go on a motorcycle tour

This may be combined with my other goals of taking an unplanned road trip and visiting all 50 states. I just need to get the bike out of the garage and start using it!

Baja is calling me. From balmy Minnesota, of all places. Pasty white boy who does not tan is being drawn to the equator. Spend my free time looking at motorcycle tours through baja. I truly fantasize about selling my house, moving out and starting a bar/restaurant in mexico on the ocean. I doubt that will ever happen, but I would settle for a week long tour on 2 wheels.

Quite the ride! The most difficult stretches for me were the Mojave desert and Route 58 near San Luis Obispo. Both were long stretches without rest/gasoline stops.

A Caltrans man working to clear a landslide gave me his lapel pin yesterday. The Pacific at long last!

Red sandstone formations abound in Navajo country. These rocks weather well, and the fine soil blows readily in the wind. It grew extremely windy later in the day. I had to fight the South wind with a huge lean, and still got shoved over the white line once by an enormous and sudden gust.

Oak and cedar above the snow line.

The Cimarron Mountains (in the Sangre de Cristo) {in the Southern Rockies}

A state park ranger looked at the bike and said, ‘You found the perfect day to drive up the side of the volcano, and the perfect vehicle.’ I couldn’t have agreed more.

I LOOOOOVVVVEEE the prairies of Oklahoma! You can find pictures of the trip at http://360.yahoo.com/oriondown .. click on the blog.

At the oldest rest-station in Arkansas.. the Rotary Ann, so named because it was donated by the local Rotarians’ wives – the ‘Rotary Anns’.