Seattle BBQ for Bluepoof and WCRM II - Day 4

Saturday night I decided to get some sleep, and had no inclination of going to breakfast at 7am. I woke up Sunday around 8 or so feeling much less tired. While packing the bike, I noticed that it wasn't hot yet, like I expected it to be. I left Bend around 9:40am, and took 97 South. I have no idea why the speed limit on it is 55 in OR. In most places it's completely straight and has no intersections. In some places it even has 4 lanes. Anyway, after droning on I got to Klamath Falls, OR and filled up there. I went on and soon entered California. By the time I got to Redding it was really hot, but I was still feeling fine, so I filled up and kept going. The next stretch of I-5 and I-205 to Vacaville sucked. It was really hot, there was no shade and the road was straight as an arrow for miles and miles on end. I had to pass some cars that would not get out of the left lane.

Around 70 miles North of the I-5/I-205 interchange I caught up to Bluepoof. I knew I was going to catch up to her, but I thought it would be later, maybe past Vacaville or so. Either I was moving faster than I estimated, or she was moving slower, or maybe she just left later than I thought. For a second there I thought about tagging along, but it was hot and she showed no inclination of going faster. She let me pass, and I kept on going until I hit Vacaville. This heat was exhausting, and I stopped at a gas station to fill up and rest. I was there for about 20-30 minutes, took my 'stich off and drank a lot of Gatorade in the shade.

Thoroughly refreshed and cooled down, I continued on down I-80 and then I-680. The traffic started getting slower and slower, and finally came to a stop. It was so bad that people were shutting off their engines and getting out of the cars and walking around. I was thankful I could lanesplit, but it sucked doing so with the sidecases on - they are pretty wide. When I got down to the front I realized what the problem was. There were a bunch of firetrucks and police there, and there was smoke coming up from the ditch on the side of the road. (I found in the news the next day that a truck went off the road there and crashed and caught on fire. The driver apparently died.) All the lanes were closed and cars were getting by on the left shoulder, directed by the helpful officer. On the good side of things, there was almost no traffic after that, and I made good time down to Mission Blvd to I-880 to 237 down to Mountain View. Rolled into my garage around 6:10 pm, earlier than I expected.

Seattle BBQ for Bluepoof and WCRM II - Day 3

I woke up scared that I overslept my alarm again. Looked at my watch and realized that the alarm will go off in about 2 minutes. Good. I got up, took a shower, packed everything up, checked out of the hotel and went to la casa de DDx. dm_gsxr was already there on his Hayabusa (he came up from Colorado, and has another week to travel around the NorthWest). DDx and Bluepoof were already up, and were getting ready. While I waited, dm_gsxr went over to fill up his tank, and then came back.

We finally got on the road and followed DDx down to Enumclaw, where we got around 8:50 am. There were a bunch of bikes already waiting. I didn't need to fill up since it's been less than 50 miles since my last fillup, but I did anyway. I put in a little over 1 gallon :)

From this point on, I have no idea what roads I was on. I was just following people. We hit some nice roads on the way down, we filled up and were joined by more bikes, and we hit more nice roads. Then some people pulled over, and the rest of the group kept going. I waited a bit, and then decided to keep going. I never caught up with the first group. In fact, after some time on very nice roads, I realized that I missed a turn somewhere and was no longer on the correct route (I knew what the approximate route looked like on the map). I decided to just follow my GPS to Bend, since I had no idea where I was. The fastest way to Bend from there was through I-205 in Portland, according to my Garmin. Straight roads, boring... but I got to Bend around 5pm and registered at the Best Western. I then rode down to VFRfan's BBQ. The food was good, and there were a lot of people there.

Some pictures:



















I was still tired, since I haven't been getting enough sleep in the last week, and so I left when most people started leaving. Filled up on the way back to the Best Western to have a full tank in the morning. I unpacked the bike and went over to 7-eleven to get a sandwich for breakfast tomorrow morning (there's a fridge in the room here).

When I came back I decided to write all of this up and post it - but alas, still no Internet connection! I guess you guys get to wait until I get home tomorrow night to see all of these :)

P.S. I should put more air in my rear tire tomorrow morning, just in case it starts slowly losing pressure.

Seattle BBQ for Bluepoof and WCRM II - Day 2

My plan was to leave Yreka and be on the road by 6 or 7 in the morning. This didn't work out so well, as I was tired and didn't hear my alarm in the morning. By the time I got on the road it was a little bit past 9 am, and it was getting hot. With the vents open in my Aerostich it didn't feel too bad. I stopped by the gas station in Yreka and filled up my tank. Then I continued on I-5 North and I was looking at my GPS as I was approaching the Oregon border. I stopped right before the border, in front of the welcome sign:



As I walked around the bike I noticed something shiny on the rear tire. I looked closer and realized that it was a nail. Damn it! I just put this tire on a week ago! And the one it replaced wasn't worn out yet, but had an unfixable flat! I kicked the tire a couple of times to see if the pressure was still good, and it seemed ok. I decided to leave it alone instead of patching it, and just check it every once in a while to make sure it still has pressure. I got back on the bike and kept going.

I decided to fill up in Eugene, OR. There was a line to the pump, and that's when I remembered that in Oregon you can't fill up your own car (Joisey is like that too, it's a stupid law if you ask me). So I'm waiting behind this Taurus that's getting filled up, and there's a car at a pump in front of it, too. The Taurus was done before the car in front of it, and the woman behind the wheel wanted to get out, so she puts it in reverse and starts backing up. Now, my front wheel is about 2 feet from her bumper. I press my horn so she doesn't run into me. She turns around and looks at me, and then starts backing up again. I'm like, WTF?! I press my horn and just hold it there. She's still backing up until her bumper bumped into my front wheel, and then stopped. I couldn't back up because there was a car behind me. I was really pissed off, but happy she didn't keep backing up after bumping into me. WTF is her problem? Is she fscking blind? I really wanted to get off my bike and kick her side window in, but decided it wasn't worth it. The car in front of her moved, so she was able to drive forward and leave. I filled up (the attendant let me just do everything myself), and left, still pissed off at the stupid Taurus driver.

I went through Portland and over the Columbia river and headed towards Seattle. Since I left Yreka later than expected, I got close to Seattle right in the beginning of rush hour. And you can't lanesplit here! It was hot, and the traffic was barely moving. It sucked. By the time I got to the hotel, all I really wanted was to take a cold shower and go to sleep, but I had a BBQ to go to. I rested a little bit, and went to Safeway to pick up some drinks, some burger patties and buns for them, and then I headed to DantesDame(x)'s house.

Thatman and Captain Obvious were already there, and then DantesDamex and Bluepoof pulled up. More people showed up and we got the grill going and the food cooking.

Here are some pictures:













DDx got more buns than she bargained for:



Uncle Bob brought his rat bike, a turbocharged Ninja 1000:



I was pretty tired, so when others started leaving I headed out too. We agreed to meet back at the house at 7:30 the next morning to go to Enumclaw. I stopped by the gas station on the way back to the hotel, and got a full tank of gas. Got back to the hotel, and decided to write all this up and post it, but discovered that there's no Internet connection! So I guess I'll post this the next time I can connect to the Internet.

Seattle BBQ for Bluepoof and WCRM II - Day 1

I had packed everything into the bike in the morning and took it work. I intended to leave early (like at 3), but work interfered (damn work), and I was still there at 5. I decided to wait a bit for the traffic to die down, so I didn't leave until about 6:40pm. Here's my bike at work:



And here are a bunch of other bikes that regularly park there:



I took 101 South and then 237 West to I-880 North. There still was traffic everywhere, so I had to do a lot of lanesplitting (I hate doing that with sidecases on). I made my way over to Mission Blvd and took that to I-680 North, where I also hit some traffic, but not much. I had to pay the $3 toll at the bridge - it was 7:50pm, and it's free for carpools from 3 to 7 (motorcycles too), so I was a bit late. The rest of today was uninteresting - from I-680 I took I-80 and then I-505 North, which connected to I-5 North. I took I-5 the rest of the way. I'm currently in Yreka, CA for the night. Tomorrow I'm going to Seattle. Hopefully I won't hit rush-hour traffic somewhere.

Seeking Roads

Some people travel for business. Some go on vacation somewhere far away. And then there are some that travel for the sake of traveling. There's often no fixed destination, or a set timeline. It's the ride itself that's important. I'm one of those people. I want to see everything, especially if it has nice long-winded roads. And there's so much to see, that I'll never have to stop :)