Once a year, schedule permitting, I try to do a weeklong motorcycle ride to really stretch my legs (longer rides will probably have to wait until retirement... still a busy breadwinner and family man). My last long ride was the Grand Canyon and Southern Utah. This year I explored Oregon and a bit of Washington. Here's my story.
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So if you live in Southern California, traveling anywhere means getting out of the L.A. megalopolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis_(city_type)). If you want to avoid the morning traffic, you either get up and go buttcrack early, or you wait until the traffic dies down in the late morning. Since I had to be in Red Bluff, CA, 550 miles up I-5, I opted for buttcrack.
Gassed up, I hit the road for the hot, boring ride up the San Joaquin Valley. I'll say this for the Central Valley: crossing it means I'm going to great motorcycle roads or coming home from great motorcycle roads. Aside from that, it's pretty much hot, boring and smelly. Sometimes violently smelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Ranch).
In fact the most eventful part of my trip was when, south of Modesto, I reached down to adjust my left Hand Wing and *plop*--out comes my mirror as it flies off onto the highway. Of course now the Baker installation instructions came immediately to mind: "WARNING--DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN!" I remember wondering at the time just how I would know if I did over tighten the bolts. Now I know.
I stopped at a Napa Auto Parts store in Modesto and picked up a really cool, cheap piece of kit that enables you to cut a replacement mirror and stick it onto your existing housing. Since my mirror backplate was back on the highway, I cut the cardboard packaging into a makeshift backing. It was all totally janky, but it did the trick for the rest of the trip.
I called up a local Honda dealer only to be told that Honda doesn't sell the mirrors separately, you have to buy the entire enclosure for $240--and nobody in California had stock. Screw that! I'm putting in an order for the Muth LED mirrors (http://wingstuff.com/products/35204-...?from_search=1) today.
Once in Red Bluff, I met up with the other riders for a weekend tour with Tim Mayhew from Pashnit (www.pashnit.com). I've done maybe ten tours with Tim and I now have a whole network of riding friends that I've met on his tours. Each tour is about 80% repeat customers, so we all get to know one another pretty well. This tour was the Labor Day Crater Lake tour (http://www.pashnittours.com/tour_15.html), which was a first for me. I decided to extend my trip past the end of the tour on Labor Day through the end of the week so that I could see more of Oregon and to reach Mount St. Helens, which has been a cherished goal of mine for many years. Here's some of the riders in Red Bluff:
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