What a great trip it's been!

     The weather had climbed a whopping 30 degrees in one week.  I planned a 3 day weekend getaway from Phoenix to San Diego to go visit some ol' friends, and to let my body and bike feel a nice long trip together, especially after a jarringly cold winter.

       The weather rose, and so did I.  I made a break for it, daringly, with just a denim jacket in case it got cold somewhere in there (and believe me I was cursing some morning and evening freezes), and the one outfit I was wearing, which is pretty much how all my trips seem to go.  So check out some of my trip photos from the week leading up to and through the weekend adventure.

Fully adjustable modifications.

Gluing a guitar seam.

Ice skating on a Phoenix pool anyone?

Closing holes in my riding gloves.

Busting knuckles bike wrenching. 

I put new pockets in my jeans.

I got some stickers in the mail!

With which I promptly and proudly rocked.

Racing a Train.

Pass the salt and pepper, please.

Coolest table decorations ever.

Randy makes awesome ass Tiki's!

Just a little leisure reading on the beach.

Aaaaand, "action!"

Lucky me! Laura shared her special drink with me.
 All the bootleg'n way from Tennessee.

Drinks at Hamilton's in South Park.
(followed by a stumble home)

A good visit with Adam at his shop "24 Cycles" in San Diego.  Go check it out.

My bike and I turned 50,000 miles together
on this trip.
A milestone of love.

Adam gifted my baby a golden bell
for it's 50,000'th mile birthday.

Gila Bend, Space Age restaurant!
Ate here for lunch.
This place is rad!
Makes me wanna see UFO's.

My lunch total came out to my lucky number.  

Drunkenly gracing a full page
in the Lady Hump photographic annual,
was a neat surprise.
Slab City Riot, 2010.

      I'd like to thank my friends Adria and Randy for a wonderful few evenings, beach day, and for being the hosts with the most.  Matteo, for being the other host with the most and bar going buddy, always down to hang.  Sharona, for taking me out and spending a fun filled evening catching up with me and making me laugh about all the old times.  Adam, for a great visit, witnessing my bikes 50,000 mile milestone birthday, and some cool stuff, my bike says it loves the new bell.  And to Laura for sharing some famous Popcorn Sutton Moonshine and conversation with me into the wee hours of the morning.  I found my new favorite drink.

P.S.  There are more photos out there, so check back in for some little morsels yet to come. 

New Years Resolution:

For those of you who know me, you know I have a hard time sitting still.  I have a hard time living in one place for too long, and I have a hard time finding a reason to stay.  Please someone give me a reason.

Right now I'm gladly planted in Phoenix for another year getting my Harley Davidson mechanic certification, so I can properly, and professionally start doing my own wrenching, building, and get back to my road trades.  But just thinking of the upcoming summer, I'm bummed that all my trips have to be limited to however far I can get back and forth within three days and two night trips, instead of the months long summer adventures that I'm used to.

As much of a lonely vagabond that I've been, I am starting to long for some sort of biker companionship and camaraderie.  Realizing I have been a solo bird for so long, I just would love to start building and maintaining some neat road friendships.  I miss my riding friends back home.  I miss having stories to share with others cause we went through it together.  I just miss stuff.


To comfort these cold lonely winter days, I spent the day replacing some blown rocker box gaskets.  I woke up late cause I set my alarm for pm, instead of am.  Drove across town for a rocker box gasket kit.  $66.66 later, I had a complete H-D rockerbox gasket kit that came with two sets of gaskets for 3 types of sportsters.  I'm already looking at this as supplying my motorcycle shop walls.  Then when I got home, I realized I had to put my piston at Top Dead Center  Compression before I took my lower rocker housing off, this prevents the push rods from damage during disassembly and assembly.

This'll do for now.

Anyway, that's when I then left my mess and ran to the store to buy a bike jack, cause I was tired of always calling this one guy just to use his.  And what I learned in school, is that if you have to ask 3 times to borrow something, you need to go buy one for yourself.  So today was that day.  Plus I just hate asking people for things.  So now I got my floor jack.  Up went the bike,  and off came the rockers.  Now, as I was looking into the spark plug hole at the top of my Piston, I noticed that it looked nastier than I'd wanted it to, but not as nasty as I needed to maintain it now, so I'm sure I'll be doing a tear down before I completely leave Phoenix.  Today the pressing issue was the blown rocker gaskets, so I just wanted to stick with that.  Plus I got to play with my new torque wrench.  I got my gaskets all on, and everything torqued down.  And first thing in the morning, I'm doing an oil/filter change and she's getting new HD spark plugs, and then we're going on a little date.  (AKA, take her for a little spin around town,  cause we deserve it.)


So for my new years resolution: to hang out at more coffee shops.  I will also try as much as possible to make some epic campout adventures to events back home, hoping to meet up with old friends, make new ones, look forward to seeing them at next, and next, and next events, and then hopefully maybe, too, Arizona will yield me some like minded adventurers and my road camaraderie dreams will be fulfilled.

And although, I love my training and school, I do have an itchy travel bone, and so I'm counting down the days till summer 2014 when I will have nothing to do but ride my little butt off.

Who's along for the ride???

49 Year Ride - Generations On The Road - Starring S&J Motorcycles from Clutch Monkey on Vimeo.