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.