6 Weeks on a 250

Ok, so if I don't just jump in and start, this ride report simply won't happen, so bear with me. I'm also thinking I'll just copy out of the journal I kept, and fill in the blanks as needed.

Alright, so my son goes to his dad's for 6 weeks and it's the summer between a two year graduate program, sooooo I have 6 weeks to do with as I choose. But while I have no school, intership, job, or kid, I also have almost no money. Breeds creativity, I tell myself.

Put my son on a plane,


take a pic of my bike in front of my tiny, but oh so affordable apartment,


and I'm off.

I've decided to spend the first day/night with my brother, let him decide where we go, what we do.

Oh yeah, I'm starting from Cheney Washington, just southwest of Spokane, and my bike's a 2000 KL250, otherwise known as a Super Sherpa.

My brother decides he wants to go along St. Joe's River in Idaho. Oh, and I didn't figure out the whole having the camera on a lanyard until southern Oregon, so photos are sparse in some areas, and my photographer sucks, I'd fire her if she didn't work so cheap, and wasn't so much fun to have along.

Southern end of Lake Courd' Alene





Cool old train car in Avery from the 60's, I'm guessing, judging from the interior.












Good safe place for my brother.



North of St. Joe's, looking for a place to camp.



Good place to camp, but maybe there's something better farther up.


Steady climb, freezing my ass off, wishin' I'd stayed back there. I'd have my tent up, all warm in my bag.


It's June, but it's damn cold!





Willy Dog would do that alllllll day long.







I took some precautions along the way but didn't really think about bears, too much.

Ditto. This is gonna be good.

er er

The next day I head down to my dad's, about 25 miles east of Moscow Idaho. He's been building this round straw bale house on 40 acres for the past 10 years or so. I doubt it will be finished in his lifetime.

Cool motorcycle playground



"So it's Tuesday evening and I'm hanging out waiting for my dad to get home. Dave played with my GPS along St' Joe's yesterday, but it was past 10:00 p.m. when we set camp and I was spent. No GPS lesson. Guess I'll just read the damn manual myself. "

"Froze my ass off last night. The jury is still out on my new SubKilo REI 15 degree bag."

"The bike is great! Handles the wind so much better than I expected, so much better than unloaded. Smoother too. The wee bit of dirt we got into yesterday tells me will do me just fiiine."

I stay at my dad's that night, and he sees me off the next morning.


Nice. Open your door to block me. WTF.

"Forks don't seem to be leaking anymore, but the valve cover gasket is. It can wait."

"The bike seems pretty well balanced and packed well. I'd like better access to much of my stuff. It'll be interesting to see how Crash's old tail bag works for me."

"I'm headed sw. Going to stay at Tequilla Girl and Road Rash's either tonight or tomorrow, we'll see how the day goes."

Lot's of this in Eastern Washington.

Even in the middle of summer there are patches of green.


First contact with the Columbia River on this trip. I lived in Hood River for a short time, but never experienced wind like this. :eek1


Took a break at the John Day Damn. Had a little talk with myself. That wind had earned my full respect. I was like a little kid on a trail 70 trying to get the most outta that 1/2 hp, all crouched down, gettin' as small as I could, just peekin' over the bars. I very shortly got over the "gotta be cool when cars come, and sit upright" I was down for the duration of the river.


"Maps! I'd like to have a Gazetteer for Or. and CA. I want them with me! So what if they take up room. I'll leave some clothes behind and call it good."

"It was good to spend the first night with Dave and Willy and the second with my dad, but it'll be good to be on my own, my ride, my pace, stop when I want, stay where I want, go where I want..."

"Tequilla Girl and Road Rash are GREAT! They have a very comfortable place with lot's of space.


"Lot's of toys."







Helmet Road Rash was wearing when he got his name.




"Very cool pup named Sandy."


They have a nice guest house...


...but they let me stay in one of their guest rooms. Great hosts! Thanks Tequilla Girl and Road Rash! I had a great time.

I get to TG & RR's Wednesday night, which means I can make the PDX meet up the next night.

But first...


I need to fix my head light. It went out about three miles from TG&RR's, up a long dark hill. All of a sudden it was dark. Very dark. Luckily, my highbeam still worked, for the moment.

The next day I went into the old part of Oregon city, nice (no pics, ), and got a bulb.

Road Rash got home as I was fixing it. He mentioned how he hated working on bikes in the gravel, always losing stuff in it. I nod, half listening.

Hmmm, wish I hadn't taken my stubby out of my tool kit.


This'll work. No. Road Rash pulls out his stubby, er, I mean, his short screwdriver, and I'm in business.


Looks close enough to me.



We have lights! But while I'm putting it all back together, I drop a washer. I look. I look. I look some more. Damn gravel, what was that RR was saying about the gravel. It's getting to be about beer:30 and I still can't find it, I'm thinking I can prolly find something that'll work in RR's shop when I see this...


It never hit the ground.

So I get it together and RR and I head down to the bar.

L to R, Beerslayer (Del), Dire Wolf (Shawn), CrazyBrit, MortimerSickle, Alinbeaverton, ddrags (Arno)

L to R, Road Rash (Tom), Brauhausbier (Eric), Beerslayer, and Direwolf.






Cool, check it out, got a picture of drrags' camera taking a picture of my camera taking a picture of his camera taking a picture of my camera...




Great time! Great group of guys!

Ugh. I'm looking at 6 weeks stretched out in front of me, and I'm just not wanting to write about it all.

Any advice? It was a spectacular 6 weeks, and I want to share, but...



My hat is off to all those who have written ride reports.



I'm thinkin' I'll just write about the stuff I feel like writing about.

Exactly. :)
There are days on my long trips I didn't write anything at all, sometimes weeks, months, later. And always what I wanted to write.
It was your trip, remember?

It's fun to see trips in areas you know. I grew up in Spokane, lived in Portland, visited Avery a few weeks ago, and live a few hundred yards from the numbnut with his door open.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your trip!

L to R BeerSlayer, DireWolf, CrazyBrit, MortimerSickle, Alinbeaverton, Drrags

It was good seeing you again this weekend, keep up the good work.

Hey Al, thanks for the names. It was great having you as a neighbor at PNWet Fest this past weekend. Great time, yes?

And thanks everyone for the encouragement.

It was probably not the best timing to start a ride report, shortly before I needed to pick my son up from school, help him with his new and improved 2nd grade homework, cook dinner, clean up, read stories, and tuck him into bed. Completely different mindset. I can see how one needs to be in the proper mood, and have the time to enjoy the reliving and telling of the stories.

But I guess I kinda needed to sneak up on myself. When I'd think about writing this ride report I'd be fine as long as I thought about it abstractly, thinking about reliving this moment or that. But as soon as I considered starting at the beginning and actually writing it, I'd tell myself I'd start after my son started school September 4th, and that would be the end of it.

Well, my son started school last week, I don't start for another couple weeks, so if it's going to get written, now is the time.

I had to just start writing without any forethought, or I'd never have started it. I didn't look at the clock, let alone consider what I was going to say, or post. I'm hoping now that it's started, it'll just keep going. And anyway, the trip is just starting to get interesting, at least for me, so we'll see.

I've noticed the front end "bouncing" at speeds around 35-40, and a wobble at around 70mph. I'm thinkin' it's the TKC's that went on right before I left. Beerslayer offers to help coordinate having the wheels balanced, so I leave the bar with a plan to ride out to Tualatin in the morning.


Road Rash takes me through his old neighborhood, shows me the tiny little house they lived in before moving to Oregon City. We picked up some Mexican food from RR and TG's favorite place from their old 'hood, and we get it back to TG without getting the chips soaked or crunched.

The next day at Del's


Del and I take off the wheel, drive it down to D&S Cycles, they balance them in a couple minutes , and we're back at Del's place in less than an hour.

Do'h





Guess who got to decorate the family room.


Bathroom wall

It was great hanging out at BeerSlayer's place. Great back yard.







Great place to tell stories over a warm drink in the middle of winter.

His wife's work.








I'll have to start looking more closely at the labels on wine bottles.