No rush this morning, I awoke to rain and motel WIFI so flaky I had to reconnect every 10 minutes. This blog doesn’t write itself but I have fallen into some routines to make the process more efficient, hopefully not at the expense of originality. When I hit the motel room the phone and tablet go onto the charger along with the back-up battery, also onto the WIFI to sync any photos, video and timeline. I retreat to a bar, normally pre-selected along with the motel for their proximity and dive like qualities, to scribble drivel into a notebook. A race between the alcohol and recollection, a cocktail of fatigue, frustrated creativity and the growing intoxication boosted by my ‘one meal or less’ nutrition regime.

Come the dawn I wake and transpose the scrawl, edit the photo’s (mainly to compensate for my inability to hold the phone level or keep my fingers out of the way) and try to make some sense of it all.

Continue reading “Day 41 Black blood” →

I spent an hour or so fretting over the weather forecast with its tales of apocalyptic chaos between the cold air in the north west and the record breaking heat in the south east. Route 20 seemed due to host a series of events ranging from thunder storms and tornados through plague and pestilence to hail stones of fruit like dimensions. I elected Route 44, to the north, for the role of carrying us to Sioux Falls rather than Sioux City. A remote journey through saturated fields and over rivers swollen to bursting surprising flys with extreme velocity change as they impacted my helmet and visor.

Continue reading “Day 40 Sioux me” →

It didn’t take very long to meet my first memorable people, Katja from Norway had ridden her motorcycle around the world and Steve from Florida had flown crop dusters, they had done so much more and were so cool that I wanted to be them or to have been there then. My memories are duller and I’m glad that my little journey took me to the rest area outside Orin Wyoming (pop 46) where Katja asked me something in Italian because she had clocked the strange licence plate on the Guzzi and knew a fair bit about motorcycles. She had stopped for the trophy photograph at the Golden Gate Bridge and returned 36 years later to recreate it.

I’ll have to go back.

Continue reading “Day 39 Memorial” →

Cody, an aircraft engineer, and his second wife Heidi were in Greybull for their wedding anniversary. He’d been born there, not easy given the proximity of the town of Cody and his name. He had spent time in Afghanistan working for Evergreen Aviation maintaining equipment for the Special Forces, he didn’t leave the base but was mortared constantly and said that the 120 day wind drove people mad. He also told me that my planned route over the mountains was crazy until the summer, I listened and adapted, opting for Route 20 to the south and then eastwards.

The road was long but she’s running well and the new tyres have improved her stability, except on the center stand. Their high profile lifts her and makes it easier to get her on the stand but also easier for her to topple on less than level ground. DI tried riding with noise cancelling ear-buds for the first time and although Modern English ‘After the Snow’ left me smiling the noise cancelling eliminated the engine sounds that she uses to communicate her moods and ailments. I put them away again but not until I’d shared some precious moments with the mountains. Films have soundtracks with good reason, the power to stir emotions is a potent one.

Continue reading “Day 38 Hot Springs eternal” →

Afraid of the rain and the cold, I wrapped up with waterproof gear and packed, then unpacked in a forgetful frenzy to locate the straps that hold the tank bag on. Too dumb to be afraid of the altitude, the un-paved roads, the snow and the black ice.

Continue reading “Day 37 Chillin’” →

Rising early to watch the clouds smother the mountains and ask the only motorbike shop in the village, the only motorbike shop for 50 miles in any direction I suspect, whether they could balance wheels. Memorial Day weekend was upon us and I was not looking to riding a jack-hammer for four days. The answer was “no” but Idaho Falls had a couple of potentials that I could try.

Continue reading “Day 36 Balance” →

Up at sunrise to get into Boise and back onto WIFI as early as possible, that part of the plan went well. Blag connectivity from a fast food chain, blog written, check, find JMR racing, they have the tyres, check, get tyres fitted and balanced, ahh…

Continue reading “Day 35 Wetlands” →

Madras Airfield is home to the Erickson Aircraft Collection, a theme was developing and I headed there in the hope of seeing some of the fire bombers that Will flew and perhaps some other classic aircraft. On the way I stopped for gas and a chat with Ronald who attended to my needs. Here’s a ‘shout out’ to the gas attendants of Oregon and New Jersey. Ronald was drafted in 1958, along with Elvis Presley, not a great piece of luck as the drafts between the Korean and Vietnam wars were relatively small, it was a lottery and his number came up. He served in the 82nd Airborne and now he served me.

Continue reading “Day 34 Airborne” →

The clouds ran me out of Lincoln City, glad to get moving I set the navigation for the Guzzi garage in Portland over two hours inland and got my head down. Literally, the pain in my neck, from holding it against the wind of my own making can be eased by resting my chin on the tank bag, peering between the top of my glasses and the rim of my helmet just over the small screen to the road ahead. Eventually my hips joined in and we pulled into a popular burger chain outlet for rest and breakfast, pleasant enough and aviation themed I hitched a ride on their WIFI and emailed the garage (their phone number wasn’t working) about tyres over a scoldingly hot coffee. James replied and called me on another line to confirm that they had my cable delivery. “I’ll be with you in an hour or so” I told him, I was wrong. Continue reading “Day 33 Big Bird” →

I decided that an early sprint up the coast road ahead of the radar predicted precipitation was in order. Conscious of the overhead of stopping at every overlook to titivate you with graphic panoramas I opted for the chest cam. What a disaster!

Continue reading “Day 32 One O One” →