Heartland -> West Coast (almost)
I’ve been putting this off for a few days, so It’s going to be kind of long. I’ll try to keep the information to word count ratio as high as possible.
MONDAY
Left North Platte in 40 degrees armed with my new $1 Wal Mart long underwear top, headed towards Denver. The temperature failed to improve, and it started to drizzle. I was, as expected, freezing the the ol’ n*ts off. I reached Colorado, but the weather didn’t get any better. This caused me to belligerently increase my rate of travel (in the hope that the increased friction of the wind on my hands would cause them to warm up), with which Colorado’s finest were thoroughly and enthusiastically unimpressed. Luckily, the bucket of change I cashed in before I left more than paid for this little fiasco.
In retrospect, it turns out I rolled through Denver mere hours after they received about 9 inches of snow. I’m not sure where all of it went, because there was only a trace on the ground when I got there. In fact, it was in Denver that I finally started to thaw out a bit. From there I went south, and eventually made it to Trinidad, CO.
I walked around town, cruisin’ for some grub, and located a fairly righteous mexican restaurant, at which I procured an enormous beef and potato burrito (at the recommendation of the waiter). The establishment had a sauce hotness description page on their menu. I ordered it medium. It made me cry a little bit.
TUESDAY
Tuesday was the biggest total miles day. 563 miles from Trinidad CO to Flagstaff AZ. I don’t have a ton to report from this day, except that it got deliciously warmer as I headed south and west. Long day of riding.
WEDNESDAY
After droning down the highways for several days, and being within spitting distance from the west coast, I decided to treat myself to a more scenic and recreational riding experience. I headed south and west from Flagstaff towards Sedona. This brought me through Oak Creek Canyon, which is a beautiful red rock canyon, accessed by a ridiculous series of switchbacks that made for a challenging and intense ride. Here’s a little media:
Here’s the google map of the road heading down into the canyon. Yowza!
Here’s a couple panoramas from the top of the canyon:
From there I continued along 89A southwest through Cottonwood, Jerome, and Prescott. Here’s a google map of the road going down the mountain south of Jerome:
And the panorama from Jerome:
Needless to say, the riding yesterday was [explitive]ing SPECTACULAR! The mountain roads were incredible, challenging, and awesome.
After the mountains, I headed for I-10, which took me straight to Indio, where I eventually located my Uncle Terry’s place within the maze of gated community homogeneity. I wasn’t even off the bike before he handed me a chilled beverage, and happy hour subsequently ensued. Then we came back to his place, where we grilled steaks and hung out. His buddy Ken from Big Sky is also visiting. Separate incidents.
Today I’m taking it easy. Went for a run, hit the pool, and currently gearing up for some mexican food. Tomorrow I’m planning to swing over to visit Brian in Irvine, then on Saturday I’ll meet Evan and the dudes at Marina Del Rey (near Santa Monica). I’m a little worried about a tapping noise the bike engine is making – might end up having to check the valve clearances and the timing chain tension, but I hope not because that’s kind of a major deal, as I understand it.
Anyway, here’s a sampling of photos from this latest batch:
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Goodbye Omaha, hello… Nebraska?
Said goodbye to the Omaha Whitakers this afternoon around 2, and headed west on I 80. I was hoping to dodge the wicked thunderstorms in the area, but they found me. Some number of soggy miles later, I decided to pull over and actually put on my rain gear. When I took the exit I noticed the bike wasn’t running quite right, and when I got back on the road this suspicion was confirmed: I was definitely running on one out of two cylinders. I limped about 10 miles to the next exit, and pulled dejectedly into a gas station. I suspected the front spark plug electrical connection was wet, causing the plug to not fire. Unfortunately, to test this theory requires disconnecting the radiator to get to the plug wire, which I really didn’t want to do at a gas station. At that moment, a highly nebraskan individual in an enormous diesel pickup pulled up, got out, and commented to me on the wetness of the day. I indicated I was experiencing some technical difficulties and asked if he knew of a shop close by that was open on sundays (fat chance). In fact, he informed me, the biggest and best shop in Lincoln was just around the corner AND open on sundays! I called them, rode over, and got the bike on the lift. Within 20 minutes, it was determined that the front plug hole had in fact been repurposed as a lake, due to a clogged drainage channel. Dude gave ‘er the old italian tune up with the compressed air, threw the plug wire back in, and she ran like a champ. Best part was he didn’t even charge me!
So, several miles later I find myself in scenic North Platte, NE. It’s supposed to be like 35 degrees when I wake up tomorrow, according to my trusty logistical trip manager Heather. That temperature equals freezing my b*lls off. I may need to augment my wardrobe.
Here are some pics from the Omaha visit:
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On the Road
Started my road trip to Cali today, on the bike. I’m in Omaha now. The first leg of the trip went great. Will update.
Kung Fu Assistant Instructor Rank
Two nights ago my teacher Mike presented me with my Assistant Instructor rank certificate. I’ve been studying with him for four years. I told him that I will return to finish the full instructor rank, even if it’s not for a few years.
Last day at Brown Printing Company
I’m about to leave work for the last time. It’s been fun guys, thanks! Now the adventure begins…
Filled up the Mexican joint for lunch. Got stuffed.
This is pretty much what I did on my last day:
mini me
Say hello to my little friend. All of the credit for this one goes to Luke (and everyone else that did this before I did). I am now the proud owner of a Dell mini 9 netbook running Mac OS X, with 2 GB of ram and a 64 GB SSD. In fact, this will be my only computer as of Friday (my last day at work). Cheap, tiny, and capable. Sweet.