The thermometre shows 40F (4.4C) in Fife, Washington, 35 miles (55kms) south of Seattle, as a light flurry of snow drops to the wet grass and melts instantly on the driveway. My apple red K1300GT is packed. I'm organised, but deciding on carrying yet another underlayer as the forecast suggests it'll be potentially snowy over the Siskiyou Range of southern Oregon later today and tomorrow. I have a heated jacket liner, heated seat and heated handgrips. I don't mind the cold, it's the ice what's got me hesitant.

I would like to cover about 600 miles (965kms) today down the I-5 corridor, stopping this evening near Grants Pass, OR. The altitude on the pass further to the south is about 4,300 feet (1310m), then it's a 100+ mile run across the top past Mt Shasta on down to Redding, CA. If there's ice on the roadways tomorrow morning I can turn towards the Pacific coast and head down through the redwoods to Crescent City, California, following 101 to Ukiah until I re-join I-5 near Clear Lake, CA.

I have two weeks off work, no particular destination, and a sweet-running and comfortable long-distance burner to blast away on. I'd like to visit friends in Albuquerque - where I lived for five years a lifetime ago - also Tucson and Phoenix, and haven't ridden in Baja, California (Mexico) in several years. It's time to just amble about once I get past this inclement weather patch we're currently under.

There's a 24 hour restaurant in sunny ABQ right across the street (Central Ave/old rte 66) from the University of New Mexico known as the Frontier. At any hour there'll be students with laptops or open books, workers grabbing a quick lunch, late-night drinkers fueling up before dawn's inevitable hangover, or sidewalk panhandlers angling for a few dollars from passersby. I happen to have lived on their green chile stew back in the '90s. They always kept two stainless steel pots simmering and no matter what you order, from a hamburger, to a breakfast burrito, a plate of eggs, or what-have-you, a ladle or two of that hot stew over your plate made anything palatable.

The bike 'waits' patiently. Now, if those flurries would just stop...

Good luck with the ride TWB. Sound like a great trip.
As ever, your literary genius shines though - your descriptions paint a vivid picture...damn, I can almost taste that stew!

Waiting for the next update... gotta wait 'til February before my next run.

I got on the road at eleven o'cock under light rain. Traffic was heavy but steady, keeping to the speed limit prudent. My dashboard thermometer showed 39F. Near the Nisqually river, just north of the state capital, Olympia, it flashed a snowflake symbol as it touched 36F. I spotted a collision being cleared up on the other side of the freeway. Our side inevitably slowed for a gawk. Then I noticed a few tell-tale white patches.

Within five miles I was in the far right hand line trying my best to stay within the tyre marks cars were cutting in slush ahead of me, which though wet, was not slippery. The dash had stopped flashing and was now dropping perilously lower through 35, 34, to 33F. Thick, wet flakes stuck to my visor and windscreen. The left hand glove squeegee came in handy for clearing away the accumulating muck. The Pinloc did its best keeping a clear view on the inside. "This is bordering on stupid. I should turn around, or find a cafe." I thought out loud, but didn' want to give in without some measure of perseverance. I had been on the road for about 45 minutes. 

The Dunlop Roadsmart tyres cut a clean track in the wet, I noted I wasn't death gripping the handlebars, nor was my backside clenching seat vinyl. I felt curiously cautious but calm. The dash never dropped below 33F. The coffee shop I had in mind was several exits further along. I stuck at it. Wending my way in the twists and turns of I-5 through Olympia where 101 merges is nearly always wetter, sometimes colder than a bit north, or a bit south. I drive this section of road every week in my car. By Tumwater the snow was heavy, trees burdened with its weight, but the road surface stayed glisteningly wet. I pressed on.

The rain fell heavy, traffic thinned, the temp rose to the glorious height of 35F and stayed there until Centralia. I picked up the pace. 75 mph seemed reasonable after my modest slow lane effort at 50 for miles. The it began to pour, the green grass emerged at the roadside. The temp read 39F. I had cleared it. Then I saw a tempting blue cloud, and another. The sun slanted in at sharp angles, the road surface glowed, beckoning me, urging me to go the distance. Every few miles a dry line would appear. The dashboard no longer flashed a warning, but sat steady at 42F across the mighty Columbia river and into Portland OR.

By Salem it was time to empty one tank and fill another. I'd covered about 210 miles. It was 51F. The danger was surely over. I rolled on through the picturesque Willamette valley, fields of harvested crops, hints of vineyards, low mountains to the west, beneath large, dense white clouds. The occasional angry grey cloud threw lashes of water at me. I kept the windscreen raised, the seat and grips warm, and rolled on.

North of Roseburg the road begins to rise and turn as it enters more low hills above the Umpqua river. Drier and less vividly green as compared to the majority of the Pacific north west, oaks are as prominent as pines in these hills. It was five o'clock, an hour or so before sunset. Motel, food and gasoline signs tempted me. It was six hours on the road. I was an hour short of my goal, but no matter. I exited and headed for a Shell station.

The motel is bright and clean, the heater warm, the bed firm. The Thai restaurant across the way was typical small town. It tasted bland, like white people food. How can you f*ck up Thai? In defiance I walked down through town to the supermarket for a frozen box of microwaveable pad Thai. I was gunna have a decent meal regardless. The bath ran hot, the whiskey ran peaty. The bike sits outside in light drizzle awaiting the climb up and over the Siskiyou range, or the fast dash down to the coast via Grants Pass. I have kept an eye on the weather. It will be cold and sunny by dawn. The talking heads on the box say 31 degrees Fahrenheit for the morning. I slept a dream.

Today, California.

I went up and over Siskiyou Pass with the highway warning sign flashing and stating boldly that it was Winter Driving Conditions, but no mandatory traction chains required. A good thing. The fog was thick and foreboding on the ascent. At the top it was 30F and solid ice with small snowbanks in the car and truck parking. The roadway was dry. The descent was bright and sunny, brilliant with blue sky and distant puffy clouds over the mountain tops and further on near Yreka, Weed and Shasta.

I pressed on at speed and by the time I'd stopped in Redding it was 50F and only partly cloudy. 

Since yesterday, between lashes of rain and bursts of sunshine, I've picked twisty roads along the edge of the San Joaquin Valley and am approaching Bakersfield where Mick ran twenty red lights in Jesus' honour, a long time ago. It's not been warmer than 55F, but no matter, I'm flying.

This 13GT with its accoutrements for comfort is a real bahnstormer.

I'd add piccies if I could work out the copy & paste of a Samsung Galaxy S8+. I'm still a Luddite at heart.

Arizona is on the horizon. Cheers.

The San Joaquin Valley! Near my neck of the woods, backyard actually. Enjoy the ride!!

I'm in the middle of week two, having ridden over Tehachapi Pass in blinding fog, through Joshua Tree, past the Salton Sea, into Mexico and across the Sonoran desert, back into the US at Sonoyta, to Phoenix, Tucson, Tombstone, Bisbee, old highway 666 (466 curves in 120 miles) to Alpine, route 60 to Quemado, NM, then onto Socorro past the Very Large Array, Albuquerque, Corrales, Madrid (Wild Hogs set), Santa Fe, back across New Mexico to Show Low, Arizona on amazing route 60 through Salt River Canyon. Now in west Arizona heading back towards the Pacific coast then north over the Siskiyous or along the coast, attempting to avoid the ice. So far, 3000 miles, no vehicular velocity awards, no flat tyres, and not a drop of oil used. Piccie and detail when I return.

500 miles from home. Currently stopped in Crescent City CA watching the sunset after a ten hour day up highway 101. From the desert to the sea.

So far, 3000 miles, no vehicular velocity awards, no flat tyres, and not a drop of oil used.

gotta love a clean getaway dazza

ride well

Day two, after clearing the Siskiyou Range of southern Oregon, in Mt Shasta, California. Temp was 33F and climbing.


300 miles south into California. What a difference those miles make in the flora.


San Joaquin Valley overlook, central California. Temp was 45F at 7AM.


Approaching Joshua Tree National Monument after leaving Bakersfield (where Mick ran 20 red lights in his honour) and crossing 3,800' high Tehachapi Pass (Reminded of that song by Little Feat..."Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah, driven every kinda rig that's ever been made, driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed, and if you bring me weeds, whites and wine, and you show me a sign, well I'll be willin' to be movin'..." ~Willin') in zero visibility fog at 50F. Temp was a balmy 75F by mid-arvo.


Physical grafitti, near Joshua Tree.


We've got yer Joshua Tree!



Date palms & Salton Sea, CA.


Glamis dunes, California.


Highway 2, Sonora, Mexico.


Cactus' digital signature, southern AZ.


Old Tombstone, AZ (shoot-out at the OK corral). No one from the armoury next door shot me whilst I enjoyed an ice cream, tho' I did overhear them discussing their desire for a former female presidential candidate's imminent jail term. I skiddaddled while the gittin' wuz good.



Tombstone stagecoaches pass by all regular like.





Lowell, AZ, near the now-closed Queen Copper Mine (Bisbee, AZ) is like a twilight zone time warp. In fact, it's maintained to appear like that by the bloke who runs the Broken Spoke, an organisation that you'll see floggin' their wares at nearly every Harley-type gig from Sturgis to Daytona Beach to Laconia, New Hampshire. Their massive semi truck was parked there for the Winter.


The Inn at Castle Rock, Bisbee, AZ. A colourful joint owned by a Kiwi bloke and run in the style of an Aussie country pub (almost). A spring-fed well bubbles up smack dab in the middle of the floor down in reception. It's perty cool.



Here, the proprietor and guest consume a quantity of bourbon into the wee hours. The cheeky bugger projects images onto Castle Rock across the street, much to the chagrin of the local council.


Heading north out of Bisbee towards New Mexico, but first, old highway 666 (now 191) and its 466 curves in 120 miles!


This massive mine in Morenci, Arizona seems like it required three or four mountain ranges to be topped and dug up. The piles of 'overburden' and the dust covering everything from cars to house and shops, made we wonder what the air is like and how pink the lungs of the locals are. Copper is money, and we chalk it all down to the progress of man.

"When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes that we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am..."
~John Prine


Miles and another world away, lays 9,200' high (2,800 metres) Blue Vista, along Highway 191 (old highway 666), the most incredible twisty road a motorbike rider ever pointed a front wheel towards. It makes The Dragon in the Carolinas seem like childs' play. I slid my leg off the bike and ambled slowly up the hill to snap this photo and remembered why I was so puffed. I live close to sea level.


The picturesque and remote Hannagan Meadow Lodge, also at 9,200' of altitude, serves up a very tasty lunch. Run by a gorgeous Frenchwoman, her 'Mercan husband and two lovely kids, they rent out snowmobiles in Winter and you can stay in cabins out the back or snug inside the lodge with a roaring fireplace and a dram of whikkey to warm yer weary bones. It's only an hour south of Alpine, AZ, so getting there is relatively easy from the top end. I chatted to three other bikers at lunch, recalling that I overtook only three cars in the 120 miles from the south and had same number come towards me for the entire day.


Next day I entered New Mexico, here in Quemado, where I'd lived from '95 through late '99. Love the 'Land of Entrapment' (Enchantment).


Here, I'm parked along highway 60 in the middle of the Plains of San Agustin, where the VLA sits, part of the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI). S'pose it's best to look skyward since there seems to be a distinct lack of the big 'I' currently on this earth.


27 satellite dishes in a Very Large Array, each weighing 230 US tons, measuring 82 feet across, shuttled about the place on railway tracks, and tapped into a supercomputer, listening to the heavens. Since 1980. Watch Jodie Foster in Contact, or Roy Scheider in the 2nd edition of 2001 Space Odyssey.


It was near here in November of 2005 that I lay down on the tank of my K1200S and slowly rolled the throttle until I was going 175mph (indicated) on the 3 mile-long road into the visitors' centre with 600 revs to go in 6th gear, and climbing. I guess I was doing my own research into extra terrestrials. It was eerie and silent. Then I started thinking about errant coyotes, jackrabbits, tumbleweeds, railway lines & etc. I rolled off to 120mph and felt like I could have got off and walked away. (I could only coax 155mph and a bit outta this K1300GT this trip round).






In the Rio Grande Valley I have an old mate of about 35 years who's madly into restoring any old vehicle he can. He was an Intel tooling engineer and now works for himself at home. In the time I've known him he's done a '30s Bentley, a 1966 E-Type Jag, a 1960 BMW Isetta, a coupla old FIAT box vans, a 1953 GMC pickup, an HRD Vincent, a Chang Jiang boxer with sidecar (from China), a few CB160 Hondas, a coupla R26 & R27 BMW singles, as well as a 1960 R60 with Earles forks. He's currently re-doing a Messerschmidt bubble car, a '70s era Ducati 750GT and a customer's blue Isetta. He currently rides a '94 Ducati 900SS and a 2009 R1200GS. For four wheels he scoots about town in a M-B SLK v6 mit Kompressor. I can't keep up.


The number 1 reason I rode all the way to Albuquerque from Seattle was to go to the 24 hour Frontier restaurant and order up a number 3, then wander over to the two stainless pots simmering away, and ladle a coupla hot scoops of delish-tasting New Mexico chili sauce (correctly spelt with only the one L, otherwise it'd be pronounced chee-yay) over the otherwise bland tasting brekky. I never caught cold whilst living in Nuevo Mexico. I blame the green chiles.


The Sandia mountain range (10,636' or 3241metres) from Corrales. Sandia means 'watermelon' is Spanish as the mountains turn red-orange at sunset.

More to come...

Brilliant Autumn colours on the cottonwood trees that line the acequia (canal) near Rio Rancho & Corrales, New Mexico.


Heading back across New Mexico near el malpais (the badlands) lava flows on highway 117 south of Grants. Here, sandstone cliffs line the two-lane highway leading to La Ventana (the window) sandstone arch. Not far from here there's a cave that is actually a collapsed lava tube called Bandera Volcano. Back when they were hacking the railway through (late 1800s) a worker descended into the cave only fifty feet or so and 'discovered' that even during the hottest part of summertime there was ice in the bottom of the cave. They musta cooled their lunch and stored provisions in there and it certainly would have been a welcome respite from the often blistering high-desert heat.


The sandstone face dwarfs the motorbike.


La Ventana.




Back in the middle of Arizona on highway 60 I followed the Salt River from just before the town of Show Low as it dropped and twisted into the canyon. It was yet another fine motorbike road.


After leaving Phoenix, and knowing I had a slim weather window to get back over the mountains before a storm hit, I put my head down and rolled across AZ and into California on I-10/210 towards the San Fernando Valley, just north of LA, then up I-5/580 to San Francisco, then onto 101 through No Cal. In those two days I did not take a single photo, such was my determination to get some miles under me. I'd been enjoying warm sunshine and now it was cool and with impending wet coming again. I managed to snap a coupla happies near the beach just south of Crescent City, California, at False Klamath Beach. I found a great motel, a fine seafood restaurant at the marina, and had a very good sleep. I was bound and determined to get over the pass to Grants Pass, Oregon before the cold rain fell.



Cold and slightly damp (but almost sunny) in the redwoods the next morning as I wound and twisted up highway 199 from Crescent City, over the CA/OR border (through a tunnel) to Grants Pass. The temp dropped and I rode all the way home in slightly sunny but cool temps of barely 40F. I arrived home after a 500 mile day just before the sun set. About 4,700 miles and sixteen days all up, the bike had done an admirable job and my bum only began to complain after six or seven hours those last few days of steady riding. I managed a high of 47 mpg (US gallon) and a low of 39 when I was giving it some stick across the desert. Not bad from an 1293cc, 600+ pound (wet), 160hp tour-missile. It helps that it's red!


Departure day. Testing my new Aerostich waterproof riding pants. Yep, they work a charm.

Time in helmet is valuable. In fact, when I head out on a longer ride it takes a few tanks burnt to feel completely on the road, to immerse myself in new surroundings, and to forget the day to day of my normal existence. The buzz of the bike lessens, the body adjusts to the ever-changing feel of the air, shifting is automatic, the reach to the 'bars requiring no conscious thought, familiar tunes one hums quietly - when one forgets to load the mobile phone with Bluetooth-able music, at least - new riding gear breaks in, becoming more supple, better suited, and the seat forms a familiar pattern under the posterior.

I loved getting over the cold of the mountain barrier and down into the optimistic sunshine of the deserty areas. A long, empty highway mesmerises but feels as right when riding as a winding road that requires concentration.

I'd lived in NM years ago and missed it, not having been back since 2012. Around Seattle it never really gets cold, just stays wet in the form of eternal drizzle and moss growing here and there in cracks in the road and in the molding of cars parked too long. It's why it's green here. I can ride all year round, and frequently take a Sunday ride with local BMW club members, or solo, when the temperature is less than desirable, but it ain't quite like riding in Queensland during the winter time.

My stated reason-to-ride was to get to sunny Albuquerque to retrieve three boxes of record albums left in my friend Judith's shed back in 2000 when I returned from briefly living in the UK, as well as visiting mates, and riding once-familiar territory. At old mate Tom's house I'd also left a case of various oil filters from a motorcycle-only filter business I had back then, Filterwerks of Albuquerque. Even though Tom kept them on his shelves in his workshop for 17 years, he never used a single one on any of his projects. He said to me the other day, "Take them all", but I left him one of each for the bikes he owns and shipped the rest back to my home. My internal reason to ride was to scarf down some of that fine and delicious Hatch green chili.

In the end the ride was a welcome 16 day break from a steady year of working a new job without much more than the occasional long weekend off. It was due. Now as I type I am looking out at sideways driven rain and wind gusts swaying the pines and the poplars in my neighbourhood. It's winter coming in hard, the leaves are down, the gardens bare of produce, the geese in vee formation over empty fields, heading into shorter sunsets.

The time is rightly spent indoors to virtually pencil out another roadtrip reality for the new year.

Fantastic pics mate.  Thanks for sharing!  Oh, and good looking bike!!

OG

Oldgoat wrote:Fantastic pics mate.  Thanks for sharing!  Oh, and good looking bike!!
OG

Thanks, Jason! It's me new favourite, and a fine over-the-road machine. Very easy to travel a distance on.

How've you been, old mate? I will have some free time to ride this coming Spring and Summer. Bout time for a catch up.