The Summer of Stupid: 7400+ miles of 2up - OBCDR, CDT, TAT West and more...

Larryboy, thanks for the inspiration, once again!
LittleWan, I'll be following your tracks at some point in the future, so I'm reading with interest.
BigWan:

That snow looks miserable on that big beast. Glad you two are the adventurous type!!

Signed up.

Hi guys!
Matt will freak if I keep up with the Romper Room business, but
thanks for the nice comments and glad you're all reading.

Hey Victor!
"Spastic rookies," my ass - you fellas held your own just fine. Thanks so much for letting us tag along - we loved it!
Sorry you have to wait so long for the TAT section (coming up in the 3rd half of this report). I'll try and keep it interesting
kelly
p.s. are those photobucket pics working for you guys? I can increase the size if that helps with screengrabs or whatever...just let me know.

Looks fine to me. I do 800x600 sometimes, but 640x480 is okay too(especially if you have a bazillion to share).


Romper room, romper room.

Day 2, continued...


So where were we?
Oh yeah, we were seriously stuck. I thought the hot engine would make it easier to get the bike loose. Nope. The snow didn't give at all. The bike was solidly encased in ice. Crap.



We took the bags off the back (the duffle and tent) and went to work. I'm not even sure how we got it out. Same as in the mud, I guess.
Lifting the bike up and working it back and forth, again and again and again. Working it free a little at a time.
All I remember is that the bike was really freaking heavy (could have removed the side bags, but I guess we're stupid and lazy) and the snow was really freaking slippery.

Whew. Too bad we still had a long way to go





Matt was riding down this snowbank (is this a snowbank? I'm from the bay area - I don't know snow terms) when it collapsed and he hit a stump.
Or two. Or three.
Good thing he was going slow. But now the bike was stuck again.





It sure would be nice to have reverse. All schoolbuses should have reverse. Instead, we had to pull it up over the stumps. So much pulling and lifting.
We were both soaked and dripping with sweat. Mmmmm...wet helmet. The mosquitoes were in a feeding frenzy.
I got no fewer than 8 bites during our 5 minute water break. Freaking mozzies.

Had to struggle over a few more snowy spots, but the end was in sight. Matt was so exhausted, he almost had a high side here.




The bike started tipping towards the road and he didn't think he could stop it - all he could do was gas it - luckily the bike popped back up and saved him. KTM powers, activate!

We still had to go hike back and get the bags. Can't we just leave them there? It's only our camping gear, tent and clothes. Sigh. This motorcycle thing is just too much work.

Woo hoo! No snow!



We blasted down these roads - they were rocky, muddy and streaming with water, but matt was ready for lunch.



After all that work to get to Gold Lake, we barely slowed down long enough to take 2 lousy photos.






Between 8:30am and 1pm today, we had gone a whopping 27 miles. Wow.

Stopped in Quincy for lunch. It seemed kinda run down. Oh! The Polka Dot! I had seen this place in a ride report.


Too bad I couldn't remember if it was good or not...



Notice the 3 drinks (matt was a little thirsty). He didn't want a photo of his food. Oops. guess it wasn't good


My teriyaki chicken bowl. It was extremely adequate.




After lunch, we headed to Silver Lake. As we left, we realized that there was a whole other (nicer) section of Quincy. Oh well.
The gravel road on the way to Silver Lake was kind of scary - it was like riding on marbles. Matt was flying and I thought we were going to wreck for sure.
It was hard for me to stay loose (no yard sale, no yard sale, no yard sale)...



Seems like every county has a silver lake.



At one point we couldn't find the trail. There was a gap in the GPS tracks and matt was just connecting the dots.
Norman the Delorman said there was a road here, we just had to find it. Uh huh. Heard that before...
It was faint, but went straight down the hill.
Okay, Norm. I guess you've redeemed yourself. This time...




Got pretty steep and loose, but did the job.




Things got even faster now we were on the dirt.





Man, there were a lot of deer out. They're dangerous, but so adorable. Some were really cute with black ears (no pics, I'm too slow, but I think all the deer around here are mule deer).
At one point, we saw a doe in a meadow. She was about a quarter mile away, but Matt honked anyway, in case there were more deer around. At the sound of the horn, she started running.


Matt said, "I think that deer wants to kill us!" Sure enough, he was right - she actually changed her path and turned towards the trail. We watched the doe pick up speed through the trees and then she cut across the road at a full gallop (or whatever you call it when a deer is hauling ass), right in front of us.
She timed it perfectly - if we hadn't slowed down when we did, that deer would have T-boned us going full blast. Yikes.




The thought of that slowed us down for a bit, but our tiny brains quickly forgot about it. Soon we were back to zooming through the trees






There was lots of thunder and lightning in the distance, getting closer. I guess fear of lightning ourweighs fear of deer. Man, I hate racing the rain.




The rain always wins. We got wet.



Finally, we got to Chester. After a morning of ATGATT snow hiking/schoolbus wrestling and an afternoon of the Wiggly Gravel Cold Sweats, I was really in the mood for a shower so we looked for a nice campground.
There was one by Lake Almanor (North Shore Campground) - they wanted $35 for a tent campsite. Hoo boy, I'd never hear the end of that. no thanks.

Screw it. We headed back into the forest and found a stealth spot.





I'm totally paranoid about free camping so we went way off the road. It would have been perfect if it wasn't so rocky and full of mosquitoes. At least this time the poison was within reach. We slathered ourselves in DEET and tried to enjoy instant mashed potatoes for dinner. As we sat there eating out of the pot (hobo-style), perched on a crooked stump and a pointy rock (camping is f'ing awesome!), we mulled over the day's events.

Twenty-seven miles in 4.5 hours...How the hell did that happen? Well, maybe a smarter duo would have turned around at the first snow drift. Or maybe the second snow drift. Or the third one?
They definitely wouldn't have continued on down the hill where we got stuck in the snowbanks (uh, twice) and wasted all that time and energy. Huh. Something to think about.

10.5 hours to do 139 miles. Oh, right, add 3 miles to that (forgot to zero out the GPS first thing this morning). 142 miles.



Okay. Well, the first day wasn't that great. The second day wasn't so hot, either. But the third day...the third day has got to be better. Right?
Riiiight...

I see larryboy!
So, that photobucket question:

was actually referring to an album I made for those minnesota guys. Sorry if that was confusing. I should have PM'd instead.

BUT, I'm really glad you chimed in about the RR pic size. I was going to ask anyway
640x480 was looking kind of small (especially for the senic ones), so I tried to bump some of the new photos up to 800x600.
Will try and use the larger ones from now on.

I do have a bazillion pics, though. Almost. I took over 5,500!

Subscribed...

I'm glad to see you two are back on the road and back to your usual antics... This looks to be a great ride and I look forward to your updates. My buddy and I are doing the TAT West starting on Sept 5th so maybe we'll run into you on the road depending on schedules...I'll keep an eye out. Be safe!

Hi lionsroaar!
Thanks, but we're already home
I don't have the patience to do a RR from the road, so I wait til we get back.
I won't be getting to the TAT part of our ride report until after you're on the road - sorry!
Hope you have a great ride! I wonder if Hancock Pass will be open for you?
keep us updated.
kelly

Love the sense of humor and hell-of-a start to your trip .

Aha, there you are.

Hey LittleWan.

Nice to see you guys are out riding again.
I've subscribed to this thread and am following along.

Aside from a 7000 mile five week trip up to Alaska, there are no big trips for me this year.

So I'll live vicariously though you guys.

Q~

Day 3: 7/7/10 Chester, CA to Lakeview, OR 222 miles


We slept like the dead - I guess wrestling a schoolbus is good for something. After breaking camp, we rode into Chester for breakfast and fuel.




There was a coffee shop that was completely packed, but instead of dealing with that mess, we chose this place.




Mostly because of the friendly dog.




They had coffee, and anything you want for breakfast, as long as its's a breakfast burrito.




The burritos were a little weird. Cold tortilla, scrambled eggs, chopped veggies with some kind of vinegar dressing, and a very light dusting of cheese.
I guess we know why the coffee shop was so busy...


Matt’s favorite part of the burrito place was the bathroom. Hot water, soap, and a whole roll of paper towels.


matt: (coming out of the bathroom) I hope they don'’t have cameras in there...
me:
matt: I gave myself a sponge bath.
me: oh. whew.
haha!



As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed the tires. Holy Crap, see how bad they looked after only 2 days? These guys were brand new when we pulled out of the garage.


Front: D606



Rear: Rally Raid 908



Originally, we had planned to do a little more of the PCQ, up through Lassen. But, matt’s mom was just there a couple of weeks ago and she said half the park had been closed due to snow. After yesterday’s fiasco, we decided to take it easy on ourselves and bail on that plan. It was tempting, but we were going to resist the urge to bang our heads against the wall.

We are so smart - S-M-R-T!




Matt picked some dirt roads from our AAA map and off we went - to Alturas. We got on FR10. It was okay until we ran into the grader.
Ugh, it looked like an okay road, but really it was loose, deep silt. Matt called it "Tilt" - short for "terrifying silt."


Okay, I'm going to get off topic a little...but it will come up a lot over the next 40+ days.
One of my favorite movies is Elf (with Will Ferrell). I know, I know. It's stupid. I don't even like Christmas (or Will Ferrell) but I love Elf.

So, one of the best parts of the movie is when Buddy says "Smiling is my favorite" and his grumpy boss snaps, "Make work your favorite, okay? Work is your new favorite."

Every time I start whimpering about some part of the ride that's freaking me out, Matt says, in his meanest voice, "Make sand your favorite!" (or mud, or snow, or whatever) and it cracks me up.

Here's the clip - now if you watch this and imagine Buddy the Elf as LittleWan and the Boss as BigWan...you've got our whole riding dynamic!

Make work your favorite!



Make Tilt your favorite!
Edit: Matt wants to make it perfectly clear that these are not photos of the spots with the "terrifying silt"
I was not allowed to wave the camera around during the actual TILT.
(how's that, matt?)







Details of this morning are a little sketchy - my notes are sparse. We went from FR10 to Termo, CA and one of the major roads was A21 through the Lassen Forest.







We stopped at this old farm site. There was a historical marker but I forgot to take a photo of it. I think there was the number 8 on it?
Oh well. I like riding more than history. I’m sure you can find a RR with all the details










Matt said if I was tired of camping, we could stay here.



Ugh. It was so gross in there, I don't know how he could eat his granola bar.


Lots of bird nests



And corresponding poop.



Cool old windmill.



Okay, break time is over. Back on the trail!




hi cow!



fun roads



Pretty little lake. We were excited to see a white pelican (we're used to the brown ones).








And then we were on Termo Grasshopper Road. There was no one out there, so Matt played around with the camera a bit.




me too. This is what I see when Matt stands up. A giant wall of grey Cordura.




Sometimes when he stands up, I miss stuff:
me: wait, where did that truck go?
matt: Umm. we passed it way back there. I was standing up.
me: oh.

In Baja, I miss entire towns




After a quick lunch stop in Alturas, we were speeding our way towards Cave Lake and the beginning of the OBCDR!

Hi redog1!


Hey Andrew - thanks for dropping by. Well, did I whet your appetite for the Pacific Crest Quest??


Howdy, Questor - nice to have you. how did you like Alaska? Doing a report?

Alaska was great!
It's so big. :eek1

I'll start the Ride Report this Fall. It's going to be a big one.

Right now I'm too busy riding the area around my new home of Idaho Falls. There are so many places to ride out here!

Q~

Hi Ladybug

Yeah, that larryboy...

He acts like he's such a bad boy, such a rabble-rouser.
BUT, look what I found - the truth comes out at last!

Turns out he's nothing but a "Good DO Bee" after all...

Hi Li'lWan and Matt... I lived in Quincy for 7 years and spent a lot of time on my 1974 xl350 exploring the roads around there not to mention camping and fishing many of the lakes, Silver Lake included. Thanks for the short nostalgic ride down memory lane.
Great RR so far.

The hubby (bronco3738) is constantly going on about your RR's. I can see why. Great read. I love 2up trips, and completely understand the Great Wall of Cordura. So, I got myself a 650GS and may do our next one on my own bike. :)