Greetings All

After getting back to Seattle we (I) had quite a bit of maintenance work to do on Kitty although my heart still gets a glow from the memory of the Beloved sitting down for many hours with a brush and bucket of water scrubbing the grime from Kitty’s wheels.

To all you motorcyclists out there, how many of you have a Beloved who would do that!

Meanwhile there was major surgery to perform as I had decided to upgrade to a heavy duty alternator and add a voltmeter, memories of (attempting to) kick-start Kitty with a flat battery in Canada was still fresh in my brain cell.On top of the normal oil and air filter changes I discovered an oil leak which meant replacing an oil seal that would involve exposing large numbers of engine parts which normally only see the light of day once every few years. I was not very happy about this concept but better now than later.

I also wanted to make a few other modifications to Kitty as I needed tools and material that I didn’t have I contacted the Horizons group and asked for some help. Carl was one of several people who responded to my request, and typically for the people in this part of the world was extremely helpful.

One modification that was essential to our health and well being was changing the rather anaemic stock BMW horn and replacing it with a set of compact air horns now I sound like a Mack truck bearing down on some unsuspecting victim, I can’t wait to try them out.

On one of my many visits to Touratech (this time to replace a missing pannier lid, don’t ask why it was missing, I don’t want to talk about that) I discovered they were hosting a presentation by an English couple, Simon and Lisa Thomas. They have been motorcycling around the world for the last 4 years and were only half way through their journey, as they had just come up from South America we were keen to hear what they had to say. Check out their website 2ridetheworld.com it’s worth a look at.

After much mucking around involving Kitty upgrades, local touristing and arranging to send boxes back to Oz with the results of our retail therapy it was time to bid Simon & Co farewell and head south.

The first stop was between Portland, Oregon and the Pacific coast near the town of McMinnville is the Evergreen Aircraft Museum which is now the home of the Howard Hughes H-4 Flying Boat or the Spruce Goose. If you have any interest in old aircraft this museum is a must. The only problem with this place is that they have so many aircraft and not enough space, aircraft are crammed into the one hanger they have. A new building was under construction so we might have to come back…..

The next days travelling while memorable was not a lot of fun.

We were travelling down highway 101. It’s a windy, twisty road that follows the coast through Oregon down into California. It’s like Victoria’s great ocean road only much, much, longer. We are motoring up a long hill when Kitty starts to misfire, just once or twice, then more frequently, then we are running on one cylinder. I back off the power, drop down a gear and everything is back to “normal”. The hill gets steeper and more misfiring, so down another gear. Then it happens again, and again. Now we are in first gear, engine screaming at about 5500 rpm half way up a small mountain in the middle of nowhere with a sick Kitty that wants to run on one cylinder. This is not good. It looks like water is hitting the electrics and shorting out the spark plug leads.

Did I mention that it’s been bucketing down with a driving rain every since we hit the road this morning? And still is.

We make it to the top of the hill and start to cruise down the other side picking up speed all is good again…for a while.

On the flat we get back to cruising speed, things are still good, until it happens again, and then again, time to slow down. As long as we don’t go too fast we have no problems. It seems that with high speed the headwind blows extra water into bike and we have a problem.

Did I mention that the rain we’ve had all day has actually been horizontal?

It’s been blowing a gale all day and when we get a strong headwind Kitty starts to misfire, unless we get it as a crosswind and it tries to blow us off the road, it’s been an exciting ride.

In summer it would be a fantastic ride. The scenery would be stunning and riding fantastic. Unfortunately today was shades of grey, gray or grey and cold.

Did I mention it was down to 11deg C? Not counting the wind chill factor.

Now you might be asking where was the beloved during all this fun and games, well she was tucked in behind me without a whimper or complaint not even the asking the obligatory pillion passenger question

“Is it supposed to do that”?

What a trooper! And this was probably some of the worst weather I’ve encountered on any bike trip.

It felt like a very long time until we got to town and a motel to dry out. I had visions of pushing Kitty the last mile into town, well at least the Beloved doing the pushing while I do the all important steering

The next day was bright sunshine and there was much rejoicing. Just after entering Northern California is the home of the giant Redwoods which are spread across several national parks. Great weather and great roads, what more could you ask for?

 

 

 

 

That night we stayed at a lodge in Smith River national park. To get to the lodge we took the back road which was a dirt track that ran up and over a mountain ridge. It would be the first time that Kitty went off road fully loaded up (we hadn’t taken all our gear up to Prudhoe Bay) Kitty was a handful in the loose gravel but it was doable. Ruta 40 down in Argentina would definitely be interesting.

We headed down to San Francisco and stayed with Dennis and Cath for a few days before catching up with Diana and Geoff (thanks for all your help guys).

While in SF we did the normal tourist sights but best of all (for me) we discovered a museum of working penny arcade machines going back to the turn of the century, including all the pinball and early video games of my youf. Space Invaders, Galaga, Asteroids, Moon Patrol, Galaxian, ah memories.

Alcatraz Photos

 

We used San Francisco as a base and rode South along the coast road as far south as Pismo Beach (I knew we should’ve turned left at Albuquerque). Back in 2005 I found a great rib place here and I wanted to go back and try them again. We both agreed iI was worth the journey. Num, num.

The coast road is called California State Route 1 and is one of the famous roads to travel in the USA. On the way we called into Hearst Castle at San Simeon. This was the home built by newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst (“Rosebud”) back in the 1920’s. It’s a massive complex. They don’t offer a single tour (there are at least 10 to choose from) to see the whole site so you have to chose which parts of the castle you want see.

 

After leaving San Francisco we headed inland to Yosemite National Park and stayed in one of the tent cabins for a couple of days I had been here a few years earlier and had done part of the walk up to Half Dome.

Yosemite is one of the most spectacular wilderness areas in the US and also one of the most visited. Each year it gets about 4 million visitors, unfortunately a proportion of those visitors really shouldn’t leave the comfort of their homes as they bring their homes with them or at least that is what it looks like.

One of the most spectacular sights in the park is Half Dome. It’s a bald rock peak that’s shaped like, half a dome. Not that imaginative a name but very descriptive. At 8836 feet in height it’s not a small climb even with the valley floor at 4000 feet. The last 400 feet to the top is a 45 degree climb up a pair of thick wire cables that has been laid down the dome face held in place with steel rods driven into the rock and you haul yourself up, not so easy peasy after a 13 kilometre hike. (Notice how I’m using a combination of metric and imperial for maximum effect 🙂

We were supposed to be leaving the next day but I really wanted to do the complete hike to Half Dome. After much agonised consulting with senior management I decided to give it a go.

The hike to the top of Half Dome is a round trip of 27 Kilometres and a vertical climb of 4800 feet. I had to leave as early as possible but I had to pick up some food in the morning so I decided to be on the trail at 8 am.

You may not be surprised to discover that I was on the trail at the crack of 9.30. Better late than never.

The hike is divided into three parts. The climb to Vernal Falls, then to Nevada Falls and finally to the top of Half Dome.

The hike to Vernal Falls is a 1000 foot climb that starts easily enough with a good path that steadily climbs onward just enough to wake up those muscles that haven’t been used for an embarrassingly long time. The last 300 vertical feet are irregular rock steps that give those barely used calf muscles a workout like they haven’t had for a very long time. I knew this was going to hurt a lot on the way down and I wasn’t wrong.

After a quick stop at the top of the falls for a breather it was onto Nevada Falls. Now I do have to admit to a small period of directional insecurity. Some people would say that I got slightly lost I prefer to say that I was at odds with my map, compass and GPS. It would have helped if I had actually read all the signpost information at the time.

After my directional insecurity was resolved the climb to Nevada Falls was uneventful but strenuous. Again sections were uneven rock steps and the calf muscles from earlier wanted to know why they were being used twice in one day and was this covered under the new union award.

The final 7 kilometres to Half Dome starts out easy enough but winds it way upward through some magnificent forest until the tree line peters out and then there are two final sections of bald mountain to climb. The first being more rock steps which takes you up about 800 feet then there is the final 400 foot section with the wire cables.

By this time the calf muscles have had a union meeting with the knees, thighs, and hips and after a not so secret ballot (all those in favour, groan loudly) decided to have a series of rolling stoppages which became more frequent as I climbed on.

Finally after cresting the last rise the final 400 foot climb up the steel cables to the top of Half Dome is in front of me.

And then I discovered some utter bastards from the parks service have taken the steel rods away as it was the end of the season so the final section can’t be climbed.

I was very, very pissed off.

Apparently they took them down three days earlier. My timing, as usual is impeccable.

Now when I say the last section couldn’t be climbed that’s not quite true as while I was sitting there knackered, two people appeared at the top and started to climb down via the cables.

I was tempted to give it a go but I could just see the headline “Australian Tourist Killed in Yosemite Fall” this would not be a good look.

It’s now mid afternoon and I still had another 13 kilometres of downhill hike to go. 4 hours later, I’m nearly back to the start of the track and I hurt like *^%$#@. When I get back to the cabin I’m greeted by a rested and relaxed Beloved.

“How was your day dear?”

“Beer”

“Did you get to the top?”

“Beer”

“How do your legs feel?”

“Beer”

“Do you want to get a beer?

“Beer”

After killing a few more brain cells, I was able to tell the beloved about the days high (and low) points.

I was wondered how much it was going to hurt the next day riding a fully laden Kitty.

It was a lot.

We left Yosemite via Tioga pass which gets up to just under 10,000 ft. Earlier in the week it had been closed due to snow, I was worried that while it was open to traffic what would that include motorcycle traffic? Some snow was still on the ground and the temp was only just above zero degrees so it was a bit chilly.

We crossed into Nevada and even though we dropped in altitude it was still only a few degrees above zero. By the time we reached Tonopah the sun was setting and it was getting colder still. We pulled into the Clown Motel where everything was clown themed. No I don’t know why, but it was warm and that was all we cared about.

There are alien life forms on earth. We’ve seen them. Travelling east along Highway 375, the Extra Terrestrial Highway we stopped at the town of Rachel, whose claim to fame is the many UFO sightings that have occurred in the surrounding countryside. Rachel is located very near Groom Lake or Area 51, a high security US air force base. So were they military test flights or alien space ships? My money is on Chuck Yeager. As for the aliens we saw, a couple of the clients at the Little Ale Inn definitely looked as if they had been abducted one too many times.

Heading further east we crossed into Utah and spent quite a bit of time touring around the national parks of Southern Utah. In the words of Molly, do yourself a favour and get down to this part of the world it’s absolutely stunning. We based ourselves in Cedar City and Moab to cover Bryce Canyon, Zion, Arches and Canyon Lands National Parks. Check out the pages on the website. Even the best photos we could take just don’t do justice to the reality.

Heading south across the border into Arizona is Monument Valley, this was the scenery that I had been looking forward to. If you have seen many John Ford, John Wayne films or many other western films you will have seen Monument Valley with its red rock chimneys and mesas. Monument Valley is in part of a Navaho reservation and all the tourist shops have John Wayne memorabilia and films, which is a bit strange as I seem to remember that the Duke spent a fair amount of his time shooting at the locals, time (and money) cures all ills.

Heading west from here we stayed in Los Vegas for a couple of days. Apart from gambling (and drunken sales engineering people at NAB) the only other thing I associate with Vegas are the extravagant shows by aging celebrities who are in the twilight of their careers and need a little pocket money to keep up the payments to their plastic surgeons and rehab clinics. So when the Beloved expressed the slightest interest in seeing Neil Sedaka, I was racing down to buy tickets for what I was expecting to be a truly tacky experience.

To my great surprise it was actually a great show. I didn’t realise how many hit songs he had written for himself (and others) over the years. Ok I was wrong and as the Beloved knows I’ll always admit when I’m wrong (except about the directions in San Luis Potosi)

We continuing west into Death Valley staying overnight at Furnace Creek, we were sold on the (expensive) concept of staying there as they had a swimming pool and despite being as late in the year as we were it was still a hot days ride.

The next day we were surprised to see a turn off for the town of Ballarat.

Our final track west was into Los Angeles, the only thing I was interested in was seeing was Disneyland. All those Sunday night programs at 6:30pm on channel 7 had finally paid off for them. I was bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t allowed to wear a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and that I didn’t get to meet Annette Funichello. I highly recommend the “It’s a small world” ride if you want to have that song stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

And it’s a very small world, while I was waiting to get new tyres fitted onto Kitty at a bike dealer in San Diego. I struck up conversation with Dave, a South African guy on an F650. It turns out he had answered an email from me several months ago about travelling together but the timing was wrong so that was the end of that. Six months later and half a world away we meet at a motorcycle shop. In yet another coincidence when we were later in Mexico City, Thierry from Switzerland had joined us and was telling me about the email he had received that morning and how difficult it was for him to understand Australians (us) and South Africans, you guessed it Dave again.

Our time in in North America has been fantastic. The riding has been fun, the scenery stunning and the people incredibly friendly. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, we leave the US and head into Mexico and beyond. There’s a bit of nervousness in the camp tonight from tomorrow on we really will be foreigners

Regards

Ian & The Beloved

A few more bonus photos