2010-2013...and beyond

I think I'll be moving to this blog for the next while to focus on my two wheeled pursuits that don't focus on Cyclocross. For those go to my 'cross blog www.crossthemountains.blogspot.com.

Over the holiday I finished up the full scale drawing of my lugged steel road bike frame. It was a good exercise to go through as I found I kept making measurements from incorrect places and had to redraw the downtube about 3 times, the rest stayed mostly in tact with a few touch ups here and there. I'll start working on my practice tubes so that I don't screw up the real thing when I finally get my hands on them and start cutting and filing.

On the motorcycling front I have a tentative plan to ride to Prudhoe Bay Alaska in 2013. John Cooper, of the 2009 motorcycle trip fame, says he's in as well. This trip will actually take a lot of serious planning beyond my usual plotting out scenic roads and vague sights to see along the way. We'll most likely need new motorcycles. Dual sport, that can handle some off-road tires and the abuse that comes along with them. Some of the roads are well known for chewing up tires and causing lots of flats. We'll need to mark out specific fuel stops and places to stay. I'm not sure if we'll be able to camp as the threat of very large bears is quite real and I don't know if I have room to pack a human sized bear box (the secure boxes found in campgrounds to lock food away from bears) to stow myself in at night. Even if we don't plan on camping we'll need to pack camping equipment for use if we get stuck somewhere.

At 400 miles a day it will take a full week to get there. I think it might be fun to motorcycle there and take the ferry from AK to Seattle. This serves several purposes: it adds another fun element to the trip, it will save us some time and lastly, give our aching backs a rest. I'm pretty stoked about the trip and a possible subsequent trip several years later south of the border. Hey, if I'm going to buy a new motorcycle I better make sure I put it to good use. Cooper thinks he may just stow his bike away in my garage for another trip as well.

Jen is planning a trip to Yosemite this Sep. with several of her friends. They'll drive there and set up base camp in several spots while they take day cycling trips around the park and surrounding areas.

Lots to look forward to with projects and trips. I'll do my best to document things as they happen. My new phone, complete with camera will probably help add some visual to this 2010.

More Bike Building

Tonight I managed to file the miters into a couple more tubes. I'm getting faster and more exact, I can see why the pros all heavily suggest getting some practice material to work on. I'll be much more adept at mitering the tubes that count when the time comes.

That reminds me, Jen has been quite sad since she sold her road bike and bought her tri-bike because it doesn't offer the same opportunity for climbing hills and more traditional cycling. Don't get me wrong, she loves her new bike, it's a sweet carbon frame, with integrated seat post (that means you have to be pretty darn sure of the height you want your seat at before you cut the extra off), carbon cranks, aero bars, and a nice SRAM component set. Anyway, I've decided that the first bike I'll make will be hers. The cyclocross bike that I bought, mostly for the components, will do fine for a season of 'cross racing and I'll have my own bike built by next year. I'll then have an extra bike to sell or keep around, you always need extra bikes. My old blue GT hardtail has become the loaner for Jen's friends that don't have bikes and end up doing triathlons.

As promised is a picture of my new, heavy duty, work bench.

Squaw Peak

I did my usual Monday ride with my co-worker Dave yesterday. He suggested we do Squaw Peak. If you're unfamiliar with Squaw Peak it's a local geological feature. The road to the top is 4.5 miles and gives a great view of the valley with the surrounding mountains and Utah Lake. The road is unrelenting in it's constant uphill angle. Once you start up the road there isn't a single place where your legs get any sort of a break.

About 1 mile in another cyclist came flying down the road past us, he just have been enjoying that part I thought to myself. After about another mile this same cyclist rode past us at about 3 times the speed we were going and he looked like he was just out for a leisurely ride. I seriously could not have even pictured Lance Armstrong going as fast after already doing climb once.

If Dave had not been with me I would have given up at least a half dozen times, but he stuck with me, both of us just grinding away, slowly making our way up the hill. I had a few cramps pop up and I thought for sure I was done, but I was able to keep going. About 1/2 mile from the top my legs just stopped, they had no more. I checked my watch and we had been riding the Squaw Peak road for 38 minutes. Not a long time for a bike ride, even with the 35 minutes it took us to get to the base of the climb, but 38 minutes of constant killer pressure on the legs was apparently all I could take.

After a brief rest I got back on the bike, happy there was a seat to support me since my legs were complete jelly. The ride back down, though much easier did actually make my arms tired. I still need to check my brake pads to see if I have anything left, they seemed to get softer and softer the more I used them. I'm sure they heated up and melted away by the time we reached the bottom.

Once we got to the bottom I realized I still had 10 miles to get back to my car that I had left at work. Normally this 10 miles isn't too bad, about a 30 minute ride. The small hills left me weak and I had no energy left in my legs. It ended up taking me a little over 45 minutes to get back to my car.

I'll give Squaw Peak another try, but I'm going to need a few weeks of intervals to feel like I might have a shot at it.

Cyclocross and bike building

Two things on my mind as of late. The beginning of Cyclocross season is Oct. 3. There are 5 races in October, and 5 or 6 more through the middle of Dec. I was reading a 'cross article the other day and the smell of embrocation was immediately present, so much so that I wondered if the children had gotten into my embrocation, man would they be in for a surprise, that stuff is strong. Anyway, I'm down-right giddy with the thought of the new season starting and even though summer has blown by I'm quite happy about it now, bring on that fall chill and the ring of the cowbells. (I took a mental pause just now to take it all in). I've been riding with a guy from work named Dave Lindsey each Monday afternoon. We usually manage a 30 mile ride in the two hours we're out. This should help me get a decent fitness base going so I don't totally die in the first race like last year. Now... if I can just get myself to get on the trainer and do some intervals I'd be doing even better.

I bought some steel tubes and lugs about 3 months ago in my attempt to start building a bike. I just started my first practice miters last night. The problem has been mainly a time issue. The workbench in my garage was not exactly up to the challenge of filing steel tubes in the vise, so I've been working on making a new workbench. It's finally done and it's a beast of a table. The top is made of 2x4's that I glued together in a butcher block fashion. I got the idea from a Lowes website showing home projects. Framed it up with 2x8's and bolted on 4x6's for legs and I've got a workbench that will far outlast my earthly life. Seriously, this thing will last for generations. I hope some kid of mine wants it when I'm dead, because this thing took a lot of work to build.

So the workbench is up, the vise is mounted and I've begun filing some cheap chromoly tubes that I bought from an aircraft supply store. I had no idea that there were aircraft supply stores for people that make their own airplanes before I started down this path to make my own bike. Hopefully I can make a decent go of it. I have a cyclocross bike that will do just fine until I get the new frame done, but it will be awesome, once it's done and painted, to ride a bike that I actually made.

Spanish TV

I'd like to channel my inner Jerry Seinfeld for a moment and say, "What's the deal with Spanish TV?" It's really bizarre? Every once in a while if the program title seems interesting I'll turn on one of the Spanish channels. Tonight there was nothing on and I saw the program name "Don Cheto", I thought of it as Don Cheeto because it was funnier in my head than the Spanish pronunciation. I realized I've seen this Don Cheto on that channel 8 a number of times I wonder what it is. So I changed the channel and the first thing I see are two gigantic, 8 foot tall, roosters fighting in a makeshift ring. I realized that it was the cock fighting version of those Sumo suits you can wrestle in at parties. There were a bunch of people waving money around outside the ring. I'm not sure, if this was just an act to make the cock fighting more authentic looking or if they were actually betting on these to fellas in the rooster suits. There was of course about 4 women in short shorts and bustiers (is that how you spell it?) Doing a sort of cowboy dance around the stage. Picture them with the thumbs in their pockets doing a slight side to side jig. Though it wasn't featured on this particular show, you almost always have some sort of host or character that speaks excessively loudly in a sort of Mexican meets monster truck announcer type voice.

Just had to get that off my chest.

Motorcycle Trip - 09: Day 7

Day 7

Rye Patch NV - Orem UT (Home)

We were roused awake by the burning heat of the morning sun. Really, we felt like we were baking in the tent and it was only 7:30 am. It was then that we also noticed that we had really begun to stink. The sleeping bags were getting a bit off, the tent was starting to smell and I'm sure we personally didn't smell too great. Unfortunately, this was the one place that didn't have a shower so we would arrive home later that day in a rather road weary state.

We had a less than satisfying breakfast at McDonalds in Winnemucca. Not much to say about the trip between Winnemucca and Wendover. If you've ever driven it you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. We stopped in Wendover for Fuel and a Soda. We enjoyed the A/C while chatting about the scary group of bikers parked outside. They were the only rough looking group we happened upon during the entire trip. They looked pretty rough and their jackets had swastikas. It was then that John got a message from Noelle that we had an hour and a half to get his motorcycle back or he'd have to pay and extra $360 because he wouldn't be able to turn it in until Monday. We looked at our watches and realized that although we really didn't have a chance we better try anyway.

Back on I-80 doing 80 mph past the Salt Flats, the weird tree sculpture, Saltair, and nothingness. A little past Toelle I thought I saw my sleeping bag fall off. I pulled over and sure enough it had. A car pulled over and the guy told me it was about a mile back. I told John what was going on and told him to head on to see if he could make it home. I headed to the next exit, which was about 10 miles away so I could turn around. I circled back and road along looking for it but never did find it. John was told by someone that it was right near the road so our guess is that someone picked it up for me but because of the erratic driving to circle back they couldn't catch up. I still can't believe that the sleeping bag made it for 2500 miles and less than 100 miles away from home it fell off. I think the heat had let the straps stretch a little too much and adios.

Obviously we made it back alive and John got Noelle to stall the Harley shop so he was able to get there to turn the bike in. All in all it was a great trip. The most uneventful, in terms of negative things, that I've been on. Especially considering last year's trip.

Things I learned from this trip:

1) It makes a motorcycle trip much more fun when the person/people you ride with enjoy a similar speed and style of riding. Neither of us felt like we were holding the other up or getting left behind. John was great for this. After the first day, he was riding very comfortably and getting the hang of the bigness of the bike. My brother Kirk and John are both great motorcycling companions.

2) 300 miles is a nearly perfect amount to plan for a day. There are always side trips you find, or a great place that you want to hang around a little longer. But, you also feel like to put some distance behind you for the day; that you're actually getting somewhere.

3) Camping is Awesome on a motorcycle trip! From here on out I will camp as much as possible on these trips. The nights in hotels are nice, but it feels much more appropriate to sleep in tent on a motorcycle trip.

4) Nevada could disappear into a giant sink hole and I wouldn't mind at all. Not only are central and northern Nevada really boring but I don't even like Las Vegas. It's as if Vegas is trying to make up for the boredom of the rest of the state on one single street in one single city. It's way too much and when I leave I always feel like I need to be dipped in some sort of anti-bacterial solution to be fully cleansed of the place.

5) Redwoods are as cool as I though they would be and they have a weird spongy bark that pulls off if John tries to climb them. Evolution has protected them from fire and John.

6) Although I don't like listening to music most of the time while riding motorcycles, pack the ipod for trips through Nevada (see #4).

7) I know it sounds weird but I get a very good vibe from Pine forests. It feels like I should be dwelling among them, which is probably why Deer Park, WA seems like such a great place to move to, lots of pines. I really enjoyed riding through the forests along the northern California Coast.

8) Wild Animals want to kill, or at least harm motorcyclists.

9) It is better to be hot than cold on a motorcycle. I'll take 100 degree Hwy 50 any day over 35 degree canyon roads, at least for long days in the saddle.

10) Motorcycle trips need to be at least 5 days, and 7 days is pretty much perfect. Plenty of time to get out and see stuff. The rest of my trips have always been 4 days, extended weekends, and I always felt like I was ending a day or two to soon on those trips. It was really nice to keep going for a few more days this time around.

I'm thinking Colorado for next year's trip, any takers?

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