Joshua Tree National Park

Hello everyone from beautiful Bullhead City, Arizona, just across the Colorado River from Nevada Gambling.  I'm spending the night in the Desert Rancho Motel, on a strip that has lot's of gun shops and pawn shops and massage parlors. Oh and it's 100 and its 7 pm.  I'm here because my bike decided to take a giant shit and stop running. So luckily there's a Kawasaki dealership here that I was towed to (thank you roadside assistance).  They took a look at it and we decided it was the carburetor and they would look at it first thing in the morning. Which brings me to the report on Joshua Tree...

This has to be one of the most beautiful parks I've been in as far as campgrounds go.  I was planning on doing an overnight and then head on. I stayed 3 nights.  Great hiking, riding, and beautiful scenery.  And not a bad camp spot in the place. Every spot is nestled among boulders with fire ring and shade and is semi private.

The ride into the park

Joshua Tree is a freaky place, lot's of cactuses, boulders, and of course sand and sun.  Still getting used to that and it will get hotter as I move into AZ, NV, and UT..

The Joshua Tree itself

And for my first home cooked meal as I had a grill at my site!!

With a bottle of Twenty Nine Palms liquor stores finest...

And because I'm being healthy, some fresh fruit...

Climb on the rocks to watch the sun set..

And a little camp fire..Out by about 9pm because I wanted to get an early start to get through part of the Mojave Desert before it got too hot.

Little did I know my day would end at about 2 pm, just outside the desert on a freeway offramp.

After about 170 miles of straight desert, with about 3 turns total, my bike started chugging and lugging and I pulled over and it wouldn't start again. I knew it was the carb as I had been having problems with it earlier and had had it serviced outside Joshua Tree.  Guess that didn't do the trick.  It was hot, but I found some shade.  As the tow truck cruised down to the shop I saw a roadside sign with the current temperature  106......Hopefully it's a quick fix...I'll know more tomorrow

Fuck You Los Angeles and Fuck You harder Palm Springs

I have never liked LA. Ever. It is just a jumble of 6 lane highways with asshats going 90 and weaving through traffic.  I woke up in my RV heaven this am and decided that I couldn't take another day of it.  I decided to go out and ride towards my next destination (Joshua Tree NP) until I got tired and then get a motel room.  The ride wasn't too bad, just boring big freeways, and whenever the turn for my highway came it was always on the opposite side of where I was and I had to cross lanes of fast traffic and crazy drivers and Harleys with dudes wearing T-shirts going much faster than I. So I left Solvang at around 7 and stopped at the REI to buy some stuff, have lunch and then settled into the run to LA. I ran along the north and kept meaning to stop, but I felt ok and kept going.  It took a lot of concentration, but I knew what I was getting into with LA.  Not so with Palm Springs..

I figured Palm springs is where I would stop. And I did.  I could've gone further was in not for the FUCKING WIND TRYING TO KILL ME. I had been through here before in cars and noticed how great the wind farms were.  On a bike, if you see wind farms it's not a good sign.  I came in in the afternoon so I had a tail wind going down I-10. That's all well and good, but as soon as you turn North or South, the wind tries to murder you.

From my motel 6

As I was coming off the highway, I went from due east to due north. I went from about 70mph to 50 and then it hit me and almost did me in. I had a Mac Truck behind me who luckily saw what was going on and he slowed with me,  I tried to fight it but it was so strong, I was weaving all over my lane and I had to go down to about 30 and then I pulled into the emergency lane and stopped.  So did the truck.  Then he pulled next to me and by sign language and shouting (I wear ear plugs on the highway), we figured out that he would be to my left and act as a windshield for me for the next mile until we hit the town.  Must be a rider.  The wind was so strong that even at a stop I had to fight from being blown over.

I tend to be an introverted, antisocial type person when I'm by myself, but so far I have met some great people.  In my RV heaven I met a family from England who are traveling around the world with their kids.  He downloaded 200 pirated books to my kindle.  In Goleta, I met a couple from Canada and we drank shitty Canadian Whisky and talked all night around a fire. I wish I could thank this truck driver for helping me out, but he just shuttled on with a toot toot as we hit town.  I feel I will meet a lot of remarkable people on this journey. Hopefully some hot womens too.

Oh and right about Rancho Cucamongo my clutch cable decided to snap and I couldn't shift gears.  I had a spare though!  Ten minutes and back on the road.  Who's your daddy!

Peace out, and Fuck LA and Palm Springs, the asshole and grundle of the USA!

Solvang CA, or the day the bike was reborn

Greetings from sunny, but windy Solvang CA, the little Danish town you might know from the movie sideways..really freaky town. I thought I'd dropped some Danish acid when I rolled in. I thought there was a strip with a windmill and some quaint houses, but no, the ENTIRE town is a little danish village hawking cheap tourist goods. Even the houses where people live on the outskirts are designed in the same European style. And the people talk funny.

 Excuse the proliferation of panoramic shots that are about to ensue over the next coupe of posts, but I'm geeking out over my new phone camera.

So besides reconnecting with my Danish roots, the real reason I am in Solvang is to meet a KLR guru, Mr Wymann Wynn.  He works exclusively on the top end of the KLR motor and has personally installed over 200 of these, I believe I was something like 248 or so. He is a staff member of KLR650.net, an online forum of help and advice on working on this bike. He is considered to be one of the most knowledgable guys on this engine and specifically the top end. (combustion chamber, valves, carburetor, etc for those who don't know about this crap)  So I was having some issues about oil burning and some sputtering and hesitation on the bike.  It's old, has been a little abused and needed some TLC.  So Wymann offers personal tech days at a fraction of a mechanics wages and insists you come to his house and perform whatever work you want with him. (He's not a mechanic, he just does this on the weekends.) His workshop is just like a mechanics shop with various bikes, engines, air compressors, tools, etc, and a big gun case. A man of few words, we begin at 8 am and tear the engine apart.

This is the camshaft with just the cover removed. Looks good he says. I'm relieved.  It means we don't have to rebuild the pistons or anything.

The whole top end removed.  Note the carbon buildup on the piston head.  

Brand spanking new piston, also an oversized bore meaning my cylinder has gone from a 650 to a 688.  We also cleaned the carb, added a thermostat bypass kit and other juicy stuff.  All in all about a 1/4 of the price a mechanic would charge, since he builds the pistons and shafts himself and does not up charge on other items.  Also being able to do this was a great experience.  I didn't do too much work myself, the man is a machine, knows every bolt, what it does and so on.  He basically tore down and rebuilt the top end in 4 hours. (Mechanics would charge you twice as much for labor and bill you twice as many hours, not counting the up charge on parts that they buy.)  Unbelievable.  And when I was watching I was thinking, yeah I can do that. (not as quickly obviously, but nothing was so technical I couldn't grasp it.)

So long from Solvang, my computer is out of juice

Tak

Aaaaaand I'm off!!

Hi All!
I am officially on the road!  After some stressful last days, saying my goodbyes and dealing with all the moving crap, (there's always something you forgot to do) I unceremoniously left "The City" on Saturday May 18 at around 10:30 am with, of course,  Charlie, who would accompany me down to Big Sur for the first two days.  The actual departure was somewhat anticlimactic, I thought I'd feel a little more regret or feelings like that, but I think for the most part the last two weeks of seeing people and places took care of that.  So we two bombed down the 101 to Monterey, where the wind almost blew me off the highway.  Any way you pack the bike, you create such a big surface area that the wind is tough to deal with...something I have come to realize and respect.  I just slow down.

I purchased the GoPro helmet cam and had some great footage for you, but alas, most of it didn't record because I'm a tool sometimes. I did get this little clip of Charlie and me playing hopscotch.  We would pull over at corners and film each other coming around the corner.  I think he had better luck than me. That road was a little scary but really breathtaking.  Straight drop offs right to the coast.  Big Sur is a special place.

We showed up at camp and set up to have some gourmet meals. 1/2 pack freeze dried chicken rice and 1/2 can organic vegan chili.  Not bad after a long ride. Also keeps the bugs out of the tent at night!

Charlie likes his with extra Tapatio and Turbos Flamas garnish, a kind of frankenfood mexican snack that leaves your fingers red.

After a few too many whiskeys, It's time to turn in.  Being from SF we're not used to mosquitos...

Breakfast was bowl of instant coffee (don't know what happened to my cup, lost in the move) and some instant, coffee flavored? oatmeal

We rode back down the twisty road to Lime Kiln park.  Not too much hiking here, we did all the trails in a little more than an hour. Standard Redwoods (listen to little old jaded me)

And some waterfalls

The park is called Lime Kiln because deep in the park are Kilns that they used back in the late 1800's to purify limestone into lime for commercial uses. Also at that time the entire hillside was clearcut, so it was bare, hard to imagine...

After that it was down to the coast for a little beach action

The next day it was off to Pinnacles.  Lovely ride through twisty chaparral hills, getting hotter and dustier by the minute.  I said goodbye to Chuck in Hollister CA, our last meal together in a dingy Diner playing Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri in the background..It was a sad goodbye, we've shared a lot of good times together, from college on, and he will always be one of my BFF's (NH) I'm glad we got to spend a lot of time riding and camping together in the past weeks.  We definitely bonded a little and I learned a lot more about him, and he of me over some whiskeys and campfires. If you ever need someone to chop up logs for a campfire, this man cannot and will not be stopped.

After going our separate ways, I rode back to Pinnacles, and hunkered down for the night.  No fire as fire danger was EXTREME! so I had a couple beers, did some reading and realized that now I was really out on my own.  

Up again with the sun after a so-so sleep (lots of Racoons roaming around the campground all night)  I figured if the day was as hot as yesterday, I should get an early start.  Cup of coffee (bought a mug at the camp store) oatmeal and power bar and hit the trail by 8 am. Still cool and nobody about.  Was hoping to see some Condors but the Forest Ranger told me there was a dead Whale off the coast and that all the scavengers were having an orgy.

Pinnacles is beautiful.  I'll let the pics do the talking.

After the 4 hour hike I thought it would be a good idea to ride down to Morro bay. The first part was amazing.  Long sweeping turns on deserted roads.

The second part, not so much.  Highway and crosswinds, here's how I feel about this.

See you soon!

Humboldt County

So I called Charlie a couple weeks ago and mentioned I wanted to do a shake down of my setup, and why not let's do a little camping trip for a weekend. Ok, says he, and plans a "little trip"  Charlie's a planner and thinker by nature, and I left it in his hands...I basically showed up at 9am on friday morning with a slapdash thrown together camp setup, as I had spent the last weeks working doubles and not really thinking about what was about to transpire. 800+ miles and three days later...I have some more things to work on....
We met at the Golden Gate bridge, Chuck complete with route maps for out tank bags.

My setup was tested out save for an additional bag and deemed safe and secure for the ride.  We headed up 101 for about 100 miles to Ukiah, CA.  Weather was hot 80+ degrees, beautiful riding weather. I am still getting used to highway speeds on the bike, and the additional weight immediately made the bike feel different.  The frame felt like it was flexing more, and I had some wobbling at 70mph and above, especially in corners. I think I have too much weight in the back, and that makes the front wheel lighter and less stable.  I felt that in corners, it would get a little squirrely and would feel like it was going to loose traction.  Happy to get off the highway we headed down to the coast on a beautiful road with long sweeping turns and some twists, but nothing too technical or demanding. Eve with the load I felt comfortable.  Up the coast and then to Garberville where it was hot and the northern Cal hippie/grungy people really owned the place. Marijuana cultivation is the largest industry here, and they don't keep it subtle. Hydroponics stores/vans, dreaded hippies, and you know where you are, the heart of pot growing in the USA. We headed out to our campsite, afraid that since it was a walk-in only site, we would have to get there post-haste, and stake our claim.  After a wrong turn and some delicious (to me and the KLR, not so much to Charlie) gravel road we  found out campsite and also found out we were the ONLY people here...someone did show up later at night.

Got some beer, had a fire, talked, drank some whisky, and turned down for the night. 300 miles in the bag.

Day two started out nice and cool.  It was hot the day earlier. We'd had temps in the 90's but it was a little cooler at the coast. The plan was to take it easy and not ride too many miles. Head up to the Redwoods and ride to the coast, simple, take it easy.  We did 180 miles.  Hard, hard miles. 180 miles in about 10 hours. It was beautiful, it was hard, it was fun!!! We headed up to the Avenue of the Giants (more pics and video! to come from Charles.) The road was, well, it was the road that threw everything at us.  Cruising through 300 ft Redwoods, complicated switchbacks, gravel, random, surprise gravel, potholes, chewed up roads, and beautiful, perfectly paved stretches.  We went from 3000+ feet to sea level and back up in the space of less than an hour.  We battled, heat, cold, wind, sun, and shade. It was really the road that had it all.. Somewhere in the middle of all this I found my groove and fell into a sync with the bike. She purred, she was magic, she gave me all and I was in the zone for a while. It's always hard starting for me, almost like having to learn anew everyday. Also at the end one becomes fatigued from all the work; fighting wind, braking hard, turning, accelerating, etc.  Riding is nothing like driving a car.  Driving is very passive, almost like you're watching the scenery go by. On a bike, you smell things, feel the wind, the road, the engine, very different experience. It's on the one hand invigorating, on the other exhaustive. I can't believe it took me so long to discover this. (Though probably good, because I tend to be more cautious these days)
Some pics from the ride day 2.  (more to come from Charlie. His iPhone has panoramic camera and he has a GoPro video, so stay tuned for that)

Pit stop to get the brews before the camp

Endor.  More on the Redwoods to come..

The Beach. A little windy. Wait for the video.

 A couple vistas along the way.  We took off most of the luggage so we could ride a little harder.

Charlie messing with the GoPro again

Beautiful Country

To be continued.....