Archive for category RoadTrip2015

Road Trip Roadkill Count

So here is is, my road kill count… These are based on what I am able to identify it as when I ride by it.

Deer: 23

Raccoon: 17(5 were in one spot, mom and 4 babies)

Skunk: 8

Woodchuck: 2

Rabbit: 82 – it was insane riding through Wyoming, they were everywhere, at one point it was like a slalom course.

Opossum: 14

Large bird(some type of hawk or similar bird of prey): 11

Seagull: 4

Beaver: 2

Cat: 5

Small Dog: 1

Large Dog: 1

Cow: 1

Elk: 1

Large animal unable to be identified: 9

Small animal unable to be identified: 29

Large pavement marks but no body: 45

Small pavement marks but no body: 32

Skunk smell but not see: 9

 

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Road Trip Day Four

This was day 4

 

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Road Trip Day Three

So, this was the first REAL day of my road trip, the first two  were the weekend before and their goal was just to get me to Indianapolis where I would spend 3 days working, and then kick off the real road trip from almost halfway across the country for the stuff I actually care about seeing more than just “wasting” my time driving past stuff instead of experiencing it.

So, my day started off early, I got packed up and out on the road. Most of this day was also just busy travel, I headed out from Indy on the main highway to hit up Chicago to see Kelly for lunch. Traffic was pretty smooth for the most part right up until I got on Rt. 90 to go into Chicago to meet her at her work, such is life.

I went to college with Kelly and she is from MA originally but moved out to Chicago a few years ago, so I don’t see her as much as I used to, so I take the opportunity when it presents itself. I met her at work and we went for lunch at a burger place she recently found and it was pretty awesome. I had a bacon wrapped burger that was also  served with 4 strips of bacon on top of it with the lettuce, tomato and onion, ON A PRETZEL BUN. AWESOME. I do love me giant soft pretzels!

So I left her back to work and headed out on my way. I shouldn’t have set the GPS to avoid highways yet on my trip, because of that setting, it took me the worst possible way out of Chicago I think, anyway, it took me over 2 hours to go 19 miles before I was out of traffic. Thankfully my bike isn’t air cooled otherwise I probably would have over heated. I definitely saw some sketchy parts of Chicago on the way.

I then cruised through the Illinois countryside and into the Iowa countryside, crossed the Missisippi River and got to Cedar Rapids that night, where I stayed with a nice woman, her husband and their son via couchsurfing.com. I stayed on an air mattress in their computer room because they had another couchsurfer who was staying in their guest room. They were super nice and I was unfortunately super tired so I wasn’t super sociable with them as I normally would have been, but I spent some time in the morning talking and chatting about things prior to leaving. I really like the site, just wish most people were a little less flaky and it worked better for super short notice, but oh well.

This is about the route that I took to get from start to finish, just for personal privacy I didn’t put the exact addresses of where I stayed, but you can click on the picture to bring you to an interactive map at Google Maps.

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Road Trip Day Two

Well, I woke up and most stuff was dry, so that was good and it wasn’t raining!

I packed up and was ready to go by about 8:15, which was really good. I had a good amount of distance to travel today, so I need to get going early.

Since there was no rain, I put the fullface under the seat and put on the half helmet instead, much more comfortable to begin with and I skipped the rain pants because they aren’t the most comfortable and the legs ride up a little because the inseam isn’t long enough and my lower legs and boots get SOAKED.

Well, I got soaked anyway, the rain started lightly about 5 minutes after I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. I knew there was some light rain in the area, so when it was light I was expecting it, and I was traveling west, which was going to have me drive out of the rain more quickly since I was going in the opposite direction the storm was moving. It didn’t matter, I was soaked to the bone in about 30 minutes or so. Initially just my lower legs and then it started to creep up and eventually every bit of my jeans were completely and utterly soaked, you could tell by the change in color of them, but you could tell they were completely saturated when they wouldn’t absorb any more water and it was just puddling up and running off my legs.

Fortunately, around 10:30 or 11, the rain tapered off and while the sun didn’t really come out, there were some small breaks in the clouds and it thinned out to let more light through, which warmed thing up and when I put my feet up on the highway pegs I was able to get mostly dried off.

Then when I was mostly dry, it rained again, but only a quick one for about 20 minutes, but it was enough to get me plenty went again, although it did lead to more sun and more warmth to dry me off more.

Then it rained again for about 20 minutes, and the cycle repeated itself.

Finally, around 1pm it stopped raining for me and the sun came out. It was wonderful! Warm sun, cool breeze, and dry roads that I could just cruise on. I did come to a realization while I was riding both on the dry and on the wet roads, it’s not my riding skill that I have any doubts about. I am confident in every aspect of my skill and abilities while riding. Do you know what I don’t have confidence in? My equipment, aka the bike and the tires more than anything.

My confidence is definitely rising in the equipment. At first, I was hesitant with turns because I still have flashbacks from the Europe trip when my front tire kicked out and the bike went down and I hit a car, with my leg pinned between the muffler and bumper of the car. However, after a significant amount of time riding, I became much better with dealing the wet pavement, counter steering and leaning with the turns at speed versus slowing down.

I traveled 725 miles on this day, it was almost an 11 hour day riding, I stopped for gas 5 times versus only once on the trip the day before.

I was almost annoyed when there was a mild spitting of rain when I had about 15 minutes left in my trip, but it was only quick and I didn’t show up completely soaking wet.

A few other things I realized, saw, or thought of on this day…

  • While I did not buy them because of the OCC branding on them, the orange tinted safety glasses I got are possibly one of the best riding glasses I have owned, not too much tint, but enough to cut glare and clear up sight. They also have no leakage, no bright color spots where there are gaps because they fit close to the face, like proper safety glasses should. They also stand up to small bits of sand and such that get kicked up by other vehicles.
  • Too many people don’t realize how much water is kicked up off the road when they are wet by their cars, even when not raining and they need to not pull back into a lane in front of a motorcycle as closely as they do, I am wet enough already, I don’t need you adding more to it!
  • It was really weird seeing a “Baltimore Orioles, AL East Champions” billboard in the middle of nowhere in Western PA.
  • That awkward moment when you are completely trusting of your GPS to be guiding you when all of a sudden you enter West Virginia when you think your next state in Ohio. Then you remember about that weird little shoot of WV that sticks up the western side of PA.
  • Irony of being cut off and almost hit by a vehicle with multiple “Check Twice for Motorcycles” stickers on it.
  • While I dislike grooved pavement being prepped for paving, I hate it when it’s wet even more.
  • I am not sure if there are more porn and adult toy “dens” along the highway in Ohio or fireworks stores.
  • I giggled all 3 times I saw the sign “Entering Licking County”
  • I saw 3 completely closed and shuttered Harley Davidson dealerships on the trip off the side of the highway.

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Road Trip Day One

Well, I got out a little later on day one than I wanted to, my initial plan was to leave between 8 and 9 in the morning, but I was realistic in my expectations to leave between 8 and 11 in the morning, however, in my traditional family style, I left about 11:30. Why be on time?

So things didn’t go as quickly as I had hoped. First, I had to stop in Shrewsbury at my baseball team’s manager’s house to drop him off an iPad and charger that we use for scoring the games. While we keep a book, the iPad just makes the stats easier to see and thus easier for him to not have to calculate them, and he can get them uploaded to the website a little quicker. Plus, while I am gone I think one of my teammate’s 8 year old son is going to be doing a lot of the score keeping, and he is much better on the ipad than he is with the actual book keeping score.

So, got that dropped but it wasn’t a stop totally out of the way, only added about 15-20 minutes to the trip, the real problem was the traffic on the mass pike. It was brutal, way worse than I was expecting for a Saturday, if it had been Friday I could have understood, but was rather annoying, although it did help me get used to managing the weight of the bike with all the gear at slower speeds. Much easier to manage when traveling quickly and you have the help of the bike to keep things on the level.

Then, a little over halfway through CT the rain started, it was light at first but I pulled over under a bridge and suited up. My raincoat, my bright orange rain pants, and my full face helmet. Fortunately, I chose not to attach the full face to the spot under the seat because I would have had to completely unpack almost everything to get it off the bike, and that would be no fun on the side of the highway.

Boy did it really start to rain though, I charged on though, pushed and pushed, got wetter and wetter. I actually ended up stopping a little bit early in the rain because I realized it wasn’t going to let up, and my gear wasn’t actually waterproofed, so I spent $20 at a truck stop to buy a 4’x8′ tarp that I then folded in half and bungy cord tied it around my gear, there was a small opening on the top of the back, but I figured physics would help me out given that it wouldn’t be able to have much water fall into it with me traveling at speed, which is the same reason why even though my GPS is not technically covered, it’s within an inch or two of the windshield which means any water that falls behind it will end up hitting my tank instead because the GPS moves too far horizontally while the water is falling vertically, so there is a small triangle of space that never gets hit with water.

So, after a total of 6 hours or traffic, stops and rain I realized it was time to stop for the night, sadly I had only gone about 250 miles, a tad off from the 400-450 I was hoping to make the first day. So I vowed to make it into PA and then to just stop at the first Hilton brand hotel I came across since I could use points an it wouldn’t cost me anything.

There it was, Hampton Inn, my savior, but on top of being hard to get to because there were no signs and the roads were annoying, I had another problem. While I was pretty sure I knew the answer, I asked the front desk anyway; “Can I book with points through you, or do I need to do it online?” She responds, “you need to either call Hilton or o it online.” “No problem” I say as I pull out my phone and start to look for my Hilton app, which I apparently don’t have on my new phone, and then she interrupts me and says “but that won’t do you any good, we are completely booked up for the night.”

Say WHAT?!?!?

I was truly shocked that a Hampton Inn in this area would be sold out, any Hampton Inn really, but apparently there were 2 large weddings in the area, and many of the people going were staying there. Well shoot… alright… internet save me now!

I went to Priceline and did a local search to see what I could find for a place to stay, found a place that looked a little sketchy, but the price was a little higher than I wanted, but given the scarcity of rooms in the area, I just took the opportunity to get a place to sleep and dry out for the night.

Got there, got myself unloaded and then instead of using my bike cover, I just used the tarp I had to cover the bike and tied it down with those tiny little bungees with the ball on them I never think I would use, but can’t not put in my bag of stuff because they are so small they aren’t a hassle.

Then came the drying out of everything.

I cranked the heat and put the ironing board at a low level to help dry out my jeans while I hung out in shorts, and then I put the hair dryer into my boot to get that all dried out.

Then I just laid down for awhile to dry out my brain and my body.

Then I decided to repack everything to alter where things were based on what I would need to access during the trip and what I would need at night.

Then I slept… I slept really well!

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Road Trip 2015 – PreTrip

So, I am taking my summer vacation time and I am taking a nice long road trip and I will be taking it on my motorcycle, all packed up and heading out.

I am making the best use of my vacation time and the locations of offices my company has.

So in order to maximize my enjoyment time while riding and being able to spend the most time in places I want to see, I am eliminating some of what I call my “beat feet” time into non-vacation time. “Beat-feet” time is time where I just need to get from point A to point B and I don’t care about sight-seeing or anything like that in the middle. For example, on a trip where you are flying by airplane to get there, the “beat-feet” would be everything from home, to the airport and then the flight itself usually.

So, my company has an office in Indianapolis, and I don’t really care about seeing anything between home and Indy, so I just need to get there as quick as I can and not worry about seeing anything since I have seen most of it before and it is just not what interests me. So, I will take a weekend and travel from home to Indy and then I will crash with a co-worker who was nice enough to offer to let me stay there. This is key because it take finances into account, and keeping costs low is what will enable me to take this trip.

So now, I will be halfway(a third?) across the country and I will stay here for 4 nights, Sunday through Thursday morning and work at our office there for a few days before I head out on what is going to be the real part of my vacation.

I am taking 10 days off, which is 10 days Mon through Fri for vacation. I realized that I could give myself an extra 2 days if I was able to break up my vacation with a week of work in the middle. So I have 2 groups of 2 weekends and 2 weeks of workdays put together, for 2 sets of 9 days instead of just 1 long stretch of 16 days, 3 weekends and 2 weeks of workdays.

So how exactly do I make that work? Well my company also has an office located in Southern CA in Orange County just south of Los Angeles, so if I stay in that area for a week and work, I get my bonus 2 days thrown in there. Fortunately for me, I happen to have an aunt and uncle who live not too far from my company’s office in SoCal, so I spoke to them, and they are nice enough to let me stay with them while I am there. Win! Since again, no outright cost for a place to stay which is key. I then travel from SoCal on the way home, and will stay in Indy again for the week and work there, and then spend another Sat/Sun to travel home from Indy.

On top of this I am making my trip coincide with the weekend of July 4th, but July 4th is a Saturday, however, we are granted the 3rd of July as a day off in recognition of the July 4th holiday. So I can tack on an extra day for a stretch of 10 days instead of 9. Then, I worked Memorial Day weekend for an upgrade, which grants me a bonus free day off on the year in payment for taking away my holiday time by working. Well, let’s tack on another day to that 4th of July weekend, so I will leave on July 2nd instead of 3rd from Indy.

Now the trip, what is it I want to see? I have a list of things, this is mostly in order of what is planned to see, this may change and I will add or subtract things as fitting for the trip, all depends on time. This will be similar to my trip a couple years ago in Europe where I don’t have an exact plan of what I am doing each day, I just have a general idea of things I want to see and try to fit them in.

Week 1(11 days): Leave Indy and head towards SoCal and see the following

  • Chicago for lunch with K
  • Mount Rushmore
  • Wall Drug
  • Badlands
  • Grand Teton NP
  • Yellowstone NP
  • Lolo Pass
  • Walla Walla
  • Crater Lake
  • Redwoods
  • Lassen Volcanic NP
  • San Francisco for dinner with J&G
  • PCH/Big Sur

Week 2(9 Days): Leave SoCal and head back to Indy

  • Death Valley
  • Vegas
  • Hoover Dam
  • Grand Canyon South
  • Grand Canyon North
  • Zion NP
  • Bryce Canyon NP
  • Monument Valley
  • Four Corners

So that’s the overall trip, a lot of these things I have wanted to see, and I know I am not going to see everything in them, I mean, you can spend a week in Yellowstone, Crater Lake, or Grand Tetons by themselves, but I am going to see the highlights, and take notes for later trips when I want to spend a week somewhere. However, a lot of these places aren’t places you are going to spend a whole week of vacation going to see, they are meant to be tiny small pieces of a much larger road trip, so I am making them exactly that.

Aweosme right?

 

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