Sleeping With the Big Trucks

Arrival in Santa Nella about sunset brought us to a choice of two huge, overstuffed truck stops. We investigated one and decided we really didn't want to be stuffed in there with the trucks. After much mulling we spotted a truck parked in a large restaurant parking lot. I mean the lot was large, and not the restaurant, which was a normal sized Carl's Jr./Green Burrito. We went over to see if it was ok for us to park there overnight and the restaurant people were very gracious about it. Yes, we were welcome to stay over. So we ate Carl's to reward them.  

By the time we finished up and took the leftovers out for Norm (he adores fries) there were 3 big trucks parked out there and soon we were joined by a couple more. Everyone was quiet and we enjoyed an evening of Kindle-ing. There were even nice grassy areas to walk Norman. I am sure he enjoyed it after so much sand and dirt. We crawled into our bed and snugged down for the night. We slept pretty well with the trucks. None of them left until early in the am, so we got many hours of solid sleep. The only uncomfortable part was having to crawl in and out of bed, and the general squashed-ness of the motor home by the bathroom door. Enough to get in and out of the bathroom, but not roomy. I have to admit, I kinda got a kick out of taking a shower in the Carl's lot. Silly, isn't it? We mostly used our own shower on the trip home. It was SO cold outside at 0 Dark:30, which is when we had to get up, according to Ray, who is Road Boss. Before sunrise! Sheesh! I tell you, that part is no fun. I don't like to get up before the sun.

The next day we drove past Shasta and saw 2 lenticular clouds and a quarter moon. I tried to take pictures, but Ray says most of them were lovely pictures of the window screen. But we did stop at a rest area and take some Shasta pics. It's always nice to get thru the mountains and over the Summit before dark. We came upon our scheduled place of rest about 2:30 and decided it was too early to stop, pressed on to the Valley of the Rogue State Park south of Grant's Pass. It's a beautiful park between the Rogue River and the Interstate 5. We chose a spot near the river and the sound of the traffic blended into the sound of the river until all we heard was river. In this place, we had plenty of room to spread our wings for the evening and we did remember to turn on the furnace. Everyone slept like rocks. That featherbed substitute is a good thing.

Thursday we drove only as far as Chehalis and stayed overnight in a Thousand Trails campground some miles removed from the freeway and up a mountainside. It's one of those places where if you don't know where it is, you will not find it. By the time we got there, it was dark and we rejected the first site we tried as being too slanty. Then we tried another but it was too short, so then we got out with the flashlights and started hunting a level, long spot without trees encroaching too much so we could spread out. Found one, serenaded by coyotes again! That surprised me, as I thought we'd left them all in AZ. Guess not.

The living room slide out refused to slide out. It refused to do anything. It seems the entire circuit died that powers that slide. Ray checked all the breakers and fuses and could not find anything blown. So that's a mystery for the repair guys. If one of the slides had to fail, I'd rather it was that one. We had plenty of room to move around  and Norman enjoyed the couch eye view of the dinner table.

Sent off to sleep by coyote and owl serenade, we woke refreshed, cleaned up the motor home, packed things away and headed for home. We got here about 1 and missed the afternoon traffic. We had some lunch, and unloaded the motor home. I finally decided to take out the canned goods lest they freeze, but left the dry things in there. We were worn out by the time we were done and it was dark by then anyway. We scrounged around for supper, vegged out with tv and headed for our own familiar bed for a good night's sleep.

Ray has made a list of things for warranty work and we're scheduled to drop it off on Friday morning. McMahon's is, as we suspected, dragging it's feet on agreeing to pay for the damage to the hood that it had when we arrived. I wish they'd just give in and we'd all be done with each other.

Norman turns out to be a wonderful motor homing dog. He loves the motor home, loves to ride, loves to get out and smell new things, loves to look out the big front windshield and watch the world go by. Plus, he's very well behaved when he gets out of the mh. Perhaps he is afraid we'll leave him at the rest area if he doesn't behave. Whatever reason, I'm glad of it.

Cooking in this motor home is so much easier than in the old motor home we had 20 years ago. So much more space and countertop to work with. We were pleased with the results of cooking in the convection oven/microwave. Those are good additions to motor homes. Garbage disposals have to be next on the list, but with Norm along, I admit we did not have much garbage.

Our van now feels small when we drive it! But this Friday after we drop off the motor home, we will pack up the van and head for our annual weekend in Pacific Beach. We rented a house this year and Brett and Alayne will be joining us. I hope Brett's cooking again this year!

We've decided to put all the trip pics up in one post, if we can find any that actually turned out. Stay tuned!

Relaxation

means you are so relaxed and enjoying sitting in the sun so much that you don't blog for 2 days! We had a grand time in Verde Valley, just sitting in the afternoon sun and enjoying the breeze. Norman seemed to enjoy it too. We fixed all our meals in the motor home as we were waaay out in the country, but that was ok. Ray helped by drying the dishes which was much appreciated by the cook/dishwasher.

We had some shade from a kind of tree unfamiliar to me. It had sort of maple-shaped small to medium sized leaves and white thin bark that flaked off the tree. There were quite a few of those trees on the lower rows where we chose to park. We saw bunnies one day, but luckily Norman didn't. He behaves so well away from home that it's hard to believe he's the same dog we live with day to day. We should stay on the road.

One night it got down to 37 in the motorhome because we forgot to turn on the furnace when we went to bed and brrrrrr! I don't know about Norman, but MY nose was cold! Lucky for me, Ray woke up first and turned on the heat! We didn't know it got so cold in Arizona. It frosted the three nights we spent at Verde Valley. But it warmed up so nicely it was worth freezing.

Today we passed an area named Fort Rock, in Arizona close to the border with California. Those were stacked rocks, like on the train ride at Disneyland. But even bigger. The formation went on for miles on both sides of the freeway. Fascinating!

We saw a sign on highway 89 that said, "Coyote Wash" and I wish I could have taken a picture for my brother in law Ron. He'd have done something funny with that picture, I just know it. Sorry, Ron! Maybe next time. Ron didn't tell me that they washed the coyotes down here. (yeah, I know what a wash is. That was a joke, people)

At the California border crossing there is always an obligatory fruit and vegetable checkpoint and today on I-40 was no exception. We were forced to declare that the entire motor home contained no fruits and veggies unless they wanted to count potato chips. Disgraceful, eh?


But, we had stopped at Subway for lunch at a truck stop and so we did actually eat something moderately healthy and vegetable containing. Yay, us! And thank you, Robin, for the Subway cards! We got our sandwiches to go and ate in the motorhome. It was much quieter than in the busy restaurant. And we kept Norm company. Poor thing suffers from separation anxiety and moreover, hates to miss out on good food.


Immediately after leaving vegetable check, the road went to pot in a big way. And after we bounced, rattled and jerked along the badly deteriorated highway for about 5 miles, we came upon a sign announcing "Rough Road". Ha. Too late. Although Ray says the sign should say, "Rough Road Throughout Entire State".

We had a short day today, only getting as far as Needless, I mean Needles, CA. We're at a very nice RV Park called Desert View. It's manicured to within an inch of it's life and every site is level and well-gravelled and had a nice big concrete patio. All the roads are concrete. All the amenities are here even wireless in the rv. We are actually on part of Historic Route 66! The mother road!

Ray and Norm sat outside while I fixed dinner. It was a new recipe from the convection oven book, Tamale Casserole. It has potential, for sure, but tasted fine to hungry people. And we have enough to have dinner tomorrow. Everyone is very friendly here and about talks your ears off. Everyone else is here for the winter. There are only 2 spots for overnighters right now. I am glad we made reservations.

Tomorrow we are going as far as Santa Nella on I-5. We will be spending our first night with the big trucks at a truck stop. No hookups and no unfurling our wings. If we don't get our undies out of the drawers tomorrow morning, there will be no clean undies the next day. Got to plan ahead in these motorhomes! We may or may not have wifi tomorrow night, it all depends on the truck stop. But we will be getting in late and leaving early and we have ear plugs so I think we'll do ok sleeping. Norm may have a rough night, as we have no dog ear plugs. Do they make those?

So if you don't hear from us tomorrow night, don't worry. We're fine, just roughing it in our squeezed in motorhome.

Long time no see...

Let's see...The last night of our trip down we stayed at an interesting place along the Colorado River between Needles and Blythe, CA. It was a mix of permanently installed single wide mobiles, double wide mobiles, park models, and RVs. The section for temporary visitors is along one end of a large field they call "The Golf Course". No course, no holes, no sign of a golf course, but that's what they call it. The place looks like it was built in the forties or fifties and has passed its heyday. It being winter, many of the residents were not there. You can buy a house and a boat for $30,000, so if you're looking for a retirement spot, this might be it.

There is an old red barn in the middle of the place, and that's where the community gatherings are held. Next on the schedule was a broadcast of UFC. They have a llittle store and a 3 seat counter at the grill and that's also where the office is. No internet there. Pretty much no there there. It was very quiet and we had an unobstructed view of the mountains across the road. It was a spectacular sunset that night and it was so quiet there, it felt like the sunset was just for us.

Lots of the homes have boats and atvs or battered jeeps parked in the carports. One of the homes has a huge Budweiser sign in the front window. The people who were in residence were mostly retirees. Quite a few of the places were for sale. It was a bit shabby and a bit rundown, although it was as clean as things can be in the desert. Most places had a beat up truck trailering personal watercraft. Even tho we called it Bubbaville, we would stay again, I think. We certainly had an undisturbed night. There are so many stars when there are no other lights! It was beautiful. We got to watch a flock of quail for a while. They are such busy birds.

Then we arrived at Betty Jean's the next afternoon and the Christmas fun commenced. We had a most enjoyable time with the family, fairly laid back and relaxing. We enjoyed the sunshine and thought it was hot although the Arizona people went around wearing jackets! They thought it was cold. At 67 degrees and sunny, it was hot for us and cold for them. Funny, isn't it?

Yesterday, we left Betty and Ron's and traveled to our current campground, Verde Valley Thousand Trails. It's near the town of Cottonwood, which is a very old place. We are out in the country in a canyon. It's another place where there are lots of stars at night. The trip out here was nice, lots of good scenery, pictures of which are all on Ray's computer for now. We saw a coyote just outside of Florence, AZ. The primary employer there seems to be the State, as there are both a prison and a detention center. The coyote was well furred and well fed and seemed perfectly at home with the traffic and people.

For a time in late afternoon, we sat out in our lawn chairs on the little lawn between our rig and the next space, which was empty last night and is now full of a 5th wheel. We sat out there until it got chilly and we got hungry. It was so relaxing and so beautiful. We have a good view of the canyon walls from our site. Norman seemed to enjoy the grass and relaxation too. No cats within sight or smell, so he rested and kept watch while we enjoyed sun, sky and scenery.

After supper we watched a few episodes of "Firefly" and went to bed. It was so quiet and so dark, we went right to sleep. Sometime during the night the heat pump quit and it went down to 49 inside but it was 29 outside for a low, and our bed is nice and warm, so we weren't bothered. And when Ray got up, he switched the gas furnace on and by the time he woke me up, the mh was warmed up. Norman was curled into a tight ball in the corner of the couch. But he's furry and I am not worried about him freezing.

And now we're here in the lodge using the internet and finally updating the blog. I am going to miss the sun. It was hard to leave Tucson. We both wanted so badly to stay. Permanently. Ray said he'd call his boss and retire that minute. But, it's still a bit early for that, so back to the rain we go. We have checked the weather forcast for Seattle. It is not encouraging, but it is January and to be expected. In fact, rain is to be expected for another 6 months or so. I'll miss the sun.

Third Day's the Charm?

Today we made good time and arrived at our site in Bakersfield just after dark. In 20 minutes we were hooked up, unfurled the wings and were heating left over chili for dinner. We're getting better.

Our gas mileage today was 8.3 mpg. Terrible for a car but not bad for a house. Ray says he's happy with that. I wish it was more like 9 mpg, but at 60 mph I guess that's what you get. Traffic wasn't bad until Stockton. Road was bad by Sacramento. The road got worse the further south we went, and even tho the road surface is new, they not only left the old bumps and ruts in it, they added new bumps and ruts. Horrible! Highway 58 wasn't a whole bunch better, but we knew it would be over for the day soon.

We passed thru the Angry Farmer Zone today. Lots of Angry Farmer signs blaming lack of irrigation water on Boxer, Pelosi and some person whose last name starts with a C. I do know their water rations have been cut and sent to LA and other parched cities. The farmer who are doing well have put in vast miles of drip irrigation. Much more efficient use of water if properly regulated, I suppose. Although we did see many fields that were totally flooded, so water can't be too short. But my sympathies are with the Farmers, Angry or not.

One discovery we made today was that all Pilot Truck Stops are not created equal. The one we gassed up at was very difficult, being squeezed into as little room as possible. As it was located out in the midst of Nowhere, I can't imagine why it wasn't made a little more motor home friendly. But we got out of there without running over either flowers or other cars.

Norman spent much time near us today. He seems to prefer napping between us. And once in a while he'll come for a bit of a snuggle. And he watches whenever he thinks something might be worth watching. He loves Rest Areas! So many things to watch, and smell. He also was quite interested in the aroma of the feed lots we passed today. Ugh! We were grateful to him for snuffling up as much of the stench as he could. Ray said Norman would probably be glad too roll in it. I think he's right.

Our park tonight is right next to a freeway, but we are so tired that I don't think we'll hear it much. We didn't hear the road traffic last night. Besides, the furnace has an enthusiastic fan that will surely contribute some white noise.

At lunch time today the Rest Area parking area was full of big rigs. No place for us to park, and so we drove on.. At the next exit we spotted a large dirt area behind a gas station where big rigs could park. As it was mostly empty, we availed ourselves of a spot with a nice view of sagebrush and tumbleweed, fired up the generator and nuked some left over tuna casserole. It was a fine level spot and we enjoyed our little lunch break. It was quieter than the Rest Area too, and lots less fumey.

No trouble with the levelers today. I am glad. No trouble with anything today but sun glare making it hard to see the dashboard. So far, we are mostly happy with the motor home, altho Ray has his doubts about the Firm mattress.

Remember those flooded fields I mentioned? In many of those fields were large flocks of waterbirds. I recognized the Mallards and other ducks, but there were thousands upon thousands of medium sized white birds with black tipped wings. O, they were so elegant in flight, and so beautiful. Alas, my bird books are at home or I would tell you what kind of birds they were.

Motor homing is THE way to travel when it's too cold for motorcycles or for time's sake you have to take I-5. I would not much like riding on I-5 thru the Central Valley. And besides, it's still Too Cold.

So, that's it for tonight. Good night and sleep tight!

Hello California!

Ray rousted me before sunrise this morning. I may not survive the trip! It was so cold at Canyonville, and colder still in the showers. The showers themselves are lovely, all grey tile, nice tiled bench to sit on, a potty, a sink and a heater which has a timer. At a temp below freezing, the tiles feel every bit as cold as the air, if not colder. But there was plenty of hot water and a nice shower head, so we survived showering. We used their showers because we were afraid our water hose would freeze solid and so we didn't hook up anything but electric. It was so cold the electric heat pumps could not find any heat to pump and so we used the propane furnace to heat us toasty warm all night.

At leaving time all went smoothly until it was time to retract the levelers. One of them apparently had no intention of retracting, but Ray knew how to get it retracted manually, so all was well after slight initial alarm. Off we went into a foggy morning.

It was fog off and on until we were clear of Mount Shasta. Her head was wreathed in clouds and her feet in a fog bank. It was an impressive sight. Just as we cleared Sexton Mountain Pass, where it was sunny, we had a wonderful view of the valley below. The valley was filled with thick fog, as if someone had laid a large piece of batting down there. It was a breathtaking view. As many times as we've been up and down this road, we'd never seen a thing like that before.

The motor home has a large windshield, as they all do. Great for seeing the magnificent scenery in the Siskiyous and the Southern Cascades and also great for letting the sun in. Wow, did we get hot when we finally got out from under the fog!

We stopped for lunch at the Kalama River Rest Area. It's river front for sure. The picnic areas are along the river and it's so pretty. We had a view of the river and lawns as we ate our lunch. We both agree that having spent the night with the "wings" of the motor home unfurled that it seems a whole lot more cramped in here during the day. Funny, until today we thought it was plenty of room with wings furled.

 It was so quiet there at Seven Feathers, not so quiet here. We are just a block off Highway 99 here in Corning, California. Olive City, the signs say, but we will not have time to find out. We made good time here today and pulled in before sunset. Makes set up lots easier, I must admit. It's so much warmer here, and nicely dry. I used the convection/microwave for the first time. Managed not to overcook the tuna casserole. Plus we have leftovers for lunch. We are making a list of all the things we forgot to bring. And we thought we had all we'd need! No tv because we forgot to bring a coax cable. But we have plenty of dvds if we ever have enough energy to watch something.

We had about 8 miles per gallon today. Pretty good for mountains! Of course, we saved gas going down the mountains, we just coasted.

Tomorrow is all flat but it's a very long day. We'll be stopping in Bakersfield, California tomorrow, probably well after dark. I've got left over chili I can microwave quickly.

Norman is busy being the absolute best motor homing dog and I suspect he will do that again tomorrow He really seems to be enjoying the trip.

Rattle and Roll

At 0Dark:30 our doorbell rang and we could not imagine who was out there at that hour of the day, since the paper had already come. Ray opened the door and there on the porch were carolers warbling away! Christmas carols early in the morning surely surprised us and gave us a great start to our day. Thanks to Geneva, Brion, Judy and Bob for some rousing renditions and for making me laugh that early, which is something I rarely do that time of day.

Today was mostly uneventful, we passed few people but got passed by lots of people. Ray got better at staying in the lane, except for one time when he drifted a bit much to the right and frightened a little sedan who had thought to pass us.

We had alot of heavy fog most of the day and it was chilly. Right before dark we go out from under it or above it and we saw one star brightly shining in the sky right ahead of us. It was beautiful! We think this RV park is also beautiful, but it's too dark to tell. We're off the highway quite a bit so it's quiet. Right across from the showers, so it will be a short but freezing dash over in the morning.

At a rest area just before Vancouver, we microwaved leftovers for lunch. MMM-mmm, good! It's such a treat to have a microwave in the motorhome as our last one had none. Norman always enjoys getting out for a stroll at the rest areas, he finds such fascinating smells. I was cold and wished he'd hurry up! Poor dog. The water dish we brought for the motorhome (the Watering Hole) works well. Norman has water all the time and the water does'nt slosh out of the dish.

After we got to Seven Feathers and slid out, hooked up and plugged in we decided on chili for supper. I'm glad I cooked the hamburger and froze it earlier in the week. It made dinner quicker. We are out of practice and this mh has more stuff to hook up, plug in, etc. It seemed to take a long time to be ready to cook, and past the time we were ready to eat!

We have discovered that none of the electrical plugs on the big slide out work! Grr on that! So much for crock-pot anything. Phooey. Ray is not sure the electrical heater in the back of the rig actually heats. I think the electrical heaters are too noisy. We found out we have mirror heaters. Not all discoveries are bad ones.

Tomorrow it will be beautiful mountain scenery for most of the day and then a bit in the flats to Corning, CA. Wish Ray luck in those mountains!

Well, we are almost ready to depart on our big trip, wonderful adventure or fool’s errand depending on your view of a 5000+ mile motorcycle ride. It certainly is not the longest one anyone has ever taken. Our son Justin did one of 11,000+ miles just last summer. We will be visiting some of the same places and people that he did. Moreover, it is not even a long one considering our age. I read of a guy planning to ride from Florida to the north shore of Alaska next year at the age of 75. But it is the longest we’ve ever attempted or likely to attempt again. We have done a couple of trips of a little over 1000 miles. Training rides if you will.

The basics are I am riding a 05 Moto Guzzi Nevada 750 and Susan is riding her 09 Suzuki Burgman that has a Kenna sidecar attached. Yes, she rides her own. The sidecar has solved many of the questions of “do we have room to take this? “

The bikes are all ready to go and we think we have the necessary accessories to make the trip enjoyable but we’re getting down to the wire on getting the house ready for the house sitters and various other things. So in a great tradition of “I need time to get ready for vacation” I took Friday off work to help Susan get the last minute things done. I should get lots of husbanding points for that.

We depart on Tuesday, August 17 in the evening and go just far enough to get past the Seattle traffic mess. The real trip will start on Wednesday when we head east on I90 and then I94 to Dickinson, North Dakota, to visit a niece. From there we get off the interstate and go through South Dakota and into Minnesota to Hasting to visit one of Susan’s sisters. Then we follow the Mississippi River on the Wisconsin side for a while and then on east to Elgin, Illinois, where will spend a couple of weeks visiting my brother and Susan’s other siblings. After that, we head back. While we have laid out a route, we are not tying ourselves to it. We’ve already talked of some alternate stops and detours.

Susan's ride. Dauntless Motors is the place that manufactures and installs the Kenna sidecar that's on her bike.'



My ride is a little more traditional.

Too Many Options!

We've settled on the first 3 days of our route. We get part of the way to Dickinson, ND in that time. Ray figures any place within the first 3 days we can visit at a later time from here so we're just scooting by those places. That was the easy part of the planning.

But after that, the options are nearly overwhelming. There are so many roads, so many places to see, so many places to spend a few hours! Plan a trip like this and you realize what an enormous, beautiful country we have. You realize it in a different way than looking at the Weather Channel's map or watching as you jet over, arriving in Chicago a mere 3 or 4 hours after you depart SeaTac.

Every day we discover another place, another good motorcycle road, another spot we'd like to spend some time exploring.

We may never get to Illinois and back again at this rate. We'll be spending the rest of our lives on interesting roads. And that's not a such bad way to spend our time, is it?

Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

Lately, I've been thinking alot about cheese, thanks to The Pacific Northwest Cheese Project and the public library. And probably the Tillamook Cheese factory, which we have visited several times.

The Cheese Project got me interested in several recommended cheese books and the public library kindly supplied said books for my perusal.

There are so many different types of cheese! Who knew? Growing up in the midwest, cheese was either swiss, cheddar, cottage, ricotta or mozzarella. You could pretty much count on there being cottage cheese in our fridge, but the cheddar was mostly there at Christmas time, when Dad was gifted (blessed) with a largeish black-waxed white extra sharp cheddar from Canada. Heavenly stuff! Cream cheese was good for cheese cake or dried beef rolls, but not much else. I never saw a bagel until I was an adult. Dad was not much for "ethnic" food, unless it was brown beans and lingon berries. Swiss showed up once in a while, to put on sandwiches. We often had that pseudo-cheese that comes in a plastic envelope that you have to peel off. Ick on that stuff! Cheese of other types I do not remember being in our fridge, except possibly in salad dressing.

It's interesting how cheese is referenced in everyday life, as in "cheese it, it's the fuzz". Well, ok, not my life. But there's also "cut the cheese", "big cheese", "say cheese" and "that's so cheesey".

But anyway, a couple of the books I picked up at the liberry are guidebooks to artisan cheese makers. Once we planned out our summer route, I started checking for artisan cheese makers along the way.

We will be stopping at a cheesery in Wisconsin, hello, Cheese Heads! Then there's one in Iowa we may be able to get to, depending on the state of the road, and one near Missoula, Montana. And that looks like the extent of cheese for this trip. How nice it will be to have some hand-crafted cheese in the saddlebags for our snack breaks! I will have to remember to pack a cheese knife.

I could not find any artisan cheese makers in North Dakota, although I did find the North Dakota Cheesemakers Association, so one assumes there must be cheese makers out there somewhere. I wrote to the association and perhaps I will get an answer and find some tasty cheese in North Dakota after all. They have more cows than people there, so there must be cheese makers.

The new Puget Consumer Co-op in Edmonds has a nice cheese section and we picked up a couple of teensy blocks for sampling. One is Gjetost, a Norweigan cheese without which breakfast apparently would not happen in Norway. The other sample is Carr Valley Gouda. Carr Valley Farms is in Wisconsin. I've also got a bigger piece of paneer from Apel Farms. That one is an organic, raw milk cheese, made up in Lynden. Perhaps later tonight we'll sample the Gjetost and the Gouda. You could hardly find cheese more different than those two! They also had a large, large wheel of Queso Blanco from up around Bow, WA, but it was way too big for us to use up, as much as I love Queso Blanco.

We also bought some Nancy's cream cheese. It's more spreadable than Philly, and has only 35 mg of salt. Since it's naturally cultured and made with goat's milk, it has less fat and is more tart than Philly but pretty much the same mouthfeel. I quite like it.

I'm going to be trying all sorts of cheeses, but have not had much experience with different types, so, what's your favorite cheese?

Whew! Holidays Are Over!

Well, today it's back to work as usual. Ray's off at SSA and I'm here doing stuff that I didn't do over the holidays. Tomorrow I go back to work at the Library, as its Holiday Closure is over. I was not up early enough to hear the morning traffic reports, but I bet that too was back to business as usual.

It was almost warm enough to ride Sunday. Almost.

For fun, we went to see Avatar. I can't say enough good things about this movie. Yes, it's a familiar plot, but the way it's presented is different. You can't even see all of it in one sitting, it's so gorgeous and so packed with things to look at. It's totally awesome and amazing, or whatever kids says these days to indicate extreme coolness and awesomeness and amazingness.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. Between illness, holiday doings and writer's block it's been a long time between posts.

Ray and I are busy planning this summer's trip east. We're only getting as far as Northern Illinois, but we'll be getting there. And to all my relatives and in-laws who are now thinking "I'll believe that when I see it", prepare your eyeballs, because we ARE getting there. On our bikes. This year. And home again. On our bikes. I'll let you know how the route develops and where we'll be staying.

One thing we've gotten is UTags for both of us. These are USB drives embedded in a dog tag that holds all of one's medical information and contact info, insurance info, procedures you do not ever want done, etc. Everything a doctor who does not know you would need to safely treat you. They come with stickers to put on your helmet, jacket, bike to let the first responders know you've got a UTag. They are very popular and widely used in Europe, but just beginning to be used here. That's why the stickers will come in handy.

Another thing we're thinking of getting is a Spot device. This device can be set to give a near real-time map of where we are at any given point, so you could track us on a Google map. It also sends check-in messages and sends for help. Is there enough demand for our location for us to buy the tracking service?

Day Three-Set the Dial to Broil

There wasn't much truly cool air to be found on Sunday morning, although it was pleasant enough when we got started. Once again Norman was eager to ride and thought we didn't progress from putting on motorcycle boots to leaving the parking lot fast enough. The boots are apparently his cue that a ride is in store. And don't touch his leash, or most especially, his sidecar harness until you want to use them. He doesn't understand the need to pack up stuff and load bikes. He just wants to ride.

What a beautiful road we found this morning! Curvy and hilly and scrumptious. We stopped at the overlook atop the mountain above Lewiston/Clarkston. This is another sequence we'd like to try to make into a panorama.











Take a look at that road and drool! You know you want to ride that road.









Now isn't that a lovely way to start a day?

We traveled on very nicely curved state highways to break time in a small town called Garfield. We found a small city park (flush toilets! a nice change from porta-potties and sorta-potties) and dismounted to stretch knees and rest the motorcycle seats, and drink some water. Twas getting warmer.



Norman was starting to feel the heat and enjoyed the cool concrete and irrigated (wet)green grass in the picnic shelter area.



It got hotter and hotter and hotter. And then it got hotter still. Norman's tongue hung out further and further. He's got even more black spots waaaay back there. As long as we travelled at highway speeds, we didn't feel the heat too much. But when we had to slow for a small town then we heated up pretty quickly. By the time the day was done, every piece of clothing I was wearing was stuck to me. Ick.

It must have been very miserable for Normie in his fur coat. Gas stops in the little towns (and one out in the country-nothing there but a farm road meeting the highway and a gas station/minimart--the minimart building looked like it had been there since the turn of the century) occasioned The Travelling Road Show. One time we had to stop at a shady place along the road to rest and have a drink because we could find no place else. It's really quiet out there and nobody wanted to ask The Questions. We stopped quite frequently, altho there are no pictures for the rest of the day. No spectacular scenery, but pretty farms and rolling hills alongside curvy roads took us to a junction with I-90 out of Spokane. One exit later and we were on Highway 2 and on the way to our hotel. This day was always planned to be our shortest day, and I'm glad it was because poor Norman was lying in his 'car panting like mad.

We couldn't find any place with shaded outdoor seating so we carried out from Subway. It's handy to have underseat storage at times like that. To the hotel, have lunch in our room, cool down, unload. We checked in at 2 pm, and were more than ready to retreat to the a/c and take a nap. Norman stretched out on the floor until he was cooled down and then curled up in his bed and didn't wake until pizza was delivered at 7-ish. Norman loves pizza bones (the crust edge) We didn't do much other than walk the dog the rest of the day. We needed a rest. Norman spent most of the time sleeping.

It seems to us we'll need to plan 3 days riding and a day off, 2 days riding and a day off, repeat as necessary, for our 2010 Grand Tour. We are also looking into cooling methods for the Normster. He can't perform for The Travelling Road Show if he's got heat exhaustion. Right now we're leaning toward the kind of vest the working dogs in Iraq wear, but we'll confer with the vet first.

I'm also having extreme trouble with my right arm/hand. It goes to sleep about 15 minutes into the ride. How it can be so numb and so painful at the same time, I do not understand. By this day of the trip I've tried different gloves, no gloves, different hand placement on the grip, wearing Therma Cares on my hands, everything I can think of. Sometimes I have trouble maintaining a speed because I can't tell if I've got a grip on the throttle or not. This night I woke up 3 times with the same thing going on. It has been waking me up early in the mornings ever since we got home and I even feel it during the day from time to time. A trip to the doctor is in store for me too, I can tell. It is extremely painful, all the way from my fingertips to above my elbow.

Lessons were learned the third day too. And we got to ride some truly fun roads!

Text by Susan, Photos by Ray, copyright 2009, all rights reserved

Who Put Those Rocks In The Motorcycle Seats?

Somebody did. Ow.

We are nearly through with our latest adventure and it's been some thing. Some things good, some things not so good. Somethings were learned. But nothing was terrible and we were safe.

Here's a picture of The Norman Traveling Road Show and a couple of his admirers.



The first day we went nearly 400 miles but we got to Baker City, Oregon before dark! We went on the interstates all day and it made for a very long day indeed. We both decided that 350 miles on an interstate is more than sufficient unto a day. Didn't see much of Baker City because we stayed on the edge of town, along the road we were leaving on in the morning. Totally beat, we quickly decided to declare ourselves non-Iron Butt material and ordered a 'za from Pizza Hut. Came just when they said it would, and that happened to be concurrent with the finishing of the unloading and schlepping of multitudes of small, weighty motorcycle luggages up to the second floor.

I 90 over the Cascades is beautiful and fun and we both enjoyed that part. It was hot in Ellensburg where we stopped to have lunch and we were reminded of just why we want to live on the other side of the mountains from Ellensburg. We ended up at a Dairy Queen, hoping for some outside seating, but no such luck. Neither of us could remember any place in E-burg with outside seats. So we stood in the shade of some skinny leaved trees and ate our burgers standing up, while Norman ranged about our feet hoping for crumbs and/or onion rings to magically appear in his path. At least it rested our butts and it wasn't bad in the shade.

Leaving there we took I 84 (I think) all the way to Baker City. Parts of it were beautiful, parts of it were hilly and curvy and all of it was fast. 70+ mph doesn't feel real comfortable. One little mistake and you're toast. But everyone else wants to go that fast, so we did too. I think we arrived about 6:30. Maybe a bit earlier. All I know for sure was pizza came at 7 pm as promised.

My scoot gets horrible mileage at 70+ mph. Horrible, terrible, awful. I run out of gas before Ray does when we go that fast. We managed about 110 miles before needing to fill up so we bought many, many gallons of very expensive gasoline. We used it up like we own a Saudi oil field. Along the way we discovered just how far we can go once my gas alert starts flashing. All the way to the next gas station as it turned out. Lucky for us.

We did a fair amount of upping and downing and those lovely sweepers. Nice! Once we left I 90, there was not much traffic at all. Of course, there really is not much of anywhere to go TO out there. One thing we did notice was the difference between the entire I 5 corridor and the interstates we were traveling on this trip. Along the length of I 5, except for Shasta and some other small places in northern and central CA, there are 3 or 4 fast food places (or more) at every single interchange. You can hardly drive a half hour between our house and Los Angeles without encountering a McDonald's. On these roads less traveled, not only are the interchanges few and far between, national chain-type fast food is practically non-existent. It is good to know this, for planning The 2010 Grand Tour.

This day we also learned that shady outdoor tables have mostly gone the way of the dodo. Also good to know when traveling with a dog. We learned dogs in sidecars get as hot as the humans on the motorcycles do. Our particular dog will "sip" during the day's travel and then tank up like a camel when we are in the motel room. We learned to put his first drink down in the bathroom, where the floor can be easily dried off. We learned to park way at the end of any rest stop lots unless we want to talk to everybody and his brother, mother, sister, cousin and wife. Norman in a sidecar is worse than Morphous Wrex triked, when it comes to being an attractant.

We learned the standard Dog in a Sidecar Questions and the answers we'd like to give:
Does your dog ride in the sidecar? No, we make him run alongside.
Why has his tongue got spots? He wanted a tattoo.
Can I pet him? Sure. (followed closely by)
Will he bite me? Only if you touch him.
Does he try to jump out while you're going? Nope, he's smarter than he looks.
Is he tied in there? Nah, we just let him stand on the trunk and hang over the top of the windshield.
Does he like to ride in the sidecar? No, we force him in there.
Does he have goggles? Why, yes, there they are on his face!
Where's his helmet? O, gosh, he left it at the motel!
How does he hang on? We've got his thumbs on order.
What's his name? No-No Bad Dog.
What happened to his ears? We had them cut off so they wouldn't flap in the breeze.
What kind of a dog is that? A sidecar dog.
Where'd you get him? Junkyard.
What happens when you want to eat, like, lunch? We don't, we drink it as we go.
How long did it take you to teach him to ride in there? Where?
Where's his food? At McDonald's.
Oh, look! He drinks out of a cup! Don't you?
Can I introduce my dog? Nope. He likes people but not other dogs. (this is the actual truth)

We stayed at a Super 8 and it had a positively lovely good sleeping bed. Norman snuggled up in his sidecar dog bed after a sunset stroll around the edges of the parking lot. There were owls out hunting in the warm evening, hooting up a storm. Something was rattling in the brush and neither Norman nor I liked that sound, so we gave it a wide berth. Ray and I watched a bit of tv and went to sleep about 10. Thus ended the first day. Pictures to follow. Or be added.

Details and Plans

Here are some interesting things from our trip last weekend. At least I think they are interesting. I've added an elevation profile from the GPS track of our Sunday trip. It starts on the coast. If you look close you will notice it starts at about 100 ft. Pacific Beach Resort is on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. We did a lot of hill climbing, we got to almost 1200 ft. Most of the rise didn't seem that noticeable. On Saturday's trip we didn't get as high as the route was closer to the coast. Here's the Google Map link if you want to look at the route we took on Sunday. You can zoom in and really see the twisties. We went 214 miles from PacBeach to the Kingston ferry landing then another 4 from the Edmonds ferry landing to home. But the last part hardly counts for anything. Saturday's trip was 248 miles.

As you read in Susan's entry it was a great time. We are planning a longer trip next weekend. I have some credit time I have to use before it expires and I lose it. So we though we would get a long ride in before the end of the good riding season here. It's already starting to rain some. It was coming down pretty hard this morning when I got up. We're glad we didn't plan anything for this weekend. We've got two possible routes depending on the weather, one down I5 and one out I90/I84 to eastern Oregon and Idaho. We are going to test our endurance on the super slab the first day. Then go through either Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area or Crater Lake. We plan to leave on Friday and return on Monday.