Some time has passed.

some janky mods a spider left me.

dang and they're already grooming her.

at your service.

not the best moustache, but it'll have to do.

wayward traveler

a sobber (not sober) on a "bar"throom floor

yes, I can make you some bedside tables.

congratulations to Adria and Randy!

aka. Mr. and Mrs. Owens

Flat Track!

aaaaannnddd.....this is her version

back in the saddle.

Wyatt Vandergeest is the man!

Rook: for Pearl & Herb

(tattoo by Wyatt Vandergeest)

This is me making things happen.

yes, I can make you one, too.

Rook: it runs in the family.

A mile in my shoes.

Now it's one thing to force myself exhausted through a long hard freezing ride, cause I know I can. But what I'm learning is that it's another thing to try dragging my girlfriend through it. Man, I sure went through a gamut of expressions trying get that woman on the bike, and even more trying to get her to stay there. I must have used every trick in the book, from sweet sweet, to drill instructor. Here are some examples of the honest and low down methods I used. The teamwork try: "babe you're not alone. I'm here with you doing it too." And get this one: "It doesn't matter where we are as long as we're going through it together." Then shortly followed by: "get on the bike! We're going home!" And one of my favorite most fed up exasperated last ditch efforts: "I will leave you here." So from sweet smoothish lines to exhausted temper loss tough love'n it, we saw it all. We must have pulled over a full fingers and toes amount of times. Parking lots, sides of roads, highway exits. We once stopped to get some cuddling on. And at another stop, I dressed her up in all my extra clothes after which she whined about looking funny and we stood there on the side of the road and had a nice good long belly aching laugh about it. Sure it wasn't fashionable, but it's functional added warmth.

With her feeling better, we got back on and rode for another 30 teeth pulling minutes. Until I pulled over to warm up with some food, wake up with some coffee, and to let the tear soaked patches of denim on the back of my jacket dry. Wow, did that one turn into a long stop. I snapped photos of her sleeping on the restaurant benches. I fed her beans and water. Then what may have been misconstrued for unsympathetic laughter at her misery, was me just getting a kick outta how routine these things are to me. I finally talked her off the bench and out to the parking lot, tried getting her to walk across the street to the 7-11 for some coffee, but she wouldn't budge from the parking lot. By this time I was beginning to believe that she actually was miserable beyond relief, so I was looking up hotels in the area. When the faucet came on for the last time, I threw her on the bike and rode into the closest dive motel we could find.

Now hotels are never an option when I'm traveling on my own, so my pride and tail were a little tucked when I wasn't able to keep both my babies on the road for another two hours. But I had to remember that my lady hasn't had nearly the road breaking in that I have, and she's a sweet little thing that should I remain allowed to cherish, I just need to slowly break her into it, even though I'm sure it looks and feels more to her like a crash course. And if I wanna keep a sweet ass woman like her on my rides, then I gotta listen to her once in a while. I gotta give her a ton of credit for hanging on as long as she does on my "better than nothin" seat. I mean, she's quite a trooper, and I'm pretty lucky that she puts up with it. However, nonetheless, the road takes getting used to. And well, although I think I'm used to all the things that the road has to offer, bringing someone special takes a whole other kinda getting used to. And shucks, lately, I have been wanting to share these road experiences with someone special. Overall, I'd say it's worth it. I feel like I'm on a whole new adventure.

Cheers! "We'll" see you on the road.

crying on bar floors part 1.

temper tantrums on benches part 2.

The Moon.

     The Moon lit up the night and surrounding hillsides. Its rays glistening at me across the longer length of the lake, as I rode out of the canyon and into the warmer open summer nights air over the 49er bridge, crossing out of Calaveras and into the cozy familiarity of my Tuolumne.


     It was about 7pm on that night and I was wrapping up the last stretch of my round trip from Arcata to Sonora, CA. It was much cooler than I'd expected riding through the countryside along the 16 to the 49. The week I was gone there had been a series of rains that ran through the mountains and I'd just managed to miss all of em. I was actually surprised that I hit some rad warm evening weather coming into Tuolumne, Co. and it was one heck of a big breath of fresh air. Totally made me stoked to be back in the gold country.


     One thing I was encountering on this trip was that I was having issues with the circulation in my hands for about an hour or so. At first I thought it was the cold, but then I'd ridden through much much much colder weather and hadn't had my hands go numb before. So I thought the cuffs on my gloves were hitting my nerve or that something was pinching a nerve in my shoulder and causing my circulation to go out of my hands. Another thing, I felt like my bike was riding a lot rougher than usual. I blamed it all on my road fatigue. Well, I made it home that night, problem undiagnosed. I slept it off, and about mid morning, with my giant cup of coffee, I headed out to the garage to do my post ride checks on Boss and aim to diagnose the exhausting jiggles and funny knocking sounds coming from my front rocker. Ya see, before I headed up to Arcata 7 days earlier, I had replaced all the gaskets on my front rocker box. I screwed it all back together in the order I'd disassembled the housing, and well, she fired right up and held together a 700+ mile trip, so I was stoked for that. But I knew I had to tighten the rockers down and take everything back apart so I could use that thing called a "torque" wrench, which I'd totally ignored using the first time around. Well, this time I wrenched everything down, and washed and dried my gaskets and re inserted and then put it all back together the way I should have in the first place. I sometimes love a little extra work. Geeze, what's wrong with me? haha.


     But that wasn't the last of my worries. Another thing that peaked my concern was when I noticed a really weird body creak in my front end. Like when I lifted my bike to level her out there was literally a body squeak, and I was like, "Oh, dang, what the heck is broken on this lil mama?" I thought my frame had cracked on some of those really rough roads. I thought things had been unscrewed and my engine was gonna fall off. Well, I must have leaned and lifted her left and right a million times before my finely tuned ear had located the mysterious creaking sound in the front frame area. Guess what it was??? I remembered loosening but screwing back in one of my engine stabilizing bolts, and that dang thang had come all kinda loose, and my engine wasn't holding still like it had before. And that was the cause for my severe engine shakes. So I torqued that thing down too. I just went all kinda torque wrench crazy, and got every thing on my bike tied/bolted/wrenched/fastened the heck down.


     That afternoon after she was all reassembled and happy, I rode her around town and on down to Jamestown where my friends were barbecuing and I played them all my new songs that I'd written on the road.


     So, what I learned is that I need to use a torque wrench on my repairs, and also that I am decent at taking my bike apart and putting it back together. (wink wink)


See you on the road.

Endurance.

One article of underware. One pair of socks. The shirt on my back. My guitar and my horse. It's been almost 7 days now on the road with nothing but these things mentioned. One thing I didn't mention was that I also haven't showered since the day before I set out on the road from home. Always a proud accomplishment for me indeed. Funny thing is, I don't smell yet. So I might as well just keep going, right? Well, I'm faced with arriving at home in another 30 minutes or so and I'm gonna lay my cold rickety bones in a hot drawn bath. But for now with these last few minutes of freedom I'll make like a proud wild animal in my natural essence, until I am forced back into the throes of unwanted domestication. The plight of one dirty biker (aka: Dirty Bird.)

Where the redwoods meet the ocean.

I was 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Exchanging elevation for temperature, making my descent along the remaining western facing slopes of the 299 towards Arcata, chasing the last few seconds of daylight to my destination.

Leaving LA.

     Nothing like 5 hours in 100 degrees and 3 hours in 95. Thursday I had finished packing and stuffing all my things into safe places, and with too many bags draping from my landscape, I rocketed out toward Simi Valley for the night. I was so wasted tired from the previous two days of packing, that I spent an extra day and night in Simi just resting and recuperating, and inevitably postponing my exodus toward Sonora till Saturday morning. Being as famished was all apart of my two day exhaustion and dieting on nothing but pizza and soda, when Friday night dinner came around I was fed a delicious homemade pot-pie dinner, cornbread and all, then camped butt on the couch for some Alice in Wonderland, which promptly resulted in me missing the whole thing due to passing out. 
     Which brings me to this morning when my alarm clock was set for 7:30am, yet somehow I managed to push snooze till 10:30am, at which point I shot out of bed, literally, cause a certain indoor cat was hanging/dangling/screaming by its front paws to the outside of the screen on a very high window.
It took me no more than 30 minutes to gather and lasso my belongings to my horse and let my senses wake up, drank some water, ate a brownie, gave my kisses and hugs, and happily hit the road for some scenic riding through the mountains north of Simi and east to the 5 where I'd shoot right home. I was really looking forward, and I mean really really stoked, to see the new territories along the 23 and 126 highways, cause I had no idea what these stretches of road looked like, other than a two year olds doodle on my google map. 
     Now, I have seen the 118 and the 5 freeways way too many times to get excited about anything along their routes other than cheap fueling opportunities and new bugs for my headlight. So when I was looking for alternate routes to the 5 north from Simi, this new route just totally lit up my little wheels with exhuberation. One thing that particularly tickled my tail feathers, was when the 23 dropped over the first ridge and gave me this great view of the Fillmore valley and the upcoming corkscrews, hairpins, and fun little whoop-dee-woos leading me to the valley floor. There was what looked to me like none other than a large sand mining operation off to the left. I know, super exciting. But when I finally wound my way into the lusciousness of the agricultural farmland happening between Fillmore and Piru, it just screamed "jack, you need a farm." I even took a few extra minutes to shoot out to see what Lake Piru was all about. Yep, it's a lake. Complete with water and boats. I can hardly believe it.


     12pm It was already hot by that time, but when I hit the 5 it really started cooking. Great day for 10 layers and a suede trench coat. This leg of my ride all the way up the five goes like this: it was a long trip with lots of water stops, hair drenching, passing people in air-conditioned cars looking at me like I'm crazy, and sitting in shade with my eyes shut letting my dry irritated overheating port-holes take a break from the pounding hot air. Hours later, some sweet 80degree foothill evening, and a lost 20oz C02 bottle, I rolled into Sonora at about 8:30pm into the arms of those golden hills, soothed by the sweet warm smell of her tall tan grasses, and sung to by the lulling sounds of her rustling oaks, clapping at my arrival.


     And can you guess what I learned today? I learned that my Co2 canister can not ride in its formerly attached position with weak ass hoseclamps. And I hope whatever prisoner that ends up cleaning the roadside gets some use out of that full 20oz can. Time to make another purchase and re-engineer a better harness.


...and that I need to carry eye drops.


  Home sweet home. :) 

Thursday: I take flight with the road.

Hello friends! It's two days till I leave Los Angeles for a sweet northerly trip.

     I have spent the majority of my day fabricating some sweet new additions to my bike. A Co2 canister, a 12" barrel, and the remaining main parts to a good time. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I pick up my new travel buddy, a Martin Mini LXME. I will wear it on my back until I get a passenger bar affixed to my rear fender, which I also foresee never happening, but whatever, let's see how I like wearing a small guitar for the first 5 hours to Sonora, CA.

     Tomorrow I pack all my things into littler things, and shove them into new and interesting spaces. I'll pat myself on the back for having fewer things than I thought. It crossed my mind to have a yard sale, but as my life goes, I always find that I want my things somewhere down the line, and so it is particularly hard for me to conceive of ridding my possession of very wanted and needed things. #packrat

I'll miss: my girlfriend, and some dear friends. Note: I'll be back.

Looking forward to: Seeing friends I haven't seen in forever! Spending time with the road. Seeking new sights. The lulling sound of the road. And even the expected and unexpected smells and temperatures I'll encounter.

One trip long overdue. 

Goals: Sonora, San Francisco, Russian River, Arcata, Portland, Sacramento, and some destinations that are tentatively in my head, but can't mention them yet, only until they happen. The aforementioned are a given.

See you on the road.