My niece Tyler ready to ride.

ketchup

It's been a while since the last post so here's a catch up. I'll be brief hopefully. Starting in nawlins, I broke my cardinal rule and paid for a nights accomodation. I deeply regret it and I promise it won't happen again. I suppose I paid for the hostel dorm room because i had recently been informed that new orleans has the highest murder rate per capita. which i ironic because the place i stayed at apparently had 5 murders the week before.  anyways got to the hostel, no one there, so i blogged. then someone showed up showed me to my room and gave me a tour the rest of the facilities. found a naked woman in the back... yada yada yada i bought her dinner dt. caught some great music downtown, met a guy who had a house and a job etc. and was now homeless due to katrina. sad stuff for sure. yada yada yada went back to the marriott the next morning where i had valeted my  bike the day before. rode out of there and onto tex to meet up with reilly and go to schlitterbahn! well i stopped by the gas station to fuel up and noticed my tire looking a little bare. so while on the road, my mind started to dwell on this tire and i decided i had better stop and get a new one before it blew out on the highway. now i was in baton rouge, land of the rebels, and succesffully looked through every tire store before finally finding the right tire 3 hours later. they could not balance it for me so i had to take it to a local bmw motorcycle shop. the guys in the shop there were awesome. they balanced my rear wheel for 20 bucks and sold me a brand new front tire for 20 bucks. as it turns out, my rear tire had at absolute most 50 miles left on it before it blew out. probably would not have made it the 400 miles to austin. at that shop i met a character named jack something. he had come into the shop trying to get one of the mechanics to come crew a boat in the gulf of mexico with him. he kept talking about this so i said i'll do it. took him off guard, but i told him my story and he came around. the only problem is that he is quite sure that obama is poised to destroy the us. I asked him how he thought obama would pull such a feat and he replied: "reform healthcare." maybe he and i have different definitions of the word destroy.  anyways good thing i had those new tires on my bike because by the time i left baton rouge the sky was poised to open up. and it did. this was the biggest rain i have ever ridden through. the drops were huge and for a bit it hailed. rain hurts when it hits you at 70 mph riding a motorcycle but hail is somethin else. the other moto riders on the freeway felt the same way because they pulled off under the overpasses to wait out the storm. this wa the point when the truck in front of me was generating a 10 foot rooster tail of water behind him.  too bad for them because i was loving it. it was intense but the payoff was i saw a bolt of lightning hit 50 yards ahead of me just 10 ffet off the freeway. the accompanying thunder shook my body. it is truly an impressive feat of nature. i just wished i had put on my windbreaker. the sun was about down and i was absolutely soaked. but it wasnt bad.  so i road for the next 8 hours or so and got to austin late into the night. met up with my sister rebecca and hit the sack. 

woke up early the next morning to meet up with reilly, paige, and kyla. We headed to schlitterbahn and had a blast. saw many of the worst tattoos on this planet (i hope) and tubed all day. lot of fun. yada yada yada, ive been in austin for the past week. loving it. took a few days to go visit my other sister shavahn and her husband dean and my niece tyler. Changed my oil there, helped dean and ashley out with and engine they are rebuilding, but more importantly fed the chickens with ty. she is a cute 3 year old that could pass as 6 based on her height. shes got volleyball written all over her.  next morning i woke up to her jumping on my chest yelling "wake up uncle woot." then she found some cow that moos far too loud to be legal in city limits. i was up. just as im getting up she had tucked the cow into the sheets and told me to be quiet because he was sleeping. of course. oh yeah, dean and i and ashley got a steak at some local steakhouse, and when they ordered the small steaks I was a little disappointed because i wwas very hungry. anyways the steak came and it didnt even fit on the plate. overflowing on all sides i wondered how you could get away calling this a small. texas lesson learned. it was damn good though. feeling a bit comatose i decided no more work today.

so much for being brief.

headed back west with a planned pit stop in austin. said id be there for a day or two, still here 6 days later. too much fun here that isnt blogworthy. but i did meet a great person name Luis through Rebecca. Luis is a retired accountant that now follows his passion of building and designing lofts. he is also very spiritual, something that i have never read much into because i cant use logic to rationalize it. However, he is very intuitive and was able to pick up on some obscure details of my life that few have before. the next day i told him the exact time and place i was born and he gave me a 3 hour long lesson on my life. it was quite intense. i'll spare you the details but i am more interested in the topic now and want to know why historically so many civilizations have based their beliefs not on the story of gods, but rather the alignment of the stars. lot to learn. 

leaving luis' place i saw a guy with a pv544, the very same car i have been working on practically my whole life. i turned around and followed him to his spot. talked with him a bit ( i have only seen one similar on the street a handful of times in my life). he was a  music bum, gave me his card, and i'll send him some pics of my frankencar. went to the bookstore after to get the book Luis told me i must read. they had it in stock, 15 bucks tho, i balked at the price but remembered how adamant Luis was so i walked to the counter to buy it. Fate happened and i had luckily left my tab open the night before, so after trying to haggle for the seven dollars in my wallet, i put the book back. i'll buy it another day. 

that night met a bunch of new UT faculty at a mixer with my sis. some were smug, some lacked basic social skills, but most were great people. had a great time with them all. over pizza that night with some of the more social, talk came to the show cheaters, and being the academia crowd, quickly evolved into a much deeper discussion.

alright thats enough, i get another post sooner. maybe. now i just have to decide if i am heading east or west... 

Time for an oil change.

Well, with the monster 600 mile day I had now rolled over 5000 miles for the trip and am due for an oil change. At breakfast that morning I walked in and said hi to the front desk as i always do. started a broing conversation about the weather. blah blah blah. im in. Well as im enjoying my third plate of omellettes reading the paper, the lovely Tammy from the front desk comes into the breakfast lounge. Seeing my phone charging she gives me a funny smile. I knew this day would come. I get ready to say something awkward, but then she says, "Where in the heck are you from?" I tell her my story of coming from sacramento. and she says "Oh my, I've never travelled around the world before..." I laughed a little and started tellin her some stories she wouldnt soon forget. She ran off for a minute and came back with her business card making me promise that I would email her some more stories and pictures. I almost told her to follow this lame blog, but I quickly remembered that could compromise my breakfast for the rest of the trip. "For you Tammy, the world." I replied and pocketed the card.
I finished the breakfast and went to the computer to figure out how to get to Lake Village, Ar where i was headed that day to meet Forrest. Computer's down. Bummer. I knew it was south east of where I was. Being as stubborn as any mustached man is I started taking roads south for a while, then east for a while until I had no idea where I was. Came to the arkansas river. Took a nap and a swim and headed south, then east, then south. This got me all the way to the east of the mississippi river through beautiful winding roads of arkansas. Much better than interstates. Only problem was I wanted to be on the opposite side of the river. So i folled highways south, then west, until I found one that would cross... no. it dead ended after so many miles at a dam. Now, I though about driving around the open chain link fence, but decided that the chain link on the other side would probably be locked. Had to backtrack a bit, went south, then west and got across. Stopped to get gas in a town i knew was close to lake village. I broke down and looked at the us map to see that i only had to follow 65 south for 90 miles and I would be there. As soon as I left the gas station, not 50 feet from it, I see a sign for Lake village. Figures.
Got to Forrests. Kate and the dog Mason greeted me at the door. I showered and when Forrest got back a couple of us went to dinner at his girlfriend julia's house a few twns over. Everyone I met that night is doing Teach For America. Pretty cool experience from what they say. On the way back from dinner forrests muffler decided to jump ship, not without sending sparks flying on the freeway long enough for the car nest to us to point yell and point. Forrest said without blinking, "There goes the muffler." At the time I was blown away that forrest could recognize the individual sounds parts of his car make as they jettison from it at 60 mph. Now I understand.

Slept there, got up this morning, ate the rest of forrests mini wheats and hit the road. Made good time to New Orleans where I am sitting un poquito homeless today. I parked my bike in the valet of the Marriott. Hopefully it's ok. I am sitting in an abandoned hostel right now, where I have yet to see anyone that runs it. So naturally I hit the computer and blog. Now, onto the town.

The Tornado Hunt

So leaving from some HIE in somewhere in SE colorado I was off. It was early. Probably 7 maybe 8. i was headed to Dodge City, KS. I rode and rode through smalltown kansas. Basically kansas goes like this. nothing. then tiny town with huge silo. then nothing. repeat through state. Got to dodge city. blue skies. Sweet I thought to myself tornadoes and blue skies, this is going to be perfect. So I waited there for 12 hours... no tornadoes. weird. well that 5 minutes i was in town felt like 12 hours. anyways i googled my name again. still nothin. but i did find a storm brewin in enid, OK. Luckily I had a map to figure out where oklahoma was. Thats about all good the map was. so i used my keen sense of smell to track the flying cows. I headed south then east, then south, then a little west. anyways i rode a long time. throughincreasingly bad weather. as the weather got worse I began asking myself why i was doing this. luckily my add kicked in and I started thinking about how I was riding 88mph through a lightning storm. That Doc Brown had to be somewhere with the delorean waiting for me. Never did find him. Storms poundijng hard. my daily odometer reading was nearing 600 miles. time to find some shelter. Luckily i was near just entering the grand town of cherokee, ok which has the same amount of stop lights as bars. one. my kinda town. Mel's was the name of the place, and the 70 year old man behind the counter. He reminds me of George. A true old timer. I got a beer to pass the time until a tornado dropped out of the sky. Only hail. Then while i was searching the horizon for my elusive tornado a bolt of lightning hit the power pole 50 yards from where i sat. this whole time mel had been rambling about his days climbing poles (said the highest one was 1500') as soon as the lightning the conversation changed course. I remember that i was homeless in a town that a tornado was due for. Long story long, mel mentioned something about my cover for my bike about to fly to kansas. he was right, it was flapping, ready to take off. The he said something about me driving my bike into the bar. I said hell yes. So i told the drunks playing pool to ya know move. Hopped on the bike in the pouring raind and came across the street, up the curb, and into the bar. Fit like a glove. Anyways now that my bike was in the bar, all my worries were behind me. Mel got some more beers for the four of us in the bar. I cooked some dinner in the kitchen and we had a great time singing damn near every song on the jukebox. One gal, Brandi, said she was some country starts 5th cousin, cant rember who). maybe. anyways the night ended when brandi's truck drivin husband came raining in out of the storm furious. Something about brandi not supposed to be in a bar. again. things got weird for a bit. anyways now it was me and mel. and some guy who couldnt enunciate the word beer. Luckily the singing was done for. Well mel talked my ear off lthe way i am talking yours off and finally i headed out to fnid a home on the side of the road. the storm eased up a bit. I made camp next to an overgrown entrance to a ranch. and a very subtle electric fence. Not my ideal place during a lightning storm but it would do. I unhooked the section of electric fence that was almostlmost touching my tent. too bad it was the hot end. I just made sure not to roll over to that side of the tent during the night. Woke up to very intimidating thunder and the biggest rain to date arond 2am. I kept trying to remember if there were power lines overhead. luckily there werent. blah blah blah. i woke up and headed ar but not without a proper breakfast.

Which way to Kansas?

Well my plan was to head to Kansas. But as I was leaving the airport I saw a sign west. I took it. I had just remembered that there was a South American Adventure bike rally somewhere 200 miles west of denver. What's a 400 mile detour anyways. All I had to go by was the iron in my nose and the gps coordinates of the rally outside a town that wasnt on my map. Piece of cake. Eventually found it. Rode down the 4 miles of gravel to place best described as amazing. When i got there I saw 20 of my dream bikes. (650 Gs). There was a pig roasting over an open fire. Somebody yelled "who the hell are you?" I honked my horn. Later that guy fell in the fire. Anyways Im not much for story telling but I met some cool people. Two of which had just gotten back from a 7 month ride to ushiya, argentina. Im tired o writing.

Next morning woke up at 6 to climb a local mountain. Sleep called. I slept. Rode to wherever I 30 miles west of wherever I am today. Watched some big lightning in the distance while I camped in an open cow pasture. More importantly I just caught wind of a tornado warning in Dodge City, KS. Pun intended. Time to put my tarp tent to the ultimate test.

End of an era

Here I sit in the business lounge full of delicious HIE breakfast.
We got to Boulder, CO to drop Kevin's bike off with the Fellows. Upon arriving at this house, Steph's mom, Kay, shows up to the sight of two dirty mustached vagabonds in her living room. Her face lights up. Kay is at the top of the list of my favorite people with Kim from Craigmont. After making sure we get showered and our fill of fresh food she tells us that our show starts in 10 minutes. Little did we know that Kay is an amatuer professional lead singer at Rockband. So we jammed the afternoon away. After a few stern tongue lashings from her I got my drumming act together and soon enough the neighbors were coming in to light one up and enjoy the show. Tuckered out from jamming so hard, Kevin put in some good blog time. I... googled my name. And read some blogs about people riding their motos down to argentina from here. Pretty sweet.

The sun set and we knew it was time to get to dt Boulder. We appropriated Steph's car and headed in. Boulder is known for its endless breweries and delicous beer so we went to the liquor mart and bought joose and pabst. industry standard. After tasting the value we went down the street. Saw a street performer ride a 10 foot suicycle while juggling flaming pins. I fell asleep. Twice. Found a pub, played some baseball game where others tried to make friends with us, but it was too intense so we declined their friend requests. More stuff happened. Probably. Tried to sneak in the back door of a club. Luckily for us the owners best friend was there, telling us we were in trouble this, he was going to call the cops that. Long story short we hung out with his friend all night in a "vip" section. More stuff happened. Kevin gave a bum my phone number promising him work in the land of the free. Being sober as we were we decided to make the 4 mile walk home at 4am. Passed over a fence into a construction site as a short cut. Ended up being harder to get out than in. blah blah blah. In the morning we gathered our lives together and made for the airport.

Travelling around the country on a motorcycle makes you limit which posessions are essential. for one person. Because we were Dumb and Dumbering it the 40 miles through dense traffic to the denver airport, it was a challenge to double the load. We stacked kevins stuff 3 stories high on my bike somehow and headed out. Kay gave Kevin directions to the airport. he tried to pass them onto me. Refusing to listen I sang to myself. Kevin took matters into his own hands by leaning hard and turning for us whenever we had to.

Dropped him off at the aeropuerto and now I was heading to Kansas to find me a tornado...

Harry Chinese Tornados

Left Sturgis by way of short cut once the rain had supsided and planned on getting to somewhere in Nebraska by night fall. Saw the sites along the way: Rushmore, kicking-falling-standing-horse, and then had 100miles of open country highway with one else on it and a raging lightning storm chasing us all the way. Along the way I made a mental note to tell Luke that I wanted Chinese buffet after we had just passed through a town around noon that had one. When we reached Alliance NE, we stopped in at the gas station and asked if they had one. Yeah, they did and as faith would have it, it was located just accross the street from the holiday inn express, brilliant. The attendant did warn us though that they were on tornado watch. Flabbergasted we thought to our selves how could this get any better. It did Harry Potter half blood prince started at 7:30 bingo we had found the greatest place that Nebraska had to offer. After way to much hot and sour chicken and soft serve and with HP now in our back pocket we took a gravel road to its end and found solice in another rainy night but with Boulder jsut on the Horizon

Stugis is as free as you want it, as long as steven tylers still a drunk and falls off the stage

Easily one of the longest days yet and not just because we are about to ride into the mecca of conservative harley town riding matching BMW with sweet mustaches but also cause we put close 450 miles behind us. Left Thermopolis went through this great winding canyon and up to a pass which reminded me of my time spent on the moon cause in the sun it was 70 and when you went through the shadows it would drop to 40. As we got closer to ground zero, we took a quick detour to a pre-biker rally known simply as the "ham and jam" were we stocked up on free brisket sandwiches, checked out fat biker chicks who were just wearing ass less chaps and got prepared for what I will later be know as the greatest source of debatchery since kim jung ill's batchlor party. We stopped by devils tower to take a quick peak (gonna climb it summer 10' let me know), and joined our first biker parade towards sturgis. Half way there we got fed up with smell harly girls and took a short cut through the hills that another BMW rider had suggested. Little did he know that we are completely unable to listen to directions and wound up right back into the biker pack we had attempted to elude...tricky. We rolled up to Sturgis and were in aw at the thousands of leather shops, fat bikers, topless little girls, and bikes lining the streets for miles four rows deep. We choose a spot tight spot right between two of the most expensive bikes we could find, mixed up a couple of seagrams and Seven-up and proceeded to have no clue were to go. Two blocks down the street I realized that once again I had left my keys in the ignition which turned into a blessing because we passed by a bar know as "The Knuckle" and heard that there was going to be mma amateur fighting and it started in 5 minutes. An even fatter drunker danny deveto came on stage and started holllering that everyone should sign up to fight cause its really fun and no one gets hurt. Wait a minute it a fighting match and no one get hurt, danny I will take my free drink elsewhere if I wont see someone get creamed. Then I layed eyes on the grand master thor himself steppin over to the signup desk. He was steve goldburg if he was a foot and at this point I start saying words of encouragement to my companion such as "man he's probably so slow", and " bet you could dance around the guy"...that is unless he connected with a single punch. We thor ended up getting taken out in his second round by an even bigger monster and as the blood started to spill and the whiskey took its hold more and more girls ended up taking off the shirts and riding the machanical bull right next to the ring, Glorious. A few hours later when all the fighters were either drunk being led away by medical professionals we decided to bite the bullet and find a campsite at a place known as "the Buffalo chip". I say bite the bullet because it was 70 bucks to camp and see aerosmith, and because you get paid 20$ to watch Aerosmith because they are so horrible its like spending 90 bucks to camp in the rain. We parked our bikes in the farthest reaches of the parking let (a 4 acre field) broke into the homemade booze that had been fermenting in my saddle bags for the last two weeks, divided the last of the seagrams into water bottles and headed to the concert with thunder pounding and the lightning guiding our way. On the walk over we realized that we both hated aerosmith and that we couldn't go back on our agreement to pay for camping so we started hopping fence. Two chain links and two barbwires later we were in the middle of the VIP section, getting a few weird look but with a few well aimed winks and promises of mustache rides we got into the concert. At this point we got seperated and the effects of homemade booze and gulps on seagrams hit me and said adios to the crowd and headed to the bikes where I set out my bag and tarp 20 yards deeper into the field. Luke in the mean time was cruising the show watching bikers line up with their hogs to enter this caged in area where they peel out their bikes until their tire or engine blow. Not the brightest stars in the sky. Luke stumbled back to the bikes a few songs later, but not until Steven Tyler successful fell off the stage...smooth. I woke up again to my old friend thundershower in the heaves of a good time, a little disoreiented I wandered back to the bikes to see Lukes sleeping bag layed out prime for the fluffin. Silly goose I thought he left his back out while he was at the show I'll just have to pack it up for him. Nope, he was deep asleep completly drenched and in the throughs of another dog dream with his feet kickin and soft yipping. We set up the tarp and awoke to the parking lot completly empty but the knowledge that the concert and camp actually cost 120$ and after stevo fell off the stage the show was canceled. Oh Sturgis how can we ever thank you .

deer heads and sprinklers

After a wonderful nigt spent next to the freeway leading into Jackson we rangled up our bikes and headed back into town to get some grub at bubbas and find the public library. Aparently no one goes there because we got three different people to tell us to go four different directions, damn richy's can't even get around there own town. We struck out east with no real destinations till we arrived at Thermopolis WY, where they have the worlds largest hotsprings and the fattest men who like stop up the slides leading into them. Ended up going down a slide were you can actually catch air and then go straight into a turn and almost upside down, ouch. After the springs we didn't have much left to do besides drink steele's and waltse around the park. Checked out the hotel that we'd be visitin in the morning and crusied around the inside looking at hundreds of animals lining the walls and pictures of animal attacks, good old wyoming. We took a few tips from the animals that we saw on the walls and slowly snuck up to our prey... a nice little family with a couple of boxes of pizza. Ended up talking to them for a bit with the dude saying he builds houses for billionare's...boring everyone knows billionare's are like sea horses and unicorns, they don't exist. Finishing are steele's we set off for home which was a gazebo tonight. Yeah I know we splirged and put a roof over our heads. Woke up to Luke screaming about sprinklers or something and I went back to one of my Nam flashbacks where my CO luke is running around naked trying to evade charlie while I stay in my fox hole when all of a sudden i turned around and get peppered in the face by home depot finest. We lost that battle but made our way to the newest HQ, a joggin path. With another terrible nights sleep behind us we set out early for one of our lives goals... Sturgis.

Yellowstone is a zoo

Leaving camp in the morning was no picnic. Our bikes were deep in the brush and hardly off road. After high centering and nearly starting another forest fire for kiel we got out of it. Heading to Bozeman,MT we rode for a while. Montana is gorgreous. the sky really is big there. It is as though you are in a snowglobe, (not that I'ver ever been) but it just seems like the sky is very close and goes on forever around the horizons. I think it is because you are on high plains (4-6,000) and there are mountains all around. Truly beautiful. Got to Bozeman a bit before kevin. Went to the Von's for some food. just then these half dollar size raindrops start splashing around me. So I get under the only 4 sq. feet of cover near the store and tuck my bike in. Then the rain stops. your welcome Bozeman. I grab a beef pasty and 46 ounces of v8. My stomach still hurts. While waiting for Kevin shared a bench with a guy who had the spent the last winter living under a bridge. Kept raving about his 20 degree below bag (ironically thats exactly how cold it got that winter). I suppose it is the simple things in life that make people happy. Kevin got in and we headed to a coffee shop to check the map. I have noticed that we look very distinguished looking at a map of the us that has writing all over it. people love us. Since kevin has to be in denver to learn soon we decided to get to Yellowstone to camp. Bozeman is a great town and I would love to go back. A lot of adventure sports there. So we finished the coffee, made friends with a couple dog owners, and headed for the land of Yogi and Booboo.

Caught a great sunset, and rode the 60 miles. We got to the edge of yellowstone and stopped for a drink at bar there. great spot. met some guys bicycling from florida to portland. Said it was a great trip. They told us there was no way to get into yellowstone for free. I slapped him and said: "really?" Apparently the three of them had just finished riding through10 miles of hking trails to get out of the park. they broke a bunch of spokes. a little disheartened we were. Got to the entrance and it was closed. we were in.



Met the ranger patrolling the hot springs. where we were gonna camp. no dice. she said all the campsite were closed. We told her no big deal of course we were riding the rest of the way through the park tonight. We left her and found a little town. Mammoth hot springs. We parked the bikes, Kevin said "should we cover em?" I said "No i think they're safe." We grabbed our sleeping gear and headed up a trail ontro a ridge overlooking the town about a half mile in. Found a spot off the trail that would be stealth frmo hikers in the morning and went to sleep. I couldn't. Soon rain started falling. A little rain not a problem. The drops got bigger and stung my face. The thunder and lightning show started. I counted the time between thunder and lightning. 4 miles. We had to get off this ridge. now. we rolled our now wet bags up in our tyveks and wne to the bikes to cover them. Hid out under an awning for some time before we grabbed the tarp tent and headed back into the hills. not as exposed on a ridge though. yellowstone wasnt done with our initiaiton yet. An hour into that camp i still couldnt sleep. Kevin still could. I heard a car in the distance. Something else did too. it came sprinting at our tarp trampling the small bushes in its path. It came within a few feet, I could hear the air rushing in and out of its wet nose. It was a black bear. I was using my pants as a pillow so i grabbed my knife out of them while it cirlced our tent. I clutched it looking out the open walls of the tarp tent, waiting to see its snout poke in and... lick me? who knows, coulda happened. A few minutes and it was gone. Slept with my nknife clipped to my boxers.
woke up that morning. broke camp. and headed for Mt. Washburn. Stopped at a few lookouts. Yellowstone is more of a safari than a park with craggy peaks. Stopped for a while to let a 12 point bull elk cross the road. Figured a 2000 pound beast probably has right of way. Climbed washburn. Good hike. Good view. Met a ranger up there who lives in solitude to look for fires in yellowstone. weird life. Asked him what the big drums on the side of the building were. He said something something microwaves. I said " ohhh, is that what you cook your food in." He didnt like really ridiculously funny jokes apparently.
Headed towards old faithful and something else. It was raining but still beautiful. Got to faithful. Missed it by 5 minutes. Figures. Took a nap on the front row bench. Awoke surrounded by hundreds of people wanting the space i was taking up by my body. Sat up within a secondi was surrounded by 6 Japenese tourists. the one next to me was funny. At the end of faithfuls eruption we booed it together. she was fun.
anyways headed through the tetons towards Jackson where i sit today in the public library. Tetons are unreal. caught them for sunset I will come back and climb them. Jackson was 20 miles aways and the only thing that stood between us and it, was a gnarly curtian of rain, thunder and lightning. That was the scariest 20 miles I have ridden to date. My helmet visor had hundreds of drops on it. i know because every passing car lit them up and the light reflected off effectiviely blinding me. The road had no shoulders so you cant stop. Very happy to get the the cadillac bar for a hot meal and a beer... and some great company.

Testy Fest

While in town, getting the tubes. A guy noticed our bikes. said something along the lines of you guys are girls, then changed to you guys are reel men (saw my hat). He proceeded to inform us of the Nationally acclaimed Testicle Festival going on that day just 20 mins outside of town. He just warned us that if we didnt have 12" we should refrain from taking our pants off there. This was going to be tough. So after tubing we made our way towards the nutfest where we planned on eating our fill of rocky mountain oysters. Just as we were about to start the bikes we noticed kevins bike was already on. weird. battery was dead. oh. I spied a laundromat down the street. First asked if anybody had jumper cables in their laundry basket. no dice. So i grabbed two coat hangers and stripped then ends with my buck. Put my finger ony my nose to imply kevin could hold the electrodes, and got to work strippin the bike down to the battery. Well after a few minutes of rigging we had our bikes frankenwired together. I started mine. Told kevin to start his. Nothing. Weird. the coat hangers didnt have the ampacity to carry the curent. Damn cheap coat hangers. So we walked across the street, looked in the back of a Wrangler and wouldnt you know it... more coat hangers. Just kdding, jumper cables. sweet. jumped em and we were off.

got to the festival asked how much to camp. at the gate she said something, something, for you 35. Id rather spend 35 bucks on my fill of cow balls. We turned around, headed mile and a half down the road. When no cars we looking, we road a trail a hundred yards in next to a creek and called it free. Covered the bikes, grabbed the growler and it was time for dinner!
Got there hopped the barbwire fence, and we were in. First thing we see is a fat harley biker singing a sad karoake song. weird. musta had too many oysters today. As we made our way through this biker pavilion, we waded through drunk bikers and topless women. Times running out. The testy fest was great, grand, wonderful. After acquiring some beads, and a nipple gauge we quickly got rid of them... out of time sorry.

Go with the flow

So, we left Craigmont early, about 6 am after both randomly waking up at 3am. Must have been that 4loco. So we rode out on some road that a random told us to take. 15 miles of gravel is overrated especially when there are suicidal deer families. Kevin almost made us stop for veil when Jane and John Deer decided to try and sacrifice their kids by crossing the road. He stopped just in time for the last little fawn, doe, somethin to kick his front tire. he just shook his fist, yelled Turkeys!!!, and kept riding. Sidenote: The turkeys thing came from a time when Kevin and I were on a chairlift at Mt. Bachelor and saw my dad pizzaing down the mountain in his bright purple and yellow ski suit. he happened to see us at the same time and shot his pole in the air and yelled turkeys!! at the top of his lungs.
Anyways we road and rode and rhode. Down 99 miles of curvy road over a pass. All along the way signs saying "motocycle use extreme caution." terrible road, long morning. Got over the pass and into Missoula where we would meet with our first couchsurfing host Colleen. While in a A&W parking lot Kevin gets a call to change his life. Just got accepted into the Pahrmacy school of Denver, or something like that. School starts in... 14 days. Pretty sweet. So we went to town and rented tubes to meet up with colleen and float the river all day. Great time. Her dog, guapo, a hefty pit swam with us too. More than swimming he liked cuddling in the tube with you. So he did, but what he really liked was popping your tube. or colleens. So colleen swam with guapo. Guapo was not allowed to cuddle with me anywmore. After the river we hung out with the gang, colleen, cassie, her mom, and jeff. Great people, great time.

Posts you want, Posts you get

ok 15 minutes to recap on the last days since craigmont, id. i might have to skip all of it. here we go.

got to criagmont. population 582. wait no recount 584. we head straight to hardware store wich is best ive seen. random stuff everywhere. no aisles just piles. end up buying haf the store. list of the goods. alaska is for reel men hat, two belt buckles (potash), other stuff, american flag for my bike which came from the sculpture out front. I asked if i could have it. She thought for i second, I reminded her I was heading for Sturgis. case closed it was mine. Rigged some piping to fasten flag to bike. Now im a patriot. but still a niners fan. got the 25 cent tank top there to prove it.
Then to the bar. We met our favorite woman in the world, Kim. Followed shortly by our least favorite, Jim. Jim's the type who had two teeth, half a liver, and doesnt know when to shut up. Kim told us the stories of bear hunting, and offered to make us elk if we came back tomorrow. Deal.
Met up with Kiel who is working for Smokey. Got some steelys and headed out to shoot some cans. On the way out to the shooting spot we saw a turkey. almost popped out the tercel sunroof in time to get it, but it would have to wait. Shot some can. Kiel got his first kill, a nighthawk, shortly after i said " No chance anybody gets that nighthawk." Touche Kiel. Then he ha dto take a bite of the liver. The least he could do. Avian flu. 7 minutes.
next morning woke to kiel peeing his pants because he got called onto a fire somewhere in oregon that kevin and i started a week earlier. he owes us. That left kevin and I to squat in kiels trailer until it was time for elk dinner. We passed time by doing stuff probably. Went to dinner. kim said her sister, bar owner, wouldnt let her serve us elk. We dont like her much. So we had finished the beers, grabbed the gun and went out for that turkey. So we walked and we walked, until... we found abandoned tractors. so we took pictures, then we walked some more. Now the sun is going down and our best turkey call was still failing us. Looks like we were gonna have to shoot a cow. dont know if they were wild, being fenced in and all. Figured our best bet was to tip it first.
3 minutes. tired of typing sorry. word jsut got in that time is being updated. lucky you guys.