road trip post for Thursday 7/17

Thursday morning I had breakfast with Lark and her friend Lisa and then started toward Salem and Portland.There is beautiful scenery all the way up the coast.
I got my Oregon sticker at this surf shop. For free!
I made it to Salem and got a charger for my phone. She also gave me a new cover for it, because she was going to throw it away. I guess they aren't making it any more. Which kind of explains why it won't charge up and I can't use it without the ear bud. But it's got patriotic swagger!

I hung out in Salem for a few hours. The Barista at the coffee shop talked about getting out of Salem and I tried to assure her that it really was possible.Found my way up to Portland to the Portland Actors Conservatory for the graduation showcase. I was part of the first graduating class there back when acting was first invented.


I met Maureen and her husband Philip there and they put me up for the night. It was pretty great to roll into the rose city and feel at home after being gone for so many years.

road trip post for Wednesday 7/16

When I woke up this morning, this little fella was trying to sneak into my tent...
That'll put you off breakfast.

I only had about 200 miles to go today, so I had time to stop for pictures of motorcycle-attacking dinosaurs.

I got to Florence and met my stepmom Lark. We ran some errands and had dinner. She's moving to central Oregon, so she's in the middle of a lot of packing and coordinating. I can sympathize. But I didn't have to figure out how to pack up any horses or dogs.
This one reminds me of the 3 stooges. Hello, hello... helloooooo... Hello! The house was partly packed, so she put us up at a hotel, and she fed me too. As I understand it, some people have a very hard time being homeless. For me, it's working out great so far.

Lark gave me a few things that were my Dad's. Including some loose Vietnamese coins that he'd had for all these years. I counted them up, 65 Dong, and looked up the exchange rate. 65 Dong comes out to about .oo3 dollars. Not quite half a cent. 1 Dong coins might have more conversational value than monetary value. It'll be interesting to see what the Vietnamese folks think of the 1 Dong coins. Do they collect them like we collect pennies? Instead of empty water cooler jugs, do they keep them in empty grain silos or tanker trucks until they've collected enough go to the movies? Am I going to need a dump truck to carry around my loose change? I'll find out. She also gave me some US currency to help me along. It was much more compact.

Before bed, I walked down to the beach. The Oregon coast is my favorite place on this planet. It felt good to get my feet wet, even though it was cold, and think about going to the other side of that ocean.

road trip post for Tuesday 7/15

Tuesday, I made my way up to Redwood National Forest. Heading up I-5 was one long, flat, boring stretch of interstate. I was going to cut over to 101 on CA 20, but I missed the turn. My next chance was CA 36. As I got close there was a flashing advisory sign, so I pulled over and got out my crappy little wind up radio to see what it said. I was worried that it would be closed from forest fires, but the advisory just said to look out for crews and equipment, but it was open. When I got on CA 36 I saw a sign that said curves “next 170 miles”. If I ride long enough to have a top 10 list of motorcycle roads, this will be on it. Beautiful twisties, and nice little rises, and long curves... I had a great time in Hollywood, and San Francisco, and Sacramento, but now I felt like I was on a motorcycle trip again. Absolutely beautiful. And there were a lot of other bikes. Apparently there is a rally or race or something coming up called the GT or GP something.

There was a some visible aftermath of the fire, and it's going to take a while for the scenery to grow back, but the road was awesome.

When I got over to 101 I headed up to the redwoods. They are really impossible to get in a picture, but they are big, beautiful trees, just as you would expect. Made me feel like a hobbit - in a good way (nothing against hobbits).


This day was a highlight of the trip. I was worried that I'd wear the center of my tires totally flat, but I finally got a chance to round out the tread wear a little.

At the camp (which was almost full on a Tuesday) I was greeted by the unofficial mascot of the northwest even though I was still in California.


Cute little fella, huh?

I set up camp and enjoyed what will be my last campfire for a while.

road trip post for Monday 7/14

Monday morning, Tim and me wandered around the Castro looking for a California sticker for my bike.


We went to a little Vietnamese coffee shop and I got some pho. It's a Vietnamese noodle dish that Americans tend to call “foh” - like “oh”, but I've heard differently. So I asked the guy how to pronounce it and he said it a lot more like “fuh” - as in “uh”. So that's what I'm going with. Apparently Vietnamese people eat it for breakfast or any old time. I got it vegetarian style, with tofu, but they guy told me that beef is big in Hanoi. My pronunciation question launched a 10 minute conversation and I was worried that it was going to get cold before I ever had a chance to taste it. Really nice guy.

I found my new sticker at the HRC store, let Tripp the dog inspect it for me...

and got on the road. I wanted to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, and Tim tipped me off to a good place to get a good shot of it. I would up the hill and found the spot. I had climbed quite a bit but I still had to look up to see the top of the bridge. It was a little foggy, but you could still see the city beyond the bridge.

It wasn't too far to Sacramento, where Saffron found me after her rehearsal.


We spent the evening taking in the sites of Sacramento. There's the capitol...

And a big mall with things like, a place to purchase jeans...

...enjoy a meal in the food court...
...and teach your children to kill aliens and/or zombies...
We saw Hancock in the movie theater (which was really lame) and called it a night.

road trip post for Sunday

Sunday was the day of the daschund. At about 6, Ivory's friend came over with her dog. They were getting a ride to the airport and catching a flight, so he was already on doggie downers.
I headed for San Francisco. I took 101 most of the way. I'd been on US 1 before, and it was pretty cold on the coast. Also, going up the coast all the way would have taken something like 13 hours, so I decided on 101 instead. It was a little hazy in spots, but I haven't run into any detours due to fires yet.
I made it to my friend Tim's place around 5 or so, where he, his husband, and their dog were putting me up for the night.
They have a beautiful place on a hill. (I guess everything in San Francisco is on a hill.) And, they had a nice guest room with a big, soft bed.
It was a pretty long ride up from LA, so I slept like a baby. A dead baby on heavy tranquilizers.

road trip post for saturday - Tijuana

With my passport safely in hand, my buddy Mark and me were free to take a quick trip from LA down to Tijuana - as soon as he was done with rehearsal. I met him at about 1:30, and he let me take his Kawasaki KZ 1000 for a spin around the block before we headed south.
The KZ is a really cool bike. Totally different from what I'm used to. It's wider, lower, bigger, and it's what the blues brothers would ride if they had motorcycles. It's an old police bike and still has the switches for the lights and sirens.

Mark led the way in lane-splitting LA style, and we made it across the border in a little over 2 hours. In spite of the google map directions, which didn't take a big wall that separates our two countries into account.

I think this shot is funny and also a little sad.
This might be even sadder. Spiderman is now shilling for some Tijuana club. Oh Spidey, why? (That's an actual person in that costume crawling around on a little scaffold 3 floors above the street.)
They had boxing in the street, and donkeys painted to look like zebras. One guy told us they had everything we wanted. There was another guy that highly recommended a massage parlor. Some sort of walk-in massage therapy clinic I suppose. I sure could have used a massage after that ride, but we had too much to see, and not enough time.

We got some really great tacos. I had a coke that reminded me of summers at Grandma and Grandpa's place when I was a kid. That must have been before they started sweetening it with corn in the US. And, I had a real Cuban cigar (after turning down a dozen "real" Cuban cigars).
And, a great new sticker for the collection. Really ties the whole thing together don't you think?

Being on motorcycles probably saved us at least a couple of hours. We got to sneak up to the front of the line on the way out of Tijuana, while dodging people selling everything from food to ceramic turtles to puppies, and it only took about 15 min to get through the line and back to the US of A.

road trip post for friday

Friday the coyotes woke me up and I got a chance to watch the sunrise, and get an early start to LA.
Bugs get up early too. This is a shot from inside my helmet:

I had to get on the interstate, which I was trying to avoid, but I made it to Jim and Ivory's place.


I got over to the post office and picked up my package from the Vietnamese Embassy. It was supposed to have my passport and work visa. When I opened it, all I saw was my passport and my heart sank. But, it turns out that the work visa is actually pasted into the passport, so all is well. Huge relief.

Jim and me went to Venice beach. They were shutting down for the night by that time, but we walked around, got a slice of pizza, and called it a night.