More about the motorcycles

Ok, so I should have included more photos on the Extreme Custom Bike Show. All I showed yesterday was the replica of the bike Peter Fonda rode in Easy Rider. Ok, ok...here are some more photos. Both  photos are extreme bikes built by Thunder Struck Extreme Custom Bikes. They are awesome.( http://www.thunderstruckcustombikes.com/) They were the sponsors of the show. Between the bikes in the show, and the bikes belonging to riders who came to see the show (like Joe and I), there were probably 500 motorcycles in town.

What I loved though was the graphic design on the bikes. The paint, symbolism, and graphics were no less than spectacular (as they should be on $40,000 bikes!). Both of these bikes had paint that seemed with such depth that it was hard to capture. Really beautiful. I wish that I had some magic camera to pull this off better!  Oh well, you can imagine right?

Anyway, I promised to add a few more and so I did. Now back to the ride...more later.



Heading east, but still in Oregon

Wow, what a weekend. I spent the weekend with my dear friends, Joe and Rebecca, in Ashland, Oregon. Joe and I started our relationship when he was a board member at CSI and I was the Executive Director. But since then, we have built a strong relationship....spending the Millenium New Year together in Alexandria, and then backpacking the week of September 11, 2001...never forgetting  the impact both had on us.

But the trip, let's start with the weekend. Ashland is quite a fabulous place. It is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Southern Oregon University. Beautiful city, lots of young people, fantastic art, community, theater and music. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is one of the top in North America, running from February through October every year. (http://www.osfashland.org/).  More than 250,000 tickets are sold for the performances. We attended a festival on the Green in the center of the city....one performance each night ALL SUMMER LONG. It was great!

Joe and I rode over to Medford for the Extreme Motorcycle show. It was an open street show of custom motrocycles, mostly Harleys. It was fabulous...lots of tatoos, and as Joe said, many Harley riders attempting to look solemn, or sullen, or something, instead of over the top with joy because their ride was in a competition. The show was really beautiful industrial art...amazing designs, and technology.

I left this morning and rode to Crater Lake. Whew! Never saw anything so beautiful. The lake is an extinct volcano...a caldera (Mount Mazama). It is nearly 2000 feet deep and has been fed only by rain water for nearly 8000 years. And yet, natural cyclical evaporation ensures that the depth varies no more than 3 feet each year. Fish and animal life did not exist in the Lake; it is now stocked with Rainbow Trout and Kokanee Salmon. I can describe it all. Check out the site. (http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm).

I had a great ride, through Natioinal Forests for more than have the day. They were amazingly pristine green lands. Now, I am in Burns, Oregon, just east of the Oregon Badlands. I turned east at Bend, and clicked into130 miles through high plains desert. It was long strips of two lane blacktop, with endless desert and basalt rock. The bio-diversity is amazing.

Well, I am exhausted..need to rest for another 350 miles tomorrow through Idaho, and more beautiful country. Stay tuned.

More later.

In Oregon...at last

Whew, what a ride yesterday. Left Pleasanton, CA around noon and connected with Joe just north of San Rafael. His beautiful Honda Goldwing looking beautiful in all of its red splendor. We rode up 101 for about 100 miles then across Upper Clearlake. An amazing and beautiful ride with gorgeous scenery.

Then we connected to I-5 and headed north. We crossed Lake Shasta, and managed to be in time for the beautiful sunset behind Mount Shasta. Shasta was striking...the only peaks in any direction with snow, pushing through the clouds. It soared above the tree line, both majestic and imposing at the same time. The late sun painting the clouds with hints of lavender and gold.

We ate in the Black Bear Diner in Shasta, for an omelette the size of a suitcase. It was enormous! A great discussion with Joe on the challenges facing our country.

Finally arrived at his home here in Ashland at around 11:45 pm. Very tired...bed by 1 am, and out like a light. I woke this morning to see a beautiful site of hills and farms, and deer in his back yard.

Great trip, great people...great life. Oh, and if your wondering about my thinking of home, I miss it, Frances, our life, and our puppy. I think that is the great thing about this ride...I am reminded of the magnificent country we live in, and what I have at home.

More later.

Anticipation!

I am finished and ready to ride out. I have been out at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lafbs for 3 days. Funny, I felt like the Village Idiot at the NIF. I was surrounded by brilliant engineers and scientists, some of the most brilliant in the USA. I have always said it is projects like this are led by ordinary people do extraordinary things. Well, it couldn't be more real than at NIF...yeah, I know that they are brilliant...but they are parents, and grandparents, backpackers, sailors, bicyclists, motorcyclists, coaches, husbands and wives....and yet they come together to accomplish an incredible task...building potentially the first full scale Fusion Energy Reactor...and potentially revolutionalizing the production of electricity, safely, and without the use of any carbon fuels. And they are not seeking any big recognition. Everyone I met just can't get enough of the challenge. Sheesh! And me, the village idiot, gets to learn from them and see a miracle happen. How grateful I am.

I meet a great friend tomorrow to ride for the first two days of the ride home. Joe and wife Rebecca are from Medord, Oregon. (http://www.ci.medford.or.us/) They are wonderful people; I have known Joe since 1995, and worked with him when I was at CSI. He was a board mentor, and a muse to some extent. He stimulated my thinking on leadership as a strategic competency for associations...and the creatioin of a universtiy without walls to develop the leadership. Oh, and did I say friend?

He and Rebecca spent the Millenium New Year together, and the following year, Joe and I and 4 others backpacked the week of September 11, 2001. We were together on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, on the Pacific Crest Trail, on Mount Hood. The 6 of us were forever bound together for the week while we wrestled together with what it meant. 10 year anniversary coming up...amazing.

I miss home, esecially Frances. I miss her very much...but still excited about the trip. We will meet up in Northern Ontario and spend a few days off the grid, with Linda and Paul, our friends....we met through PMI.

I am blessed to be the village idiot...in a village filled with brilliant, ordinary people, doing extraordinary things....like my wife.

More later.

AND SO THE JOURNEY CONTINUES!

Well, I am at Baltimore/Washington International airport in, you guessed it, Baltimore, waiting for my delayed flight to San Francisco so I can start my journey home on my motorcycle. I have a short visit at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), where I serve on an advisory board. Very exciting place...source of an experimental from of Fusion Energy which could make the US independent of fossil fuels for generating electricity. Check it out. (https://lasers.llnl.gov/).

I leave out on Wednesday on the ride north to Oregon. On Saturday, I plan to leave Oregon for the East Coast. The trip should take about 2 weeks, through some of the most beautiful country in the world. I am looking forward to Going to The Sun Highway in Montana. It brings you over the continental divide, and across the Rockies. Supposedly one of the most beautiful rides in the world.( http://visitmt.com/virtualvisitor/biking/rides/going_to_the_sun.html)

From there, I plan to go east to the Dakotas, and then south to see the Black Hills Reservation, and of course, Mt. Rushmore. It may be just a tourist attraction but the ride to and through it is still good, and since I am out there, I have to see it!. Then across South Dakota, and onto Minneapolis to see some old friends, where I will stay a day or so. Afterward I head on to Milwaukess to pick up two riders, and see the Brewers play the Cardinals.

After Milwaukee, it is on around the Great Lakes and onto Ontario. I am going to bypass Toronto, and go to Northern Ontario, to meet up with my wife, Frances, and our puppy, Jazz. We will be staying with great friends at their solar powered, off the grid cabin. Very cool.

Then a couple of more riders should hook up with me in and around Syracuse and head through the Adirondacks. It is a lovely time of year to go through there. I haven't been in the Adirondacks since I was 7 years old, but my memories are crystal clear. As I head home, I plan a stop in Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and then on to home.

I am amazingly grateful for the life I have. Frances, our home, our friends, our freedom. It is all such a gift. I pray I will never wake up ignorant to the riches around us. it is fleeting, and it is only today. So thank you for that. More later.

Tacopa Springs

Yep, Tacopa Hot Springs is very small, remote, and yet very cool. Mark, Gordon and I rallied up at the 4 way stop in Tacopa, and then rode over to Delights Hot Springs Resort. Don’t get your hopes up…this is not a 4 star resort with flat screen TV’s, day spa, and 5 star dining. It was a spa of 75 year old concrete cabins and very old trailers, with 4 private, jumbo hot mineral springs’ tubs. Frankly, we kind of balked when we saw it, but it turned out to be a perfect stop for all of us.

Dodging the scorpions, we each picked out a private tub, and submersed in butt-reddening hot mineral water. It was fabuloso! It warmed me to the core and took the edge and tension out of our muscles after so many days and miles on the bike. The mineral content was so high that the water felt "silky". Remarkable water, with great healing powers. Took a shower in the room (no showers in our rooms or cabins) and then made it back to the rooms to dress for dinner.

After the baths and slipping on some walking shoes, we strolled the ¾ mile to a wonderful little bistro. We listened to Sade, drank lots of water, and ate a fabulous dinner….and consumed vast amounts of cooking vapors when the vent fan above the stove stopped working. Oh, well, can’t all be perfect. All of this was in the middle of…well…absolutely nowhere.

Our walk back allowed us to befriend a Scorpion passing across the road, while a few steps further up the road we saw our first snake road kill. Lightening fast reflexes prepared me to run like a coyote in heat, but I saw it was truly dead…and truly flat!

 But the best part was when we returned to the resort. You see, it is a resort for alternative medicine too. There are two resident folks who can administer acupuncture, traditional massage, Rie Ki, and more. Gordon and I got a seated shoulder, neck and hand massage from Kay, and he and I trailed off to our respective rooms (watching carefully for Tarantulas and Scorpions) for a great night’s sleep. It was an extraordinary, remote, aging resort. 

The next morning, Mark, Gordon and I were up and out at 0700. We were ready to hit the road and head for Death Valley. Before leaving, we had a few photos to remind us why we are together again, as friends, as "buds", sharing the good times together. Very special. Members of our little group have ridden together now, in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Nederlands, Germany, and Italy. Many wonderful memories.

Shoshone

       
Things really began to change once out of Henderson. We zipped through the desert and bingo…Pahrump! www.parhump.org Nope, we didn’t hit a coyote, nor, perish the thought, an armadillo. Pahrump is burgeoning metropolis about 50 miles NW of Vegas, and has not particular mission in life except to provide entertainment for the gamblers and, hmmm, for those seeking companionship from legalized brothels. Oh, yes, it is also the closest town to the famous Chicken Ranch Brothel. Ah, well, we can’t all be puritans.

Then another 25 miles and we were in beautiful downtown Shoshone, Nevada. Listed as an old Ghost Town, it is a blooming town of 100 hardy folks, at the south end of Death Valley. We rolled into town and tied our steeds up at the Crowbar café. We were preceded by a group of some 50 Germans on a special cross country tour, on rented Harleys, and led by a van with a mechanic and luggage. They were all on a month long ride across America, clothed in even Harley regalia to keep the motor company open for another year. Amazing that they were all in leathers and were about to descend into the depths of Death Valley and a bout with 104 F weather! Man, they had to be sweatin’!

We ate well, used the internet, browsed through the Shoshone Museum and Tourist information center, stared at the gas signs showing $5+ per gallon, and then bid our farewells. Nathalie and Thomas headed north through Death Valley, while I headed south about 15 miles to meet up with Mark and Gordon, in Tacopa Hot Springs, population 50. I will miss Shoshone, and hope to get back there soon so I can revisit the museum and the Crowbar Cafe. Good stuff!

Nathalie and Thomas were great riding partners across the country, and though sad to see them off, we would be together again in a few days when we connected up in San Francisco. These rides are about the world around us, but when the evening comes up, and we are all at dinner, it is always about the Friendship.The ride down to Tacopa Hot Springs was smooth, and awesome, seeing the beginnings of salt basins, wetting my appetite for the upcoming ride through Death Valley.