The Anti-"I Don't Like" Video

A few years ago my nephew was caught on tape singing a song about all the things he didn't like. It was hilarious! When I saw this on YouTube, it sort of reminded me of Blake's "I don't like" song...only different.

Enjoy...

Long, Boring, and Quiet

Yesterday as I was tucking in Tater I asked him something like “what would you change if you could”.  He said he would get rid of school.

:-(

I said, “Really?  School is so fun!  You get to see your friends, play lots of games, read…”.

To which he responded…

Yeah, but it’s SOOOO long, and boring, and quiet.”

It makes me wonder how on earth we are supposed to develop a love for learning, if this is the way 1st grade is perceived.

Rt 66 Trip – Highlights and Lessons Learned

It’s been a long week of riding, eating, and hanging out with my brother.  After six days, 2200 miles, and seven-states, here are some of my favorite memories…

•  Lots of time with my brother.  Although there is a lot of “quiet time” during the days, we’ve shared every meal and every night together during the last week.  Plus a few good conversations on the bike. 

• A wonderful visit with my dear friends Jerry & the Becks and my family in OK.  I don’t see them enough.

 

• The ride into and around Sedona as the sun was setting was truly magical.  That will be the lasting impression of the ride.

• Following Rt 66 through New Mexico and seeing the little towns that came to life around the “mother road”. 

• Riding on back roads through the Texas Panhandle.  Such lovely countryside with free ranges of grasslands.  This is a stark change from further west where open fields of scrub and dust fill the horizon.  Cadillac Ranch was impressive… although it’s a simple design it is a powerful statement on the power of art and beauty.  People from all over the world visit this little spot in Amarillo to see the “art” of six Caddy’s buried in the dirt.  While we were there we met bikers from Alabama, and Canada who had stopped by to see the “ranch”.

• Some lovely roads between Siloam Springs, AR and Branson, MO.  Granted, these would have been more beautiful had it been dry and sunny, but it was still delightful. The roads here reminded me of last summer’s ride through West Virginia. (No photos due to the rain).
• Of course, one of my most lasting memories will be the full day of riding in the rain on I-44 & I-55 through Eastern MO and IL.  This reminded me a lot of running the 1997 Marine Corps Marathon in the rain.  I was cold, wet, and on edge emotionally.  But continued to push forward until we arrived at the end. Ironically, it stopped raining just as we pulled into the H-D dealer.  That was 7-hrs ago and it hasn’t rained since. Out the hotel window right now I see the first patch of blue sky I’ve seen since Tuesday evening.

And here are some lessons learned for next time…

• Route any cross-country Motorcycle trips from east to west.  That way, if a major storm hits, you’ll likely drive through it to the other side instead of riding with it for several days.  We’ve been tracking this storms since Tuesday in Western OK.  Yuck.

• Build in at least one extra day for the trip.  We literally pushed it full-speed on the interstate for several days in order to arrive in Chicago at noon (we made it at 11:45).  The trip planner says give it 12-16 days…we did it in 5.5 (with a .5 day in OK visiting family).
• Bring the right gear.  This year we did pretty well here…with jacket liners, rain suits, and neck warmers we were all set for what we encountered.  A far cry from last year when I didn’t have any of the above and nearly froze to death in the rain on Blue Ridge Parkway.
• Get a bike with cruise-control. Both of these Street Glides had cruise control and it made such a big difference.  Especially the last few days when we were pushing hard on the interstate.

One last photo… this was somewhere in Eastern New Mexico.  We rode on this rode four about 4 hours and literally saw fewer than five other cars.  It was beautiful, remote, and barren.

Arrival!

After six days, 2200 miles, and nine tanks of premium unleaded fuel, we arrived at Wild Fire Harley-Davidson in Villa Park, IL. 

It took us a while to unload our stuff and get out of our rain suits, but we finally made it.

Here’s the final odometer reading from our 2009 Street Glides.

 

Day 6 – the rain

After running from the storm for several days, it finally caught up to us. 

We left Branson about 9am this morning.  When we started, the trip odometer showed that we had already put over 1600 miles on the HD Street Glides.

 

You can see the water sitting on the dash of the bikes when we started.  It rained all night Wednesday night, but when we started Thursday it was not raining.  Wet. Cold. But not raining.

At first we had planned on taking the back roads to St. Louis.  There are several beautiful routes through the Ozarks that would have been delightful.  However, given that we needed to cover nearly 600 miles, and that the meteorologist estimated a 90% chance of rain, we stuck to the Interstate.  We stopped at a Steak & Shake in Rolla, MO for lunch, then at the Rt 66 Welcome Center near Conway, MO.

About the time we left Conway, it started raining.  That was about 4pm.  It rained the rest of the day…all the way through St. Louis, into Illinois, and up to Bloomington, IL.  We only stopped too fill the tanks with gas about every 2-hours.  It was an awfully long day of riding.  Of course, it was hard to get a photo of the “welcome to Illinois, the Land of Lincoln” sign since it was on the Interstate in the rain.  So, we pulled off shortly into Illinois and took this photo of the Hamlin, IL water tower.

We finally arrived at our hotel at 9pm…cold, wet, and beat!  Our trip odometer now is over 2100 miles.  We have about 125 miles to go tomorrow morning, then we will relax and hopefully sit in a hot tub for a the rest of the day.:-)

Day 5 – Hinton to Branson

Oh man.  Oh man, Oh man.  What a day.

Last night I had some time with my buddy Jerry who lives in Weatherford.  He innocently asked if we had seen the weather. Apparently, Wednesday would be a typical Oklahoma May… meaning severe thunderstorms with softball sized hail. In fact, as you can see from this radar image, there are very few dry places anywhere in the US for the next 48-hours.

We awoke at 6:30 AM ready to hit the road ahead of the storm.  However, before we could get out the door, it started raining. So we decided to hang around a bit and wait for a clearing.  When it cleared up at about 9am, we took off.  Of course, we put on our rainsuits just in case.

We stayed out of the rain most of the day.  we had lunch in Muskogee, OK at this amazing place called “Okie’s” in Muskogee.  We loved the catfish.

We finally made it to Arkansas, and then to Missouri.  The roads in NE Arkansas and MO were beautiful.  Great views, fun curves, and good weather.

.

We finally arrived in Branson, MO just before sunset.  It’s another wonderful Wyndham property.  It’s very comfortable and nice (even if the Wi-Fi is an additional fee!).  The bad news is that as we tuned into the weather, we saw that there is a 90% chance of severe weather throughout MO tomorrow.  Crap.

Day 4- Amarillo to Hinton

What a great day of riding!  This morning started a little later than we had hoped.  I don’t think we even started to wake up until about 8:30.  We started off by going backwards.  Last night we drove right past the “world-famous” Cadillac Ranch.  This is a spot just west of Amarillo where some dude planted a row of Cadillacs.  There are dozens of cans of spray paint out here and people simple add whatever they want to the design each day.

Due to the risk of bad weather, we started off by hitting I-40 for a bit.  But shortly, we got onto some very good secondary highways and headed a bit north to Pampa.  The plains were beautiful. After several hours of riding across the plains of the Texas Panhandle, we entered Oklahoma and noticed immediately that the dirt was red.  It’s strange how quickly the change is evident.  It’s almost like the state passed a law and all OK soil was painted to match.  So odd…

We drove across OK to Elk City to the Rt. 66 Museum, and then on to Hinton where we had dinner with our family.

A little bit of Rt 66 (and too much I-40)

We had a wonderful time on our 3rd day on route to Chicago.  We started with a great morning at the Beck’s house.  Their eldest son is so creative and sweet…he stayed up until we arrived (about 10pm) because he had made the house into a hotel for us.  Mark and I were staying in his and his brother’s rooms.  He had made little key readers and posted them on the doors and gave each of us these nice little keys.  He had planned on treating us as guests and letting us check in.

However, it didn’t quite work out that way.  When we got the Beck’s last night, I noticed a flashing “Key” icon on my bike.  It took me a minute to figure it out.  The light meant that the security fob was not within 6 ft of the bike.  DOH!  I checked all my pockets and I didn’t have the key. (These Harleys have a strange mechanism where you use the key to lock/unlock the bike, but it’s not necessary to keep the bike running. One of them has a special security feature that requires the key fob be within 6 ft of the bike for it to start.)  We unloaded the bikes, got into the car, and drove back to El Pinto worried sick that I wouldn’t find them.  Of course, the HD guy told us before we left… “Whatever you do, don’t lose these keys.  It will take us a couple of days to get them to you.”  Gheesh.

Thankfully, we found them in the parking lot right where we had parked.  I don’t know if I left them in my saddle bags, or missed my pocket.  What a relief!  By the time we got back with the keys, the kids were asleep.

So the hotel manager greeted us this morning to check our keys.

 

 

Then we loaded up the bikes and the three of us headed out to Rt 66 eastbound. 

 

The road east of ABQ was wide open and we followed Rt 66 for about an hour.

 

We stopped for lunch in Santa Rosa at this great little cafe called Joseph’s.  it was funny because when we arrived the hostess said “are you with the 26?”  Of course, we didn’t understand.  So she helpfully repeated, “are you with the 26?”.  We finally figured out that there was a group of 26 bikers with a reservation for lunch.  We quickly took a seat and placed our order before they arrived!  It was great!

After Stanton left, we headed off road a bit.  Long stretches of Rt 66 are merged with I 40.  We had already spent about 90 minutes on I-40, and were ready for a change.  So we took some back roads and found some beautiful country in Eastern New Mexico.

We planned to get gas in Grady, but we discovered that there are entire towns in rural NM without a gas station!  Seriously!   Ugh.

We found a station back up near I-40, a helpful customer told us there was hail on the way.  We walked our and looked to the West and saw DARK clouds on the way.  So we hopped back on I-40 and went full-throttle until we arrived at Rudy’s in Amarillo. A great way to end the day, with great BBQ in the Lone Star State.

Riding the Rocks and Seeing the Becks

Our second day of riding Rt 66 was safe, beautiful, and ended with our dear friends, the Becks.

We started with the long descent down the mountain from Flagstaff.  Even now in mid-May, the mountains around Flagstaff are covered with snow.  Here’s a nice view of the peaks as we wound our way down east of town on Rt. 66.

After leaving the cool air in Flagstaff, we headed out to the desert.

 

Our first stop was Winslow, AZ, where we stood on a corner with Don Henley.

 

We stopped for a long rest at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest.

Then the continental divide.

Final stop, we met our dear friend Stan in Grants, NM and headed to dinner at El Pinto in ABQ.

Rt 66 - Day 1

Well, we began our ride today.  It started with Mark's arrival in PHX and then heading out to get our bikes.  By the time all the paperwork was signed and we were ready to leave town it was about 1pm.  Here's Mark with our bikes...




The first hour or so was through the most dry, hot desert I can imagine. It was about 100 degrees and there was a dozen shades of light brown. It was beautiful in its own way, but it was like Mars.
Finally, we hit some elevation, and the terrain began to pick up a bit. It was actually very nice here. It was a bit cooler and there were patches of life all around. Our first photo stop was about 90 minutes outside of PHX...or at least where we got the bikes.

As we kept moving up the mountain, the temperature kept dropping. The lowest temp was about 1-hr from Sedona when the temperature got to around 55. It was amazing to see the change from 105 to 55 in one afternoon of riding. By the time we reached Sedona, the sun was setting. It was absolutely amazing. The red rock cliffs around the city were absolutely alive with the colors of sunset.

We enjoyed the sights of Sedona so much that we stopped three times to take photos. I'll put more up later, but it's 1am now and I need to get some sleep.

When we finally reached our hotel in Flagstaff, it was COLD (45 or so) and dark. That last 45 minutes was rough riding in the dark on winding, unfamiliar rodes, with the cold. To make matters worse, the road was so bumpy that my GPS kept falling off the bike. Fortunately, I caught it both times.

After a long and beautiful day, we had an amazing plate of sushi at a place called Monsoon's in downtown Flagstaff. This place was our first stop on Rt 66.

Absolutely delightful. I hope every day is as perfect as this one...

The Second Time Around

One of my favorite Sinatra tunes is “The Second Time Around”.  That has nothing to do with this post, other than it’s a catchy title.

 

This post is not about music, but movies.  Last night Michelle and I watched “Wild Hogs”.  It was her first time to see it, but I’d seen it once before at the Malibu Cinema on a guy’s night.  The first time I watched it, I really disliked it.  I thought it was boring, predictable, and overall not worth the time or money. However, last night with Michelle I really liked it.  Certainly not worthy of any awards, but an entertaining way to waste 90 minutes at home.

 

The second movie I watched for the second time is “Quantum of Solace 007”.  I saw it on a guy’s night at the Malibu Cinemas also… at least most of it.  That night the projector broke at the theater about 75-minutes into the movie, and the teenager running the theater didn’t know how to get it started again.  So, she gave us all hand-written rain-checks to come back another night.  However, I don’t think any of us ever went back and watched the end of the movie.  It just didn’t capture our attention. 

This evening while I was hanging out at the hotel, I noticed it was on cable and I tuned in.  It was much better this time.  Very intense.  And it was very consistent with the themes in Daemon and Freedom (TM). .

Neither of these movies are great, but perhaps this goes to show that one’s expectations are shaped by the relative costs of an experience.  Paying $15 at Malibu Cinemas for a show on a guy’s night is pretty high expectations.  But, sitting at home (or a hotel) and killing time is pretty low. 

Maybe I should try Transformers 2 again on video?

Kicking off a long-ride…

This morning I parked my VStar at LAX …

 

 

and hopped on Southwest flight 643 from LAX to PHX to begin an 8-day motorcycle trip on Rte. 66.

Here’s the itinerary…

• Friday – I’m in PHX one day early (I misread the original email..doh!)
• Saturday – Pick up a couple of 2009 Dyna Glides (fully equipped for long road rides) and then we ride through the Tonto National Forest and up to Sedona, AZ where we’ll stay at a Fairfield Resort.
• Sunday – On to Abq to meet our long-time friend (and fellow cyclist) DSB.
• Monday – A LONG stretch across teh panhandle of Texas and across Western OK to our grandparents.
• Tuesday – A morning in OK with grandparents, then off to somewhere in KS.  Maybe to Lawrence to see Michelle’s grandma.
• Wednesday – Across MO and into IL.
• Thursday – On to Chicago where we’ll drop off the bikes and check into a hotel by the airport.
• Friday – 8:30 flight on AA1063 back to LA.

View Larger Map

My first stop here in PHX… was Scholotzsky’s.  They make a very unique sandwich that I first came to enjoy in Abilene 20 years ago.  They had one in Bloomington I think too…but it was on the other side of town, so we never went.

Today I’m just hanging out in the hotel room, blogging, emailing, and reading “Freedom (TM)” by Daniel Suarez.

Stay tuned for more updates from the road.  I think I’ll be able to blog almost every day.  I will also be uploading photos to Flickr from my iPhone.