BwanaDik
Well-known member
So. Another year is winding down, coming to a close and I find that I haven’t taken any riding schools yet this year. I generally try to take at least one advanced class per year to keep my edge as riding in SE Texas doesn’t exactly provide a challenging riding environment (unless you like non lane splitting heavy traffic). What to do? Track days at TWS? Find a Pridmore school someplace? Nope, most of the schools are closed for Winter so the possibilities are becoming limited.
Ah ha! How about a Stayin’ Safe school out in my old home town of El Lay? Could be fun to ride some of the roads of my old stompin’ grounds with a take on them from a Guy From The East, Eric Trow (actually Pittsburg).
Break out Streets and Trips and start planning! Looks like a two day ride out is easily do-able, pick Bambi up at LAX and head for the class. I’m fooling around with tunes in the helmet this trip and so, not having settled on a Final Solution, I start out with a snarl of black spaghetti that will later transform itself into an efficient entertainment system (I hope).
Up at Stupid Early on Tuesday morning. Bambi whips up her own version of a Cholesterol McMuffin to fortify me on the early first leg of my journey. I take the “Better Alive than Brave” road solution and head up I-45 to Dallas instead of cross country thru early morning Critter Land.
Ever have that “I’m ONLY HERE???” moment when first starting out on a long ride? Seems like I had been on the road for hours only to find that I’m at 336 North, about five miles from my house. Phew! So with that, I relax, turn up the tunes and start to get into the rhythm of the road. Or possibly try to stay away from the Botts Dots.
Scenes along the road
Won't starve!
An uneventful ride thru most of north central Texas…..again….but soon find myself out in the wide open spaces of west Texas, west of the bustling metropolis of Tahoka.
Battling a strong crosswind, I find my right hand has a death grip on the throttle and has slowly been creeping its way towards ticketdum. Yep, Officer Gustafson nabs me in Full Guilty mode. He’s particularly interested in all the farlkes spread across my cockpit.
Officer Gustafson: “Well, that’s interesting, I’ve never seen an XM receiver on a motorcycle before”
Me: “Yep, that’s the XM piped thru an amp in my tank bag. This next item here is my GPS Shelia so I can find my way around out here, and this last little box alerts me to the moment before I get a speeding ticket”
Although he’s obviously suppressing a smile, he still checks my license (but oddly enough not my insurance) and gives me a ticket anyway. Oh well….
I make good enough time (at sub-warp velocities of course) to make it to the area around Ruidoso and the Lincoln National forest about sundown. A real pretty area and a nice break from the previous 800 miles. Then down the hill to Socorro for dinner and sleep.
Wednesday
I take the Critter-less option again out of Socorro, up I-25 to ABQ and left on I-40. It always cracks me up when Shelia recalculates the route and the “distance to turn” comes up with something like “400,000 miles” like on I-40. Oh well, settle in and enjoy! I think this was the better direction to take as I ended up in Holbrook at about the same time in the morning (sun up) as I would have had I taken the overland route.
Sunrise on I-25
An uneventful but pretty ride across I-40, way better than steaming across I-10 like last year. While taking a break (and attempting to warm up in Dennison), I started browsing my paper map and discovered a “scenic” road that looked like a short cut from Kingman to I-40! Great, should be interesting and a short cut no less!! Turns out this was a 1st and 2nd gear run up thru Sitgreaves Pass and the lovely antique ex-mining town of Oatman, whose apparent claim to fame is the large number of burrows roaming free in the city center. Successfully negotiating these mobile road hazards, I pressed on into CA and toward the beach.
The road to Oatman
Historic Route 66. I wonder why they went this way?
Oatman
Scenic Downtown
Burrows
I was originally going to take the National Trails Hwy thru Amboy, Sheephole Pass, and drop down to Twentynine Palms. However, I remember traveling thru there some years ago remembered that 62 is nothing but stoplights and traffic from Twenty Nine Palms all the way to I-10.
Nope, let’s head for Barstow. Probably not the most well thought out plan as I arrived in Barstow at exactly sundown. Anybody know that big sweeper between I-40 and I-15 South? Yep, I hit it at exactly the moment the sun was smack dab in the middle of it. Couldn’t see **** (nobody else could either). Oh well, just close my eyes and throttle thru.
The next adventure is heading down Cajon Pass, in heavy traffic, in the dark….. Here I’m setting a *brisk* pace down the hill at about 90 MPH and NOT PASSING ANYBODY!!! WTF people??? And the trucks in the #4 lane are poking along at about 35 MPH. An abrupt wakeup call after 1400 miles of sedate cruising. Whoa!
Next stop is an ARCO station in Fontana. I finally figure out how to pay for my go juice at the central pay station (WTF is with that anyway?) and then park off to the side to check in with Bambi. Slowly, things seem to be getting weird. What’s different here? The panhandlers that had been standing around have begun to close in, mumbling “spare change, spare change?” and they seem to be increasing in number. They don’t seem to come from anywhere, like from around the back of the building, but seem to materialize out of the night. Saying “spare change” slowly enough with a good Thunderbird accent slowly becomes “sparechng…. Spchnge….. brchang….. brainge…. BRAINS!!!!…..”
Time to go!
Ahhh…El Lay traffic. Folks jumping in and out of the HOV lane, minimum speed is 75 MPH, cell phone/texting/eating/coffee/personal hygiene all a way of life in your car. And a diversified culture where everybody brings a bit of the Old Country driving styles with them to try out on the local freeways. 70 MPH transitions roads that are not only pitch black but are enclosed by roadside trees and bushes, making them a dark hole in which to leap. It makes the Dallas Metromess morning commute look like a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway on a Monday.
Shelia successfully twists and turns me down thru El Lay traffic to Hermosa Beach on a route I’ve never seen before. I arrive safely at the Sea Sprite Motel without actually knowing how I got there, then dinner at Hennessey’s and off to bed!
Next up, School Daze!!!
Ah ha! How about a Stayin’ Safe school out in my old home town of El Lay? Could be fun to ride some of the roads of my old stompin’ grounds with a take on them from a Guy From The East, Eric Trow (actually Pittsburg).
Break out Streets and Trips and start planning! Looks like a two day ride out is easily do-able, pick Bambi up at LAX and head for the class. I’m fooling around with tunes in the helmet this trip and so, not having settled on a Final Solution, I start out with a snarl of black spaghetti that will later transform itself into an efficient entertainment system (I hope).
Up at Stupid Early on Tuesday morning. Bambi whips up her own version of a Cholesterol McMuffin to fortify me on the early first leg of my journey. I take the “Better Alive than Brave” road solution and head up I-45 to Dallas instead of cross country thru early morning Critter Land.
Ever have that “I’m ONLY HERE???” moment when first starting out on a long ride? Seems like I had been on the road for hours only to find that I’m at 336 North, about five miles from my house. Phew! So with that, I relax, turn up the tunes and start to get into the rhythm of the road. Or possibly try to stay away from the Botts Dots.
Scenes along the road
Won't starve!
An uneventful ride thru most of north central Texas…..again….but soon find myself out in the wide open spaces of west Texas, west of the bustling metropolis of Tahoka.
Battling a strong crosswind, I find my right hand has a death grip on the throttle and has slowly been creeping its way towards ticketdum. Yep, Officer Gustafson nabs me in Full Guilty mode. He’s particularly interested in all the farlkes spread across my cockpit.
Officer Gustafson: “Well, that’s interesting, I’ve never seen an XM receiver on a motorcycle before”
Me: “Yep, that’s the XM piped thru an amp in my tank bag. This next item here is my GPS Shelia so I can find my way around out here, and this last little box alerts me to the moment before I get a speeding ticket”
Although he’s obviously suppressing a smile, he still checks my license (but oddly enough not my insurance) and gives me a ticket anyway. Oh well….
I make good enough time (at sub-warp velocities of course) to make it to the area around Ruidoso and the Lincoln National forest about sundown. A real pretty area and a nice break from the previous 800 miles. Then down the hill to Socorro for dinner and sleep.
Wednesday
I take the Critter-less option again out of Socorro, up I-25 to ABQ and left on I-40. It always cracks me up when Shelia recalculates the route and the “distance to turn” comes up with something like “400,000 miles” like on I-40. Oh well, settle in and enjoy! I think this was the better direction to take as I ended up in Holbrook at about the same time in the morning (sun up) as I would have had I taken the overland route.
Sunrise on I-25
An uneventful but pretty ride across I-40, way better than steaming across I-10 like last year. While taking a break (and attempting to warm up in Dennison), I started browsing my paper map and discovered a “scenic” road that looked like a short cut from Kingman to I-40! Great, should be interesting and a short cut no less!! Turns out this was a 1st and 2nd gear run up thru Sitgreaves Pass and the lovely antique ex-mining town of Oatman, whose apparent claim to fame is the large number of burrows roaming free in the city center. Successfully negotiating these mobile road hazards, I pressed on into CA and toward the beach.
The road to Oatman
Historic Route 66. I wonder why they went this way?
Oatman
Scenic Downtown
Burrows
I was originally going to take the National Trails Hwy thru Amboy, Sheephole Pass, and drop down to Twentynine Palms. However, I remember traveling thru there some years ago remembered that 62 is nothing but stoplights and traffic from Twenty Nine Palms all the way to I-10.
Nope, let’s head for Barstow. Probably not the most well thought out plan as I arrived in Barstow at exactly sundown. Anybody know that big sweeper between I-40 and I-15 South? Yep, I hit it at exactly the moment the sun was smack dab in the middle of it. Couldn’t see **** (nobody else could either). Oh well, just close my eyes and throttle thru.
The next adventure is heading down Cajon Pass, in heavy traffic, in the dark….. Here I’m setting a *brisk* pace down the hill at about 90 MPH and NOT PASSING ANYBODY!!! WTF people??? And the trucks in the #4 lane are poking along at about 35 MPH. An abrupt wakeup call after 1400 miles of sedate cruising. Whoa!
Next stop is an ARCO station in Fontana. I finally figure out how to pay for my go juice at the central pay station (WTF is with that anyway?) and then park off to the side to check in with Bambi. Slowly, things seem to be getting weird. What’s different here? The panhandlers that had been standing around have begun to close in, mumbling “spare change, spare change?” and they seem to be increasing in number. They don’t seem to come from anywhere, like from around the back of the building, but seem to materialize out of the night. Saying “spare change” slowly enough with a good Thunderbird accent slowly becomes “sparechng…. Spchnge….. brchang….. brainge…. BRAINS!!!!…..”
Time to go!
Ahhh…El Lay traffic. Folks jumping in and out of the HOV lane, minimum speed is 75 MPH, cell phone/texting/eating/coffee/personal hygiene all a way of life in your car. And a diversified culture where everybody brings a bit of the Old Country driving styles with them to try out on the local freeways. 70 MPH transitions roads that are not only pitch black but are enclosed by roadside trees and bushes, making them a dark hole in which to leap. It makes the Dallas Metromess morning commute look like a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway on a Monday.
Shelia successfully twists and turns me down thru El Lay traffic to Hermosa Beach on a route I’ve never seen before. I arrive safely at the Sea Sprite Motel without actually knowing how I got there, then dinner at Hennessey’s and off to bed!
Next up, School Daze!!!
