Life On The Road and Other Adventures

Summer 2008 - Day Eight

2008-06-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

a.k.a. The One In Which The Car Hits Dawg

In the morning we decamp from the Purple Sage Motel, which had seemed funny and charming when found on random Googling expeditions last winter, but hadn't quite lived up to its amusement potential. I mean, it wasn't bad, but no great shakes either. We're about an hour south of Spokane WA, and heading towards another random-Googling discovery, Franks Diner, for breakfast.

Frank's Diner in downtown Spokane is housed in a beautifully restored luxury rail car (not a Pullman, it was actually manufactured by one of Pullman's main competitors) and has some local reknown for their generous omelets. Yep, it's a pretty good meal - their coffee is good, too, and we are all in need of primo coffee at this point. I had two eggs and hashbrowns, which is about the perfect roadbreakfast, period, in my humble opinion. Happy, full, and ready to ride, we gear up and get ready to strike out into non-interstate Idaho. And that's when it happens.

A biker's OTHER worst nightmare, besides the deer thing yesterday, is getting hit by a car. Dawg is backing her bike up when the car across the aisle from her fails to look, and backs up straight into her. Thankfully this happens at slow speed, otherwise she would have been toast. I didn't see it happen, so I am not sure of all the details ... not even sure if the bike went down at all. But apparently both Dawg and the car's driver inspected their vehicles, found them mostly undamaged if a little bit scratched, and went their separate ways. Man, was I pissed when I finally found out what was going on. But, as the day goes on, I sort of start to think that we must be the luckiest bikers alive. I hit a deer yesterday, Dawg gets it from a car today, and we are both virtually UNTOUCHED by these disasters. We could not have a better possible outcome! Dawg's pissed 'cause the sticker she got from Crater Lake, pasted on the rear luggage box, got a little chewed. It was pristine for one whole day, LOL. Later, we find that the force of the car hitting the bike pushed that luggage box back on the rear rack mount, and we can't get it open until we break out some tools & readjust the thing. It's a pain in the butt, but also fortunate that the car hit the only part of the bike that wasn't rigid, otherwise something important (and non-adjustable) would have been what crumpled. Yeah, luckiest bikers alive, I'm tellin' ya.

After that bit of adventure to start our day, the rest of the day is uneventful which is perfectly FINE with us. We leave the interstate in Spokane and take Hwy 2 far north into the Idaho panhandle, and then follow it all the way to our destination in Kalispell MT. It's beautiful, beautiful country through here. I am (predictably) singing the B-52's "Own Private Idaho" to myself, and remembering someone (Ziggy?) telling me that that song was about all the rich people in the Idaho panhandle, supposedly there are more millionaires per capita there than anywhere else, or were in the 70's, or something. Coming through here, I sort of believe it, because a lot of the little towns we pass through have a whiff of priceyness to them; more retreats, artist's galleries, upscale vacation homes, that sort of thing.

I am unable to find pie in Libby MT, despite serious searching and a couple of u-turns. The gang eventually decides to give up, and agrees to proceed to Kalispell, where we are sure to find someplace nice to eat, since it is also very much an upscale-resort type of town. I did not make the hotel arrangements for tonight, which means for a change we'll be staying someplace nice instead of someplace cheap ... the historic Kalispell Grand Hotel doesn't disappoint, and we dine that night across the street at a place suitable for listing in Zagat's, as opposed to the Klink's On The Lake dinner which the hotelier had assured us was five-star dining and most assuredly ... wasn't. Hey, I could sort of get used to traveling this way. The duck confit was quite splendid.

Summer 2008 - Day Seven

2008-06-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

a.k.a. The One In Which I Hit The Deer

Breakfast at the Pilot Butte is good indeed! But instead of lingering over good coffee, I am hitting the road early this morning in front of the other gals. I'm on a quest to bag two extra national parks in two additional states, which will make for a long day's riding! No one else in the group is too interested in the kind of long sightseeing day that I love, so we'll meet up at day's end in eastern Washington state, and I head out of town while they are still nibbling on the last of the morning meal.

It's a beautiful sparkling morning as I cruise up Hwy 97. The Cascade Range slides slowly by on my left-hand side, the peaks about thirty to forty miles to the west. I don't know the names of those snow-capped volcanic cones until I look them up on a map much later -- the Three Sisters, Mt Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Mt Jefferson, Mt Hood -- but they dominate the landscape and keep me company along my way. A few miles short of the Columbia River and the state line, strong gusty winds spring up. I'd been warned that wind is generally awful around the river, and sure enough, they howl through these narrow canyons.

The road spills out into the river gorge at Biggs Junction, and I cross the Columbia via the newly repaved US-97 bridge, which soars high above the water. All vehicles are fully exposed to the wind and I am careful to hold my lane and not pass anyone along here. Safe on the north side of the river, the road passes through the flyspeck town on Maryhill WA, then climbs to the top of impressive cliffs. Time for the first stop of the day.

Sam Hill's Stonehenge stands atop the cliffs at Maryhill. Built as a memorial to fallen WWI soldiers (started in 1918, completed in 1931) it is a full-sized replica of the 'Henge on Salisbury Plain, made of reinforced concrete. A roadside oddity with an absolutely magnificent view. I drag out the tripod (for one of only two times on this trip) for a photo of myself.

Then I head inland, following the Columbia upriver on the north side. This is Hwy 14, a lovely two-lane that beats the hell out of Interstate 84, the main road that remains in sight across the river. I cross back into Oregon at Umatilla, pick up hwy 730, re-enter Washington state, and eventually pick up hwy 12 heading toward Walla Walla. This will take me to Whitman Mission, the site of an early missionary settlement in the Northwest that eventually led to conflict between whites and natives, ending in disaster. I walk the grounds; it's pretty and neatly groomed, yet sad and somber all in one.

Continuing along hwy 12, I pass through lovely country in eastern Washington, on my way to the Idaho border. It's somewhere west of Pomeroy that it happens ... a biker's worst nightmare. I am just cruising along with traffic (yes I was going the speed limit, actually) and rounding a big sweeping right-hand curve when suddenly there are DEER. Deer in the ROAD. Deer in my WAY. At sixty miles per hour it all happens so fast that I have barely any time to react. There are two of them, running in lanes on the highway (in more or less the same direction I'm going) full speed and panicked and unpredictable. I don't even have time to get on the brakes, just get off the throttle, as the one closer to me veers suddently RIGHT INTO ME and thumps off the left side of my engine guard and footpegs ... WHUMP! I don't know how but the bike stays up, thank the gods, and my mind races at a million miles an hour as I check everything I can on the bike while still in motion. No wobble, no loss of power, the clutch and the gearshift both appear undamaged, but there's no safe shoulder where I can pull off and I have to wait about three miles until there's a good place to stop. I drop the kickstand and climb off, the adrenaline finally starting to ebb a bit. I find no damage at all doing a walkaround. Not even any blood or fur or deer guts to be seen. How did I get so incredibly lucky? How did I come out of the worst scenario so entirely unscathed? My angels are looking out for me, surely, on this day.

Reaching my second park of the day, Nez Perce in Lewiston ID, is sort of anticlimactic. I chat a while with the ranger, and take in the film available at the visitor's center (a better-than-average one about the historic and modern-day Nez Perce tribe) and generally chill out for a little while after my deer encounter. I need to get myself a little food, too. I know I talk about pie and BBQ and all sorts of alimentary goodies on my trips, but the actual fact of the matter is that I really don't eat much on the road ... I forget, usually, or just don't feel like eating. (I actually lose weight on all my trips, go figure.) Coming back through the town of Lewiston, I stop for gas and a Balance bar, and then strike out for the town of Sprague WA. It's a spectactular road that climbs north of the city, topping the cliffs that rise above the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. From there it's wonderful two-lane roads across the Washington countryside, the sort of roads and small towns and scenery that I would heartily enjoy under normal circumstances, but I am still pretty edgy, on Cervine DefCon 4 from the encounter earlier today. I reach Sprague without further adventures, and find the rest of the gang has already headed down to dinner (a resort restaurant, amusingly named Klink's On The Lake) and I head a few more miles down the road to join them ... and two more damn DEER cross the road right in front of me just before I get there! Wow, today is one day I am happy to be off the road at the end of the day. Too many critters for my taste.

Summer 2008 - Day Six

2008-06-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

We pack up and depart from our vacation rental cottage in Crescent City this morning, heading north into Oregon. Nice weather. We stop for gas just across the state border in the town of O'Brien OR, which has a giant fly on top of the restrooms (to our amusement!) However the lucky find of the morning is when we stop for breakfast at a nondescript-looking yellow building on the edge of Gold Hill OR. Patti's Kitchen featured the world's best French toast (according to Katie) and we saw a delicious monster-sized breakfast burrito carried past our table on its way to another diner. Personally I went with the I-don't-care-if-it's-not-really-breakfast option of peach pie. YUMMM.

The main attraction of the day is Crater Lake National Park, and we meander our way into the interior of Oregon towards it. For a lot of the way we're following the Rogue River, and also encounter a lot of highway construction. For miles on end, the pavement has been stripped away and we ride along on a groomed gravel roadbed. It's disconcerting at first -- none of us love gravel very much -- but it turns out to be firm footing and not much trouble at all.

Hwy 62 soon climbs up into pines, then there's snowdrifts beside the road and suddenly it's chilly enough to put on more clothes! We enter the park via the South Entrace and start at the Steel Visitor Center, watching the film and talking to the rangers, picking up NPS Passport stamps as well. Then we take the winding road up to the Rim Village, which is the awesomely spectacular overview of the lake.

Like the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake is one of the places that pictures just can't describe. The deep uncanny blue of the water reflects the sky above, serenity of eons. There's no hint of the volcanic violence that created the caldera; nothing steams or bubbles now. I hadn't realized that the event happened within memory of the people who originally lived here. Oral tribal legends remember it dimly.

An amazing, amazing place.

Snow still lies around the edge of the crater (we succumb to a little snowball fight, of course) and our luck is good! The West Rim Road had recently been reopened after the previous winter's record snow levels. We'll be able to drive through the park and exit via the North Entrance, which was the best we could hope for! It's a lovely, snowy, chilly trip around the rim, and I snap some pictures from the road, one-handed, with my little camera.

After Crater Lake it's just an easy lope up the road to Bend OR, our destination for the night. I've researched a likely place for dinner, the Pilot Butte Drive-In (next to Pilot Butte State Park) which is reputed to have the Best Burger In Bend. Dinner doesn't disappoint, the burgers and onion rings and shakes are indeed mighty fine. We decide it's likely the sort of place that would have a good breakfast too so we'll be hitting it again on the way out of town tomorrow.

Summer 2008 - Day Five

2008-06-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

Katie is in charge of selecting some serious redwood sightseeing for us to do today. She settles on the nature trail at the Simpson-Reed Grove, which turns out to be a wonderful choice. The nature-trail loop takes us on a mile-long walk through lush greenery of old-growth. It's hard to imagine one could ever grow tired of looking at this beautiful forest.

We enjoy our stroll through the grove, admiring the towering trees, the emerald ferns that carpet the forest floor, and the peacefullness of it all. Redwoods must be one of the most serene places in the world.

Katie spots berries growing near the parking lot; she and I taste them in spite of Dawg's chiding. "What if they're poisonous?" she says. Turns out they were salmonberries, and quite harmless.

The grove is a lovely way to spend a morning. We head south to Klamath afterward for a little more tree sightseeing, this time of the kitschy variety. The Trees of Mystery is a good old-fashioned highway tourist trap, and we simply MUST get pictures of Paul Bunyan and Babe there. We visit the gift shop and spend a little time out front laughing at the Voice Of Paul (some guy who sits behind a microphone & interacts with the crowd; he is especially good at mocking small children) but we decline the chance to walk around in the Trees of Mystery park itself. As Dawg points out, why would you pay $13 to walk in some trees when there are perfectly good trees for FREE just up the road?

By mid-afternoon we're kinda hungry, home-made fudge at the gift shop notwithstanding. Dawg 'n' Katie heard about the Samoa Cookhouse from someone on the flight to California, and it's only about sixty-five miles away. They wanna try it for a late lunch! YEAH! This is the place I sort of wanted to hit on our way up from Sacramento, but didn't get a chance that day, so this is GREAT with me. We take off south and find the place, located on a peninsula near Eureka, and settle in for lunch. The Samoa Cookhouse is the last surviving lumber-camp cookhouse on the west coast, and has been in continuous operation since the 1890's. Cookhouse-style meals means there's one thing on the menu (today it was southern fried chicken, served with three-bean salad, mashed potatoes and corn, plus strawberry cake for dessert) and they will bring you food until you don't want any more, all for one price. It was TASTY :) and quite cool to see the old building and the stuff in the attached little Logging Museum as well. In fact it was a lovely ride down to Samoa, except for one little bit along Hwy 255 where liquefied manure was being sprayed on fallow fields. Thank goodness we were well out of range of any drift spray but the stench was still unbelievable. It was immediately nicknamed the Fountain of Poo, and we had the misfortune of going past it twice, once on the way out to the peninsula, and again coming back inland. Ew.

On the way back to Crescent City, we spotted a great big herd of Roosevelt elk a little south of Orick, but there was no good place to turn off the road. That herd looked like it was made up of males; their antlers are quite impressive. Apparently the boy elk and the girl elk don't hang out together at this time of year. It'd be a good guess the girl elk are not in the immediate vicinity but not that far away. So we went a few more miles up the road and turned off at one of the prime elk-viewing sites and sure enough we found the girls, who let us take pictures with our zoom lenses as they placidly nibbled on grasses in their meadow.

One final Large Thing we found for the day: the giant scissors on top of Kim's Beauty Salon in downtown Crescent City, right next to the pier. Silly :)

Summer 2008 - Day Four

2008-06-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Nettie and Piggle ride off this morning; they have to head back home to get back to work and won't be able to hang out with us longer. We're sad :( but then we go for a ride and we feel better :)

Three of us - Dawg Katie and I - head south to Klamath to take a ride on a boat. The Klamath River Jet Boat Tour company runs a fun little show. It's about two hours long, they take you forty-some miles upriver in a shallow-draft boat, for some pretty spectacular sightseeing. They throw in some spins and boat tricks for the entertainment value, so it's eight parts naturalist and one part rollercoaster. Turned out to be a great afternoon! The bad news is, we all forgot to put sunscreen on. I was wearing my cowboy hat, of course (and so thought I was covered up) but once we got on the river the stiff wind made wearing the thing impossible and it spent the duration of the boat ride in my lap. I got a WICKED burn on the part of my hair, which would bother me for days afterward.

The boat captain-slash-tour guide was a jovial fellow, pointing out animals along the way. We mostly see mostly birds. We spotted lots of osprey and osprey nests, plus a really magnificent bald eagle close to the river, who aloofly watched our progress as we slowly motored past him. However, at the beginning of the boatride we got an upclose look at the seals we'd seen from the overlook yesterday. As the boat cruised to the sandbar at the mouth of the river, all the local seals popped up to give us a once-over. Jean later said they "looked like rocks with eyes and whiskers"; I thought their noggins looked like little wet cat heads bobbing in the waves. They were as curious of us as we were of them. The passenger's cameras clicked merrily away as they would eye us for a while, maybe let out a small bark, and then ~flip~ disappear beneath the waves once more.

Anyway, Capt. Tour Guide gave good tour but he was not the most scientifically educated guy in the world. At one point he is talking about the redwood trees, sequoia sempervirens, and some of their features, and he says that "they are like a life form of their own, almost" which sets Katie and I to the muffled snickered laughter of Oh I Cannot Believe You Just Said Something So Stupid. Hey, dude, they really ARE a life form of their own! No 'almost' about it! I think he was trying to say something else, maybe the microclimates thing (and again, no 'almost' there either, they really do create their own climate) but he got mixed up mid-thought and the mouth kept moving after the brain had stopped. Still. It immediately qualifies as the Doofus Moment Of The Week and after that, we took to stating something perfectly obvious followed by an "... almost" and then bust up laughing. Good times.

Happy and windburnt from the river ride, our mission is to pick up some smoked salmon before heading back home. This part of California is the Hoopa Indian reservation; we stop at a little tribal store to make our purchase. The proprietor has some samples for us to try, which we gladly accept, since we're completely unsure of what exactly we want to get. There's one-day-smoked versus five-day-smoked fish, there's sweet (kind of teriyaki-ish) and spicy (jalapeno) and barbeque to choose from. We select a variety of salmon, and carefully pack it away in the Nomad's ginormous saddlebags.

Back in Crescent City, we stop at the regular grocery store as well. Having decided it make it a salmon feast for the evening, we pick up fresh fish and a cedar plank for grilling, then decide to have the smoked fish with cheese as an appetizer. We proceed to have a very serious discussion about what cheese would pair best with native smoked salmon. It was kinda funny if you think about it. :)

With Katie in charge of the cooking, dinner is fabulous. (I later find out she is very much the gourmet.) After food and cleanup, we spend the evening pretty much looking at maps and figuring what we want to do the following day. By now I have fallen entirely into vacation mode & have lost track of time. Planning now becomes less of a process of "get to location x by date y" but more of a "where are we on this map? and ooh what is this over here?"

Summer 2008 - Day Three

2008-06-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Our first full day in Crescent City CA, and we're looking for some wee adventures today. Dawg & Katie & Net venture off to Starbuck's and the grocery store, returning laden with coffee supplies and breakfast fixins. We make breakfast a community meal, with everyone pitching in with prep or cleanup.

After breakfast we're off to see the Battery Point Lighthouse. Timing is an issue here: the lighthouse is open to the public on Wednesday through Sunday (so if we're going, it must be today, it'll be closed tomorrow and the day after) and is accessible only at low tide. We look up the tide tables, discovering low is at 9:40 am ... ack, that's coming up soon! Joker and Paks are not interested in going so it's Nettie, Piggle, Dawg, Kate and I who hustle out to our bikes and putt down to the point. Once we walk across the causeway to the island, we discover the lighthouse does not open until 10:00 am and so we must cool our heels for fifteen minutes. Heh.

We take the 45-minute lighthouse tour which turns out to be pretty nifty. Battery Point Light was first lit in 1856, and originally sported a fourth-order Freznel lens (19th-century Freznels are considered cool things to see if you are into that sort of thing.) We aren't allowed to take pictures anywhere inside the lighthouse quarters but can photograph up in the tower, so this picture is of the modern barrel lens that replaced the Freznel lens when the lighthouse was automated in 1953. The space is so tight, I cannot back up to get a good picture and can only take a photo of little bits of the light.

Afterwards we zip back to the house, pick up Paks and Joker, and go for a ride down the coast to the Klamath Overlook, which is a spectacular spot high on the bluffs overlooking the mouth of the Klamath River. The road isn't very well marked, and I think I've gotten us lost in a residential section (yes I am in the lead again) and call for the group to turn around on the flattest, least-graveled spot of road I have seen for a while, but "flattest" and "least-graveled" is not saying a whole lot in this particular circumstance. We eventually regroup at a B&B parking area at the bottom of the hill, get directions, and find out we were on the right road, I had just given up way too soon. (This adventure does preserve my [completely undeserved] reputation of queen-of-turnarounds ... they say that if I'm leading a ride, there will be a U at some point.) Up we go again, this time finding our destination. It's totally worth it, the view is spectacular. We see bald eagles, a harrier on the hunt, a zillion osprey, and seals playing in the surf below us. We don't see any whales, alas, even though this is a good whale-watching site.

Joker Net and Piggle head back north to Crescent City after the overlook, while Paks Dawg Katie and I head south for a little more sightseeing. We cruise down 101 a little further to the Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway, a ten-mile drive through old-growth redwoods that takes us to the Prairie Creek Visitor Center. We stop at the visitor's center, get passport stamps, smell flowers, take pictures of birds and elk, and then venture a little further into the woods by trying the Cal-Barrel Road. A ranger told us it was paved, what a liar. If it ever had been, it's so degraded now that it's nothing better than packed gravel covered with pine needles, not the best surface for riding a big bagger. Paks in particular dislikes this kind of road intensely. We give up about a mile up the three-mile road, park the bikes, and walk. We've found a wonderful little grove to explore, and strolling through the hushed forest is magical. The redwoods are truely a magnificent place.

Back home for dinner, Net's in charge of picking where to eat, and overshoots the destination by the pier. So how come I'm the one who gets teased when we all have to do a U-turn? LOL

Summer 2008 - Day Two

2008-06-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Up the coast to far northern California today. We get up nice and early to hit the road before the heat gets bad. It's been over 100° in this part of the state, but once we get north of the bay area and/or central valley, we should find nicer conditions.

The three of us work our way over to the coast via highways 16 and 20. I'm in the lead, and still experimenting with my GPS. I've had the Garmin for a few months now and have mostly figured out how to use it, but this is the first long distance trip that I've done with the thing. I am discovering that the points-of-interest database is mostly accurate but woefully incomplete. A couple of times I've stopped for gas at what I thought was a last-chance-for-eighty-miles station, only to find another station available twenty miles down the road. Well there are worse things in the world than that.

We reach US-101 around the town of Willits and point north. At Humbolt Redwoods State Park, we turn off the highway and cruise along the Avenue of the Giants (hwy 254) which is our introduction to these beautiful enormous trees. It's been many many years since I have visited this area and I've forgotten how awe-inspiring they are. Coastal redwoods live in a very narrow zone and in fact create their own microclimates ... the temps drop dramatically as we ride through the forest, and we are actually quite chilly which would have been unthinkable just yesterday! Lunchtime finds us in Fortuna CA. The guy at the Shell station says the restaurant next door is good; I sort of want to go down the road sixteen miles to a place I've heard about (the Samoa Cookhouse) and half-heartedly try to talk the girls into it, but they are hungry now and not too interested and I'm not motivated enough to push for it. The family restaurant in Fortuna had a mighty good burger anyway.

North of Eureka, the road follows right along the coast, and the weather has turned cold and damp. We've obviously just missed measurable rain, the roadway is completely wet, but we never get more than sprinkled on so we keep rolling. We reach foggy Crescent City CA by midafternoon and locate our vacation rental, A on 8th. We're the first ones there, and stand around awhile wondering what to do. (Dawg has handled the rental, she'll have the instructions, but from what we've gathered via text messages she is about two hours behind us on the road.) Eventually I think to try the door. It turns out to be unlocked, so we go on in and make ourselves at home.

Nettie and Piggle show up forty minutes after we do, and Dawg and Katie pull in two hours later well before dark. WindShifters gathering is on!

Summer 2008 - Day One

2008-06-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

It's time to hit the road for my summer trip. I've been so busy at work (they hinted at cancelling my vacation until I threw a small hissy) that I did not have time to pack my bags until the night before ... I was even up late last night doing a last-minute oil change to prep the bike. I know you're not supposed to wrench right before a trip but that's just the way it worked out, oh well.

I meet up with Joker and Paks about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles, and we have an easy day riding north to Sacramento. Ahhh gods it's hot. We take some longer breaks and go easy. In the heat of midday, we stay for thirty-forty minutes at a gas stop in Santa Nella, which is enough to cause vapor lock on the Nomad (it was sitting in direct sunlight with a full tank for way too long, not good.) It's a scary thing to think you are accelerating onto the interstate, and have the bike start to cough and buck. Thankfully it resolved itself in a minute or two.

I got a good Hotwire price on lodging in town, but laugh at my bad hotel luck. A construction crew is noisily working RIGHT outside our door, just like that television commercial. Luckily they knock off for the day and pack up the nailgun about half an hour after we arrive.

Paks and I went over to Rhonda and Dennis' house for dinner; they graciously invited us in and grilled steaks for us. Rhonda makes insanely good garlic bread as well! Steve and Amanda came over too and we spend a convivial evening engaged in one of a biker's favorite pastime, which is bullsh*tting about roads and rides. I am looking forward to the trip, and hoping we'll get out of the hot weather soon. It was brutal today.

A serious plea for funds

2008-06-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

I posted this link a few entries ago, but want to repost it here.

The California Quake needs some help. I sincerely hope you will be able to pitch in.

See, these gals have been working their BUTTS off for a couple of seasons. There was a couple of years where the Quake was not so good, and one perfectly awful season, and the gals got tired of it. They wanted to be a good team again. So they worked and studied and sweated and worked and worked and worked, because that's what football demands ... if you want to be a good team, you must WORK for it. There are no shortcuts in this game.

So far the work is paying off. The Quake battled their way to an undefeated record this season, and have earned the right to match up with the Dallas Diamonds, who are widely regarded as one of the best teams out there.

A lot of people are saying California doesn't have a chance against big bad Dallas, but I don't know. I'd like to root for David against Goliath 'cause these are my girls. I'd like to see California take their best shot against the three-time champs. I'd LOVE to see the two teams put it all on the field. That's football, baybee.

In order to do that, California MUST travel with a full squad. Quite frankly you can't leave half your starters at home and hope to have a chance against the Diamonds. And right now there are only funds to buy plane tickets for fewer than twenty players. And if the Quake play the Diamonds with eighteen or twenty players, I am pretty sure it'll be yet another lopsided score and everyone will say "yeah the Quake is good but not up to Dallas yet." And it'll be because of money and the stoopidly high price of travel right now, and not because the gals haven't worked for it, 'cause they have. Oh, trust me, they have. They've earned this shot. You can help give it to them.

The Quake have a Paypal link on their website, and you can go there and click it and make a donation to the team's playoff fund. Please please please make a contribution of any amount. Twenty dollars, ten or even five will help 'em out. If you can donate more, bless you. If you can donate ten thousand, all the team's travel troubles will be over and you can probably get your name and face tattooed on Squeaks on the body part of your choice (I will personally talk her into it if she objects.) But a contribution of any amount is greatly appreciated. You'll have the thanks of everyone who enjoys and supports women's football! Let's give the team the chance to get to the game they've worked all year to reach!!

qqquuuaaakkkeee!

Click here for California Quake website and thanks!

Yay! Ten days!

2008-06-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

Only ten days until the start of my Next Fabulous Road Trip!

I am so swamped at work that I can't even start getting excited about it yet.

Check out this link to see our rough plans!

Undefeated Quake

2008-06-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Quake finished the season with a victory in Albuquerque, giving them a record of 8-0! Congrats grrls! None of you biotches called me with the result though so I am mad LOL

I was tempted to travel to New Mexico for the game, but instead stayed local & competed this morning in the USSD summer tournament. I did not do particularly well but didn't do badly. My sparring round in particular was a close match, going to 2-2 before I got caught with a sneaky roundhouse kick. My mobility is still the thing I need to work on most; I often joke that I fight like a tree but there's way too much truth in that joke to be funny.

Knockdowns

2008-06-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

It's an odd feeling to get hit so hard that your knees wobble, at least I think so. It's not like I am gonna stop doing karate, but maybe instead try to learn to keep my guard up properly. (Ya think?) My bad habit of dropping my hands when I'm getting tired bit me today, as not once but twice I was put to my knees with a roundhouse upside my head. First one was a good bellringer; Alex (young kid) caught me in a drill good with a left and I went down and popped right back up, staggering back to get some space (gains time) and shaking my head to clear out the tweetybirds. Then, ten minutes later in judged point sparring I did it AGAIN, dropped my guard to defend a kick and blammo! Matt (big guy) catches me square with a right and I'm dropped to my knees again. My brain thinks "ok get up" and like some faroff voice the knees reply "umm no I don't really think so." The disconnectedness of it all is what I find quite strange!! Took about twenty-thirty seconds to go away. Made me think of when you see a boxer get wobbled in a bout ... he'll tie his opponent up to gain the shake-it-off time he needs. You sure can't move well when your knees are discussing things with your brain at a far-off distance ;)

The hat

2008-06-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

I am not a famous person, except in the itty bitty world of women's pro football where I am huge. LOL just kidding. Actually it's my hat that's become famous, apparently. I've been wearing it long enough that it is getting recognized.

I got this hat for my trip to Athens GA two summers ago. In general, bikers will have a hat, usually a ball cap, handy in the saddlebags. You need to have something you can jam on your head to cover up the really horrid helmet hair we tend to get. Me, I'm tired of ballcaps (I have a zillion of them) so I got this crushable felt hat to wear instead. It's survived the saddlebags pretty well and when it got accidentally left outside (on the handlebars) in a tremendous Tennessee downpour it actually returned to its original shape, which was a handy trick to learn.

So the next time you see a big chick in a black cowboy hat at a women's football game, come up and say hi :)

Quake at Breakers

2008-06-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Went down to San Juan Capistrano on Saturday night where the Quake were playing at the Southern California Breakers in the seventh game of the season. It was a pretty good game, with a close-fought first half and the Quake pulling away to a 27-0 victory. Intensity is building to playoffs now. The Quake have officially wrapped up the Pacific Southwest division championship, but seedings are still up in the air. In the Western conference, it looks like the division champs will be Dallas, Seattle and California (all three remain undefeated) and it's likely Corvallis will get the wildcard slot, but it's not a done deal yet and the order isn't set. Quake will probably have to travel for their first playoff game ... go to their website and make a donation if you can, it'll cost a bit of money to get the team to the field. Please help!

Scoreless in the first quarter, the Quake got on the board in the second on a long run by Zaky down the left side. Zaky scored again in the third quarter, this time on a short plunge from two and a half yards out. Later in the period, quarterback Kuntz hit Blied on a pretty pass play for a long score, but a errant snap on the PAT kick sent the holder (Blied again) scrambling around in the backfield looking for space, and not finding any. In the fourth quarter, wideout Williams galloped half the length of the field on a reverse with Kuntz throwing the key lead block, much to the visitor's crowd's delight. I've posted some photos on KodakGallery but most of them after nightfall are worthless; my camera did not handle the lighting conditions well at all. (Full-res images will be available on the IWFL image shop soon.)

The Quake defense is looking quite good. The kick coverage, however, needs a little work. California would consistently give up too many yards on kickoffs, letting the Breakers start in good field position on many of their possessions, but then the defense would render it moot by forcing a turnover on downs. I expect the coaches will clean that up a bit before playoffs ;)

Just one word on the Breakers' first play on D. It drew a personal foul, unsportsmanlike penalty and had Quake fans in the visitor's bleachers calling for an ejection when the MLB of the Breakers went early and took the Quake center out of the game with a blow to the head. I've seen that technique on D before, where you are coached to deliberately jump offsides on the first play and hit someone in order to "deliver a message." Now I love good smashmouth football but hate cheap shots and guess which one I think this is. If I were told to do this I would disobey my coach, that's how unclassy I think it is. Anyway, center Avant was able to come back into the game later, which tells me she wasn't concussed, a fortunate thing. And after that opening bit of unpleasantness, both defenses played hard and played clean, which made for a pretty entertaining game.

Game of the year

2008-05-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

In a rematch of the May 3rd game, the California Quake hosted the Las Vegas Showgirlz on Saturday night. We all knew it'd be a spirited and hard-fought game ... but were surprised and pleased when it turned into one of those games that'll be regarded in future as "One Of The Best I've Seen". A stupendous effort from both squads, and six lead changes in the fourth quarter, made it the memorable matchup of 2008.

Quake came away with a 41-38 victory, eliminating the Showgirlz from divisional contention (Las Vegas is still alive for a wildcard playoff spot, so these two teams could potentially meet again in playoffs.) California has all but secured the Pacific Southwest division title for themselves ... the only team not mathematically eliminated at this point are the So Cal Breakers, who would need to win out their three remaining games and have California lose their two remaining games in order to win the title. It's considered a pretty unlikely scenario, but since the Breakers host the Quake next week, there will be plenty at stake when gametime arrives on the 31st!

The game was the highlight of a quick visit from my sister, who had traveled to Southern California on a work-related visit. She took a couple of days extra and came up to the Valley to hang with me for a while, and we had a fun time bumming around a bit. We hit her California Visit Trifecta of food she can't get in Missouri: sushi, good Mexican (specifically fish tacos) and In-n-Out Burgers. On Saturday daytime, we tried to get in to the Bowers Museum to see an exhibit of the Chinese terra cotta warriors, but unfortunately tickets had already been sold out for the day. So we ended up walking around & talking before going to the game; our conversations usually go off on strange tangents that amuse us. It was great to get to spend some time with her before she left to head home this morning!!

The Grand Canyon in May

2008-05-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

Caught a couple of beeeyoootiful days in northern Arizona for WildWestFest '08 (the party formerly known as Ravenfest.) It was way too hot going there and coming back, but totally worth it!

I endured the Weekend of Cursed Cameras, in which I brought the big SLR cam with the fancypants new lens, and the compact flash card fried & would not work. I had forgotten to bring a spare or two, and the store in Williams did not have any. I grumped until I remembered that I had my spare little camera, a Nikon Coolpix, that I had bought with the express intent of taking pictures while riding (since you can sort of work it one-handed.) I took pictures with that until I ran out of battery, since I had forgotten to pack the charger for that one as well. LOL

The Coolpix takes pretty decent photos, hmm?

More photos here. (This is a Flickr set instead of KodakGallery.)

5-0 Quake

2008-05-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

The California Quake prevailed again in their second meeting with the Tucson Monsoon this year, by a final of score of 37-0. KodakGallery photos here. The team is now at 5-0 on the season, on top of the Pac SW division.

Irene Kim ("Smalls") had a big game, 11 carries for 62 yards, with one rushing and one receiving touchdown, and powerback Kristin "Bulldog" Nicholas had 10 carries for 36 yards, 2 touchdowns. Kicker Sarah Oliver was 4 for 5 on the night on PAT kicks, plus 1 for 1 on field goals, with a 38-yarder. The big play on special teams happened when the Tall One, Esther McGee, got in to block a 33-yard field goal attempt by Tucson, and Armida Luna scooped it up and ran it all the way back the length of the field for a touchdown.

Next game is a big one, when Las Vegas comes to visit on the 24th. It's the final home game of the regular season. I am SO looking forward to it. My sister is coming to visit & we're gonna hang out at the game together! Come say hi if you see us there :)

My weekend: ... and BBQ

2008-05-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I was meeting up with some RSBS pals in Paso Robles for lunch. It's a bit of a ways from Las Vegas to Paso Robles, so after the football game I hopped back on the bike and came back as far as Barstow, where I got a cheap hotel for the night. It was sort of windy, but not too cold, coming across the desert at night.

Unfortunately I parked the bike in the one spot in the parking lot that gets completely watered by the lawn sprinkler overspray. That must be some hard water in Barstow 'cause the waterspots were totally white on the black tank and saddlebags. The bike sort of looked like a reverse Dalmation ;)

So, up early, and an easy cruise west on Hwy 58. It was a little windy going through Tehachapi, but not bad, I've been in much worse. Past Bakersfield I jogged a bit north and picked up Hwy 46 to the coast. Strangely I don't think I've ever been on that road before. Coming up on the junction of Hwys 46 and 41, cars heading towards Fresno are turning left in front of you, a situation that makes you sit up and get alert. Well that very intersection is the James Dean Memorial Junction where the rebel without a cause ate it fifty-plus years ago. Now I know I've never managed to take this road before, I would have remembered that.

Lunch was with Jen, Rhonda, BluDog, Mel, Roger, and I got to meet Laura (BigRed) at Big Bubba's Bad To The Bone BBQ. It was pretty good 'que by California standards; meaty ribs and decent sauce. I enjoyed stuffing myself on spareribs but I'm still looking for the kind of smokehouse that is rare in the West.

No one rode the bull.

I decided to ride back via US 101, which would have been way out of the way for everyone else, so I was on my own again. No prob. The coast route was socked in with a heavy marine layer and I got practically no sun for most of the way home! I stopped at a gas station in Pismo Beach and called in to the WFBTalk line, and gabbed about the prior night's game until my battery started beeping. Then, it was time to saddle up and ride the rest of the way home.

A little over nine hundred miles total on the weekend, and my butt's not in shape for it. I think I must have landed on my tailbone in karate or something 'cause it was really killing me the last few hundred miles.

My weekend: Football ...

2008-05-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I rode out to Las Vegas, to see a football game (natch! you mean there's other stuff you can do in Vegas?) The California Quake were visiting the Las Vegas Showgirlz for a 6 pm kickoff. Both these teams are in the IWFL's Pacific SW division and both undefeated coming into the game, so the matchup had big implications for the standings. Also, this is the Showgirlz' third season -- their two prior years they'd been playing in the WPFL and had been roundly spanked by the likes of the Amazons, Energy and Scorpions, and their only wins prior to 2008 had been recorded against the New Mexico Burn. However, they'd been working hard in the offseason on bringing their game up to the next level. They have good athletes and are definitely a threat nowadays. The Showgirlz had beaten the Breakers and Monsoon earlier this year, by ten and nineteen points respectively.

Now it was time for a bigger test. A lot of people picked this as the IWFL Game Of The Week, along with the Pittsburgh-DC showdown back east. I was on the sideline with a camera, the KodakGallery shots are here (317 photos.)

When the (figurative) dust cleared, California edged out the win with a big gut-check second half, with a final score of 30-27. The Quake now stand at 4-0, first place in the division. What a game! It certainly lived up to its billing.

After receiving the kickoff, the Showgirlz opened with a swinging gate formation. Personally I don't like the swinging gate, it's too gimmicky even for me who likes razzle-dazzle double reverses, but hey it's their choice and it's legal so they can run it if they want to. It didn't work too well for them when the center flung the snap over the quarterback's head, and Las Vegas ended up pinned inside their own five yard line and had to punt it away.

The Quake got out of the blocks fast when superstar running back Monique Zaky (#5) scored on a long run down the left side. Julie Blied (#33) threw a crunching block that opened up the sideline for Zaky, and set the tone of big hitting in the game. The team converted the two-pointer to take an 8-0 lead in the first quarter. In the second, California added a safety when the Las Vegas longsnapper sailed the ball past the punter, who had to fall on it in the end zone. The Quake later added a second touchdown and two-point conversion, to build the lead to 18-0. The score was by Kristin "Bulldog" Nicholas (#42) on a short blast run, her first touchdown of the year. Then, a huge momentum swing happened when the Showgirlz ran back the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown. On their next possession, the Quake eventually turned the ball over on downs in Las Vegas territory. Showgirlz quarterback Kerri Mytych (#9) hit her receiver in stride on a long pass play that scored, and with under a minute remaining in the half, an eighteen-nothing game had suddenly closed to 18-14.

Coming out of halftime, Quake head coach Josh Penn started freely adjusting his team's formations and personnel, in order to stymie the Las Vegas defense which had come on strong in the second quarter. The adjustments worked: the Showgirlz couldn't seem to get a handle on the constantly changing splits on the O-line, and the Quake started moving the ball again. California put together a long drive that ended with a score by Zaky. Quake went for two and failed, and the score was 24-14. Las Vegas answered back with another long pass play, and narrowed the gap to 24-21. Three points was as close as the Showgirlz would get, and on this night of great football, everything still hung in the balance. This game would go down to the final whistle.

Incomprehensibly, the Showgirlz tried the swinging gate a few more times. I thought the whole point of that play is to catch the defense napping, or confused. The more times you run it the less it's gonna work. Same thing with a razzle-dazzle double reverse ... if the defense has a pulse, you'll be dead in the water the third or fourth time you run it LOL.

It was during the grind-it-out minutes of the fourth quarter that Zaky demonstrated that she has toughness as well as speed, and the California offensive line took control and won the game in the trenches. Play after play, the Quake would advance the ball three or four or five yards at a time, getting first downs when they needed them, and Zaky took a pounding and kept coming back for more. She scored her third touchdown on the night to put the lead back up to nine, at 30-21. On their next series, the Showgirlz completed a pass to the receiver on the left side, who had to go to the ground to get the ball. The referee missed seeing the Quake defender touch the girl down, or possibly thought she had gotten up before being touched by the defender, so when she got up and ran to the end zone the touchdown was allowed. This brought the score back to three points, 30-27, as the Showgirlz failed the two-point try. With about 1:40 on the clock, an attempted onside kick turned out to be a thiry-yard line drive down the middle. The Quake recovered it, and with only one time out remaining for Las Vegas, California was able to bang a few plays into the line and let the clock expire.

HUGE kudos to both teams for a GREAT game. That was one of the most exciting matchups I've seen in a while! However, I am admittedly biased, I cheer for the Quake and wear purple to the games, so I have to say it was one of the most nerve-wracking games I've ever been to, and I think the team owes me a new bottle of Tums LOL.

On the radio the next day, the Vegas coach said they just ran out of clock and would have beaten the Quake if they had more time. I understand that he's a coach and he's gotta say those kind of things, but I respectfully disagree. What his team really needed was to come alive before the two-minute warning at the half. The Showgirlz had the Quake a little stunned by those two quick scores, but California came back after the halftime break with their sh*t in order and went toe-to-toe with Vegas for the rest of the night. The four-point margin at the half got narrowed by one point in two additional quarters of play. I am so freakin proud of those girls. They played one hell of a game.

Quake win over NM Menace

2008-04-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

KodakGallery photos of the Menace at Quake game, 4/26/08. (430 photos)

The game was fun, a romp by the Quake, with a final score of 64-0. Defense is looking strong, never letting the New Mexico running backs get on track. Second-year cornerback Alex Kirby was the big stud on D, with four interceptions, two of them run back for touchdowns. Rookie kicker Sarah Oliver had a big night too ... just missing a 45-yard field goal attempt in the fourth quarter when the ball hit the crossbar. Offense got reved up on the sideline to give her another shot at it. When the Quake got the ball back in the final minutes (courtesy of Kirby's fourth interception) Zaky deliberately went out of bounds at the 26 yard line to set up the kick. A 44-yard attempt, good snap, good hold, and Oliver just drilled it. Coach Josh is pretty sure it's a record for women's football. A lot of teams are stingy with their stats so I'm not entirely 100% convinced, but y'know I think he's right on this one :)

Quake are 3-0 now. I've seen their two romp games (45-14 against Tucson and 64-0 against New Mexico) but missed the close defensive battle against the Breakers (score 5-0) 'cause I was at the Prowlers vs Amazons game instead. Big test next weekend at the Las Vegas Showgirls. Vegas is 2-0 and coming off a bye week, and a good team. Quake and Showgirls are the two teams most likely to battle it out for the division title, so it's a big game.

Prowlers at Amazons

2008-04-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Caught the local NWFA opening day game this weekend when the Los Angeles Amazons hosted the Phoenix Prowlers. It was quite a shocker. The Prowlers pretty much owned the Western division of the NWFA last year, and since the Amazons are a good team I thought they'd come in and give them a challenge. Instead, the 'Zons dominated from the opening whistle. Final was 47-14 and the Prowler's two scores came in the fourth quarter ("garbage time" as Chick used to call it.) Uffda.

The Prowlers were understandable grumpy when I went to greet them after the game (me: "Abomb, are you going to say hi to me?" Abomb: "No, I'm sulking") but Angie was the most stoic about things, taking the well-that-sucked-let's-go-get-a-beer perspective of a loss that stings like hell. I expect those gals to come back strong, they're not a rookie team that folds up after you beat 'em once.

To my very great pleasure I got a chance to speak with Coach Turley after the game - he's not coaching this year but was on the Phoenix sidelines, as sort of a coach emeritus I guess. Always nice to see that guy. :)

But wow, the Amazons looked good. Really good. Scary good. Hangin with healthy Dallas good. Now that most of the top-level teams have left the NWFA I see no reason why Los Angeles isn't going to run away with this league. Look out East.

Quake opens 2008 season with a win

2008-04-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

The California Quake are playing at Downey HS this season ... just a few blocks from the World's Oldest McDonald's. They hosted the Tucson Monsoon Saturday night, and avenged last year's opening day loss by handily beating the Arizona visitors by a score of 45-14.

Click here for KodakGallery photos. Not a lot of photos 'cause I was taking them in between stints of running a video camera.

I wrote in one of the online boards where I post,

... Both teams gave up big plays early on and they both scored on their first two possessions, with Tucson holding a 14-13 edge.
The difference after that? Quake defense adjusted, Monsoon didn't. California made some wholesale personnel swaps and stoned Tucson's running game for most of the rest of the night. The Monsoon spent a lot of the fourth quarter in the red zone but couldn't punch it in, and they haven't a reliable kicker yet. They need one. They don't even punt! =:O
On the other hand, the Monsoon couldn't seem to do anything to stop the Quake's outside run, and speedy #5 Monique Zaky, who made a lot of would-be tacklers whiff. To me it looked like a combination of yeah she's that good and Tucson will be working on fundamentals a bit more ... run through and wrap up ladies! :)

Later, I got an email from my friend Nancy who's a Quake linebacker. She told me that the brilliant "adjustment" was actually just some of the first-stringers getting on the field. For those unfamiliar with football, it is common for coaches to hold a starting player out of the lineup for a series or two for missing practice or some other minor disciplinary violation. Don't read more into this; I don't know what happened, who was involved, or anything other than it really wasn't a big deal. Now all that early scoring makes perfect sense.

The team looks good this year. I have big hopes for them, and even though it's way too early to say anything like this, I think they have a shot at the division title :)

Returning the borrowed gi

2008-03-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

When folks asked me what I was doing this weekend, I told them that I had an errand to run that was 350 miles away. I think they thought I was joking.

I get up reasonably early, suit up in riding gear, and take off north. (It is SO cool that these Joe Rocket pants finally fit me! Now I have gear for cool weather as well as my armored mesh gear for hot days!) A straight shot up Interstate 5 takes me to Hwy 152, which cuts west to the coast around Gilroy. My destination? The USSD studio in Palo Alto, just a few blocks from Stanford.

I arrive at the studio a bit past 12:30, unbungie my package from the back of the bike, and walk on in. A red belt (student instructor) greets me, and when I try to return the package to her, she doesn't know what it's about and calls over the studio director, Mr Flickenger. Long story short, turns out it was HIS gi that I had borrowed, not Mr Diaz'. Now I am REALLY embarrassed. I thank him profusely (hoping that I am not stammering too much) and bow a lot ... I think it probably looks funny, they aren't used to someone standing in the studio foyer in motorcycle gear bowing, LOL. Oh well, whaddayagonnado?

Then, I hop on the bike and head back home. I make the smartest detour in my life bypassing the construction jam on 152 eastbound ... go through Hollister and hop back on the main pass just after they are building a new bridge if you are taking this road any time this year. Otherwise, bumper-to-bumper traffic will cost you an hour or more.

I get back home about an hour past sunset, mission accomplished. Sure, I could have mailed the gi to Palo Alto. But then I wouldn't have an excuse to ride 700 miles for the hell of it :)

Green/brown test

2008-03-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

I leave the house nice and early -- WAAAY too early -- to make sure I get to USSD headquarters on time. It's test day, I'm up for my green/brown stripe rank belt, and it'd be a disaster to be late!! What if there's traffic? I always give myself plenty of cushion for the 70-mile drive.

So I arrive just a bit past 8 am. It's when I am pulling my gear bag out of my trunk that I realise

TO.
MY.
HORROR.

that I have left part of my uniform at home. I am wearing the pants, but have left the gi jacket, clean and neatly hanging on its hanger, right there in the hallway where I won't forget to grab it before leaving. (Well so much for THAT theory.) There is no way to describe quite how the sinking sensation exactly feels. Sort of like a horror movie ... don't go up the stairs ... or that dream where no one notices you're naked.

There's nothing to do but go in, tell the instructors I have a problem, and ask them what to do. Mister Diaz comes to my rescue. He asks if I have my belt ("Yes, sir, I do") and then jokingly asks me if I'd like a red jacket. (Only 4th dan and above may wear red in my school.) Then he disappears into the back room and comes back with a gi top, and lets me borrow it. It's a heavy MAP gi, size six, and fits me perfectly. I thank him profusely, and proceed to sweat on it a lot for the next few hours. I got it chalked up pretty good too, when we were doing some knife defense drills.

I've been told to return the jacket to the Palo Alto studio. The instant I get home I fling it in the washing machine, then dry it, then safely bundle it up where the cat hair that covers everything else in my house won't get at it. I'm going to hand-deliver it rather then send it US Mail.

Apart from that adventure, the test went well & I passed :) With less than thirty students total, it went pretty quickly, and my group was out of there a little after one.

Sedalia anxiously waits

2007-12-03T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well, good news for Guberburger fans: it looks like the Wheel Inn will reopen at a new location sometime next year! My sister emailed me a week or two ago to let me know, and then I googled to this link in the Sedalia Democrat today:

Wheel Inn, guberburger to return

Yeah, I'm going back.

WPFL Championship

2007-12-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

I went down to San Diego CA (actually La Jolla) to enjoy the last game of the 2007 season, the WPFL championship, on Saturday night. Brrr! I made the somewhat unwise choice to ride the motorcycle down, and it was chilly! I also got rained on like heck for about three miles, just south of Camp Pendleton, but other than those minor discomforts, it wasn't a bad trip. The Motel 6 on Hotel Circle left a lot to be desired, but hey, that's what I get for going cheap.

The SoCal Scorpions (American Conference champs) were hosting the Houston Energy (winners of the National conference) for all the marbles. Both Houston and SoCal are good teams - the Energy won the first three WPFL titles, in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and while the Scorpions have been to the playoffs many times, this is their first trip to the WPFL championship. I met up with Amy and Chandra, and we settled in for a good game.

It was an entertaining game, dominated by defense. The offense on both sides seemed to misfire quite a bit, which kept the scoring low. The Houston quarterback (Cantu) in particular was off-target all night long, unable to complete many passes. SoCal drove down the field a number of times only to stall out in the red zone. The frustration of the offensive game's stutters were offset by the BIG hitting of the defensive squads. Nothing brings a crowd to its feet like the ringing thud of a pancake block! At halftime, SoCal held a 14-7 lead.

I started to wander around the crowd, meeting up with some folks. I ran into the WFBTalk gals over in the opposite stands, just in time for their halftime show (LOL) and Robin nabbed me and put me on the air! I also got to meet a bunch of Empire State and Las Vegas players, sat and talked with Coach Josh from the Quake for a little bit, and generally mingled and schmoozed. I didn't get back to my seat next to Chandra until the end of the third quarter and the gals were wondering where the hell I had disappeared to.

The second half was fairly boring, with both offenses badly stalled out. Houston did have a chance, a possession in the waning minutes of the game, but couldn't capitalize. SoCal hung on for the 14-7 victory and a well-deserved championship. They've been a good team for a while now and it's nice to see them reach the top.

The big topic of discussion - what's going to happen to the WPFL now? A lot of teams are leaving for other leagues. No one knows if there's gonna be women's fall football in 2008.

Sunday, I bundled up and took the long way home through the mountains east of San Diego, stopping for apple pie (again, yum) in Julian. The previous days' storms had left snow and ice on the shoulders but the roads were perfectly clear, and it was quite a lovely day. Cold cold cold for riding. I gotta get some better winter gloves.

Tombstone AZ run

2007-10-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

I wandered down to Tombstone AZ on a whim this weekend. Some of the AZ gals were getting together there for dinner, and I thought I'd tag along. Besides, I haven't spent too much time in southeast Arizona. Now, you have to understand, Tombstone AZ is a pretty long ways away from me, almost 600 miles, so I got up early in the morning and rode rode rode for most of the day. Boring interstate miles are still more fun than not riding ;) I pull into town somewhere around 4:30, and by the time I get parked and get my camera out, there are re-enactors milling around on the main street, and soon they go into a whole routine, playing out the actions of the Earps and the Clantons and the leadup to the Gunfight at the OK Corral. It's essentially a running shouting match that walks the entire length of Tombstone ... all four blocks of it. Of course by the time they are down by the Corral, that's where you have to pay admission to see the re-enactment of the gunfight itself. I decline. :)

To me, the whole thing had a kind of funtime Disneyland feel to it, until I remembered that the street I was walking is the actual site of the event. Wyatt and Doc and the Clanton gang trod here, these dusty alleys, where I now stand. This gives it a sort of different attitude, I'm not exactly sure why.

After the pre-Gunfight show, I run into Worm and Debbie, and we shop until it's time to meet everyone else for dinner. This is easier said than done, since Tombstone shops close up seriously early. Only a few are open for us to browse, most of them having locked up around 5:00.

Dinner is at the Longhorn Restaurant (a famous landmark, but next time I am going to Big Nose Kate's) and is quite good. Turbo and Dan are there, and I get to meet Twiggy and DynaCat, who both live in this part of Arizona. Afterwards, we retire to the cute little hotel that Turbo's found, and we stay up late talking in the courtyard with a bunch of other motorcyclists. Ahh, life is good! In the morning, I get up, pack my ittybitty bag, and head back 600 miles home after this nice visit with friends.

And that's my trip to Tombstone AZ, "the Town Too Tough To Die." :)

Femmoto 2007

2007-10-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Off to Femmoto, the women's demo/track day in Las Vegas NV. This was my second year at the event, so I knew what to expect this time around. I wasn't able and/or willing to take time off work, so I bombed across the desert late Friday and checked into the Ramada close to the speedway after 9 pm. A little traffic, a little cold, but not too bad.

Saturday morning up bright and early, out to the track to sign up for my rides. This year's dance card consisted of:
1) Kawasaki ZX-6R (last year's favorite ride)
2) Kawasaki ZX-10R (the liter version of the above)
3) Buell Ulysses
4) Aprilia RSV
5) Honda CBR

The first session was pretty cold and windy but it died down after that, making everyone happy. The rules for the novice groups were a lot stricter this year, no passing allowed on the track, which meant our first run around was much more like a stately parade than a race ... yawn! Not once did I get to open it up on the ZX-6R.

However, on the next go-round, the Femmoto staff riders managed to herd the inevitable slowpokes out of the way and I was able to get a few good laps in on the 10R. Ooooeeee, that bike is fun. When you get on the throttle on that one, it responds in a hurry. I was doing the dick showoff thing coming back to pit lane, revving the engine just to listen to it go VRRRRrrrr VRRRRRRrrr VRRRRRrrr and laughing the whole way.

The Ulysses was not much to my liking. Last year I rode a Buell Blast (250cc) which made me look like a circus bear on a bicycle & felt like a badly tuned lawn mower. So I thought I would try the larger Ulysses, which is 1200cc and is so tall I can barely tippy-toe it, and it still felt like a badly tuned lawn mower. Oh well. The Buells just aren't for me.

The Aprilia RSV is a 1000cc supersport, and seemed like a very nice bike. However, once I got on the ergos didn't fit me (riding position required me to tuck my legs up more than I think is comfortable ... not a good bike for fat chicks) and I didn't enjoy that session too much. I never felt like I was in the proper part of the powerband so it wasn't a responsive machine. Overall, an "ehhhh" ride.

Fifth and last, though, was the one bike I for-sure wanted to ride this year, and that's the Honda CRB. Ever since Honda came out with the redesigned CBR line for 2007 I've had a thing for these bikes, and I wanted to give one a bit of a workout to see if I liked it as much as I thought I did. The answer is HELL YES. I rode a 600cc, and it was comfortable and powerful and smooth as silk, a real joy to ride. It was my best ride of the day, too, I was lucky to get on the track just in front of the bottleneck (the inevitable slowpoke) so I had a mile of empty track in front of me & I could go as fast as I wanted without worrying about traffic ... it took me about three times around before I finally lapped and caught the back of the slow pack (I don't ride that fast, I don't have the skills for it) and let me tell you those three most FUN laps I did all day. Honda has those machines dialed in perfectly, and I now have a new favorite sportbike (the Kawi Ninja remains a close second.) I tell ya, if I had a spare $9,000, there'd be one of those in my garage. I can't ride it for a long time, but it sure is fun for play.

Green belt, part 2

2007-08-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

It was an honor and a privilege to be able to participate this weekend in USSD events during the Shaolin Monk's visit to the USA. The Head Abbot of the Shaolin Temple came and spoke to us, and as I explain to friends, this is sort of equivalent to a visit from the Pope (or other head of any major religion.) It was pretty exciting.

The first half of Saturday was the USSD studen'ts workshops, were we were able to work with the monks themselves. It is AMAZING to watch these guys and their abilities - they make everything look easy, but that ease is earned through years and years of hard physical training. I can only hope to someday get that low in my stances :)

Saturday afternoon was part 2 of my belt test, and let me tell you, when they said the second half would be the easy one, I think I was misled :D Anyway, I made it through, with my knee grinding and my Achilles screaming, and didn't suck too badly I hope. I couldn't hear a word any of the instructors were saying at the front of the room, 'cause it was incredibly noisy, so I always seemed to be half a beat behind on whatever was being barked out. I was not the only one. At the end of the day I was grateful to be awarded my green belt - for this one, I've worked hard.

Sunday, we had a promotion ceremony - our new ranks recognized by Professor Matterra and Headmaster DeMasco, and our photo taken with the Head Abbot, monks, and ranking USSD instructors. This took awhile because we were brought to the stage in large groups. The green belts alone had over ninety people. Then, Sunday afternoon, we saw the Shaolin Monks in performance, where they do their martial arts demonstrations. It is a VERY cool show and if you ever get a chance to see it, you definitely need to go :)

2200 Miles For A Steak

2007-08-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

It started on a kind of dare, but turned into an event: a couple of the east coast gals met a couple of the west coast gals for dinner at the Big Texan in Amarillo.

I took Friday and Monday off work, and basically rode two days to get to Texas (catching up with Joker at the end of the first day in Gallup) and two days to get back home. Now that's my idea of a good RTE! (ride to eat)

Temps were beastly, but then again when aren't they in August. We prepare as best we can (I had my coolvest, of course) and ride early and drink gallons of water. I think the easterners had the worst of it; their temps were as high as ours but they aren't used to handling it. Plus, heavy rains closed I-40 and routed them out of Tennessee, stretching the return trip an extra day. Ai.

I have a new entry on the List Of Weird Foods I Have Tried: rattlesnake is on the menu at the Big Texan. It's a food I would order once but not twice ... it's mostly bones & not nearly worth all the effort. :D

Green belt, part 1

2007-08-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Shaolin Monks are coming to America, a special event for USSD, and I will be testing for my next belt that weekend. However, in order to participate in the "monk test", students are being submitted to a pre-test, which is where you are really put through your paces.

So, today I drove down to a different dojo (this pre-test was held in Rolling Hills) and gritted my teeth though the thing. I know, I know, I complain that kempo gets harder and harder with every level (and it's supposed to) but JEEZ today's test just about killed me. Since there were so many people there, and such a limited amount of space, they moved us all outside and we ran around outside and did drills in the parking lot. Let me repeat that. We RAN. OUTSIDE. ON CONCRETE. IN THE BLAZING SUN. By rank, groups were called indoors at the end of their tests; we were brought in after about three hours.

I can not even begin to describe how much pain my knee has after running and jumping on hard surfaces in dojo shoes for three hours. I have taken my last, precious Vicodin which has cut down on the groaning and weeping a bit, thankfully.

At least I get two weeks recovery time before part two of the test.

What I Did This Summer (2007)

2007-07-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is for my sister who says I never update my blog ;)

THE LIGHTNING RECAP OF MY 2007 SUMMER TRIP
June 23 through July 8

Fillmore UT - The County Courthouse and Territorial State House were half a block from my hotel.

Day 1: Leaving Los Angeles! The new bike's odometer reads 743 miles. It's a long hot day riding across the desert. I-15 carries me north to Fillmore, Utah (a fairly small town about 100 miles south of Provo.) My hotel has the world's worst bed, soft and saggy and a guaranteed backache the next morning.

Day 2: Yup, backache. Nicer weather now that I am a little further north and at a little more altitude than yesterday. I get screwed up and miss going through Provo Canyon (I got on 89 instead of 189) and end up going through Salt Lake City proper on I-80. Traffic isn't bad so I don't mind. I make it all the way into Nebraska, stopping in Kimball. I am treated to twenty miles of cold stinging rain at the very end of the ride - wow, the weather is REALLY different in this part of the country!

The first Pony Express station

Day 3: Today is hot and muggy. (I am born and raised in the southwest ... how do you all handle the humidity? Ugh!) I stop in Gothenburg NE and see the first Pony Express station. I finally get off the interstate and onto US-30, and watch for Lincoln Hwy sights. Stop for the night in Ames IA.

In the bleachers, the Field of Dreams

Day 4: Meander my way through Iowa, stopping off to visit the Field Of Dreams in Dyersville. I cross the Mississippi at Dubuque, get rained on like hell in Rockford IL, and work my way through Chicago traffic (since I don't know how to route myself away from the bad spots) before stopping for the night to visit with Tink in Dyer IN.

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Day 5: Off and on rain for my trip across Indiana and Ohio, all on US-30. Visit the NFL Hall Of Fame in Canton. Get caught in a local holiday parade in Minerva OH ... seriously, all these folks were in folding chairs on the sidewalks or their front stoops, and they were all waving at me, so I waved back. LOL. (I was about ten car lengths behind the last float. The 2 mph pace just about killed my clutch hand!) End up in Moon PA, just outside of Pittsburgh, for the night.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, in southwest Pennsylvania

Day 6: Visit Fallingwater, and run into Budgirl there, too funny! My intention had been to take the old Lincoln Hwy all the way to Jet's house near Philly, but when I find myself running hopelessly late, I hop on the Penn Turnpike and haul ass across the state. Saves time, costs me $14.75. Geez I hate toll roads.

Day 7: Ger lets me borrow his shop to change the oil and filter on the new beast, the only maintenance required on this trip. Set off for Lancaster PA to hook up with my pals there.

Gettysburgh, the Angle. Called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy, here the rebellion broke in blood.

Day 8: Jet, Bam, Ger and I head off for Gettysburgh early in the morning. This is a Holy Grail for Civil War geeks like me, and they graciously humor me and listen to me go on and on and ON about many details of the place. Nice riding, but the humidity is still killing me. Back in Lancaster, the RSBS Wigapalooza provides the evening's festivities :)

Takin' a ride in the Stearman ... what fun!

Day 9: Up early and heading out; we're off to the VanSant airport in Erwinna PA. Jet and I have got it in our heads to ride one of those barnstorming biplane rides so that's going to be the adventure for today! We sign up for the full-monty aerobatic flight and that's what we get: loops, barrel rolls, hammerheads, Immelmans, other stuff I forget what it's called, EVERYTHING. I love it. Jet turns a little green around the gills ;) We give her all the time she wants to recover before leisurely riding home again.

Lancaster PA is Amish Tourist Town!

Day 10: I bid a fond farewell to Jet, and start heading west again. I stop for a looksee at Valley Forge. I stop one last time in Lancaster PA for a slice of shoofly pie. I stop and spend a little more time in Gettysburgh, walking around on Little Round Top which we had hurried through on Saturday. I also stop in Bedford PA to take pictures of a famous building in the shape of a coffee pot. Then I realise I've been farting around most of the day and I am not even going to get out of PA if I don't beat feet, so I hop down to the interstate and end up making it to Wheeling WV for the night, a stone's throw from Ohio.

Day 11: It's a haul-ass day. I-70 carries me to Warrenton MO, 50 miles west of St Louis. 600 miles. It is STILL hot and humid.

Sunset in Missouri, and we're gonna set off LOTS of fireworks

Day 12: Today is the 4th of July, and I arrive at my sister's house in Warrensburg MO before noon, where we promptly go out and buy a massive amount of fireworks, and set 'em off that evening. Artillery is fun :)

Hey, go check out my sister's blog - she has a great writeup of my visit (much more detail than my lightning recap here, and more photos!)

Last chance for Guber Burgers.

Day 13: My one day off the bike. The family heads down to the Ozarks for a cave tour and a little sightseeing. One of my fondest wishes, to have a Guber Burger at the Wheel Inn before they close for good, is fulfilled. What? You've never heard of the Guber Burger? It's a burger topped with peanut butter, a surprisingly good combo. The Guber Burger has now passed into history as great road food sacrificed to the gods of progress, as the Wheel Inn was closed forever. Hwys 50 and 65 in Sedalia MO are being widened.

Day 14: Sadly I have to head on home to get back to work next Monday, so around midday I say goodbye to my sister & family, then haul ass west, making it to Limon CO an hour after full dark.

The hazy, hazy skies in Utah were my first tipoff something was wrong.

Day 15: I head through Denver and cross the Rockies via I-70. I get caught in the mess where the Utah brushfire has closed the interstates; they take us off and send us southbound on Hwy 89, which would be a lovely two-lane highway except for all the interstate traffic on it. Yuck! It's horribly smoky and I ride with a wetted-down handkerchief tied across my mouth and nose, which at least keeps the flying ashes out of my lungs. At last we are allowed back on to I-15 and I get as far as St George UT before getting a room for the night.

Day 16: On the road at sunup, trying to beat the worst of the killerheat across the desert. As it warms up I end up taking two water breaks for every gas stop, but it's working and holding the heatstroke at bay :) I roll into my driveway around 2 pm.

6621 miles and one helluva trip! So, where should I head next? ;)

Respectfully submitted,
Boo

She's here!!!

2007-06-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Followup to the bad carb

2007-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

After disassembling the wee beastie's carburetor, I'm afraid her days are numbered. I cleaned out the jets (which were a little gummed up, but not too bad) and probably should have replaced the float, but didn't have the part available. She's running a little better, but still stumbling when accelerating from a full stop. This has me a bit worried with my next cross-country trip approaching. It is really gonna SUCK if I have to stop every hundred miles between here and Pennsylvania and spray carb cleaner into her throat. Besides, it's time and then some that I "move up" to a bigger engine ... most folks consider a 600cc machine too small for touring, and while I revel in my status as the grrl who rides the little bike impossibly far, it probably will be more comfortable on a larger machine.

So, I am pulling the trigger. Ever since running the Iron Butt with Joker, I've had a bee in my bonnet about the Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad, a 1600cc beast. Today after work, I dropped by Burbank Kawasaki with a price quote from another SoCal dealer in hand, and whaddaya know, they beat it by $400. I take delivery of a jet-black 2006 Nomad, zero miles on the odometer, on Friday.

Now I just gotta get the run-in done before heading back east. :)

WWF Williams AZ

2007-05-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Just returned from WildWestFest, the RSBS Raven Clan's annual do. The location this year was Williams AZ, next to the Grand Canyon and surrounded by some of the state's finest riding. I had originally planned to be in Arizona from Thursday through Sunday; however, starting a new job at Kaiser cut short my vacation plans and I rode out to Williams on Friday instead. It was great to see my pals, some of whom I only see once or twice a year, and spend some time talking about everything and nothing over the requisite margaritas.

On Saturday, I ended up on my own. A lot of folks had done a Grand Canyon ride the day before and were heading south to the Sedona area. I sort of had my heart set on the South Rim, so that's where I went, riding solo. It was a MARVELOUS time. The weather could not have been finer, and I happily cruised Hwy 64, mainlining the heady scent of pinon pines warming in the sun. I stopped for photos. I stopped for a Navajo taco at a roadside stand. I stopped to take in the magnificence of this part of the country, and it couldn't have been a more wonderful day.

Jen and I rode home together on Sunday, and the bike is behaving badly. She'll stumble badly from a stop, especially if she's been running at high speeds for a while. This makes offramps quite challenging. I'll have to take apart the carburetor to see what the problem is.

The Iron Butt Ride Report

2007-04-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, the Iron Butt Association is a group of long distance riders, who offer a number of ride certifications. The "beginner" Iron Butt ride is the Saddle Sore 1000, which is 1000 miles in 24 hours. Certification means you rode the ride, completed the documentation, sent it in, and it was verified by the IBA. In return, you get a nice patch, pin, and/or license plate frame, plus bragging rights. The IBA has pretty strict requirements. By design, it's not exactly easy to get an IBA certification. This is the tale of my first SS1000 attempt.

I spend Friday night at Joker's house (and they made me a fabulous dinner, for which I haven't thanked them profusely enough) and we agree to get up early and be on the road by 5:30 am. We're off to bed at a reasonably early hour.

Morning arrives, the alarm goes off. I hop into my riding gear, check all the last minute things that need to be checked, and we're off! We even get out by the time we wanted. By the time we get to the Coachella Shell station and tank up, the receipt reads 5:37 AM. Now, the clock is ticking. We turn onto I-10 eastbound. The sun will rise in less than an hour, and the deep purple sky on the eastern horizon drains imperceptibly of color until it's a bleached white, and then the gold and red tones of dawn greet our east-turned faces. It's not too terribly cold (I am not wearing every single layer possible, but close) and the wind, which can be fierce out here, has remained calm for us. A good start to our long day of riding!

Our first stop is just across the Arizona border, where gas is about forty cents cheaper than California. We whip in and out of that station so fast, you'd think it was a NASCAR race or something :) We're both feeling eager to pile on the miles, so early in the day! (The receipt has no timestamp on it; I think we get out around 7:15.)

The next gas station, we finally stop for a little breather and a bite to eat. Gas is at 8:30, and then it's breaktime. Neither Joker or I like to eat a big breakfast, so we set out without a meal, and I'm now snacking on powerbars and getting some caffeine in. I must admit that I am a coffee addict and will get a wicked caffeine headache if I don't get my daily allotment. Here, in Tonopah, we blow a lot of time standing around, but I am not worried. I have pretty meticulously charted this run, we're stopping for gas every 100 miles (a little bit of overkill, but it's a better-safe-than-sorry strategy in case of headwinds) and I've built a fair amount of farting-around time into our schedule and a big cushion at the end, in case anyone needs to take a nap somewhere along the trip. We eat into our nap time a little bit, which is no big deal.

Joker takes over the lead (I've been riding lead so far on this trip) and she sets a good comfortable pace. Her speedo is broken and she doesn't know how fast she is going, which is much less of a problem than you'd imagine. (If everyone is passing you, go faster. If you are passing everyone, go slower. That's about it, LOL.) Her bike is much larger than mine so if she forgets and twists the throttle she can leave me in the dust, and she pulls away from me a couple of times, and backs off a bit when she notices that I've fallen back a little. After a time, she gets the feel of the pace and my keep-up speed, and then that doesn't happen too much any more. We will trade off the lead position for the rest of the day, divvying up the work.

I've been warned there are road closures on I-10 in Phoenix, and sure enough the big electric signs are warning of dire consequences if we don't take the cutoff route, so we abandon all hope of going through Phoenix and take the Gila Bend detour. AZ Hwy 85 takes us south to I-8 east, which rejoins I-10 in Casa Grande on the other side of Phoenix. Here we stop for gas at 11:20 (at a stupid Exxon where four out of eight pumps were marked "out of service") and find ourselves fighting some traffic when we get back on the road. The corridor between Phoenix and Tucson is always bad, it seems, I guess it's just too many cars and too few lanes. It's not terrible but enough to keep us alert, for the cagers are driving city-aggressive instead of open-road-laidback, changing lanes frequently and tailgating and trying to pass on the right and all that nonsense. It doesn't really clear up until past Tucson, when suddenly there are few cars and we can relax.

Next gas stop, at 13:10, is Benson AZ (this is the part of Arizona where Bisbee and Tombstone are located.) A few miles later, as tempting as it is to stop and visit THE THING?, we press on and head into New Mexico. Our turnaround is twenty miles across the border, and we really need to stop and have a decent meal. We've only been snacking so far today.

We pull into Lordsburg NM around 14:55, get a Subway sandwich and have our first long sit-down of the day. It is oh-too-easy to not eat on the road, and we probably waited one stop too long to get a real meal, 'cause we'd both started fading a bit. I take the time to text Stormy to let her know we've reached the halfway point. Once fed, we both are feeling pretty good. We've come a smidge over 500 miles, which is how far I travel on a typical summer vacation day. Not today, though. I'm not feeling too tired or sore yet, but I can feel it coming soon.

Now, we turn around and come back, hitting all the same towns for gas along the way. Benson 17:15, Casa Grande 19:05. Here the sun has gone down and we'll be finishing the last 300 miles of the run in the dark, which is sort of a scary thing. We reduce our speed by another notch and keep a sharp lookout for critters. I do see what I think is a coyote on the shoulder of I-8, but we flash by so quickly it's hard to know if I'm right. Joker is leading, and she takes us through the Gila Bend detour. Coming from this direction, it's the most confusing road even in daylight, and it's only worse in complete darkness, confusing signs that are hard to read, and poorly painted lane markings. Thankfully I've been through here before and also she is paying attention to where I am pointing for her to go. We make it through and roll into the Tonopah station around 21:10.

Now, with only 200 miles to go, each leg is getting a little slower and each break is getting a little longer. My hands, wrists and shoulders are really starting to ache, especially on my throttle hand. I take my last turn at the lead, and steadily roll through the western Arizona desert, which is spectacularly dark and empty. No moon; it'll rise after we finish tonight as only a waning sliver. A few miles outside of Quartzsite AZ, a coyote runs out on the road in front of me, then retreats to the shoulder as I begin to swerve. The jolt of adrenaline is huge, but thankfully it's not a close call at all. I am very happy that we have seen no deer (the bane of motorcyclists.)

Gas at the AZ-CA border around 23:10, and Joker leads us on the last 100-mile leg home. We are both awfully tired and just want the thing to be over already, and the end is almost in sight! We finally hit a little bit of the weather that we've luckily avoided all day ... suddenly winds kick up, and we get a little spatter of rain with under 50 miles to go. We slow WAY down for that. An electric sign warns of high winds and low visibility ahead. Thank goodness our destination is right where the interstate comes down out of the mountains and onto the valley floor; we're going to miss the blowing sand that plagues the entire Palm Springs area some days. I am quite happy when the lights of the valley come into view, it's just the final roll down the hill now and off at the first exit, pull into the Shell station where we started this ride so long ago, and we officially stop the clock with one final gas receipt that reads 1:20 AM. Mission accomplished! We've completed our IronButt run in under 20 hours, and both of us were tired but not zombie-heads at the end.

I'd do it again :) just not two days in a row, not yet. I think I need to do a little training before taking that on, or at the very least get a throttle lock to give my poor right hand a break!

Femmoto

2006-10-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Femmoto, a women's-only track/demo day out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. What a BLAST! This was really my first chance to seriously try out a sports bike (well, Sparky did let me take her Honda around the block once, but I barely got out of first gear.)

Femmoto invites a bunch of different manufacturers to the track - then you sign up ("fill out your dance card") and go 'round the track on up to five different machines. Each trial lasts, oh, four or five laps around the Classic course, which is the LVMS road course.

My first bike was a Ducati and I did NOT get along with it at ALL. Perfectly fine bike but the ergos were exactly wrong for me, and I hated it. Second bike was a 250cc Buell Blast which was akin to buzzing around on a lawnmower, and pretty laughable. But then ...

I took a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R out and fell in LOVE. Now THIS is the experience I was looking for at Femmoto! I started to get the hang of how one hangs one's butt off the seat to set up the corner and that's when the day got REALLY fun. I am still far far far from good at riding that type of bike but started to feel the rhythm and flow and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I also tried out a Ninja 650 which has a much more upright riding position than the ZX-6R. Nice, not exactly my cup of tea. Then, for my fifth ride I was signed up to ride another Buell, but ditched it to instead swipe another ride on the ZX-6R (you're not supposed to ride the same bike twice, but no one checks that carefully) because it was just that much FUN.

If I had a spare $8K I'd love one of those green babies in my garage :)

Blue-Green belt test - Oy

2006-08-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

The results first: I passed. Yay!
It was tough.

There were a LOT fewer people at this test than my last one - I guess August isn't a popular month for promotions! USSD tests the purple, blue, blue-green stripe, and green belts together at headquarters (everyone works out together for the first half hour or so, then the higher level belts split off and use the smaller room and the purple and blues use the big room.) As a blue belt, testing for blue/green-stripe, I'm a lower-rank in this group. There were maybe eighteen or twenty blues, and twenty-five or thirty purples. Quite small compared to some tests. It was shorter, too, because of the fewer people ... only four and a half hours this time.

Master Taylor, highest-ranked guy in the dojo and the Head Of All Instruction dude, was in a cranky mood today. Oh, it's very very very bad when the Chief High God Instructor is cranky. He decided early on that everyone's side kicks were crappy. (Well, they were.) So he has us drag out the folding chairs for his favorite excruciating drill - throwing a well-formed and well-aimed side blade kick over the back of the chair. It's easy to do once. It's hard to do a hundred times, especially when you come under the Master's watchful eye, 'cause it really starts to hurt.

After that, it was on to forms. We performed our katas and pinyans a bunch of times and got graded on them. Y'know, I just realised I never did pinyan 3 today! They never asked for that one. Well, that's OK, it's not my favorite ;)

Then we paired off and did our defensive manuvers. I got paired off with a nice older gentleman named Walt ... seriously, this guy was 65 years old, so I smacked a little old man around for a while today! Hee. That was different.

Next we did a gauntlet drill - moving down the line and blocking/counterstriking versus attack after attack after attack. The gauntlet line was about twenty people long. I forget how many times I went through; ten or more. Eeee, that really redlines the ol' heartrate by the time you get to the end of the line, I had a major stitch in my side. Thankfully, after the gauntlet, we all lined up at attention and Master Diaz had a little two or three minute lecture for us, so I had a moment to catch my breath.

Then, the instructors holler "go put on your sparring gear" and this is the point where you know you're in the homestretch, but the worst bit is right in front of you. They save sparring for last, wanting you to be tired so they can see if your technique falls apart (it usually does.) There was only one other woman at blue belt level, so we knew we would fight each other. We had to wait until the very end for it - we were the very last pair called out. Oy. I was critiqued as being too aggressive; all attack and no defense. This will surprise my sensei when he hears about it. He usually can't get me to go on the offensive enough. I need to work a LOT on this area; probably my worst part right now.

Then, finally, blessedly, we're done. They have us all kneel, talk at us a little more, and award us our belts. As always, the new belt is strange and stiff and hard to put on. It takes months of work and sweat to break them in and make them comfortable, and now I start that process with the blue-green.

2006 Day 15

2006-07-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

One last day to roll home. I've traversed these parts of Arizona and California enough that they have become familiar, and today I am prepared for the daylong heat of the eastern Cali desert. Yes I am lovin' this coolvest. I pull in mid-afternoon, glad to be safe and home. The aw-shucks sadness of the end of long road trip is easily assuaged by dreaming of the next ride. :)

2006 Day 14

2006-07-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

More I-40 westbound. Most of northern New Mexico is at a little bit of altitude so the summer heat is pretty bearable. I sort of think I am going to get as far as Williams or Ash Fork, but it's dusk approaching nightfall as I roll into Flagstaff AZ, and I opt to stop for the night. Even though the hotels are pricey, I'd rather pay a little extra than risk riding in elk country during crittertime.

There is a HUGE traffic jam in the opposite lanes right outside of Flagstaff, and I never do figure out what's going on. People are getting out of their cars so it must be a dead stop, all lanes shut down. I find a room quickly and check in before they can come back and snap up all the vacancies! LOL

Next: Day Fifteen

2006 Day 13

2006-07-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Westbound on I-40 for miles and miles and miles is pretty boring, but that's how I'm going home (this is what I get for choosing to go home in four days instead of five.) Stormy and I start off decently early, and reach El Reno OK by early afternoon, which is where we part company. Then, I hit the road and just keep going until the sun's going down and I reach Tucumcari NM. Long day.

Next: Day Fourteen

2006 Day 12

2006-07-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

Time to saddle up and head home. Stormy and I will ride together as far as Oklahoma, which will be a nice jaunt ... she and I ride well together. It's an uneventful day, just makin' miles westbound, and the rain is off and on but never heavy. I cover my T-bag with the rain fly, but don't bungee it down, and discover that if a loose rain fly flaps in the wind for a few hours, it'll tear itself to shreds like a flag in a hurricane. I borrow a bungee from Storm to correct it, but too late, the damage is done. Then, at the penultimate stop of the day, I forget to re-hook one end of the bungee after getting into my bags, with the predictable result of a bungee dangling from the sissy bar will get itself wound up in the rear wheel. We arrive at a hotel outside of Little Rock and I find the rear axle tightly wound up in what's left of the red elastic. Jeeeeez. Thankfully the only damage has been to the bungee itself, which has been dismembered and shredded. Coulda been much worse, I got lucky on that one. It takes a little time to get the remains out of the wheel. Jokes ensue about rubber-band-powered Hondas. ;)

Next: Day Thirteen

2006 Day 11

2006-07-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

No big riding today, just a little local Pigeon Forge shopping with the gals. Amazon business today. There is celebration in the evening as Lisa becomes our newest Sister - welcome Nemo!

Next: Day Twelve

2006 Day 10

2006-07-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

Head down to Chattanooga today, to see the Chickamauga battlefield. Stormy and Joker accompany me. The battle site itself is sprawling; part of the road follows the Union entrenched line and the Confederate soldier ghosts charge out of the woods on my left, in my imagination. We run out of time (I would have liked to dwell a while on Lookout Mountain) when the weather starts to threaten quite severely. Here comes the thunder.

Somehow I've gotten turned around - usually I'm a good navigator, but the mountains have confused me - and I lead the gals in the wrong direction, and even get on I-75 heading the wrong way. Takes me three exits to realise my mistake, and we turn around, only to head into a dark-looking storm filled with streaks of crackling lightning. In less than 10 miles I pull us off again, in a Circle-K parking lot, to discuss what we collectively want to do. We vote to don our raingear and go on. Looks like we're gonna get hella wet.

The downpour really comes when we are navigating the hairiest part of Chattanooga proper - I-75 merges with I-24, and trucks are changing lanes, and lanes are appearing and disappearing. Visibility is cut to almost nil, with the driving rain and the spray from the tires. I ride with my visor open and my glasses down on my nose, which is the best I can do and still I can see almost nothing. This is some of the scariest riding I've ever done, and lookit here, now a truck is coming over into my lane. My options are: a) stay where I am and get squashed, b) nail the throttle & try to get out of the way, or c) brake hard and risk a wreck from behind. I choose acceleration. Stormy goes with me, Joker can't, and we lose her in the traffic & zero visibility. I just want the hell OUTTA HERE and apparently Stormy feels the same way, she signals me to exit. Unfortunately the next offramp is a big swoopy curving one so Joker won't be able to see us getting off the road. Ah shit. There's a BP a half a block up and that's where Stormy and I take cover. This rain is so bad, the CARS are pulling off. We end up waiting for half an hour for the rain to slack.

Turns out Joker rode it out, and got out of the rain after ten miles or so. She is pissed at me for losing her, and I feel bad, but honestly don't know what else I could have done. Sometimes, all the choices suck.

I'm more happy than I can possibly express that everyone has made it back safe and sound.

On our way back, finally out of the rain, Stormy and I stop for fireworks at a local pyrotechnic stand. (My favorite? A 16-load combo box named "One Bad Mother.") We have LOTS of fun setting them off for the 'Zons after dark, while also trying to evade the security guard who has come to stop us. Hee hee hee.

Next: Day Eleven

2006 Day 9

2006-07-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

A bunch of us decide to go ride Hwy 129, the Tail of the Dragon, so we head out in the morning. We get a little lost on the way; wait, do I turn right or left to stay on 73? The sign says both!! (Tennessee roads can be notoriously confusing.) We eventually locate the Foothills Parkway, which leads us to the overlook. We stop for photos, then ride the 11 twisty miles down to the resort. Man, the burgers at the Gap always taste so good. It's only later that we find out that Stormy didn't know she'd been on the Dragon ... she was worrying if the road was this winding, how bad was the Dragon gonna be? LOL

We buy shirts, stickers, souvenirs to commemorate our Dragonslayer status, and then head back to Pigeon Forge via the Cherohala and Tellico Plains. Stormy's had enough of twisties (she's not feeling too hot) and opts against returning the way we came. No problem; this longer route ends up being a little faster anyway.

Next: Day Ten

2006 Day 8

2006-07-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Leaving Athens, the Amazons travel up through the Smokies to reach our rental cabin digs in Pigeon Forge TN. The scenery is beautiful (oh, how I love Tennessee) but the traffic is HIDEOUS, especially through the town of Cherokee, which is having their annual tribal thing. Small-town traffic jams can be the worst; they take forever to clear out.

The traffic in Pigeon Forge itself is no better. The main drag is choked for miles. We are exhausted by the time we reach the bbq restaurant to chow down, and then head up the hill to the cabin, a road that is QUITE intimidating.

Next: Day Nine

2006 Day 7

2006-07-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Today, I take the wee beastie off to Athens Cycle for needed service while the rest of the Amazons head off to the AMA Women In Motorcycling conference. I don't get to the convention center until mid-afternoon, pretty much all I have time to do is look around for a bit and meet up with a few friends who are here.

Next: Day Eight

2006 Day 6

2006-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

Today takes us through Atlanta, with terrible heat, humidity and traffic. We get caught in a traffic jam that rivals any found in Los Angeles, and must pull off and take a shade break to fend off heatstroke. Stormy takes off her hearing aids and naps on the side of the road; we are jealous ;)

Late afternoon we reach Athens, our destination. Most of the Amazons are already there. The celebration & conversation goes late into the night ... the Gathering has begun!

Next: Day Seven

2006 Day 5

2006-06-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

The four of us hit the road early, looking to make good miles on the interstate today. The farther we travel today, the shorter tomorrow will be, in Atlanta and north Georgia traffic, which is our goal.

Crossing the Mississippi at Vicksburg, I get chills. The Civil War buff in me sees those high cliffs, and know their meaning.

We fall into a good traveling rythym, but Marti is the first to tire out with a few hours of daylight left. Carrie, Dana and I convince her to go a little farther, but she insists on taking a longish break first (the smart thing to do, safety-wise, and she is correct to do so) and we cool our heels in a gas station/deli in eastern Mississippi. It's a reminder to me to not be so darn impatient, since when we do finish our day and stop at a decent hotel in Livingston AL, we've made plenty of miles and we are on schedule. Marti is pleased ... it's her longest day ever and she is kinda proud of herself.

We eat dinner at a tiny truck stop with genuine home cooking (but they are out of half the things on the menu) & a waitress who is amazed and admirous of ladies traveling cross-country on motorcycles. She thought we were the coolest things to come thru her diner in a while ;)

Next: Day Six

2006 Day 4

2006-06-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

From Lubbock, Marti and I head down to the Dallas-Ft Worth area, to meet up with sister Storm in Arlington. It's a lovely day riding through splendid Texas countryside - US 84 to US 180, and we have a nice time meandering through the hill country. Stormy meets us in Mineral Springs & she takes us through the metromess traffic, so we don't need to find our way to her house, a relief!

Sister Joker, who needed to leave days later than I did, has been playing catchup with us and rode two days from Indio to Dallas, a hefty bit of long-distance riding. She arrives late, safe and sound, and we all head off to bed. Four of us now, and two more days to get to our destination in Athens GA.

Next: Day Five

2006 Day 3

2006-06-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

I get delayed in Roswell NM today while waiting to have a new rear tire put on. Someday I may learn to always get new rubber before a trip ... these delays are generally avoidable because I look at my tire before I leave, thinking "oh that'll make it to Athens" and then the tread starts looking way too thin when I am still a good long ways from my destination. D'oh.

Champion Motorsports in Roswell is strangely devoid of tschokes with aliens on 'em. Why? I was hoping to pick up gifts here, but only come away with a refrigerator magnet for my sister.

Heading eastbound once again, I come out of the mountains and into the flat plains that start here in east New Mexico/west Texas. Yes, it's flat, and open, and a whole lotta nothing out here! I get into a long stretch of no towns & no gas stations, and realise it's going to be a close thing to make it to the next fuel pump on Hwy 380. Thankfully Brownfield TX comes into view (out here you can see the towns from ten miles away or more) but the wee beastie's engine sputters to a halt about two miles outside the city limits. Today I am prepared ... it would have been a bummer to have to walk those two hot miles, but I am carrying 30 oz of gasoline in a campstove fuel bottle and that's plenty to get me into town. Hooray! I really hate running out of gas ;)

Tonight's stop is in Lubbock TX, where I am meeting Marti. I have great difficulty finding the hotel and make three literal circles around the area before I find the right one-way road to get me there.

Next: Day Four

2006 Day 2

2006-06-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

So today, heading back east, I am getting off the interstate because ... well, because interstates are boring. I ride around the Painted Desert and then head through Arizona via hwy 60. There's a Madonna of the Trail in Springerville AZ, good photo op! Next, it's into New Mexico and up into mountains, where I get rained on pretty good in the interestingly-named Pie Town NM. Coming down out of the storm, I find myself looking at the Very Large Array on the great desert plateau. Stopping point for the night is Socorro NM. This is very pretty country through here.

Next: Day Three

2006 Day 1

2006-06-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

Off on another trip cross country - I am heading for Athens GA and the AMA Women in Motorcycling event, and the Amazon gathering in Pigeon Forge TN. I ride as far as Flagstaff today, my usual stopping point on the I-40 route. Nothing particularly eventful, which is fine.

This is the maiden run for my new cool vest (an evaporative cooling system I got from ridecool.com) and it is WONDERFUL. In fact I do believe it saved my life today. It was 115° when I went through Needles CA midday and that's killin' heat, but I never had to stop and never got fuzzy-headed (my first manifestation of heatstroke.) I must have drunk two gallons of water today, or more. That's the desert for ya.

Next: Day Two

Joker is an Amazon

2006-06-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day for riding around Big Bear in beautiful weather, and oh yeah, the best part of all ... Joker's initiation. Welcome to the Sisterhood. :)

WWF in Henderson NV

2006-05-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Raven Clan of the Rumble Sisters held their annual Wild West Fest this weekend in Henderson NV. (Californians, the Mountain Lion clan, always crash their party, and they come to our Meet In The Middle event in October.) Whew, was it hot! Temps are way up early this year. The thermometer in Baker CA was standing at 108° when I passed through on Friday. I gotta get me one of those cool vests for traveling this summer.

I did a little riding around Hoover Dam - wanted to make the loop around Lake Mead Nat'l Park but the road is under construction, and stripped down to gravel and dirt for miles at a time. No thank you! I'll come back and visit when the road is complete.

The WWF had a great turnout this year, and we even had a few special guests - Jo came all the way from Canada, and Ice and Suz flew in from Virginia! Our desert heat and lack of humidity just about KILLED them. They turned their rented bikes in after one day, 'cause conditions were just a bit too extreme for them. Smart girls. It is infinitely better to hang out by the pool than to try to ride in heat you can't handle.

It was great to see everyone again, and ride safe sisters!

Quake wins first home game of 2006

2006-05-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

This year I am prowling the sidelines as an official photographer for the California Quake. Check out the photos.

The Quake won the game, 59-6, over the Tucson Monsoon, a new team in the IWFL. Tuscon looks like they will have some good talent once they get past their raw newbie jitters. Their quarterback, Vanessa Rodriguez, has a hell of an arm. Look for the Monsoon to improve before the end of the year.

My newest sister Stork

2006-04-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Flagstaff AZ, where we welcomed our newest sister Stork into the Amazons. The weekend was wonderful, but the bike is running like hell. Headwinds killed my mileage and I ran out of gas not once but twice on I-40. That's what I get for being stubborn about thinking I can make it to Seligman, LOL (under perfect conditions I can go from Needles to Seligman without stopping. How often are conditions perfect??)

The wee beastie needs a new clutch. It's starting to slip more and more. Also, this is the first time I've taken her to high altitude since rejetting and performance in the mountains is MUCH worse now. Gotta get these kinks ironed out before the trip to Georgia.

Blue Belt

2005-12-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today was my first USSD headquarters test - I passed and now hold the rank of Blue belt.

At United Studios, all rank tests of blue and above for SoCal students are held at the school's HQ in Lake Forest CA, down in south Orange County. Master Taylor presides there, and it is serious business. In addition to the respect we give him for his rank, he has the sort of voice where if he snaps out an order, you can't help but jump to attention at the sound of it.

Headquarters tests are large. There were, I don't know, sixty? seventy? eighty? students there. There were quite a few more of the purple and blue belts (who are testing for blue and blue/green stripe, respectively) than the blue/green and green belts (who are testing for green and green/brown stripe.) As one of the low ranks in this crowd of students, my place is the back of the room, but of course I couldn't hide out there. The various masters who run portions of the test will unerringly spot slackers and then there's hell to pay ;)

Everyone worked out together for a while, then the greens and blue/greens split off to do their thing in the small room, we blues and purples kept the large room and now have room to do our forms. When I get called up to do my katas, I am in an unlucky position next to one of Master Taylor's fu dogs (impressive Chinese statuary) and he's rather protective of them. Oh great, now he's gonna be watching me extra-close and I'm gonna have to make sure the spear-hand poke in Kata 2 doesn't hit the statue and break my fingers, LOL. I make it through without damage to myself or the fu dog.

Five hours later, the test was over, and I had passed. I am now one step closer to my goal of black belt, a goal that is going to take a long long time to accomplish. I think I've gotten to the part where these tests are harder than two-a-days in football. Whew.

Winter Tournament

2005-12-04T19:15:00.000-08:00

Much to my surprise, I won a trophy at the USSD tournament! I took 2nd place in Sr Women's Sparring, Purple Belt division.

I am pretty resigned that I'm never going to be a star student in karate - my mobility problems, my age, my lack of speed and general klutziness mean I'll always be sort of a plodder, and I measure excellence personally, not against others.

However, I got a little lucky at this tournament, and won an early match in my sparring division, and ended up with a pretty easy path into the finals. (Matchups are not exactly random, they try to pair you up by size in the early rounds.) Then, somehow all the work and drills and practice I've been doing has finally sank in, and I remembered to move my feet like my sensei always tells me (and tells me, and tells me, and tells me ...) I fnally lost the final match to a quick little thing, since I was tiring by the end of the rounds by now, and took second.

2nd place, how about that. It's a pretty damn cool trophy too :)

Jetting the wee beastie

2005-11-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

I got my scoot back in the middle of last week, she's running well & all fixed up from the balls-up job I made of my last wrenching attempt. So what do I do this weekend? Start taking her apart again ;)

Before you say I am just a glutton for punishment, I'll tell you how this got started. The kill switch had gone bad & needed to be replaced. I don't trust part of the electrical system that isn't behaving predictably. While it never died on me while running, sometimes it wouldn't start up without a bunch of jiggling, and it usually wouldn't stop the engine so I have been using the kickstand to kill it when I stop.

The shop would have charged me yet more labor (at $85/hr) to install it while they were doing all that other work. By now I was into them for so much I said, no thank you, just order the new handlebar switch for me & I'll install it myself.

So Saturday morning I drag out my tools, my manual, and the shiny new part, and get to work. It's fairly easy to replace the handlebar switch ... except that you need to remove the throttle cables. And in order to remove the throttle cables, you must first loosen them (a lot) at the "major adjustment" points, which is at the carburetor. And in order to reach THOSE, you must remove the entire airbox assembly & pretty much lay the carburetor bare. After that, installing the switch went easily.

Here I am, looking at the carburetor, thinking, "y'know, it's just a clamp & three hose connections to get this thing off of here." So I decide to remove the carburetor & go ahead and do the jetting.

I am pleased to report it went well. In case you did not know, you can take the carb off the engine, bring it in to the living room, and watch football on TV and drink iced tea while working on it. Cats do not like carburetors and will avoid them ... it's probably the smell. Loosening the tiny little screws that hold the vacuum chamber cover and the float cover without stripping them is a challenge. Also, no matter how well you think you've drained the float bowl, there's still gas in there & you WILL spill it on yourself (or possibly your living room table) eventually. This is why you are never supposed to smoke while working on a carburetor. I am glad I knew this in advance.

I installed the new needle, the new main jet, adjusted the pilot screw, and put everything back together successfully. Put the carb back on the bike (those three hose lines are a b**** to reinstall, Honda crams a lot of stuff in a very small space) and got the throttle cables adjusted right. Put the airbox back on, which is more tedious than complicated, since it breaks into five separate parts. Put the tank on, and a new clamp for the fuel line, the old one is just about shot. Put the seat back on, and I always have a hell of a time getting those screws to thread, it's the one really badly designed thing on the bike. Finally, pop the neck covers & the mirror back on, and she's good to go. It's well past dark by the time I finish all this, so I don't take her for a test ride, but she fires up, idles well, and sounds good when I crack open the throttle in the driveway.

Sunday morning I check the garage floor under her and there are no new leaks, so that's a good sign. Pre-ride check, fire her up, and take her on a nice long shakedown ride.

She runs perfectly! I'm now running a stock size main jet (125) with a Dynojet needle set on the third groove, and the pilot screw out 2-1/2 turns, for those who want details. There's a small but noticable difference in the throttle response from about 1/4 throttle up. She travels well at freeway speeds again (70-75mph for me.) She got up to 80mph without too much effort.

The test ride was one of those where I set off down the road and forgot to turn around for a few hours, so I ended up going 250 miles & getting back after dark again. Damn, it got cold, and I didn't bring my chaps because I didn't think I'd be out that late. ;)

2005 Day 21

2005-07-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Coleville CA (37574)
End: Sherman Oaks CA (37959)
Miles: 385
Total miles for trip: 6597

We are up darn early and out the door, hitting the road before 7 am. Hwy 395 climbs into the Sierra Mountains from here, and the morning is quite chilly as we ascend. The two major passes on this part of the road, Devil's Gate and Conway Summits, are at 7519 and 8138 feet, respectively. Brrr. We stop for gas at the town of Lee Vining CA, and the gas prices are so eye-poppingly jacked up that Jen takes a picture of the sign. $3.19 for regular. Egads! Well, you just gotta pay the prices you find sometimes. We hang out at the station for a little while to warm up, drink a cup of hot chocolate, and enjoy the spectacular view. Lee Vining sits up on a plateau with a magnificent vista of Mono Lake.

Continuing on, we pass through more beautiful California mountain country, which is all national forestland until we get to Bishop. (The next two passes, Deadman and Sherwin Summits, are at 8041 and 7000 ft. Still brrr.) After that, it's just a long straight shot down the Owens Valley. We warm up, and click off the miles.

South of Ridgecrest CA, just as we're entering Red Rock Canyon State Park, we pass a guy in a loaded pickup and then move back into the right lane in front of him. He doesn't like this, so he floors it and passes us, pulling in front of me too close. Whadda jerk. I don't like the look of it, so I throttle back to put space between him and us, and seconds later I am glad I did. Sure enough, the load in the back shifts (there can be lots of crosswinds in this area) and I see a large Hefty bag filled with who-knows-what gracefully lift up, then catch the airstream and come flying out of the back of the truck straight as us. It hits the freeway and explodes, and suddenly Jen and I are playing dodge-'em with sneakers and clothing everywhere. Swerving practice does pay off, I'll assure you, and we both negotiate our way safely through the hazard. Just another day on the road, with drivers who don't realise the things they're doing are putting motorcyclist's lives in jeopardy. It's our reality, and we are always on the lookout for it.

That's the last of the adventurous moments, which is a fine thing when you're coming back home after a long trip. I drop Jen off in Acton and head on into the city, pulling into my driveway mid-afternoon. I spend ten minutes looking for my housekeys because I've forgotten which special pocket I stashed them in (saying to myself, 'now don't forget!') three weeks ago. It's good to be home. Ah, THERE are my keys!! LOL.

2005 Day 20

2005-07-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Boise ID (37070)
End: Coleville CA (37574)
Miles: 504

Time to head home! Jen and I saddle up and head out early, wanting to make good miles. We have about 900 miles back to Los Angeles, and I am looking to make at least half of that today.

Here's the thing. I really like traveling with Jen; she and I ride together well and we get along famously, in spite of (or maybe because of) the fact that we couldn't be more opposite in many many things. It's a boon to have a road pal who likes to ride the same speed you do, doesn't take too long or too short a time at gas stops, and who tells good stories at lunch and listens to your stories too :) That's my friend Jen. So, today's a long day with a good companion, headin' home. A pleasant set of circumstances!

Heading out of Boise, we pass the amusingly-named Chicken Dinner Road. Someone was telling us the story yesterday about how it got that name: back in the 1930's, a local (who wanted her poorly-maintained road improved) invited the governor to dinner. A chicken dinner, natch. And the governor returned the favor by getting the road paved the following week. Apparently, it's a true story.

Leaving the outskirts of Boise's satellite cities, we pick up US-95, which travels across the great empty spaces of eastern Oregon on the way to Nevada. There is a whole lotta nothing out here, and we mostly have the road to ourselves. I was warned that (a) Oregon's speed limit is 10 mph lower than Idaho's, and (b) the OR Hwy Patrol will be lying in wait for those who do not heed the posted limit. However, it's hard not to speed out here, with the wide-open empty highway rolling out in front of you. Sure enough, I am zipping along at 75 mph or more when I crest a small hill and spot the waiting cop car in its hidey-hole. Oh crap, he's got us dead to rights and we are SO nailed. However, by some small miracle he lets us pass, and I can hardly believe I don't see him in my rearview swinging onto the road and flipping on the lights. Throttle down, throttle down. I continually reminding myself to keep off the damn gas, at least until we get to Nevada.

Hwy 95 is the site of one other dramatic event, involving a motorcycle, and empty road and one small, stupid avian. I spot the stupid little bird hopping along the double yellow in front of me. Move it, I think, I don't want to run you over. Instead, the dumb thing just keeps hopping along the road. Hop, hop, hop. Mind you, this all happens in a second or two. The poor dumb thing realises far too late that perhaps it should fly away, and attempts to do so. It gets approximately three feet off the ground before coming into rapid and fatal contact with my remaining running lamp ... the thing wacks off my headlight, making a bigger splat that your average bug. Ai yi yi. The small critter kills always happen so fast that you can't do much about it, but they still make me feel bad. (Later, Jen tells me that she's never seen a bird explode QUITE that way before. She said it just disintegrated and all that was left was a bunch of feathers flying. Thus does my bike earn yet another new nickname: BirdStrike. Later still, when we stop for the night, when I unzip my duffle bag a single downy feather comes wafting out, causing Jen to fall into more fits of laughter. That was one DEAD birdie.)

We make it to Nevada without further incident, have lunch in Winnemuca NV, and spend the afternoon crossing the state. It's stark scenery for most of the way. We start approaching cities by late afternoon, and reach Reno around 4:00 pm, hitting rush-hour traffic. It stays that way pretty much through Carson City. We've made our 450 miles now and we start talking about where we want to stop for the night. Remember how I said Jen and I are opposites? Well, here's one thing where we are completely different: she prefers to have a destination and a hotel reservation at the end of the day, whereas I like to ride without a schedule, going until I don't feel like riding any more, and then find a place to stay. I've convinced her to try it my way on this trip. So, I decide that I'd like to get past the cities and traffic, and we both are feeling good to go a little farther, and there's still plenty of daylight left. I'll be on the lookout for hotels after we get a few more miles on the odo.

However, my no-schedule style comes back to bite me in the butt today. Pulling into hotels in Minden NV, and then in Gardnerville NV, no one has any vacancies. Apparently there is some major bike race in town and all the hotels are booked SOLID. There's nothing you can do but shrug and say, "Oh, well," but after the first couple of times it really starts to SUCK to put your helmet back on and head to the next town hoping for better luck. Now, we've gone all the way to Topaz Lake and I spot a brand spanking new Best Western with an empty parking lot - oh, they've gotta have a vacancy! Sure enough, they do ... their only available room is the honeymoon suite, at $175/night. Trust me, at this point we quite seriously considered taking it, but ultimately decide it's just a bit too pricey for us and we don't really want the teasing that would inevitably follow staying in the honeymoon suite, LOL. I say, "C'mon, just one more town. We'll find something."

The next spot is just over the border in Coleville CA, and I take a chance and pull into the lot of the Meadowcliff Lodge. This is a spectacular little old-style resort hotel nestled under a huge cliff on Hwy 395. What a beautiful setting. Might be OK pricewise, might be out of range, but now the sunlight is starting to run out and we are getting into mountains, where the long shadows might hide deer or other unpleasant road surprises. The room turns out to be $88 a night, a little more than I like to pay but certainly better than the honeymoon setup. We take it, settle in for the night, and have dinner at the restaurant on site, good home-cooking style. The extra miles today mean that much fewer tomorrow.

Next: Day Twenty-One

2005 Day 19

2005-07-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Lowman ID and the Idaho State Penitentary
Miles: 147

Jen and I feel like riding a little more distance today, and make a jaunt up to Lowman ID. State Rte 21 is a fine road through spectacular Idaho mountains, and we stop a couple of times to take in the views. The town of Lowman (and believe me, I'm being generous calling it that) is nothing but one rickety-looking outbuilding that may or may not have sold gas, and SERIOUSLY. We choose not to stop, 'cause it looked just a bit too weird. (Cue banjo music.) Instead, we have lunch at Idaho City, a little former mining camp that survives as a historic tourist town. We stop at Diamond Lil's Steakhouse and Saloon, which turns out to have a pretty decent burger. The friendly likeable waitress is offset by the drunken local guy who apparently does not posess the slightest ability to read body language and non-verbal cues, and cannot figure out on his own that the two biker chicks who just walked in are in fact NOT dying to talk to him. (I think the owner finally took him aside and told him to stop pestering us.) Lunch improves after that. :)

After lunch, there's a Lab lazing about on the sidewalk in front of our bikes, and Jen happily makes friends with him. She misses her three Labradors when she travels, and this dog is pleased to be today's stand-in. His name is Buddy, according to his tag.

On the way back, we stop and walk around the old Idaho State Penitentiary, which is actually pretty interesting. Jen's hubby just recently completed his training as a correctional officer and started working at a California facility a few weeks ago (which is why he's not on this trip.) She wants the joke look-at-me-I'm-behind-bars photos, and we horse around in the Criminal Women's wing, and stuff like that. Built in 1870, the Old Pen is typical of prisons of that era, which equated security with massive blocks of stone for construction. The main building and yard are hulking granite walls, brooding at the base of the mountains.

We return to the hotel mid-afternoon and there's more parking lot chatting and checking out bikes. There are some really pretty customs and mods here - these women love their rides. :) We're standing under some shade trees and I point out to Jen, "Hey, those women over there are checking out your bike." She replies, "No, I think they're checking out yours." We wander over because I am now dying of curiosity. Approaching, I call out, "Hey, I'm just wondering, out of all the bikes in this parking lot, why are you looking at the VLX?" And the woman replies with a straight face, "Well, from a distance we thought it was a custom glitter paint job, but when we got close, we saw it was just the bug splats." Jen just about falls on the ground laughing, and immediately bestows a new nickname to my bike: GlitterBug.

Next: Day Twenty

2005 Day 18

2005-07-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

In and around Boise ID
Miles: oh, about 40

Six of us take a short putt up to the Bogus Basin ski area above Boise, a nice little ride. However, today is mostly hanging out and chatting with the attendees of the WOW Ride-in. I do a little parking-lot wrenching on my bike, giving it a good once-over. In spite of the fact that it looks like hell, with headlamps falling off and whatnot and grimy from so many days on the road, the wee beastie is running well. Jen has taken to calling it the Alien Bike, due to the crazy cockeyed look of the missing headlight and the exposed wires.

Next: Day Nineteen

2005 Day 17

2005-07-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Arco ID (36672)
End: Boise ID (36882)
Miles: 210

Today is a short day. I take Hwy 20 across the stark and empty parts of Idaho. The Craters Of The Moon National Monument is well named, the black lava rocks appearing to support no living being, until you take a closer look. Only the two-lane ribbon of road divides the featureless hillocks and horizon in two.

Eventually I reach Interstate 84, and turn back northwest, and the empty spaces give way to small towns give way to city outskirts, and then I am in Boise, which is large enough to get lost in. I have no idea what's the address of the hotel, but remember it's close to the river. I had looked it up on a map before leaving home. Somehow that's enough to find it :)

I know hardly anyone here at the WOW Ride-In. I'm rooming with Jen (who shows up a few hours after I do) and Blue's here, so at least I'm not totally on my own, LOL. Blue graciously lets me stash my stuff in her room, and use her shower to clean up. There is nothing quite so satisfying as taking a nice hot shower & putting on clean clothes when you know you're going to be off the road for a little while.

Next: Day Eighteen

2005 Day 16

2005-07-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Gardiner MT (36345)
End: Arco ID (36672)
Miles: 327

I dress in full leathers again this morning, still pleasantly surprised at the northern chill in the air here. I guess I got used to how stifling the South is in summertime.

I re-enter Yellowstone, determined to explore the geothermals that I didn't have time to see yesterday. It is a perfect day for sightseeing. The weather is lovely, it's the Fourth of July, and I have a map, a good road, a full tank of gas, and one of the gems of America in front of me. Life does not get much better than this.

First, I stop at the post office to drop off postcards for my family, earning them a genuine Yellowstone postmark. :) Then, the first big stop in the north part of the park is Mammoth Hot Springs, where I walk around for a while, admiring the spectacular colors and the sheer size! Steaming water cascades down the terraced cliffs, really an amazing sight. The air reeks of sulphur, and the yellows, blues and reds sparkle in the morning sun.

I head on down the road, stopping next at Roaring Mountain. Here, the entire side of a largish hill is covered with fumaroles and vents and steamholes, and there used to be so much geothermal activity here it gave the mountain its colorful name. It died off twenty or so years ago, when a lot of geysers changed their behavior patterns. Geologists suspect that some event happened deep underground that shifted stuff around in ways they do not yet understand. The cauldera lives, but Roaring Mountain no longer roars, just quietly steams. Water trickles out of numerous vents on the hillside and collects in a streamlet next to the road. I quickly dip my fingers in the water, wondering how hot it is ... it's not. All the heat has been given up to the atmosphere and it's now an icy mountain rivulet running at my feet. A park worker, picking up trash, glares at me ... guess I shouldn't be testing the waters like that! Tsk, tsk.

Heading south, I detour off the main road on Firehole Canyon Drive. This lovely little road travels a deep-cut gorge, following the river that's born near Old Faithful and drains the various geyser basins, flowing north. The river is reknowned for its trout fishing, and swimming holes are marked at some of the turnouts.

Crossing the Lower Geyser Basin, I see a park ranger frantically chasing after the tourists who are walking right up to the bison to get a good picture. Yep. People are that stupid.

Another geothermal side road is Firehole Lake Drive, offering a nice drive around the Middle Geyser Basin and some up-close walks around very active vents. I stop at a wide place in the road right next to a small pool; it's amazing to walk right up to the jeweled edge and peer down into it. The picture I take does not do the deep reds and tourquoise justice. I dip my fingers in this pool as well ... this one is QUITE hot. Later, I stop in the main parking lot, and spend some time walking around the big geyser complex. The roar and sputter of the geysers is constant; what a noisy place! As I am walking back to my bike, a raven lands on my duffle bag and busily tries to get in, perhaps thinking I have something good to eat. Heh. I am too amused to yell at her. She gets some of the velcro open, but is stymied by the cargo net. Those birds are damn clever.

I ride on, eventually exiting the park at the South Entrance, yet another lovely spot for a photo. The road leads me on through the Grand Tetons. The four great peaks stand amazing and jagged against the deep blue sky. It's a truly spectacular part of the country.

I head south through Jackson WY (or Jackson Hole WY depending on who you are listening to) which has an air of rich snootiness that reminds me of Santa Barbara. Heh. From there, I turn west & the road takes me through Idaho Falls. Hwy 20 crosses the Snake River right by the cascades that gives the city its name, then crosses I-15 and forges due west, and after that it is pretty much the MIDDLE OF FRIKKEN NOWHERE. But it's not empty. For miles and miles and miles and miles, a tall chain link fence stetches along the north side of the road, electified wire running along the top, marked intermittently with small plain placards stating GOVERNMENT PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING and even more infrequently broken by large gates guarded by sentries in little air conditioned huts, set back from the road. I start to get seriously creeped out. It reminds me of nothing so much as the last few chapters of The Stand, where Trashcan Man goes into the desert and into the bowels of gov't nuclear facilites, bringing back a strange dark treat for his hero Randall Flagg. I halfway expect to see him come shambling forth, my life for you!!! and I am getting quite freaked out by my whole train of thought here. I pass a turnoff for Atomic City, and see a few signs telling me I am passing the Idaho National Labratory (formerly Idaho Energy Reseach Labratory.) Oh my god I AM in the middle of a government nuclear facility. Worse, I've been running on reserve for a while and I haven't seen any cars for a while, much less a gas station. Nothing to do but keep going & hope to make the next town. The sun is lowering, but the wind is not too bad here.

The next town, which is Arco ID, finally hoves into view as I am getting fairly worried about my gas situation. I fill it, all's well again. This seems like a good stopping point for the night, so I cruise down main street (still Hwy 20) looking for likely lodging. And ... whaaa? There is a submarine conning tower in the middle of town. Now that's just ODD. Across the street from the submarine, there's a cute little mom & pop motel. It looks nice and neat, so I check it out. It's more than suitable, it's a score! Good friendly people, a decent room at a great price, and LAUNDRY FACILITIES! I'm happy as a pig in mud! (If you ever find yourself needing a room in Arco, go to the DK Motel, I recommend it!)

The young lady running the hotel is friendly and chatty. After I get settled in, I go back to the front desk to ask her for quarters for the washing machine (she helpfully gives me some laundry soap as well) and I ask her, what's the happs around here on the 4th? And by the way, what's up with the submarine? She tells me that the 4th isn't the big deal in Arco ... their big summertime thing is "Atomic Days" later in July. Arco is famed for being the very first city in the US that had electricity entirely supplied by nuclear power (back on July 17th, 1955, for about five minutes. Hey, a first is a first. LOL) The conning tower is from a decommisioned nuclear sub. She doesn't know much more about it, but tells me there's a display over there, go check it out. (I do walk across the street later, and read the flyers posted under glass, telling me about the USS Hawkbill, decommissioned in 2003.) For the 4th of July festivities, they'll be shooting off fireworks at the high school, and she says that they sit out on the front lawn of the hotel to watch 'em. She invites me to join them.

And I do. As the sun goes down, a collection of nice folks drifts onto the lawn: a couple from Utah, young newlyweds from British Columbia, the hotel family (the chatty front desk woman, her sister, her sister's husband, and their young son) and me. The high school sits under tall cliffs (called "Numbers Hill" because each high school class paints their graduation year on it), and their bowl shape enhances the boom of the big charges until it sounds like old artillery thunder! We ooh and ahh, happily chat into the night, and applaud the final orgy of fireworks that lights up the sky. Best 4th I've had in a while!!

Next: Day Seventeen

2005 Day 15

2005-07-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Gillette WY (35916)
End: Gardiner MT (36345)
Miles: 429

I wake, dress, and get ready to hit the road. The young man at the hotel desk tells me the winds were gusting up to 60 mph last night. "Well, yeah," he allows when I ask him, "it's always windy here, but that was pretty bad yesterday." I am glad that I stopped when I did.

It's a nice morning today, however, and I'm soon rolling into Buffalo and looking for a gas station. Brr! It's actually cold! This is the first time I have been chilly on this entire trip, LOL, up 'til today it's been sweltering heat and humidity. Here, the air is bright clean and crisp, and I am only at the foothills of serious mountains, and the Tetons are ahead of me today. I break out the chaps (I had actually started to wonder if I was silly for bringing them on this trip, but at last I have a chance to don 'em) and get myself a nice big cup of coffee. Ahh, that's so much better. I study the map, examining two roads that look equally good on paper, and finally give up trying to divine the better route and ask the lady at Chevron. Should I take 14 or 16? Swing north, or south? Which is better? She tells me 14 is closed, which makes me chuckle. Well, that makes the decision pretty easy.

Leaving I-90, I travel west on a good highway through lovely, lonely country. Hwy 16 climbs rapidly and it gets colder fast. Having lost my heavy gloves on the first day of the trip, I make do as best I can ... I put on a pair of latex gloves under my lightweight leather gauntlets, which actually helps make the chill a bit less biting. Climbing. More climbing. Summer flowers dot mountain meadows around me, looking very scenic and alpine. Finally, a pullout and a sign announce I have reached Powder River Pass, at an elevation of 9665 feet. Brrr! No wonder I am freezing! The road is equally scenic on the descent to the town of Ten Sleep, and I am happy to start warming up again.

I gas again in Greybull, and get in a gas-pump chat with a couple riding two-up. She asks me, "Are you going to the rodeo?" Me: "Ummm, what rodeo?" Heh, I can be so clueless. Apparently I am riding straight toward the greatest rodeo in the U.S. of A., the Cody Stampede Rodeo. It is THE happening in Wyoming and I'm gonna pass right through town! This is so cool. I am reminded again why I love to travel this way, encountering happy unplanned joys along the road. The Rodeo is roaring for the 4th of July holiday long weekend; in fact, the big parade will be held today on the 3rd, in order to fall on Sunday.

Glorious indeed is Cody, "The Rodeo Capital of the World." The parade has just ended an hour or two previously, so the main street is open to traffic again but the sidewalks are still busy with families strolling along. Buildings are strewn with bunting; red, white, blue everywhere the eye turns. It's the sweet part of Americana & it's making me smile. The big rodeo arena is on my right as I pass through the west end of town. People are starting to gather and they'll be starting up in a while, looks like. I am glad I came through here, especially today. Sometimes I just get lucky like that.

Now, after Cody, I am treated to the most magnificent road I may have ever seen. Breathtakingly beautiful mountains and gorges surround me on my way through the Shoshone Nation Forest up to the East Entrance of Yellowstone. Oh, wonderful, wonderful! After the entrance, it's a perfectly wretched five miles to Lake Elenor, a treacherous mess of gravel, mud and single lane. How quickly conditions can change, LOL. They are repairing the roadway here and there is no way around, so I can do nothing but grit my teeth and ride it out. The cars that are stuck behind me (I must travel more slowly than they can in these conditions) can just kiss my big white happy butt. I breathe a sigh of relief when I reach the end of the construction zone, and pull off for a little while to take in the scenery. Welcome to Yellowstone, our first national park.

I stop at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center, pretty much in the dead center of the park. I browse the visitor center, buy some postcards, and have my photo taken with some Buddhist monks in the parking lot. Their interpreter shyly asks if one of the monks can stand next to me while he snaps the picture, and I readily agree ... but almost commit a great faux pas when I step too close and make as if to put my arm around him. He shies away and even though he has no English, makes it perfectly clear that it's, ummm, not cool. I apologize, and we take the photo standing about three feet apart. Then, I bow to him and apologize again, and he bows and smiles, and demonstrates that he does have one word of English after all, "OK." I'm not entirely sure what happened there (I think maybe they are not allowed to touch women?) but it seemed to turn out all right in the end.

I ride the park, swinging south around the lake, and stop at Old Faithful. The next eruption won't be for forty minutes or so, but the crowd is slowly trickling in to wait for it. It's easy to spot the women heading to the WOW event in Boise. There are loads of women motorcyclists in the crowd. I hang with a group from Sacramento, chatting and making friends. Old Faithful blows. We all cheer.

I head north thru the park, just meandering. The critters are enormous! Buffalo, deer, a bear across the river ... any animal sighting causes a huge traffic tie-up, especially if they are close to the road. Good heavens, I grow to hate these animal-jams. The cagers drive like idiots (even worse than usual.) I eventually run out of time, and I haven't even stopped at the hot-water springs and geysers, and it's getting late. Dusk around here is pretty nerve-wracking, and I am even more watchful than usual as I ride out via the North Entrance. Dusk = Critter Time, and there are plenty of them here and they're likely to be on the road. I drop down into the town of Gardiner and get a room for the night so I can ride the park again tomorrow, just too much to see in one day.

They SERIOUSLY roll up the sidewalks after 8:00 pm in Gardiner MT. By the time I went looking for food, the only place open was the bar, and I content myself with noshies from the gas station. Hmm.

Next: Day Sixteen

2005 Day 14

2005-07-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Wall SD (35531)
End: Gillette WY (35916)
Miles: 385

A storm blew through South Dakota last night, mostly gusty wind and a little rain, but I'd stashed the wee beastie snug and secure under her cover. I peel it off and fold it back neatly into its place in the saddlebags, thinking it's nice to have a dry seat after a rainstorm. :)

I am near one of the most spectacular areas of the country, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and I intend to take full advantage of it today. I pack up and get out of the parking lot early, and backtrack a little ways on I-90 so I can enter Badlands Nat'l Park from the east entrance. (This way, I can ride through the park with the sun at my back, instead of squinting the whole way.) The air is still cool, almost enough to think about breaking out my chaps, but I know it will warm up soon and turn into another lovely summer day.

I take the 31-mile scenic loop road through Badlands and it's a spectacular ride. The park is a combination of preserved grassland and canyons carved by wind and rain and eons. The earth's colors glow softly in the morning sun, the road dips in and out of the landscape, and I am awed by the place. This was once the great hunting grounds of the Lakota, and the scenery has been made famous by "Dances With Wolves." Words simply cannot do it justice. Go see it. I encounter no bison on the road today, for which I am thankful. I hear that they can be nasty-tempered and do not particularly like motorcycles. The loop road eventually puts me back in Wall, and I pick up the interstate heading west.

Approaching Rapid City, I see billboards, not only for a Harley-Davidson dealership, but for a Honda-Suzuki-Yamaha outlet as well. I start juggling plans in my head; it would be a good thing to take advantage of parts and repairs while they're available, because there's not a whole lot between here and Boise, my next big stop. Mainly I need a new rear tire. (It's the same one I had put on in Virginia last summer; that's how long they last.) The dwindling tread has been making me a wee bit nervous for the last few days, and I was hoping to nurse it to Idaho, and it seems like less and less of a good idea to do so. I find my way to Rice Honda (heh) and pull in to the service bay, which is crowded. Not a good sign, even though it's what I expected. The guy with the clipboard tells me they just had an appointment cancelled for 2:00 pm and pencils my name in that slot. OK, I have four hours to kill. See ya in a while, guys!

I head south on US-16, into the Black Hills and the complex of roads around Mt Rushmore. It is the 2nd of July, a holiday weekend, high summer and fine weather, and the roads are crowded with RVs and families and tourists all doing the See The Greatness Of America crawl. I don't mind -- I am doing the exact same thing, and I haven't yet run into any rude or clueless drivers, and everyone is smiling and happy. There are many, many, many motorcycles on these fine roads. The machine hums happily up the mountain, and the air cools as I gain altitude. As I come to Mt Rushmore, traffic slows to a crawl. There is a long line to get into the sole parking area, and it costs $15 to any vehicle to get in, whether it's a car or a motorcycle. I pass. Instead, I pull over at the first (non-concession) area where I can take a photo, a place called the Profile View. Here, I get into a conversation with a Texan mother and her pre-teen son (who is painfully shy in that young-boy way, but likes my motorcycle), a couple of Swiss tourists, and an older gentleman from Pittsburgh PA. Everyone is indeed in a happy holiday mood.

After seeing Mr Borglum's carved heads of dead white guys, I wander further south in the Black Hills, and see the Crazy Horse monument under construction, which is still a century away from completion. It doesn't look like much yet. Might be cool to go see it in twenty years to see if it looks any different. I keep wandering, rolling into the town of Custer, looking for a likely place to stop for lunch. They're having their Independence Day festivities: one street is closed for a downtown block party (this is a significant fraction of the entire Custer metroplex, btw) and there are kids with their faces painted and people in costume and burgers and dogs on the grill and balloons and bunting everywhere. Small-town Fourth of July festivities are their own special, sweet phenomenon. I get a dog and a soda, and enjoy them from a good shady people-watching spot. A handsome English gentleman shares my bench and tells me stories of a motorcycle he owned when he was in his twenties. He is utterly charming and entertaining, and I think that he is the sort of guy my mom would completely swoon over. This makes me laugh. I ask him if he's from the north of England, because his accent sounds like Manchester to me. He tells me I'm close, that he's originally from a town called Chadderton. Nice guy.

As I'm gearing up to hit the road again, I notice a four-year-old boy staring at me, his eyes round with wonderment. I try my standard line that I use with most four-year-old boys, saying, "Do you like motorcycles?" He remains mute, but his mom rescues him, saying, "He likes the Power Rangers." I must look confused at this point, because she continues, "I think he thinks you look like the Yellow Ranger in that jacket." Ohhhh. And here I was thinking I looked like a tough biker, LOL. Laughing at having been taken down a notch by a toddler, I ride off.

The road back to Rapid City takes me through Hill City, another small town with a bustling downtown block party, but this one features fewer cowboys and more Indians. Specifically, it appears that a Native American powwow is going on, and I see lots and lots of folks walking the streets wearing magnificent native clothing ... feathered headdresses, beaded tunics, all colorful and splendid. Somehow it has a whiff of authenticity; these clothes aren't "costumes" worn for tourists, or at least I hope it's so. I drive past an open area, a park/plaza set up with tenting, which seems to be the center of the powwow. Well, cool. Wish I could stay and watch for a while, but it's time to get back and get new rubber for the wee beastie.

When the guy with the clipboard comes out to write down my information, he doesn't say anything at the California plate on the scoot (boring blue-on-white) but he does remark when he writes down the odometer reading, "Whoo, you put some miles on this thing, doncha?" Heh. The California plate is your first clue, dude. They only have the stock Dunlop tire for the VLX; it'll do. I'm overdue for an oil change as well, so I have them put in fresh oil and filter while they're at it. It takes them a little time to do all this, which I spend making a few phone calls. By the time they have everything ready, it's after three o-clock. I see thunderheads to the west, and contemplate how far I want to go in potentially foul weather, deciding to head into the dark clouds and make some miles. I made up half a day yesterday, but have lost time today.

The weather turns out to be no big deal; I get rained on going through one squall line and I've emerged into sunshine on the other side of the storm before many miles pass. The western part of South Dakota is truly lovely. The towns here are Sturgis, Deadwood, Whitewood, Spearfish. I of course have to stop for gas in Sturgis, just to say I did it. It is weeks before the annual bacchanalia of Bikefest, and it looks like any other small town as I drive through it. I spot some of the famous taverns - the Knuckle, the Broken Spoke. What a zoo this place must be in August. Hundreds of thousands of bikers, all stuffed into this small town, looking for a high time ... for some, it's the biggest event of the year. But I dislike the mega-rallies and generally avoid them.

Passing into Wyoming, I make a spur-of-the-moment decision to take the long road in to Devil's Tower, and get off the interstate at Hwy 111. As I am descending the off-ramp, another piece of my crappy lightbar decides to break. The welded stem that holds the light itself onto the mounting hardware gives way, and my left driving light does a slow nosedive forward ... plop! ... and hangs there, dangling by its wire. I just look at it and laugh, and pull over at the bottom of the offramp. Stupid thing. I disconnect it and take all the pieces off that side, stowing them in the bottom of my saddlebags, and find a little electric tape to tie off the now-useless but still live wire.

I like the road through here, except for the one curve I came around to find myself face-to-face with an ENORMOUS wild turkey, right in the middle of my lane. Luckily, I wasn't going too fast. I had no idea those birds were so huge. The highway takes me up and over to the town of Hulett, and then comes at Devil's Tower from the north. It stands there, weird and lonesome, in the middle of nowhere. Strangely, I don't think of "Close Encounters" when I look at it. Instead, I remember the Native American origin legend, which I read somewhere ... the Tower was a great tree onto which children climbed to escape a bear. The deep grooves on the side of the rock were created by the bear's clawing and scoring of the tree trunk while trying to get the children on top. The children were eventually borne into the sky and became the stars of the Pleiades.

I've been skirting a storm for a while now. The sky is dark and wicked-looking to the north, clear and sunny to the south, and the line of demarcation is as straight and sharp as if someone had drawn it with a ruler, and I seem to be directly under this line of demarcation and can't get away from it! I get back to I-90 at a town called Moorcroft, where I stop for gas and a soda. I'm standing there drinking it, and something catches my eye moving in the empty lot next to the gas station. It's not a deer, it's an ANTELOPE. Are there enough of them around here that they hang out at the edge of town? It's been quite a day for wildlife, I guess. I'm thinking that I have enough daylight left to get to the town of Buffalo WY. Suddenly the wind comes up. Seriously, it's like someone flipped a switch, and it goes from still to swirling choking dust devils in no time at all. I chuck the remains of the soda and hop on the scoot, heading westbound on the interstate.

It's a mistake. I should have stayed in Moorcroft (I think I could have gotten a room there) because this wind is AWFUL to ride in. It's pushing me all over the road, I have the bike heeled over a good ways to the right (the only good thing about this wind is it's pretty steady) and it's biting cold, the gusts feel like they're coming straight from the North Pole. Jeeeez. Nothing to do now but get myself to the next place I see that I can stop for the night. Unfortunately it's thirty miles before I spot a sign for a motel, and I pull into a Choice Hotel in Gillette WY and say oofdah, that's enough of THAT. I'll try to pick up a few more miles tomorrow.

Next: Day Fifteen

2005 Day 13

2005-07-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Start: Warrensburg MO (34807)
End: Wall SD (35531)
Miles: 724(!)

Back on the road!!

I say my goodbyes to my family; it'll be awhile until the next time I see my sister (jeez, I am so not used to that.) I head out through Kansas City, stopping near the airport for gas, and strike out north. New ground! I am traveling into the great northern prairie states, on I-29, and it's a fine, fine morning.

Oh, I know. I said I wasn't going to travel on interstates unless I had to. What am I doing on I-29? Well, it turns out to be a pretty decent road. There are trucks, but not as nasty as I-57 the other day, or I-5 which I'm used to. Traffic moves well, and remains Friday-morning light. Yesterday's storm has set me back a day, so might as well make some miles while I can.

The highway roughly follows along the Missouri River, staying on the east side. Soon I am in Iowa, looking across the water to Nebraska. Wow, it sure is pretty along here, in a wide-open sort of way. Long ridges, drifting along the horizon, break the great flat sweep of the country. Sometimes the road comes close to these features. I get a very good look at the cliffs that give Council Bluffs their name, gently looming up on my right where I-80, a major east-west route, crosses the highway. I wish I had a little time to explore around here, but that'll have to wait for some other day, some other trip. I keep pressing north.

I finally get tired of the interstate, and cross the river into Nebraska, when I am a few miles short of Sioux City. US-20 takes me to Nebraska SR-12, and now the road follows along the Missouri River valley as it makes its great bend to the west. I'm on the south side of the river, and road markers tell me I am following the Lewis and Clark Trail. Oh how cool. The country has become truly magnificent; I am passing through gently rolling land that offers grand sweeping vistas of the river and endless grasslands. Again, I wonder why I love the prairie so much. There is something so ... American ... about it, I can't help but think of hope and endless possibilities looking at it. There should be Aaron Copeland music. Instead there is only bright sunshine and miles of road and endless cropland and the song of engine and wind, which is just as infinitely satisfying. It is a wonderful day to be alive.

I gas up in a small Nebraska town called Crofton. I always like getting gas at these single-pump stations in small towns, with their dusty driveways and mechanics wiping hands on shoprags and the entire relaxed feel of being off the main road. This one happens to be a Sinclair Oil station. The price is $2.259 per gallon, which has been pretty average for this trip.

I stay westbound on Nebraska SR-12 for a while longer. I've found my way into pretty remote country, I think, there are few outbuildings and even fewer farms, only miles and miles of fields. I've passed out of corn country; I think this is all wheat, or some other shortgrass crop. The best thing about being off the main highway is that you can smell the prairie. It smells faintly of baking bread, and of wildflowers, and of sunshine. It is heady and intoxicating and I am entirely enchanted by this place. I smile my way across the gentle rolls of the land. Finally, I turn back north and cross into South Dakota at a little town called Bonesteel. Why the heck would a place be called Bonesteel, I wondered when I was looking at my map earlier, and rolling into town, I spy a plaque and pull over to read it, and lo and behold find the answer to my question. (There was a Joseph Bonesteel who founded the town, and unscrupulous land developers waaay oversold land in the area, until the town of Bonesteel found itself crowded with far too many "undesirables" and the powers-that-be essentially rounded them up and ran them out of town, causing a near-riot, an event that is remembered as The Battle Of Bonesteel. The population is currently 297 souls, a far cry from the 30,000+ who once lived there.)

Now I'm traveling west along US-18, and still thoroughly enjoying myself. I have covered a LOT of miles today, but just don't feel like stopping. The day is perfect, so may as well keep riding. I'd forgotten how long the days are, this far north and this close to midsummer, and my sense of time is all screwed up, and I really don't care. This is the reason I don't wear a watch when I am on the road. Time becomes meaningless; all that's important is if you want to stay in the saddle, or you want to stand and stretch for a bit, or if you need to stop and sleep. I have light and I have good weather. I feel good. I know if I keep heading north, I will eventually hit I-90. What else matters?

I eventually do reach I-90, near the town of Murdo, and turn once again into the now-lowering sun. Back on the interstate, I am seeing families on vacation, which reminds me that it's the start of the 4th of July holiday weekend. There are lots of kids in backseats to wave at, which always tickles me.

The quintessential Roadside American Weirdness town of Wall, SD is within striking distance so I decide that's where I'll stop for the night. I pull in a little before the sun goes down, locate the world's smallest hotel room for a pretty cheap price (seriously, a twin bed barely fits in the room, but who cares, I just need a clean place to sleep) and after I clean up, I walk over to Wall Drug and the town's main drag, to get some dinner and wander around the tourist shops and buy some tschokes and drink in the experience of the Mecca of American road trips. If you've never been to Wall SD, you must go at least once in your life. Heh.

I am amazed when I write down my mileage for the day. I did over 700 miles?! It sure didn't feel like it.

Next: Day Fourteen

2005 Day 12

2005-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

Warrensburg MO
no miles

The sky is only kinda dark and vaguely threatening in the morning, but there's supposed to be a wicked front coming in later today. I had originally planned on leaving Missouri today, to head up to South Dakota and visit with Lindy, but weather is always a consideration on a motorcycle trip, and flexibility is a virtue. :) Besides, it feels like too short of a visit with my sister. I'm staying put one extra day.

My sister indulges me, and we decide to do one of my favorite things, a little Civil War sightseeing. Kay, the kids and I pile into the minivan and head north to Lexington MO, site of a battle which occured early in the war. (Kay wrote a nice entry in her blog about our visit, if you'd like to check it out.) It's now a state park. In the 1860's, Missouri was considered to be pretty much the far western edge of civilization, with only frontier expansion and post-Gold Rush California lying beyond. Most of the wealth in the state was concentrated along the Missouri River, and in these places, many of the great families lived in the old Southern style, plantations with slave labor, etc. In the days before massive railroad development, rivers equaled commerce. Most of the political sentiment by the ruling powers of the day was firmly Confederate-leaning. In fact, while only eleven states seceded, there are thirteen stars on the Stars and Bars -- it's Missouri and Kentucky who were expected to join their sister Rebel states, eventually, but that's a whole different story ...

The museum is a good little one, as these things go. It's a little short on artifacts but long on interesting displays with lots of history to read. I love it. The kids are BORED. I think they go from humoring their nutty Auntie Boo to barely tolerating me to eye-rolling and 'can we just GO' but I refuse to be hurried, at least not much. At one point, my nephew is quite literally grabbing my arm and trying to drag me along (he's only seven, he can't budge me, but ohh he wants to.) I stop reading and hunker down a little, so I can talk to him not towering over him, and tell him that everyone enjoys doing different things, and that looking at stuff in museums is my idea of fun, saying "I really like this. This is like Nintendo for me." He gets it (even if he thinks the notion is somewhat loopy) and says, "OK" and skips off to be bored & find a little trouble elsewhere. My niece (who I am sure also gets what I'm saying) thinks that it is quite possibly the most insane statement she's heard in a while. "But Auntie Boo, how can this be like Nintendo for you? This is like history and dead people and stuff," she gasps as only an exasperated pre-teen can. I swear, that child is gonna hurt herself if she rolls her eyes any farther ;)

Well, I'm not that into torturing the kids for too long, and we all agree to watch the visitor's center video. It is fifteen minutes and predictably cheesy. I am surprised by the pro-Southern bias of the piece, but the story is told as a first-person POV based on a planter's wife's diary, and anyway Kay and I have a good laugh about it afterward. The Unpleasantries Between The States has been over for 140 years, and people are still strange about that war. Walking out of auditorium (a generous name for a room with four rows of folding chairs & a crappy combo TV-VCR set up on a rolling cart) Kay asks, "What do we do now?" I say, "We go on the walking tour, of course." I explain to her the parts of the Historical Battlesite Visit. There is ALWAYS a museum, even if it's a room with a couple of dusty displays. And then there is ALWAYS a video, and it is ALWAYS cheesy. And then there is ALWAYS a walking tour, usually with a badly xeroxed sheet of paper with varying degrees of accuracy, and you do it last because what you've seen in the museum and in the film give you a much better idea of what you are looking at. Sometimes, there's a driving tour as well. Here, there is also the option of touring inside the Anderson House, and the 45-minute guided tour is just about to start. Sounds interesting, but we knew the kids couldn't take it, even though they said they wanted to ... they would have been bored stiff after ten minutes. So it's off to the walking tour with the bad Xerox, and it's an interesting little hike over the battleground. The Anderson House still stands, bricks scarred by minie balls and artillery. Walking around the house, locations are marked: here is where the carriage house stood. This is where the slave quarters were. Looping back 'round to the east, the garden has been restored - soldiers charged through here - and beyond that, what remains of the earthworks lie on the rolling hills. We walk through, and I am fascinated by the terrain. Trenches that were dug in 1861 have been almost completely smoothed by time's passage. You really have to look to see where they were. The rain, which has been threatening all day, gets quite serious with its threats as we get towards the end of the walk. In fact, Kay and I decide to cut it a bit short. It looks like it's gonna rain like heck in ten minutes or less and there's thunder and lightning getting close, and we thought that the path along a small ridgeline would be best avoided. We turn and walk back to the car, not exactly hustling but not dawdling either. I can smell the approaching storm in the air.

We make it back to the parking lot as the first few tentative drops start sprinkling down. The air is so heavy that it's hard to tell exactly when it starts raining, but the temps are dropping and it is getting awfully dark. We pile in the van, Kay gets us pointed the right way and headed back home, and within minutes it's coming down in buckets. Woo, we made the right choice back there, hightailing it for the car when we did. Now, on the highway, the rain keeps coming heavier and heavier and the winds are kicking up too, enough that it's making Kay incredibly tense behind the wheel as she fights the elements. She snaps at the kids when they are noisily horsing around in the back seat. I watch the rain come down in sheets, and the wind whipping through the corn, bending the stalks over, making the fields look like stormy wave-tossed seas of broad dark green leaves. Oh, this is a bad one, the wind is pushing the van all over the road, thunder and lighting crashing around us (but not as close as what I rode through in Tennessee.) Am I ever GLAD I decided to stay that extra day! This would have been horrible to ride in.

Kay gets us safely home, thank goodness, and we spend the afternoon hanging out, talking, playing with the kids, and doing a whole bunch of nothing. Mike, who has been working with the builders out at the dome site, returns saying that they'd sealed a second row of seams but the concrete didn't have time to set before the rain hit ... it'll probably have to be redone. We go out for barbeque that night, one of those funky little local places that has scarred linoleum tabletops, plastic forks, and exquisite ribs. You know the type. Yummm. The rain really doesn't let up much for the rest of the day, continuing all the way past dinnertime. This wasn't one of those hit-and-run Midwest storms, but an all-day deal. I wouldn't have been able to wait out this one for half an hour under a gas station canopy somewhere.

Now, I'm a day behind to get to Boise, but the Weather Channel is predicting a good day tomorrow, and I hope to make up some of it. I'll try to get an early start.

Next: Day Thirteen

2005 Day 11

2005-06-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Warrensburg MO
no miles

Today is Hanging Out With My Family day. Basically this involves sitting around and talking up a storm with my sister. We have the twin thing going on, ya know, where we complete each other's sentences and go off on conversational tangents that no one else could ever possibly follow. Then I realize I'm being rude to Mike and the kids, and try to bring the conversation back to someplace where it will include everyone. Repeat ad infinitum.

Mike, like me, is concerned about the small oil leak the bike has sprung yesterday. In the morning, we drag out the tools & start going over the wee beastie. He does most of the work because A) they are his tools, B) he knows what he's doing and I only sort of know what I'm doing and C) he's That Guy. You know, That Guy who knows how to Fix Anything. He tells me what he's doing as he goes along, and I always learn lots from him. The oil leak is confirmed to be a gasket problem on the front valve cover. He shows me how to look at it to see the trouble -- this o-ring here? See how flat it is? It's supposed to be round, look how far from round it is here -- and then he gets out the phone book & we start calling around for a replacement Honda o-ring. There is none to be found. This is the point at which I would become frustrated, but Mike is That Guy and That Guy always has a Plan B. He runs out to the local auto parts store, gets automotive silicon sealer, and fixes the leak using that. He tells me it's not a long-term solution but will probably keep me going for the rest of the vacation, at least, and I can replace the o-rings when I get home. Mike rocks :) Also, as we are going over the bike, he spots where the mounting plate for the light bar has cracked again. He welded this up for me last year, after it broke on the last day of my Virgina trip. Now it's cracking in a different place. What a piece of shit part. (Big Bike Parts/Show Chrome Spot Light Part # 1-231. My recommendation: avoid.) So he hauls out the welding equipment and goes to work and fixes it up for me again. While he's doing this, I change the spark plugs. I'm getting very good at doing the little things like that. We eventually get everything swapped out, bolted down, or sealed up, and put the bike in the garage because it looks like there's going to be a little rain later today. The silicone sealer needs at least a few hours, and preferably overnight, to set up.

Satisfied with the impromptu repair, I wash up and get some laundry started. Now, it's time to See The Sights In Warrensburg, Missouri. My sister is ready to show me the ins and outs of her new town. (I have to say she's taken to small-town life quite well. The kids, on the other hand, miss Orange County, but they are starting to make friends here. The process will accelerate greatly once school is back in.) First, we all head out to the dome site, to check out progress on their new home. My timing is pretty good. The first of the panels have started to go up this week, so I get a good look at the scaffolding up top and the cement walls along the lower course. Right now, unenclosed, it doesn't feel as enormous as it will once the exterior walls get finished and the framing goes in. The site is extremely nice, and has a GREAT view. Their land is a little farther outside of town than I imagined, but they're really just a hop skip and a jump from town according to my Los Angeles-tuned sense of location. Not a bad commute at all. The only problem is, EVERYTHING is in town, there is no such thing as a "run to the corner store" from their place. All in all, I give an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the new Dome Home.

My sister takes me on the tour of downtown Warrensburg next. Boy, she wasn't kidding when she said it was all of three blocks. The courthouse is a fine example of Midwestern monumental public architecture, massive blocks of granite trying to impress a level of importance upon everyone. By the courthouse stands the monument to Old Drum, one of Warrensburg's most famous citizen who is, strangely, not even human. Old Drum was a hound dog shot dead in a dispute between neighbors in 1870. A lawsuit ensued, which eventually went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, where the dog was eulogized as "the one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world ... " by future senator George Graham Vest, a lawyer in the case, and thus enhanced our world and the English language by contributing the phrase "Man's Best Friend." So, the good citizens of Missouri erected a statue of Old Drum, so that people like me can visit it on a road trip, and marvel at the zillion tiny sweet oddities in the land.

We walk around downtown a little bit, visit the library, go take a look-see around the university, get ice cream, and generally have a relaxing day. It does indeed rain in the afternoon, so I am glad Mike suggested I get the scoot under cover. We go out for dinner that night, and kick back for the rest of the evening. The Weather Channel shows a big storm coming in tomorrow, and Kay talks me in to staying an extra day.

Next: Day Twelve

2005 Day 10

2005-06-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Antioch TN (34265)
End: Warrensburg MO (34807)
542 miles

I am itchy to hit the road in the morning. Literally. I think Isaac has fleas.

I've got a long day in front of me, weather to beat, more heat and humidity to endure, and a lot of miles to get to my sister's in Missouri. So, I want to blow out of Nashville in a hurry, and am barely polite to Nancy in my haste to get underway. I decline her offer of hanging out for a leisurely breakfast, in fact I don't even shower, knowing I'll just get grimy on the highway. Sun's up and time's a-wasting. I am northbound on I-24 through Nashville proper in time for the Tuesday morning commute, which is a drag. In fact, I detour around a few of the hub highways, getting on SR-155 for a time, before finding my way out of traffic and heading back north on the interstate. Cars are bumper-to-bumper in the opposite direction, coming into the city. It is good to be on vacation and getting out of the big towns once more.

Today is a superslab day, in the interest of making miles. I-24 takes me through western Kentucky, which is corn country, flat and neat and pretty. There are a few hills when I am skirting around an area called The Land Between The Lakes, and I also see a sign that tells me I am close to Murray State University, Amy's alma mater. I'll have to remember to tell her that. The road crosses over into Illinois, and more flat featureless land. Small cities are separated by miles of corn. A lot of folks are bored by the heartland, but I love it. I don't love the herds of eighteen wheelers on the road, though. I-24 turns into I-57 for a while. I am on a major trucking route. It's hot, I'm relaxed, just stopping for gas every hour and a half, riding. Lunchtime hunger finds me in Mt Vernon IL, where I stop at a Steak & Shake. It is surprisingly good, I equate the burgers with In-and-Out level of tastiness, and it's a comfortable enough place to cool off. I think today is my hottest day so far, and I'm starting to feel it. Coming out from lunch, I see that there is oil all over the front cylinder. Uh oh. Closer inspection shows that it's not a huge amount of oil (and it only takes a small bit to grime the bike) ... the level on the dipstick is still OK and nothing is puddling on the ground under the frame, but it's still worrisome & bears careful watching. On with the Joe Rocket gear, pick up I-64 westbound, and head into Missouri.

Approaching St Louis from the east is entirely different from coming in from the west. From the East, the Arch stands in magnificence over the city and the riverfront, glorious in its size and sweep, welcoming you to the hugeness of the land. The first time I saw it, I was creeping up behind it, sideways and with ruined sightlines, by the buildings that crowd around I-70 eastbound. That was last year's trip. This year, I see the Gateway as it is meant to be seen. Again, I grin broadly as I cross the Mississippi, wondering if I'll ever lose the feeling of specialness for seeing America's great rivers. I don't think so.

Now, it's just a straight shot across most of Missouri on I-70. The heat is really wearing me down, enough that I am starting to worry about my ability to continue. Breaks get more and more frequent. If you start feeling fuzzy, you GOTTA get off the road before it's too late to think any more. Through the afternoon, I end up stopping for ice every hour, or even every forty-five minutes. Some places will give you a cup of ice for free, some will charge you a quarter. I take most of it and roll it into my buff, making a neckroll. This cools the blood heading to my brain, plus the meltwater drips onto my shirt for a while and I get a little evaporative core cooling. It feels good for about twenty minutes, which is how long it takes for the ice to melt. Then, I keep going until I start feeling fuzzy again. I tell myself not to be a hero, that my sister will understand if I end up late or delayed today, that I can finish the ride after dark or even tomorrow and that would be infinitely better than killing myself. But, all the stops and ice and hydration keep me going, and I roll off the interstate and into Warrensburg before dusk.

I arrive at about the worst possible time, when the family had just piled into the car to head down to the restaurant for birthday dinner. We resolve it thusly: Kay stays behind to let me into the house to shower & clean up, while Mike & the kids will zip down to the restaurant to get a table (there are friends & friends' kids dining with us, so it's a large party.) Ahhh, the shower feels so good, even racing through it. Scrubbed & wearing clean clothes, my sis and I head out for good Italian food, and my visit with my family begins. (I miss them. I still find it strange that they are now so far away.)

Happy Birthday to my nephew. I did not bring you anything, because I am on the bike. Christmas is coming, though.

An aside: Who knew? The little place at which we eat, a three-generation family run joint, miles from any ocean, has the BEST calamari I have EVER had in my life. (Including when I was in Italy.)

Next: Day Eleven

2005 Day 9

2005-06-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: near Tallassee TN (33739)
End: Antioch TN (34265)
526 miles

Today, the Dragon.

The bunch of us staying at Roxanne's place wake and start moving around fairly early. It's a beautiful sunny morning. We get fresh eyeballs on CherryLady's bike, figuring what needs to be replaced to make it roadworthy (and non-ticketable.) It's rideable, no problems, just needs some of the lighting fixed. Roxanne calls around to find a repair shop that will be open on a Monday. It's located down on the North Carolina side of the Dragon, which is where we are heading.

When we saddle up and get going, I am a bundle of nerves heading down the driveway that did me in last night. Man, that is one steep puppy. And, I hate steep downgrades (I think everyone does) because it always feels like the bike is going to tip over or go off the edge. I make my wobbly way to the bottom with my heart hammering, and breathe a sigh of relief when I finally get down to the highway after what seems like half an hour. Left turning onto the highway, I just about drop it again when the engine coughs and stutters, I don't have the choke set right & the beast isn't warm yet. Sheesh. It's got to get better than this.

It does, but slowly. We only go a short ways, maybe a mile or two, before the road narrows, enters a heavily wooded area, and begins to seriously twist. Welcome to the Dragon. We stop at the first overlook - a popular spot to take photos - and commemorate our incipient Dragonslayer status. From here we'll ride the eleven or so miles and have lunch at Deal's Gap on the North Carolina side. The group agrees that everyone should ride at her own pace, and arrange ourselves by speed. Again I'll be at the far back of the pack - only Bud will ride behind me. Della and Rox to the front. We start out, and I actually go slow for a little while, to completely lose the rabbits in front of me. I don't want to see them, and be tempted to go just a little faster than I am willing in order to keep up with them. It doesn't take long before they are out of sight. Then, I open up a little bit, and start to feel the flow of the road.

The Tail of the Dragon is a lovely, lovely road. It is packed on weekends, which is why we've chosen to ride it on a Monday, and I can see why it would be crowded with Sunday heroes. Everyone wants to claim she's a Dragonslayer, even me. The twists are numerous and tight, a sportbiker's paradise, heaven for those who like to flick over and grind and drag knees and push the envelope as far as possible and then push just a little bit farther. I am not that kind of rider, especially with the jitters I've had of late. I enjoy the road, but at first I feel like I am working rather than flying. Dragon lore is filled with horror stories of double-line-crossing cagers and even loaded semis who attempt to cross the mountains here, seeing the line on the map and thinking it a fine shortcut without knowing what the heck they are getting into. Thankfully, there is none of that today. The road is empty and I cruise through the cool shade, winding through turn after turn after turn. It's mostly second-gear speeds, and I even drop it to first now and again (admittedly, my first gear is taller than most riders' on a 4-speed.) I relax. I remember to lean, and to lean farther that I think I can, and feel the bite and swoop of my tires carving properly through entry and apex and exit, and THAT'S what I've been looking for. The Dragon redeems me. Now, I've left Bud behind, trusting her to follow at the pace she wants, and let my wheels flow and dance, and before I know it, it's over. Resort on the left, intersection in front of me. End of the road.

Well, that was a bit of a letdown. Eleven miles of even the twistiest road is ... not that far. Here I was just getting warmed up. I guess I am spoiled by California highways and canyons, I can choose between ACH and AFH, Ortega, Lockwood Valley Rd, Boquet, Francisquito, Topanga, Mulholland, and PCH ... or numerous others ... and none of those run out in under half an hour. Many people claim this is one of the most outstanding motorcycle roads in the East. All I can say to those folks, come to California.

(Nonetheless, I get a patch.)

A requisite visit to the Tree of Shame, lunch, more gabbing, and final goodbyes with this group. Jo, Bud, and Scorch are heading for Virginia. (Ask them about the pee pee dance sometime, if you get a chance.) Della is on her quest to fill in DA MAP and is southbound, looking for Florida. Rox and CherryLady are heading down to Robbinsville. And I am turning back west, going back to Nashville & hook up with my friend Nancy one last time while I'm here. She'll put me up for the night.

So, I'm on my own again, and boy howdy, I am ready for it by now. Have I mentioned I like riding by myself? I take the Cherehola Skyway westbound, another road of great repute in this part of the world, and completely LOVE it. This is the type of road I prefer - big wide sweepers that fly through rolling mountains, the scenery beautiful, the pavement good, the traffic sparse. Hot and humid. It'll be another day of many breaks. I'll take those opportunities to frequently haul out the map and ride backroads on my way back to the greater Nashville area. No superslabs for me today.

Coming off the Cherehola and stopping for gas at Tellico Plains, I am rather dismayed to see just how dark and thunderous the clouds in front of me are. Well, not much to be done about it now. Lightning flickers distantly.

I've found a good highway, TN-68, and it's taking me westbound through rural Tennessee, and I am having a grand time. I really don't know how to describe the pleasures of back-road riding, except that it's all interesting to my eye, and I enjoy every little thing I see, whether it's the carefully tended flowerbed set off the roadway by a picket fence & a six-foot-wide ditch, or the names of the towns on the signs I pass, places I'll never visit but am now wondering look like, or the people who hear my engine & raise their heads like dogs perking their ears at the sound of freedom. Oh, it's simply grand to travel this way. Well, grand except for the weather which is growing darker. I'm gonna get rained on soon.

And yes indeedy, I get rained on. It goes from "starting to rain" to "and the heavens opened" in about thirty seconds. Wow! Now THIS is a deluge. Water rolls off the pavement in sheets. Ditches fill and tumble with water. My boots fill, too. My right boot in particular is whatever the opposite of "waterproof" is, and I can feel it sloshing around my toes. Yuck. My visor fogs, and I have to ride with it cracked, plus I have to keep wiping the drops away with my sodden gloves about every three seconds, and still I can barely see. Not good. I am desperately looking for a place to pull off and there is nothing, nothing, nothing. I can't believe how dark it's gotten. And then, BAM!!!, a huge crash and flash WAY too close to me, I am in the middle of the lighting storm and I am REALLY desperate now, that was everything but singed hair & smell of ozone and I need to get out of this NOW and there is still NOWHERE to turn off. With little other choice, I keep going down the road in the fury of crackling lightning around me, for about another five miles. Oh, it is loud, loud when it booms. I pray for cover, and safety.

And thank the Goddess, she delivers me to a Shell station at the intersection of TN-68 and TN-58, if you'd like to look it up on a map. I gleefully pull under the canopy where three other motorcycles have already taken refuge. I strip off my sodden outergear, buy a Coke and settle in for rain-delay chatting with the other riders: there are a couple of fellows from Georgia, and a husband and wife from Alabama. It takes about half an hour for the thunderstorm to pass. The rain, which had been beating on the pavement so hard that drops were leaping back toward the sky, tapers off to a steady light patter, then fades away entirely. About five minutes later, the sun comes out. About another minute, and steam is rising off the road, ghostly wisps wafting a foot or two off the ground (for some reason this fascinates me, we don't have rainstorms like this in California) and the humidity hits like a hammer. The Georgia boys take off. I wait a few more minutes, and seeing that most of the water has drained from the roadway, continue my journey west.

I guess I could have waited a little longer, because it's not too far at all before I hit another little raincell, and any amount that my jacket had dried out, forget it, we're starting over with that process now. But this rain, while still hard, is not quite as much of a downpour, and it's not as dark, and there's no lightning in these clouds, apparently. I do stop briefly, to clear my visor which is badly fogged again, then continue on my way. It's not so bad, and this bit of rain starts tapering off as well after a short time. I am coming up on the Tennessee River, and seeing a major waterway is always a little thrill for me. Hmm. I am passing by the Watts Bar nuclear power plant ... I see the structure brooding on the riverbank to my left, towers looking vaguely malevolent, but no steam rising from them today. Once past the river, the highway bears little signs marking this as a "Watts-Bar emergency evacuation route." If you live near a nuclear facility, it behooves you to know how to get the hell out of Dodge FAST.

Rain ends, humidity rises, and I keep making my back-highway way toward Nashville, without major event. I get lost in small towns looking for gas stations, and generally have a good day. When I try to call my friend Nancy to get final directions to her place, I realize my phone's battery is dead; it got drained crossing the mountains, searching for a signal when it was out of range. D'oh. A very nice lady at a tiny general story in a tiny town lets me plug it in for a little while, and I get enough battery and signal to get me through the rest of the day. (The name of the town is Pleasant Hill TN, and it is tiny enough that the fellow I chatted with at the gas pump was surprised they were on my map. "That must be a new map," he remarked when I showed him. Heh.)

Nancy gives me bad directions, telling me to go north on the main interstate in Nashville, when she should have said south. Worse, I have to get off on something that says "Old Hickory something-or-other" and that's like saying to get off on "Peachtree" in Atlanta ... they are ALL named that. ("Old Hickory," by the way, is Andrew Jackson, native to this area, one of Tennessee's most famous sons, yadda yadda. The big loop highway around Nashville is named the Old Hickory Road. That's why there are so many exits bearing that name.) Long story short, I am halfway to Springfield before I figure that this CAN'T be right, and worse yet, it's raining again and lightning is licking these hills. Oh dear. I pull off, call Nancy (and get voicemail), and have a lively conversation with the attendant at the BP where I am parked. She can't sell me any gas because they were struck by lightning about five minutes previous, and their computers are all down & will take half an hour to bring back up. I ask her where she is from, because her accent is not Tennessee, she speaks in flat could-be-from-anywhere tones. Turns out she moved from Anaheim CA about six months ago. Heh.

I finally get Nancy on the line, get improved directions, and fight my way through Nashville traffic as darkness falls and the rain tapers off again. I had been WAY off course, but now I'm on track. I finally land in Antioch, the suburb for which I was searching, find Nancy, and I'm able to clean up & put on fresh clothes before she and I head out to a late dinner at the local Cracker Barrel (yeah, I can do with some comfort food at this point.) It is kind of a strange visit. I don't know if she was expecting to go clubbing or partying, or if we'd stay up all night talking, or what ... but I am really too exhausted to do much besides tell stories of being on the road for a week and half, and then my eyelids are drooping badly, and I have GOT to get some sleep. She sets me up with a foldout futon on the living room floor, and even Isaac the Jack Russell terrier doesn't bother me enough to stay awake. I'm thinking I'd like to make it to my sister's tomorrow, in time for my nephew's birthday, but that will be a long haul, and I will need to start early.

Next: Day Ten

2005 Day 8

2005-06-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Murfreesboro TN (33739)
End: near Tallassee TN (33930)
Miles: 191

It's Sunday, and getaway day from the RSBS Annual. Some are heading home. Others (like me) are starting the touring legs of their summer vacations. Murfreesboro has been the big stopping point between the first third and second third of my trip. I am looking forward to getting on the road again. I especially look forward to riding solo, and I'll be doing that for most of the way to Boise, but today I have one more day of riding with Rumble Sisters. Hoot will be leading a largish group to Fall Creek Falls, a fantastic road and scenic state park in eastern Tennessee. We'll have a lunch stop there. Then, Roxanne has graciously invited a bunch of us to stay at her bed & breakfast right next to the Tail Of The Dragon. Six of us take her up on the offer. We'll get up early tomorrow, ride the Dragon, and finally scatter to the winds from there.

Ears, the big softie, is crying in the hotel parking lot as various groups of sisters saddle up, wave goodbye, and gun their engines down the road. :)

It's about two dozen riders going to Fall Creek Falls. Yeesh, I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes, but I just DID NOT feel like riding in a group that large. The thought of riding through traffic ... trying to keep everyone together through stoplights ... it sets my teeth on edge, so, no thanks. I manage to negotiate a deal with leader Hoot, I'll set out on my own & meet up at the next gas stop once we get out of heavy traffic. It takes some doing to persuade her but I am insistent, and she gives me directions. She also tries to talk me into swapping bikes; she wants me to try out her VTX which is for sale, and she thinks it would be a fantastic bike for me. She's right, and a VTX 1300 will probably be my next bike. But I'm not going to ride hers, on unfamiliar roads, on a day that I am not feeling 100% comfortable. Some other time, I would have taken her up on the offer. But not today.

I really have picked up a lot of bad habits over the winter & now am feeling quite squirrelly about my riding skills. I need to work on improving them, and blasting down interstates is not the way to do it (anyone can point a bike in a direction and twist the throttle ... it's the slow-speed & curvy stuff that separates the skilled from the wannabes.) Here, at the RSBS Annual, I've had the pleasure of meeting and riding with a LOT of very good riders. It is, after all, kind of a self-selecting group. The down side to this, however, is that feelings of inadequacy now gnaw on the edge of my mind.

Well, when you're feeling like you're not a good enough rider, the solution is to work on getting better, which is what I do today. Once I've rejoined the group forty minutes outside of Murfreesboro, we split into a fast group and slow group. I volunteer to ride tailgunner on the fast group, knowing that I will be slower than all of them, and they'll lose me and I'll essentially have a solo ride to work on my twisties. Then we ride into the Tennessee hills, climbing up into fantasic forest scenery for many miles until reaching our destination at the Falls. Predictably, I end up well behind the fast riders, and I am just not feeling the flow today, which is kinda frustrating. We stop for one final photo, a little time to ooh and ahh at the falls themselves (the tallest east of the Mississippi), and have a good Southern-cooking lunch at the park's cafeteria. From there, it's side-of-the-road goodbyes and well wishes, cheerful to have met with so many fabulous Rumble Sisters.

Now, it's Roxanne, Della, Bud, Scorch, Jo eh?, CherryLady and me who head east toward the North Carolina border. Rox leads us on a back-highway route to her place, and it'll take us most of the rest of the day to get there. It's hot and humid, better than rain but the kind of weather that just wears you down. At one point, I am fairly sure we've missed a turn and am wondering if I should somehow pass the information up to the front of the pack (I am riding in the middle, following Jo) when I see something strange flutter past me. What the heck was that? Are Jo's tires kicking up some paper road trash? About when I whiz past the third whatever-it-is flickering in the air, my brain finally registers ... it's green ... it's money. Jo's wallet has fallen out of her pocket, it's now hanging on its chain and dumping its contents on the road. I pull over to the shoulder just as others following me do the same; they've figured it out pretty much the same time I have. Now we have seven bikes scattered over a half-mile of shoulder & we start walking up and down looking for the bills that have gone flying. I don't find any. Regrouping, Bud and Scorch walk up each holding up six fingers ... I hope/guess they're saying they've recovered $66, but alas, it's only $6 they found. Poor Jo! Most of it is gone. Complete bummer. The good news it, since we've stopped, we get ourselves turned around and back on the right road.

We stop for dinner about an hour later at a Mexican restaurant (and let me tell you, there's a reason that Tennessee isn't reknowned for Mexican cooking. It was entirely ordinary.) I dig a ten out of my wallet and toss it on the table, saying it's a small contribution to the Replace Jo's Vacation Fund. She says, don't do that, I have lots of money. (I say, then you give me ten dollars, dude! LOL) Turns out she's entirely smart and didn't have all her money in one place. She figures she lost about forty dollars total. Coulda been a lot worse.

After dinner, it's a straight shot to Rox's place, and it's getting dusky by the time we leave the restaurant. Roxanne warns us that the driveway at her house it quite challenging, steep and twisty, and tells us that we need to stagger ourselves and go up it one at a time. Going through small towns in the twilight, we see fireworks vendors setting off samples of their wares, which makes me smile. We turn off the main highway onto secondary roads, twisting and turning our way into remote hill country. Darkness is falling and we are miles from the nearest streetlight, and the dusky indigo sky peeking through the dark canopy of arching trees is a pleasure to see, though the deepening blackness beyond the reach of our headlamps does intimidate me a little bit. And then ... I SEE IT. It looks like a little spark in the darkness, and my brain can't figure out what it is. A dust mote lit by Jo's headlamp? Another. Another. Another and that one was clearly not in Jo's beam. They are FIREFLYS. More and more and more of them wink in the darkness, until they seem to be hanging thick in the air around us. I have never seen fireflys before this, and I am entirely charmed by them. I can't stop smiling, feeling like I am flying through a magic forest filled with enchanted little lanterns. I have to remind myself to watch the road, not them.

It is entirely dark by the time we pass through one final little town, make a left & travel along a lakeshore road, and then turn left for the steep climb up Roxanne's driveway. I bet you can guess what happened next. Of course we had forgotten her admonition to stagger ourselves going up, and we all putt steadily up in first gear. Rox, in the lead, pulls all the way up through the flat cement pad up top. Della, following her, pulls in behind her on flat ground. Jo, following Della, pulls in behind her on flat ground. I'm following Jo, and I pull up behind her, run out of momentum and have to stop when Jo stops, and I'm the one that isn't on the flat part. Annnnnd ... down she goes. I drop the bike for the first time in a long time, a slow-speed tip that at first I think I'm gonna be able to save and then realise there's nothing I can do to keep it up. I sorta lay the bike gently down on her left side, and end up standing and straddling the beast, and make a big circus bow to mock myself and let everyone know I am alright. That's when I realise that no one is looking at me, because CherryLady, who was following me, had to veer off onto the grass to the right when I came to a standstill, and has dumped HER bike as well, and she's cursing up a storm. (Bud and Scorch, following this mess, correctly chose to avoid it ALL and found the flat parking pad on the right side of the driveway, and have come to a safe landing.)

Well, this is f'ed up. I am exhausted-tired and not thinking entirely straight so I try to pick up my bike using all muscle and no technique, which is never gonna work on a sidehill, and can't do it. Eventually Della and Jo come over and help me lift it, and we get her out of the way. She's undamaged, thankfully. CherryLady is not so lucky. She has broken off the left front turnsignal, the engine won't start, and as we're picking it up and fiddling with it, the headlamp suddenly clicks off. Of course it does this when I am touching it. I am feeling like the kiss of death now. I am torn between wanting to help & really needing to back off, because CherryLady is really pretty mad and she's got every right to be mad at ME. We figure it's probably a fuse that blew as I was monkeying with the bulb ... now we're looking for the fusebox, which is notoriously hard to get to on this kind of Harley. CherryLady is pretty worked up, still angry and cursing, and she has her guy on the phone now and he's apparently being Mr Unhelpful Guy, and we're trying to get her to calm down and maybe try to replace the fuse in the morning when it's light and we're not all tired and punchy, but she needs to do this and get it fired up and I just decide to get entirely out of the way and go be miserable over here by myself and whaddaya gonna do? Engineer Scorch eventally figures out & replaces the fuse, CherryLady gets the motor started, and we all calm down after a while. Well, THAT'S something I don't want to do again anytime soon. Lord, I am so sorry all that happened. I feel perfectly awful. It's my fault, I did the totally wrong thing at the top of the driveway and started this chain of events, even though everyone in the group had a little piece to play in the drama. We'll figure out how to make CherryLady's bike roadworthy again tomorrow. She has to get it back to Minnesota, ya know.

We get our sleeping arrangements all sorted out, and take a little unwind time. We eventually all end up in Della and Jo's room, looking at maps, and talking about DA MAP. This is a Delphi forum thing, where a lot of people have taken a World66.com state map that you can color in states where you have visited, and put it in their signatures. Della is planning her day tomorrow to maximize the number of states she can color on her map. It's the insidious call of DA MAP! We all laugh because we know it's true. DA MAP has a hold on most of us. I finally figure out that I am REALLY tired and I oughtta go to bed, but I find it hysterically funny that we're staying up WAY late like teenage girls at a slumber party, talking about motorcycles and maps as if we hadn't been doing exactly that for the past four days!

Next: Day Nine

2005 Day 7

2005-06-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

On the Natchez Trace

In the morning, the Rumble Sisters hold their member meeting. It's held like a town hall meeting, with the usual attagirls and gripes, but this is the first-ever RSBS gathering and the turnout has been quite impressive, and it's pretty cool to have so many sisters sitting in one room, talking about the club. Della at one point stands up to say something and she starts, "For those who don't know me, I'm MagentaMomma from Oregon..." and everyone starts applauding, 'cause she's like totally our long-distance touring HERO. That woman rides like nobody's business. Also, Worm gets all choked up when she reports on the fundraising efforts for Kathleen, who was badly injured in an accident earlier this year. And of course we all start crying too, because it is just amazing how these women responded in a moment of crisis, and then we all start laughing at ourselves, a bunch of tough biker chicks sitting here sniffling. It's really an awesome group.

After the meeting, it's riding time. Today is on-your-own day (as opposed to yesterday, with the organized jelly bean ride) and I think I want to run down the Natchez Trace. Everyone is standing outside chatting in little clumps, figuring out who wants to ride where. Eventually there's a small group who's settled on a Natchez route: me, Bryna, Della and Tam (RedFox). A little more farting around, and we saddle up and take off.

What a strange, ecclectic little bunch of riders we are! Here's Della on her massive Gold Wing 1800. Tam rides a large touring BMW (sorry, I don't know Beemer models.) Then me on my little 600cc VLX. Then, just to prove we MEAN it when we say, "it's not what you ride, it's that you ride," here's Bryna on a 400cc Burgman scooter. Boy, that little machine keeps up with the big boys just fine. It's really a great solution for people who have trouble with a clutch. I think Bryna has some post-surgical hand strength issues, or something like that, and she was just thrilled to death where she discovered the "megascooters" that can do highway speeds and have automatic transmissions. It's kinda fun to watch her ride the thing. The mechanics of steering are the same for her, of course, but the drive train is set up different from a chain-driven or belt-driven standard motorcycle & the rear of the scoot lifts up under acceleration, and lowers when she rolls off the throttle ... it's just a little different, that's all. She will NEVER scrape pegs on the Burgie. Nothing on that bike will touch pavement, it all sits up high.

Della, on the other hand, regularly scrapes on her 'Wing. She does it on purpose, and if you think she doesn't know exactly what she's doing, she'll invite you on to the back of her bike, and then make left- and right-hand corners, scraaaaaaping the pegs the whole way, until you wimper for mercy. (We saw her do this in the hotel parking lot with Air, and had a good time laughing at it.) On our way to the Trace, I am behind Della in line, and we're making lefts and rights through some small Tennessee town, and the first time I hear this gawdawful noise of Della dragging bike parts on the pavement, I am so startled that I almost drop my bike. She knows exactly how far she can lean, and has magnificent control of that machine.

We make about a 200-mile loop around Tennessee, heading south for a ways on the Natchez Trace. It's green, a controlled highway with no commercial development, and has a speed limit that's STRICTLY enforced. Big wide sweeper turns. Nice riding. Very parklike, though I don't believe this road is part of the Nat'l Park Service. At one point, we see a police cruiser pulled off into a wide meadow on the opposite side of the road, his lights flashing. The law enforcement officer is out of the vehicle and on foot, standing next to a guy who is holding a motorcycle helmet. They are talking and looking around. There is no motorcycle anywhere in sight. Where did it go? Did he crash and it went down an embankment or something? Did the rider have to dump it for a deer? It was a strange little mystery we could not solve as we zoomed past them at 50 mph. The next rest stop, we take a little break to water up (it is very hot and humid) and sit around and talk some more. It's sorta funny ... both Della and Tam are taller than I am (which is mildly unusual in itself, I am on the fairly tall side but they are both over 6 feet) while Bryna is sufficiently vertically challenged that she is known in our online forum as "the Short One." So there is the requisite joking around about the land of giants, and Munchkins, and whatever. Eventually we head east off the Trace (on the same road I travelled after visiting Shiloh, Hwy 64) then north again back to Murfreesboro, stopping for lunch near Pulaski. We get back to the Doubletree around the middle of the afternoon.

Late afternoon, and Jo and I decide to do a run to the Wal-Mart down the street. RSBS is collecting canned goods for a local food bank, but most travellers have donated cash ... seriously, you want me to cart bulky items from California? Nah, better to buy it here. So we gather some money from a few folks & head off to see how much food our funds will purchase, and whether or not we can fit it into our saddlebags. (Jo also needs to purchase a new digital compact camera, since her old one has died.) We manage to buy a surprising amount of food & set ourselves to the impossible puzzle of how to get it back to the hotel half a mile away. Seriously, we bought way too much and it's never going to fit. It takes a lot of arranging and rearranging ... "No, dude, put the big can of peaches on this side, then you can get the tomato sauce in here" ... and we manage to get everything zipped up, strapped down, or otherwise secured without a dangerous balancing act. I tell Jo to follow me, I'm going to find a road back to the hotel that doesn't go through this particularly dangerous intersection where a bunch of people have already had near misses. Then I promptly lose her in the parking lot. (We're both riding weird with our loaded-down bikes, the balance is strange enough to make me very paranoid. Plus, the sun set while we were in Wal-Mart, and it's fully dark now.) In my mirrors I spot the single headlamp of a motorcycle following me, and turn left down a service road that takes me past the Wal-Mart automotive center, through what appears to be a deserted alleyway, and all the way behind the hotel, thus avoiding the intersection I've grown to hate. The bike behind me now passes me, and it's some rangy-looking dude with a fender bunny on the back, and they give me a strange look as they zip past. Oops. Guess that wasn't Jo back there. I hang a U-turn, go back and look for her, can't spot her anywhere, and give up, figuring she can find her own way back perfectly fine. Sure enough, she's in the hotel's pull-in area unloading cans when I pull up, and starts teasing me about getting lost on the way back from Wal-Mart. (This is because I was telling her I never get lost. I always know where I am or can find a road that gets me where I'm going; it's my special mutant skill.) I try to 'splain that I found the super-secret back way in, but give up, because she's having too much fun thinking I got lost. Ha.

Dinner. Drinks. More kareoke. I sing two perfectly wretched songs, best forgotten now ... sometimes what you think will be a good song turns out horrible, and not in a so-bad-it's-funny-and-therefore-a-little-good kind of horrible. But I cover myself in drunken kareoke glory with a slightly in-tune rendition of "Like A Virgin" which features the DJ guy holding up signs behind my head, saying things like "Will Sing For Sex." I don't know what he's doing back there but I know everyone is laughing their heads off. So of course I ham it up even more. ;) (But the Crotch-Grabbing Award still goes to BudGirl. Heh.) Jo, using her brand-new digital camera, captures a thirty-second video of the spectacle. Then she promptly deletes it, because she hasn't yet figured out how to use all the camera's features. For this, I shall be eternally grateful.

Tomorrow we leave the gathering, and we'll scatter our separate ways. I plan to head over to the Tail Of The Dragon with a small group, but I'm using the word "plan" in only the loosest sense. We'll keep on figuring out everything as it comes along.

Next: Day Eight

2005 Day 6

2005-06-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

at RSBS Annual in Murfreesboro, TN
no miles

I wake up at a decent time & straggle down to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast. A lot of Rumble Sisters arrived yesterday, four or five dozen; more are coming in this morning. After coffee and a little food, we get registration underway. It's not very formal, but we pretty much need to keep track of who's here, who's paid the nominal fee that will go toward the meeting room in the hotel, and who's signed the waiver/emergency contact form (stupid legality, but an unfortunate requirement for any riding event.) Also, there are nametags, and a few goodies & freebies to hand out, stuff that sisters have brought for everyone. Oh my heck. We don't have a clue what we're doing, and are pretty disorganized. We sort of figure it out as we go along, and it's less and less of a charlie-foxtrot as the morning goes on.

Most folks are going on a Jelly Bean run today (sort of like a poker run, but different) except for those of us who don't feel like riding. Having just come from 2000+ miles away, I'm firmly in the "my butt needs a break" group. Mid-morning, riders thunder out of the hotel parking lot (drawing curious looks from other hotel guests ... we'll be getting this response all weekend) and the rest of us retire to the bar/restaurant. Ears, Rob and I get involved in a game of darts, but no one takes it seriously. Unfortunately, it was Ears holding the camera, so I don't get a photo of her highly unusual dart throwing technique (I've never seen an underhanded delivery before, LOL. Her accuracy using this? Well, let's just say we all made sure we were standing WELL back on her turn.)

In the afternoon, a few of us borrow Froggi's car and go to the laundromat. How exciting, huh? It's a fact of life that on a long motorcycle road trip, you're going to have to do laundry a couple of times. Ears, RoadPattie and I run into Lindy at the local Suds'n'Duds. She arrived yesterday and is thinking along the same lines as we are, but she rides a sweet trike, and thus has LOADS of storage space and didn't need to borrow anyone's car! The hour spent on wash, rinse and dry cycles passes quickly with this good company. We look at maps, talk routes and roadtrips, a happy time. We all head out to the parking lot and Lindy shows off the features of her ride ... it's very cool. Chores done, we head on back to the hotel.

The Jelly Bean riders get back, most of them late. A couple of groups got EXTREMELY lost.

Gabbing, hanging out, gabbing, dinner, gabbing. Then, the general meeting, and everyone who's arrived gathers around the pool area (we had a meeting room for this, but it turned out too small to hold everyone. We have almost 90 people here.) The Jelly Bean Run prizes, door prizes and mileage awards are given out. Turns out I'm 2nd place - Honorable Mention - of the riders that have ridden here by direct route. Kathy from San Diego has me beat by a hundred miles. LOL.

After the meeting, there's more hanging out and gabbing, and the early birds head off to bed. The rest of us end up in the bar, where it's ... KAREOKE NIGHT! Oh, my, this is sounding dangerous. ;) Well, we now outnumber the handful of locals, so we sort of take over the bar and have a blast. The Rumble Sisters as a group sing "Delta Dawn", BudGirl sings "Macho Man", and I have apparently gained some reknown with my perfectly awful version of "One Way Or Another." My theory about kareoke is this ... you're going to suck, so you might as well suck with GUSTO.

Heh.

Next: Day Seven

2005 Day 5

2005-06-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: W Memphis AR (33190)
End: Murfreesboro TN (33513)
Miles: 323

It's morning, and everyone is in the parking lot hauling out maps. It's an easy day's ride from here to get to Murfreesboro, so we're all looking for alternate routes, small side trips, interesting roads to take us to our destination. Marsha and Marion are eyeing a Mississippi highway, US-72, they've heard it's a good two-lane to take for a ways east before swinging north again into Tennessee. I peer at the map with interest. I, of course, want to do a little Civil War sightseeing. Hwy 72 will take me to Corinth, the site of Beauregard's withdrawl from Shiloh, and from there I can cross the state line and go to the Shiloh Nat'l Battlefield itself. I'm on my own today, no other Civil War geeks. Everyone takes off, waving and hollering a cheery "See you in the 'Boro!"

I-40E to I-55S to I-240E to SR-385E to US-72E takes me out of Memphis and into the Mississippi countryside. It is here that I become a convert to The Church Of The Backroads. Most of my long-distance travelling to date has been on interstates, because they let me cover a lot of miles in a day. But the road here is so pleasant, so entirely different from riding the superslab, I resolve to travel this way whenever I can from now on. It's on the secondary roads that the character and flavor of the locality really shine through. I'm no longer seeing only major gas stations and fast food chains; instead, I see mom-and-pop stores, private residences that also serve as restaurants ('Elmo's Catfish And BBQ - Open Thurs-Sun!!!') or groceries or beauty salons or auto parts stores or anything else you can imagine in small-town life. I see front yards converted to five acres of corn, a clearing left unplanted for the kids' swingset and the tractor parked next to the pickup truck and the old Buick Riviera in the drive. Mailboxes on back roads are an art form. They're wonderful. Very, very few of the driveways are paved. I imagine how treacherous the gravel would be on a motorcycle. US-72 is a four-lane highway that soon dwindles to two, and it's a pleasant morning's ride. Soon I am in Corinth MS, where I get gas, then head northward on SR-22 towards the battlefield. I begin seeing signs marking points of interest.

Reaching Shiloh Nat'l Battlefield, I ride slowly along the good park roads. The land is wooded, with numerous small clearings. Markers are everywhere, blue, red and yellow. I am tempted to stop, but I don't know yet what I am looking at, so I keep going to the Visitor's Center, which is located a good ways inside the ground. Some of the monuments raised here are very impressive. Large stacks of cannonballs mark the headquarters locations of various commanders. Finally, I reach the Visitor's Center, which is within sight of the Tennessee river and Pittsburg Landing. Details of history snap into place in my head. Parked in front of a line of cannon, I realise that I am at the Union's final line of defense, where they had been driven back to by the end of the first day's fighting. I go inside the center, to pay my fee and get my map, and to watch the video that's always available at these places. It's about 25 minutes long and pretty low-quality ... why are these things typically cheesy? Heh. But, I'm in luck. Immediately after the film, a park ranger puts on his period costume and gives a little demonstration of The Equipment Of The Civil War Soldier. He explains what he is carrying, then gives a demo of "load in nine times," the procedure for loading and firing an 1860's muzzle-loading rifled musket. It's a good little speech he gives, and he ends it on a somber note, saying, "Remember as you walk these grounds today, that it was Americans. Fighting Americans. Good day." The group stands in silence, respectful of these words. It's as though a spell has come on us, and the meaning of the battle here lies deep on us all. I turn and walk away, blinking back unexpected tears, as the spell is broken by Mr Tourist In His Tourist Shirt, who starts asking Stupid Tourist Questions. It's time to see the rest of the battlefield.

First, I walk through the Shiloh National Cemetary, which is on the bluffs just above Pittsburgh Landing. Union soldiers were removed from gravesites on the battlefield and re-interred here with military honors in the 1890's when the brand-new National Park Service took over the battlefield site. About a third of the soldiers can not be identified. Their markers sometimes bear a company or regimental identification, a simple "unknown", or sometimes just a number.

Then, on to the driving tour. It's a beautiful warm day, and I tie down both my jackets on the back of the bike, and ride in shirtsleeves. The tour has about eighteen stops, and I spend time walking around many of them. The Hornet's Nest, a pivotal place in the battle, is particularly moving. Here, Benjamin Prentiss's two brigades held firm while the rest of Union army was driven back in disarray by the fury of the Confederate charge on the first day. Prentiss understood Grant's order to "maintain that position at all hazards" and held up the Rebel advance for six hours. Massing and firing from a sunken country road, the Federals threw back a dozen separate charges, until Dan Ruggles massed, at point blank range, all the artillery pieces he could find and command on the field. 62 cannon shattered the Union position, but too late in the day for a Confederate victory. During the night, Don Carlos Buell and his army arrived to reinforce Grant, and the Union was able to sweep the field the following day.

Ghosts walk here.

Somber and moved, I finish the driving tour. (The Peach Orchard has been replanted with actual peach trees and will once again be an orchard, I am pleased to report.) Then, I leave Shiloh behind me, and proceed onward through the Tennessee countryside, once again heading for Murfreesboro on the back highways. I'm still in my t-shirt, which feels strange since I hardly ever ride without full gear, but it's wonderful on this lovely day. Eventually, however, I realise I've given myself a wicked sunburn, along with strange tan lines from the gauntlet gloves I wear. D'oh. I pull on my jacket at the next gas stop, and resort to main highways again, and get myself to Murfreesboro. I arrive at the RSBS Annual by late afternoon.

Folks will be arriving today and tomorrow. I'm handling some of the registration duties, but it's not ramped up to full speed yet, so it's mostly meet-and-greet time. There are far too many names and faces for me to remember, but I know most of the Rumble Sisters from online forums even though I haven't caught on to who's-who in real life yet. This is going to be a GOOD event. Everyone is happy and elated to be here. My roommates, Shanon and Cindy, won't be arriving until late, so I get myself checked in to the room, then spend the rest of the evening just hanging out in the lobby and attached restaurant. My friend Nancy, from Nashville, drives down to have dinner with me tonight. I'm feeling tired after my five days on the road, so even though I wish I were more energetic, I have to say goodnight & tell her I'll catch up with her more later. I plan to spend at least one night in Nashville while I'm here in Tennessee.

BTW: the girls don't arrive until well after midnight, and I've been asleep for two hours when they sneak into the room quiet as mice. This I did not expect. I thought they'd come in noisy and boisterous. Miz (Cindy) said she didn't know if I slept armed (LOL) but she didn't want to risk waking me just in case. Jeez, they're nice. Like I said, this is going to be a GOOD weekend. :)

Next: Day Six

2005 Day 4

2005-06-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Shawnee OK (32760)
End: W Memphis AR (33190)
430 miles

I am up early and on the road from Shawnee, after bidding Carrie farewell and a safe trip back to Texas. Another interstate day. After so many days of heat, it is wonderfully cool on the road this morning, fog hugging the valleys and swales of rural Oklahoma. I ride into the glare of the morning sun, admiring the scenery and the impossibly red clay earth. Apparently this part of the country is home to lots and lots and lots of turtles, the kind kids keep in aquariums, ya know? They are all over the road here, like little stalled Volkswagens on the shoulder of I-40. I don't actually run over any of them, they seem to be mostly out of the roadway. Thank goodness. I prefer to leave them in peace.

Oklahoma highways are bad. Thump, thump, thump. I hate roads that are patched over and over again instead of properly repaved.

I've left Shawnee with better than half a tank of gas, and reading mileage signs and doing the math in my head, figure my next stop to be in Henryetta OK. Well, I'm not sure if I was daydreaming or if I missed it in the construction (and there is lots of it here) but I ride right past Henryetta. Oh well, I'll just stop at the next gas I see. I keep riding. Nothing. Now I've gotten into a middle-of-nowhere patch, and there are NO gas stations, though I never did see a blue sign telling me how far until the next services. I start to worry ... I've been on reserve for thirty, forty, now FIFTY miles and I must be running on fumes by now. Worse yet, I'm in the middle of another stretch of construction work, the sort where they shut down one side of the freeway and run both directions, single lane, on the other side. There is NO shoulder so if I run out of gas, there is NOWHERE to safely pull off. Time to pray. Keep me safe, dear Goddess, and please don't let my little scoot quit on me. At LAST I see a Citgo sign to the right! I don't breathe easily until I pull up to the pumps. Whew, that was way too long to run looking for gas. My tank holds 2.9 gallons, according to the specs. Today I put 3.197 gallons in it. Oh my goodness. Three-tenths past the maximum capacity. I think the tank was about as empty as you can possibly get and still have the motor running. My angels are watching out for me. :)

I cross over into Arkansas, which is hilly and pretty in this western part. Gas again in Clarkesville AR, this time not waiting until I am just about run dry. ;)

Coming into Little Rock, I get caught in nightmare traffic, and the worst and stupidest construction cone job I have EVER seen. Many lanes of traffic get pinched into a single lane. It's city traffic, so people are getting aggressive and pushy and not letting cars in ... I jump past a bunch of cars by riding on the ill-defined shoulder, cutting into the lane at the last possible minute. The fellow in a battered pickup behind me is quite unhappy about this. He scowls and shouts, and tailgates me much closer than reason and safety allows. I can see him in my rearviews, gesturing angrily. Let it go, dude. I am happy to get away from him as soon as I can.

Just past Little Rock is the designated lunch stop and the meetup place for the Texas riders joining us for the rest of the ride to Murfreesboro. After a little circling and an assist from Rob, Janelle's husband, I find them in the parking lot of an Iron Skillet. We exchange greetings and hugs - Suzanne (Ears), Janelle (NavLady), Camellia (CC) and Janet (RoadPattie) are here and waiting! It is wonderful to meet these ladies; they are fabulous beyond words!! We go in for lunch and fall into happy road camraderie, telling stories and laughing our heads off. I dig the deck of playing cards out of my pocket and toss 'em to Suzanne, saying, "I got a little present for ya." She thinks the cheesy Route 66 cartoon on the back of the deck is great, and she beams. She's our local cardshark - poker, Texas Hold'Em is her game. I resolve to not play for money against her. We have a great lunch, then head out to hit the road again. While everyone is tanking up, Marty, Kathy and Bob pull in. More greets, more smiles. We decide to keep the groups mostly the same as we've been in all day (and I'll ride solo) and gather again at the hotel in West Memphis. I'm too hot standing around in my gear, so I take off down the road.

From here, it's just a straight shot down I-40 into W Memphis AR. It's beastly hot and humid, and mostly boring and uneventful. I pull into the hotel first, but Sue and Turbo are only a minute behind me. Time to get cleaned up and take a small nap. We'll go out for dinner in town tonight.

A group of eight of us head into Memphis looking for a barbeque joint that apparently no longer exists, and end up in a parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken wondering what to do. Asking a passerby, we're directed to Beale Street, of course. So off we go, RoadPattie in the lead. We get to Beale Street, looking for parking which is nowhere to be found in the heavy street traffic. Stopped at the next red light, she turns around and shouts back, "Where do you think we should park?" Everyone laughs at her, saying, "Why didn't you pull in where all the BIKES were?" We've lucked out, it's Bike Night on Beale Street, but Janet was concentrating on the road so much, she entirely MISSED seeing it. (I have to say, I was concentrating so much on not hitting her, I missed it too. LOL.) Three right turns get us to the proper place, and we ride into the slow parade of a Bike Night.

Woo, party time in Memphis, a town that knows how to throw a great party! We wander the street for a while, drinking in the sights and sounds, enjoying ourselves thoroughly. Blues blares from every doorway. There are hundreds of bikes, more arriving every minute. We select Pig On Beale for dinner and sit down to superb barbeque. Dinner is one of those fabulous ones where everyone is in a wonderful happy mood, and these Texas ladies are hysterically funny ... they'll have you in stitches the whole night. I laughed so much my face hurt.

Afterwards, more wandering to see the sights of Memphis, before we finally straggle back to the west side of the Mississippi to get sleep for the last leg of the journey to Tennessee tomorrow. We accidentally get on the riverfront road heading back, which is perfectly wonderful, the lights shining across the dark water of this, the greatest river in America. I am entirely happy.

Next: Day Five

2005 Day 3

2005-06-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Tucumcari NM (32356)
End: Shawnee OK (32760)
404 miles

Today is an uneventful day, and still extremely hot. We head out of Tucumcari fairly early, knowing that there will probably be a lot of breaks due to the heat. I am riding by myself again, since this is an arrangement that is working well for everyone.

In Vega TX, I jump off the interstate to explore a little Route 66 silliness in Oldham County. Somehow I had googled to Dot's Mini Museum a few months ago, and even more amazing, remember it today. So I detour briefly off I-40 and manage to go right through the happening town of Vega (population 200-something) without ever spotting Dot's digs. I did see the Vega Motel, an original Route 66 motor lodge that is still open for business. This stuff is kinda fun, and you can waste a bunch of time poking around in flyspeck towns like this, but I hop back on the interstate instead, and keep heading east.

Amarillo TX is my sole gas stop in the Lone Star State. Traffic is not too bad. It's a quick trip across the panhandle, and I'm in Oklahoma by midmorning. I get gas in Erick, then my next stop is at the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, OK. (I stopped here last year, but had forgotten ... pulling into the parking lot and recognizing the place brings a smile.) I buy Suzanne a cheesy deck of cards at the museum gift shop. I love road tchotskes. More road junk shopping at one of those hysterically bogus "Indian Trading Posts" at some forgotten town on I-40. I think it'd be nice to get Miz and Bloody some gifts; they've offered last-minute to let me room with them. The whole problem with the bike is you're very limited in space and therefore any gifts you pick up must be SMALL. I end up selecting pocket knives and shot glasses, emblazoned with 'Oklahoma' and 'Route 66' stuff. Hope everyone will like their baubles.

I stop for gas in El Reno OK and find that I've caught up with Marty, Kathy and Bob. We chat for a while at the pumps. I think they left an hour or two before me in the morning, so I'm making pretty good time even with a few extra stops. They said they had run into Della (MagentaMomma from RSBS) at their previous gas stop ... she was on her way from Oregon to Plano TX before heading to Murfreesboro. Small world, huh? She had spotted the Rumble Sisters sticker on Kathy's windshield and had rolled in to the station hollering "Rumble Sisters rule!" Of course they all knew who SHE was immediately. Not too many six-foot-one ladies running all over the country on a 1800cc Goldwing painted metal-flake magenta. Heh.

I am first to arrive at the hotel in Shawnee, OK, and that's the real highlight of the day. Carrie from TX had ridden up to have dinner with me, and I had never met her in real life before, so it was a true pleasure to meet & get to know my Amazon sister. Here in Shawnee, Marion and Marsha (from Utah) join our group heading to Tennessee. Also, RoninK9 and Mel from RSBS - sort of locals - join our group for dinner, so I get to meet them as well. It's a great evening, convivial and happy. Carrie and I stay up late talking about life, the universe, and Amazons in general. We head off to bed after 10:30 pm, a late night for a road day.

Next: Day Four

2005 Day 2

2005-06-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Flagstaff AZ (31854)
End: Tucumcari NM (32356)
502 miles

Our group meets up at the designated gas stop in Flagstaff AZ bright and early. Today is planned to be a long day, we have reservations to stay in Tucumcari tonight, which is a long haul across desert interstate. Today will be on the boring side.

For our ride to Tennessee, we have Kathy and Bob from San Diego, Marty from Quartzsite, Sue from Phoenix, Turbo from Flagstaff, and me. We have riders that like to go fast and riders that like to go slow, so we decide to split into two groups. Marty, Kathy and Bob nominate themselves as the slowpokes/lots-of-stops group. Bob is pulling a trailer on his Valkyrie and you lose stability over 65 mph with that setup. Sue and Turbo like to go fast; they have big bikes just made for this kind of travel. I'm the tweener. My bike is the littlest and has the smallest tank, so I go a little slower and need to stop for gas more frequently than they do. It's decided that I'll ride tailgunner with Turbo and Sue, and I tell them if I fall behind, not to worry, I'll catch up with them sooner or later.

So off we go. It's a beautiful morning and a glad thing to be on the road. A couple miles outside of Flagstaff, there's a dead deer on the side of the road, just a reminder to me to be cautious. An hour or two into the ride (I think it was after our gas stop in Holbrook), Turbo starts doing this thing that freaks us out. She starts drifting to the right, catches herself as she's about to run onto the shoulder, a whole bunch of times. Girl is obviously sleepy on the bike. Finally she pulls off for a little rest break. She says this happens to her sometimes in the mornings, and she'll be OK with a twenty minute stop, and do we mind? We tell her by all means to take as much time as she wants!!!

There's billboard outside of Winslow, promoting the town, which says "Stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona." Heh. There's also lots of "Historic Route 66" markers along the way. I don't stop and do any side-road detours along here. I've seen a bunch of it before.

Crossing the great flat desert brings us into Gallup NM, where we stop for gas. A headwind has sprung up and while it's not fierce, it knocks enough off my top speed so I can't do 80 mph any more, and now I can't keep up with the big girls. While the VLX is a great little bike, lightweight and manuverable, my big butt on top of a loaded-down 600cc is not a great recipe for speed. The wee beastie labors to stay at 75 mph, the speed limit out here. I drop further and further behind. After a while, the girls are out of sight.

There's a whole lot of nothing to the west of Albuquerque, and my tank is getting low. Where the heck are the gas stations? I've been on reserve for over thirty miles when the next gas finally appears, a casino/rest stop just west of Albuquerque. Yay. I was just bording on "getting nervous." Turbo is waiting for me on the off-ramp, and I follow her in to the pumps. Turbo says, "I thought you must be pretty low on gas by now." I tell them, "I didn't know if you were stopping, but I was going to whether or not you were here." We proceed to the designated lunch stop on the east side of Albuquerque, thinking to have a leisurely lunch and wait for Bob and Kathy and Marty to show up. I have a pretty lousy salad bar and the world's saltiest chicken soup. After an hour, we're still wondering where our slow group is. I'm not particularly worried, but I hope they haven't run into any mechanical difficulties. I think Sue is a bit more worried, though. We call and leave messages on cell phones, but phone contact is always sporadic in these situations. You can't answer while you're riding. Finally, we decide to continue on, and I take off first. The girls, who didn't tank up at the casino, need to fill up here. They'll probably catch me down the road somewhere.

So, I'm on my own through eastern New Mexico, which is no problem at all. I love solo riding ... back roads, interstates, whatever. It makes me happy and whole. There's an old saying that you never see a motorcycle in front of a psychiatrist's office. Wind and freedom cures the anxieties of 21st century life, or at least I've found it so. I enjoy the countless small pleasurable sights of the road: a pretty mesa, an interesting-looking bird, a town with a funny name, a kid in the backseat to wave at. The headwind still dogs me, so I don't worry about blasting down the road, just patiently make my miles. Another gas stop, in the middle of nowhere. With the load and the wind, I am stopping pretty much every 100 miles.

Now, about 60 miles from Tucumcari NM, I notice the thunderhead that's been way off in the distance all day suddenly appears to be quite close to me. Heh. It snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. I can see the dark streaks underneath the cloud, it is definitely raining in there, and looks like I am heading right into it. Oh well. Since losing my raingear yesterday, I am resigned to the fact that if I get wet, I'll get wet, and not much to be done about it. It's bloody damn hot anyway so it won't be a horrible thing. Gusty winds start to kick up a bit as I get close to the squall line, but not too bad. Then, just as I appear to be about to plunge into the rain, the highway takes a northward veer, skirting around a mesa, taking me around the thundercloud. Hey, looks like I may have luck today! I see some lightning to my right, but don't hear the boom. I wonder if it's too far away to hear, or if the noise is being swallowed by the roar of wind and motor, muffled by the earplugs I'm wearing. It's hard to judge distances out here in the wide-open spaces.

Just when I think I have gotten past the dark clouds and avoided all the rain, it catches me, outside of Cuervo NM. It comes down suddenly and heavy, a real desert cloudburst, and the temperature immediately drops a good blessed twenty degrees. It feels so great, I don't even mind the wet. I slow a little out of caution, but the road is a good straight shot with no construction, and the rain doesn't last for very long. By the time I roll in to Tucumcari, I'm dry and the temp has risen again. I get a little lost but finally locate the hotel, a Travelodge, in a run-down looking part of the old Route 66 road through the town proper. It's around 7:00 pm and I am surprised to be the first one to arrive; the girls never did catch me on the road. Walking to my room, I see motorcycles pull in so I head over to greet my friends ... oh, wait, too many bikes (six), this is some other group! Turns out it's a CMA group from Texas, heading for the Grand Canyon. We chat for a bit, and wish each other a good ride, then I head to my room to shower off the day's grime. Clean and dressed in fresh clothes, I walk out and find Sue and Turbo just pulling in. They tell me they had a couple of long breaks (the heat, ya know) and that's why they never did pass me on the road. We try to get dinner at the next-door restaurant but they don't serve beer, and Turbo sort of had her mind set on having one, so I volunteer to run down to the Circle K up the street and pick up a six-pack and noshies. We content ourselves with conversation, cervesas, chips and salsa, and chicarones for dinner. Heh. Glad I had that salad for lunch.

The slower group doesn't pull in until well after dark, around 9:30. They'd taken lots of heat breaks, too, and it's been a long day for them. We're glad they've landed safe and sound for the night, but we're all ready for bed by now.

An aside: here in Tucumcari, I've become a curbhopper. Arriving at the hotel, I somehow managed to miss the two driveways and jumped the curb that was only three or four feet in between them. I blame the glare of the setting sun, heh, but I am glad I hit it straight-on! That could have been a pretty stupid spill. A four-inch curb makes a pretty good jolt anyway. Then, guess what I did as I was leaving the Circle K? Yup, missed the driveway again and went right off the curb. (They're a lot easier going down than going up.) I don't know why they seem to be so hard to spot in New Mexico. LOL.

Next: Day Three

2005 Day 1

2005-06-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Sherman Oaks CA (31362)
End: Flagstaff AZ (31854)
492 miles

Up early, loaded up and out the door for my three-week vacation. The Official First Odometer Reading is 31362.3 miles. Sunday morning traffic is light. I am heading to Barstow to pick up 1-40, to head east to my first destination, Murfreesboro TN.

Of course I didn't eat breakfast ... I managed to clean just about everything out of my fridge before leaving so there was nothing to nosh at home. So I stop for a quick bite in the Cajon Pass, a couple of chicken soft tacos at Del Taco. It's the start of Weird Road Eating, I guess. Thus fortified, I continue on.

Just past Barstow (in Nebo, actually) there's one of those brown signs saying "Historic Route 66" and I think, why the hell not, and pop off the interstate. I've been on parts of this stretch of old 66 before, parts of it not, but never on a motorcycle. Might as well start the adventure now! The road parallels I-40 for a little while, passing through towns now made dusty and deserted by the interstate, and then swings south through the middle of the California desert. Closed gas stations and motels are markers of motor history. Lookie there, it's the World Famous Bagdad Cafe, ratty and run-down yet still open for business, apparently. It's worth stopping for a picture. Just outside of Amboy, I see a bunch of tennis shoes hung up in a smoke tree ... urban legend holds that tennis shoes hung on telephone wires mark a drug dealer's location; I wonder what it means out here? LOL. Then, past the Cadiz road, what I imagine to be the local kids have taken stones and spelled out messages on the highway berm, like the coral on the lava beds of the Ironman Triathlon in Hawai'i. This amuses me. Most of the messages are of the "Jenny + Greg 4Ever" variety. Speaking of lava beds, there's some really impressive ones out here, and a couple of craters, that I have never spotted from the interstate.

I stay on old 66 as far as it will take me. The road is not good, very full of potholes in places. The day grows hotter. 66 finally runs out about 23 miles before Needles and the Arizona border, and I am forced back on to the interstate. Gas costs a LOT in Needles, the middle-of-nowhere price this week is $2.999/gal for unleaded 87. Yikes. Again, I bless my small tank, it never costs very much to fill it.

I fill up again in Kingman AZ, and again in Williams. Oh, crap! In Williams, I am switching gear and as I go to tie down my jacket, my brain takes a few seconds to parse what is wrong with what I'm looking at ... hey, there's something missing from my bike! Where is my sissy bar bag? It's flown off somewhere between Kingman and Williams, and that means it's gone gone gone. I'd had it tied on with zip ties, but they were the little ones, and obviously not sufficient for the job. In the bag was my rainsuit, my winter-weight gloves, and a couple of tools. Well, I didn't like that rain suit anyway. I'll pick up a cheapo replacement at a Wal-Mart somewhere. Yeah, everything is replacable, but still a pain in the butt. You'd think I'd learn, but for me it's not a road trip if something doesn't go flying off the bike at least once. At least I'm getting it out of the way on day one. Heh.

I pull into Flagstaff and check in to my room for the night, a Motel 6. It'll do. I call Turbo, who lives here, and who is having dinner at her house for the gang heading out tomorrow. Marty, Kathy and Bob have already arrived. Sue will be coming in later. Turbo hops in her car and comes down to pick me up. It's burgers and brats for dinner, and shrimp, and coleslaw and potato salad and some really fabulous cheesecake. Yum. This will be the last home-cooked food for a while.

Eventually we say our goodnights, Turbo gives me a lift back to the hotel, and everyone beds down early for our 7:00 am start tomorrow. We want to beat some of the heat through Arizona.

Next: Day Two

Purple Belt, and mundane life

2005-04-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

Welp, yesterday was my test for purple belt. It was held at another dojo, with more senseis, and I was warned it would be tougher than the previous tests. Oh, were they ever right about that. I dutifully increased my water consumption for the entire week before the test, running to the ladies' room every half hour at work and wondering if it was enough (um, nope, it wasn't.)

The good news is, I knew the damn cigarettes were killing me and I had to put 'em away sometime soon, so knowing that karate was getting harder and harder just as I was impairing my ability to breathe more and more was what finally motivated me to quit, cold turkey. Haven't had a smoke since March 22. One day at a time, my friends.

So the belt test went on for about four hours (!!!) and I am happy to say I made it through, even though it felt like I was gonna die. LOL. I think everyone says that about tests; they're supposed to challenge you a lot. I do have my serious doubts about making through the next test, which would be blue belt, if it increases in difficulty that much more ... and it will. Oh, you can bet it will. Heh. My sensei says that they won't send up anyone who isn't ready for the test, and that when it's time I'll be able to do it just fine. He's right. Of course he is. It's just ... trusting him and trusting myself is the hard part for me ;)

I get to wear a black gi now. Heh. (Thanks, dearheart!)

Haven't been riding a lot, what with the on and off rain all this spring. Minnie and I rode up to San Luis Obispo for a sandwich, just because we're loony. We felt like riding all day. It was a good day. And a good sandwich, LOL. I am looking forward to summer weather, which will be here soon with any luck!

Oh, and that woman who broke my heart two years ago? The one I'm still in love with? (Yeah, her.) I had dinner with her last week & it was actually pleasant, a convivial and chatty meal, so at least she's not calling me names any more. I have no idea why she wanted to have dinner with me. Odd, isn't it? Her invite came out of the blue. When I spend any time thinking about it, I react with suspicion, then a tiny ray of hope, then dope-smack myself for hoping for anything. Gods, I am still so fragile about her. I'm hanging in. It's all I can do. I refuse to walk down that path towards self-destructiveness again.

Rain rain go away

2005-03-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

I am so sick of this freakin' rain. I used to love rain. Now that I ride, I can't stand wet days. I squandered a beautiful weather day yesterday, I needed to get a new front tire on the bike, so I didn't get out. Well, the front tire was pretty bald so it's a good thing I got a new one. Today, met up with Ladyhawke and Jude for a little ride. The original plan was to meet in Corona and do Ortega Hwy. Heading out, it was a gloomy morning, foggy and misty enough where drops collected on my visor and windshield, but not really what you could properly call rain. I found Jude at Toms Farms and we waited around for LH, and half an hour late my phone rings ... she's gotten lost, the poor directionally-challenged dear, and ended up in Fallbrook (!) so Jude and I hop on the scoots and head half an hour down the road and find her. From there, a little more wandering & stopped for lunch at a Denny's, and chatted it up for a good long while. From there, we all headed home, so Ortega will wait for another day. The weather never did turn nice like I thought it would. On my way back, it got downright nasty in the San Gabriel Valley, and the mist and drizzle turned into real rain and here I was on the 210 without any raingear with me and this freeway always gets jammed up coming into Pasadena in the afternoon, I don't know why. Slick roads, Sunday drivers and a new wheel made me VERY nervous. I actually got off the freeway for a bit (the section where everyone sees the brake lights in front of them & starts changing lanes suddenly) and rode surface streets for a while. Got home safe and sound, thank you Goddess. My nice clean bike, which I'd spent a little time polishing on Saturday, is a mess again. Oh well ;)

Orange Belt

2005-01-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's a funny thing about tests, ya know. For my yellow belt, I felt nervous as all get-out, worried about it so much that I could barely sleep the night before. Then, I nailed the thing. I was happy and exhausted afterward, pleased to have done well, proud of mastering the first basics of Shaolin.

Today I tested for orange belt. Man, felt like I sucked. What happened to the skills, the next tiny portion of knowlege, that I'd been working on so hard for these past couple of months? I knew the stuff, my muscles & my nerves & my brain had all their bits, but just couldn't seem to work together today. I stumbled. I hesitated. I was sloppy. The test felt like it went on and on and on (though I think it did not go on for very much longer than the first one) and it felt like drowning. Just let me get through this, I kept telling myself. I'll do better next time. I'll get another chance to do this right. Just keep going. Hold together. Never quit.

Well, I passed. I wasn't sure I would, but I did. I'm not so pleased and happy about this one, though. Everyone has an off day and today was certainly one for me. I didn't like how that felt, so just a reason to work harder, I guess.

New York

2005-01-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

Spent New Year's in New York City, visiting with Amazon sisters. The trip started off badly. I am a big old flying coward, and decided on the traditional Hit The Airport Bar (Hard) technique of calming my midflight nerves. This was a mistake. I was stinking drunk on the plane & I don't do 'stinking drunk' so well anymore, so I felt more sick than mellow. Then, the plane was to land & refuel in Nashville, but that airport was fogged in, so after circling for about an hour and a half, we diverted to Louisville. We weren't allowed off the plane (since this particular airline doesn't fly out of Louisville) and instead had to sit on the tarmac for two and a half hours before the fog in Tennessee finally lifted enough for us to return to Nashville, let off and take on more passengers, and proceed to LaGuardia. Sheesh. I was still kinda green around the gills when Tee picked me up at the airport, and glad to be off that damn plane. Tee laughed at me & my extreme lack of luggage. For a five day visit, I had one small carry-on and my camera. Heh, I believe in traveling light.

Linda and Diane arrived a few hours later, and I rested back at home when Tee went to pick them up, and was feeling a little better by the time everyone was together. So the trip was improving after an inauspicious start :)

The weather in New York was surprisingly good. It was warm enough for the snow that fell a few days ago was mostly melted. It even got up in the fifties some days, so it certainly wasn't the beastly temps I was expecting.

This was a pretty low-key visit, mostly just hanging out and being together, with two major events planned. The first was we would do the whole New Year's Eve in Times Square thing. The second was going to the Cowboys-Giants game at the Meadowlands on January 2nd. Trina would be playing on the New York Sharks squad as part of a halftime exhibition scrimmage.

So as New Year's Eve rolled around, we pile on the train to ride from Long Island to Manhattan, laughing and giggling and the out-of-towners (me and Linda and Diane) carrying on like the geeky tourists we are and the natives (Tee and Trina) mocking us. Good times. We got to Times Square before sundown and let me tell you, it was already a madhouse. NYPD had started blocking off streets, making it hard to move around. We went in circles for a while trying to get to Rockerfeller Plaza (I wanted to photograph the ice rink & the statue there) but couldn't get to it, we weren't allowed to walk down the streets we needed to get there. We gave up after a while, and wandered down to the main part of Times Square you see on the television. The sun was setting, it was around five p.m., the streets were getting packed ... you could still move around, they weren't yet jammed like they would be in a few hours, but you were consistently jostled anywhere you went ... and standing around for seven hours in a sea of drunken humanity suddenly seemed like not such a good idea. I have a bad knee, Linda has a bad ankle, and I think Tee gets pretty grumpy at crowds, especially large stupid ones. (Maybe I'm projecting here and it's me that gets grumpy. LOL.) We decided to bail and head down to the Village, to get dinner and then spend the evening at one of the local drinking establishments. This plan turned out to be much better. We ate at Cowgirl and then walked down to Rubyfruit, where we all got drunk as lords. We had a great time being the loud table ordering a zillion Cosmos, wearing silly hats, making drunk phone calls to our Amazon sisters ;) I'm afraid that Diane had a bit too much to drink -- a relative thing at this point, but she needed the most assistance walking -- and taking this into account, we timed our return to Long Island very well, getting on the train BEFORE the one that's jam-packed with revellers going home. We had to carry her off the train when we got to our stop while Tee held the door open with her body, glaring knives at the conductor, but we got our butts safely home and in bed, ready to nurse the wicked hangovers that were sure to come the next day.

New Year's Day was watching football & a little hair of the dog, you know, the typical thing. It was pretty funny, I thought -- midday, on our third televised game or so, I looked around the room and realised I was the only one who was awake, everyone else was sacked out on the various couches and recliners. Tee made a fabulous dinner to celebrate New Year's Day, and a few more friends came over for a festive little get-together. And Tee is a woman who knows her wine. (grin) We went downstairs to admire Tee's project bike after dinner, she's building a bobber out of an old Kawa. Lotta work to be done, the project's just getting started. It's going to look supremely cool when she finishes.

Next day was game day. Sharks were playing at halftime of the Cowboys vs Giants, so Trina was nervous, as you would expect. We trekked down to Meadowlands Stadium ... ha, that's the New Jersey scenery I remember ... and it turns out our seats were pretty damn good, we were in the first row of the mezzanine. Neither the 'Boys or the Giants were playing terribly well, but it was the final game of the season and both teams were out of the playoffs, so it was a pride/rivalry game anyway. Eli Manning was still looking for his first NFL win, but stunk it up the first half. The crowd was grumbling and booed him a little. Heh. Halftime, the NFL players quit the field and the Sharks hustled on, and ran a scrimmage on half of the field ... unfortunately, they were down by the end zone that was farther away from us, but we still had a great view. Trina got in for a few plays; I remember her coming in on defense for a third-down play and she flat-out sprinted to get to the corner from the other sideline. We laughed and cheered her on -- fastest player on the field! or at least the one who was showing the most motor! LOL. I listened to the crowd comments around me. A lot of folks were ignoring the halftime display but I heard a few "hey, check this out"s and "wow, those are girls?" from the masses. During the third quarter, Trina showed up at our seats still dressed in her game pants but carrying her helmet pads & jersey, and watched the rest of the game with us. In the stands, and also on the way back to the car in the parking lot, she got quite a few "Good game, Sharks" comments, so some people were paying attention, I guess. I hope the Sharks win some new fans with their exhibition. Manning pulled out his first win, by the way, with a last minute drive to beat the 'Boys. It was kinda fun to see Jerry Jones get roundly booed by the crowd, too.

Flew home the next day (today), this time with no delays or incidents, and also without massive amounts of alcohol. :)

Thank you Tee and Trina for your hospitality! It is so very appreciated!

Election blues

2004-11-03T09:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, GAWD. Another four years of that trained monkey in the White House? Heaven help us all. How could the Dems screw it up that badly? How could they NOT beat the idiot favorite son?

The guy has his supporters, lots of 'em, but I sure as hell don't see why. I really, really, REALLY dislike him with intensity.

And don't even get me started on the eleven states that say I cannot marry. Not like I'm gonna marry anyone but it is discouraging (to put it mildly) that the electorate denies me the legal right to do so, and by such a large margin. Sigh. Is progress an illusion?

Yellow Belt/Changing Gears

2004-10-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy, busy weekend. I woke Saturday nervous ... my very first belt test in karate! I started at USSD back in June, when the Encino dojo first opened. This means I've spent a rather long time as a white belt, the very beginning level. I don't mind. It means I've had lots and lots of time to practice basics while enough students have enrolled and learned enough to test. It's a group of five of us who test for yellow belt. The test lasts about an hour, hour and a half ... I don't know. I just know it kicked my butt, it was physically very hard work, and constant. There were times were all I wanted to do was drop to the ground with exhaustion and then sensei would bark out some new orders and, well, what choice do I have but throw myself into doing whatever he just asked? Football was like that, too, especially two-a-days. You just have to keep going. We all passed. It'll be nice to have some color in the dojo. It'll feel strange and proud and a little shy to put that stiff new belt around my waist at my next class. It's a tiny little step, I know, but it's my first one.

After the test, I have to run home, shower and change, because it's time to run down to Long Beach and broadcast an Aftershock game! Needless to say, I wasn't in top form. Tim's friend who usually does the stats wasn't there, which means I tried to keep them, scribbling numbers on a sheet of paper in between trying to say something halfway interesting on the air. I sounded flat because I was so tired, low-energy, and I kept messing up everyone's names, but got through it. The Aftershock trounced the Scorpions pretty convincingly. I went right home afterward for some badly-needed rest.

Sunday, I meet up with the Changing Gears riders. (Check their website at www.changinggears.org.) What an awesome ride. It was a tremendous pleasure to meet Jean and the rest. These women inspire me. I was originally going to join Minnie and Sparky in Malibu for breakfast, but they ate without me because I skipped it and slept in a little bit. Sorry, ladies! Apparently I missed a good bit o' chow. We took off down PCH and headed south to Harbor City, a little town near Long Beach, to the reception at California Harley-Davidson. My doofus moment for the day -- I had printed out directions but of course left them at home, but I was fairly sure I knew how to get there. Famous last words. As the fearless leader I managed to get us a wee bit lost, but we got back on track and made it to the dealership on time. A few minutes later, the Changing Gears riders & accompanying folks pulled in. Lots of huge smiles & happy motorcyclists!

We found Ladyhawke & Jean in the crowd, and proceeded to meet and greet with everyone. There were plenty of videocameras out, interviews with the various riders. Twenty women, twenty amazing stories, incredibly vibrant and high spirits abounding. The Amazons were actually interviewed as a group for a local cable channel. Who knows, we may end up in a documentary somewhere! (Ladyhawke, you did such a lovely job, but I managed to cram about half a dozen "umm"s into every sentence. I think I get camera-shy when I'm tired! LOL) Jean spoke wonderfully about the ride, the group's cause, the opportunity these women have embraced, and the importance of mammograms and early detection. I think we were the last interview of the day because we had to dash back outside & saddle up, everyone else was ready to ride.

Waved bye-bye to LH who had to head back south, and the rest of the group took off for Ventura County. The Changing Gears riders were in the front, followed by a large contingent from a local H.O.G. chapter, and Amazons held down the rear. It is fun to have a police escort stop traffic and let a hundred riders pour through intersections while the cagers have to stop and watch you. Some look on with curiosity, some twitch impatiently. ;) Seeing the long line of riders from the back of the pack was pretty amazing.

Great riding weather. The group ended up back on PCH and we cruised up to Neptune's Net (local biker hangout) for the major stop of the afternoon. Lots more happy chatting and hanging out. One of the Changing Gears riders hauled out a guitar being carried in the support van and we had an impromptu concert on the front steps ... she sang a song that went something like "I hope there are Harleys in heaven/or what would the angels ride?" which everyone LOVED. Minnie and Sparky decided to take off from there (it was getting a little on the late side by this time) but I chose to ride with the group all the way to the day's destination in Oxnard. One of the Changing Gears ladies, who was caging it in the support van, asked if I could ride her two-up the rest of the way, and I said, sure, why not? So I actually had a passenger for the last leg of the trip and let me tell you, I did FINE with it. I am not nearly as terrified of having a passenger as I used to be!

The group ended up in Oxnard without anything eventful happening, always a good thing, and after a little more socializing, I said my goodbyes and headed on home. It was a long day and I was awfully tired by the end of it, but what a GREAT time it was! Such a pleasure to meet you, Jean, and I hope the rest of your adventure is splendid beyond words. (BTW, Jean thought our Southern California scenery is pretty awesome. Yep, they've been riding some great roads. But I kept telling her, if you think this is great, just wait 'til you get up in Northern Cali! That has got to be some of the prettiest riding ANYWHERE.)

Rock on and ride safe, ladies ...

Back from Vegas Bike Fest

2004-09-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Home safe and sound from Vegas, I went to the Bike Fest there over the weekend. It was fun and I got to meet a bunch of cool folks from the WWR board, but I think bike rallies just aren't my thing. Many bikers -- many DRUNK bikers -- racing up and down the Strip at all hours? Getting beer baths while you're trying to walk through the crowd on Fremont Street? I prefer to stay away from the big events, thank you. I'd rather be riding than talking about riding, anyway.

I played roulette all weekend, and ended up about $75 ahead. Better than losing, but no one is ever going to call me a high roller. LOL

It was VERY windy coming home, plus the usual Sunday back-to-LA traffic made me crazy, I was lanesplitting even though I was still on the Nevada side of the line! Illegal!! Oh well, no tickets ;)

Back home, and back online

2004-09-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

A quick entry to say I made it back home on Friday September 3rd. 16 days, just under 6000 miles, a barrelful of adventures! Unfortunately, when I got back my computer was down; the monitor gave up the ghost while I was out of town. I have just now gotten a replacement. (Thanks, Kay!) Now I'll be able to check my email and start writing up my road stories.

This blog lets me postdate entries, so you'll see stuff showing up from two weeks ago as I start transcribing my journal notes. I'm looking forward to writing down all the wonderful images in my head.

Day Sixteen

2004-09-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Kingman AZ (23670)
End: Sherman Oaks CA (24012)
342 miles
5951 miles total

One last day on the road, and I'm anxious to get home! Today's ride is uneventful, just more medatative miles clicking off through the California deserts. I think about the people fleeing the Dustbowl, making the Grapes of Wrath journey across this barren terrain in old jalopies piled with all the possessions they could carry. What did they think of this empty terrain? Did it crush their dreams, or only serve to heighten them, heading towards the promises of California? The town of Essex CA takes the cake on this trip with their Middle Of Freakin' Nowhere prices for gas and a soda. Unleaded (87) is $3.80/gallon. A can of Coke is two dollars. Onward, onward. Heading into Barstow, one more thing breaks on the bike. The spot weld on the lightbar gives way and -- clunk -- suddenly the auxillary headlights tip down and point at the ground. Oops! I stop (needed more gas anyway) and ziptie 'em to the frame, which doesn't fix the problem, but will keep them from flying off until I can get home and fix them. This is a pretty normal occurance for bikers, things just go wrong and ya gotta make do with what you have. Over the Cajon Pass and back into greater Los Angeles, it's a glad thing to be back on my familiar home roads, even traffic doesn't annoy me too much. I arrive home mid-afternoon, safe and sound. It's been a wonderful journey, my first cross-country trip and I've done it solo. I have ridden just under 6,000 miles, all of 'em good for my soul. Thanks to the Goddess for watching over me on this trip, and bringing me home again.

Day Fifteen

2004-09-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Gallup NM (23311)
End: Kingman AZ (23670)
359 miles

Today, I'll take a little time for sightseeing. I'm making such good time on this return trip that I can have an easy day today! Let's see, pull out the map ... Arizona has some lovely, lovely places. I'm within easy reach of a Grand Canyon detour, but I've seen it before. Instead I decide to visit the Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert.

I take the loop road off I-40 and pay the entrance fee, and stop at the visitor's center, spending some time to chat with the usual friendly volunteers there. From there it's a lovely ride through the park. I stop to have a long look around the Painted Desert Inn, a marvelous building constructed in the 1930's. The design of the building and the interior frescos are simply wonderful. There's a busload of elderly tourists getting ready to head out as I arrive, and a few ladies greet me, and take a look at the loaded bike and ask me how far I'm traveling. I can tell they're slightly appalled & slightly elated at a single woman on the road. They make me grin.

Riding through the park reveals vista after vista of spectacular scenery. I am heading north to south, which takes me first through the Painted Desert and its wonderous colors, then into the Petrified Forest area of the park. I stop and look around a pueblo area, and then at a petroglyph site. I park near a U-Haul that I've been seeing on I-40 for a day and a half. It's funny how you'll see the same cars & trucks over and over on the road. I'll pass a slower vehicle, but need to stop for gas much more frequently than it will, so it will get ahead of me again while I'm at a gas station, so I end up playing leapfrog with some vehicles all day long. This particular U-Haul is towing a car with Minnesota plates. Walking up to the petroglyph overview, there are two pair of people there, a youngish couple who are leaving and what looks to be a mother & daughter. I overhear the mother talking to the daughter and the accent could be straight out of the movie Fargo, so when I say hello to them, I say, "You must be the ones with the U-Haul and the Minnesota car." It's good for a laugh and we strike up traveller's conversation. The daughter is starting college and they are on the way to getting her moved in for her freshman year. I congratulate her and ask her where she's enrolled. "USC," she says. "Oh, very good school, but I did some undergrad work at UCLA," I say, laughing, "so don't hold that against me." "Are you from Los Angeles?" asks the mother. "Yeah, I'm heading back home to Sherman Oaks." More smiles ... amazingly, that's exactly where they're headed! The kid already has a room rented somewhere in my town. I guess it is a very small world, indeed. We talk awhile longer, then wish each other a safe journey. I head further south. Painted desert gives way to stark landscapes dotted with piles of petrified wood. It is strange-looking and very raw. Wind is kicking up by the time I reach the south end of the park. Time to get back on the highway and make miles.

I work my way back to I-40 and continue west. Oh, the wind gets fiercer and fiercer, and I'm not too happy about it. It's difficult riding, gusty and tiring and so dry that I feel like the moisture is being dragged out of my body with every breath. I am buffeted by trucks and fight to keep my lane. Something's not right ... the wind noise is incredibly loud and getting louder. Then, my visor breaks. It won't stay closed, popping open a half-inch to let in an unbearable roar of wind blasting straight into my face. I swear quite a bit and slow way down, and pull off at the next available stop, which is a highway rest area. I examine my helmet & find that I've lost one of the little plastic screws that hold the visor, and the remaining three are loose. I tighten them, which fixes the popping-open problem, but it's temporary at best. I resolve to stop at the first likely place to buy a replacement.

That place is Flagstaff Harley Davidson (actually in Bellemont AZ) which charges me a few bucks for a set of three fasteners emblazoned with the HD logo, which I find amusing ... somehow, I don't think that's what Shoei intended, but hey, whatever works. Next door is the Route 66 Roadhouse Cafe, which seems like a good spot for a late lunch. It's mostly empty, since I am there during off hours midweek. The setup there is that you order ... burger or steak or hotdogs or whatever ... and the waitress brings you your meat and you cook it yourself on a huge stainless grill at one end of the room. This would have been better if I hadn't felt so exhausted from the tough riding, but I've already ordered so I just go with it. Cook, eat up, and leave. (Later, I found out that I had missed running into my riding pal Jen there, who was on her way to Colorado, by mere minutes. Again with the small world!)

I come down out of the mountains and cross western Arizona, and it's a fairly miserable day, with the wind and all. I knock off early in Kingman AZ and get a room for the night. I had thought to make it to the California border, but it's just been too tiring to fight gusts all day. It was actually a wind advisory in effect today, but tomorrow should be better weather.

Next: Day Sixteen

Day Fourteen

2004-09-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Elk City OK (22735)
End: Gallup NM (23311)
576 miles

Oh, EWWW. Want to know the reason NOT to stay in a no-name cheapo hotel? The BUGS.

I dress and clear out of that waterbug-infested mess at sunup. Good riddance. The icky crawly feelings get blown away by the good clean wind of the highway. An hour into my day, I've crossed over into the Texas panhandle, and I am feeling good once more. Next stop, Amarillo, where I think I'll have breakfast. I've been seeing billboards for The Big Texan, a famous restaurant in Amarillo, Home Of The Free 72 Oz Steak! No, I'm not gonna attempt to eat four and a half pounds of beef for breakfast, but hey! I feel the need to do some silly touristy sightseeing around now. Since Oklahoma City I've been on the highway that replaced Route 66, and I've been seeing lots and lots of billboards for touristy stuff and 66 nostalgia spots and things like that.

It's a funny thing about billboards, ya know. I used to consider them eyesores, urban blight, and wished someone would tear 'em all down. But once you get out of the cities and into the wide open spaces, they sort of become your friends. Most days, I've been riding places where there is a whole lot of nothing, just farmlands or empty space. You can go for many miles without seeing any signs; then, when you spot one, you know you are coming up to something. The good signs will tell you you're ten miles away from a truck stop with a Subway shop, or the best pork chops in Tennessee, or the LIVE! Two-Headed Rattlesnake, or whatever! And then you know you'll have the opportunity to get gas and have a little stretch, or a bite to eat, or just a look-see at roadside America weirdness, if it strikes your fancy. The signs give you something to look at and to think about besides the stripe on the road. Billboards are an inherant part of a road trip. I have grown to welcome them during my days of travel.

The Big Texan certainly does not disappoint. It's gaudy, hysterically funny in its unabashed touristy excess. It's still early, and I am one of only five customers in their immense dining hall. I get a (normal-sized) steak and eggs for breakfast, along with biscuits and gravy which are absolutely delicious. Pleasantly stuffed, I figure to make this my big meal for the day. In the parking lot, I watch a cowboy guy unload a horse from a trailer and walk him around, much as you'd walk a dog who's been cooped up in the back seat of a car. The horse obediently poops in an out-of-the-way corner of the lot. Heh. Texas.

It's only about 175 miles across the Texas panhandle, so I am in New Mexico before I know it. Road time. I sail along, back in territory that is starting to look familiar to me. I am passing through rangeland and open desert, instead of forests and river valleys and endless greenery. Now that I've left the South and Texas behind me, the people I talk to are starting to sound more like I do, as well. ;) I climb mountains and pass through Clines Corner NM, the elevation above 7,000 ft making the weather unexpectedly chilly for this first day of September, and roll through Albuquerque around midday. It's a fairly large city, but otherwise New Mexico is empty empty empty. Riding these highways is a kind of meditation. Thank the Goddess I learned to ride a motorcycle last year. It's not an exaggeration to say it's saved my sanity. I went through some hard times last spring, an ugly breakup with a woman who I still love deeply, and it took me a long while to reach my peace with it. Learning to ride has been part of that healing. Riding is something that I had always wanted to do, and more importantly, something that called to me in some deep, unknown part of my soul. Riding is when I feel most in harmony. These days & weeks on the road, I feel better than I have felt in a long time.

Storm clouds do little more than weakly threaten by late afternoon, but never get serious about it, so I keep on riding until close to sunset. I stop for the night in Gallup, humming the Route 66 song. A lot of people ask me if I am in town for the Four Corners rally, which is this weekend. Wish I could stay for it, but I've got no time and a yearning to get my butt home, and I'm only two days out now.

Next: Day Fifteen

Day Thirteen

2004-08-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Osceola AR (22138)
End: Elk City OK (22725)
587 miles

Early morning in Arkansas, and thank goodness the mosquitos are gone. I could not BELIEVE the size and number of them last night, when I went out to get a little bite to eat. Ick. I am at a Mobil station, doing my pre-ride check for the day, when I spot a woman in the gas station across the street eyeballing me. Sure enough, she finishes filling up her car, then drives across the road and pulls up next to me. Leaning out the window, she smiles and asks, "Where ya headin'?" I reply, "West, I'm on my way to Los Angeles," which elicits a "wow, cool" from her. Her name is Rhonda (oh, great, now 'Help Me, Rhonda' is going to be stuck in my head all day, LOL) and she rides too, with a local Women On Wheels chapter that's fairly active in this part of Arkansas. She went to the annual WOW ride-in held in West Virginia earlier this year, and asks me if I was there. No, alas, only one cross-country trip per summer for me! I explain that I was at a different event, the Amazon Gathering, and I tell her that I was on Interstate 40 yesterday and found it so completely sucky that I detoured looking for a better route. She grins and starts telling me about local roads. "Well, headin' wey-est, you can take 140 for a ways hey-ah, that's a good road. Not a lotta traffic, and no cops." She squints, considering. "That'll take you to Newport. Then you can take 67 back down to the intahstate, past Little Rock. It's not as bad past they-ah." Perfect! We chat for a little while longer, she wishes me safe riding, and I take off for the day.

It is absolutely FABULOUS riding the back highways here. The land is agricultural, still mostly fields of rice crisscrossed with ditches, interspersed with small bayous. Some of the bayous have water that looks dark as strong tea, some are covered with nasty green scum. Y'know, I've never actually seen a bayou before. Some day I'll get myself to Mississippi or Louisiana and see some of the REALLY big bayous, these are probably dinky in comparison. I don't know the names of the trees, but they look completely different from the trees to which I am accustomed. Hey, was that an armadillo squished on the road there? Sure looked like one, but I thought armadillos were desert critters. Geeze, it's humid, but other than that a tremendously beautiful day. The highways pass through a number of small towns, their namesigns announcing the population of maybe a few dozen or maybe a few hundred. I slow to posted 25- or 35-mph speed limits going through, and a couple of times there are children to wave at (kids always wave back to passing motorcyclists) and the rest of the time, I have clear sailing on open two-lane highway. Wonderful, wonderful. Oh, that roadkill was DEFINITELY an armadillo, his four little legs sticking stiffly toward the sky. So I guess 'dillos are more swamp critters than desert critters. Learn something new every day.

I work my way back to I-40 and it is indeed a little better in the west half of the state. Not great, but I can live with it. I make good miles and cross over into Oklahoma mid-day. I'm out of the lowlands and back into rolling hills now. I pass through some of the large Indian nations; reservations make up big chunks of this state. It's pretty, back to scrub forest in the undeveloped parts, grain crops (wheat? barley? and some more corn) in the farmland areas. I see horses, and more and more cattle the farther west I go. At a gas stop outside of Oklahoma City, I get in a conversation with a fellow biker. He immediately puts me in mind of Sam - a small Native American guy, wirey, the same kind of jovial bullshitter - my goodness, it would be the spitting image of her if Sam were an Oklahoma biker dude. Heh. He's wearing patches, and he must assume I am an indie, but I tell him that I ride with the Amazons but don't yet have the colors on my vest. We talk for a while, just shootin' the bull. He keeps calling me "baby girl." Normally I would be a little annoyed and find that condescending, but today it just makes me laugh ... I am about a half-foot taller than he, and must outweigh him by a hundred pounds; "baby girl?" LOL! Eventually, it's time for me to hit the road again. "You be safe, baby girl," he calls out, waving. Heh.

I had wanted to make it as far as Oklahoma City today, but I reach it and there's still lots of daylight left. Might as well keep riding. Day fades to dusk (and such a pretty sunset) and I've reached Elk City OK. I pull off and, tired of paying too much for hotels, find a cheapo no-name place to stay for the night. My goodness, I've managed to cross just about all of Arkansas and Oklahoma in a single day. I am less than an hour from the Texas border here. Making good time on my return trip.

Next: Day Fourteen

Day Twelve

2004-08-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Bristol VA (21575)
End: Osceola AR (22138)
563 miles

Up early, I get my gear stowed away, grab a little breakfast in the miniature lobby downstairs (Lord, I am tired of these "complimentary breakfasts" with nothing but stale cereal, rock-hard bagels and instant coffee) and walk outside to check out my poor bike. Tire fairies have not magically repaired the flat overnight; however, I see the Honda dealership's service bay door across the street is open, a half-hour early! I stroll over to check it out.

Atlas Honda, in Bristol VA - HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION. The guys were helpful, friendly and eager to get me back on the road as soon as possible. They quote me prices (reasonable, not excessively cheap, I can live with that) for fixing the flat, and for fixing the flat and replacing the back tire, which doesn't have that much tread left on it. I decide to go for the replacement. I'd need to get it replaced before I get halfway across country anyway. Then I settle in to wait for the work to get done. The morning is gloomy and it rains intermittently. A couple of nice young men fetch my bike from across the street, saving me the trouble of doing so, and the wee beastie disappears into the work bay. An older gentleman pulls up on a Goldwing and hands it over to the service guys for whatever work he's having done. He wanders over in my general direction, and starts up the let's-kill-a-little-time conversation. He opens with "Looks like we're going to get a little rain," and again with the accents, I smile at the thick South in his voice, and reply, "Yeah, it does look a wee bit gloomy." Now it's his turn - his eyes goggle with surprise, and he says, "Where are you from?" "Los Angeles," I answer. "I've been on vacation up in the Shenandoah Valley, and now I'm on my way home." He laughs, "I didn't think you sounded like you were from East Tennessee!" What follows is one of the most fascinating conversations-with-a-stranger that I've ever been in. The fellow, name of John, is a retired police officer who travels with his wife on the Wing. They've been riding for years & he tells me lots of stories about places he's been. He, in turn, is amazed at my tales. He can't believe that I'm traveling cross-country solo (he thinks it's great, but worries that I don't carry a gun) and is tickled when he finds out that I am a former professional football player. Apparently, he's never met anyone like me. LOL, I get that a lot. We gab and gab, the time passes quickly, and before I know it my bike is ready to go. I load up, wish John safe travels, and hit the road once more.

Tennessee is lovely. I ride the length of the state, passing through the Smoky Mountains. It's uneventful riding, just making miles down the interstate. It rains off and on, but August rain is warm, and I never bother to put on my rainsuit. I get lost in Nashville. The freeways through downtown are under construction (apparently this is a perpetual condition for them) and all the signs are down. I find myself in the wrong lane to stay on I-40 westbound without a prayer of getting over in time, and end up getting dumped off the freeway and detouring into what I think was a pretty bad section of town. I figure as long as I keep heading west, I'll find the interstate again eventually. I pass through a nicer-looking part of town, the houses are neat and charming, and they all look old to me (of course, an "old" house in L.A. is one that's built before the 70's - an "old" house in other parts of the country is one that's built in the 1800's.) I pick up a state highway and keep heading west, and sure enough, it leads me back to I-40 and my main route.

By late afternoon, the rain is behind me and I am heading into Memphis. One of the main reasons I've chosen this return route is that I want to see the Mississippi here. One time, I flew into Memphis (I was changing planes there) and was amazed at the sight of the river from the air. Now, I need to see it from the ground, and cross it on two wheels. I really don't know why this is important to me, but I don't question it, just go with my feeling. I hit traffic going through the city, and there is a terrible-looking four-car pileup in the opposite direction which slows everyone to a crawl with all the damn rubbernecking. Once I get through that, it's pretty easy sailing, and the mile markers tell me how far I have to go until I reach the river and the state line ... nine miles, five miles, three, two, one ...

I do not see the river until I am just about upon it. The road rises up just a bit and suddenly I am crossing over a little bluff which is the east riverbank, and flying out onto the bridge that spans the water. It is really quite breathtaking. The river is impossibly wide here, much wider than where I crossed east at St Louis, and I thought THAT was huge. Mud Island stands north of the bridge, to my right. The river flows brown and slow beneath me. It's wonderful, just wonderful, to be traveling this way, I feel so free and alive and thankful to be able to see a sight like the mightiest of America's rivers like this, without a care in the world. I laugh with sheer happiness, and grin my way into the West.

Jeanne warned me about the road here in Arkansas. It's as lousy as she said. I-40 is lumpy and bumpy and patched every twenty yards or so, and it's annoying as hell. The thump, thump, thump of my wheels on the road surface is hard on my shoulders and butt. I start looking for a detour, and eventually head northbound on I-55. I have no idea where I'm going, but the road is better. The land is as featureless as anything I have seen so far, nothing but flat as far as the eye can see. Rice grows here. Looking at the terrain, I suddenly understand the importance of the levee systems here, on a visceral level. When the river floods, it spreads across these lowlands for miles and miles, with nothing to stop it. I think maybe I could detour north back to St Louis, then take the Ozarks road back to the west ... oh, forget it, the highway sign there just said it's 275 miles to St Loo. Sun's going down. I start looking for a place to stop for the night. Not a whole lot out here in east Arkansas, that's for sure. I find a hotel outside of Osceola. I check in for the night and drag out my maps, looking for a decent alternative route for tomorrow.

Next: Day Thirteen

Day Eleven

2004-08-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Start: Luray VA (21273)
End: Bristol VA (21575)
302 miles

Getaway day. There is a wee amount of general grumpiness at having to get up early and hit the road. I am looking forward to my return trip, but sad at having to leave Virginia and my Amazon sisters. The weather looks fine for now, but promises to become threatening. It looks like a chain of hurricanes and tropical storms are setting up for hit after hit on the East Coast this year ... by the end of summer, this turns out to be more true than anyone imagined! ... and right now, the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston are moving through the Carolinas, may reach Virginia by late day. This will affect the Sisters who are going home to Florida, and may affect me a little bit, because I have decided to take I-81 south to Knoxville, and pick up I-40 west across the country. We all get our gear packed up, check and triple-check the cabin so we don't leave anything behind, and finally there is nothing left to do but exchange our goodbyes. Warm hugs and well-wishes, safe travels to you my sister, I will see you again.

I am on my own once more. I am a little slow getting back into my solo roadtime headspace, but it's not a problem. I sort of meander south in a pokey way. The morning is fine, warm and a little humid, and the sun is shining. The Blue Ridge Mountains are to my left, I follow along their base. Green surrounds me. Descending into a wide river valley - hey, it's the James River! Placenames out of American history. The water is wide and placid-looking where I cross. I smile. Where I come from, we don't have rivers, we have storm channels paved over with concrete. Real rivers are always a strange and wonderful treat to me. Even here, miles from where the James widens and flows into the Atlantic, it looks unimaginably huge to my desert-accustomed eyes. I continue, climbing through forested hills, enjoying the Virginia countryside.

For lunchtime, I decide on that quintessential Southern experience, and stop at a Waffle House. Have to do it at least once, ya know, since I've come all this way. I make the mistake of filling my tank before eating. Basic science: gasoline expands dramatically in volume as it gets warmer. This is a property of all volatile liquids, is it not? So, gas keeps cool in underground storage tanks at the station, but warms up and expands quickly in my little 2.9-gallon tank, and oofdah, I have gas absolutely POURING out of the top of my tank in the time it takes to order and eat lunch. D'oh! I suppose everyone has to learn this the hard way sooner or later. I guess it's never happened to me before because, even though I waaay overfill my tank every single time, because I always fill up and keep riding, so the gas doesn't have time to expand before it starts getting consumed.

A few hours later, I am farting around in the southwest part of Virginia, and for no particularly good reason have gotten off the interstate and am cruising around in a little town about ten miles from the Tennessee border. I'm looking for a c-store, actually, but get off track and have to hang a u-turn. Something feels wrong, the rear tire suddenly feels mushy and loose as I flip around. Whaaa? Need to stop and check, this isn't right. I find myself a gas station, find my tire pressure gauge, and sure enough the rear tire is extremely low. I fill it back up to pressure. Seems to be holding, but maybe it's a slow leak. Gotta watch that. I head back down the interstate, towards Knoxville, and stop again in Bristol VA, the last town before crossing the state line. In the amount of time it takes me to go in a market, buy stuff, and come back out, the rear tire is flat as a pancake. A helpful guy tries to put a can of fix-a-flat in, but it's a pretty worthless exercise ... foamy green goo comes pouring out of the rim, it's obviously not working. Looks like when the tire went, it went completely. I brave the street, riding a block and a half to get to a gas station & air pump, in the vain hope of seeing if I can get any air to stay in there at all, and I discover it's almost impossible to ride a motorcycle with a flat. Hee. I am learning so much on this trip. The tire, she is dead. Sigh. Time to call for a tow truck again. What is it with slow tow trucks? This time I wait almost TWO HOURS for one to come. This guy, however, knows how to tie down a motorcycle on the flatbed, so that's good news. The bad news is it's Sunday, and late afternoon, and no one is open who can fix the thing. Tow Truck Guy takes me to the nearest Honda dealership. Yay, my luck is holding! There is a Comfort Inn directly across the street, with vacancies! There had been a big NASCAR event in Bristol earlier in the morning. Had I broken down there yesterday, I wouldn't have been able to find a hotel room anywhere; now, the event is over, the race fans are on their way home, and all the hotels are empty.

Well, I wanted to make four hundred or so miles today, but I've only made three hundred before getting stuck with the flat. Things could be worse, so I'm not worried. I check in, get settled, order Chinese. Clouds come in, thicken and turn dark, and rain starts to fall after the sun goes down. The Honda shop opens at 8 am tomorrow. Hopefully they'll get me on the road again quickly, and I'll be able to make up some miles.

BamBam says I just like riding around in tow trucks :P Them's fightin' words, girl!

Next: Day Twelve

Day Ten

2004-08-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Out And About in Virginia, and Initiation

I slept a little better last night; I found a not-too-terrible foldout bed on the other side of the cabin which is a definite improvement over the wretched bunk bed. So I feel perkier this morning, and decide that yes, I will indulge my inner history-buff nerd and do the Shenandoah Valley Civil War crawl today. Sure enough, I'm on my own for the day, no one else is interested; the other gals are going to head into Luray and do the town thing, a little shopping and whatnot. We'll meet up again later and do a nice dinner out to celebrate our last day of the Gather.

To start, I head down to New Market. There's a very good battle site there, and a nice museum with lots and lots of old uniforms and equipment, stuff I like to look at. The Battle of New Market was fought in May of 1864, the opening of the final campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. A silly little film shown hourly at the museum makes much of the Virginia Military Institute's participation in the battle (the museum is part of the VMI's Hall Of Honor, so it makes sense) and the cadets' charge across a muddy plowed field, now remembered as "The Battle Of Lost Shoes". As part of the larger picture, New Market was an example of the Federal leadership's continuing ineptitude in the Valley. Maj Gen Breckenridge (CSA) pretty much got the drop on Gen Sigel (US) who had been blundering around with his forces for a number of days, in bad weather. It was Sigel's last big engagement before being relieved of duty, I think. That's the stuff you read in the books. Walking around on the battlefield, retracing the steps of the soldiers themselves, I am much more aware of history from the view of some unnamed, unimportant individual. Here is where the company charged. Here is the stone wall, behind which they took cover and returned fire for half an hour. The battery stood there, up on that hill to the left, firing canister into the Union line. The Federals retreated, through what is now a cornfield. Wow. I walk the battle site, communing with ghosts I do not know. I have no idea why this stuff fascinates me so much. It just does.

After I look around New Market for a while, I head north. Tom's Brook is the site of a cavalry engagement: two divisions of Federal horsemen clashed with two divisions of rebel cavalry in October of 1864, the very end of fighting in the Valley - Gen Sheridan (US) had mostly completed his burning and destruction of the Shenandoah, depriving the Confederacy of resources that allowed them to continue the war. There's not a lot marking the site, or if there is, I never found it. I do manage to find "the back road" west of the turnpike, which is the site of Brig Gen Custer's (US) advance against Maj Gen Rosser (CSA), his former West Point roommate.

Nearby is Cedar Creek. At the same time the cavalry was fighting at Tom's Brook, infantry engaged in a major battle at Cedar Creek and around the Belle Grove plantation. There is a good visitor's center there now, rather small but staffed by friendly talkative folks who love to yak about history, the best sort of people to find at a visitor's center :) Cedar Creek is the site of one of Sheridan's greatest victories, as he is credited with stemming the rout of Union forces in the morning of the battle, rallying the troops with his own personal charisma and bravery, and leading them back to the field for a counterattack and to victory. Also, the Union victory here is one of the things that directly led to Lincoln's re-election. The battle site is too big for much walking around. Many, many divisions were engaged here, covering several miles. The folks working at Cedar Creek Visitor's Center today are preparing for a major re-enactment in a few weeks. It will be the 140th anniversary of the battle. They are building entrenchments, split-rail fences, and clearing areas that will be encamped. I look around for a while and talk to various people, then head out again to the north.

The site of the First and Second Kernstown battles, a few miles south of Winchester, is now privately owned. I was hoping to find something around here but there's not much. Kernstown is the site of a rare thing indeed, a tactical defeat of Gen Stonewall Jackson (CSA) in the Shenandoah Valley. His aggressive fighting, however, prevented the Union from removing troops from the Valley and sending them to reinforce Gen McClellan (US) in his drive on Richmond. Jackson's campaign in the Valley in 1862 is seen as a strategic masterwork.

By the time I get to Winchester, the sky is looking pretty threatening and I am worrying about the weather. Winchester is the foot of the Shenandoah Valley and there are lots of things to see here - battle sites, museums, Jackson's Headquarters. I get a little lost on the freeways (hey, I'm not lost, I'm touring.) I turn myself around and stopped at a rest area, which is also the Virginia Welcome Center. I start chatting with a fellow traveler (a tourist down from PA) and he asks me if I got caught in the rain. "What rain?" I ask. The skies are certainly darkening. He's come from the north and says it's coming down in buckets, and the front is fifteen minutes away. Well, that's enough info for me, I'm outta here, cutting short my Winchester look-see.

I take off to the southeast towards Front Royal, watching the skies but still stopping at a few roadside Civil War markers. (These are usually gravesites, or "So-and-So's House was burned to the ground here in 1863," that sort of thing.) Rain catches me before I get to Front Royal and it does indeed come down in buckets! I am drenched before I can even entertain the notion of pulling over and donning my raingear. At least it's still warm so I'm not uncomfortable. Once you get soaked, it's silly to put on your gear unless you like saunas ... the rainsuit will hold the water and heat in, and it can be downright steamy. I decide to just keep riding wet. After a five-minute downpour, the rain slacks off. Not bad. I visit the courthouse in downtown Front Royal, lots of plaques in a pretty courtyard, but not a whole lot else to look at. I have a feeling I'm missing good stuff with my haphazard route, but who cares, I'm having fun. It's midafternoon by now, time to meander back home. Might as well take Skyline Drive back through the Shenandoah NP back to Luray, it was such a pretty ride yesterday. I enter the park and start into those lovely twisties, and not a mile up the road, the rain starts coming down heavy again. Oh poo, what a killjoy. I am super-cautious going through the corners, I still don't trust my wet-weather riding, but after a little while I start to feel a bit more comfortable. I guess it's just a practice thing, like everything else. The heavy rain lasts about fifteen minutes this time, tapers off to a drizzle, and eventually stops and the sun breaks out. I am almost dry by the time I reach home.

The ladies have scouted a good restaurant for us in Luray. I have time to clean up and rest a little bit before we all pile in the car and troop down to town. It's a funky little place with a good menu. They even have some nice vegetarian selections for Raven, so she's not stuck ordering the one veg thing on the menu (which happens all too frequently, I remember from my non-meateating days.) We order a couple of bottles of nice local wine, which enhances the conviviality of the evening. Everyone is in a fine, happy mood. It's been a great Gathering, and we're celebrating tonight, not even letting the tinge of sadness at having to part ways tomorrow intrude on our festivities. We laugh, tell stories, and toast each other and the Amazons who could not make it to Virginia. I have a bit of a good buzz on, and make a little speech thanking these women for being so welcoming to someone they had never met before. There are big smiles all around, and something more. Wild1 in particular looks like a cat who swallowed the canary. She turns to me and asks, "Well, now that you've ridden all the way across the country and met us, did we skeer you off?" I laugh, "Of course not!" She presses, "Well then, now that you've met us, are you still interested in joining the Amazons?" I wonder, what is she driving at? "Of course I am," I reply. "I have no intention of withdrawing my status as Prospect." (This is the alcohol talking, LOL, sometimes it makes me give these little formal-sounding speeches.) I add that I am only three months in and have another three months to go in my prospect period. Now she's positively smirking. "Nah, not necessarily," she says. "We had to check, but since you still want to be one of us, we have a little thing planned special for tonight."

I look around the table: everyone is grinning at me. "You mean ... ?" I stutter. Geeze, my shyness is kicking in something fierce all of a sudden. They confirm that yes, tonight I will be initiated into the Amazon Sisterhood, with T as my High Priestess. It's already been put to a vote. It's already arranged. The only thing left had been to confirm my willingness to take the final step to become a Sister. They are probably laughing at the wide-eyed look on my face, because I am completely bowled over. I am sure I look like a stunned duck, anyway. They explain the by-laws to me when I voice a small concern over the legality of shortening the prospect period ... yes, it's all legit. Raven adds gently, "Besides, we thought that you riding solo across country to be here says more than another three months on a message board ever could."

And finally, it sinks in. Tonight, I shall become an Amazon.

And so it is. I cannot speak of the Initiation itself, except to say that it is my honor that it is conducted under the open sky, next to a bonfire, beneath the face of the Moon our sister. Pretty cool ;)

We stay up late in the evening afterwards, talking about anything and everything, unwilling to head off to bed. Tomorrow early we will pack up and head our separate ways. But tonight, we sit as Sisters around the fire and are glad of each other's company. I love these women.

Next: Day Eleven

Day Nine

2004-08-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Skyline Drive/Shenandoah National Park

I sleep badly again last night, the particular bed I've chosen is quite subpar. It's the bottom bunk ... lumpy as hell ... and now Raven is sleeping in the top bunk, which was the last remaining non-foldout bed. I'm afraid I keep the poor dear awake all night with my tossing and turning, she's a very light sleeper. And I wake up dreaming about that woman again, in which she and I were talking to each other like perfectly normal people. I sit up suddenly (almost bumping my head) saying "Dammit!" Raven says, "What?" It's hard to explain to her in a couple of sentences, but I try. "Well, I was having this dream where my ex was being nice to me." "That's a good thing, isn't it?" she says. "Not really," I say, "because that's not how it is in real life, we don't speak to each other because of massive weirdness a while ago. So it's me dreaming about something I want but can't have." The conversation eventually veers back to normalcy as I shake out the cobwebs & get going with my day. Hate it when stuff like that comes up first thing in the morning. Makes me feel out of balance. I decide I'll relocate and try one of the foldout beds tonight. I've had too many nights in a row of not-really-good sleep and it's wearing on me a bit.

Today, the Amazons ride.

T, BamBam, Raven and I will ride together (amusingly, we all have purple bikes) while Wild1 and Thumper will follow in the cage. We'll take Skyline Drive from north to south today. We pack up a nice picnic lunch, stowing the cooler in the car, and gear up and head north to Front Royal. Another lovely day and another lovely ride through Virginia countryside. I am absolutely loving riding through country that looks and feels so very different from my native California. It's all green, farmland, fields dotted with cylindrical haybales. Mountains rise to our left and our right. The weather is perfect.

I am merely a Prospect for the Amazons so I have no patch on my jacket ... everyone else wears one. It's pretty cool to see all those Amazon patches together. I guess someone who isn't part of a motorcycle club wouldn't understand the feeling of pride at seeing the colors, but there it is. I have only been a Prospect for three months, half of my six-month eligibility period, and then my potential membership into the Full & True Sisterhood will be put to a vote by the members. Nonetheless, these women have welcomed me to the Gather with open arms. I am honored by their inclusion, and by the opportunity to ride with them today. Sounds corny, but it's true. :P

We pay our fees at the Front Royal Entrance Station which is located at the far north end of Shenandoah NP. From here, Skyline Drive will take us 105 miles through the park. We head up into the Blue Ridge Mountains, the road sometimes covered by arching canopies of hickory & oak forest, sometimes open to expansive views of the valley below us. T takes the lead, she's our road captain for the day. I had been riding in the third spot behind BamBam, but we switch up once inside the park because I tend to go a little faster than she does on the twisties, and this road is ALL twisties. Heavenly. Raven takes the tailgunner position. I have to say this is one of the most perfect roads I've ever ridden. It is exquisitely maintained, no rough spots, it has lots and lots of pulloffs with beautiful vistas, and it is extravagently signed. Most of this road was created during the New Deal era, one of many CCC work projects run by the Federal government during the Depression, and you can see the 1930's characterist stonework on embankments, water sluices for drainage, etc. Unlike many CCC projects, this hasn't fallen into disrepair. The park's proximity to Washington D.C. ensures not only fairly heavy use, but decent funding as well.

We take our time heading south on the Drive, stopping at several overlooks to admire the view. T sets the pace according to the 35 mph speed limit in the park, which by all accounts is VERY strictly enforced. Makes sense, too. There lots of curves with blind corners, which is bad enough, but there are lots and lots of critters who tend to wander on the road here. I've already spotted a couple of deer lurking in tall trees and shadows, about a mile into the park. Not everyone in the group sees them. Deer have a bad habit of hiding themselves perfectly until they decide in their little pea brains that they need to run right in front of your motorcycle, at which point it's way too late for you to do anything about it, and you crash and hopefully don't die. Slowing down is the best way you can protect yourself.

We stop for gas and a little rest break at one of the park concession areas. The price for gas is not even that badly inflated, a surprise. I am amused by the sight of our four purple bikes parked together. They have four different state license plates - New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania and Florida - none of which are particularly close to where we are. I wish I still had my camera. Raven is chatting with a guy on a sportsbike, and he says he saw a bear on the road a number of miles back. Oooh. There's something I am not anxious to experience for myself. We saddle up and take off again, and not that far down the road we see a deer doing ... something ... something weird. I have no idea what is wrong with that deer. It is kicking and tossing its head and leaping around. To me it looks like a bucking bronco. Rodeo deer? The huge problem with deer is they will do unpredictable things, a strange-behaving deer even more so. T slows us to a crawl, and we all get past the animal safely, but it is quite bizarre. We ride on for a while, and find a nice lunch spot. Of course the first thing everyone says after we stop is, "Did you SEE that deer?" and we all speculate what could have possibly caused it. T's theory is the best, IMO. "Maybe it was getting stung by bees." Hey, that would make me jump around in a bizarre fashion, too, so I would believe it. We set up lunch at a nice little spot next to the Appalachian Trail, we can see the white blazes on a couple of trees. A plague of little black gnats descends whenever you sit still for approximately half a second. I revise my theory on what was making the deer crazy. The damn gnats are certainly driving ME nuts, at least.

After lunch, Wild1 and Thumper will head back to the cabin while we continue south. Wild's ankle is still bothering her a wee bit, and it's better for her to rest up in the cabin, instead of driving around. In case she forgets this, she has five women to remind her of it, and then she can call us a bunch o' nags and tell us she's fine, and then we'll threaten to tie her to the chair if she doesn't stop walking around and for gawds sake prop that foot up, and then she'll grumble for a while and let someone get her another beer. LOL. Anyway. The rest of the ride is uneventful and lovely, no strange deer, no bears, just fine, fine road. Skyline Drive opens up a little bit in the bottom half of the park, you can see further through the curves, and we start to push the speed limit a bit more. T gets a little ahead of us, she rides the heck out of that Harley. She eventually throttles back a bit. I have to say I was having fun trying to keep up with her, but I couldn't quite do it. The group winds its way down to the south end of the park, eventually coming out at Rockfish Gap on I-64. We'll take the highway back to I-81, then back up to Luray and home. Well, halfway there, I-81 gets buggered with traffic, and Raven needs to get gas anyway, so we hop off the freeway and pull into a gas station. It's one of those huge stations with about thirty pumps - Raven and I end up on opposite sides of one island, T and BamBam are all the way on the other side of the station in some other zipcode. A local boy starts hitting on Raven. I guess he figured the way to a woman's heart is to inquire whether or not she has the ability to fuel her own vehicle. "Know how to get gas?" he mumbles. (Sounds more like "nohahtahgitgaz?") Raven looks at him and says, "What?" "Nohahtahgitgaz?" he repeats. He is asking her this as she is ACTUALLY PUTTING GAS IN HER MOTORCYCLE. So she just stares at him and says, "Uh, YEAH." I am cracking up, stifling laughter on the other side of the pumps. He wanders off, properly chastized or maybe just clueless. I lean across, and mumble to Raven, "nohahtahgitgaz?" and we bust out in peals of laughter. Geez, some guys.

We find an alternate route back to Luray, Hwy 11, which is a much nicer road anyway. No traffic, and secondary highways are usually much more interesting that the superslab. Home again, home again. Raven makes us a wonderful dinner, and we try to figure out what we're going to do tomorrow, our last full day in Virginia. I may end up doing some Civil War sightseeing by myself, no one else is particularly interested in it, and I'm not that interesting in doing the go-to-town souvenir-shopping they're talking about. Well, we'll play it all by ear, it's been working for us so far.

Next: Day Ten