The Best Road Trip of My Life - so far

The pictures come after all this wordy crap, feel free to comment and please click on the pictures to see all of the details.

This was really a phenomenal trip. New roads, new sights, new friends and thousands of miles of two-wheeled meditation and communion with the road, my favorite bike, Mother Nature and myself. I have driven down the Oregon/California coast a few times so this time I decided to see the east side of the state, a place I had heard many good things about but never seen.

Looking at the map, I couldn't decide whether to take this promising twisty road over here, or that mountain pass over there, but I tried to stay off the larger highways as much as possible, even going out of my way to avoid them.

The gear I took served me well, cooler outer gear would have made a nice difference. I don't think I forgot anything this time, and if I did I just made do anyway.

Camping was awesome. I had no scheduled stopovers, just a general 200 mile vicinity I knew I had to approach to stay on schedule. I only hit my anticipated stopover once, but I arrived at the end on schedule. So much for planning. I developed an evening habit around 5pm when there was still 2 or 3 hours of daylight left. I would pop into the local general store, buy a couple of beers or something to go with dinner and start asking the clerk, the guy sitting on the bench outside, the waitress- anyone who looked local- if there was some free camping nearby. They always gave decent directions to a cool spot and I only had to pay for a campsite two times in 10 nights. I spent what I saved on a hot breakfast of biscuits and gravy or chicked fried steak or a big stack of pancakes. I gained a few pounds out on the road but I enjoyed every single one of them.

Besides established campgrounds, I also made my own campgrounds. Most of the area I was travelling in was National Forest/Park and there were lots of dirt roads snaking away into the forest from the blacktop. The only decision to be made was when to call it good for the day and I'd find an inviting dirt road (not too many rocks) and follow it until I found a flat spot for the tent. Ta-Da. Camp is made. Gotta love it. Except I need to do more research on camping food, the ascetic diet gets old pretty fast.

Next step was to get up whenever I felt like it. Or not. Make coffee, make coffee again and break down the tent, roll up the bag and strap 'em on. I'm not much of a breakfast eater so that made it easy. I tend to get up with the sun and really love that time of day; I spent a few tranquil mornings with coffee steam, chirping birds, a damp chill in the air and the orange red sun climbing through the trees. Aaaaahhhhhh.

Then fire up the beast, hop on and look forward to the next 500 miles of who-knows-what. And a diner or cafe with a solid, hearty breakfast and a place to slowly eat while I reading a book.

I met up with a couple of kindred spirits along the way and we watched each other's back for a couple of days. Actually, they looked at my back since I had the radar detector and thus became the de facto lead bike. That radar detector was not cheap but it has paid for itself literally dozens of times. It saved me from at least 3 tickets on this ride, maybe more. One thing that really irks me, really kills my buzz while riding is being nervous about going a little over the speed limit and spending precious mental resources scoping for hidden or oncoming cops. Its just plain dangerous - I need every available mote of attention to keep myself and the bike doing what they are supposed to be doing, and if instead of watching for left-turning cars I'm looking in the rear-view trying to figure out if that Crown Victoria has a light bar or a push bumper or a spotlight on the door......Grrrrrrrr Radar Detectors. They won't guarantee you no tickets, but I've never had one when I was using it. Of course most people say "Just slow down." I want to slap them but I can't so I just shake my head and think "you just don't understand until you've been there"

While I'm on this rant, there are two situations when people (frequently) shake their head, laugh and say "That's just crazy!" 1. Camping alone in the wilderness. Hello!! 11 rounds of .40 S&W and an awareness of your surroundings makes it all just peachy. 2. Going over 100 MPH. Why does that seem scary? Because your car won't do it doesn't mean its wrong. Sure it takes a little more effort to do things like turn or stop, but hey if you needed to do that you wouldn't be going that fast, would you? I always relate to an experience my wife had. She was one who said "That's crazy!" when I told her how fast I drive, so I started dropping that detail from the summary of my afternoon. Then one day, riding two-up on the freeway -radar detector silent- I slowly rolled on the gas and we gently climbed into the triple digits. We held that speed for a little bit and then pulled into a freeway rest area. Was she freaked out? No, "That's not so bad, I guess." "See," I said, "it feels pretty much like 60 or 70 MPH right? Smooth and comfortable." It helps that my ST1100 seems to prefer the triple digits, everything comes together nicely at around 105-110.