Well, good news and bad news. The good news is that my bike will finally be ridable again this afternoon after being out of commission for THREE weeks. The bad news is that the local motorcycle shop only ordered one set of brake pads for a bike that has two front rotors (meaning it needs two sets). So now they have to order another set of pads and I have to take my bike in yet again once they show up. Fortunately it shouldn't take too long for the pads to show up and my bike is rideable until then.
The only reason my bike is even ready today is because I spent Tuesday afternoon busting my ass to get my hands on a rear sprocket from Ducati Seattle. I called my local guys Tuesday afternoon and the rear sprocket they were waiting on from Italy still had not shown up after damn near three weeks. So I called up DucSea and they had one in stock, but it was too late in the day for me to get over there to pick it up. Fortunately my friend Greg from desmonorthwest.com (great group of guys) was nice enough to swing by and pick it up for me and meet me at the ferry terminal. He drove up right out front, handed it to me all in time for me to haul ass and turn around and get right back on the same ferry. Saved me a good hour of fucking around.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
New Rearsets
About two weeks ago I bought a new pair of black CycleCat Rearsets (foot controls for the lingo impared) from another Ducati owner in California. They didn't fit his bike so I got them for almost $200 cheaper than MSRP. Well they finally showed up last week and I installed them on Thursday all by myself. I was pretty happy with myself for doing all the work on my own without even needing the instructions. Part of the installation involved relocating the rear brake master cylinder which caused a lot of air to get into the brake lines. The one thing I couldn't do on my own was bleed the brakes as I had never done it before and wanted to make sure I was doing it right. Well last night my good friend Erick came over and showed me exactly how to do it. So now I can actually ride my bike again as the rear brakes finally work. The rearsets have about a million different adjustements that can be made to them so I have to spend some time tweaking everything to get the feel just right. The first time I took it out the shift lever was so high I couldn't even get it into second gear.
So after all that I took my bike into the shop this morning for some scheduled maintenance. The last time it was in was before I left for California over 4,000 miles ago. I had to order a new chain and both new sprockets because mine were just beat to shit. And of course even though they were ordered two weeks ago they still had not shown up yet to the shop. Gotta love getting parts from Italy! As I was riding to the shop this morning I couldn't feel my rear brake lever, so I looked down and it was just hanging there. I stopped and it turns out that the brake linkage had come loose so I had lost my connection to the brakes. Fun. So now that it has finally stopped raining and the sun has come out and I could actually ride again for the first time in a week, my bike is in the shop. Bummer.
Anyway, here are the pics of my new rearsets:
New Rearsets on my table:
Old Setup:
Right Side Installed
Left Side Installed
New Setup
So after all that I took my bike into the shop this morning for some scheduled maintenance. The last time it was in was before I left for California over 4,000 miles ago. I had to order a new chain and both new sprockets because mine were just beat to shit. And of course even though they were ordered two weeks ago they still had not shown up yet to the shop. Gotta love getting parts from Italy! As I was riding to the shop this morning I couldn't feel my rear brake lever, so I looked down and it was just hanging there. I stopped and it turns out that the brake linkage had come loose so I had lost my connection to the brakes. Fun. So now that it has finally stopped raining and the sun has come out and I could actually ride again for the first time in a week, my bike is in the shop. Bummer.
Anyway, here are the pics of my new rearsets:
New Rearsets on my table:
Old Setup:Right Side InstalledLeft Side InstalledNew Setup
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Day Seven - Tuesday June 26
At long last my journey would be coming to an end. I woke up early and was determined to make it home by the end of the day. Riding out of Bend at 6am was by far the coldest I had been on the entire trip. It got so bad at one point that I was forced to pull over and warm my hands up on my exhaust a couple times. Eventually the sun came out and I was able to continue feeling somewhat warmer. I made my way up twords Mount Hood through the forest up there. I wound up on a paved logging road that was only ONE lane! The forest was thick and the road was barely wide enough for even a single car. If a car, or a fucking logging truck, were to be coming in the other direction neither of us would have much reaction time to get out of the way. Because of this I slowed down and was pretty cautious. It was a nervous hour or so, but I made it out the other side without seeing a single car the entire time. I just kept heading North and eventually made it to Hood River, Oregon for an early lunch.
From there I crossed the Columbia River into Washington and worked my way up to Mount Saint Helens. I could have just gone the easy route and hit I-5 to get home but that would have been boring as shit and I still had plenty of time. As I made my way closer to Mount Saint Helens I noticed that they had just opened the road up to Windy Ridge which goes up the East side of the Mountain. This was a VERY cool road as I rode right through areas that were still devastated by the explosion twenty years ago. All the trees were completely barren and grey and on their side, very erie. Once up closer to the mountain I saw Spirit Lake which had a large amount of trees floating in it still. I got some pictures and headed back. They call it Windy Ridge for a very good reason. It was so windy up there I was afraid my bike would actually fall over while I was walking around.
From there I made my final trek back home. As I was getting close to Tacoma I came upon two guys riding two-up on a little Buell. The two of us played follow the leader for a little bit passing cars and hauling ass around corners as much as possible. It was a lot of fun as I hadn't ridden with anyone else my entire journey. Finally, I made it home all in one piece after almost 3,000 total miles ridden. The bike was a complete mess and was covered in bug guts. I even pulled a full size dragonfly out of the hinge of my front brake lever. Considering everything it was a fantastic success as me and my bike were in one piece and I got in a fantastic amount of riding experience in just a week.
Day Seven Route
Pictures
From there I crossed the Columbia River into Washington and worked my way up to Mount Saint Helens. I could have just gone the easy route and hit I-5 to get home but that would have been boring as shit and I still had plenty of time. As I made my way closer to Mount Saint Helens I noticed that they had just opened the road up to Windy Ridge which goes up the East side of the Mountain. This was a VERY cool road as I rode right through areas that were still devastated by the explosion twenty years ago. All the trees were completely barren and grey and on their side, very erie. Once up closer to the mountain I saw Spirit Lake which had a large amount of trees floating in it still. I got some pictures and headed back. They call it Windy Ridge for a very good reason. It was so windy up there I was afraid my bike would actually fall over while I was walking around.
From there I made my final trek back home. As I was getting close to Tacoma I came upon two guys riding two-up on a little Buell. The two of us played follow the leader for a little bit passing cars and hauling ass around corners as much as possible. It was a lot of fun as I hadn't ridden with anyone else my entire journey. Finally, I made it home all in one piece after almost 3,000 total miles ridden. The bike was a complete mess and was covered in bug guts. I even pulled a full size dragonfly out of the hinge of my front brake lever. Considering everything it was a fantastic success as me and my bike were in one piece and I got in a fantastic amount of riding experience in just a week.
Day Seven Route
Pictures
Day Six - Monday June 25
At this point in my journey my main goal was just to get home. My goal for the day was to get to Klamath Falls, Oregon, but I was pretty sure that I would be able to get past that. So again I set out at the crack of dawn to get ahead of the traffic. I made my way up through the mountains and the forests to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Apparently Lassen Mountain is a dormant volcano that erupted not so long ago (in geologic terms at least.) The biggest thing I noticed about this park was the extreme elevation. I had been up and over numerous mountains and passes, but this was much higher than I had been previously on my trip. When I entered the park I was at 3,000 feet elevation, but at it's highest point I was all the way up at 10,000 feet! And yes, there is snow on the ground in June at that elevation. There was even a small mountain lake that was still partially frozen. The best part of all this was I had neglected to monitor my fuel and my fuel light came on while I was still climbing the mountain. I did my best to conserve gas and came down the back side of the mountain with the clutch in as much as possible. Lucky for me they had a gas station and market on the far side of the mountain so I was able to refuel on gasoline, snickers and beef jerky.
At this point I was pretty much out of the California mountains so I headed up to Klamath Falls at full throttle. All this speeding was bound to catch up to me, and it did. When I was only about 5 miles from the Oregon border I got tagged by CHP for going 80 in a 60 zone. I tried to talk him into letting me go because I was almost out of his jurisdiction, but he didn't care. Oh well, just the cost of doing business I suppose. It was still early afternoon by the time I got to Klamath Falls so I just got lunch and headed out to Crater Lake.
I had been to Crater Lake once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember it so it was nice to go back and check it out. The lake is just an amazing color of blue. The only source of water for the lake is rain and the melting snow of the mountains that ring the lake so it is extremely pure. They don't allow anyone or any boats in the lake so that keeps it extremely clean and even from the ridge you can see way down into the water. I got some great pictures then headed off to Bend for the night. It took about two hours to get to Bend from the lake, and it was some of the most boring riding of the entire trip. Long flat straight roads with just enough traffic to make going very fast impossible. I got a room in Bend and headed to the local McMenamins for some dinner, ready to head home the next day.
Day Six Route
Pictures
At this point I was pretty much out of the California mountains so I headed up to Klamath Falls at full throttle. All this speeding was bound to catch up to me, and it did. When I was only about 5 miles from the Oregon border I got tagged by CHP for going 80 in a 60 zone. I tried to talk him into letting me go because I was almost out of his jurisdiction, but he didn't care. Oh well, just the cost of doing business I suppose. It was still early afternoon by the time I got to Klamath Falls so I just got lunch and headed out to Crater Lake.
I had been to Crater Lake once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember it so it was nice to go back and check it out. The lake is just an amazing color of blue. The only source of water for the lake is rain and the melting snow of the mountains that ring the lake so it is extremely pure. They don't allow anyone or any boats in the lake so that keeps it extremely clean and even from the ridge you can see way down into the water. I got some great pictures then headed off to Bend for the night. It took about two hours to get to Bend from the lake, and it was some of the most boring riding of the entire trip. Long flat straight roads with just enough traffic to make going very fast impossible. I got a room in Bend and headed to the local McMenamins for some dinner, ready to head home the next day.
Day Six Route
Pictures
Day Five - Sunday June 24
The first half of Sunday was spent at the lake packing up all our camping gear and just getting ready to head home. I got back to the cabin (where I had stored my bike and all my gear) around noon so I grabbed some lunch before heading out for the day. My goal for the day was Tahoe City along the North shore of Lake Tahoe. I left Groveland and made my way North to Jackson before turning East to head up Highway 88 to get to Lake Tahoe. This was another great road that wound up through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. At one point along the road I could see what looked like a large forest fire way off in the distance. I couldn't actually see the fire at this point, but I could see the massive cloud of smoke being generated. As I continued along the highway I could see the cloud of smoke getting bigger and bigger as I got closer. Eventually I realized that I was heading directly at it.
Once I got close to Lake Tahoe I merged with another highway and at that point everything changed. The highway I had been on had very light traffic with only a few cars, but now it was total gridlock. At this point the fire was just over the hill, very close to the road and it was obvious that there were some significant evacuations underway. Fire Trucks as well as Police cars were constantly moving through traffic to get to the fire. Because traffic had slowed to a crawl in both directions I just took off down the road along the shoulder. At one point I actually went right through the smoke from the fire and the entire sky was orange from the reflection of the fire off the smoke, it was very cool. I do regret not getting a picture of this.
Once I got through the fire the traffic lightened up considerably as I wound my way North along the edge of the lake. I did stop to get some good pictures of the cloud of smoke working its way over the lake. Once I got to Tahoe City I found a motel and got some dinner. After looking at a map I realized I was only about a half hour from Carson City, Nevada. It was still pretty early so I headed out over to Nevada and made a visit to the Sagebrush Ranch. I hung out in the bar and watched some of the local talent entertain me. I didn't partake in the full meal deal, but it was still a very unique experience.
Day Five Route
Pictures
The Cabin
The Fire
The Ranch
Once I got close to Lake Tahoe I merged with another highway and at that point everything changed. The highway I had been on had very light traffic with only a few cars, but now it was total gridlock. At this point the fire was just over the hill, very close to the road and it was obvious that there were some significant evacuations underway. Fire Trucks as well as Police cars were constantly moving through traffic to get to the fire. Because traffic had slowed to a crawl in both directions I just took off down the road along the shoulder. At one point I actually went right through the smoke from the fire and the entire sky was orange from the reflection of the fire off the smoke, it was very cool. I do regret not getting a picture of this.
Once I got through the fire the traffic lightened up considerably as I wound my way North along the edge of the lake. I did stop to get some good pictures of the cloud of smoke working its way over the lake. Once I got to Tahoe City I found a motel and got some dinner. After looking at a map I realized I was only about a half hour from Carson City, Nevada. It was still pretty early so I headed out over to Nevada and made a visit to the Sagebrush Ranch. I hung out in the bar and watched some of the local talent entertain me. I didn't partake in the full meal deal, but it was still a very unique experience.
Day Five Route
Pictures
The Cabin
The FireThe Ranch
The Pedro
Every year for the past four years I have headed down to California to go camping out at Lake Don Pedro with some of my very good friends who live in California. In previous years I had always flown, but as you are well aware, I rode my bike down this year. This year my friend Chris had a big surprise for everyone when he showed up with a brand new seriously bitchin boat! We spent the next several days just playing on the boat and a pair of jetskis and getting shit hammered drunk at night. In years past we've never come close to running out of beer, but we were in serious jeopardy of running out this year. On Saturday night it was so bad that we were down to drinking Tecate beer. We were scavenging through all the coolers desperately searching for something else to drink, but we were unsuccessful and were forced to continue our drinking games with Tecate. It's all about the sacrifices.
Day Four - Wednesday June 20
Today was my big day to ride through Yosemite National Park. I got up bright and early (as always) and headed out to the park entrance. Fortunately my friends parents have a yearly pass to the park so I was able to use that to get in without paying. That's always a nice bonus. I started out heading East through the park across Tioga Pass Road. This road is closed during the Winter due to it's high elevation, but it's open during the summer. This was a great ride because there was very little traffic so early on the road so I was able to really haul ass. Once I got over the mountains it opened up into a vast meadow on the East edge of the park. There was a small market here so I stopped off and grabbed some breakfast before heading West back the way I came. This section had a great high elevation lake and I got some excellent pictures.
After heading back near the park entrance I went down into the main Yosemite Valley. This is where all of the famous landmarks of Yosemite National Park are located (El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and Half Dome). There was a lot of traffic now, but that didn't matter because it was nice to just roll along at 20mph and stare up at all the fantastic scenery. I got a couple great shots of my bike in front of Yosemite Falls here.
After venturing through the valley I went up Granite Point Road which wound its way up the mountains along the South side of the Yosemite Valley. This was a much nicer road as far as riding conditions went because the corners were perfect, there wasn't much traffic and the views were fantastic. Once I got to the end of the road there were several lookouts where you could get the best views of Half Dome. I got in some rest and some great pictures then headed back. This is another road that is closed during the Winter so there was a large elevation change across the 20 miles or so. Just as I was coming near the end of the road I passed a Jeep with a couple girls in it. I tried to get them to follow me, but they just couldn't keep up.
I spent the next couple hours winding my way down and around the various canyons and valleys to get back to the cabin. I swear ever time I thought I was getting close there was yet another hill for me to get over. I made it back to the cabin sometime in the mid afternoon after doing a little over 300 miles for the day. A few hours later all my friends started showing up for our camping trip. We stayed up late talking and drinking copious amounts of beer.
Day Four Route
Pictures
After heading back near the park entrance I went down into the main Yosemite Valley. This is where all of the famous landmarks of Yosemite National Park are located (El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and Half Dome). There was a lot of traffic now, but that didn't matter because it was nice to just roll along at 20mph and stare up at all the fantastic scenery. I got a couple great shots of my bike in front of Yosemite Falls here.
After venturing through the valley I went up Granite Point Road which wound its way up the mountains along the South side of the Yosemite Valley. This was a much nicer road as far as riding conditions went because the corners were perfect, there wasn't much traffic and the views were fantastic. Once I got to the end of the road there were several lookouts where you could get the best views of Half Dome. I got in some rest and some great pictures then headed back. This is another road that is closed during the Winter so there was a large elevation change across the 20 miles or so. Just as I was coming near the end of the road I passed a Jeep with a couple girls in it. I tried to get them to follow me, but they just couldn't keep up.
I spent the next couple hours winding my way down and around the various canyons and valleys to get back to the cabin. I swear ever time I thought I was getting close there was yet another hill for me to get over. I made it back to the cabin sometime in the mid afternoon after doing a little over 300 miles for the day. A few hours later all my friends started showing up for our camping trip. We stayed up late talking and drinking copious amounts of beer.
Day Four Route
Pictures
Day Three - Tuesday June 19
Today would be a much shorter day than the previous two as I only needed to make it about 250 miles to Groveland where the parents of my friend Chris have a cabin up in the mountains. I headed out in the morning through the wine vineyards of Napa Valley. Its always so nice to ride in the mornings when there is no traffic and you can just cruise along with little hassle. Eventually I left the wine country for the open flat central California valley. I had such a wicked crosswind that I actually had to lean the bike a good 5-10 degrees to the side just to stay in a straight line. A few strong gusts of wind almost blew me into oncoming traffic, not cool. Now I know why they have so many of those windmill electric farms out there.
The winds died down as I made it into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was really surprising just how heavy the traffic was even out in the middle of nowhere. I was able to maintain a reasonable pace, but with so many cars traveling in both directions it made it difficult to make any real good time. There are too many damn people in California. Finally I made my way into Groveland and up to my friends cabin. Hard to call it a cabin really, that place is nicer than my house. Anyway, after three days of riding I was ready to crash on the couch and just do some nothing for an afternoon.
After a nap and some lunch I jumped back on the bike and rode the 30 miles up to the entrance to Yosemite. This was easily the best riding of the day as there was very little traffic and it was all high speed sweeping turns through the mountains. At one point I was haulin ass through a right hand corner when a CHP came along the road going the other direction. Fortunately for me he didn't turn around and I was able to keep on going. I made it up to the entrance, took a couple pictures and headed back for the night.
Day Three Route
Pictures
The winds died down as I made it into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was really surprising just how heavy the traffic was even out in the middle of nowhere. I was able to maintain a reasonable pace, but with so many cars traveling in both directions it made it difficult to make any real good time. There are too many damn people in California. Finally I made my way into Groveland and up to my friends cabin. Hard to call it a cabin really, that place is nicer than my house. Anyway, after three days of riding I was ready to crash on the couch and just do some nothing for an afternoon.
After a nap and some lunch I jumped back on the bike and rode the 30 miles up to the entrance to Yosemite. This was easily the best riding of the day as there was very little traffic and it was all high speed sweeping turns through the mountains. At one point I was haulin ass through a right hand corner when a CHP came along the road going the other direction. Fortunately for me he didn't turn around and I was able to keep on going. I made it up to the entrance, took a couple pictures and headed back for the night.
Day Three Route
Pictures
Day Two - Monday June 18
Again my journey began at the crack of dawn. I was up and on the road by 6am. Let me tell you, it's COLD at 6am along the coast, even in June. Again I was very glad to have that extra layer of clothing to keep me warm. The scenery on Monday was by far the best of the entire trip. The ride down Highway 101 is as beautiful as any I've ever witnessed. Once I made it into California I was soon traveling through the Redwood forests. The sheer size of these trees is amazing, that and the forest was very dense with so many of these ancient trees was incredible. It was mid morning with the sun shining as I was riding along yet it was almost dark due to the density of the forest. Hwy 101 actually turns into a four lane freeway through one of the forests, but fortunately there was a side road, The Avenue Of The Giants, that went along parallel to the highway through all the trees. This was one of the best stretches of forest road I've ever been through. At the South end they even had a tree that you could drive through. The insides of the tree had burned out long ago so it was actually hollow, but yet the tree was still alive.
Highway 101 turns inland away from the coast so I needed to get on Highway 1 that stayed along the water. I stopped at a little town called Leggett where the two highways came together for a short break. Hard to call it a town really, it only had three buildings: a post office, a gas station, and a small market. The market had a couple tables out front so I grabbed some lunch and sat down to eat. A few minutes later a local hottie sat down at the other table with a snack. I tried chattin her up, but she clearly didn't give a shit. Crash and Burn once more.
The first stretch of Highway 1 to get back to the coast went up and over some hills. This was some of the most technical and challenging road I've ever ridden. Lots of very tight slow speed turns up and down hills through the forest. Very cool stuff. Once I got to the coast I proceeded South yet again. The road was still very windy and only 2 lanes, but there wasn't much traffic so I was able to make some decent time. I was planning on spending the night in one of the small towns along the coast, but there was really nowhere to stay so I was forced to turn East and head into Cloverdale for the night. It was a 60 mile stretch of road that took me almost 2 hours to travel due to the incredibly narrow and windy road. This was without question an amazing ride and was only tainted by the fact that it was so late in the day I was already very tired and wasn't able to rail the corners as hard as I would have liked. Again, very challenging and technical, but well worth it.
Day Two Route
Pictures
The Oregon Coast
California!
One of the drive through trees
The redwood forest
Wine Country
Highway 101 turns inland away from the coast so I needed to get on Highway 1 that stayed along the water. I stopped at a little town called Leggett where the two highways came together for a short break. Hard to call it a town really, it only had three buildings: a post office, a gas station, and a small market. The market had a couple tables out front so I grabbed some lunch and sat down to eat. A few minutes later a local hottie sat down at the other table with a snack. I tried chattin her up, but she clearly didn't give a shit. Crash and Burn once more.
The first stretch of Highway 1 to get back to the coast went up and over some hills. This was some of the most technical and challenging road I've ever ridden. Lots of very tight slow speed turns up and down hills through the forest. Very cool stuff. Once I got to the coast I proceeded South yet again. The road was still very windy and only 2 lanes, but there wasn't much traffic so I was able to make some decent time. I was planning on spending the night in one of the small towns along the coast, but there was really nowhere to stay so I was forced to turn East and head into Cloverdale for the night. It was a 60 mile stretch of road that took me almost 2 hours to travel due to the incredibly narrow and windy road. This was without question an amazing ride and was only tainted by the fact that it was so late in the day I was already very tired and wasn't able to rail the corners as hard as I would have liked. Again, very challenging and technical, but well worth it.
Day Two Route
Pictures
The Oregon Coast
California!One of the drive through treesThe redwood forestWine Country
Day One - Sunday June 17
The start of my big journey began in some rather cold nasty weather. I'm very glad that I wore my thermal leggings and black turtleneck to keep me warm because it started raining about a half hour into my trip. I took off first thing in the morning around 7am and headed out to the coast through Shelton. Once I made it to 101 I just started heading South into Oregon. I stopped off at Cannon Beach for a few pictures then continued on to the Tillamook cheese factory where I stopped for lunch. Being Sunday they weren't actively making any cheese, but all the machinery was still running. It was a little odd seeing everything running with no people and no cheese moving around. Got some of their fantastic blackberry ice cream and headed out once again.
This stretch of 101 was probably the worst of the day. Being that it was a Sunday, and Father's Day even, there was a ton of traffic so I wasn't able to go very fast or pass hardly anyone. Even if I did pass a car or two there was another line of traffic just ahead. I stopped again in Newport at the Rogue brewery for a bit of a break. Got in some rest and a pint of beer. From there I just made my way to Coos Bay and then took a few back roads out to Coquille and then back down to Bandon where I found a little motel to spend the night. It was a pretty long day, rode about 440 miles, but the scenery along the coast was fantastic even if I was trapped in traffic all day.
Day One Route
Pictures
Cannon Beach
Haystack Rock
Cheese!
Beer!
This stretch of 101 was probably the worst of the day. Being that it was a Sunday, and Father's Day even, there was a ton of traffic so I wasn't able to go very fast or pass hardly anyone. Even if I did pass a car or two there was another line of traffic just ahead. I stopped again in Newport at the Rogue brewery for a bit of a break. Got in some rest and a pint of beer. From there I just made my way to Coos Bay and then took a few back roads out to Coquille and then back down to Bandon where I found a little motel to spend the night. It was a pretty long day, rode about 440 miles, but the scenery along the coast was fantastic even if I was trapped in traffic all day.
Day One Route
Pictures
Cannon Beach
Haystack RockCheese!Beer!
Final Route and Pics
I've deleted the previous two posts (that were over a month old) that recapped Days 1 and 2 of my big trip because I wrote them when I was a little drunk. So I'm going to take some time today to write up everything and post my actual route from each day as well as the pics from each day.
Day One - Sunday June 17
Day Two - Monday June 18
Day Three - Tuesday June 19
Day Four - Wednesday June 20
Day Five - Sunday June 24
Day Six - Monday June 25
Day Seven - Tuesday June 26
Pictures!
Day One - Sunday June 17
Day Two - Monday June 18
Day Three - Tuesday June 19
Day Four - Wednesday June 20
Day Five - Sunday June 24
Day Six - Monday June 25
Day Seven - Tuesday June 26
Pictures!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Final preparations
Tonight I packed up all of my gear and mounted the various bags onto my bike. While I was doing so I wrote down all of the various items I will be taking with me. Here is a big list of all my gear. Lets see how much of it actually survives the entire trip:
- Black Canvas Shorts
- 4 white undershirts
- 2 Diego T's
- Stonecutter T-Shirt
- 4 Pairs of socks
- 4 Pairs of underwear
- Black nylon shorts
- Board Shorts
- Floppy Hat
- Adidas pants
- Sandals
- Book: It's not News, It's Fark
- Ducati Monster owners manual
- Pad of paper and a pen
- iPod and charger
- cell phone, charger and link cable
- Laminated maps of Washington, Oregon and Northern California
- Various printed maps from Google Maps
- Insurance Paperwork
- Motorcycle Registration Paperwork
- Mag-Lite
- Wire Cutters/Strippers
- Pliers
- Philips Head screwdriver
- Standard Head screwdriver
- Folding set of metric Allen wrenches
- Fixed set of metric Allen wrenches
- Zip Ties
- Spare wire connectors
- Spare fuses
- Can of Chain Wax
- Extra quart of 20-50 oil
- Small spray bottle of 409 (for cleaning my face shield)
- Small towel
- 2 shop rags
- Bottle of Aloe Vera
- Bottle of Sunscreen
- Toothbrush and toothpaste
- Tire Pressure Gauge
- Bottle of Ibuprofen
- Lighter
- Chap Stick
- Toenail Clippers
- Gerber Multi-Tool
- 2 Pairs of Gloves
- Helmet
- Sunglasses
- Riding Jacket
- Reflective Orange Vest
- Riding Pants
- Riding Boots
- Ducati T-Shirt
- Backpack with water pouch
- Sleeping Bag
- Spare headphones
- Pocket Knife
- $200 cash
Friday, June 15, 2007
Packing
Last night I got out all of the stuff I want to take on my trip. I spread it out and took a picture, just for shits. Anyway, I've got maps, tools, clothes and all kinds of stuff. In the picture you can see the two bags I've got on the left. The larger one is a tail bag that sits on the passenger seat on my bike. I can strap my sleeping bag right to the top which is very handy. The other smaller bag in front is my tank bag that straps to my gas tank. It's got a large clear plastic pouch on top so I can place maps in there and be able to look at them while I'm riding. Packed it all up and everything fit with room to spare! I was able to bring a couple extra clothes and even some more tools. I'm going to put up a final list of gear sometime today or tomorrow. We'll see how much of it comes back with me.
Stupid Fuse!
So I picked my bike up from the shop the other day for it's 12k mile service. When I got it back the service techs told me that the horn and my brake light weren't working. Not only that but my tires were getting down and should probably be replaced soon. I went home and started poking around with my Volt-Ohm meter to try and isolate the problem with the light and the horn. I didn't think it could be a fuse because the rest of the tail lights worked just fine. But after checking the fuse box I noticed that the same fuse controlled both the brake light and horn! Popped in a new 25 cent fuse and everything worked again. Now, I take full responsibility for my own idiocy, but don't you think that a trained tech should be bright enough to recognize this? Wouldn't he already know that a fuse controls those two things and if they both go out take the 30 seconds to look? It was already in for a major service! This shit really pisses me off. And why did they tell me about the tires as I was picking it up? Why the hell didn't they call me that first day they looked at it and told me about that so they could order up some new ones and get it taken care of? They would make some money, and I would get the new tires I need. Morons. So today I called over to the other bike shop in town where my friend Erick works and they have the tires that fit my bike. So he's going to do me a huge favor and get them installed for me today so I can have a fresh set of tires before I head down to California on Sunday. Thanks man.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
New Road
Today I went out for an afternoon ride around Kitsap and I found a new road that has become one of my very favorites! I was cruisin down one of my regular back roads when I passed a road I had gone past many times when I decided to just hang a left and see where it led me. Turns out Ettendahl Pass Road is fantastic. Nice country road in the woods where I could keep my speed through most of the turns. The best part is that it's actually through woods instead of through clearcut areas like most of the roads I know. Anyway, here are a couple pics I took this afternoon.
Lists...
So I've kept a few lists of all the shit that I'm going to be taking with me on my big trip and I decided to share. I'm notorious for forgetting shit if I don't write it down, so this is my official list of crap. I'm sure I'll have to adjust it over time.
Tools, Gear, etc
Tools, Gear, etc
- Metric Allen Wrench Set
- Phillips Screw Driver
- Flat Head Screw Driver
- Pliers
- Wire cutters/strippers with extra connectors
- Multi-tool
- 2 Shop Rags
- Chain Lube
- Extra Oil
- iPod with charger
- Cell Phone with charger and link cable
- Advil
- Tooth Brush & Tooth Paste
- Maps of Washington, Oregon and California
- Printout of route as planned on Google Maps
- Board Shorts
- 2 Deigo Tees
- Sandals
- Sweatpants
- Floppy Hat
- Cheap Sunglasses
- Sunscreen
- Chap Stick
- Sleeping Bag
- 4 pairs of socks
- 4 pairs of underwear
- 4 white undershirts
- 4 random T-Shirts
- Riding Pants
- Boots
- Riding Jacket
- 2 Pairs of Gloves
- Helmet
Gear
So my brother was questioning how the hell I'm going to transport all my shit with me when I head down to California in a couple weeks. And ya know what, that's a good question. I've spent a fair amount of time getting everything organized, but I haven't really put up any information about it. So, now you get to read about all the crap I'm taking.
First up we have a pic of the entire bike. You can see the tail bag on the back with my sleeping bag on top. I can attach it with some bungie cords, but they just aren't shown here in the picture. Up front we have the tank bag (sitting on the gas tank of all places) with my helmet on top of it, and then my backpack draped across the seat. The backpack is pretty small so hopefully it doesn't hurt my shoulders too much. It's also got a water bladder in it and a small hose so I can drink water on the go. That'll come in handy when I'm going across the fucking middle of nowhere.
Here is a close up shot of the rear tail bag with the sleeping bag bungied to the top.
And a closeup of the tank bag. It's got a nice large clear pouch on top where I can place maps so I know where the hell I'm going.
The backpack
My helmet and two pairs of gloves. These are the two pairs that I'll most likely be taking with me. I have like 5 pairs total.
And lastly my jacket. It's nice heavy leather with extra armor padding in the shoulders, back, and elbows.
I've got a pair of new riding jeans on order which should show up in the next day or two, so I'll put up some pics of those when they show up. I'll probably also get some new boots.
First up we have a pic of the entire bike. You can see the tail bag on the back with my sleeping bag on top. I can attach it with some bungie cords, but they just aren't shown here in the picture. Up front we have the tank bag (sitting on the gas tank of all places) with my helmet on top of it, and then my backpack draped across the seat. The backpack is pretty small so hopefully it doesn't hurt my shoulders too much. It's also got a water bladder in it and a small hose so I can drink water on the go. That'll come in handy when I'm going across the fucking middle of nowhere.
Here is a close up shot of the rear tail bag with the sleeping bag bungied to the top.
And a closeup of the tank bag. It's got a nice large clear pouch on top where I can place maps so I know where the hell I'm going.
The backpack
My helmet and two pairs of gloves. These are the two pairs that I'll most likely be taking with me. I have like 5 pairs total.
And lastly my jacket. It's nice heavy leather with extra armor padding in the shoulders, back, and elbows.
I've got a pair of new riding jeans on order which should show up in the next day or two, so I'll put up some pics of those when they show up. I'll probably also get some new boots.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Planning...
So now that my trip to Mexico is over I can focus on planning my trip down to California which is coming up in just about 2 weeks. I've ordered a new pair of riding pants that I plan on wearing, as well as a replacement for my left mirror. About 2 months ago I smacked my left mirror pulling my bike out of the garage and it broke the lens, but the metal housing was still intact. I took it down to a local glass company and they put in a replacement mirror for me for only $5, but it was totally the wrong kind of glass. It actually magnified what I was looking at, instead of the reverse like rear view mirrors are supposed to be. This made it fucking impossible to mount properly so I could get a good view of what was behind me. In addition to that, whatever he used to affix the mirror to the housing wasn't very good as the mirror itself vibrated quite a bit. So I just said fuck it and bought a whole new mirror assembly for $40.
I also had to order a new set of shield housings for my helmet! On Tuesday as I was coming into work I lifted up my visor so the guard could see me and the tabs holding the shield covers on both sides of my helmet popped at the same time! Basically there are two plastic panels, on on each side, that cover up the mechanics where the face shield attaches to the helmet. Those are held in place by two plastic tabs, one on top and one on bottom. Well, the top ones both broke on me so I had to order a new set which should be covered under the warranty, I'll find out in a day or two when they come in. I ordered a second set just so I have a backup. I really don't want to have this happen when I'm riding down to California.
The weather has been absolutely PERFECT all week, and it looks to stay that way all weekend. Bright and sunny with temps in the mid-low 70s, perfect riding weather. I haven't had a chance to get out and ride much this week, but I have a three day weekend to catch up. I also scheduled a service visit down at the motorcycle shop for next week so they can give my bike a good check before I take it out to put a couple thousand miles on it. I should spend some time finalizing my route this weekend and print out some of the maps. Buying a couple traditional paper maps would be a good idea as well.
I also had to order a new set of shield housings for my helmet! On Tuesday as I was coming into work I lifted up my visor so the guard could see me and the tabs holding the shield covers on both sides of my helmet popped at the same time! Basically there are two plastic panels, on on each side, that cover up the mechanics where the face shield attaches to the helmet. Those are held in place by two plastic tabs, one on top and one on bottom. Well, the top ones both broke on me so I had to order a new set which should be covered under the warranty, I'll find out in a day or two when they come in. I ordered a second set just so I have a backup. I really don't want to have this happen when I'm riding down to California.
The weather has been absolutely PERFECT all week, and it looks to stay that way all weekend. Bright and sunny with temps in the mid-low 70s, perfect riding weather. I haven't had a chance to get out and ride much this week, but I have a three day weekend to catch up. I also scheduled a service visit down at the motorcycle shop for next week so they can give my bike a good check before I take it out to put a couple thousand miles on it. I should spend some time finalizing my route this weekend and print out some of the maps. Buying a couple traditional paper maps would be a good idea as well.
Mexico!
I got back from Cozumel Mexico a few days ago, and so I figured I should probably post up a recap of everything that happened. I went down with my new friend Shena who was somehow able to get a plane ticket with only about a weeks notice. All in all it was a fantastic trip and we had a ton of fun. I took a bunch of pictures with my camera phone and posted them up to photobucket, you can check em out here.
Our flight left Seattle Friday evening at 10:30pm and went to Atlanta where we had to sit through a six hour layover before jumping on a small plane for another 3hr flight to Cozumel. The flight to Atlanta actually wasn't that bad because it was so late I slept through most of it. The coolest part was being able to watch the sunrise coming up over a perfectly flat horizon from so high up. Don't get to see that around here.
So we showed up at the hotel Saturday afternoon after something like 18 hours of traveling. We stayed at the Occidental Grand Cozumel all-inclusive resort on the South end of the island, and I have to say that the hotel was top notch. Better than most hotels in America, let alone Mexico. The rooms were large and very nice. The grounds were meticulously maintained and the staff was very friendly and helpful. Being all-inclusive all of the booze and food were already taken care of so we never had to worry about paying for anything directly while at the hotel. This is absolutely the way to go and I highly recommend it, it just made the whole trip that much more relaxing and stress free. So after showing up on Saturday we hit the beach to relax and started drinking mojitos. I had never had a freshly made mojito before, but they are fantastic. I think I put down about 5 or 6 drinks rather quickly and passed out quickly after dinner. After being totally exhausted from traveling so much, the mojitos quickly pushed me over the edge. Apparently Shena and I had some conversation that night that I have zero recollection of, and she won't tell me what we talked about, so I'm sure I said something typically stupid.
Sunday was basically our lazy day. We slept in and basically hung out on the beach and did as little as possible all day. I finished up Chuck Klosterman's third book, Killing Yourself to Live, and it was pretty good. I like his earlier books better though. I spent some time snorkeling in the ocean right off the beach and located a HUGE school of fish. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but I came up on the edge of them and it was some kind of optical illusion, but there were so many the ocean floor was black and it looked like the ground dropped away into the deep ocean. Soon enough I was floating on the surface and they were in a large ring beneath me. As I swam back towards shore a fucking barracuda came out of nowhere and came right up to me, stared at me for a few seconds before swimming off to find lunch. I found out later that was Bob The Barracuda. He apparently likes to hang out there and people see him all the time. That's nice and all, but fuck, it sure did startle me.
That night we went down to Senior Frog's in downtown Cozumel (our hotel was a good 15 minute cab ride South of town) which is the big nightclub party joint in town. We had a pretty damn good time, but the drinks sure were spendy. $15 bucks a pop for some frozen yard daiquiri's and $4 for a bottle of Dos Equis! Made me appreciate the free booze back at the hotel. At one point the MC got up on stage and started asking for 4 guys to come up who can drink beer. I noticed they had four bottles of beer up on stage so I figured it was some kind of chugging contest. Being a large fan of beer (especially free beer, even if it is Mexican beer) I headed up on stage. Now, I have NEVER lost a beer chugging contest, and I wasn't about to let a couple collar-up preppy douchebags break my streak. So I showed them how we drink beer up here in the Pacific Northwest and soundly thumped em. What did I get as a prize? Why more free Mexican beer of course! God I hate Mexican beer.
My main purpose for going to Cozumel in the first place was to do some scuba diving, so Monday I convinced Shena to go diving with me. Because I didn't have my certification card, and she had never been diving before we had to pay the extra instruction fee to have an instructor go through all the equipment, hand signals etc with us. The boat picked us up from the pier right off from the hotel and it was just the two of us, plus one other guy and the instructor. Me and the other guy had both been diving before so we were familiar with everything so Shena basically had the instructor all to herself which helped tremendously as she had a distinct fear of putting her face underwater ever since almost drowning as a small child. She was a real trooper and pulled through without any problems. It was a pretty good dive, I was actually surprised that we went 80 feet deep with someone so new. He took us through all kinds of large coral reefs and we went through a couple tunnels through the coral, including one that was pretty damn tight. We did the two dives then they dropped us off back at the hotel, all in all it only took about 3 hours, which is crazy fast for two dives. Normally it's an all day ordeal.
When they dropped us off back at the hotel I gave our dive master/instructor a $40 tip for being so helpful, and he gave me a dirty look like it wasn't enough! It cost us about $200 to do the dives, so I gave the guy a 20% tip. Since when is 20% a lousy tip? I'm a notoriously cheap tipper and have only recently become amenable to tipping my barber which apparently is common practice these days. This probably is because my haircut actually takes longer than 5 minutes now, and I actually am friends with Trish who cuts my hair. I guess I'm OK with people I don't know thinking I'm a cheapskate, so long as people I do know don't think I'm a cheapskate. Anyway, what ever happened to just doing your fucking job? Why is it everywhere I go these days people expect me to tip them?
So I spent two other days diving while Shena relaxed on the beach or cruised around taking pictures of the island. Both days I got in two dives with several other experience divers so we were able to go a little deeper and stay down a little longer as we were more experienced with conserving our air. We did a great wall dive right on the coastal shelf where I could look down and watch the coral disappear into dark blue nothingness, then look to the left and see nothing but open ocean. It was a weird sense and trigged some minor agoraphobia (fear of open spaces.) We saw a big fucking nurse shark (much bigger than I thought it would be) as well as multiple sting rays (yeah, the same thing that killed the croc hunter guy) and sea turtles. I even had a huge groper fish come right up and stare at me for a good 30 seconds before swimming off. Unfortunately I don't have an underwater camera so I wasn't able to get any cool pictures. They have some silly disposable underwater cameras that you can get, but they aren't good deeper than 30 feet. Oh yeah, I actually got to see a Cozumel Toad Fish which is native only to the reefs around Cozumel island. He was a little guy, only about 4 inches long with some yellow fins.
While we were staying at the hotel there were just over 40 high school kids from Baton Rouge, Louisiana for their high school senior trip. This was a pretty high end hotel, so of course it was all the preppy rich kids from that school. They were funny sometimes, but mostly they were annoying as shit. Being 18yrs old they were just happy to be somewhere where they could drink, so of course there was a group of them who were totally shithammered the entire time. I guess I'm officially an old fucker now that I'm bitching about kids. Hell, while in line waiting for some mojitos one of them actually called me Sir. One night we were at the nightclub at the hotel hanging out with some other Americans we had met when one of the high school guys approached us and offered to let one of us fuck three of his girl friends if we could hook him up with one "older" girl. We told him that we didn't exactly need his help to pick up on drunk 18 year old girls doing shots of tequila.
On Wednesday we got up at the crack of dawn (literally) and ventured over to Chitzen Itza, the big ass Mayan ruins on the mainland. We had to get up early to catch a ferry over to the mainland, then take a fucking three hour bus ride through the damn jungle. First we stopped at a Yucatan freshwater sinkhole where you can swim. We didn't swim, but it looked like fun and I took a shitload of pictures (too many probably.) Apparently because the Yucatan Peninsula is made entirely of limestone there are no freshwater rivers above ground. The only source of fresh water are the sinkholes and underground rivers that criss cross the peninsula. So I got my learn on even while in Mexico. After that we grabbed some quick lunch where I was able to imbibe something extremely rare, Squirt soda pop in a glass bottle! This was definitely the highlight of the day so far. After lunch we finally made our way to the major ruins where our tourguide showed us around to all the major sights. The main pyramid was fucking huge, but they wouldn't let us climb it. Several people had died recently falling down so they closed it off. The main ball court where the Mayans played a game I can't remember the name of was very impressive. Each team was made up of seven players with the objective to get a large rubber ball up through a hoop on either side of the court. One single point was all it took to win (it looked crazy impossible to do even that) and the captain of the winning team was rewarded with the ceremonious removal of his head! We spent some more time exploring the ruins and Shena got a few pictures of me climbing up to a couple places I probably wasn't supposed to be. All in good fun. In all it was a LONG fucking day, we didn't get back to the hotel until about 9pm, but it was totally worth it.
For our last day, Friday, we rented a Jeep and spent the day exploring the island. Well, it's not a very big island, so there wasn't much to explore. There is really only one road that loops around the island, so we basically followed that the whole way. There is a small lighthouse at the southern tip of the island that we saw, and we had lunch at a small beach side joint on the Eastern coast. The West coast of the island (where all the hotels and main city are) faces the mainland and so the water is very calm with no waves and barely even any appreciable tide. The East coast on the other hand faces out to the Atlantic Ocean so it had some pretty decent waves and a much rougher rockier coastline. It's a pretty interesting difference. After lunch we found the local island Mayan ruins and spent some time hiking around there. I have to say that after being to Chitzen Itza this was pretty lame in comparison. These were much more run down and were little more than piles of rocks. Oh yeah, and I got to pay $2 for a fucking can of Sprite! So yeah, I wasn't too impressed.
So the trip was fantastic and we managed to make it home alive and in one piece. The island of Cozumel was TOTALLY different from what I remembered when we went there 14 years ago. Back then there were only 3 or 4 hotels and they were all North of town and none were all that big. Now there are numerous large hotels all along the West coast and the downtown area was all built up and FAR more touristy than it ever was. Which I guess all that was to be expected.
Hopefully I'll have some more pictures to post up once Shena gets around to developing her film.
Our flight left Seattle Friday evening at 10:30pm and went to Atlanta where we had to sit through a six hour layover before jumping on a small plane for another 3hr flight to Cozumel. The flight to Atlanta actually wasn't that bad because it was so late I slept through most of it. The coolest part was being able to watch the sunrise coming up over a perfectly flat horizon from so high up. Don't get to see that around here.
So we showed up at the hotel Saturday afternoon after something like 18 hours of traveling. We stayed at the Occidental Grand Cozumel all-inclusive resort on the South end of the island, and I have to say that the hotel was top notch. Better than most hotels in America, let alone Mexico. The rooms were large and very nice. The grounds were meticulously maintained and the staff was very friendly and helpful. Being all-inclusive all of the booze and food were already taken care of so we never had to worry about paying for anything directly while at the hotel. This is absolutely the way to go and I highly recommend it, it just made the whole trip that much more relaxing and stress free. So after showing up on Saturday we hit the beach to relax and started drinking mojitos. I had never had a freshly made mojito before, but they are fantastic. I think I put down about 5 or 6 drinks rather quickly and passed out quickly after dinner. After being totally exhausted from traveling so much, the mojitos quickly pushed me over the edge. Apparently Shena and I had some conversation that night that I have zero recollection of, and she won't tell me what we talked about, so I'm sure I said something typically stupid.
Sunday was basically our lazy day. We slept in and basically hung out on the beach and did as little as possible all day. I finished up Chuck Klosterman's third book, Killing Yourself to Live, and it was pretty good. I like his earlier books better though. I spent some time snorkeling in the ocean right off the beach and located a HUGE school of fish. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but I came up on the edge of them and it was some kind of optical illusion, but there were so many the ocean floor was black and it looked like the ground dropped away into the deep ocean. Soon enough I was floating on the surface and they were in a large ring beneath me. As I swam back towards shore a fucking barracuda came out of nowhere and came right up to me, stared at me for a few seconds before swimming off to find lunch. I found out later that was Bob The Barracuda. He apparently likes to hang out there and people see him all the time. That's nice and all, but fuck, it sure did startle me.
That night we went down to Senior Frog's in downtown Cozumel (our hotel was a good 15 minute cab ride South of town) which is the big nightclub party joint in town. We had a pretty damn good time, but the drinks sure were spendy. $15 bucks a pop for some frozen yard daiquiri's and $4 for a bottle of Dos Equis! Made me appreciate the free booze back at the hotel. At one point the MC got up on stage and started asking for 4 guys to come up who can drink beer. I noticed they had four bottles of beer up on stage so I figured it was some kind of chugging contest. Being a large fan of beer (especially free beer, even if it is Mexican beer) I headed up on stage. Now, I have NEVER lost a beer chugging contest, and I wasn't about to let a couple collar-up preppy douchebags break my streak. So I showed them how we drink beer up here in the Pacific Northwest and soundly thumped em. What did I get as a prize? Why more free Mexican beer of course! God I hate Mexican beer.
My main purpose for going to Cozumel in the first place was to do some scuba diving, so Monday I convinced Shena to go diving with me. Because I didn't have my certification card, and she had never been diving before we had to pay the extra instruction fee to have an instructor go through all the equipment, hand signals etc with us. The boat picked us up from the pier right off from the hotel and it was just the two of us, plus one other guy and the instructor. Me and the other guy had both been diving before so we were familiar with everything so Shena basically had the instructor all to herself which helped tremendously as she had a distinct fear of putting her face underwater ever since almost drowning as a small child. She was a real trooper and pulled through without any problems. It was a pretty good dive, I was actually surprised that we went 80 feet deep with someone so new. He took us through all kinds of large coral reefs and we went through a couple tunnels through the coral, including one that was pretty damn tight. We did the two dives then they dropped us off back at the hotel, all in all it only took about 3 hours, which is crazy fast for two dives. Normally it's an all day ordeal.
When they dropped us off back at the hotel I gave our dive master/instructor a $40 tip for being so helpful, and he gave me a dirty look like it wasn't enough! It cost us about $200 to do the dives, so I gave the guy a 20% tip. Since when is 20% a lousy tip? I'm a notoriously cheap tipper and have only recently become amenable to tipping my barber which apparently is common practice these days. This probably is because my haircut actually takes longer than 5 minutes now, and I actually am friends with Trish who cuts my hair. I guess I'm OK with people I don't know thinking I'm a cheapskate, so long as people I do know don't think I'm a cheapskate. Anyway, what ever happened to just doing your fucking job? Why is it everywhere I go these days people expect me to tip them?
So I spent two other days diving while Shena relaxed on the beach or cruised around taking pictures of the island. Both days I got in two dives with several other experience divers so we were able to go a little deeper and stay down a little longer as we were more experienced with conserving our air. We did a great wall dive right on the coastal shelf where I could look down and watch the coral disappear into dark blue nothingness, then look to the left and see nothing but open ocean. It was a weird sense and trigged some minor agoraphobia (fear of open spaces.) We saw a big fucking nurse shark (much bigger than I thought it would be) as well as multiple sting rays (yeah, the same thing that killed the croc hunter guy) and sea turtles. I even had a huge groper fish come right up and stare at me for a good 30 seconds before swimming off. Unfortunately I don't have an underwater camera so I wasn't able to get any cool pictures. They have some silly disposable underwater cameras that you can get, but they aren't good deeper than 30 feet. Oh yeah, I actually got to see a Cozumel Toad Fish which is native only to the reefs around Cozumel island. He was a little guy, only about 4 inches long with some yellow fins.
While we were staying at the hotel there were just over 40 high school kids from Baton Rouge, Louisiana for their high school senior trip. This was a pretty high end hotel, so of course it was all the preppy rich kids from that school. They were funny sometimes, but mostly they were annoying as shit. Being 18yrs old they were just happy to be somewhere where they could drink, so of course there was a group of them who were totally shithammered the entire time. I guess I'm officially an old fucker now that I'm bitching about kids. Hell, while in line waiting for some mojitos one of them actually called me Sir. One night we were at the nightclub at the hotel hanging out with some other Americans we had met when one of the high school guys approached us and offered to let one of us fuck three of his girl friends if we could hook him up with one "older" girl. We told him that we didn't exactly need his help to pick up on drunk 18 year old girls doing shots of tequila.
On Wednesday we got up at the crack of dawn (literally) and ventured over to Chitzen Itza, the big ass Mayan ruins on the mainland. We had to get up early to catch a ferry over to the mainland, then take a fucking three hour bus ride through the damn jungle. First we stopped at a Yucatan freshwater sinkhole where you can swim. We didn't swim, but it looked like fun and I took a shitload of pictures (too many probably.) Apparently because the Yucatan Peninsula is made entirely of limestone there are no freshwater rivers above ground. The only source of fresh water are the sinkholes and underground rivers that criss cross the peninsula. So I got my learn on even while in Mexico. After that we grabbed some quick lunch where I was able to imbibe something extremely rare, Squirt soda pop in a glass bottle! This was definitely the highlight of the day so far. After lunch we finally made our way to the major ruins where our tourguide showed us around to all the major sights. The main pyramid was fucking huge, but they wouldn't let us climb it. Several people had died recently falling down so they closed it off. The main ball court where the Mayans played a game I can't remember the name of was very impressive. Each team was made up of seven players with the objective to get a large rubber ball up through a hoop on either side of the court. One single point was all it took to win (it looked crazy impossible to do even that) and the captain of the winning team was rewarded with the ceremonious removal of his head! We spent some more time exploring the ruins and Shena got a few pictures of me climbing up to a couple places I probably wasn't supposed to be. All in good fun. In all it was a LONG fucking day, we didn't get back to the hotel until about 9pm, but it was totally worth it.
For our last day, Friday, we rented a Jeep and spent the day exploring the island. Well, it's not a very big island, so there wasn't much to explore. There is really only one road that loops around the island, so we basically followed that the whole way. There is a small lighthouse at the southern tip of the island that we saw, and we had lunch at a small beach side joint on the Eastern coast. The West coast of the island (where all the hotels and main city are) faces the mainland and so the water is very calm with no waves and barely even any appreciable tide. The East coast on the other hand faces out to the Atlantic Ocean so it had some pretty decent waves and a much rougher rockier coastline. It's a pretty interesting difference. After lunch we found the local island Mayan ruins and spent some time hiking around there. I have to say that after being to Chitzen Itza this was pretty lame in comparison. These were much more run down and were little more than piles of rocks. Oh yeah, and I got to pay $2 for a fucking can of Sprite! So yeah, I wasn't too impressed.
So the trip was fantastic and we managed to make it home alive and in one piece. The island of Cozumel was TOTALLY different from what I remembered when we went there 14 years ago. Back then there were only 3 or 4 hotels and they were all North of town and none were all that big. Now there are numerous large hotels all along the West coast and the downtown area was all built up and FAR more touristy than it ever was. Which I guess all that was to be expected.
Hopefully I'll have some more pictures to post up once Shena gets around to developing her film.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Cozumel!
So tomorrow night I'm taking off to spend a week in Cozumel Mexico. A whole week of margaritas and senioritas! I plan on renting a dirt bike and spending at least one afternoon exploring the island. I'll post up some pics of the adventure when I return.
Ride in Seattle
So last Saturday (May 12) I got up at the crack of dawn to get on the 7am Bainbridge ferry over to Seattle. Cruised up to Ducati Seattle and met up with at least 20 other Ducati guys for a ride. It was a pretty awesome sight, there were over 20 bikes there, all Ducatis. Everything from a couple low end Monsters (like mine) all the way up to a brand new 1098S and a 999R, not to mention multiple seriously tricked out monsters.
Unfortunately I don't really know the Seattle area all that well so I don't know where we went. I know we started off heading down the 520 freeway heading East. We were haulin ass when the guys up front spotted a white Crown Vic sitting along the shoulder and we all had to slam on our brakes. He was still sitting in his car pointing his radar down the road when I passed him, and no one got pulled over, so it was pretty lucky. We stopped at a Starbucks somewhere along the way and picked up a few more riders and headed East out of town.
We had a huge line of Duc's all following this one green SUV along some farm road. When he slowed down to turn off a few guys moved out to go around him, but some crazy woman pushed a fucking wheelbarrow out into the road RIGHT in the way of everyone. She looked right at us and pointed it down the road at everyone and just started walking down the middle of the road right at us. We all had to split around her just to keep going. Totally insane.
From there we made our way into Monroe, but seven of us got separated from the main group. It was me and 6 other very high end bikes. We cruised down some back roads to Granite Falls and I was able to keep up the whole way. Made me feel good that me and my bike could keep up with the big boys, even if they were holding back. Once we made it to Granite Falls we regrouped with everyone and had lunch at a little mexican joint in town. We managed to get all our bikes parked in a line outside, it was a pretty cool sight. They weren't expecting 25 hungry guys to show up for lunch, so it took damn near 2 hours to get through lunch. By that time it was starting to get late and a few guys had to get back. So we took a shortcut back to Everett and hit I-5 South to get back to town. Hopped on the Edmonds ferry over to Kingston and was back home by 5 that afternoon.
To be perfectly honest, the riding wasn't all that great. Only got in about 150 miles and there was so much damn traffic that we spent most of the time trying to get around people. Having 25 riders also made it a bit of a pain to keep everyone together. But all that really doesn't matter because I was able to meet a lot of new people and spend a lot of time getting to know some of the other local Ducati guys.
So anyway, here are the pics:
On the ferry ride over in the morning. My bike is in the foreground:
Rock's 1098S, that bike gives me fuckin wood every time I see it:
Getting everyone all gassed up:
All lined up along the side of the road. My bike is in there somewhere.
Lined up outside the mexican joint in Granite Falls for lunch. The red bike in front is a 999R, a seriously tricked out $30k race bike:
Unfortunately I don't really know the Seattle area all that well so I don't know where we went. I know we started off heading down the 520 freeway heading East. We were haulin ass when the guys up front spotted a white Crown Vic sitting along the shoulder and we all had to slam on our brakes. He was still sitting in his car pointing his radar down the road when I passed him, and no one got pulled over, so it was pretty lucky. We stopped at a Starbucks somewhere along the way and picked up a few more riders and headed East out of town.
We had a huge line of Duc's all following this one green SUV along some farm road. When he slowed down to turn off a few guys moved out to go around him, but some crazy woman pushed a fucking wheelbarrow out into the road RIGHT in the way of everyone. She looked right at us and pointed it down the road at everyone and just started walking down the middle of the road right at us. We all had to split around her just to keep going. Totally insane.
From there we made our way into Monroe, but seven of us got separated from the main group. It was me and 6 other very high end bikes. We cruised down some back roads to Granite Falls and I was able to keep up the whole way. Made me feel good that me and my bike could keep up with the big boys, even if they were holding back. Once we made it to Granite Falls we regrouped with everyone and had lunch at a little mexican joint in town. We managed to get all our bikes parked in a line outside, it was a pretty cool sight. They weren't expecting 25 hungry guys to show up for lunch, so it took damn near 2 hours to get through lunch. By that time it was starting to get late and a few guys had to get back. So we took a shortcut back to Everett and hit I-5 South to get back to town. Hopped on the Edmonds ferry over to Kingston and was back home by 5 that afternoon.
To be perfectly honest, the riding wasn't all that great. Only got in about 150 miles and there was so much damn traffic that we spent most of the time trying to get around people. Having 25 riders also made it a bit of a pain to keep everyone together. But all that really doesn't matter because I was able to meet a lot of new people and spend a lot of time getting to know some of the other local Ducati guys.
So anyway, here are the pics:
On the ferry ride over in the morning. My bike is in the foreground:
Rock's 1098S, that bike gives me fuckin wood every time I see it:
Getting everyone all gassed up:
All lined up along the side of the road. My bike is in there somewhere.
Lined up outside the mexican joint in Granite Falls for lunch. The red bike in front is a 999R, a seriously tricked out $30k race bike:
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