Motorcycle Trip - 09: Day 6

Day 6

Tionesta CA to Rye Patch State Park NV

Got a leisurely start again this morning. Once we got everything packed up we headed out on the road. This time we were a long ways from a town of any size. We passed through one or two without seeing any sort of eating establishment. We finally got to Adin CA and found a great general store type place with a lunch counter. Since it was pretty much lunch time by now we had them make up some sandwiches. I noticed that their butcher block behind the counter was about 10 inches thick with the middle being an inch or two lower than the rest. That thing has seen some years and a lot of meat. While waiting for the sandwiches to get made John and I made our way around the store. The highlight for me was finding their collection of random sodas. Various sodas from all over the place, I'd only ever seen one of them before. I selected one for lunch and picked out 8 more to take home. I felt a bit silly packing up a bunch of sodas to carry them the rest of the 700 miles to home but I love a good soda. Apparently John has the same affinity I do and he packed up a few to take home as well. Luckily we had just enough room in the saddle bags and I'm happy to report all of them survived the trip to Orem.

Much of the ride from here was fairly uneventful. We stopped for our usual soda and fuel break about 30 miles from Susanville, I can only figure that Susan must have been some gal. We had seen a little offshoot of a road that looked like it wound through some mountains so we decided to take it. After heading down that road about 40 miles I pulled off to wake up a bit and got to thinking that we had been going a little too long without seeing our turn off. After reviewing the map we though we had missed the turn off about 10 miles back. After stopping again we realized the problem...the map had let us down again. We had just traveled 40 miles down the road in the wrong direction. The original road that we were supposed to take must have been named something different. We felt a bit silly after our 80 mile(round trip) detour to nowhere and I vowed to write a nasty letter to the map-makers. Though, I realize now I've since thrown away the map and I don't remember the publisher.

Eventually we ended up in Reno where I really had a hankering for some KFC. We ate and got back on the road to head toward Sparks. It took us about 20 miles and the highway ending for us to realize we had missed the I-80 junction while looking for KFC (oops, sorry John). We got down the road a bit and as the sun went down we watched the giant black storm clouds in the distance. We were headed right into a pretty big storm. We got as close as we could to make sure that we weren't going to miss it before we stopped to don our rain gear. A funny thing happened, in the time it took us to get our rain gear on, the storm split in two and we rode right through the clearing. We had literally just missed the storm about 10 min. down the road. The surface was still wet and the smell of rain was fresh in the air. In the end it was getting geared up for rain that kept us from actually riding in the rain.

We flew along I-80 in the dark for a couple of hours until we got to Rye Patch State Park, a reservoir about half-way between Lovelock and Winnemucca Nevada. We got there much later than we should have on the eve of a holiday weekend. This was after all one of the few bodies of water in the dry and rather boring state of Nevada so the campground was pretty full. We had some fun riding up and down some gravel hills checking out various campsites until we found one of the last few open spots, it may have been the last open spot. We parked and had barely turned the engines off when someone yelled at us to shut our lights off. We complied, it was 11:00 after all. A few minutes later, while getting camp set up, we overheard the same gent telling ridiculous stories in an apparent inebriated state. His little group was fairly boisterous and we were quite surprised to see a bunch of kids there the next day. Apparently, they didn't really care who they kept awake with their stories.

Motorcycle Trip - 2009: Day 5

Day 5

Humbug State Park OR (near Bandon OR) - Tionesta CA.

Woke up to a beautiful day, it was cool and sunny. Packed up the stuff as usual and headed to the next closest town, Bandon, which always sounds weird to me, I want to say Brandon. We had breakfast at Subway where the woman guessed John was from Australia by his accent. His accent doesn't sound anything like any Australian accent. But, just to goad her on and have a laugh with John I informed her that she was correct because he had just moved there, she exclaimed "I knew it!" After a tasty cinnamon roll we checked out the map to see which road to take to Coos Bay and say a fun little windy road 42S. Hwy 42S turned out to be one of the greatest motorcycle roads I've ever been on and it was only about 15 miles long, with an average speed of 60 mpg it only lasted 15 min., but it was one of the most blissful 15 miles of roadway I've ever ridden. The surface was pretty new, I'd say it was probably done last year. The best part was the constant, perfectly banked curves. We just rolled on and off the throttle and the speed was such that I was able to keep it in the same gear with a medium high rpm and had plenty of power coming out of the corners. ...oh 42S how I will dream of you. Sadly a long distance relationship won't work out and I'll probably go back to enjoying my local roads. I will always have fond memories of 42S.

From there we picked up Hwy 42 to Roseburg, for our soda stop and fuel. After a quick break we headed toward Crater Lake, the last real sight on this trip. The road wound along through the mountains along the Rogue river. We stopped a few times to enjoy the view and take some pictures. I would like to do some river rafting on this river at some point, it looks like it would be a lot of fun. We chatted with some cyclists for a few minutes and found out they'd been riding for quite a ways, though with the lack of baggage I assume they had a support vehicle.

I made a point to visit Crater Lake early on in the planning stages of this trip. I learned about Crater Lake and Wizard Island, located in the lake, during my Geology class in college. It's interesting because it's open to the public and it's somewhat of an active volcano. The big lake is located in the crater of the volcano and Wizard Island is the slowly growing lava dome that will eventually erupt. It was interesting to see that it had experienced a small eruption sometime in the last year or so as all of the trees near the top were badly burned or left as stumps with a small amount of lava remaining near the rim. I was told by another tourist that the lake is 1500 ft. deep. It's quite a deep blue and really something to see. John and I made our way around one half of the rim and stopped several times to see the view from different vantage points. After that we headed out of the park toward Klamath Falls, OR. I think John may have taken some video along the way. We had dinner in Klamath Falls, gassed up then headed toward Tionesta, CA.

I knew from looking at the maps that Tionesta was small, but I had no idea that the RV park where we camped was the only establishment in Tionesta. I'm still not sure if it's even a town or just some sort place marker or historical location. We stopped at one point to check the map because I was sure we had passed it or we would get to it soon. Luckily some locals happened by and knew where it was. We got there and were quite happy to find a quaint little RV park and campground complete with some little cabins. I'm not sure who stays in these little cabins as I doubt anyone knows it's there. The ex-trucker that owns the place pointed to where we could set up a tent. We paid our $10 and got a great little camp site complete with fire pit and a pile of split wood for our fire. The bathroom and showers were really pretty nice for being in such an out of the way place. John and I stayed up quite late chatting by the fire. At one point the wind picked up and very nearly sent out tent into the fire. Luckily we were quick on our feet and saved it before it met it's demise.

Motorcycle Trip - 2009: Day 4

Day 4

To continue a bit of the Hayfork CA saga. After showering, getting the bikes packed up and unlocking them; this was the first night we felt compelled to lock up the bikes, the surroundings didn't make us feel too comfortable, we went to the office to settle up for the night. The crazy woman running the place, still with weeds in her hair, looked at John's Billabong shirt and thought we were quite a pair. Me with my Hare Krishna shirt and his seemingly marijuana based "bong" shirt (I don't think she was familiar with the brand or the Australian word). She had a few words to say about that. We asked for a recommendation for breakfast. After directing us to a local diner she informed us that she wouldn't eat there. It seemed a bit of a contradiction and it took a bit to get out of her why she would tell us to eat there but wouldn't herself. It turns out she's Jewish and they don't prepare their meat in a Kosher manner. While having breakfast we saw the same Harley group with their yellow support truck roll into town. This seemed a little odd because Hayfork isn't really on the way to anywhere, you have to have a reason to get to Hayfork, just the same, here they were.

Hayfork turned out to be both a very strange town as well as rather friendly. I had been having trouble with the spring falling off my motorcycle's kick stand and needed to tighten it up. I asked the waitress where I could find an auto shop to use a wrench. Several of the locals having breakfast immediately offered up their tools. One gent directed me to get in his truck and use his tools. He didn't seem to worry a bit that I'd be anything but honest with his truck or tools. Everything worked out and we were soon on our way.

After a brief ride we were back on Hwy 36, riding the rest of the way out of the Santa Clara's. As expected I enjoyed the ride this morning MUCH more than I had the night before. Pretty soon we came upon the first stand of Redwoods. I have never seen them and have always wanted to see them since I saw pictures when I was a kid. We rode through them for a while then found a good spot to stop. We took some pictures and just took our time hanging out. Soon the Harley group came riding past us, for the third time in 2 days. Just as we started down the road John quickly turned back. It took me a minute to realize and turn around. When I got there he was looking around on the ground and showed me his camera which looked like it had exploded. Apparently it was on the motorcycle or an open pocket and flew off the road, perhaps even being run over. Somehow the memory card had popped out and hadn't been crushed, now I just need John to email the pictures to me (hint).

As we got closer to Eureka CA and the coast it started to get pretty chilly. We turned onto Hwy 101, a highway both John and I had always wanted to ride a motorcycle on. It winds along the coast from near San Francisco up through Oregon. It was great riding along smelling the sea air. We stopped somewhere near the Oregon border to take some pictures of the coast. When I got off the bike I noticed the couple across the road on the edge of the coast taking pictures. It turned out to be the same English couple we met in Lassen National Park. We had a fun chat with them and laughed about the coincidence. As we headed up 101 there were a number of Tsunami Warning signs. It was a little odd and made me wonder if we were in some sort of danger zone, as you can tell we made it out alive. The Tsunami's apparently weren't the only things to worry about. We stopped on a beach for some more pictures, we were using John's phone camera now(at least when it wasn't in trippy mode). We spotted a sign warning us of "Deadly Sneaker Waves." The sign indicated that so far 4 people had been killed on that beach by sneaker waves, crazy! Along 101 we saw lots of other motorcyclists and even a pod of Vespas(a group of Vespas is a pod right?) John was sure to give them the motorcycle wave because Noelle is quite happy to get recognition from proper motorcyclists when she's at home on her Vespa.

We stopped for dinner in Brookings Oregon. Seemed to be some sort of port town, lots of boats and a big harbor. We had been eating relatively cheaply thus far and decided to have a good dinner tonight so we went into an actual restaurant. I had some non-spicy Cajun chicken soup and a steak, it was great. We walked next door to a store to buy a camera, map and phone card. After that we had to fuel up and I had my first experience in one of the two states that won't let people gas up their own cars. However, since they don't want the responsibility of making sure they don't drip gas on the gas tanks of motorcycles they take your credit card, run it through the pump then hand you the gas pump to do your own gas. Here's a tip Oregon and New Jersey, people can pump their own gas.

We made our way to Humbug Mountain State park. Although it would have been fun to camp on the beach I was actually quite happy that this particular park was cut off from the coast by a small mountain(maybe it's a hill). It was getting somewhat chilly right along the coast so the protection from the wind was welcomed. Oregon has a large number of state parks along the southern coast, they all look like great places to stop.

Motorcycle Trip - 09: Day 3

Day 3:

Woke up in Truckee, found there was only one out of the 6 showers that were open in the state park, and it required fifty cents, luckily John and I had just enough between us to wash off the previous day's road and sweat stink. We found breakfast at a grocery store that was packed with people. We rode off down the road, I believe it was Hwy 89 and it was awesome. The road weaved back and forth, up and down through mountains, it was nice and cool.

Eventually we came to our crossroads and headed off toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. Neither John nor I had ever heard of this park but several other motorcyclists recommended it so we took the 75 mile detour toward the park. About 10 miles from the entrance we saw a sign that informed us that the next fuel was 68 miles away. That was about 10 more miles than we were comfortable with but the previous fuel stop was about 30 miles back so we decided to chance it continue on. We just used the throttle carefully so as to be as fuel efficient as we could. The national parks only charge motorcycles $5 to enter, nice. We rode up the mountain a ways until we came to a parking lot near some of the parks features. We parked and got off our bikes and headed toward a hill with some steam coming out of it. John and I expected to find some sort of geyser or something really great. What we found was a just a hole about 2 ft. in diameter spewing sulfer gas. It was kind of funny in it's simplicity, just a stinky hole in the side of a hill. Then we spotted some boiling mud, much like the mud pots in Yellowstone, only, again, this was much smaller. We took a look, and maybe some pictures and headed back to the bikes. Just as we were getting geared up a big group of Harley riders pulled in, with a big yellow rented truck behind them. They got off, the truck rolled up it's door and started serving everyone some sort of beverage, I thought to myself, "I need one of those." We waved to the group as we headed further up the road. We started seeing a lot of snow along the road's edge, then spotted a really cool ice filled lake. About half of the lake was still frozen with that really blue glacier type ice. We chatted with an English couple that was there taking pictures, she had been there 20 years before and wanted to come back to see it. After chatting with them and laughing at a father and son team slide down a snow covered hill we went on our way. The rest of the way through the park we were watching our gas gauges. John's had moved to reserve and was counting down the miles as if to slowly torture him. We were still pretty far away but hoped that the downhill riding would save some fuel. We made it to Shingleville, yeah I've never heard of it either, but I sure was glad it was there. We gassed up and set our sights on Red Bluff where we would eat and make our way to Hayfork CA for the night.

As we headed down the mountain the tempurature got noticably hotter and hotter until we had dropped several thousand feet into California's central valley. We were looking for a County road that the map said would be coming up but as we headed down the road we realized it either wasn't there or was named something else, either way we were still able to make it to Redding.

The freeway in Redding caused me some trouble. There was construction going on, I wasn't sure which exit to take and it was really hot. After several missed exits and turning around, along with John having a good laugh at me we made it on the freeway toward Red Bluff.

During the trip, John made a habit of going to all of the fast food restaurants that he didn't have in the UK or Australia so I usually let him choose where we'd eat at night. Tonight he chose Arby's. I'll also note that Mountain Dew is John's favorite soda and Australia only has the original flavor and uncaffienated at that. Because of this John had also made a point of getting each one of the various Mountain Dew flavors that we have in the states along the way. So, at each of our soda shops I always saw John buying some new brightly colored soda. I'm glad we can support his lifestyle here in the U.S. As we sat and ate in Arby's I noticed that the bank across the street said it was 105f outside. By the time we left the temp had dropped to 101 f, nice and cool.

We (I assume John as well) were looking forward to Red Bluff for one reason, Highway 36. We had been planning on riding Hwy 36 since a good friend of mine at work had described it as the best motorcycle road he had ever ridden. All along our ride other motorcyclists had confirmed what he told us. Sure enough we got to the start of Hwy 36 and saw this sign.

That's right, curves for the next 140 miles. The only problem was we came upon this sign just as the last bit of daylight was slipping away. The road was truly amazing. I have never been on any road that undulates even close to this one. Up, down, left, up, right, down, on and on for the next 80 miles to Hayfork CA. I specifically decided to stay the night in Hayfork because I wanted to have some of Hwy 36 left for the next day, and boy am I glad I did.

It's time for me to admit to something. I get somewhat nervous riding around unknown, curvy, roads in the dark. It's as if my ability to corner a motorcycle disapears and I'm left hitting the brakes at inoportune time times and really not enjoying myself. I was totally unaware that there were any mountains between the Sierra's and the coast but around 10:00 pm we got into the Santa Clara mountains. It wouldn't be until the next day that I would come to appreciate and enjoy them. The road through these mountains was an endless(seriously that night they seemed ENDLESS), string of S-curves, all at about 20 mph. Here's another thing even in the daylight I don't find 20 mph curves fun. You just have to go too slow through them to really enjoy it. In talking with John, he was of the opposite opinion that I was. He quite enjoyed the roads through the mountains as long as the deer stayed off the road. Once we made it to Hayfork, it took us a bit to find the motel. When we did finally get there we found a note on the office door directing us to room number 9. We pulled up to the motel equivalent of Gov. low income housing. There were some beat up picnic tables on the gravel and weeks out front of the rooms. We also found that there were coffee cans lovingly placed on each room's doorstep for use as an ashtray. I was delighted to see that our can had not been emptied in quite some time. Did I mention this place was only $50 for the night? I wasn't surprised to find the interior lacking a bit from the usual ammenities that I'm used to on business trips. No TV, tiny sink and even smaller toilet. John's blankets had cigarette burns through them.

We slept well only to be awakened by a loud knocking on the door. When I answered there was a crazy looking woman with awful looking, scragly, long brown/gray fingernails, and long gray hair thrown into a haphazard bun on her head. She even had some weeds stuck in there for effect. She handed me the phone and it was Jen. I cannot for the life of me remember why Jen called but it was probably something really important. I'll mention here that thus far John and I had done a very poor job of calling our wives, in that we had been gone for three days and hadn't spoken to them. A few text messages had gotten through but that was it. Most of the blame can be put on the odd mobile service that John had. He would have a random text message get through and then show no service. We had to wait until the next day when we finally found both a store with phone cards and a pay phone, have you tried to find a pay phone lately, not very easy.

Back to the crazy lady, I don't remember her name but it was somewhat obscure Jewish name. When I got off the phone she proceeded to point at my Hare Krishna temple t-shirt and ask me, "You're not one of them are you?" To which I laughingly replied to the negative. She then starts in telling me about how her chiropractor turned into one of them and now she's a wacko. She continues telling me about everything in the town, as if she's just been dying to talk to someone for months. Apparently there are some big time pot growers there that keep illegal immigrants in the forest until nightfall when they come out to harvest the "crop." After 20 minutes I somehow get the door closed between us. I went to take a shower and had to wait for a few minutes for the rusty water to make it's way out of the faucet. I warned John about the shower. On to Day 4

Motorcycle Trip - 2009: CA/OR Coast

I thought I’d start out my renewed attempt by telling about my recent week-long motorcycle trip with my good friend John Cooper, originally from England but currently residing in Australia. Our trip would take us from Orem UT to the N. California Coast, up through Oregon back down through California and back to UT. After getting really bad weather last year, see the prvious posts, I decided that a late June/July time frame would work out a little better. It also made it possible for John and his wife Noelle to take a vacation and join us. Because of convenience, and the fact that I enjoy it, I took up the task of mapping our route. A motorcycle trip is fun to map out. You first decide on a basic destination or region based on the time available for the trip. Since I had never been to northern California or Oregon I thought this would be a good place to ride to. Next, you get a good atlas and map out a basic route looking for the scenic roadways marked out on the maps, the more mountainous and twisty the better. After that you need to figure out mileage and stopping points for each day. This can change the route a bit because the scenic roads don’t often have a lot of cities along them. I try to shoot for around 300 miles a day. This gives enough riding each day to cover some ground, have some fun, and still leaves room to add in interesting side trips that you always happen upon along the way. We decided to do this trip as a camping trip with just one night in a hotel in the middle to get one good night’s rest and a shower. Most nights were spent in a tent. I was a bit nervous about this plan since I’ve done these trips before and after a long day in the saddle you really look forward to a nice bed to sleep in. The romance of motorcycle camping and keeping the budget low both drove the decision to camp. I’m happy to report that from here on out I will always camp on these trips. It’s fun and saved a lot of money.

Day 1

We got a bit of a late start because John had to buy some new gear, most of his was on a container ship making it’s way slowly to Australia, besides who doesn’t like an excuse to buy new motorcycle gear. After John got done securing insurance and the rented Harley Davidson Heritage Softail (really a great looking bike) we got a start around 5:00 and made our way toward Ely NV by way of the back roads along the old Pony Express route, through Delta UT where we stopped for dinner. While fueling up we met an older English couple that had been touring on their motorcycle for the past 3 months. They seemed to have quite a lifestyle as all of their stories went back to other long motorcycle trips or sailing around on their yacht. It was getting rather dark by the time we got done with dinner. As the stars began appearing I started getting pretty tired. Luckily John didn’t mind the several stops I took to hop off the bike and do some jumping jacks, or at one point a little rock climbing. After nearly ending a large jackrabbit’s life we finally made it to the Ely KOA. Nice weather and exhaustion prompted us to just toss out sleeping bags on the grass and get some sleep. While attempting to sleep we were privy to the increasing volume of the rather dirty discussions taking place among a group that were apparently drinking rather heavily. Had I been there is mixed company I would have been pretty embarrassed.

Day 2

Final destination – Truckee CA, near lake Tahoe. We woke up this morning to a beautiful day. We got packed up and hit the road to find some food. I’ll take a moment to describe our daily schedule.

We usually rolled out of the tent between 8:00 -9:00

Meander around for a few minutes

8:30-9:30 Find the shower

10:00 pack up the gear

10:30 fuel and or breakfast (usually the local greasy spoon, but we had a couple of McDonalds breakfasts when most convenient)

11:30 Hit the road and start putting some miles down

1:00 Stop for a soda and fuel

4:00 Stop for a soda and fuel

6:00 Dinner and Fuel

8:00 – 9:00 stop and set up camp

I also want to take the time to mention that while riding a motorcycle I usually don’t listen to music generally preferring the solitude of just riding and taking in the view. This opens up the mind and eyes to thinking and seeing a lot of random things. I will fill in some of the randomness that I remember. Don’t assume insanity, it’s just the tedium of the road that does it to me.

We stopped in some small town, I can’t even find it on a map, to have breakfast at Micky D’s, I remember being surprised to hear and Alela Diane song on the radio. I happened to see Alela Diane open for Blitzen Trapper a few months ago and really enjoyed her music. Since she is pretty unknown I was both surprised and happy to hear her on the radio.

From here we continued down Highway 50, known as the “Lonlienst Highway in American.” It’s a pretty accurate description. I chose Hwy 50 because you have two choices for driving across NV, the other is I-80. Since I don’t like to take freeways on motorcycle trips that made 50 the default, and we would later take I-80 on the way home. Heed my advise, do not take Hwy 50 as an optional scenic route across NV, just take I-80 and be done with it as fast as you can.. There are only a couple of towns along that entire section of roadway, Eureka and Austin. We rode through Eureka and stopped in Austin for a break from the heat and for a soda/fuel stop. While sitting in the nicely cooled, but poorly soda stocked store, we chatted with the girl running the cashier about the local community and the long expanse that is Hwy 50. We got our “Austin” stamp in the Hwy 50 passport guide book. Apparently NV doesn’t have much to tout so they’ve tried to make Hwy 50 some sort of endurance destination.

Along the way we had seen a few cyclists, usually towing trailers. I always wonder about these people, who they are where they’ve come from, what makes them want to cycle through the desert. As luck would have it we happened upon one such gentleman and as I needed something to break the monotony of the billions of sagebrush that were mocking me by the sheer number of them on that great expanse, I slowed way down and rode along side him. He seemed quite happy to take off his headphones for a bit of a chat. So he pedaled along while I putted along on the motorcycle. John was riding behind me on his motorcycle and was probably wondering what in the world I was doing. I leaned from this guy that he had ridden from New York and he was quite exited because he was only 5 days from the CA coast. I wished him luck and congratulations on making it this far and rode off.

Highway 50 really doesn’t have much in the way of scenery. We did take one off-shoot through a little mountainous area and some sort of dry lake, or maybe it was filled. I’m honestly still not sure if it was a mirage or not. It looked a bit like the salt flats. Once we were back on 50 it was just long strait roads and 100f temps. Along the sides of the road in the desert people had taken some of the black rocks and written names, or messages. This helped to stave off the monotony but only a little. John, happily cruising along with his mp3 player didn’t notice any of this at all and wondered why I was looking from side to side the whole time. We arrived in Fallon NV totally hot and dried out from the hot wind. Most of the time the wind helps keep cool under the leather jacket but once the temps reach 100f, the relief just isn’t there. It feels like you’re just riding in a hot furnace. We had a long lunch at Quiznos then got back on the bikes.

After cruising through Carson City, we began climbing the Sierra-Nevada’s toward Lake Tahoe. The road was fantastic, both the actual construction as it brand new, as well as the view and the cool temps. We stopped at one of the lookout points to take it in. John informs me that Tahoe looks much like Loch Lomond in Scotland. I hope to see that for myself someday. After a brief respite at the lake we road through the town(s) along the lake’s edge toward Truckee. We camped at the Donner Memorial State Park which was a pretty good little state park. I was glad that neither the bears nor John decided to get hungry enough to make a meal of me.

Getting back on the horse

No, I'm not changing up the direction of this blog, I'm talking about both my recent 2 wheeled adventures as well as my attempt to get current on this blog. It's going to take some time so I'll post bits as I have them.