Happy Valentine’s Day

Funny how things can appear sometimes…truth is, the “extra large” bag simply wasn’t big enough.

Home sweet home

Was out and about last weekend in the rain. On the way home, I passed through downtown Campbell and found it quite beautiful.

Hiking with Maria

So, this last weekend, Maria and I went exploring. As one who’s afraid of slimy things, Maria does a pretty good job of hanging with Dad. We headed over to Portola Redwoods State Park off of Hwy 9 in the Santa Cruz mountains. Our stated goal–find a tree that’s bigger than the Jeep. And that we did. For those of you who don’t know Portola Redwoods, it’s a rugged, natural basin forested with coast redwoods, Douglas fir and live oak. Less popular than nearby Big Basin Park, it provides a nice refuge to the hustle of Silicon Valley below. This was our first outing together to explore this park, but based on our experience, we’ll be back soon.

More information on the park is available after the jump: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=539

Bring on the heat

So, it’s been a few days since I posted anything, mainly because I’ve been recovering from the final two days of our ride. Last Friday was a high-mileage day and our first real exposure to heat. We’re talking 107 degrees. So, that now means we’ve covered the spectrum from below freezing to way too damn hot in a little over a week. Given the distance that we still had to cover, we opted out of a detour that would’ve taken us by the Columbia River Gorge. Guess I’ll have to go back up and hit that one on my own sometime. So, our scenery was limited to views of Portland, I-5, and a nice, long exposure to Mt. Shasta. After 472 miles and almost 12 hours, we decided to close out the day with pizza and beer.

An interesting side note–my mom is starting to behave like a Japanese tourist. Today she took 73 pictures. Here are 3 for your viewing pleasure.

Back to the great CA

Mt. Shasta rising

Let’s get going!

Iron Men (and Woman)

Yesterday was a day of contrasts–we were either sitting around with time on our hands, or we were balls to the wall screaming down the highway with our hair on fire. Thanks to the friendly guys at Big Top Powersports, Dad’s bike has a new alternator and all electrical problems seem to be resolved. In hindsight, if you look at today’s total miles (261), it wasn’t that long of a day, but when you factor in how we feel, it’s a whole other story. Despite spending the first 5 hours of the day working on the bikes, the 2nd half was grueling. When we weren’t flying across the state of Washington at 70+ mph, we were caught in gridlock around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia in over 90 degree heat. So, as we start the 12th day of our journey, Dad asked to sleep in longer, I bathed in Icy Hot, and mom is sympathizing with  how hard of a day yesterday was on us. And we’re just getting started. We’re pushing to be back in Campbell by noon on Saturday, which means we’ve got almost 500 miles to go today…

A day later and $1000 lighter

We are on our way again. Keep your fingers crossed…

Mmmmm…

Meatloaf was good. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing…

The Waiting Game

Well, work at the shop has finally begun. Problem is, the parts actually arrived at 9:30 this morning. In the meantime, I’ve kept busy by installing new grips and we’re now idling away the hours at Cookie’s Grill. If the meatloaf sucks, you’ll be the second to know…

Take the bike out of gear first…

Othello tunnels

Prior to calling it a day in the metropolitan town of Chilliwack (population 80,000–which is HUGE compare to where we’ve been lately), we stopped by the town of Hope, which has been used as a location for the movies Cliffhanger, First Blood, Shoot to Kill and others, to see the Othello train tunnels. The tunnels are part of the kettle Valley Railway which opened in 1916. Considering the landscape and the technology that was available at that time, they are beyond impressive. They blasted a series of short tunnels through different rock faces allowing the railway to pass through the gorge. Anyway, here are some cool photos I grabbed during our hour-long hike.