Montana-logged

a couple of things have run through my mind that i forgot to mention earlier.

oregon. when i pulled up to the gas pumps in albany to fill up, i reset my trip meter, turned off the key, flipped my tankbag up, unlocked the cap, swiped my credit card when all of the sudden, this random guy jumps between me and the pump äsking,"and what are you looking for today?" i snarled, "thought i would fill up with gas, do you mind?!?" he proceeds to start pushing buttons on the pump and hands me the pump handle. sheesh, i was really annoyed. i thought there was no way i was going to give this bum a tip for this!

boy was my face red when hiler explained to me later that it's an oregon law and the business can get a $500 fine if someone other than the employee retrieves the handle from the pump. LAME!!!

then we got to grants pass, oregon. i thought i was in the twilight zone! i saw a sign that said it was a "safety corridor" for the next 7 miles. they had some ridiculously low speed limit and they all complied!!! i thought my eyeballs would explode before we could find the way out of there. i will never go there again.

we've been here since thursday night and i'm beginning to feel my iq and energy level drop. although i think it was worthwhile to come here, visit family, extend our stay by a day, i'm REALLY looking forward to red lodge and some squiggly lines on the map beginning tomorrow.

today i took a ride up to havre, mt to tour the underground city. it was interesting and got me out on the road for a few hours. it was two-lane but pretty boring. thank goodness for ipods and fabulous earphones. (thanks again for the recommendation jeff!)

i'm ready to go. tonight i repack the tailpack, ye is cleaning and lubing the chains. we depart at 0500.

And Through Idaho We Go!

we got up thurs. morning, repacked the bikes and headed out of ontario.

as we were riding along the little salmon river, we saw a helicopter swoop down, fill his bucket with water and head back to one of the 3 major fires currently burning in idaho/montana. it was cool watching it hover, dip down and fill its catch. and coming upon that road at just that precise moment was awesome. about a mile down river was a boat with some people rowing, and it struck me that something so awesome happened so close to them and they would never even realize it. life's funny.

we came to a non-twisty section and there was a sign that read, "moose crossing next 1 mile". those signs always confuse me. . .do the moose know that's where they are supposed to cross or what? shrug. anyway, about 1/4 mile after the sign was a HUGE bloodstain with splatter over the next 1/4 mile. obviously some driver had not seen the sign. there must have been 10 gallons smeared on the road. it was gross and i tried to hold my breath so i wouldn't smell it.

which brings a thought to mind. i've seen several 1/2 deer carcasses along the way. always the rear half left ripped open and bloody. makes me throw up a little in my mouth just thinking of it, but. . .where did the front half go, that's what i wanna know? can there be *that* many sicko's out there plucking up the heads and mounting them over their fireplaces?!?

we stopped in lincoln, montana for dinner when we saw a storm approaching. we decided if it was still stormy after dinner we would stay there for the night. by the time we came back out, all had cleared and off we rode.

we went through about 10 miles of heavy rain, then it stopped and we dried off by the time we reached great falls.

so we are now in the land of montana where the state vehicle is a mud encrusted, early 90's model 4x4 with primer on the doors. :-) everyone has one!

i've been in search of a new air filter for ratbike. the gas mileage is horrible. but it's just not going to happen i'm afraid. so i'm going to let it go for today.

bees. ye and i have both had bees fly and land on our necks then get stuck in our jacket collars. i could feel mine when we began riding after a stop for some reason. it was on the right side of my neck and so was difficult to try to get to while riding. i didn't know it was a bee, but just kept trying to smash around back there and kill whatever was biting. it stopped for a while. shortly there after, i felt a tickle in the middle of my back, followed by a sting. when i finally took off my jacket a few hours later, the little bugger rolled out, hit the ground, crawled to his feet and flew off.

i watched ye go through a similar experience the next day. i hate those little stowaways!

so we're here until monday morning when we continue our adventure southwards. i have to tell you traveling in the country is a lot less adventuresome, but it's nice to get out of the heat and away from work. . .

today is our grandson's, christopher, 7th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER!!

where's the princess?

here i am! writing to you from the lobby computer at super 8! yes, that's right, a digit hotel. sigh. but this is a really nice digit hotel with a hot tub in our room, does that count? of course it does!!

let me try to get back to where i left off, but first a couple of random thoughts that i missed over the last couple of days.

a picture is worth a thousand words, and me with no camera. on the way out of the track two guys had pulled over in a turnout and were standing with their backs to the road, each had their hands in front of them and were obviously "taking care of business." parked right behind them and waiting for them to finish up was mr. law & order himself. that brought a chuckle in my helmet.

we have just been blessed with the most incredible weather! we hit some coastal mist and the rest was clear sailing.

okay, so back to laytonville, ca. we got up, packed up our bikes and headed out. we continued up pch 1 and cut over on 20 somewhere north. honestly, ye is going to have to buy a new set of tires to get home, i'm sure of that now.

we stopped for a wonderful lunch in pointe reyes, ca. at an organic restaurant. i'm sure it posted that so it could add a couple of dollars to the price of the meal. but that was okay, it was good.

on the road again and heading north toward hilers. we took i-5 from the 20. it was hideously boring, but we can't complain as our twistie mileage has been about 95% of our trip.

we got to jim & carol's, unpacked, decompressed and relaxed for an evening of pizza and margaritas before heading out to the chateau winnebago. what fun! ye and i laughed ourselves silly before drifting off to sleep.

jim & carol have a beautiful house and nice piece of land. i was able to meet their older son, ben, who was quite a pleasant young man. he was a bit amazed at ye's energy level i think. ;-)

this morning, we got up and moving around quite leisurely. jim had graciously taken the day off to show us a few of oregon's roads. nice work, beautiful roads, scenery and wonderful company! am i beginning to sound like i broken record?

i once thought baja had cornered the market on fantastic views, but i've seen them in california and now oregon.

oh, another thing that came to me while riding yesterday. the smells. we were riding through redwood, ca and the smell was incredible. i had to flip my visor up to breathe it all in. it was wonderful.

we are a few short miles from the idaho border. tomorrow is another adventure waiting to be had. i love being on the road!

Another day on the road

we continued heading north, continued riding twisties and sweepers, and seeing gorgeous scenery when not concentrating an upcoming turn. . .

jim hiler had arranged for us to visit with ted simon and buy his latest book for him. he lives in covelo, ca which is 26 miles down another wonderful twisty road. ted is an amazing guy and we enjoyed our visit with him immensely. ted had told ye there was lodging there in town so we had expected to stay there for the night. come to find out, the only motel in town was full. i had my doubts as to whether it was really full or the proprietors just didn't want to deal with people anymore, but the result was the same and our only alternative was to take the 26-mile twisty road back out.


since we had planned on staying, we sat and talked with ted when we should have been riding back out. it was 7:45 p.m. before we headed out. the sun was setting fast, there were deer on the road by this time and my nerves were shot. still we made it back out and on to hwy 101 to the next town of laytonville, ca.


oh, joy. the first hotel we pulled in to looked quite clean. unfortunately, when they gave us our non-smoking room, someone had obviously been smoking in it. we returned the key and went to the next place down the road. it was somewhat "less" than quite clean. at this point it was dark and i didn't care. i was tired and hungry and getting more than a little testy.


we checked in and were told that if we wanted to eat in the only restaurant that evening, we'd better make tracks since they stopped serving dinner at 9:00 p.m. we arrived at 8:54 to be told they were no longer serving dinner.


so we hit the market on the way back to the hotel and bought a six-pack of smirnoff drinks and a bag of salsa verde dorito chips and were quite happy to get that. after 3 drinks, it no longer mattered. we stuck our earplugs in, as the motel was right on the highway, and dozed off.

The Races

we left santa maria and headed toward salinas to bill warner's house. we arrived probably around noon. i don't really remember.

bill had a spot cleared for our bikes and table space for our gear and junk. it was very nice to have a central spot for all things. once we visited a bit and unloaded all of the travel stuff, we stuffed our tickets and necessaries in to our combo camelbacks/backpacks and bill led us to the track.

we were there two years ago and wow have things grown! the manufacturer tents were bigger, honda had their bikes and their cars there. hyosung also had a tent there. an amazing number of vendors, some new, some old and faithful.

friday was just practice, so we got our obligatory shopping done and out of the way. i did buy a ram mount for my camera that i have yet to install. . .

i had talked with brenda lewis (glomaggot in seaside) and she was working the track driving the handicap cart on friday. we met up with her, ye met and visited with some friends of his from another list.

i ran out of gas for the second day in a row. the first we knew was going to happen as we were pushing it to gorman. the second day, friday, was on the way out of the track. my fuel light had come on when we were just getting to salinas, in my excitement to get to the track, i let it run too low, and bang. i was stopped again. ye pulled up next to me, flipped up his visor and said, "Can you do me a favor? Can you *please* let me know when your fuel light comes on when it comes on? Because see, this is a hassle for me to keep running after gas for you." well, what do you say to such a civil request. . .i haven't run out again. ;-)

terry took my ticket for saturday so i could hang with brenda for the day. he had a good time, and so did i! can't beat that, win/win.

the weather was magnificent for all three days of the races, unlike the swelter temps of last year. laguna seca personnel have really made great strides in both traffic control and the entire layout of amenities. very nice to see. i believe they were expecting 140,000 on sunday, which was the biggest day.

the evenings were spent with our hosts, bill and sherry warner. honestly, two of the nicest people on the planet. although i'd met bill before, it was great to get to know him better and to spend time with his fabulous wife, sherry. having met several of the maggot wives, i'm here to tell you they are even more wonderful than their spouses. sorry guys, but the women behind the maggots are phenomenal people.

we discovered that we had many things in common with the warners and enjoyed sharing them. we were able to meet their beautiful grandchildren, serenity and jonah. what a great couple of kids. serenity is as her name implies, the quieter of the two, she is calm and sweet. jonah is very inquisitive and also is sweet. we enjoyed their company as well.

we spent our evenings laughing the whole time. brenda was able to join us and we just had a great time. all too soon it was time to move on.

more time on the road. i swear, ye is going to wear out the sides of his tires before the middle. we road twistie heaven all of monday. bill had recommended a route through san fran (no way around that) which worked out very well. once we cleared the city, we took the PCH all the way up. wow. just wow. mile after mile of wonderful, clean pavement and well banked turns.

summer traffic was quickly passed and we had many, many miles of great roads. . .

On the way to Oregon

i'm sitting at jim hiler's computer with my first access to a computer since we left. where do i start? wow!

let me see if i can remember. . .

we did actually leave the house at 2:00 a.m. on thursday morning. i was not the most pleasant person, but i had my ipod fully charged and alone in my helmet so i don't think too much damage was done.

we took the freeway over to el centro, or someplace like that and then cut up. it was twisties all the way from there. we rode forever.

okay, there were a few note worthy items. so i'll expound.

as we were riding along, i ran out of gas some 7 miles short of gorman. as i was waiting for ye to return with the fuel, i had to go to the bathroom really, REALLY, badly. so. . . i scoped out my environment. busy road, huge ditch, traffic. if i could time it right, i could jump down that ditch and be done with it before anyone noticed.

by the time i made my mad dash, i couldn't tell you if anyone was around or not. i would have squatted on the road itself, i had to go so bad. :-) how unprincess-like.

we were riding cuddy valley road. i think that's the same one where "skid" hall got his moniker. at least it looked familiar. anyway, i started to feel like i needed to go again. i rode, came around a corner and here stands ye, gettin' 'r done. boy, that didn't help. i told him i needed to do the same thing, but wasn't able to find appropriate cover. so i told him to go ahead, not worry, don't turn back because i was going to find something suitable.

well, i rode for quite a bit, the solution was not forthcoming, so i compromised, parked my bike on the side of the road and headed down the ditch to do my business. as the women readers can attest, once you start, there's no stopping it when your bladder is that full. so i'm hanging out. . .and hanging, and hanging. i hear the roar of a motorcycle engine approaching and i think to myself, "doggone it, i told him not to worry about me. . ." and suddenly realized that was not his engine i heard approaching. i was frozen like a deer in the headlights.

then, some rider appears around the corner. seeing my bike parked in the corner, and someone in the ditch, he checks up. oh. my. word. can this get any worse?

well, of course it can! his buddy comes around the corner a few seconds later and does the exact same thing! great. try as i may, there was no stopping the flow. so this doesn't get any worse, right? uhm, NO. as i climb up out of the ditch, i realize that i've just been evacuating in a field full of cockleburrs. i pull out what i can and have to deal with the rest scratching my bare legs all the way to the hotel.

we reach the junction of cuddy valley road and 166. there sits approximately 50 bikers. you *know* the word of the "peeing chick" had to have spread like wildfire. we pull up and ye begins to quiz me about his rear tire. does it look low to you? what if i put all my weight on it? what if. . .oh for crying out loud! can we just go!

can't happen to anyone else, always me. ;-)

so we made it as far as santa maria before i raised the white flag. we stayed in the holiday inn so we can have free computer access and breakfast. only there was no computer access and no free breakfast.

but the twisties made it all worthwhile, it was AWESOME!! the weather was perfect and we were happy.

more later, i need to go visit with our hosts.

Countdown - 1 day

actually, it's less than one day now. we leave at 2:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

wow. i am so excited!!

the tires and maps didn't show yesterday. badness. the shipping company for the tires had left a note saying they needed a signature. wtf? they've never needed one before. . .so ye called the company and said it just would not do. the woman on the phone asked where we lived, seems she lives just 2 miles down the road from us. she graciously offered to bring the tires home with her from work and we could pick them up from her. as it turned out, i was driving home from my meeting at precisely the same time and we met and exchanged signature for tires.

sooooo, this morning ye was out in the garage early putting the new rear on the ratbike. that, combined with the new front that was put on last week because of my freeway flat, and i'm ready to go!

now, the packing. some progress was made and a list was created. i'll be heading out from work a little early to get all things packed in the ventura pack and secured on the bikes.

this is actually happening. i. can't. wait!

Countdown - 2 days

i'm sure you are all relieved to hear, the ventura rack has been mounted!!!!! i am a happy MP. 0:-D i hosed off the saddle bags from the baja journey and we are almost ready to go! still need the rear tire for ratbike to magically appear on the porch. ye really wishes this would have come in yesterday, but i'm secretly pleased that it didn't come in last night. that meant he could concentrate on my ventura rack, and he did!!! now i hope the tire gets here, or i think my riding will be about as far as l.a.

i wish i had more time at home to really get things packed, but i can make my ever-comforting lists at work and get it all thought out, pulling it together is easy from there. i noticed when i pulled out my big ventura pack this morning that a couple of the standard packing items are still in there (first aid kit, siphon hose, bungee cords). i *know* the air pump is not and i must not forget to throw that in!!

i'm getting excited now. looking forward to life on the road for a while. the "unexpectedness" that comes with it. some get really stressed out by that, i used to, but i find that letting it happen and then dealing with it on the fly are some of the best times of a trip. the most memorable. deciding each morning how far to ride for the day, when/where to stop and dealing with all the little things in between. most exciting are the events or sights that aren't planned, that God bestows upon you to keep you guessing, keep you moving forward.

well, okay. looking forward to tires and maps being delivered today, hopefully. we can do without one more easily than the other. ;-)

Countdown - 3 days

okay, so remember that bunk i posted yesterday about "letting it go" . . .yeah well scratch that.

seems it's not such an easy task to mount my ventura rack. we bought some new bolts, but if it doesn't go on easily tonight (AND i have to help, yuck), i am being promoted to queen. but it will be the queen of sad. :-(

i will embark on a 2.5 week adventure with little more packing room than a sandwich baggie. sigh.

"pity, party of one!"

i'm keeping my fingers crossed and my hands folded that the brackets can be mounted and i will once again return to my rightful throne of The Migratory Princess.

on a related note, i really do have to pull things out and start getting them packed. i've been known to miss packing a hairbrush, socks, extra shirts, and lest we forget the all disgusting deodorant faux pas of baja. i would like to at least minimize the risks by making, or at least reviewing some sort of list. . .it's what i do. ;-)

oh, and i saw my doctor today. he recommends that 1) i take another spinal injection, 2) stop seeing my chiropractor and 3) postpone this trip. guess which one i'm going to do. . . :-)

Countdown - 4 days

as planned, i went out for a dirtride this morning.

i have to tell you, letting *my* husband know i'm going for a dirtride in the morning is akin to waving a hot, grease-dripping slice of bacon in front of a dog. his eyes popped open before the sun popped over the horizon. "we riding?"

i haven't been on a dirtbike in a couple of months. i've been letting my back heal for the trip, or at least that's what i'd been telling myself. what's amazing to me is how a simple ride of 1 hour is enough to clear the bullshit-spewing mind.

i've been spending my time worrying about things that may never happen. not putting enough trust in people to get their jobs done, forgetting something, the list is endless. and as a part of this morning's trip, i realized that none of it matters. the whole purpose of vacation is the enjoyment of it. so i'm letting it go. . . .

okay, not completely. i still want my ventura rack. ;-)

Trip Prep

here we are the weekend before the big journey. . .

ye was making noise about not getting my ventura rack put on. i, in turn, was making noise about which bike he would then have to change to so that my packing needs were not compromised. . .i'm hoping the ventura is on tomorrow morning.

in the meantime, i'm looking forward to some early morning dirtbike riding. i haven't been on my dirtbike in a while due to some nerve/spinal junk and there are some roads/paths that i'm rather curious about.

then i'll have to give some serious attention to clothes and personal item packing. i stress about it all, then decide whatever we don't have, we'll pick up on the road. that's not such an issue here in the states.

the countdown is upon us. i'm finding it increasingly difficult to get anything done now, at work, at church, at home. i find my mind wandering to the adventures before us. worrying that it not be africa hot for the whole trip, or even part of it for that matter.

if it gets hot, i'm stopping. i may spend the next 2 weeks in a hotel pool somewhere in southern california. . .who knows?

on the other hand, there are places in northern california that i want to see. i've never seen the giant redwoods, never been to oregon. never been to washington state and it looks like i won't be going there this time around either. :-D

ah well, it's a big country.

Summertime + MotoGP Prep

Summer in AZ is hot, Dang hot, Africa HOT.

but that hasn't kept us from enjoying the riding. christopher with his first dirt track experience, austin with his first dirtbike purchase of a YZ250, his first dirt and street trackday. lucky for him there were two separate days and not on the same track. %-P

there is another trip on the horizon for the ywr's. first, motogp in monterey, ca, then on to montana via some yet unknown route, stop to visit grandkids in grand junction, co on the way home.

we've got the house and animals covered and are ready to turn our attention to bike prep. once again, for the purposes of clarity, i spoke to my son about the house/animals/pool, ye is prepping the bikes.

we are planning to take ye's 2003 gsxr1k and my 2003 sv1k. ye is planning to pack all his worldly possessions in the space of an rka tailpack. me? well, i'm begging for my ventura rack system with the big honkin bag PLUS the saddle bags we used in baja california mexico. ye will have enough space for a toothbrush, a pair of socks and an extra pair of underwear. i, on the otherhand, plan on renting out space to him to pack all his other stuff, raingear, clothes, hairbrush. . . i think you can see where this is headed, eh? ;-)

i figure i'll make enough money off the rental space to pay for my entire trip! work smarter, not harder. that's always my motto.

stay tuned for pics of bike maintenance and details of what will surely be an adventure. anyone who knows us will be looking for a few very special moments. :-D