for now, about to make camp for the night.

Day 0: The Plan

My friend Paul and I are embarking on a motorcycle/camping/road trip, covering more than 7000 miles from May 14th to 31st. We're visiting every state in the Western half of the US, focusing on fun rides and beautiful scenery. I'll try to post updates and photos from the road when I can. For now, here's the overall route: