1. The Big Picture

Jul 11, 2009 Uncategorized 2 Comments

Well, I was able to secure 8 weeks of leave from work.  I secured this little prize while negotiating my job offer.   Using my small amount of paid leave, I was able to push it to 9 weeks of vacation.  This leaves me with the time from 4th of July to Labor Day to do as I please. 

The original idea was to go on a motorcycle trip across America with my buddy.  We came up with the initial idea during the summer of 2008, but nothing really started to come together until the start of 2009.  Things were going as planned until April of 2009.  My friend ran into some financial woes and would be unable to go on the trip with me.  By that point the timetable for my leave had already been set, so there was no turning back.

In April I bought my 1st bike.  It was a beautiful (and unreliable) 1981 Suzuki GS450L.  Here it is in all of its glory

That bike had numerous problems that developed shortly after buying it.  It is currently not running and being worked on in a friend’s garage.  I was able to put ~50 miles on it before it stopped starting.  It’s not the best financial move I’ve ever made.

I was tired of dealing with the headache of the Suzuki, so instead I bought the new bike I had been planning on buying.  The Suzuki was bought to learn on, not for taking on the trip.  After some cutthroat negotiating at the local BMW dealership, I purchased this bike: a 2009 BMW G 650GS

Despite the famous BMW name and the reliability associated with it, this bike managed to find its way to the shop for warranty repairs with less than 500 miles on it.  That’s not the best moral booster for this adventure, but the problem has been fixed.  Hopefully it’s the last one I encounter on the trip.

I guess the goal for this trip is to see the different parts of the USA.  I haven’t traveled much throughout the states, so I figured it would be nice to take a break and see the sites.

I live in Washington.  I’ll start my trip by heading south to Pasadena, California to visit a friend before he embarks on a year long stay in Ecuador.  It was either visiting my buddy before he leaves or Sturgis for the big biker rally.  Personally, I thought Sturgis would have been awesome, but all my friends/coworkers/acquaintances thought that Sturgis and me was a terrible idea.  I still think Sturgis would have been a winning ticket, but the LA area will have to suffice.

After LA my trip is wide open.  I have friends in AZ, CO, KS, WI, and MT.  I plan to visit them all while making various stops along the way.  The basic plan is to make a loop of America and end up back in Washington when it’s all over.

2. Pregame

Jul 16, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

With 9 weeks of vacation I couldn’t just shoot the whole load on one trip, so there were a few mini-vacations lined up before the actual bike trip.

The 4th of July was spent in beautiful Chelan, Washington – The heart of Washington’s wine country.  I had a wonderful stay that involved friends, water, wine, beer, and the sun.  We had a fantastic time over the weekend playing on the water.  We had a couple boats and a wave runner and tons of fun.  I walked away from the event with a sunburn that pretty much covered my entire upper body and the desire to return again for it next summer.  I also managed to avoid a bar fight twice with a rather dim individual.  Despite his size, there didn’t appear to be much going on inside his head.  I have to thank my friend Justin for doing his best to cool down the situation.

Las Vegas

The fun didn’t stop in Chelan.  We left Chelan on Sunday night and drove until we reached Las Vegas on Monday afternoon.  Two other friends from the 4th of July trip joined me for two nights in Las Vegas: Peter and Justin. We were supposedly there as a farewell for Peter who is moving to Ecuador for a year, but any reason is worth going to Vegas.  As usual Las Vegas was a city that provided many ups and down; however the downs always seemed to follow the ups.

My buddy Pete had a fantastic idea to go cougar hunting while in Vegas.  The idea here is not to hunt cats, but instead try to catch the eye of an older woman.  We’re only 23, but the goal was to meet women in their 30s and 40s.  It was a lofty plan, but this was probably the best city to try it in.

Here’s where the problems started.  For a mere $35 you can buy a jug of frozen liquored deliciousness.  I’ve since come to learn that alcohol and gambling is a dangerous cocktail.  Things were going well until I lost most of my money for the night playing blackjack.  There was a high note to my first night in Vegas though, I met a girl named Karen.  This wasn’t just any Karen though, this Karen was a cougar!

Despite how much I may or may not have drank, I still found a way to dazzle this Karen.  She mentioned she was going skydiving in the morning.  I told her I had always wanted to skydive.  She invited me to join her in the morning, and we exchanged numbers.  We went our separate ways, and my friends and I all miraculously found our way back to our rooms. 

I awoke in my bed recalling the events from the previous night.  As a veteran of the game, the first thing I checked was my phone.  2 Missed Calls and 2 new Voicemails.  Surprised to see this, I figured it was just my dad or a friend.  But no no no, it was a unknown number.  The first voicemail was Karen at 6am reminding me about skydiving (I think it was like 10 am when I woke up, so I missed the chance to fight the skies).  The second voicemail was also from Karen.  This one wasn’t quite as brief as the first one.  She was actually singing a song to me about skydiving.  Well shit, 2 call backs and sing-songy voicemail makes me think Karen was actually into me.  I called her back, left a voicemail, and proceeded on with my day.

After everyone doing their morning rituals we started the day at the Flamingo’s Go-Go pool.  That classy name is the cover for the $10 topless pool.  We were childish and immature enough to pay that spot a visit.  What a let down.  The only topless people there were in their 50s.  It was a lot less crowded though, so that was nice, and the beers were only $3 (which is a steal compared to typical Vegas prices).  We spent part of the day there, and I managed to make my sunburn from Chelan even worse.

That night Pete and I were once again on the prowl.  We were actually heading back to the room to meet up with some friends when a guy on the street offered us a free game of beer pong.  That was an offer too good to pass up, so we waltzed right in to the establishment.  The bar was relatively dead, but we were paired up with a brother and sister team from Texas.  They were in town for a teaching conference.

The brother and sister were pretty cool, so we played a few games with them.  My memory isn’t quite accurate to how we managed to meet these girls, but I believe the brother just walked up and started talking to them.  It’s crazy how such a simple concept worked so well.  Whatever he did was a tremendous success because suddenly Pete and I were knee deep in hot chicks at the bar.  We talked to them and played beer pong with them too.  It turned out we stumbled upon a goldmine…

Two of the chicks were sisters, one was a friend, and one was the mother of the two sisters.  Since they were with the mother, she was the key.  If we could have fun with the mom, then there shouldn’t be a problem befriending the daughters/friends.  I spoke to the mom for a bit and suggested dancing on the bar with her.  She didn’t rule the idea out, but she didn’t ask for a boost up either.  She wanted some time to think about it.  Anything other than no meant yes, so that let us know that the mother was pretty cool.

The two daughters I previously mentioned were actually twins - identical twins. Hot identical twins!  So here I am playing beer pong with my buddy Pete. We’re each teamed up with the twin that we thought was hotter too (they had different hair styles).  It really couldn’t get much better than this.  We even had bottle service which was a steal for $30 a bottle.  The girls liked the rum we had and did a round of shots with us and with their mother too! 

Things were really going well.  The only real problem here was the time.  It was only like 7 or 8 at night.  Our drinking was on a pace more suited for midnight.  The only flaw of that bar was they didn’t have a bathroom.  So I exited to take a piss and came back to a bar with everyone gone.  WTF?!? I rushed out front to find Pete, the twins, and the brother from earlier in the day playing beer pong.  Whew, all was relatively well.  Then this asshole Pete decides to leave.  Neither of us know why he left, but Pete had consumed his fair share of alcohol up until that point.  So now I was left with a tough choice – The twins or Pete.  Looking back on it I keep choosing the twins.  Tragically for my sex life, I chose Pete.  I spent the rest of the night trying to track him down.  He toyed with me over the phone, and I swore I would kick his ass as soon as I found him. 

Fortunately for everyone, Pete and I never saw each other again that night.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one looking for him that night because he said he had a run-in with the valet that lead to the cops or security looking for him while he snuck through a parking structure.  Oh well.  I struck out in Vegas going 0/2.  We overslept and packed all of our bags while in the check out grace period.  Pete and others were heading to Arizona later in the day, but I had to fly back to Washington.  We all lost money to that city, but I only lost what I brought to lose.  Then, as I was walking to the car to head for the airport my phone rang.  Unknown number, huh?  Oh yay, it was Karen.  We had some lovely small talk about skydiving for about a minute.  Then she transitioned into what my plans for the day were.  I told her I was heading to the airport and see said Seeyalater.  0/3 Fuck you, Las Vegas.  My wounds didn’t need your salt.

Alaska

After getting to Washington I had 1 day to move out of my house and put my stuff in storage.  I accomplished that and spent a very relaxing week visiting friends and family in Alaska. 

July 16th

Today I’m flying back to Washington to start the bike trip.  Now the madness can really begin

3. Day 1

Jul 19, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

I got my endorsement on Saturday. I took the test on a whim as a last minute effort, but I actually scored a 100. When was the last time you got a perfect score on a test? After securing that I had no reason to stay in Tacoma any longer. So Sunday I left Matt’s house and hit the road. Rather than spend the day getting every last piece of gear I decided to quickly pack up and hit the road. I figured whatever I didn’t have I could buy in Portland.

I threw everything on the bike and hit the road. The ride went well for my first prolonged freeway experience. I hit a top speed of 100. It feels pretty good to go fast on a bike. I felt pretty content going that fast and wouldn’t mind maintaining those speeds for the entire trip (or at least the parts on freeways).

I made great time to Portland. I met up with Garrett. He wanted to go canoing, but I had to make a stop at REI first. He reluctantly agreed. I bought a fancy fabric based pair of socks, boxers, and 2 shirts. These will be used as my skin based layers of clothing. (Update: This was an excellent purchase. I’ve since bought a few more for the rest of the trip).

After shopping ($250) we went canoing. We paddled for a few miles and called it a day. The goal for tomorrow is Chico, California to crash at Peter’s brother’s place.

Some pics from canoing:

4. The Real Day 1

Jul 20, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

What a day! The initial plan was to make it to Chico, California to crash with my friend’s younger brother. According to Google, taking I-5 the whole way was nearly 8 hours. I figured I would take I-5 part of the way, and 101 highway for the other part.

I woke up on my own and saw Garrett’s clock on the microwave said 10:30. Oh shit, I just overslept a few hours, and Garrett left without saying goodbye. I quickly started getting my stuff together and took a shower. When I got back from the shower I saw Garrett. I gave him a hard time for being late to work, and he told me he was surprised I was up so early. Hmmm…

It turned out Garrett’s microwave clock was not set correctly. It was actually a few hours ahead. So now I was up and awake earlier than planned. I packed everything out to the bike, said my goodbyes to Garrett, and headed to California.

Around Salem I made the decision to go to highway 101. It follows the coast at least as far as Las Angeles, and I’ve been told it’s a very nice ride. This early departure from I-5 added more hours to the trip. Here are some pics I took along the way:

These are from Lincoln City, Oregon

These pics are from Port Orford, Oregon:

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox can be found in Klamath, California. These things were huge!

Paul Bunyan

Babe the Blue Ox

Various other pictures from the Oregon coast:

The coast of Oregon is colder than a witch’s broom in December. My choice of mesh pants and jacket proved costly today. I froze my ass off riding and fighting the wind for the entire day on the coast. I fell behind schedule and was in Acarta, California shortly before 7:00 pm. I was still 4 hours from Chico. So I called Pete and told him of the changes so he could alert his brother. I decided to camp out in Arcarta and a Kampground of America (KOA). This will be my last night with KOA unless I am desperate in the future. I don’t know how they get away with charging $27/night for 1 tent. But that’s all that was here, and I was exhausted.

I set up camp like a pro and had the tent up in 3 minutes. I unloaded my gear and headed to town looking for food and firewood. I didn’t even bother asking KOA if they sold wood. They already took enough of my money.

If you ever need firewood in Acarta there is only one place to get it – Safeway. I tried Target, a gas station, CVS, and Walgreens unsuccessfully until someone told me they had it as Safeway. I bought 1.35 cubic feet of firewood. It came in a big cardboard box slightly larger than a milk carton. I loaded all the empty bags up with wood and it fit perfectly. I also wanted the box to use for kindling. So being the brilliant man I am, I folded the box flat and put it on the bike between my legs for the ride home. I may have looked foolish, but I got the whole payload back to the tent. I also bought a 6-pack of Top-Ramen (I only wanted one but they only had 6 packs for $1.41) for dinner.

I got the fire going rather quickly and then started with dinner. One bag of Ramen was the main course tonight. I used the stove and gas I bought at REI to boil some water with the small pots kit I bought at REI too. After I very long time I got the water to boil. I added the Ramen and waited. I waited too long and overcooked the Ramen into a soggy mess. Rats! Oh well, I still ate. Then I wrote this and went to bed. Here are some campsite pics:

5. San Fransico

Jul 21, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

After my first night roughing the elements and pitching a tent it’s time to head to San Fransisco. If memory serves me correctly, it was roughly a 300 mile trip. Not too bad for one day. I also learned about the Avenue of the Giants, which is a loop that connects to highway 101 and has a nice detour through the redwoods.

Before I left the campsite some KOA officials showed up in their golf cart to fix the electrical outlet. It turned out I didn’t have power the previous night not because I didn’t pay for it, but because the people working at the front desk were incompetent. The guy I spoke with told me the people at the front desk knew my camp site didn’t have power because it was clearly marked on their chart. So not only did they rape me at $27/night, they also didn’t even provide me with all the services that included.

The Avenue of the Giants was an awesome detour. Here are my photos from that portion of the drive:

This is the bottom of a redwood that was laying on its side.

I tried to capture the height of one of these trees with these 2 pictures

Another bike shot

I also managed to get lost due to a misleading sign. Instead of continuing on through the redwoods I ended up on a back road. Things were pretty sketch because it was a 1-1.5 lane road. There wasn’t a lot of a space. There were many blind corners that had me worried about an oncoming car coming around the corner and killing me. I persevered and manage to fight off my fears for a very fun ride full of twists, turns, and hills. After a few miles I was quite certain I was lost, but I figured I was committed so I might as well see where the rabbit’s hole was taking me.

I ended up on a gravel road which I was pretty sure lead to someone’s house. There was also a concrete bridge that went over a stream. I decided to flex the BMW’s off road muscle and took it down the gravel road to the bridge. When I crossed the bridge I was tempted to play in the gravel a bit. I’ve never driven a dirt bike, but it seems like a lot of fun. The rocks were fairly large for riding over, and the instability quickly had me assessing the risk of dumping my bike on a bunch of rocks in the middle of no where versus playing around. So I turned around a headed back to the bridge. Here are the pics from the bridge:

This is the view from on the bridge facing the road I took to get here

View looking south from the bridge

View looking north from the bridge

Gravel area I briefly played around on

After the redwoods I made one last stop at the shrine of the redwoods. For only $4 ($6 in a car) I was able to drive through a redwood tree. As cool as that sounds it was pretty lame. I’ll let the pics explain it, but it was pretty much a U-turn through a redwood. At least it came with a free postcard. The pics:

Some van driving through.  The entering the tree said it was 7′x7′.

Shrine tree info

Looking into the tree

Looking up inside the tree

After that I was finally headed for San Fransisco. The Golden Gate bridge was really cool. It was a a foggy day, and I arrived later than planned. Because of that I didn’t get any good pics. Here are my only San Fran pics:

The Golden Gate Bridge

I think this is Alcatraz, but I have no clue

Stuck in the middle of San Fran it was hopeless to find a hotel (although my neighbors in the morning told me there was a great one at the edge of town). I texted my buddy Bryce and asked him if he lived in San Fran. This was actually a loaded question because I knew he had accepted a job offer there in March. What I didn’t know was that he had only moved there a week earlier. Bryce was kind enough to let me crash on his very comfy couch. We had a few beers and some Thai food and fun, relaxing night.

The plan for tomorrow is to make it to Peter and Pasadena.

6. Pasadena

Jul 22, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

I decided to take highway 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway) for the trip to L.A./Pasadena. Multiple people suggested it so I figured it was a better alternative than just mindless freeways.

Bryce mention a pyramid shaped building that was in downtown San Fransisco. Since I left as Bryce was leaving for work, I figured I had a little bit of spare time to spend in the city. I made one mistake though. For some reason I thought I had to take the Bay Bridge to get to downtown San Fran. I actually rode right past downtown San Fran to get on the bridge. The bridge took me to Oakland. It didn’t seem like that bad of a place; I don’t know why it get such a bad reputation.

After back tracking to San Fran I spent 20 minutes trying to find the building before quitting. My next struggle was to find the correct road to take me to the coast. That also involved getting lost and back tracking. I eventually got my bearings and headed to the coast. I believe it was highway 152 that was a fun ride. Lots of twists and hills. I would recommend it to other riders.

Before I managed to make it to the coast I spent an hour on the freeway. 101 South to be exact. I don’t know if California looks the other way when it comes to speeding, but I was definitely going 80-100 mph the whole way. I hit 100 a number of times. It’s quite enjoyable and has me thinking about buying a sport bike someday.

The California coast was a beautiful ride. I hit the coast at Monterey and stayed on it till San Lius Obisipo. By the time I got to SLO I was behind schedule so I went to back to the 101 freeway the rest of the way. The Cali coast was like Heaven on a stick. It’s amazing because the road is on the edge of a cliff 300-500 feet above the water. The only bad part was the traffic. I cycled through intervals of no traffic for 20 minutes and then a line of traffic for another 20-30.

After the coast I raced to Pasadena before the sun went down. As I said before, the California freeways are where it’s at. The flow of traffic in the left lane was doing a healthy 80-90 mph the whole way. I made it to Pasadena on time and met up with Peter. I took a glorious shower (it had been about 3 days), and then went to dinner at the Yard House with Pete. They claim to have 100 beers on tap. We had a few beers and I had a full rack of ribs. It was delicious. I’ll be in Pasadena for the next few days. The plan is to hit up Six Flags tomorrow and catch a Dodgers game later in the week. No pics today I was too busy trying to get here on time to pull over and snap some shots.

7. Magic Mountain

Jul 23, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

Today was my first full day in Pasadena. It was great having a bed to sleep in, but more importantly having a nice shower. The plan for the day was to get to Six Flags Magic Mountain around 10:30 AM and stay until closing at 10 pm. Joining Peter and me was his buddies Paul and Mike.

I had only ridden 2 roller coasters prior to today, so I was very excited. The first ride we did was X2, which according to everyone was the best ride there. I won’t bother describing all the rides, but X2 was pretty sweet. There are no pictures today because X2 cracked the screen to my camera while it was in my pocket. So now I don’t have a camera.

We just rode rides all day long and had a great time. I should have started doing this a long time ago. Around 9 pm Mike ran into an old friend who now works at Six Flags. His friend asked us if we wanted to bypass the line at X2. We all said yes, so instead of spending ~2 hours in line we were escorted to the front of the line. It was cool doing the ride again at night, and Mike’s friend really came through for us!

We did one last ride which managed to crack the screen to my phone. Great, now my phone and camera are broken. The rides were sweet, but a $27 ticket to Six Flags has now left me with quite the repair bill.

8. Rose Bowl & The Dodgers

Jul 26, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

I’m having trouble getting these pics off my camera. I’ll try to upload them later

Not much to write about for the past few days. I’ve been taking it easy and laying low at Pete’s place. I bought a new camera, and Peter’s mother gave me her old cell phone. Kudos to her!

I went to visit the Rose Bowl Football Stadium (where UCLA plays and where the Rose Bowl is held every year). It’s a pretty area with a great layout. There is a golf course next to the field and a nice lawn outside the stadium which I presume is used for tailgating. Here are the pics:

[PICS - Rose Bowl]

That night Peter’s parents graciously took us to a Dodgers game. Dodger stadium is the 3rd oldest stadium in America, but it doesn’t look outdated by any means. The Dodgers played the Marlins and won 4-3 with a walk off bloop-single by Kasey Blake. Here are the pics from the game:

[PICS - Dodgers]

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for Phoenix. Not sure how long I will spend there, but my goal is to visit all my friends who still live there. I did some maintance checks on the bike today. I cleaned and lubed the chain and also checked its tension. I noticed the coolant level was a the minimum mark, so I and some more coolant. Good thing I checked that before battling the hot desert tomorrow.

9. Phoenix

Jul 27, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

I left Pasadena, CA this morning at 4:30 AM.  I didn’t think to leave that early until my friend Matt in Phoenix suggested it to avoid the heat.  That was a terrific idea because Phoenix is hotter than shit on a shingle.  I took a break every 100 miles to drink water.  I used my camelbak for the first time.  That ice cold water was so refreshing.  At one of the rest areas I saw some lizards.  Here they are for you to enjoy:

After that break I made it to Phoenix and visited Matt at his office.  He has a regular office job, so I had to kill some time before he got off work.  I decided to visit my buddy Joe, so I drove north to Cave Creek/Scottsdale to see him. 

I spent a couple hours at the restaurant he works at catching up on his life and what each of knew about other people we went to school with.  After lunch with Joe it was time to pick up Matt and take him to his truck that was in the shop. 

Matt was my first passenger on a motorcycle.  Arizona has an interesting take on motorcycle safety.  They don’t have a helmet law, but eye protection is required.  Since I only have one helmet I let Matt use it.  I figure since my skull is at risk I would be compelled to drive to my safest ability.  After dropping him off at his truck he convoyed it back to his house in Maricopa.  I thought the 5 o’clock sun was going to kill me on that 30 minute drive.  I later learned Matt’s car read 120 degrees during that trip.  Now I’m not one to trust at car’s thermometer, but either way it was a hot day to be riding a black bike in all black gear.

10. Tempe/ASU

Jul 28, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

Today I decided to explore a little bit of Tempe, AZ. If you aren’t familiar with the Phoenix metropolitan area, allow me to try to explain it. Although it is known as Phoenix, there are 5 or 6 cities that are all connected that make up this area. Tempe is where the ASU campus is located. It touches Phoenix though.

Anyways, my dad grew up in Tempe and also went to ASU. Because of this I’ve heard about ASU related topics my entire life. I figured I would take this day to explore some of the things he’s always told me about. I started at a steak house at the heart of Tempe called Monti’s. My dad has pressured me to get a steak there since I moved to AZ for college. Today I finally gave in and had a meal there. Look at my giant Prime Rib I had for lunch. It was delicious. I should have listened to my dad about this long ago. Here are the pics from lunch:

That’s what I call a mouthful

I bought this shirt

This is the view across the street from Monti’s

After Monti’s I decided to explore ASU a bit more. I wanted to check out Sun Devil stadium. This proved more difficult than I thought it would be. I did a partial lap around the stadium looking for a way to get in that wasn’t fenced off. I thought I sneak in through what looked like a back way. To get there I started with an arboretum. This must be the largest gathering of plants in all of Phoenix

Then I walked on this path for what felt like an hour in that sun and in all my gear. According to my phone it only took about 5 minutes though.

And then I reached this fence, ugh.

I decided to check out the Wells Fargo Center next. This was a cool stop because they had lots of old sports photos and stuff. My dad was a bus driver for the ASU football team in the early 70s. My friend’s dad played for ASU football in the early 70s. Two years ago we learned this which was one of those small world moments. Here are the pics from the Wells Fargo Center:

Here’s a tribute to the Rose Bowl victory against Michigan and a shrine for ASU’s famous coach Frank Koush.

Here was another sports shrine connected to Sun Devil Stadium.

It turned out the stadium was closed for renovations. I was only able to take this picture:

That’s it for ASU. I was hot and exhausted so I went back to Matt’s place. A few hours later I met up with my friend John from NAU who now works in Phoenix. We got dinner at a terrible Mexican place, but we still had a good time. It was nice catching up with John and hearing about how he’s been.

11. Dogs

Jul 29, 2009 Uncategorized 2 Comments

Some of my friends in Phoenix have dogs. I took some shots of the dogs.

Here is Halo and Holly which belong to Matt:

And here is Joe’s dog Hallie. She’s the sweetest German Shepard ever

12. Flagstaff

Jul 31, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

Ah Flagstaff – my second home. I had an uneventful ride to Flagstaff from Phoenix (although I think I made it to Flagstaff in record time). It was nice to see my friends from school and see the changes in the town.

That night we went out for a few drinks. We started at Maloney’s pub, which is my favorite bar in Flag. Here are some pics from that night with my pals Tim and Christina.

There were a lot more pics, but they were mainly of us drinking and being goofy at a bar, so I’ll save you from having to watch that spectacle. The highlight that night didn’t get saved on film though.

The Arizona Cardinals hold their mini camp in Flagstaff. A few of their players were at the bar that night. Some girl at the bar tried to get their autograph and picture. I guess they told her they couldn’t take photos at a bar or sign her body like she wanted. Instead they signed a napkin for her. I felt bad that her dreams of getting her body signed by an athlete were shattered, so I offered her my services. I mean, I do still play hockey, so I think I can consider myself an athlete. She was delighted to hear this and had me sign a certain part of her chest. Max D #7 is what I left her. I have no pics of her, but I can assure you she was gorgeous.

The next day Christina and I decided to ride up to Snowbowl and take the chairlift to the top of the mountain. Flagstaff is at the base a mountain with a ski resort. Christina rode on the back of the bike. Neither of us thought about sun burns, and we were quite red at the end of the day. Here are the pics from Snowbowl.

If you’re my mother ignore the following picture. Just pretend like it’s not there and scroll past it for the rest of them.

Christina’s camera had a panoramic mode, so here is a panoramic shot of Flagstaff

13. Flagstaff Part Deux

Aug 2, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

Since i’ve been too lazy to update this blog in a timely manner, my timeline of events is off. My apologies. While in Flagstaff I also checked out the Arizona Cardinals mini-camp. I met up with Tim and his fiance’ Steph at the practice field. It was a nice day and we spent about an hour watching from the peanut gallery. My observations were that Kurt Warner looked like shit and Larry Fitzgerald is a hard working guy.

Here where my timeline gets iffy. I can’t remember which night it was, but I think it was Saturday night that I went out to downtown Flagstaff with Tim again. A lot of his old friends from high school were in town. Some of which he hadn’t seen in over 5 years. So his plan was to join them downtown for a few drinks.

Our friend Carri was also going out that night too. Her sister and her sister’s friend were visiting from Colorado. My friend Christi was also included in that group. The sister’s friend is a Denver Nuggets cheer leader. When I met her she just came up and started dancing all crazy style. I’m all for intense dancing, lord knows I’ve been there, but I was nursing my first when she got and was way to sober to kick my dancing skills up to her level.

Carri and Christi wanted to get drinks so the 3 of us went to the bar. Carri asked me what I was drinking and I said tequila and sprite. As a disclaimer, let me warn you that tequila and sprite is a terrible drink. I usually can’t think of anything to order at bars so I usually just guess by mixing alcohol+something. For a long time I went with those two, and at this point I actually like them. Most people find the tequila taste to be too powerful and hate it. Carri assumed I ordered good drinks, so she ordered that for all 3 of us. I was fine with it, but I told the girls they better ask for a few more limes.

Tim was spending time telling his former classmates how’s he been doing. He may have even had to tell the same story 2, 3, and possibly even 4 times. I thought he heard us say we were going to a different bar, but I guess he didn’t. My bad, Tim. So we left for San Felipes.

At this point I had consumed a couple more cocktails and was feeling a bit looser and ready to dance. I guess the cheer leader had too because she and Christi were suddenly dancing atop the bar (it’s allowed at this bar). So Carri and I were left at the base of it wondering what to do. As I mention earlier in the blog, I’ve danced on bars before. It was actually at this bar last Halloween. So I once again used the cunning line of “I will if you will.” That was all Carri need to hear to get her dancing feet up on the bar.

So now the 4 of us were up there dancing. At this point I felt like quite the champion, maybe even godlike. I mean here I was dancing with 3 chicks atop the bar for everyone to see. Then a kid I played hockey with 2 years earlier called out my name. I was like “hey, how you doing?” I was never that outspoken on the team, and I only played for a semester. So I’m sure he was quite surprised to see me at a bar years later dancing on it with chicks. I’m still waiting to get the pics from Carri. She almost seemed embarrassed by these photos and has been quite hesitant to let have them.

[pics - san felipes]

After that night I said some good byes and hit the road. My original plan was to head east to Albuquerque, but after a few people told me that it was a gang infested shithole I decided to follow Tim’s advice and head to Zion national park in Utah.

I took these pics in the far northern parts of AZ on the way to Zion

This is some bridge

More shots closer to southeast Utah

14. Oh shit! It’s Zion

Aug 3, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

With a name like Zion and all the hype I had heard about it, I was prepared for it to rock my world with its awesomeness. I even got lost in my own thoughtz while riding through the desert on the way there and wondered if maybe it was like some magical places with tons of crazy shit and colors. Then I figured no, that probably isn’t the case. If it were, I probably would have hear about that by now, unless the locals keep it hush hush…

The thing about Zion is it’s in southern Utah. If you never been there before, then you should consider your self lucky and do nothing in your life that would force you to drive through it or even worse – stop there. You can believe whatever religion you’d like; I don’t really care. I’m going to toss this blanket statement out there and assume everyone in southern Utah is a Mormon though.

The small towns there are just so fucking spooky. It was like something out of a M. Night Shamalan movie. I hate his movies, but he can at least portray creepy shit well. I stopped at this little drug store. It was filled with 10-15 females of all ages. They all wore the same style bland, one-color dresses. “Oh, I love your beige dress.” “Well I like your beige dress. I see it’s a slight bit darker than mine.” They all had the same hairdo with this huge bump/ball of hair above their foreheads. And they all had the same expressionless face. It’s just so damn creepy. It’s like they aren’t alive, but they aren’t dead. They are just there, breathing and talking. It’s like they aren’t looking at you, but instead look right past you.

I asked her for directions to Zion to ensure my assumptions were correct. I immediately thought I’d rather get lost than to stay in this store talking to this woman any second longer. My end of the conversation quickly became “Yep, sure, thanks, ok, bye”. I figured if I stayed for a moment later they were try to harvest my unpure flesh.

I couldn’t take a picture, but I really wanted to. Here’s the best I could do with google

But eventually I made it Zion. I barely found a place to camp at this park. It was pretty busy. After getting change to pay for spot I ran into another rider on a GS BMW bike at the camp-fee drop off box. He said he drove through and all the spots were full. I told him he could camp with me. The spots were huge, and I only had my little tent. He managed to find the site while I paid for it.

His name was Pedro, and he was riding a mid 90s 1100 GS if I remember correctly. More importantly though, he had a hard bag on top of his bike where a passenger would ride. It was filled with ice and Coronas. What a nice refreshing way to end a long day of riding. He offered me a beer and we shot this shit for a couple hours at our camp table. He was a professor at the U of A in Tucson, AZ. He was headed south back to his home in Tucson. He told me the route he had taken to get down to Zion and which parts were fun and which parts should be avoided. I used that knowledge to plan my route the next day. Then we went to bed. Let me just note that his tent made mine look like a mansion. I was almost embarrassed to be in what I thought was a small tent. His tent was like shrink wrap over a sleeping bag. A coffin would have given him more room.

Pedro woke up earlier than I did and hit the road while I was still dozing. I woke up with back pains because my sleeping pad was leaking air all night. Here are the pics of the campsite I took in the morning.

I looked at my map that came with my park pass and saw a cool looking road. It was quite a climb in elevation and ended at a reservoir. It only looked to be about 20 miles each way, so I figured that would be a nice was to explore the area with the bike. So off I went. It was gorgous, and everything I had hoped for. Lots of twists to accompany the never ending hills. I decided not to take pics until my way back down the hill though. I figured I should see it all first to determine what is worth photographing and what isn’t.

When I got to the reservoir the road switched from asphalt to gravel. I was really excited for a chance to cruise on the gravel road. It was no dirt trail, but it was my first real time taking the bike off of pavement for an extended period.

Here is a pic from the far side of the reservoir

I figured the road would wrap around the reservoir back to where I started. I mean that makes sense, right? Why would it only go 3/4 of the way around a lake? After a while when I had gone past the half way point and began coming around the back side. The dirt road got pretty rough. The gravel had become more like a densely packed fine dirt. There were also many large bumps and potholes.

I became very nervous about dumping the bike and having a bad spill. There were large rocks and big holes. Those two things kind of work against each other and made things difficult. I scraped my skid plate a couple times and also scraped the bottom of one the bags. As nervous as I was I also had a blast doing it. Then I got to a point where there was a fence in front of me that went to the waterline and the road stopped. Oh shit!

So now I’m stuck on this rocky road trying to turn the bike around without dropping it. This picture really doesn’t due the rough road justice, but this was where I parked the bike when I reached the end of the road.

A view of the water from the same area

I manned up and got turned around and made it all the way back without problems. Once I got off of the hard dirt road and back on the gravel one I was so excited! I felt like I had really accomplished something by successfully navigating all the bumps, rocks, grooves, and holes along the way. I had that high-on-life feeling. I was really pumped and in the zone. It made me wonder if that’s how really healthy and outgoing people feel all the time. I mean I hike here and there and it’s nice, but the rush from this couldn’t really be matched by anything else. I had that feeling of all the hairs on my body standing on edge, but it wasn’t like the typical goosebump sensation. It also furthered my desire to buy a dirt bike.

Here’s one last pic from the side I started on that had a small boat launch ramp

Here are all the pics I took on the way back down. This area was just breathtaking

After fending on the vicious off-road challenges from earlier, I was feeling pretty invincible. I pulled off the road for this picture, but I almost lost it trying to get going in this fine gravel. It was sort of a humbling experience struggling on the edge of the roadway.

I had similar traction problems with this fine sand too

I probably took too many photos, but around every corner I kept thinking how great it all looked.

This next series of photos were taken as I drove through the park on my way to southeast Utah later in the day. Enjoy

That part of the ride was pretty nice when I wasn’t behind a car. There was a really long tunnel that was limited to one-way traffic. I would have loved to pull over and take pictures from the open spots in the walls of the tunnels, but that wasn’t allowed.

Later on in the day I was just cruising through southern Utah. Here are the photos I pulled over to get

15. Arches

Aug 5, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

Well after riding from SW Utah to SE Utah my back was killing me. I pulled into a restaurant in Monticello, Utah and thought I was going to crash my bike from the pain burst in my upper back. I got some dinner and bought a bottle of Aleve per Christina’s recommendation. She’s going to school for pharmacy, so I figure she should know her pain pills. After talking to my friend Sarah (we’ll get to her when I get to Wisconsin) she suggested staying in a hotel for the night. Fabulous fucking idea, Sarah!!! Normally I plan stuff pretty well, but for whatever reason the thought of a hotel hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was still planning on camping and suffering.

So I spent like $50 to camp at some shitty local hotel rather than a Best Western. What a tragic mistake. Rather than spend the night catching up on the blog, I stayed in a place with an internet connection that only worked in one corner of the room and was slower than dial up. Not exactly the fuel needed to keep a website running. I watched some Law & Order: SVU because nothing else was on and went to bed after taking a shower. The shower was very refreshing after a long day of desert riding.

The next morning my back still hurt, which made me bitter about even bothering with the hotel. But as it was pointed out to me, if I had camped my back pain could have increased.

My goal for the day was Denver, Colorado. Christina’s sister Sonja lives there. Also, Christina was on a short vacation for work and was due in at midnight. It was a race to Denver for Christina and me!

There was really no time effective way to make it to Denver with out taking the free way. So I headed north from Monticello to I-70. Before reaching I-70 I stopped at Arches National Park which I think was somewhere near Moab, Utah.

Here are some pics from the park

Twisties

So there was this trail and sign. It was a mile walk to the lookout area, but I was way to hot to walk a mile. So instead I figured I would ride this trail instead and hope it took me near the same place.

I got maybe a mile before I encountered this. Oh well, I did a U-turn and went back to the parking lot

They call those holes in the rocks the Windows

After Arches I just headed for Denver. I took a couple pics on the way there before things hit the fan.

I stopped in this town to get gas and took a picture of this weird lady

The rest of the pics were taken at this pull out

Then these huge dark clouds appeared in the distance. I didn’t like the look of them one bit. As I approached them I saw lightening and felt thunder. I figured I better get as many miles in while dry as I could and sped up. Then I hit the rain. Mesh gear is great for desert riding, but it takes about 5 seconds of rain to have me soaked all the way through.

I quickly pulled off to find shelter. There was a big restaurant and shop that had long eaves that provided the cover I needed. I tried to take some pictures of the storm, but it kept coming out blurry. I don’t know why the camera was having issues. Maybe it was focusing on the moving rain. Here is the only picture that someone came out

I was still a ways out, but since I was already soaked I toughed the weather and kept going. I drove 40 miles with my hazards flashing going about 35 mph. The road was covered in water and it alternated between rain and hail the entire way. It was a miserable experience. Also, since my visor is tinted, I couldn’t see with it closed because it was so dark. But since it was raining, I couldn’t really ride with it open either. So I had to open the visor almost all the way, but I left it down a couple clicks to protect my eyes. I wore my sunglasses low on my nose so I could see over the top of them. It sucked, and I probably looked foolish.

When I finally made it there I missed the road to my friend’s house. I finally stopped at a gas station to get directions, and I was told I overshot it by about 50 blocks. Ugh. When I stopped there I held my hand up and clenched my fist. A bunch of water shot out of the glove. Fun stuff. I finally made it to Sonja’s place. Sonja is Christina’s sister.

We picked up Christina at the airport a couple hours later and called it a night.

16. Denver

Aug 8, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

So I spent a few nights living in Denver with Christina and her family. We went with her stepdad Dave to Golden, Colorado to do a free tour of the Coors factory. Here are the tour pics

I actually took this picture as we were leaving Golden. I thought it came out pretty well considering I was holding the camera up backwards through the sun roof.

This is the largest set up brewing vats in the world

This is the fresh beer room. They have beer on tap straight from the production line. It hasn’t even been in a keg. Sadly it was only producing foam when we were there. Christina has had it before though, and she said you can taste the difference and it’s great.

Look at the assembly line in action!

These pictures are from the lounge downstairs where you get 3 free samples. It was packed.

They wanted $20 for this picture. They take it when you get there regardless of if you want it, and then at the end of the tour they give it to you. We weren’t going to spend $20 for one photo. If they’re going to print them all anyways, I don’t know why they didn’t sell them for like $5 or $10. Christina had the bright idea to take a picture of the picture. Ha, take that Coors!

I didn’t really take anymore photos while in Colorado. I did get an oil change for my bike while I was here. BMW charges $150 for an oil change. This will most likely be the last oil change I get done at a dealership. On Saturday there was a big BBQ at Christina’s Aunt’s house. There was a ton of delicious food. After that some of us went to some bar to check out a friend’s band that was playing.

17. Kansas

Aug 13, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

Well I made it to Kansas on what was a very boring ride until the end. I took highway 36 out of Denver, but it was so slow, flat, and boring I decided I-70 offered the same thing but at a higher speed. Before making that switch I was also worried about running out of gas. I finally found this gas station in the middle of no where. I was so excited I took a picture of it

I originally planned to overnight it somewhere in Kansas and head to Lawrence the following day. But since I made good time I decided to push through and get there the same day. What a mistake that was…

I heard at a gas station that there was a storm up ahead. I was surprised to hear that since it was a hot and clear day. A few hours later I saw some angry clouds in the distance. It felt like I chased them for hours.

Finally around 6pm I caught up to the storm. There was thunder and lightening in the distance, but I was still dry. I don’t want to say I’m scared of lightening, but it is something that worries me. I finally started to get rained on, and it was really coming down hard. By this point the lightening was striking very closely. It was so loud that when I heard the thunder I couldn’t hear anything else – not even the bike or the wind. I also took my headphone out because I figured I didn’t need to help the lightening hit me.

After a couple miles of this I conceded to the storm and pulled off at an exit. I pulled off to the side of the road under a bridge. I was on the road long enough to get soaking wet though. Just like in Denver, when I squeezed my hand into a fist a bunch of water came flowing out of my glove. Not fun.

I tried calling Laura to tell her I was being delayed, but it was so loud under the bridge from the storm and traffic that I couldn’t hear a word she said. She said she could hear me though. I took these pics while I was waiting. After about 20 minutes it cleared up and I got back on I-70.

It took 4 tries to get this shot with the hazard lights blinking

I stopped to get some gas and asked the gal there about the storm. She said it was moving east which meant I would be chasing it the rest of the way. Since the storm wasn’t going 75 mph with gusts of 95, I stopped a number of times to prevent myself from catching it. The toll booths helped with this too because it’s a pain in the ass getting a wallet out with my gloves on.

I had already memorized the directions to Laura’s house while waiting under the bridge. I got a bit sidetracked because I didn’t memorize the updates she sent me. I was pretty sure I needed to take a left, but according to the outdated directions I was recalling a right turn was in order. When the cross streets started getting smaller I knew I needed to do a U-turn. Then I made it to her neighborhood.

Wow, these houses and lots were huge. I was blown away by it. She said most people were on 2 acre lots. It made me think of old southern farm homes because of the size and space each one had. It was a very pretty neighborhood. But it was also really weird. I was supposed to stay on 85th ave to get to her house. But then I intersected 85th ave while on 85th so I took a right to maintain the road. This was a mistake.

I called Laura and ask her to go outside to see if she could see me. She couldn’t. I had to use my speaker phone to talk to her, which meant I needed to kill the engine. That worked fine for the flats and downhills, but then I encountered an uphill portion of the road. I told her to hang on, flipped my helmet up, put the phone in my mouth, turned the engine on, put it into 1st gear, and slowly rode off. I rode around for a bit like this and would periodically kill the engine to ask her where to go. It probably looked goofy, but it got the job done.

It turns out she actually lives on 86th ave but that road also connects to 85th. Once that was straightened out I made it to her. We were both happy to see each other. We split a bottle of wine while playing ping-pong in her basement. She also has a sweet basement. That’s where I stayed while here. It’s furnished and finished with a couch, tv, ping-pong table, and a computer. It seemed like a sweet room to have growing up. Eventually she retired to her room, and I slept on the fold out couch.

I stayed in Lawrence, Kansas with Laura much longer than I thought I would. Despite staying here for 4 nights, I don’t actually have much to say about the area. But the other side of that is I’ve probably had the most fun on the trip chilling with Laura. The only thing I did worth taking pics of was playing mini-golf. I talked myself up hoping to intimidate her to weaken her game, but I think she saw right through me. I started out playing terribly, and despite a brief burst of pars I managed to maintain that terrible play throughout the day.

We didn’t check or count the scores until the end. I figured I had lost but also thought it was close. Turns out I was right on both accounts. She beat me 86-88. The only asterisk here is that we played with a 7 stroke limit per hole. I think I had a few more meltdown holes that I took 7s on, but she had a couple really bad ones. Either way she beat me. Here are the pics from golfing

The mini-golf here is haunted. I don’t know why that was the theme for the place, but it is what it is. Here are pictures of all the ghouls

This hole almost got me in trouble. You can’t see it now, but when we played this hole there was a motorcycle parked in the open space left of the bat and right of the tree. No big deal, but I hit my ball so hard it launched off the course, past the grass, through the fence, and missed the guy’s bike by about a foot. It then traveled the length of the parking lot. Argh

I think Laura would have taken 20 strokes on this hole if it weren’t for the 7 stroke limit. I had a lot of 7-stroke holes myself, but this one really gave her some grief

After 18 holes we each had a shot at a free game. Typical mini golf rules – get a hole-in-one and you get a free game. We each found an extra ball so we both got 2 attempts.

Laura’s attempt:

My attempt:

Laura also snagged an action shot of me on the green

When we got home we had some food and then hung out in the basement for the rest of the night. There isn’t really anything from it that is wroth reporting though. We were just hanging out enjoying movies and music. The next night we wanted to hit up Lawrence’s downtown area. If you didn’t know it already, Lawrence is home to Kansas University. It makes me cringe to type this because I know Laura will enjoy this admission, but they have a pretty good basketball team.

Anyways, it was like a 30-40 minute drive to get there. We didn’t want to risk a DUI on the way back, so instead we camped at a nearby campground. It was a good idea and that place was empty. Sadly it was a KOA and I had to drop another $25 to camp in a tent. Here are the pics from our campsite:

We only went to one bar called the Sandbar. It was pretty small, but when we walked in 3 girls were dancing on the bar. It seemed like 1/2 the crowd was watching the girls, and the other half was watching some weird video on the screens beside them. Then a big fan connected to the ceiling turned on. The bouncer told us to stay put before checking our IDs. He walked over the the fan and started tossing small cocktail napkins at it, which caused them to blow across the bar. But it got stranger. Then some sort of popcorn storing device connected to the fan released a bunch of popcorn. Wtf? Now there is popcorn flying, napkins flying, strobe lights going crazy, so-so girls dancing on the bar, and a crowd left trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Eventually we took a seat at a table in a nook by itself next to an aquarium. We had a couple drinks and took these pictures.

Then Laura was like “hey, let’s try to make fish faces” Why not?

Then I tried to make a puffer fish face. The beard really blocks how good of a face it actually was.

Some clever chalk advertising we saw on the walk back

Max is too manly to hold a purse and showed Laura his mad face

Earlier in the night I saw a girl drinking a beverage with a shark in it, so I asked the bartender to make me one. He said they were premade mixes which meant 2 things: it would be really weak and really sweet. But I was lured in by the novelty of the shark. I figured I could try to add it to my bike somehow.

So we’re sitting together examining my drink. I pulled the shark out to play with it. I didn’t realize this (and fuck the bartender for not mentioning it to a customer that obviously doesn’t know what it is) that the shark was filled with grenadine. So I pulled it out to look at it. Then I noticed the table was now covered in 2 blood-red puddles. I immediately thought “Oh shit! Laura’s dress!” Remarkably none of it got spilled on her dress or myself. Phew. And now the shark looked like he had a fresh kill with his red jaws. The drink was ok but I felt like since I spilled all the grenadine I didn’t actually taste it correctly I ordered another one and then Laura shot a video of me playing with the shark. I guess the darkness of the bar went over both of our heads because the video is too dark to view. whoops

I forgot to mention this earlier, but the night before Laura asked if she could join me on the back of the bike traveling for a few days. The condition was she had to be back to Kansas by the 20th, but she was going to fly there anyways. Adding a passenger would add another chapter to the trip, and it would also be fun to spend traveling days with another person. I agreed to it and said I would have to repack my bags to fit her added gear. All she would really need are clothes and toiletries. I could cut back on my clothes and leave some here to fit hers in. So we also wanted to camp out as a test run for the trip. We fit fine in my tent. There wasn’t room to sprawl out by any means, but we each had enough space.

The next morning we were being lazy and sleeping in/dozing. After a while we were just laying there talking until an old man who worked there pulled up in his golf cart. He told us checkout time was in 20 minutes. This amused us both because this isn’t a hotel. It’s not like they are in a hurry to clean a room for the next guess. Also, we were the only tent there on a space about as big as a football field. We got some breakfast and headed back home.

The next day she did her thing and I did mine. She had a job interview to go to and whatnot. At this point I reflected on our friendship and thought about how confusing the whole thing was. I thought about how I’ve known her for a couple years, but we never really ever hung out or spent much time together. We had a couple spurts where we’d hang out for about a week, but that was it. We always had an awesome time and a lot of fun, but for whatever reason we just drifted away and didn’t spend much time together outside of class. After spending a few days with her now I just started to wonder what caused that. Wouldn’t you think that if you had a good time together you would continue that until it stopped? I don’t know. I’ve had other friends over the years that I saw on a much more frequent basis than her, but it seemed like I always had a blast with her. I guess this is just turned into a bored ramble.

We went to a movie my last night in town. Public Enemy was all right. If that was portrayed accurately then John Dillenger was a bad ass. I know stealing and killing isn’t cool, but that guy had some brass ones and executed his plans very well. It may have been illegal, but he accomplished some amazing things.

Tomorrow morning (Friday) I will be leaving for St. Louis. I guess I’ll have a peak at that big arch. Also – special shout out for my father. His birthday is today. Happy birthday dad!

Before I left Laura’s house I took some pics of her neighborhood. Here are a few shots of these cool houses

I stopped at a gas station before leaving and spotted this monster mantis

18. St. Louis

Aug 16, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a comment

After leaving Laura and Lawrence I headed for St. Louis, Missouri. I didn’t know much about the area, but after arriving I noticed there were a fair amount of rough areas and neighborhoods. My first stop was the St. Louis Arch. Much to my surprise, the arch doesn’t cross the Missouri River. I guess this was common knowledge, but I figured the arch spanned an impressive gap like a river.

Anyways, after spending a long time in line I made it to the elevators that took me to the top of the arch. I probably saved myself 1-2 hours of waiting in line since I was alone. They let me cut up to the group way ahead of everyone else. I guess that’s one bonus of traveling alone.

This was taken while waiting in line. They had this old fashion scale on display. The kids could sit on it and rock back and forth depending on which kid was heavier, or in most cases, which kid jumped on. It was really loud because everytime a kid hopped on the stop at the top slammed into a piece of steel. It was rather annoying

This was the tiny door we had to go through to get into the elevator to the top of the arch. It was like 2.5′ wide and maybe 5′ tall

This is the tiny elevator we piled into. Not much room but it worked.

I tried to take a pic of the elevator shaft, but they didn’t come out too well :/

This was the tiny observation deck. It was a tight area.

The next 3 shots are of east St. Louis

Here is downtown St. Louis

I wanted to test out the zoom of the camera. I thought it turned out all right. I can read the words on the sign. Scroll up a few pics to see the same shot of the stadium without the zoom.

This is from inside the monument. It honors the designers and builders

Here is the world famous St. Louis bear

This is the Arch from different angles

Some bridge over to the east side

St. Louis likes the brick roads. On my bike I don’t care for them. My old boss said the best way to capture the poor condition of a road was to get down low. Here was my attempt

After spending the time at the monument I needed to secure a home for the night. I remembered that my buddy said his cousin lived in St. Louis, so after some number exchanging I got a hold of this guy named Kevin. He said I could crash at his place. We had a couple beers, watched the Cardinals game, and then I slept on his couch. Here’s a picture of me and Kevin before I left in the morning. Notice his shirt matches his glasses. He has a small clothing company and that’s actually the logo for his brand.

Now I’m off to Memphis to explore the famous Beale Street and all of its offerings

19. Memphis

Aug 17, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

Fuck me, I think I slept for maybe 4 hours last night. It’s so hot and humid here that trying to sleep in my tent was probably on par with trying to steam a clam with low heat. I probably fell asleep around 5 am. I went to a gas station around 11 pm to get some water and Gatorade. I almost looked for sleeping pills but figured that was a bad idea. Actually, I would have been far better off being knocked out for 8 hours.

I was supposed to be here for 1 night. I was going to meet up with a friend of a friend but that fell through because some stuff came up that he had to deal with. No big deal, but instead of going somewhere with AC I hung out in my tent. I did at least manage to find an RV park in downtown Memphis to camp at. How sweet is that?

Anyways, the ride to Memphis was boring. The highlight was when some kid in a Mustang pulled a U-turn on a 5-lane (2 each way with a turn lane) about 1,000 feet ahead of me. I slowly caught up him doing about 75 mph and eased by him with only one hand on the handlebars. I don’t know if he took that as a sign of intimidation, but a few seconds later he punched it and flew by me. I figured he was just having fun.

A couple miles later we were both stuck behind the same car going 66 mph to pass a truck going 65 mph. You got to love those kind of drivers. When that ordeal ended I was pacing him from a couple seconds back, and we were doing about 80 mph. That’s when I decided to have some fun and grabbed a handful of throttle. I got up to around 100 mph and blew by him. I checked my mirror though and could tell he was speeding up to follow me. Eventually I slowed down a bit and he passed me. I didn’t know what to do at the point, but he started swerving a little and crossing yellow lines. It was friday night around 7 pm. Maybe he was drunk; I don’t know, but his inability to keep to his lane was enough for me to let him get away. And then a cop drove by a mile later which reaffirmed my decision to return back to a decent speed.

Downtown Memphis looked pretty wild. I didn’t spend too much time there. I followed the advice my friend of a friend gave me and went to the Flying Saucer to get dinner and use their Wifi to find a campground. I opted for the soft pretzel baked with chopped up bratwurst and Swiss cheese. That was a really good choice. With no word from my contact there I went to the campground to set up my home.

The campground was actually an RV park that let me pitch a tent in the courtyard. That worked for me though. I was close enough to a building that I had power to charge all my chargeables. I was going to take a nice cold shower, but at this point I remember I never packed any shampoo. ugh, time to find a gas station.

I figured downtown would be a pain in the ass to find anything, so I headed south of downtown because that was kind of where the RV park was. I don’t know if the whole city is in a ghetto, but this part of it appeared to be. At this point I will offer this information: I grew up in a small Alaskan fishing village, so I’ve spent most of my life in an isolated white culture. I wouldn’t go as far to say I’m racist, but I think certain stereotypes are there for a reason. I’ll give anyone I meet a fair chance, but when it comes to strangers I revert to stereotypes.

So I come to this little corner store. There are a couple cars full of people just loitering in the parking lot. As I get off my bike and head indoors an 8-10 year old black kid and his mother come out. The kid came out and said, “Oh shit, is that a GS bike? You gotta let me ride it. At least take me as a passenger and do a lap around the block.” And then he and his mother just stopped and stared at me awaiting my response. What the hell was this kid thinking I would say? “Oh here, take the keys. I’m going to assume you know how to ride it. Just bring it back in a few minutes so I can be on way when I finish shopping.” So I told him, “No, sorry. I’m kind of in the middle of something important.” This was a true statement though.

When I realized I didn’t have any shampoo I figured I could just use the hand soap at the bathroom facility at the RV park. Soap/shampoo, they all do the same basic thing. No, I couldn’t because both the men’s and women’s bathrooms were absent of any soap. By the time I caught this I had already brought all my supplies to the shower and set aside which clean clothes to wear. The next step would have been to strip down, but without and shampoo I had to go out.

I asked the guy behind the counter (and behind some very thick glass) if they had shampoo. He tried to hand me some family sized bottle which I turned down. I asked for the small bottle of children’s shampoo instead and was on my way. To my delight when I came back out my bike was still there and unharmed. I was thrilled that the kid wasn’t bitter and didn’t knock it over. On I went back to the RV park.

I took a cold shower, but even that water felt warm after about a minute. I found this to be frustrating since I didn’t even turn the hot water knob. I got dressed and sat in my tent to figure out what to do. My quickly decided it was too hot and promptly begin sweating. Good thing I bothered with that shower 10 minutes earlier. I decided to use the downtime to catch up on the blog. I had been putting that off for far too long.

But since I was hot and sweaty once I again, I figured I might as well go to a gas station to get a cold drink. Since the last one was as sketch as it gets, I opted to not take the freeway south this time but instead take the streets to south edge of downtown. It turned out to not make a difference.

I pulled up first to a red light and waited. A car pulled up next to me with two black guys in it. No big deal. Their windows were down and they yelled to me “You better be careful.” So I thought “Oh shit here it comes. Why do I need to be careful?” I figured it was either because they were warning me about the neighborhood I was in or they were going to rob me. Instead he told me something about how he buried his cousin the day before after something involving a bike lead to his death. I told him was sorry to hear that and felt a little embarrassed about my overreaction.

I’ve never been to a gas station with a security guard before, but I’d never been to Memphis either. He didn’t even look happy. He looked mad. I did some shopping and got some water and gatorade and also planned on getting a cup of ice for my camelbak. I was next in line when this guy just walks in, stands next to me, and takes the place of the guy in front of me after he buys his stuff. What the fuck just happened? I was clearly in line, but I wasn’t going to say anything. What a friendly and inviting place to live in. Full of line cutters. I bought my stuff, got my ice, and got the hell out of there.

Since my tent was close enough to a building to use its outdoor outlets, it was also about 5 feet from the AC unit. The AC unit alternated from on/off every 20 minutes all night long. It sounded like a generator operating just outside of my tent.

Around 4 am I tried my luck at sleeping. That didn’t go so well because every time I almost fell asleep a slight breeze would blow the side of my tent into my leg. I really felt like a dog’s nose pressing into the tent, so I kept waking up startled. There was also a mosquito that kept landing on me. After 4 or 5 times of being woken up shortly after dozing off I was on quite the edge. So I grabbed my knife and slept with it on my chest. I kept it in its sheath though. Safety first.