Topic: Cowmann's Grass Is Greener Tour

[BomberMann650]

Time to leave the farm behind.  En route to Phoenix, AZ from the south puget sound of Washington.  Classes at the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute begin April 15th - student check in on the 4th.

Day 1 to Burns Oregon.

Took hwy 14 to The Bridge of the Gods.

Got a stern warning outside of The Dalles.

Filled Up at a Sinclair Station and checked into a motel.  It's been raining, so the powder room is now a gear dryer.

Todays mileage was a hoot!

[brewsky]

Got a stern warning outside of The Dalles.

It's hard to keep an FJR below 80!   
Godspeed!

[BomberMann650]

Day 2, Depature for Nevada.  Weather - light rain.

Lets see how these metzeler roadtec 01 tires handle the challenge.

What an albatross.

Also, someones dog came into my hotel room this morning.

[754]

 Ah the Adventure begins..
 I was dismayed  when I checked the weather for Oregon yesterday.
 Not a fun start..  how much rain did you hit yesterday ? Steady rain or scattered showers..

[Gurp]

Following*

[Stev-o]

subscribed.  not off to the best start!

[BomberMann650]

The drizzle in oregon was a refreshing spring rain compared to the absolute horse piss I endured today.

430 mile bull run from Burns to McDermitt, rain gear on, windshield full up, cold and getting colder as I climbed the pass through Malheur.

Storm broke in McDermitt.  Fueled up, took the obligatory state line photo.  Awed at a collection of bones someone amassed as an outdoor oddity store.

Then back to sloggin through the rain.  All the way to Winnemucca.  Cold, wet, and wouldn't ya know it.  No rain in Winnemucca.  Met a cool dude at the gas station.  He was driving his Volkswagen Bus to Argentina.  Said he owned a CB750!  Joked about his sub 30 second zero2sixty time.  He left while I was still tending to my soggy self and bike.
We met again on i84.  I honked, waved, and pulled it 60 to 100.
Maintained a steady 88 through the rain past lovelock.  Blew past my fuel stop.  Oops.
Cut south on 95 to the nearest town of Fallon.
No rain, finally.  A picturesque cruise through the nevada desert.  At a fuel sipping 75mph since I was running low.
On a side note.
#$%* Fallon and all its windy southbound highway.
Fueled up, and went to #$%*ing war!
Crosswind from the right.
Non stop.  Push, let up, push, let up, trying desperately to stay to the right and keep my tire from going off camber in the crown of the lane.
I was like that all through the pass to Schurz.
Ever try to turn left without actually leaning left?  #$%*me

Tried to pass an RV in that crud.  Big mistake.  The wake of the RV combined with the cross wind to make an ultra vortex of bike-shaking-chest-thumping-helmet-rocking galeforce wind.  The kind that makes you wonder what god will be like.

I had to stop.  Lo and behold, an abandoned building!  Figured you guys would like that.  There were some cool abandoned mission style garages along the way.  But I'm not exactly having a good day to be all touristy.

Also, #$%* the wind outside of Schurz.

The battle wages on.

Caught a break when I reached the canyon roads around Walker Lake.  But that wind had me worried I'd come around a canyon rock and get blasted by another bike shaking wind gust.

Then, finally, Hawthorne.

I'm so done.  Currently having dinner at El Capitan.  Lost $2 playing Jurassic World Slots.

Guess I used all my luck earlier today. 

430 miles.  Halfway to phoenix at 850.

[scottly]

I've had similar experiences with high winds. They should have settled down by tomorrow morning. Are you currently in Hawthorne, or Vegas? Watch your speed on the stretch of I-40 from Kingman to hwy 93, as it's a "safety corridor" or something like that, with "zero tolerance", and the state troopers seem to be abundant.

[754]

Great story. Tommorow the ride will look like Scottlys avatar....

[BomberMann650]

 Bedded down in Hawthorne tonight.

If the speed limits in nevada continue to read 75 and 80 I don't believe I'll have any more trouble with local law enforcement.

Will be hopping on i95 in the morning. 

More pictures from day 2!

Oh, fixed my dash cam - something glitched - got a new sd card and managed to save the footage from day 1.
No video today.  Not that it would have recorded anything more than rain drops.

[BomberMann650]

More pictures

[dave500]

man and im stuck at work!

[BomberMann650]

The final photo dump of day 2.

Had time in town to appreciate the Ordnance Museum.

[BomberMann650]

First thing I heard today;
The intro of pink floyds *Time*.
But with diesel work trucks instead of clocks.

[BomberMann650]

Laying in bed at the Railroad Pass Hotel & Casino south of Las Vegas.

Today was an absolutely incredible ride!  So much to share and I'm so tired.  But I already did the hard part of curating the photographs so here goes.

Hawthorne to Tonopah. 
Left with half a tank of fuel, thinking there'd be fuel depots in the nearby towns and highway merger.  I was wrong.  So I spent the morning hyper-miling to the sweet sounds of 46mpg.

The trip reached peak Americana as some lone busker was pounding out roadhouse blues on acoustic guitar and wailing harmonica.  Set a great mood while fueling up at the chevron.

Tonopah Clown Hotel welcomes bikers.  But, I think I'll pass.

Headphones in, Sunglasses on, southbound for Beatty.  The trip got extra trippy due to my polarized glasses turning the road into a literal sparkling rainbow.  It's also butterfly season.  I now fully understand how Hunter S. Thompson experienced this landscape.

Beatty.  Absolutely beautiful desert oasis.  The gateway to Death Valley National Park!  The moment I'd been waiting for.

Daylight pass had some amazing features.  I'm not even mad that the speed limit was 45.  But some group of literal Asses was blocking the road.  Felt a kindred spirit.  Being such a pack mule myself.

Hells Gate - what a sight.  Frodo has left the shire.

Headphones on, rocking to a punk version of Michael Jacksons *Beat It* - I was so pumped.

A tumbleweed blew onto the road in front of me.

This is where the story takes a certain, misADVenture, if you get what I'm saying. 
The old Borax mining camp outside of furance creek had a gravel path.  Took visitors a little closer to the barren landscape.  Down into the geoformations that contained the hot commodity of the era.  Not the best road I'd traveled.  I was almost back to the highway when gravel turned to sand.

Down she went.

Oops.

Maybe I should get a GS.

Oh well.  A fellow tourist helped me right my capsized ship.  Had a good laugh and I mozied to the furnace creek visitor center.

$5 per gallon.  Yikes.

Heat did something weird to my tires.  Could feel something was off just tooling around the visitor center parking lot.  Fearing I had run through a sharp pokey in the gravel.  I whip out ye ole tire pressure checker.  55psi in the rear.  Holysh!t - 13 pounds higher than my morning check of 42.
48 in the front.  Fark.

Got word the Amargosa Opera house was open for tours today.  Deflated and dusty, I set off for Death Valley Junction.  Thinking to myself one day, I will return.  Book a room at the resort, and relive this ride again.

If you haven't been to the Amargosa Opera House, it's downright beautiful.  In a way that only century-old, haunted, vaudeville-ballet, whore houses can be.

Which reminds me.  I saw my first brothel today outside of Luning.  Double wide trailer with giant crooked-pink-lettered word PLAYMATES emblazoned down the side.  I'm sure its an upstanding establishment.  The ghost town surrounding it certainly sets the mood.  If your fantasies contain post-apocalyptic rendezvous that is.

Anyway, opera house, amazing.  But the tour guide on duty today was less than hospitable.  Still worth the $5 to go inside.  Where it was cool.  Leaving the bike to mellow as I enjoyed the homely details of one legendary womans mural artwork. 

Onto Pahrump.
First taste of nevada traffic.  These people are nuts.  Construction in the pass leading into Las Vegas didn't slow me down much.
Rolled down the Vegas strip.  Decided i would not be staying downtown.  Got back on the freeway and now here I am.  In the armpit of Vegas and Boulder City.
I'll have to make another plan to actually experience vegas.  Those lights, all those people partying, it was too much for a road worn cow.

Phoenix in the morning.

Youtube video soon.

[BomberMann650]

Splat

[70CB750]

Following 

Good luck!

[BomberMann650]

Sorry about the hold music.  Was having troule uploading the photos last night.  No wifi at the moment either.

Made it to Phoenix.  Went to the orientation, and then the stress set in.  Maybe it was the room full of people, maybe the poorly trained "emotional support dogs" that seem to need more support than their owner does, the physical discomfort of 1400 highway miles, heat, and minimum sleep.  For a moment, I just wanted to get back on the highway and keep going. 
But that's not the plan.  Besides, it's easier to explore when not loaded with 150L in cargo.

There isn't much grass here.  But it kinda smells like honeysuckle.

[ekpent]

 Glad you made it,quite a trip. Anybody else show up to school  on a bike ?

[Duke McDukiedook]

You are in the land of sand and rocks now!
Good to hear you made it in one piece. 

[754]

We need details  how many guys rode there and how far ?
 Any chicks in the class ?

 HEY you are only 85 miles from Scottly..

[BomberMann650]

Frank, frankly speaking, the place is a frank fest.

The one girl in the back of the room has the appearce of Prince T'challa's Royal Guard (black panther! wakanda forever! HUMPH!)
Also the owner of one of those poorly trained service "terriers".

I'm still exhausted, malnourished, but getting along with the two roomies.

Colorado, 44 year old army vet.  Wheeled Vehicles Diesel Tech.  Combat Vet.  Dad.  Left his harley back home.  Turns out we both met Robin Williams at one point in our lives.
He provided the soap for our shared bathroom.  I think I like him.

Spokane, 34, no bike experience whatsoever.  No endorsement, no dirtbike, no quad, no utv sxs, not even a jetski.  But he builds 2 stroke remote control toys.  So he got into the harley program.  He brought a guitar, as he's learning to play.  So we spent the afternoon bonding over a six string.  He's the father of an autistic son, and has a daughter. 

We're expecting another roomie to arrive any day now.

Scottly, would care to explain the behaviors of Arizona cagers?  It almost like my most aggressive riding is too timid for these people!  Where I'm from - running the freeways I felt like a shark moving through a school of fish.  Apparently my spirit-shark is a puget sound dogfish.

Rolling through Death Valley and into Phoenix made me realize my gear is too damn warm for urban commuting.  So I bit the bullet and got some new gear.  Gloves (that i'd been seeking for months anyway) an armored plaid shirt, and dorky commuter helmet so I can breathe at stoplights.  I put a sticker on it, so at least it looks cool from behind.

[Gurp]

Dam they drive that bad out there?

[scottly]

Traffic can be bad in any big city I've ever been in, but it does seem to be especially bad down there. About 5 years ago, I worked in Phoenix, right across the freeway from the airport. The afternoon "rush hour" started around 3:30, with stop-and-go traffic, and may have lasted until 6:30 or later? I was able to take surface streets from the job site to the hotel during the week, so only had to deal with the asshat Nascar wannabes that insisted on staying 3 feet off your ass-end at 70MPH on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons after spending the weekend at home.
Nathan, after that experience, I will not ride a motorcycle in Phoenix on the freeways. It might be safer to car-pool with a roommate or 3, as well as saving some bucks?
Also, you may be going through a bit of "culture shock"; I went though it many years ago when I moved from a rural area to a metropolis, with the added challenge of rapidly learning a new technology.  

[dave500]

unless im driving the heavy truck or my car I keep off the freeways here,its just #$%*ing madness!