Cali Moto Tour 2009 - Day 2 - June 2

Cali Moto Tour 2009 - Day 2 - June 2

Burl: Tuesday 7:50AM - Our first camp, by Lake Britton, was alright, but there are droning and beeping noises--coming from the hydro power company? On a more positive note, we did not come across any pot farm booby traps. Perfect temperature!

Troy:  Yeah, the forest ranger warned us about traveling too far up some of the roads, for danger of coming across illegal pot farms. Apparently these farms are often booby trapped and/or patrolled by armed thugs. Do we live in a 3rd world country? How is it that it is KNOWN that there is an illegal and dangerous operation up there, and nothing is done about it. Instead, we just can’t camp there because that area effectively belongs to the drug gangs.

Outrageous.
This, and all the other crime related to supplying marijuana to those who want it, is the reason that i'm in favor of legalizing pot. Anybody who wants to smoke it, is going to, whether it's legal or not. So we might as well make it legal, which would turn it into a regular crop like food crops. It would create jobs and reduce crime. Win-win if you ask me, and I don't even smoke it.
Anyway, that was quite a rant! The campsite was good and it was a nice start to our trip!

Cali Moto Tour 2009 - Day 1

Cali Moto Tour 2009 - Day 1 - June 1

Burl: June 1, 2009 - Monday 8:00pm - We pulled away from our driveway at 8:45 AM this morning. I was worrying that the note i left on the neighbors door would blow away and the kitty would be locked up and starving for 2-1/2 weeks :-(

I spent the first half of the drive entertaining myself by trying to memorize the names and order of the towns we passed through... LaPine, Gilchrist, Crescent, Chemult, Klamath Falls? I tried meditating and worked on my core strength. I got bored but it is also nice to just have to sit; no cleaning bathtubs for 2-1/2 weeks!

We stopped for lunch at Petroglyph Point, part of Lavabeds National Park. I felt torn between getting into the mountains sooner and 'enjoying the moment'... or whatever. I decided to take some time to explore where we were at, because i've always done the opposite in the past, and have often regretted it. It makes me feel rushed and then i get where i want to get and i can't slow down. The petroglyphs were neat, one looked like this: (sketch of what appears to be an anatomically correct male stick figure).
We were graced with a lovely breeze of sage as we headed into the pines of Modoc National Forest. Meh. After chatting with a ranger and getting our fire permit, we finally made it to Burney Falls. We passed through some cute little towns and got some nice views of the East side of Mt. Shasta along the way, but the waterfall was by far the prettiest thing all day. This thing was straight out of Fern Gully. The river below was nice too, with big bunch grasses poking up in the middle of the water. As we sat at the base of the falls, getting misted, i wished we'd skipped the petroglyphs!

We didn't want to get to a camp site too late, so we took off to drive around Britton Lake. So here we are now, at the lovely little spot we found. Just me and my babe and my babe's farts.

Troy: Today was probably (hopefully) the worst day in terms of just blasting miles on boring highways. That's great news because today wasn't that bad. We have enough time for this trip, that we should be able to have a lot of low-mileage travel days, as long as we don't linger in one place for too long.
It was cool to go to Burney Falls because it was one of those beautiful pictures in some faraway place that is the picture in a calendar. I mean it. It actually was a picture in a calendar in my office, that i saw earlier this year, and subsequently incorporated into our travel plans. It worked out very well.

Bachelor Party

I get to have a bachelor party! What should we do? I'll just say right up front, there will be no strippers or crazy partying, so lets just get that out of the way.

I'm thinking my first choice for something fun to do would be to go skydiving. I've been wanting to do that for several years now and have never made it happen. It seems like it would be a lot of fun. The most fun part would probably be going with Rickey, i think he may have a hard time jumping out of a plane. I may too!

Another fun thing would be to go spend a couple days camping and riding mountain bikes at either Black Rock or Post Canyon in Hood River. Post Canyon might be better, because we can shuttle, and we can go into Hood River and get food and beer at Double Mountain Brewery. I love that place!

This probably isn't realistic at all, more of  a movie idea maybe, but i always thought it would be fun to rent a sports car, like a Ferrari or at least a Corvette Z06 and go have fun. The only way that would really be any kind of realistic (ie. not guaranteed to die and/or go to jail) would be to do it at a racetrack. It would be a lot of fun to go to a race driving school or something, but that's pretty expensive too.

Any other thoughts?

lovely experience

So, I have never been able to successfully and actually chill-out. But today I did it. In the midst of invitation stress I went to a yoga class. The class itself was nothing special but at the end you relax into 'Sivananda' and essentially meditate for a few minutes.

Normally during sivananda I either stress the whole time or resist falling asleep. Today I was able to find calm without falling asleep. This was a great feeling. My thoughts slowed to a normal conversation speed, not the incessant race that they typically are. The song that was playing was beautiful and invoked images of a beautiful dancer...Pretty trippy, right? Well, all I know is that it felt amazing and I want it again and forever.

The interesting part is that typically the teacher ends the class, we get up and walk away. Today she said we could stay for all afternoon if we wanted and I laid there for another half hour. Just interesting timing the way that it all worked out...stressful day -> much needed calm -> class atypically being extend to allow this experience!

baby's first steps

Well, let me see here...I have never blogged before, what do I say?? So I am sitting here trying to get our wedding invitations put together. Sounds simple, right? Well it's NOT!

First it meant that I had to figure out what time we wanted to do this thing...well when is sunset? How long do we need before sunset for dinner and cake and toasts and crap? How late do we want to set people free to navigate their way though 30min of twisty dark road back to the their beds safe and sound?

And then there was the design process!! My poor friend Celeste offered her services here and I imagine she is regretting this..."hmm, could you make that flower a little more pink and that leaf a little more green??" But that happily ended with the beautiful graphic she created for me that you will all see soon enough (hopefully).

Blah blah blah, anyhow, they're on their way I just had to share a snippet of how insane it is to plan a wedding! Every single baby steps has 20 other steps you don't realize are there until it is too late!!

Sorry if this was not put together well, etc. I'll work on my blogging technique later, right now I have a wedding to plan!

Coast Bike Ride - Aquarium - Camping - June 2008

Fish Face

We loaded up the motorcycle (v-strom) for camping and headed over to Newport to go to an event at the OSU aquarium. Then we cruised the beach a bit for camping. The weather got lousy and we knew it was still very nice inland, so we rode back into the valley. We ended up watching the sunset and camping on top of Mary's Peak.

Segway

Have you seen my baseball?

Head in the sand

World Renowned Wave Energy-oloist D. Elwood

Riding into the pacific rain forest.

Lincoln City Beach Trip - June 2007 - Troy's Birthday

Burl and I took a weekend trip to the beach for my birthday. She's pretty cute flying a kite.

Paulina Peak Recon - Jan 4, 2009

Burl and I rode the snowmobile up to the top of Paulina Peak in Central Oregon to scope out potential ski/snowboard lines. Conditions were very icy so it would have been no good at all to ski that day. It did make for very easy snowshoeing though. No sinking in!