Monthly Archives: August 2005
August 13, 2005
BC Trip - Day 11
Salinas to home, via Paso Robles and I-5. 312 miles.
Chose 101-46-5 for quick way home instead of longer coast route. Arrived home around 3:30pm.
Gas at the Arco in Paso at 10:50am. Coffee and stale zuchinni bread at Starbucks in Buttonwillow.
August 12, 2005
BC Trip - Day 10
Eureka to Salinas - 421 slow miles. Good fun. Lots of traffic north of SF who would not pull out for any reason. Wind on the GG bridge. Surfers at Pacifica. Santa Cruz. Watsonville. Salinas. In-n-Out.
Gas in Fort Bragg at 11:22am, followed by coffee and zuchinni bread at a Starbucks. More gas at a small station in north Pacifica at 5:20pm.
August 11, 2005
BC Trip - Day 9
Yachats to Eureka. 292 miles.
Relaxed at the hotel at Yachats. Watched an interesting show on CSPAN with a Dr. Sutter discussing recent history in US-China relations. Walked on the grass above the beach. Barely made the 10:00am checkout time.
Saw my first 5P in Crescent City. Saw a herd of elk grazing in the front yard of a cute house in Klamath.
Lots of dull, touristy, dumpy towns with ridiculously low speed limits slowed the drive considerably. The roads, towwns, even the beaches were better once I hit California.
Eureka is a dump - the Motel 6 even more so. My reservation showed up as cancelled, and they were turning people away, but I got a room - probably the worst one in the place, but at least it was non-smoking.
Breakfast was more rolls and cheese. Lunch was a combination plate and Falco at Rubio's (not one of the chain), a Mexican place at the north end of Brooking's, OR at 3:45pm. Gas at an tribal station in Klamath, CA at 4:54pm. Walked to dinner at the Pantry next to the Motel 6 in Eureka - I wanted to keep my parking spot in view of the motel office.
August 10, 2005
BC Trip - Day 8
Victoria to Yachats, OR. 395 miles.
Left for Washington. Almost didn't get on the 10:30 ferry. Lots of trees. Astoria. Yachats.
Gas at a Safeway in Port Angeles at 12:34pm; ARCO in Aberdeen, WA at 4:18pm; Chevron in Waldport, OR at 10:21. Stopped for lunch at dumpy, fly-strewn burger place in Forks, WA. Got extra sharp Tillamook cheese, butter, and juice at a nice little market in Waldport; dinner was Trader Joe's rolls with butter and cheese.
August 9, 2005
BC Trip - Day 7
Girls had tea. Ernie and I walked around downtown. Ernie grew up in Lakewood and Bellflower, helping with the livestock and vegetable gardens. Bought a book and a christmas gift for my dad at Munro's. Hobby store, cool Z scale train sets at outrageous prices. Roger's chocolates.
August 8, 2005
BC Trip - Day 6
Butterfly Museum. Butchart Garden.
August 7, 2005
BC Trip - Day 5
Left Skagit Valley for Victoria. Anacortes Ferry - running late due to early morning fog. Stops at Orcas Island and Friday Harbor. Ride from Sydney to hotel uneventful. Dinner with Cyndy and Ernie. Great to see Carole.
August 6, 2005
BC Trip - Day 4
Ride to Mt. Baker. 170 miles.
I woke up early with a headache, which removed any possibility of riding the long loop to the Grand Coulee Dam. I grabbed some grub from the continental breakfast bar and hung in my room reading for a while.
After the problems getting the shuffle loaded and seeing a bunch of XM radios mounted on FJR's, I decided to take the plunge. I tracked down a Best Buy in Bellingham, and paid the $49 for a Roady2, then hit a local Lowe's for some parts to kludge up an install.
I filled up at a Chevron next to the Lowes, and headed out to Mt. Baker. Much of the road was newly laid, but there were a few hairy sections where the crews had ground down the old surface but hadn't yet put down the new one. I saw a lot of riders - mostly FJRs - on the way up and down the mountain.
Afterwards, I had a late lunch of fish and chips at a Red Robin back in Bellingham. The tar snakes on the downhill driveway almost put me down.
I chilled in my room until it was time for the group photo (see below). Dinner was a nice buffet in one of the big meeting halls of the hotel - prime rib, salmon (which I don't care for), the works. The group I sat with was very cool - Renius and I bought each other diet cokes. I won a nice Yamaha jacket in the raffle, but it's too small. I think I'll donate it to the WFO-5 raffle pool.
August 5, 2005
BC Trip - Day 3
Tumwater, WA to Bow, WA. 148 miles.
Gassed up at a Shell station near the motel at 9:31am. US-101 was fun, with small pockets of slow traffic. Almost "lost" it on a left-hand sweeper when a big rig ran wide.
Met FJR pilot Renius Owen on the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry and rode to hotel with him.
Lost $20 in the all-smoking casino waiting for my room to open up. Out back, chatted with Marshall about his XM Roady2, and with a bunch of other pilots about their bikes.
Shuttle bus took us to the WFO barbeque across the street. Good food, chats with Bugnatr and others about MotoGP. Talked to a guy with accident damage.
August 4, 2005
BC Trip - Day 2
Redding, CA to Tumwater, WA with detour to Klamath Falls, OR. 530 miles.
After a breakfast of five lorna doones, I left the Motel 6 in north Redding around 8:55am, heading north on the I-5 through Lake Shasta and over the mountain pass. I stopped for gas at a Shell station in Weed at 9:50am.
While planning the trip, I had two routes for today - one stayed on the I-5, and the other took US-97 north through Klamath Falls. After the long slog on the 5 yesterday, I decided to take the alternate, which only added five miles to the day's trip. I'd been through Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass a few years ago, and didn't think I'd miss anything by skipping them today.
The scenery on the 97 was interesting. I stayed on the 97 through Klamath Falls and Chemult (just past the Crater Lake cutoff), and west northwest on SR-57 to Eugene, which had some nice twisties and interesting views. Other than standing next to the bike for short periods at a railroad crossing in Dorris (at the CA-OR border), and at construction stops in Klamath Falls and Oakridge, I made no stops from Weed to Eugene - a 240 mile tank-full of gas. IBR here I come!
I stopped for lunch at Elmer's in Eugene - a nice Twohey's like place on the main drag. I had a Club Sandwich and read a little, then got gas at a 76 station at 2:40pm.
I stopped in Vancouver, WA at 5:25pm for water, and called my sister at work to moan about the heat and traffic in Portland - 97°, terrible traffic (and no lane splitting - altough I was tempted). She appreciated the call, and was properly sympathetic to my plight.
I made good time, and pulled into the Motel 6 in Tumwater WA around 6:00pm with an almost empty tank. I walked to a nearby Subway for a sandwich.
August 3, 2005
BC Trip - Day 1
Home to Redding. 557 miles.
The day did not start out perfectly.
I was ready to leave, all packed up, the bike had been warmed up, I was in my gear, ready to hit the road a little before 10:00am - not as early as I had hoped, but still pretty early.
An my shuffle was dead. The thought of no music for the entire trip left me cold. Luckily, I had brought my external USB drive home from work for other reasons, so all my files were at least available. The downside was that the laptop has only USB 1.1, so transfers would be super slow.
I installed iTunes on the laptop, re-initialized the shuffle, and did a few other things to make it possible to move music to the iPod. I set the shuffle to 50/50 music vs. files, to cut the upload time in half. I also forced in four episodes of the Six Shooter - 30 minutes of listening for 3mb of space. Still, it was 11:30am before I actually hit the road.
Once I hit the central valley, it was hot. Very hot. Thankfully I had decided to bring my Camelbak, and was able to keep well hyrdrated. I stopped for gas in Buttonwillow, and dug out my Sahara Vest for its maiden voyage. I really helped beat the 110° heat, and I wore it the rest of the day.
I stopped in Santa Nella for gas and a water refill, and splurged on dinner at the Ruby Tuesdays in Woodland, just north and west of Sacramento. Steak and shrimp, with brocolli steamed just right, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert. The bugs became thick after Stockton, and remained a messy annoyance the rest of the day.
The last gas stop was Willows. When I got to Redding, my maps directed me to the wrong Motel 6 - my reservation was at the one four miles further up the road. I checked in shortly after 10:00pm, glad for the air conditioning. At 10:45pm, the fire alarm went off intermittenly for 25 minutes, but otherwise the stay was normal.
August 1, 2005
Leaving for WFO
I'm leaving for WFO-4 in Bow, WA (60 miles north of Seattle) on Wednesday - assuming my bike is ready.
I needed 8000 mile service and new tires before starting the long ride to British Columbia. Calling around, it turned out I could save about 40% - almost $350 - by riding the bike out to Chaparral in San Bernardino instead of one of the local shopes. The service guy said to be at the gate when they opened at 8:00am on Saturday morning. I left the house at 6:55am, and was third in line when I pulled in at 7:45am after stopping to fill up the gas tank.
Assuming it would take all day, I hoofed the mile-and-a-half up to the Metrolink station, and rode the train back to El Monte. On the ride, I got a call recommending a brake fluid flush and refill, which I readily agreed to. Justin picked me up with a list of errands to run. I got a call while we were at Petco picking up dog food - everything was done, BUT the ABS indicator light would not go out. They were going to keep working on it.
Later on Saturday, I got another call. The ABS light was still on, and they wanted me to leave it until Monday for a grade A mechanic to look it over. I had two choices: a) pick it up as-is, and ride to BC with a weird ABS problem; or b) leave it with the shop, delaying final prep for the trip. Choice (b), the lesser of two evils, seemed the logical choice.
I called in at 11:15am this morning, and they said the A mechanic would look at it before 1:00pm. They called at 12:48pm with more painful news: the mechanic checked it all out, and could not find a problem. They wanted me to leave it until tomorrow, when the shop foreman and the original Saturday mechanic would be back in to work to consult with the new A mechanic.
I called them back to okay the extra stay, but let them know that I had to have the bike, fixed and ready to roll, by Tuesday afternoon. Even that would mess up my plans to hit the road early Wednesday morning, since there's an hour or so of work I need to finish on the bike before leaving.
None of my contingency plans are worth dwelling on just yet. I need some luck on this one.