The last day

I write this last post in my chair at home after sleeping in my own bed, yep it is good to be home. The last day of the ride started with coffee and the routine, of which I check my cell phone for any calls or texts that may have come in during the night. I noted a couple of calls from my mom that came in pretty early so I called her back. She was upset saying that my youngest brother David had been flown to Spokane and was in open heart surgery as we spoke. Apparently he had a clot in his coronary artery that was very threatening and they were doing a bypass procedure to save his life. It is difficult to put down the emotional feelings at a time like this, I am going home today to be with my wife after being gone five weeks and yet my brother’s life is very threatened. We spent some time in prayer for David and his wife Peggy. I was on the phone to my family intermittenty as we had breakfast and prepared to leave for Duane’s family reunion. Duane and I put in a new dryer vent for Pawnee as we visited with Josh and family. We finally headed to Gary and Suz place for the family reunion with Josh following us in his car. It is a little… shall I say, different being at a family gathering like this when you aren’t part of the family. However the family was very gracious and made feel at home during the event. I have to admit, I wanted to go home to be with my wife at this time. The phone calls and prayers continued during the reunion and I finally received news that David was out of surgery and in recovery. Good news indeed. Around 2pm Duane gave the high sign to depart for home, we loaded up among hugs and goodbyes and rode out waving to the family. We stopped at the first rest stop on I-5 to put on rain gear, a typical coastal welcome… rain. With determination, we rode on ignoring the rain and feeling pretty good about finally being home in a few hours. We pulled into Duane’s place with Tammy and the kids outside taking pictures and greeting us. Duane and I did the high five thing and I mounted up for the short ride home by myself for the first time in five weeks. I was tired, spent physically and emotionally wanted simply to be home. I’ve ridden over 10,000 miles on this ride without dumping my bike, wouldn’t ya just know it, on the last stop to push the button to open my gate, my top heavy bike started over. I simply didn’t have the strength to keep it upright, and like a slow motion night mare it laid it self down for a rest. Huh, I stood there thinking not now buddy, reached down picked it up with a bit of a struggle, pushed the button and rode home. It has a scratch now, so what I’m home. I had thought about writing a lengthy over view of this ride with nice flowery language and witty thoughts but I just don’t feel like spending the time, maybe later. In a conversation with my brother Pat this morning, he asked me “well, would you do it again or is this a one time deal”, I told him I would do it again but a little differently. I would do it again with Duane, he is still my best friend, after spending all this time together, that says a lot. I would like to ride without a agenda to be able to experience many of those places we rode through and didn’t see because of the time constraint and the distance we needed to cover and I would like to see my wife more often during any future long rides. Laurie and I have been hugging a lot since I’ve been home, I missed her very much.

Thanks for being part of my adventure.

Day 37

Home is calling me, I long to be with my wife sharing our lives together again. This is my thought as I sit on the deck in Powell Butte, but I still enjoy the coffee and fellowship. We had a relaxing morning talking about the ride with Al and mom and sharing every day life. Duane’s cousin Dennis wants to join us for the ride to Hood River but something is wrong with his bike and he is at the repair shop getting it fixed. Dennis calls late morning to report his bike will be ready soon, so we packed up, said goodbye and rode to Redman. We met Dennis at the shop and then rode to his house to get his gear. We were finally on the road to Hood River around 1pm, it was a nice easy ride with good weather and pretty nice road. We stopped by Duane’s mom first and visited for a hour or so then rode to Gary and Sue’s place to visit and drop off Dennis to stay the night. We had planned to make dinner at Pawnee’s (Duane’s mom) but Gary talked us into going out to dinner. The dinner was great, good food, good company and fun conversation. We spent the rest of the evening at Pawnee’s, it is nice to see mother and son in easy conversation. Tomorrow is Duane’s family reunion and then the ride home. I called Laurie before going to sleep, she said they are chip sealing the road from Ocosta to Aberdeen. We will definitely ride up the coast to avoid the road work. Talking with her makes me miss her even more; tomorrow I’ll be home.

Day 36

A day off at Mom and Al’s in Powell Butte, Oregon, very relaxing…. nice. We were up early, big surprise, and had coffee on the deck. This place is wonderful not just because of the relationship but the location is up on a hill overlooking a valley and the mountains. Unfortunately there is a fire near Sisters that is creating a lot of smoke in the valley obscuring the view. Went for a walk and found trasures, agates and Duane found an arrow head. Spent the day just catching up and hanging out. Duane went to some friends place for dinner and I made chicken divan wrapped in fillo pastry, very tasty for mom and Al.

Day 35

It is with a little regret that I leave Duane’s time share, a very comfortable rental place. However the road and home calls, so we packed and headed north. We of course had to stop at the California boarder for a picture, another state for our ABC game. The road was a wonderful ride, going through forests and by several lakes. We stopped at a Iittle restaurant in Tulelake, California for lunch and Duane started the conversation with “we have to make a decision”, we are 26 miles from our camping destination and 190 miles from mom’s place in Powell Butte. We talked it over and decided to press on to mom’s place. We road into Oregon on highway 97 with a speed limit of 55mph, so what’s up with that, it seemed like crawling after coming through Utah, Nevada and California. We finally puttered into Powell Butte in the mid afternoon. Nice to be in a comfortable home.

Day 34

Nevada…

Not much to say, we left Ely at 6am and blasted on the “loneliest road in America” even the sign said so. There was a few hills we had to go through but mostly huge flat valleys of sage brush on very straight roads. Nothing much to do but go fast and stay on the road. We arrived in Sparks, Nevada which right next to Reno, checked into Duane’s very nice two bedroom time share and then went to the Harley dealer for an oil change. They didn’t have my headlight lense that was broken in Colorado by flying rocks from a motorhome. We stopped by Safeway for steaks and fix ins for dinner and are hanging out at the time share.

Day 33

Zion National Park, a must do if you ever wander down this way. We arrived at the park entrance a little before 8am, so we waited until exactly 8am to enter the park. The first few miles we great, nice road and spectacular scenery. Then we hit the road construction, multiple traffic lights that were on timers, so you waited even if no cars were around for miles. Then came the first stretch of mud, yep almost but not quite dry mud, NO FUN. Then came the many miles of gravel and mud still NO FUN. Finally through the constuction and to the visitors center. They have a really cool bus shuttle system that allows you to park your vehicle and hop on the bus to see the sites. A bus came by every 6 or 7 minutes, so you can move on to the next site, it was great. We took lots of pictures and had a great time. We departed Zion and headed west through the rest of Utah, talk a out a whole lot of sage brush and not much else. Then came Nevada, more sage brush and roads sooooooo long and sooooooo straight and sooooooo boring. We celebrated when we saw a rest stop that had actual trees, we stopped and parked next to three other bikers. They were brothers headed for moms house and a fried chicken dinner, it was also kinda weird they were all retired law enforcement officers. So we blasted down more very BORING road until we came to the wonderful town of Ely, Nevada. Tomorrow, we ride down the “the loneliest road” to Reno Nevada highway 50. The brothers kinda looked down and scuffed there feet a little, saying that is a real boring road, and that on today’s very boring road. Oh, I just can’t wait….

Day 32

A nice easy start today, we are going to church in Cortez, Co that starts at 08:30. We arived at the church early hoping for a good seat, didn’t have to worry much it was a handful of people attending the service this morning but it was good. After the service one of the guys came up and asked which route we were taking and convinced us to go to Zion National Park instead of Bryce Canyon. So we took his advice and rode out of town on a rough but beautiful road towards Bluff, Utah. It was unique and rough country reminding if all the western movies I have seen. At bluff, the huge rocks were shaped by erosion and had a red hue. We rode on to Mexican Hat which I thought was a funny name until we came to Mexican Hat rock, you have to see the pictures to believe it. Then on through Monument Valley, just wow, the rock formations are were multicolored and really cool shapes. Again the only way to appreciate what we saw is to pull up the pictures. It was cloudy and threatening all day and we put on and took off rain gear several times. We were fortunate to just get a sprinkle a couple of times. We rode over the dam at Powell Lake and it struck me that I had seen this country before with a very unique rock structure and color. As we rode on following the lake it came to me, Andrea had bloged about her vacation on this lake with her folks and Justin. Oh, I was so proud of myself for remembering something. The ride from Page to Kanab, Utah was one of those perfect bike rides, no rain, no wind, temp just right with high overcast and nice smooth road. We arrived at Kanab around 5pm ready to quite for the day but very satisfied with the days journey. At the church service we were given a cup with Hershey’s chocolate kisses which don’t do well on a hot day in the trunk of the bike so I was looking for some kids to give them to when we pulled in for the night. I heard kids next door at the motel and dad was getting maps out the vehicle next to our bikes so I asked him if his kids would like the chocolate. That started a conversation with he and his wife who were from Netherlands about traveling the US and showing his kids different countries, nice people. We walked up town for something to eat, it was odd to see the streets had flooded recently and were covered with red mud. Back at the motel we finally recognized that Duane’s computer has died. We have tried everything we know and Duane researched the internet all in vain. A real bummer as he has all his pictures on it from this trip, I hope he can find someone when we get home to pull off the pictures.

Day 31

I have fulfilled a twenty plus year old dream today, I have seen the Mesa Verde. Sounds like this needs a little background information to complete the thought. I can’t remember the exact year, but it was around 1990, the Laughery family took one of those “once in a life time” trips. We purchased a used motorhome that would sleep six, fixed it up and took off to circumnavigate the US for two and a half months. It took almost three years to put that trip together and we had specific points of interest that we wanted to see, one being the Mesa Verde. However, as we started towards the site it started snowing and it kept on snowing. I was driving a motorhome without snow tires pulling our little pickup, not a good choice in deep snow, so we abandon the plan and played in the snow with the kids. So, back to our trip year 2010, we rode through New Mexico passing some spectacular scenery. I stopped to take pictures near a little car that was parked on the shoulder. The man in the car was also taking pictues but got out and we struck up a conversation. He is from Australia in the US on a business trip driving to Salt Lake then Seattle. As I told him about our trip, I recognized a familiar response. Almost everyone we talk to has an initial reaction of a little confusion, like that can’t understand what you are saying then a “wow” light comes on and finally one of two responses the first being “what an incredible adventure” and the other is “your a little nuts”. Anyway he was very interested in my bike and the trip saying he wants to come back and to do a similar adventure. We rode on into Colorado towards the Mesa Verde as the clouds formed in the distance, as in the same direction we were headed. We skirted the clouds that looked very ugly for a few hours but our luck finally ran out and it poured, I’m talking serious rain from the sky. We had put on rain jackets thinking we could get by without the rain pants but we quickly discovered all the rain hitting the front of the jacket goes down… yep, fills up the seat quit nicely. It quit after a little while and we rode on drying out as we went. By the time we reached Mesa Verde we were mostly dry. After we paid the nice lady at the enterance, who by the way woudn’t give us a discount for getting soaked, we made our way 15 miles to the visitor center. After purchasing yet another ticket we were on our way to experience the Mesa Verde. It was incredible, please look at the pictures I had downloaded to flickr on this blog. After a full day we went to Cortez, Colorado for the night.

Day 30

I didn’t sleep well last night so getting up was a little more difficult than usual. We had a cup of coffee in the room, did our devtions and then packed up. Then off to the office to check out, the breakfast stuff was ready so we took the time to have a little something to eat before blasting down the road. We rode through the rest of Texas making a brief run into Oklahoma near Quanah Texas to add that state to our list of states. I can’t remember in which city we stopped at the Harley shop, but we are shopping for posterior comfort as we passed the 8000 road mile mark. Duane bought an air flow through pad as a trial, and we both gave it a try, a thumbs up was given and I will be looking for another one. We then rode into New Mexico, not sure what to say about this state thus far except a whole lot a nothin. Our only entertainment was the ABC game we have been doing during the trip. We stop in Santa Rosa for the night.

Day 29

I almost can’t believe it except I’m living it. We were up at 4am local time but in our defense our body/mind thought it was 5am. So what do you do at 4am, as in what can you do at that time of the morning. Well pack up and leave of course, pffft… silly boy what are you thinking. We blasted down the road my bike purring at 3000 rpm, just cruising like nobodies business. Through the rest of Mississippi, on through Louisiana and into Texas… 526 miles today. To put that distance into perspective it is a little short of driving from Aberdeen, Washington to Missoula, Montana in one day. Sitting is not my favorite position right now. Coming through Dallas was not much fun even though Duane said we bypassed it and to be fair we didn’t go downtown, but regardless I was almost run over twice by very inconsiderate drivers in the Dallas area. I must admit I had other desciptive words in mind when they about ran me down. I am now reclining in an air-conditioned room enjoying 1. Being off my bike, 2. Being off my rear end 3. And enjoying my pain pill, as in not hurting as much. Duane being the very planner kinda guy he is says we have 2358 miles to my moms place an easy 6 days of traveling or a tough 5 days, hummmmmm.