Across Americas - Discovering the New World on a motorcycle

Nice to meet both of you also! Sorry we did not have more time to talk but we will be following your trip...

This might be another good thread to follow on ride reports for info as you travel South.

Radioman Rides the World.......

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Coming from crowded, expensive and vastly deforested Europe, this sight is a pure wonder for us. People would pay good money back in our country to have this wood for heating fire, during winter. Here it is not economical to carry it so it is burned on the spot, with no added value.​

Now, I am not by any means an economist but just a meager traveling Engineer, but still this things make you wonder how our lives are sometimes directed purely by economics. And I wonder if this is a good thing… But I digress.


---The above practices have been going on for a long time in this province...
The forest companies are allowed to hi-grade the best part of the tree and burn the rest... I believe if someone was able to generate revenue out of those piled trees they would get scaled and that scale would be deducted from the logging companies annual allowable cut... So it is in the best interest of the big forest companies to just burn all the less valuable parts of a tree... The degree of waste has gotten really bad over on Vancouver Island as the government has given the companies the anything goes nod to supply the Chinese market with raw logs ... It is unbelievable at how fast they are knocking down the Islands forest to supply this market and around half of what they are knocking down is just being piled up and burnt.... I was employed 15 yrs back as a pile burner... Our normal day was to mix up 400 liters of napalm and run it through a flamethrower to ignite these piles... I did not stay on this job too long as I didn't feel right about what we were doing...

It was great to meet you 2 in Nakusp, have a safe journey south...

David..




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You have our guest room ready and waiting. We live in the Northwest corner near Panama City. Ride safe..

Great update.Really like the pics.I agree with those that think they are wasting wood there.Many people around our country are hurting for wood to make repairs and heat their homes.

In!

Need to bookmark my place in this. What a great RR.

Great RR love reading it!

As I was mentioning last time, this post will be a little bit atypical. For around 4 days, we wouldn’t move our motorcycle much from it’s parking lot but still we would get to reach far away places by following the stories of others.
We are not the only ones planning not to move the motorcycle for a while

Right, I will start by confessing something that probably will turn away the male have of our audience (after the female have of the audience probably fled already after reading that this post will be about a motorcyclists meeting). OK so this motorcyclists meeting didn’t had “interesting” ingredients as “almost-naked-female-passengers” or wet T-shirts contest or rock concerts with lots of booze.
So hopping that not everybody is gone, I should continue saying that Horizons Unlimited Meeting is basically a pretext for long traveling motorcyclists and other overlanders to meet and exchange ideas, stories and pictures. Hmmm still it was my first motorcycle meeting so I was quite curious how it will go…

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During the day there are presentations about the journeys, places and people meet on the way.

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Also there are sessions with useful information organized for the newbes (like me). For example how to change your tire. Or how to fix a flat.

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One session that I was really looking for: how to pack light. Life in 12 kilos… yeah right… we are so far away from that. yet…

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And beyond all the presentations the most useful part for me was that I got the chance to meet all these people who were like-minded. I could tell the guy next to me that I am planning to go to Argentina and he wouldn’t think I am crazy. If anything, probably he would even give me some advice as he was already on a similar trip. That is just awesome.

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In the “parking lot’ there were all kinds of contests happening. Like “slow riding”:

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The atmosphere is relaxed and you basically could talk with anyone, exchanging ideas about bike modding, camping gear, what works what does not. And you had the chance to take a lot of pictures. Which I did.
There is a monster lurking :

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Past and present:​

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A young German and a delicate Italian lady are sharing the same camping spot.​

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Thanks Susan and Grant for organizing the event. Glad that we volunteered to help!​

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That’s it for now. From next time we will be on the road again, heading for Vancouver.​

We will discover how the information from the training “Fix that flat” would come into play sooner than we expected. We will meet great friends in Vancouver area and we’ll find out if Gunnar is ready for the trip South. Stay tuned!​

Written from a restaurant and functioning on coffee.​

Those moto meetings are much better than those with drunken nearly naked women.Good update.

After 4 days of camping we manage to gather our stuff quite slowly. It is amazing how fast you get out of being efficient with packing (not that we ever were too efficient). Still, today we have in front of us an interesting road. “Man, take the road to Kaslo. It’s number 2 in Canada for driving” several people told us at the meeting. Well I do not know how number 1 is but oh my God road number 2 was so great! I do not think the bike was up straight more than a few minutes the hole way. The rest of the time it was just leaning to the right or to the left, following the winding road. And we were not the only ones to know about this roate… A quick look in the mirrors:

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The road becomes crowded quite fast and the few cars that were also there are kind enough to let us pass. I soon find out that I am too slow for the speed bikes and corner carvers so, all loaded up and quite slow I find other partners to ride with. A few dozens of them:

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Gunnar is quickly addopted in the cruisers pack and we ride together.​

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We go on towards a small town called Nelson and we part ways. They are looking for a camping site, we have to continue on riding as Collen, our host, was expecting us. The green mountain forests give way to the yellowish hills​

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We are tempted to stay more at Colleens but we were already behind with time. We say good bye and continue our journey through farms, cows and horses set in an idyllic landscape.​

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We feel that we are in Montana. And we are in fact very close to the border with the U.S. But we are not going there yet. First we go to Vancouver. Starting the day late means you will probably finish it late and true enough, by the time we reach the outskirts of the city the sun was playing was playing with the High Voltage Power line.​

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It is strange how initially we weren’t even thinking of going to Vancouver (not to mention we didn’t knew anybody there) and we ended up visiting the city and the Vancouver Island where so many wonderful people reached out to us. We got also the chance to meet some of them​

Traian and Mihaela host us for a few nights and we get to rest and also to share ideas about common plans. If all goes well, Traian will leave for South America as well, only he will use something a little different, with 4WD and rugged looks. Two different machines, made to chase the same dream!​

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Then we moved on Vancouver Island in Nanaimo. We met Kev in Nakusp. Even though he knew us only for 2 days, he invited us to stay with his family and then spend the better part of day working together with me on Gunnar.​

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Cleaning filters, improving the luggage sidecases latches and the most importantly, managing to to eliminate two oil leaks ( engine oil and fork oil) that Gunnar started to have. Both of the problems were “human error” and hopefully now they are fixed for good. I also get to learn a lot of tricks of what to do in order not to “push the bike” if the thing goes bad on you on the side of the road. Again, information that I hope to never have to apply but which it is good to know.​

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Kev’s friend Mark, who just changed his Vstrom for a GS1200 (we all do sometimes crazy irrational things right Mark? ), donated us the headlight grill that should protect Gunnar’s “eyes” from now on. I am not sure if we will ever be in a situation that will put the grill to work but for sure the bike looks much more “bad ass” now! Thank you Mark!​

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We leave from Kev’s family in Nanaimo feeling that we leave old friends​

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We would have stayed some more but we had to rush back to the mainland for… a wedding. Back in Romania, some dear friends got married on 1st of September and we missed the wedding as we were very far away. But then Chif and Ana which whom we stayed in our first night in Vancouver told us that they are going to get married on 2nd of September. And so it seems some things fall into place in life. We miss a wedding back home but we have the chance to take part in a Romanian wedding in Vancouver. And so we did.​

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Best wishes Ana and Chif​

After the ceremony we gather our gear and head for the boarder, departing Canada for the last time in this trip. Thank you Canada! You’ve been wonderful!​

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Next time we get lost on the back roads of Washington State and eventually we find our way to a hot springs retreat!​

Just loving the commentary and the photos.

Keep riding safe!

I know I promised last time that we will tell you the story from Washington but we can not move on without writing a few lines about how we got to visit Vancouver while we were staying at Traian’s place. Initially I was going to include this part in the last post but I guess it has to have it own space.
So, back at Traian’s house, having a free day on my hands I decided to change the oil and filter of the VStrom. While working on that, I get to meet Bill, Traian’s neighbor how offers to help with a funnel and a tool to easily remove the filter. After I finish the work I return the tools to Bill and he invites me to see his Harley Davidson bikes. He has 4 or 5 of them in the garage. We get to talk some more and Bill tells me that if I would like, I could go for a ride in the town with one of his bikes. I say thank you but I couldn’t. He tells me that I should try it. I decline again and start heading back home. On the way though I am thinking “And exactly why can’t you do it? He seemed honest when he was offering you one of his bikes. You are done working for the day so what better things do you have to do now? Staying in front of the laptop? I turn back and tell Bill that if he is really OK with it, I would like to have a ride on one of his Harleys.
And ask Andreea if she wants to ride a Harley and sure enough we are ready to go in no time.

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We giggle at the idea that we are so “wrong” on this bike. Not only that we do not have any Harley apparel, we look so “off” with our touring suits and full face helmets on… Well nevermind. Bill encourages us to just go and he points out a place from where we could see the city.​

Let’s ride!

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The thing beneath us is a beast. V engine of some 1800 cc, it is so different that our easy and slow going Gunnar. And I like it. The sound, the power the grunt. On the road Andreea is trying desperately to hold on as her seat is very small and there are no luggage cases no bars, nothing that she could support herself. She just has to hold tight on me. This brings back memories from our first ride together, when she was holding as tightly on an SV650. Who would have belived that in some time she will end up taking pictures, eating and even sleeping on the bike. Not on this one though.
We reach the top of the mountain, in a small parking lot and we check out the view.

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After moving around for half an hour we also relax on the grass, take in the views and the nice sunset. Everything is going great. We are soon ready to roll and enjoy the ride back home. Wooo hooo that will be fun, I am really looking forward to try the power of the big V engine some more.

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But wait, something is not quite OK. The bike is somehow clumsy. What’s the matter? Andreea tells me from the side: we have a flat tire!

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Wait a minute. That was not part of the Harley Davidson advertisement brochure. What to do now? We were relaxed enough to leave home wihtout our tire repair kit (it was going to be only a 10 miles ride… and we couldn’t possibly have a tire flat so close to home on such a short ride, right? hmmm)
By pure chance I wrote down Bill’s number before leaving home. (Just in case I thought) And we had a case now! I call him and sure enough, he is not answering and the voice message comes in. I leave him a message, being careful to start with “Hi Bill, do not worry, we are OK, the bike is OK” and telling him where we are and that we have a flat tire.
OK, now what? There was no point in just waiting there in the parking lot so we start thinking about our options. I figure that if I manage to pomp some air in the tire maybe it would hold enough to get home. 10 miles are not that many. So let’s see, do we have a compressor around here? We look wishfully at the bike from all the angles, we go around it a few times, we examine here and plead with her. To no vain. No compressor miraculously appears near it. Well, lets try to find one here. We are in a parking lot after all with quite a lot of cars. So it begins my first awkward part of “Operation rescue”. Imagine you take your girlfriend or your wife to a nice romantic ride with the car. You reach the top of a nice mountain with a nice view of Vancouver. Then a guy in a strange suit comes along and asks with a foreign accent if you have an air compressor.
But amazingly enough a guy did had one and was willing to lent it. I return enthusiastically at the bike with the compressor in hand.

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Great! we have a compressor. Let’s use it. Wait a minute, this bike for sure has a power plug, right?
We start again to “dance” around the motorcycle, examining it and pleading with all the odds to find a power plug. Again in vain. That’s all right, we will not give up. Here goes episode two of our “Operation rescue” mission. I push the bike near the entrance of the parking lot and wait for cars to come in. Again, imagine yourself driving to this romantic spot with a lovely lady in your car, and then, just as you about to arrive and your mind is already racing towards hmmm nice things, bam, a guy in a strange suit waves at you to stop the car and lower your window. I try to compensate that with a really nice smile and my best “I am not a bad guy” look. Eh, again we are in luck. A guy helps us with power from his cigaret lighter and we put the air compressor to good use.
Perfect. Now we are in business. Go go go!

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We thread our way back on the road we came, rushing a little bit to cover the distance quickly. But just 2 or 3 miles on the way, on a stretch of fast road with only forest around us, I notice the tire is flat again. All the air is out. Mmmm so now we are on the side of the road, with cars swhisshing by, no air compressor, no tire repair kit and the night is settling. But for some reason we are not worried and we are still having fun. It was like a quest to reach back home. And we felt rather safe as we weren’t that far out of the city. Worse case scenario we could have walked back the remaining 7 miles but we didn’t want to leave the bike there in the forest.
We watch the cars passing by in speed. They must hurry to get back home. Sure, they do not have a flat tire. We try to wave and stop some but with no success. I guess a smile is not enough anymore as the nights descents on the road. To make things even better, some cyclists pass by and tell Andreea “That’s what you get for riding a Harley!” … what can I say… “That is not ours, bu still, it is not nice to say that…”
Not long a taxi stops by. I guess the smell of money is more powerful than the fear to stop on the side of the road in the dark. We decide to send Andreea back home in order to find rescue and to let people know our new location. I remain with the motorcycle. In the mean time during our stay there for almost 2 hours, from all the cars and motorcycles and bikes that passed by, only 2 guys on SS motos stopped. They didn’t have a flat tire kit with them but one of them was living near by and he offered to go home and bring it. Thank you!
After a while help comes from multiple ways. Bill comes with a car in the same moment as the 2 motorcyclists return from their home. I thank the 2 guys and then I put the knowledge acquired in Nakusp about how to fix a tire to some good use.
So the story has a happy ending with all of us returning safely back home.

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Despite the small incident with the tire (or maybe due it) we had excellent fun in that ride. We thank Bill again for his kind offer and also for coming to our rescue. Harley Davidson makes some nice rides. I wouldn’t take one (at least not the particular one that I’ve ridden) on a long trip. But with a little setup, any bike can go anywhere.
From tomorrow, we are back in Gunnar’s saddle and we will ride the “American dream”.

Back in the United States: September 2-4

This border crossing was smooth. The customs officer didn’t know what to do when we told him we are from Romania, he considered having us pull over, wanted to make a phone call, but he gave up eventually (maybe he wanted to avoid extra paperwork).
And here we are in the United Sates again, this time in Washington state. We get on Interstate 5 heading South, as we didn’t have a clear destination and wanted to ride some extra miles.
We are indeed in US and we are impressed by the highways system.

We don’t fit here, our speed, 100 km/h, is inappropriate. Everybody is passing us. We are left behind even by that category who are “on vacation and I am taking my ship with me”.

We keep our own pace and we approach the first big American city, Seattle.

We leave the madness on the highway for the city one. Everybody is enjoying the free day (try to find Andreea in the photo below).

We are actually looking for Pike street, to see the first Starbucks coffee.

We find it but there is a big queue so we prefer to see it from outside and enjoy some music.

We have lunch on the grass in the nearby park watching the restless the ferries carrying people and cars.

We discover that the Norwegian Pearl that we saw in Skagway was also back from it’s Alaskan adventure.

I would have liked to meet some of the passengers and asked them what they thought about Alaska.

After lunch we have our first city adventure when a driver almost hit us while trying to get out of a parking lot in a hurry. I manage to hit the brakes on time, let him get on with his his life on the run and find our way out of the city , without stopping at the Boeing factory. I would have liked to visit the factory where they made the planes I flew with so many times but that was not the time for it.

Maybe it was the lunch, the city, or the crazy driver but I wasn’t feeling so good so next time we stop we decide to find a place to stay in Tacoma, so we contact two advrider users from “tent space”.
It’s amazing, they both answer in less than 2 hours. So here we are heading towards Fox Island to meet Jake and Tammy, the first one who answered us. And we get the chance to visit Fox Island, a great place that we would have missed otherwise.

From one of the bridges we can see Mount Rainier bathing in the sunset light.

The best part in riding a motorcycle is that you can change your destination according to the places you see on the way. So we decide to get a better look at the 14,411 ft volcano.

Until then, we explore Fox island and park Gunnar for the night in front of another garage full with motorcycles. Jake and Ty are working on a new auxiliary lighting system for their KTM.

We get new maps, directions and good thoughts from Jake and his family and head up to Rainier. Actually, the Indians named the mountain Tacoma and we like the old name more.

There is a fee, of course, to get inside the national park. We show our pass to the pretty ranger and she gives us a smile in return.

We are part of the dream, we travel on a windy road, towards a high mountain, enjoying the blue sky above.

And so we arrive in Paradise, a small mountain resort. When you first see it you tend to think it’s at least a Garden of Eden.

But if we check the whole picture…. Things are not so pretty.

Lots of people and cars. No road, no traffic but we couldn’t have gotten there otherwise. We still think that too many people in one place can easily damage nature. We leave the “Paradise” and get back on less traveled roads, hanging on the mountain side.


We planned to camp in an orchard for the night, so we had to reach Oregon border. We follow our GPS and it’s taking us to nice places. Thick forests, paved roads.

Thicker forests, thinner paved roads.

And then….. gravel!

We didn’t plan this. Gunnar’s tires are pretty worn out, we want paved roads! Modern navigation had failed us, we took a wrong turn somewhere. After checking the paper map we see where but it was too far to go back.

We decide to continue on this road. The compass assures us we are on the right direction so we keep heading south.

The paper map didn’t show all the roads but the signs directed us to a place called Trout Lake. We didn’t plan to spend the night there, but given the circumstances we shouldn’t complain. All we wanted was a paved road. This gravel road was bad (worst that any Alaskan road). With every pebble I prey for the tires to hang on.

Anyway, this is a good opportunity to test the fork. If there will be no oil spill at the end of the day it means Kev and I did a good job.We get into a web of forest roads known only by the forest men and while at a crossroad, trying to find our way, here’s what we see: Woody in flesh and…. feathers!
It is late but we take our time admiring the woodpecker. We felt that the day would end up well eventually. We had water, Gunnar wasn’t hungry, and the tires seemed to hang on pretty well. And the sunset can only make the pictures nicer.

We finally reach the paved road but still have to pay attention and drive slow as the road doesn’t look too good.

By the time we arrive in Trout Lake is night time.We check out the camping site but don’t really feel like camping especially when the tent space is 17 $. No shower, no food. We find a B&B cheaper than a motel and this is how it looked like in the morning:


We drive just a few kilometers and spot the Romanian flag, or at least that’s what we thought so we decide to go check it out. We discover that it was a Buddhist flag and the place was a bio farm owned by a Buddhist monk and a druid priest. So we look around a little bit and continue our ride.

We finally cross the Oregon border, we stop to meet Craig, another advrider, and his orchard where we were supposed to pitch the tent the night before. He offers us apples and pears for the road. Thank you!
From Craig’s orchard we head to our destination for the night. We didn’t have a long ride but a windy road through the forests of Oregon.

We are paying more attention to the road this time checking the GPS against the paper map. We don’t get lost anymore and here we are at the Breitenbush hot springs.

We met Mark, a really great guy, at the motorcycle meeting in Nakusp and he invited us in this community. We will tell you all about it next time. Stay tuned!

Awesome update. Those are really great pictures of the area.Gavel roads can get scary with a passenger on the back.

Breitenbush Hot Springs is a special place. Although it’s called “A retreat”, the place is actually a private community. A small touristy business based on old hot springs. Cabins for rent in the middle of the forest.

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The hot springs flow into designed, man made “pools”, they are clean and they blend in to the environment.

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So far it’s a good picture but nothing we didn’t hear about hot springs.What makes it interesting is the people, of course. They choose to live here as a community with some sort of special rules. To get to their houses you have to get to the other side of the river crossing the wooden bridge.

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They are off the grid and the power is being generated by a micro-hydroelectric station from the same river. There is no network coverage and only one yurt has internet, no wireless.

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Hippies? Maybe, but organized ones. Dress code might be an open one but work is serious. Everyone in the community has something to do. Teams were created for the productivity of the retreat center on the other side of the river (cooking, maintenance, cleaning, and so on). Everyone is on minimum wage (but get food and a place to sleep in the “village”) and they all have time for themselves (no overtime and 35-40 hours of work/ week is encouraged and lots of vacation).

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All permanent members can buy “shares”, become owners on all the community properties, get the right to vote on all community decisions. So, for everyday life, there is a management board (executive team), chosen by vote for a determined period, taking care of the community day to day functioning.

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I must admit I didn’t watch the whole series of “Lost” but I noticed some funny resemblance with “The Others”. As a guest, you are not allowed to walk around the village without someone from there. The kids have a small school, and the means of transportation is mainly the bicycle, big or small.​

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Our friend, Mark, invited us there. He is part of the VStrom “club” just like us and we was kind enough to let us stay in his trailer so we got to sleep in our favorite of trailers, the Airstream.​

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I wouldn’t fit there as a permanent member but funny thing is that even the people there not stay there their whole life, they spend few years there, go back into “the real world” and back to Breitenbush whenever they need some fresh air.And because people are as they are, the founders came up with a good plan for the generations to come not to sell the place. Although the future of the community is decided by the permanent members, the ones with voting rights, money (sale or dividends) go to all the shareholders (all alumni), and that’s a lot of people. This is what makes the people there to think of the hot springs as a way of life and not a business.​

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We leave Breitenbush and Mark joins us for a while. Two VStroms riding together again.​

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It is hot outside so we stop by a waterfall.​

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It’s not only us enjoying this place. We share the view with our little friends.​

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We ride to Springfield where we enjoy a quiet end of the day with the smell of autumn in the air.

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After all these lazy days we have to do some more riding. California is waiting for us.​

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Today we celebrate: Gunnar is 40 000 kilometers old. Wow, seems like yesterday he was only 30 000….​

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We travel narrow roads and high speed highways, we meet hasty cars, weird cars or huge cars. Each one on it’s own route.​

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We turn away from the highways and traffic and go back on narrow roads towards Californian border, through Sequoia forests.​

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It is hard to talk about how we felt surrounded by those giant trees.​

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We ride on, speechless, on the road that seems to apologize to the old forest and try to cross it without bothering it. We were to follow those roads for the next days.​

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We are now in California, maybe one of the most famous of the American states and the most emblematic for the “American dream”.​

We are in California, and we got here by motorcycle!​

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Next time we see the Pacific Ocean again and we travel roads that “hang” between sky and waters. Stay tuned!​

Amazing update.That is some beautiful pictures.

Thank you so much for the encouragement :)

You're welcome.Thanks for sharing your adventure.I live on the east coast and don't know when I will ever be able to visit the west coast.

Hi Alex, got your PM. Check in with your location when you get a chance and I'll see if I can host you for a couple of days on Phoenix. My week is pretty crazy, but shoud slow down by the weekend.

Rick

Very nice updates!
Looking forward to more.