a geek out for a ride

I've moved...

2009-05-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've neglected this blog for a very long time.

Anyhow, relaunching it under it's own domain name over at: twowheelgeek.ca

Time flies when your working non-stop

2007-06-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Yikes, started the following about a week ago. Finally getting a chance to post it now. I'll add some pictures later.

---

Okay, it’s safe to say I love it here in Gdansk. A beautiful city and gorgeous country side surrounding it.

I could definitely live here. But ask me that same question after the winter hits and I’d probably sing another tune. Of course, I’d want to be making the same wages I make at home; otherwise it probably wouldn’t be as enjoyable. I overheard one of my coworkers talking to a waitress and asking about the wages, not good as a server in a restaurant. You’d definitely need to depend on your tips.

My other complaint would be the smoking everywhere, smoking sections move round with the will of who’s lighting up at the moment. Oh well. We’re definitely spoiled in that regard in Canada.

Otherwise, it’s been an amazing trip so far, good group of people to work with, very few language difficulties; I’ve had some people around to translate for me during the working day – after hours I’m on my own! Luckily I’ve been fairing quite well.

The food has been good, amazingly so. I’ve been trying to not eat at the same place twice, experience as much as I can. The only time that’s failed was last night when I fell asleep for an hour or so after coming back to the hotel and woke up quite late. Off to the Indian Restaurant around the corner. Well, it’s mostly Indian, it’s also Chinese and Thai too. Was a real disconnect for me to hear an Indian person speaking polish to his staff. I’m so used to being in an Anglophone country that it throws me off sometimes.

Memorable meals:

- definitely put the TGI Fridays on the list and not because it was good, but because how awful it was… UGH!

- The wine and cheese bar, Spirtus Sanctus

- A pretty fair filet mignon at Zeppelin(no, there was no long rocker hair and too tight leather pants) about a 6 ounce portion that was over-cooked but incredibly tender; served on a bed of spinach gnocchi and a mildly spicy paprika sauce. Fantastic presentation. I also started out with a very nice bowl of borscht that had apricots and raisins in it. That plus a glass of wine and my bill was about $45zl, or $15CDN

- The Chinese/Indian/Thai restaurant in a mall, Masala. Very good Indian, but a little on the bland side of the spicy scale.

- Soft serve ice cream cones done in a twist with two flavours. Much denser than the ice milk variety we have back home, almost like a gelato in texture. The chocolate is super dark and a little bitter, not sweet at all! LOVE IT!

- Take-out Thai that we had in Sopot on Saturday night. A group of coworkers invited me out for drinks and dinner at someones place in Sopot. They showed up with Thai food that rivaled the quality of any I’ve ever had anywhere. Normally being from Vancouver I’ve become pretty picky about my asian foods, given the enormous variety of outstanding restaurants we have. This Thai ranked up there so high, that I’ll be craving it back home. Cheap too, enough food for 8 people plus leftovers and it was just under $200zl

- OMG, just got served a bowl of Zurek, a sour rye soup. WOW! I’ve seen it on a lot of menus tagged as being a traditional Polish soup. Light broth, slightly sour and rich at the same time. With little bits of sausage at the bottom of the bowl. They like their soups here and every menu usually has several types to choose from. I’ve had three different types of borscht so far and each has been very different, the first two were light and brothy and no chunks of beets, the last had the fruit in it.

Work has been good, challenging but good. The unfortunate part has been delays waiting for things to get installed/delivered/wired. It’s really thrown my schedule off. They should have delayed moving a week to get the building in shape first. Oh well, work around the difficulties and move on right? Make the people around me happy and that’s what counts as they’re the end customer.

Here comes my dinner, more later

-- insert 20 minute delay here to chow down--

Okay, that was another memorable meal. A whole fresh from the Baltic Sea Turbot, simply fried and served on a bed of vegetables and a side of roasted potatoes. De’lish!

Ohhhhhh, now this is cool

2007-06-15T02:42:00.000-07:00

This is a couple blocks from my hotel!

I just may have to visit with the green fairy.

I'm loving it

2007-06-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

but not in the cheesy restaurant chain that coined that slogan.

Gdańsk is a very nice city, absolutely gorgeous. For the most part, the food has been great as well(more on that later).

I've hit a couple of local places, first night was a perogie specialty place, had a nice bowl of borscht with dumplings in it and a big plate of perogies that were stuff with wild game meat. All in all, very tasty.

The next night found me at "Spiritus Sanctus winiarina" a wine bar that specialised in wines and local deli meats and cheeses. They also had regular menu items for dinner, but I opted for a custom plate of various local cheeses(an aged goat, parmesan, etc) paired with some local deli meats and a basket of amazing breads. It was paired with a very flavourful white wine from Slovenia, I think I need to go and get a bottle to bring back. :) So far, the best meal yet.

Really, I wasn't grumpy. It just looked that way. I think I got distracted by something outside just as the shutter went off.

Now for the bad food part... I worked quite late last night and didn't want to go far to find dinner, so I thought I'd try the hotel restaurant. Sigh, cheesy American chain restaurant, a TGI Fridays. What a tired concept those theme restaurants are, from TGI, the Red Robins, etc. All the dusty crap on the walls, the faux americana, the bad choice of american beers(in europe and they're serving up Budweiser?!?!?! BAH I say! I ordered a 'cajun chicken sandwich' that was labeled as being quite spicy. This is how I imagine it was prepared:
- order comes into kitchen, cook takes the ticket and calls ala Starbucks to colleague across the room "one spicy chicken sandwich"
- colleague repeats order and then places chicken on prep table as far across the room as possible.
- cook then grabs 1 gram of cajun spice in a spoon and flicks it across the room, whatever makes it there by drifting stays on the chicken and is then cooked and served.

So there you have it.... lesson learned stay away from chain restaurants, they do nothing well.

New photos!

2007-06-13T05:31:00.001-07:00

Alrighty, had a few moments over the past couple of days/evenings to prepare some photos.

I'll do a proper entry later tonight.

Enjoy!

Excellent...

2007-06-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

Just noticed that the Gideons haven't sullied my hotel room. :)

25 hours of travelling later, I'm here

2007-06-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

Woah, long long day.

Left home on Saturday at noon for the airport to allow plenty of time to check in etc.

As I was checking in the agent said they were looking for volunteers to bump to the next flight two hours later on a charter company. Initially I said yes, usually they give you pretty good deals, etc for bumping; but after doing so and walking away to find a coffee, something wasn't quite sitting right with me about it.

Decided to listen to that little voice and went back through the lineup to check in and take my name off the bump list. My main reason was that it is a charter I was being put on, meaning flying with my knees to me chest for 10 hours, crap food, and extreme baggage limits(gotta squeeze in those extra people to sell them 15$ cheese sandwiches) . Plus my checked bag was 7 kilos overweight due to the equipment I have to take to the office here. I didn't want to pay the much bigger overage charge the charter would ding me with vs the flat fee Lufthansa charged.

It was my first time flying Lufthansa, very good service, very comfy. During mid flight they kept a supply of juices, wine and waters available for you to help yourself to at the galley, plus bin of Toblerone bars. :) What I found rather odd is all the staff would speak to me in German while speaking English to my seatmate (and she had an accent I couldn't quite place - but no matter, she wasn't very friendly, the only time she spoke too me was to get past me to head for the washroom). What was even more amusing is I'd know what the flight attendant was mostly saying to me and answer her in English, she'd answer in German and I'd reply in English. go figure... I must still have some understanding of it from when I was youngun and could speak it conversationally.

By the time I arrived in Gdansk it was close to 9pm, our flight was delayed leaving Frankfurt due to a huge thunderstorm moving in on the airport. We saw some pretty impressive lighting strikes not far from the tower. Apparently they closed down all but one runway, so it meant close to an hour delay on the tarmac.

LOT is a nice airline too, good service on-board, even for a two hour flight. Drinks, snacks and friendly staff.

Overall a good trip here, only glitch was my hotel room. It was booked locally for me and they took my departure date from Vancouver to mean I'd be here the same day, when I lost a day on the way. Sadly I didn't catch that when I saw the reservation, and when I tried to check in they had nothing on me. They'd canceled my reservation and all their rooms are now full for next weekend. I'm only booked here until the 14th now. I'll have to ask someone at the company to sort this out for me today.

Anyhow, gotta get my butt to work. Hopefully I'll get some pictures today, I didn't get any yesterday(was way too tired by the time I arrived, 31 hours awake will do that to you).

Europe in June!

2007-06-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Specifically Gdańsk, Poland!

I was just hired to do some work over there that will last for about 3 weeks. Looks like I leave this coming Saturday! Yikes, that's coming up wayyy too quickly. But, I'll be ready. Unfortunately I'll be missing Tanya(aka Netchick) birthday party on Saturday night.

Looks like a beautiful city based on the pictures over at Flickr. I'll definitely be taking lots of photos.

Oh yeah, I hope to post some photos from my recent trip to Alaska soon too. Keep an eye out for those this week.

Hmmmmmmmm

2007-05-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Poland for the month of June?

Maybe...

more on that soon.

:)

again, way overdue...

2007-05-26T23:59:00.001-07:00

overdue, but still geeking out. :)

Wow, where has the time gone?

Finally the weather has been improving and I've been able to finally get out on the bike for some extended rides including taking it to work. Must get out there more on it! Nothing new to report on the bike other than I had a new chain/sprocket combo installed. The new chain is certainly a lot quieter, when I bought the bike the previous owner mentioned several times that the chain needed cleaning and lubing. I suspect it hadn't been done in a while and that he wasn't using a proper chain lube. After I cleaned it the thing started making what could be best described as a 'zipper' sound that lessened over time with the application of more chain lube, but as soon as the chain was cleaned, sound was back.

In more geeky pursuits I recently built a MythTV box using Ubuntu Edgy as the distro. What can I say but I love it. I can record shows, and watch them without commercials and on bold my/bold schedule. I can even stream the show back to my laptop all via the wireless network. It's also doubling as a media center for our music, as we also recently picked up a Squeezebox by SlimDevices. Woah, very cool stuff. Both Q and I are huge music fans and are always picking up new cd's, checking out new bands, etc. The Squeezebox allows us to digitize and playback our music from one location, setup custom playlists, play internet radio(as well as access my online Sirius radio account) it routes the sound through my receiver and features audiophile quality sound. I compared it with my CD player playing a CD that I'd ripped onto the media system and the difference in sound was almost un-noticeable. It wasn't worse or better, just a little different and both were exceptional sounding.

Q and I are still playing house and it's going very well. We both enjoy having the other around and are pretty compatible living together.

Alright, I started the above about three weeks ago. damn again where does time go.

At the moment I'm about 30,000 feet above the arctic circle in Alaska. Way cool! I recently picked up a contract that took me to a mine site in the arctic to do a network analysis and documentation.

The trip has been incredible, I hope I get the chance later in the summer to come back and implement the changes I'll be recommending. My presentation to the General Manager and IT manager on site went well and they were both very happy with the work I'd done. I had the advantage of coming in with a fresh set of eyes and uninterrupted time to focus on the task where their staff are just way too busy with the day-to-day running of the place to tackle a job such as this..

All in all I think it was a job well done. Initially when I was heading up here I was more than a little worried about the scope of the job and if I'd be up to completing it in the time allocated. Part of my concern was the trip up here took a full two days when I thought it'd only take one. However, due to the staff being on site for and living there, they routinely work 12 hour days. I was able to easily fall into the schedule and get caught up, but it was still down to the wire today. I even was able to tour all the operations around the site, from the internal workings of the mill(crushing, grinding purifying of the ore) to the shipping and excavation of it. Plus due to needing to document all aspects of the site, a trip to the Port site about 50 miles or so away on the Chukchi sea! The ore is stored there in massive storage houses while they wait for the sea ice to break up and allow the barges to arrive for their very short 100 day shipping window.

Until now, I'd never been in Alaska, I have to say I'm a wee bit enamoured of it. I definitely want to come back and experience it in different seasons including the winter. The scenery has been incredible. Didn't get a chance to see a lot of wildlife, but I did see a herd of caribou that were in early stages of a colour change from the winter white to summer brown. I managed to get a few shots on camera using the 200mm lens, it turned out pretty good I think.

For a couple of years I've been thinking of purchasing a full DSLR camera and when I knew I was going on this trip, I figured now was the time. :) I picked up a Nikon D40 with two lenses, the basic 18mm-55mm kit lens and a 55mm-200mm zoom with vibration reduction.

So far I've been extremely pleased with the camera. It's performed flawlessly and I'm figuring out the various settings and how to use them properly. I'm still going to take a course though, I'd love to be able to use the camera to it's fullest abilities.

hmmm, we just reduced power and are descending a bit, time to stop writing and put this away for now.

and two weeks later, I'm finally posting this.. sheesh!

Wow, where did February go?

2007-03-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

Time certainly has flown this month....

But it was good, busy, oh was it busy, but good. Sadly though, little time for riding.

Q and I celebrated our anniversary early in the month and we had an outstanding dinner at La Régalade. We started out the evening by stopping at The Beach House on Dundarave Pier (whew, that name is far too long) for a glass of vino, an plate of their "beach dip" and the view. Once we found our way to La Régalade for yet another appy and the mains.

We both started with the French onion soup, followed up by our mains. I chowed down on slow braised veal cheek dish and Q opted for the Seven Hour Lamb. Both were great but we should have just ordered the one main to split. The portions there are very generous!
I have to say though, I found the lamb to be much more interesting and robust in flavours over the veal.

The following week was Valentines day, so of course I was panicking a bit about doing something nice for us in the days before(I hate giving roses and going out to a restaurant on that night). I hit upon the idea of making the Seven Hour Lamb, trouble was the La Régalade cookbook was at her place and I wouldn't be able to discreetly sneak it out. So the internet comes to the rescue. Now normally the only search engine I ever use is Google, but it couldn't find the recipe anywhere online at all. In desperation I tried Yahoo! and it came up on the 1st hit. Go figure...

Anyhow, I started the dish before I left for work that morning and had a neighbour drop by to pull it out of the oven later that afternoon. After reheating it and reducing the sauce somewhat it was ready to go. I had stopped by Liberty on Granville Island to pick up a nice bottle of French wine the day before and the girl there recommended a bottle of the 2003 Château Rousselle CÔTES DE BOURG, with the recommendation to decant it for a minimum of an hour before serving. Woah, it was amazing fresh out of the bottle, exceptionally tanic, but good. After an hour in the decanter it opened up like nothing else and blew both our socks off.

Needless to say Q was impressed with the meal and even said she enjoyed my lamb over the one they served at the restaurant! :) Sometimes I think I should get back into the cooking biz... but then I give my head a shake and move on.

We even managed to get away for a wee weekend trip to Princeton this month too. My good friend Guy and his family own a cabin 20km outside of town. So a Friday night found us making the trek there from Vancouver arriving around midnight and then having to snowshoe into it from the nearest neighbours place. I always love visiting that cabin, it's comfy, remote and a nice little get away that's not far from the city. Q and I have been there twice now together and we're now looking to buy a chunk of vacation property within a 4 hour drive of Vancouver.

The majority of the month for the two of us was taken up by purging excess stuff from our closets in preparation for the big merge.

Oh, want to know what happens when two food and wine geeks merge households? A combined wine collection of about 5 or 6 cases, and a kitchen that initially looked like this!

Oh and I finally got a ride in right at the end of the month! About time too.

Warp speed ahead Mr. Sulu

2007-02-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

oh I love this,

George lays the smackdown on this guy.

wow, time flies...

2007-01-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

Well it's been ages since I've posted anything here. I haven't been avoiding it, just been busy... well, mostly busy, a lot of relaxation and work in there.

The fall here was amazing:

The last major ride I went on this past fall was a ride with my buddy Jason to do the Duffy Lake loop, October 28, next day there was a foot of snow up there. Was a chilly ride but always a good rip through the mountains. Actually, I began the riding season with a ride there in the spring and finished up the season riding it. Nice way to bookend the season.

Spring:

and Fall:

Otherwise, the winter has been a wash for riding. Record freaky weather, the wettest November on record, record setting winds, snow on the ground for weeks, with black ice and frost after that.

Heck, even the bicycles weren't going anywhere in the midst of all the snow, let alone my precious Gizmo!

Otherwise, life has been good. I did a temporary contract for a week around the end of October, beginning of November and after that decided I wanted to work for myself and go solo.

I've made the leap into self-employment and am loving it!

Other things... had a great time in Seattle for the Bike show there hanging out with Michelle and Jason, gorging ourselves on seafood, beer and coffee(something Jason is still mad at me for, introducing him to Vivace beans). Oh yeah, we even saw a bunch of motorbikes too. :)

What's next? Well the riding season is hopefully going to start up soon, had a fantastic ride this past weekend to the Vancouver Bike show, felt good to finally get on the bike for some highway riding.

Next up, I get a roommate. The Q-girl and I have decided it's time for us to shack up together.

The final tally

2006-10-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

The good, and the not so good in no particular order.

averaged on a good day(read obeying speed limits) 55mpg, otherwise approx 40 - 45 mpg travelling fully loaded in a variety of terrain at many various speeds. :)
two oil changes, one at a dealer at grossly overinflated prices, and another as part of a scheduled servicing at a great shop in Phoenix.
cracked and fixed one crash guard, now reinforced to never happen again.

two rainy days of riding, first and last. Both happened to be in WA state.
met many fantastic people out there on the road, at campgrounds, motels, other bikers, etc.
ate some damn fine Mexican food, and imbibed some fantastic micro-brews at various brew pubs.
took almost 400 pictures plus a few videos
picked up a dashing new lid (in blue)
managed to become dehydrated twice
dropped the bike once - how embarassing! It happened in my sister's garage. I was spinning it around on the center stand so I could ride straight out instead of backing out and the stand folded up and over it went. Almost fully loaded at that point too. Surprisingly enough not a scratch on the bike, but one scuff mark on a side bag.
racked up 8225.4 kilometers on the bike

Countless memories, Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Good!(say that with your best William Shatner over-acting ability)

The Oregon coast to home

2006-10-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

After a yummy buckwheat pancake breakfast, I tracked down and had a good, albeit short visit with Monkey in Lincoln City (and stuffed my camping gear into the trunk of his car) and then hit the road. I had arranged to meet some other VStrom riders that I met on StromTroopers.com in McMinnville for a bite to eat.

Two of them were there with their spouses and we had a great visit. Compared bikes, our collective of installed farkles, talked tech and in general geeked out. It even included some wine chat! :D

Pics taken by 'Nachodaddy' of Stromtrooper.com

Our meet thread

Geeking out!

Got a couple of great ride hints of routes to check out, so I loaded them up in the GPS with my final destination of the day to be Aberdeen WA, and hit the road.

Hitting the road

Made my way to two areas, Bald Peak and Cornelius Pass, both were short but very fun rides. Bald Peak went straight up and over a small mountain. Thought I was in trouble on the way down as I certainly abused the speed limits on the route and passed a couple of cars and on the way down there was a state trooper driving up the opposite side. I was going pretty slow at that point due to the extreme rate of descent and the switchbacks. However, I was nervously checking my mirrors to see if the trooper would turn around and come get me. Whew, thankfully no tickets. This entire trip I've been very very lucky with the law enforcement not pulling me over. I have certainly abused a lot of the speed limits and every time I've come across the popo, they'd already had someone pulled over, or my spidey sense had me back off not 30 seconds before. :D

My only regret about leaving Oregon was that I was riding through some of their wine country and the air was filled with the scent of fermenting grapes. Oh damn, did I ever want to stop for a couple of days to go do some wine tasting and maybe ship a few bottles back home. Plus I really wanted to go check out the Spruce Goose, its home is in McMinnville.

I was pulling into Longview WA just as the sun was setting, I had planned on riding to Aberdeen that night, but with it getting dark and being a rural area, I didn't want to risk any inadvertent close and personal meets with the local deer. I like venison, but not wedged into the front of my bike and that undercooked!

Next morning, as the weather peeps had forecast, it was pouring!

I was hoping that it would subside a bit later in the morning so I delayed leaving until 11am(checkout time at the hotel). Still pouring hard! Suited up in my long winter underwear, jeans, two shirts, electric vest and gloves, plus the waterproof pants and jacket, away I went. Nice and toasty, for all of 20 minutes until my boots started to leak at the seams and filled with water. :(

I scrapped any idea of continuing the ride further onto the coast and headed for the nearest bike shop that had a large selection of gear. In this case, Renton Motorcycles. Picked up these sexy boots and had nice warm and dry feet all the way home. Even in a torrential downpour at 130-140kph on the I5!

As I hit the customs line up the guy directing traffic felt sorry for me(he came over to commiserate how wet and cold he was, thinking I was sharing the pain) and directed me into the duty free line missing out on about an extra 10 minutes of waiting.

When my turn with customs came up, I thought to myself, I'm not taking my helmet off unless asked, it's too wet and it means taking off my gloves to do so. So off came one glove to fish out my passport. The officer asked me the routine questions, and then in the middle of that, blurted out "hey, is that an aftermarket windscreen?" turns out he's in the market to buy a V-Strom himself and had a few questions for me about it. In the end, he didn't even want to see my passport and just waved me on home.

After I arrived home, I fired up MSN to get in touch with Q, and then told her I was still on the road and was staying in Port Angeles that night. After finding out she hadn't had dinner yet, I picked up some takeout and showed up on her doorstep. :)

It was a good trip, but I'm glad to be home.

i like, i like it a lot.

2006-10-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

Yah, it's not anywhere near related to my trip, but I like it. Thanks Alon!

ugh.. and the forecast is

2006-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Rain... for the next couple of days. Damn, I was so hoping to avoid it!

oh well, I have rain gear, I have heated gloves and a heated vest.

Phoenix to wherever... currently Lincoln City, OR.

2006-10-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

I left Phoenix this past Monday, been on the road for the past four days. The first three were tedious to say the least. Three days of Interstate riding from Arizona to Redding CA. The only detour I made was through Mojave National Park, and that was still riddled with long straight stretches. sigh...

My route:

Phoenix to Lake Havasu City, yawn, I now know where old RV's/Trailers go to die, somewhere along that highway. So many in various states of decompisition parked in lots along the way. I did have one bit of some nice curves shortly before Lake Havasu, but that got stopped by a traffic accident that required a medi-vac helicopter to take the people away. Nasty stuff. Plus a storm was threatening to blow in and soak me. Oddly enough when I was leaving the hotel the next morning, a couple parked next to me asked where in BC I was from(the license plate gave it away), turns out they're from Vancouver too and live about a half block away from me on the SAME STREET!! Small freaking world, what are the chances?

Lake Havasu City to Mojave, CA. Not much to say about this, all interstate with a detour across Mojave National Preserve. Cool park, the densest forest of Joshua Trees in the state. A bit chilly up there too, they grow above 2000ft.

Mojave, CA to Williams CA. All interstate, the most excitement I had was when a tomato hauler went by and sprayed me with tomato juice that was leaking from the truck. Yah, I wan't impressed by any means. BAH! At least it wasn't a hog or cattle hauler...

Willams, CA to Eureka, CA via Redding. Things looked up once I hit Redding and headed West. Highway 299 from Redding to Weaverville is the bomb! It more than made up for the lack of twisties the past few days have served up. The engineering on the highway was incredible, back to back switchbacks and esses, perfectly banked corners, and relatively new pavement. The only complaint was a section was being repaved and they had it down to one lane with a pilot car. I showed up at the end of the line as they were going through. So once past the opposite end, I stopped for 10 minutes to let the traffic get ahead and BAM! no traffic, and a twisty road all to myself. The chunk past Weaverville to the coast was pretty amazing too, but didn't deliver quite the grin factor that the first part did.

Eureka CA to Lincoln City Or. Can I say: FUCK THE COAST IS COLD! especially after spending the past few weeks in the desert and living with +35C temps for that time. I came out of the mountains on 299 onto the 101 not far from Eureka. Fog was rolling in off the ocean, and the temperatures were dropping rapidly. I actually had to pull over an put on an extra layer, in the space of 10 minutes I was starting to shiver and was in pain from the cold.

Same thing this morning, woke up, fog in, temp was around 8C at the most. I rode all day with my winter liner in my jacket, my thermal shirt that I use to ski in, the heated vest, heated gloves and two pairs of socks. Plus my rain proof riding pants that are also quite warm and I barely was able to be comfy. Ugh. I think I need to move to Phoenix now.

Oh well, one bright point of being here in Lincoln City is someone I know is here this weekend and I'm going to unload some of my extra non-essential gear in his car. Make more room for shopping on the way back. :D

It is nice to be back on the west coast again though. The plethora of Veggie restaurants/bakeries, rednecks bitching about the vegheads and hippies(yah, the guy in front of me at the hotel in Eureka was complaining to the clerk about the hippies living on the coast and how he couldn't stand it... The clerk wasn't the most corporate looking guy either, we had a good laugh after the guy left and it was my turn to check in.)

Tomorrow, maybe head to WA with stop in Astoria for some of that yummy beer I had before.

Phoenix, etc

2006-10-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

Had an amazingly good time at Julie and Greg's place. Hung out, relaxed, bbq'd, watched a lot of movies, hung out in the swimming pool, cleaned the pool(not cause I peed in it or anything, it just needed it). Had some damn tasty pizza at a place called Oregano's, and a very decadent dessert they call a pizzookie, think of it as a small personal pizza pan, loaded with half cooked cookie dough topped with ice-cream and stuff. From their website: "A 1/2 pound of Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, or Peanut Butter Chocolate cookie dough, slightly baked in a 6-inch pizza pan then topped with 3 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream." aka heart attack in a pan. But what a way to go! :)

Funnily enough, I never made it into the city of Phoenix itself, I spend all my time in the surrounding suburbs. What I did see reminded me a lot of Calgary, modern looking city, small core of high rises, surrounded by the low level construction of the suburbs.

The only sad bit about it all was I had a very limited time to visit with my buddy Donna who now lives there. She had to leave for New Zealand for a family emergency and we only had a couple hours to hang out.

I was pretty surprised at how quickly I acclimated to the climate there. Within a few days the temps felt good and we went hiking up a mountain called Camelback, named so because it looks like a camel lying down for nap. At the time I thought it had the same elevation gain as the Grouse Grind, but it's less than half that height. Still we did it in 39C heat and it took an hour to reach the top.

Also got the bike serviced at a independent shop, called TonUp Motorcycles, it was recommended to me by someone in the 'strom' community who takes her bike there. Great shop, they came in under their quote and did a fantastic job. Also got a great tip on a place to go riding. One observation I had about riders in the area is that the majority of them had wicked chicken strips. Easy enough to do when everywhere you look it's flat and no twisties to be seen anywhere.

Turns out 'The Ride' to do in the area is a run called Tortilla Flats, one of the mechanics at TonUp, Jeremy, raved about it and said it was the best local ride. He did warn me that the road claimed on average 5 rider lives a year due to them going to fast etc. He also recommended that I do the ride early to avoid the main crush of riders and the obligatory police presence. I hit the road by 8am and was east for Tortilla Flats. The road itself starts off with low rolling hills surrounding you and the road itself winding through the valleys between them. Eventually the hills turned into a canyon and the serious twisties began. Jeremy had warned me to not get target fixated by the lake or the 'rock', they seem to be the leading cause of accidents there. Apparently there's a fair number of skid marks going into that rock. Oddly enough I didn't even notice either of them, being so used to riding in BC with the surplus of mountain passes and bodies of water to distract me. :D

What was cool about this road is that the pavement ran out and left me with 22 miles of dirt road to ride on, right through to Roosevelt Dam. The entire route is a part of the "Apache Trail". Some pretty fascinating history there. The ride on dirt was fun stuff, started out pretty slow, but as my confidence grew with the bike and the tires/conditions, I was soon cruising at 60kph, at one point I saw a big tarantula crossing the road, had to stop and get a picture of it of course.

All too soon, I was back on paved road and looking for some lunch. Sadly there was no places for lunch on that side of mountain range. The closest town was 50 miles away. Oh darn, I got to turn around and ride it again! As an added bonus, there is a nice little restaurant in Tortilla Flat. All in all, a damn fine ride.

Afterwards, as they say, all good things... I had to start getting ready to leave Phoenix and make my way back home.

Destination Phoenix!

2006-10-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

I had quite possibly the worst breakfast I've ever had in my life. Last nights over cooked roast beef with congealed gravy left out on the counter overnight would have been more appetizing! I made the mistake of eating having the breakfast buffet at the restaurant next to the motel. Hey, there were 20 other people in the room having it, can't be that bad right?

Let me sum it up:

paper thin bacon, lots of fat and tasting vaguely rancid. CHECK!
not quite cooked enough hash browns, but those bits that are cooked are burnt lending that unique smokey flavour throughout all of them. CHECK!
scrambled eggs that had the texture and feel of a fine curd dry cottage cheese, cold too. CHECK!
and the worst part, the beverage they had the nerve to call coffee. CHECK!

Thankfully the pancakes were edible and there was lots of fresh fruit to nibble on.

That disaster over with, I hit the road for Flagstaff in search of a Charbucks or perhaps a place that could pull me a decent espresso shot(I'm really really really missing my espresso machine by now).

Along the way I see signage for the turn off to Wupatki National Monument. Since it was on the way to Flagstaff, I thought what the heck, a wee detour could be fun. Shortly after getting on the road there was a road sign saying it was 30 miles away. Wasn't sure I wanted to do that big of a detour so I pulled a U-Turn and headed back to the highway, along the way I pulled into the info station setup to learn more about this area and find out what Wupatki was. First thing I see is a big map showing the road is actually a loop that comes out back on the highway, and it's reasonably twisty! Woo Hoo!!

Back to Wupatki I go, the park is made up of several ruins in different locations with the main one also being the ranger information station. The first ruin is Lomaki, a couple of smaller ruins situated in a box canyon that used to have water flowing in it. Stopped there fora quick look and then hit the road for Wupatki main site and skipped going to the other sites.

It's pretty amazing to see the place, it was built just over 800 years ago and was a thriving community at the time. The building itself used to have over 100 rooms!

I left the monument at the perfect time, when I arrived I was the only person there and a few other people showed up while I was wandering around. As I was heading out a school bus showed up full of kids on a field trip. The noise level increased dramatically!

I kept following the loop back to the main highway and the next stop was the Sunset Crater National Monument, a dormant volcano that exploded about 1000 years ago. It was pretty impressive to see the area, you came around a corner and all you could see was cinder cones in the distance and the big volcano itself. Immediately east of the volcano itself, the land to the north had a perfect slope facing south, southeast and what looked to be damn nice soil. I was thought it'd make a damn fine vineyard provided you could get enough water for irrigation. Some of my favourite wines are from the Naramata bench in the Okanagan, an area that had its soil deposited from volcanic activity and the minerals in the soil lend a very unique flavour to the wines.

At this time I really wanted that coffee so time to search it out. I hit Flagstaff quite quickly and immediately found a Starbucks for a muffin and a coffee. Ahhhhhhhhh relief.

Julie(my sister) had recommended I take the highway to Sedona out of Flagstaff. Stunning canyon with a crazy descent into it, and if I hadn't have come through on a weekend it would have been a blast to ride. As it was it was full of daytrippers and those pesky rental RV's. Average speed limit due to the curves was 35mph, however, we were lucky to hit 20mph... sigh

Oh well, it was still fun to ride and see, definitely have to make a trip back to explore it further. Looked to be good camping there too.

The town of Sedona is damn cute, and knows it! Very touristy but not overdone. They have some strict signage and building rules from what I could see. All the building are in the Adobe style and earth toned. The signs were also using typical southwest colours, even the McDonalds had to conform and was the Teal Arches.

Phoenix by this time was a couple hours away, time to get moving! As I descended out of the mountain plains into the valley that Phoenix is in the temperature started to rapidly increase, and when I hit the bottom of the valley as far as you could see were fields of Saguaro cactus's, the type the coyote was forever running into while chasing the road runner :)

Soon enough I arrived at Julie and Greg's place, sweaty, tired and in need of a shower.

Three states in a day!

2006-10-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

Managed to get a very early start out of Overton, was on the road by 8am. Okay, perhaps not early, but for me it is!

Another hot sunny dry day, they've been endless since I hit southern Oregon. Today's destination, Zion National Park in Utah and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon!

At this point I'm still in awe of the scenery in the desert, pretty damn stark and inhospitable, but it has a certain beauty. That said, by this time, I was starting to become jaded by it and it was starting to become background noise. However, there were spots that still took my breath away.

After a few hours I was at the entrance to Zion National Park. Oh, and on this ride I finally saw mountain sheep! Just hanging out right next to the highway in this stunning canyon munching on the road side grass. Totally oblivious to the four lanes of traffic rushing by them.

Zion itself is very cool, I would imagine it to be a geology students playground from the very cool rock formations there. The ride itself was a lot of fun, very scenic and rode on red pavement!

and

It didn't take long to traverse the park and soon I was heading south for Arizona. Stopped in a little town of Kanab UT for some lunch and found that they had free internet with your burger. Used that time to do a quick email check and hit the road again. I'd been without any internet access for a few days by that point. I'm sure I could have found some if I tried hard, but I really didn't want to take the time to do so.

Next stop, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the third state of the day.

I arrived at the North Rim around 4:00, at that time the sun was getting low and it made for difficult pictures shooting directly west. But it was pretty stunning to see it.

Still, it's a just a big hole in the ground, a very big hole in the ground. I'd love to come back and go hiking into the canyon on a return trip. I stayed for about an hour and needed to hit the road to find a place to camp/stay. The campsite in the park itself was full, there was a campsite back by Jacob Lakes(the turn off to the canyon). It was also getting damn cold too, at this point I'm up around 6000ft in the mountains. By the time I hit Jacob Lake I was freezing and needed to break out the liner for my jacket, plus put some full leg pants on under my riding pants. I decided that I was far too cold to camp here and wanted to get out of the mountains to find a warmer spot.

Well, good thing I filled up in Jacob Lake as it turned out to be the last gas station until Cameron AZ. By that point I was running on fumes and thought I'd have to call(provided I could find a phone or get cell reception) BCAA to deliver some fuel! It was now totally dark out and the next town was Flagstaff, I did try to find a place in Cameron, but the only motel had just one room left and it was $160 a night, thanks but no thanks. Off to Flagstaff I go(Jacob Lake to Flagstaff is about 265km, not a short ride). It was a long day, but totally worth it. Riding through the desert at night with no urban glow was pretty cool, seen the last of the sunset glowing off the cliff walls, to the sheer brilliance of the stars. Plus I met this, in her words, "crazy Navajo chick" who took my picture for me at a view point coming out of the mountains. Not just one, but four pictures in different places along the view point. :) She was pretty funny, very sweet and asked a lot of questions about where I was from and where I was going.

Thankfully about 20km down the road from Cameron was another reservation with a gas station, motel and restaurant. Even better, they had rooms available for $37. Not as luxurious as my last motel, these particular rooms were built in those portable type modular trailer/buildings. Felt like a dorm! But hey, it was cheap and clean. Kept the bugs out too, saw a couple of very large Darkling Beetles in the parking lot. Ugly critters that have a defense similiar to a skunk!

The story of Death Valley, Vegas, and a couple of little towns

2006-10-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

Managed to get an early'ish start out of Lone Pine, one more highlight here, ate breakfast at a place called Totem Cafe, a combination of Native American curio shop, western gear shop and a restaurant. Damn good bacon and eggs, had to be the thickest slice of bacon I've ever had, heavily smoked and extremely lean. Gah, by the time this trip is over, I'll be needing a serious cholestrol detox!

By 9am the temp was already approaching the high 20's, getting toasty! Made sure to stop and load up with a few liters of water to take with me. I'd already had a bit of dehydration problems already and at this point was suffering a sunburn on my lips from the sun coming through the visor on my helmet. Had to find some lifeguard strength sunblock for the lips, unfortunately the one I bought also contained lots of peppermint oil. Ever put an aromatic oil on cracked lips? OUCH!!!!

The center of Death Valley is just over 160kms from Lone Pine, the scenery was pretty stunning, from the mountains in the distance along the Owens valley, to the fields of Joshua Trees.

I eventually arrived at a descent into the valley, I was pretty excited when I saw it thinking that I had arrived at Death Valley. Not so! It was Panamint Valley, a smaller valley that I had to cross to climb the next set of mountains to get into Death Valley. The views on the descent and in the valley are spectacular. A sneak peak of what was to come from Death Valley.

Death Valley itself was pretty spectacular, and HOT! By the time I reached the appropriately named Furnace Creek, the temperature was 39C in the shade(about 1pm at this point). I had a look around the visitor centre and had a long chat about vstroms and long distance touring with a guy and his wife there. They asked a lot of questions about the bike(thinking about replacing their BMW bike with a Strom - Sorry Jason) I've found the bike attracts a lot of attention, why that is I'm not sure, but a lot of people come over to check it out.

After Death Valley I stopped in a place called Shoshone. Typical small town along the road, half a dozen businesses, and a cluster of houses. I stopped at a crepe place called C'est si bon, run by a guy named David, a bit of an eccentric to be sure. The place was cute inside, very new agey/hippy'ish in the decor and lots of it.

Had a very nice visit with the owner and a couple of women clients, one of which also rode and had to see the bike before I left. Very sweet and genuine people, and fantastic food too! I did see a sign about internet access and saw something about it being solar powered too!

Belly full of delicious vegan minestrone and a smoothie, off I headed for Nevada.

I'd planned on camping in Lake Mead National Park, just outside of Vegas. This was my first time passing through/being in Las Vegas. The kindest thing I can say about Vegas is I hate it, at least from first impressions of riding through. Ugly! But of course it could be that I was getting cranky from being tired and the heat was starting to get to me by this point. The ride through Lake Mead was pretty impressive. The road was fantastic, great twisties, most of it freshly repaved. They were still working on a 10km chunk of it and that was all loose gravel, slow going through there, but kept the shiny side up. I arrived at the first of two campsites and a had a peek. Sadly no showers on the site and that's a minimun requirement for me with camping on the bike. The sign at the campsite said there was showers at the next campsite about a 20 minute ride away. Arrived there to find that there were showers but it was only RV camping, no tent sites and more importantly, no restaurants or grocery stores for dinner.

My only option was to go to the next town, Overton, about a 30 minute ride. I managed to make it there just shortly before it started getting dark. Found a cute little motel on the main street, very old school place. Screaming deal for a room too, a grand total of $37 for a night in a bloody big suite. Had a full kitchen, dining space, and two beds.

The motel clerk recommended two different places for dinner, "one thataway, casual good'ol american cuisine, nothing fancy, the other is thataway, it's the classy place around here".

Well I opted for the classy place, wandered up the two blocks and found it to be a bistro/deli type place with a football game on the telly in one corner. Had some good food though and the service was great too. Cheap too, yummy pasta dish, salad and two beers was only $20 including tip!

Groveland to Lone Pine

2006-10-08T00:24:00.000-07:00

Got an early start this morning, destination: Yosemite National Park. The ride from Groveland to the park entrance is some amazing riding, lucky for me, I got to do it three times with my return trip the night before. Lot's of big back to back esses and sweepers. Very little traffic too, most that I caught up to pulled over to let me pass. The exception to this rule of course was those damn RV's again. What is it with those RV drivers? Bah!

Only one wildlife sighting, err make that squishing. A butterfly that still looks like a butterfly!

Talk about elevation gain too, Groveland is at around 900 meters, I hit about 3300 meters at one point. Managed to get quite a few pictures on this run too. All too soon though the park had ended and I was at the exit gate at 2800 meters and began the steep descent to the valley located one kilometer below to Lee Vining for a much needed break off the bike and a chance to get a coffee.

Other than getting swarmed by wasps at a rest stop, the ride from Lee Vining to Bishop was pretty uneventful, too many straight highways, not enough curves. The innkeeper in Groveland made me promise to stop at Erick Schat's Bakery in Bishop. She said I couldn't miss it as it was located at the only stop light. Sure enough one stop light on the highway and it was for people coming out of their parking lot!

Quite the bakery, have to highly recommend it to everyone. I didn't partake of their sweet stuff, but I did have a very nice sandwich and ice tea(have to say I'm loving the unsweetened ice tea here).

Next stop, Lone Pine.

The turn off to Death Valley is just past Lone Pine, stopped at the info centre located there to try and find a camping spot. The ranger looked at me rather incredulously when I asked about nearby camping. Turns out there are two sites within a mile of the town, however they're unmanaged and tend to attract the local yahoos with the monster 4x4's and that awful fizzy beverage that they call beer or even Bud. I did check both out, they did show signs of partying and had no services(no showers).

Found an overpriced little motel in Lone Pine, by the time I went to bed I decided I really didn't like the town and wanted out ASAP. A contributing factor was the local hip hop wannabe teens hanging out in front of the laundromat that I went to(the only one in town) and looking at my bike/gear a little too predatorily. I was starting to consider breaking out the bear spray

The one highlight of the evening was a very yummy hand tossed pizza with pesto and sundried tomatoes.

still around, still travelling

2006-09-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

I've had no internet access the past few days, not even any free wifi to poach. :(

Currently in Kanab UT for some lunch then off for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, overnighting somewhere around there and then to Phoenix tomorrow.

I'll update more later.

A study in constrasts

2006-09-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

Started the day with breakfast in Calistoga and looking up the nearest Suzuki dealer to get the bike serviced.

The Napa valley is pretty amazing, some incredibly old vineyards there, with buildings/tasting rooms that go beyond opulent.

The entire valley is scented with the sweetness of just crushed grapes. They're starting the fall crush and many vineyards have signs up stating "Crushing today" Suppose it's for the tourists benefit. I didn't stop to find out.

All too soon I was in Fairfield at the Suzuki dealership. In this case Stealership is an apt name given the price they charged me for an oil change. Oh well, it needed to be done. Found a great mexican place for lunch and then hit the road for Yosemite Nat'l Park. Back to the prairie land as I crossed the state just below Sacramento. This part of the state is a giant dust bowl, if it wasn't for aggressive irrigation, the place would truly be a desert. However, once east of Lodi and near the Camache reservoir the road started getting twisty. Much fun! I have to say DAMN! there's some twisty passes in this state. The road up to Priest was intense! Started out at 910ft above sea level and rose to 2500ft in that little bit of twistiness.

I made it to Yosemite just as dark was setting in, at that point I was already getting nervous due to a few bambi sightings along the way. They have a nasty habit of bolting in front of bikes and neither of us would win in a collision. Even more disturbing, rain was starting to drizzle in as I approached the gate station into the park. After chatting with the Ranger on duty about the temperature at night(getting down to +5C), the impending rain, the lack of restaurants/groceries for dinner, I decided to head back to Groveland, 39km west of the park. I'm now holed up in the Hotel Charlotte, got the last room too! Very cute place, definitely a "date place" for a return trip. :)

What was really amazing was once I started to climb into the mountains how the air changed. From smelling dust and the associated smells of dry grass, burnt off grass, to the smell of sage and pine trees. I've never smelt pine so intense as today(not counting opening a bottle of pine-sol)

A few pics from the past couple of days.

Between Redding and the Hwy 20 exit along the I5

...and the wine is bottled poetry

my poor broken crash bar

Don Pedro Lake