An unexpected bike vacation

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Pat L

TwoWheelExplorer
Joined
Nov 23, 2008
Messages
184
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Location
North Bend (east of Seattle), WA
Here begins the tale of my family vacation to San Diego. My wife and I and two kids are going there for 2 weeks' vacation. Our plan was to fly, but fares just spiked so we decided to drive. Yesterday, plans took a rapid turn when my wife texted me and asked if I wanted to ride the FJR while she drives the car and our two kids. Hmmm, let me think about that for just a .. :yahoo:

It's interesting prepping for a 3k+ mile trip in a day. Basically, I finished up mounting the N-Line dash I bought from ahchiu that he dropped by my work and we shot the breeze; picked up a PCA rack and mounting plate from allrider (who showed up to my work to deliver it before I got there, and had the rack mounted on my bike by the time we agreed to meet, so we shot the breeze); switched back to the bigger Rapid Transit tankbag; later this afternoon I'll drop by the DMV to switch over bike title from FJRONAMISSION to myself and get WA plates; checked tire pressures; and head south.

I'll be tracking with the car, so probably not a ton of fun side roads, but it beats sitting in an econocar for a few days. I'll post words and photos here along the way.

Oh yeah, Seattle is having November-ish rain storms and thunder today. I got soaked on my ride to work. allrider asked me if I had a cooling vest for the trip, and it took my brain a while to register the possibility that I'll be sweating it out this time tomorrow.

Spotwalla will be at https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=501050089a3507360. I might switch it to being two trips - one down, one back. Dunno yet.

Oh, yeah. Here's me with my wife on Wed night, our 19th anniversary. She wanted to ride to an Irish pub to celebrate.

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Have a great trip,now that's the way to have a road trip with a support car carring all your stuff. :yahoo: keep us posted while on the road.

 
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It took longer than expected for my wife to be ready to leave, so we just arrived in Salem.

Freeway the whole way, at or just under the posted limits. Perhaps relatedly, I'm getting my best gas mileage ever on this tank :p

Playing at the Enchanted Village theme park tomorrow,may stay here again or head a few hours south.

 
Oh, also.. WA state valued the FJR at $9500 for sales tax purposes. After arguing, the DMV lady dropped valuation to the lowest she could, $7500. Still way too high, way more than I (happily) paid for a bike with 55k mi and cosmetic issues. That hurt.my budget.

WA stare DMV is not on my good side :angry2: . But I have a legal WA plate now though.

 
Long time no post! Will update more later, but it's been a wacky trip. In San Diego now. Timeshare fails, wire funds fails, blah. But the bike is doing great, other than that I'm a bit worried about getting home with this front tire. I'm finding how sensitive the bike is to tire pressures. I can really feel a couple of pounds difference in how the bike behaves at speed on bumpy roads.

No matter, I have 1500 mi of bugs and road grime to show off now, and will double that on the way home. Plans for the return are to go up PCH, stay with my uncle again in San Ramon, then I5 and 97 toward Seattle.

 
Part of my challenge at the moment is that I didn't pack the card reader for my cameras, or even the cable I can hook up to download photos. Fun shots!

And it turns out that Yamaha's US HQ is only a few miles away from Disneyland, and makes a convenient place to drop off the bike so I only have to pay for parking on the car, not the bike too. I took a pic of the bike in an empty (Saturday) parking lot. Which you will see, as soon as I have a cable or a card reader to download it :)

 
Part of my challenge at the moment is that I didn't pack the card reader for my cameras, or even the cable I can hook up to download photos. Fun shots!

And it turns out that Yamaha's US HQ is only a few miles away from Disneyland, and makes a convenient place to drop off the bike so I only have to pay for parking on the car, not the bike too. I took a pic of the bike in an empty (Saturday) parking lot. Which you will see, as soon as I have a cable or a card reader to download it :)
Dude! RadioShack! or Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, Best Buy, f**k even Walmart!

 
Heaven,y roads today: San Luis Obispo, then hwy 46 wear, then 1 up to Monterey. I love that Hwy 1 section!! Then freeways to San Ramon.

Lots of bikes out on the 1. More Triumphs than any other make, including Harley, which was great to see.

 
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