TravellingStrom

Saturday – Reno, Nevada

Lots of Cheshire cat grins today, and a few oops moments!!

I was up and at em early today, ready to leave at 8am, it was very foggy and cold, but I stopped down at the harbour for a look at the boats, not a good morning to be out there on the ocean.

The road through the forest area was nice, but a bit dim, it should be fine when the sun burns off the fog. It did not take long to find a hold up, a common theme on my travels.

The sun coming through a fog hole was the only bright moment 🙂

When I got to Klamath, I saw the signs for the drive through tree and decided to go for a look, there were a few more of these trees further south, but who knows if I will get to see them. I paid the $2 toll and negotiated the steep hairpin in my usual style and took a few photos. The information on this tree was posted yesterday, but to save you clicking the back button, here it is again 🙂

And just across the road as the sign promised was a welcome sight from home, even if they are the scariest potential road kill for a motorbike, I still like them 🙂

After this I continued on the twisty road through the foggy redwood forest until I came to one of the bigger trees.

This big tree was just a short walk off the path, in fact so short I did not have to remove all my gear, what a pity I did not know this before getting it all off 😕

Just down the road a ways was a rental house, I liked the design, but the colour scheme was a bit yucky, maybe that is why it is empty 😆

A few more curves before hitting the ocean road, now this sign has to be wrong, I was nowhere near the Caribbean, mind you the next sign was probably correct!!!

It was a pleasure to actually turn inland prior to Eureka, it was still damp and chilly and taking a long time for the fog to lift. Back amongst some very nice roads and it was nice to be in the sun once again 🙂

Mind you, after fuelling up at Willow Creek I was soon discarding gear as the heat was quite aggressive before winding my away through the curves that followed the river

I came down this mountain range near the town of Shingletown and had seen a column of smoke but thought it was a factory, no, it was a lumber yard and had caught fire somehow, down here in the valley it was extremely hot, so this was the last thing they needed!

It looked like one of the main buildings had gone up and there was a big pile of scorched logs next to it as well. It was not long after here I had a small moment of over exuberance and was caught out by a dipper on a corner, lucky the bike was so fully loaded, I think that saved my bacon 🙂 I had just gone through this new bit of road and ran wide on one corner, the one in the distance mainly because I had the camera in my hand and was taking this picture, but I am still learning how to use it and was caught out with a bit too much throttle as I had been climbing.

I put the camera away after this and headed downhill with both hands and was enjoying the fast corners, until I came to a left right left, the left was fine, as I went over into the right, the camber of the road changed and the right foot peg dug in and threw my foot off and the bike kicked out to the left, there were no cars coming the other way and the weight of the bike made the back tyre dig back in and kick the bike upright, so I managed to get the bike around to the next left. 😳 😳 😳 Needless to say I was a bit more circumspect for a short while after this and backed off a tad, not quite a brown stain moment as I had no time to think, but a major oops in any case. I kept on going past some lakes etc and into some stifling heat, I saw a rest area amongst some trees and stooped for a rest, the temp was in the 100F/40C range, this was when I inspected the damage to me and the bike.

When the boot came off the peg it had dragged backwards and now my sole was coming off, it seems I had ripped myself a new one 🙂 I had also scraped the peg bad and the belly pan and drain hoses.

Nothing a bit of lekky tape cannot fix and I can glue the sole back on later. I met up with a couple on a Goldwing, they said it gets cooler up ahead as I would be climbing again, that would be a welcome relief 🙂

After climbing through some more curves I came out onto a plateau where it seemed to be mainly straight roads where I could stretch the bikes legs.

Maybe I stretched them too far as I spotted a cop car coming the other way and although I slowed down I saw his lights start to flash as he went past, I had the space so I slowed down and pulled over and waited for him 😦

And waited, hmm, what is going on? Well, I figured maybe he just flashed the lights and as he saw my brake lights he figured that was good enough, oh well, another ooops moment ended happily 🙂 From here it was a short run into Susanville where I fuelled up again and called RenoJohn.

It seems the new anklebiter is crook, so John had managed to swingle a room at a casino(for nix) and I was to stay there tonight. But, as I was just an hour and a half away from Reno he would be meeting a fellow rider who was heading out on an IronButt ride and needed witnesses. As I would be riding past anyway, I may as well meet him there and he could take me to town after, sounds good to me 🙂 The timing seemed good, it was now 4pm, and the meet was for 5.30pm. After leaving Susanville the road seemed to be leading me into a storm and the signs said strong cross winds, they were not wrong!! I found a safe spot to pull over and donned the wets before getting myself to the other side of the rain. I was only going to skirt the edge, but that was bad enough!

I got to the other side but left the rain gear on as it was now a lot cooler and after some plain old straight roads found the servo where I was to meet John. I met Nathan the rider first and we introduced ourselves before John and another witness Brian arrived.

There was a bit of chit chat while Nathan stashed all his food and he had a ton of it 🙂 His aim for this particular ride is an IronButt ride of 1500 miles or 2400kms in 24 hours and also touch all 5 adjoining states in the process. This would be a pretty tough ride in Oz where the speed limits do not allow it, but here, running at 75-85mph is normal. He headed off after fuelling up at 6pm, good luck m8 🙂

My bike getting the usual once over 🙂

The reason he started at this particular point was to slip over the Californian border as step one(it was just 1/2 mile away, before hitting the other four adjoining states. As an afterward, he completed the ride but it will take a while before being verified, well done Nathan. This is the SPOT track we watched over the next day or so to see where he was, as you can see, a long ride 🙂

Here is Grace, the new anklebiter, she has been crook for a while and the reason I am following John to a high rise Casino where I get to go up in the world, well up to the 24th floor at least anyway where I was a bit concerned about nose bleed 🙂

John headed home and we were to meet up a bit later, I got settled in and did the usual, emails, download GPS tracks etc before heading down to the bar for a beer, it is Saturday night after all 🙂

This is where John showed me how to get ‘free’ drinks, I use that term advisedly as if you do not pay attention it can cost you more 🙂 Basically if you sit at a machine and are seen to be gambling, the drinks are free, just play slowly and with a minimum bet level, this is fine until the booze kicks in! 🙂

Near midnight I needed a feed and found a thing called an ‘Awful Awful’ burger, it was awfully good, but I did not eat that bit of green rubbish on the left, a pickle of some sort, yuck 🙂

There was a chance of winning a bike, but I am sure it would be no good for what I am doing 🙂

This is where I lost my dosh, the Craps table! I was watching how it was being played as I had heard of it and got suckered into trying it out, it was sort of fun, but the money dwindled rapidly.

I sort of got into trouble for taking photos so I headed off to bed, I had lost John somewhere ages ago and he had probably gone home, a very early morning by the time I crashed out 🙂

Day 428 miles and 689 km
Trip – 36,526 miles and 58,783 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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