bluetenere

So I’m drinking coconut juice at a little pee stop in Colorado when this dualsport guy comes over to chat… he’s doing a few days on the Pacific Crest trail  ( I think that’s what he said)
” you should take that road right over there over the Marshall Pass.
I didn’t even realize it wasn’t paved until I started… well 30 some miles later I can say I’ve climbed a mountain on a motorcycle. The Super T was a champ, I’m getting good, and now I’m thinking about diverting and doing this trail of this dudes.
Truth is a Honda CRV could have made the pass and really any motorcycle short of a busa. But having the right set up made it both funner and faster.
Forget the desert, I’m climbing me some mountains.

to the Robbers Roast Motel in Green River Utah, after a nice chat with a guy at the gas station on a Harley loaded down with camping and climbing equipment on his way from Portand to Moab, and the five Dad types sitting outside smoking by their bikes (the RR is smoke free, and family owned and operated) come rushing over to check out this new Yamaha they’ve only heard about.

That’s my bike, and there is something strangely prideful in getting off the bike and saying ” well that finishes day eleven.” Pride is a dangerous thing so I tempered it by washing my LDs in the motel sink.

As the sun was setting back a few hours ago I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the shadow of me and my bike speeding along the waving grass on the side of lonely 50.

Like whats his name I kept looking over and admiring… but not so much that I’d run of the road.

Oh and yes one of the Dad types was smoking a pipe on their road adventure. And they were all full of vim, vigor, and bluster. I wonder which one is gonna be Burt and which one is Ned when they get downriver.

in late September 1943, they marched us from the Cricket Grounds to the docks and onto the ships and back to the war.
Crowds of women had gathered dockside. There may have been men among all that vast and waving throng, but our eyes could only see the girls, squealing their good-bys as the had squealed and hugged themselves in greeting nine months before.
” Look at them, Lucky,” said Hoosier. ” Don’t kid yerself they’re out just to say good-by. They ain’t only wavin’, they’re waitin’– they’re waitin’ fer the first boatload of doggies coming into the harbor.”
“So?” shrugged Chuckler. ” You’d do the same if you was them. You’re just jealous.”
“Hell, yes, Chuckler,” Hoosier said, replying with eagerness. “Ah’m just needn’t because Ah’m on the wrong boat.”
Just then, as though to fit the Hoosier’s estimate of the farewell scenes, as though to summarize the Great Debauch now lying behind us, that period receding ever faster with the ever widening water between the docks and our stern, the men aboard ship took to a farewell gesture of their own.
They dug from their pockets and wallets those rubber balloon-like contraptions for which they had no longer any use, and they inflated them. These they set adrift on the currents of wind whipping about the fantail. Soon the space between the docks and our departing transport was filled with these white and sausage-shaped balloons– dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of them– dancing in the breeze, bouncing up and down, seeming to flutter even on the wind of noise raised between the ever-separating camps, the hoarse and vulgar hooting of the marines and the shrill and pseudo- shocked shrieking of the girls– answering one another like the coarsest concerto grosso.
In the diminishing distance we could still see the balloons.
Hail and farewell, women of the West. We who are about to die insult you.

–Robert Leckie

So when I last saw Simon, he paused for a few minutes while playing the piano in his 1910 San Francisco house to tell me of Nellie. Simon was dressed in his typical daily garb of top hat, tails and pajama bottoms, with furry slippers to keep his toes warm as the house was drafty. Apparently after ten or so years Simon returned to the old bar where he used to pour us beers and ran into Nellie. Remember Nellie? Curly dark hair, ringlets almost?
Well there she was in the same bar stool she used to sit at ten years ago, apparently she never left. I mean, she goes home every night I’m sure, but then returns again the next day to pick up where she left off the night before. After this story Simon excused himself and returned to tickling the ivories.
Play on Simon.
And drink on Nellie.
Everybody keep up the good work.

Mike really is a nice guy!

Thanks Erica from Fancy Hands, good work.

New Battlewings are going on as I chow down on some eggs.

Easting will commence shortly.

and me and my old pal Niki cage drove up near Davis where Toby runs Free Spirit Farm, growing food for restaurants like Niki’s.

Couldn’t believe how nice everyone was…home made pizza with ingredients picked from the field made in the outdoor pizza oven…

Shut up!!

Enjoy your Ritz crackers and cheez wiz boys, I’m living it up here..

Tomorrow…back to the road after an early morning tire change.

BTW…Folsom Street Fair is in full swing this weekend and you know what that means??? Yes sir, assless chaps abound but I’ve saved you from photos of that particular delight.

I have an appointment on Monday with Mike at Marin Motorcycle Works. He’s got a set of Battlewings in just my size. He would have stayed late for me today but its his mother’s 50th, so he has to go. And Sunday is his only day off.

Actually, he’s not even technically open on Monday but he says he’s got so much work that he’s coming in and he’ll do my change for me.. swell.

He’ll even see about shipping these K60s home for me so I can finish wearing them out then.

So tomorrow it’s gonna be about beekeeping and other urban pastoral pastimes.

Tonight, after an awesome dinner at Flour and Water in SF, I’m doing my tiny load of laundry in a giant washer….then ….bring on some beer boys, cause we ain’t riding far tomorrow.

Wait, what? Haven’t heard of Fancy Hands? Well, my my you’re in for a treat…check out http://www.fancyhands.com.  If you want to sign up use this link so I get credit: http://www.fancyhands.com/r/dce11f641b2e

http://m.google.com/u/m/AlzppH

But she’s in a wedding gown.

This is Dennys.

Mazel Tov!!!

Sorry ESR and the new CR…missed yours.

So I ran into a pack of Germans, chubby fellows on chubby rented Harleys, about a half dozen of them, at a gas stop somewhere between the Joshua Tree and the Mojave. A town called Twentynine Palms, home of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center.

After listening to their Teutonic blah blah for a few minutes while eating some fruit one strode over ( now this is only good if you read the German parts with a thick accent)

“Zis tube, it holds water. Zis is good”

He’s was talking about my camelback, which in my swanky new BMW Rallaye coat is built into the jacket.

Ever the quiper I return right away with, “German engineering”

His eyes like saucers, “We are German!!!”

“Yeah, I figured that out”

And the heretofore unmentioned tough as shit looking, tattoos on the neck, full on high and tight hairdo, lady Marine sitting outside in the heat reading the paper cracks the F up laughing.

“Bye bye” says the lady Marine as I mount up and ride away.

But to be fair to the Germans, they were on a trek from Seatle to LA, and in the desert… so they weren’t no slouches. Plus one of them said, though the big eyed interpreter, that mine was the only real motorcycle there… so I’d drink beer with those guys for sure. But I wonder if they thought I was on a GS?

‘Nuff said.

Day8

Yesterday went from Vegas thru Death Valley, thru Yosemite (where I forgot that you need reservations way in advance to camp) to a town called Grove Land where you don’t need reservations.

Here are some pics, I’m sure I have some stories but it will take coffee to find those.

location@9:16am,9/24 http://m.google.com/u/m/xx7QPj

Greetings from my shabby motel room in the bad part of town.

Starting on my second bottle of magic desert juice.

There will be no blogging tomorrow..there will be riding but I will do it in radio silence… I’m not telling where I’m going..cause I don’t know.

Here’s a quote:
“We were having it rough, which is exactly what we expected and what we signed up for. That is the thing: having it rough. The man who had it roughest is the man most admired. Conversely, he who has had it the easiest is the least praiseworthy.” –Robert Leckie Helmet For My Pillow.

Very different kind of helmet BTW.

We’ll catch up on Day 8.