Aussie Hodgo & his 950SE does USA Alaska Canada & anywhere else he can find.

Im in.

Sure will drop in mate & will slap a "John Handcock" on that shower curtain too mate. Not so sure about the funny hats though.:huh:huh:huh

Heres some stuff from my warped view of the world for ya mate.

Cant seem to see many speed signs on the roads. Or they are more hidden than in Oz.

Banks FMD they seem to be everywhere. No wonder the US is struggling financially. Radio adverts for borrow this amount & you get free steak knives with your brand new chevy truck.

So far i find the US citizens very polite. I seem To Be sneezing A Lot. Each Time I sneeze I make a BLoody Loud noise & theres always a few people yelling out "Guzuntight".

The business people dont seem to like having their routines changed & just seem to stair blankly for a while when the first lot of words spew out of my mouth. So most times my first sentence needs to be repeated slower. Getting used to that .

Jet Lag seems to have caught up to me after being awake for 72 hours. Sought of reminds me of Sleep Deprevation during interogation training. But ive caught up on sleep now.

The fast food joints seem to be all run down. Of course lt all being strange to me too makes it a bit of a gamble for selecting what seems to be a good feed.

So whats on the go from here you say ?

Get the bike out of the freight joint sunday morning.(Saturday morning now) Go purchase some Wolfman rocky mountain saddle bags & a Arai fluro yellow XD4 brain bucket and return the neeeeeesan flog a rocket / rentacage.

Come to san diego for The week, Then baja For Next weekend. Wine tasting,Good food,Good dirt roads!

Oh yeah, san diego has the best beer in the usa

Hi Adrian,
Great to see you made it all happen and are finally there. Have a wonderful trip and make sure you give us regular updates.
I will be reading the thread and taking notes for when I get to follow you.
Right now, it is Sunday and I am about to go into work.....things gotta change...
Be safe.
Peter

Good on ya Hodgo, have a great trip, clear your head and have a great time.

Keep the pics etc coming. PM sent.

Ya got the pony free yet mate

Have an awesome time Hodgo. We expect to see plenty of pics and hear lots of stories to make us hate your guts

Hodgo - are you running your SPOT tracker ? link it up if you are ( unless you dont want to be found )

well lets see so far in the first 72hrs of being in California.

• He went shopping at Chaparral's motorsports (they have about 100K sf of retail space
  
  http://www.chaparral-racing.com/
  
  
• Took a ride on a borrowed bike over GMR and GRR to Mt. Baldy (60+ miles of nothing but twisty roads up into the mountains up to bout 7K feet above sea level
  
  (of course he got light headed at that altitude, apparently Ozy folk can hold their booze but cant deal with oxygen deprivation
• Had a beer made from Coconut water direct from Hawaii (I will leave the description of that experience for him)

Tomorrow he is going shopping in a Walmart, I wont tell him what to expect. Just Google people of walmart and see for yourself.


Now if I just could understand 1/5 of what ever the fuck he was saying it might be a little easier to communicate...

Hodgo beware of the Walmartians mate they are NOT human and can you teach the mericans how ta talk too

I'm in, have a safe trip. a lot of pictures please.
Ed

Everyone keeps asking for pictures, I see him taking a lot with his camera, well at least you can see the flash but for some reason it is always in his shorts....

I am assuming he is still jet lagged...

So no real pictures of great significance yet.
But i must say i cant thank DSM8 enough for his extreme warm hospitality.

Fair Dinkum this bloke is a "Dead Set" Legend.

I honestly cant thank him enough. He represents what Advrider is all about. One of the nicest generous blokes you could ever have the fortune to meet.

Thanksv Dave.

So freight sheila today who reckons "Mickey Mouse" has landed in LAX.

My response was "You little ripper" i will be there soon to pick her up soon.

Dave took me out for a little run up to mt baldy which had some great scenery but i was feeling a bit motion sick due to the twisty turns etc. Plus i got to meet some more lovely bike people to ride with & on the way.

Now ive always tended to bag out the vstrom. but riding daves vstrom with 170,000kms on it felt like it only had 40,000kms on it. I was quietly impressed to say the least.

PS Walmart didnt seem too bad. Not much different to discount daves in Oz.

Look forward to seeing you this week....I'm hosting Adrian for a few days, he found me on the "tent space" section. We'll go out for some beers and dinner, and depending how long you stay, maybe a ride this weekend.

Our club, San Diego Adventure Riders will be on KUSI morning TV show with Dave Stall on Sunday, maybe you can stay around and be on TV with us !

Hodgo, if you get sick of the traffic in California and decide to come up to the mountains in Colorado, drop me a PM. Great riding, great beer. I had an awesome time with the Aussies in Brisbane last month, would be fun to reciprocate.

Mate,
Sure looking forward to the catch up. I could even become a "Movie Star" hanging around you blokes.

Should be there late arvo or maybe earlier. Have updated my spot tracker link in my sig line.

For sure. Will be up that way indeed. Keep & eye on happenings in here.

So after the delay on the cargo flights mickey arrived today.

So went to the shipping agent & paid out 50 bills to get the documents, I then went around to customs.

The distance from the shipper to the customs would be a good 45min walk or more.

Filled in three forms & provided my current rego & passport &all was good 15-20mins later. Then back around the shipping agent to collect the bike.
All pretty much painless.

Heres the bike in the warehouse waiting.


Heres the bike on the pallet.