9. day 3

The next day started a few funny obsessions that occurred during the trip that I found constantly amusing, and which continually popped up. One was that we stole the “do not disturb/ service this room immediately” signs from everywhere we stopped. The first day I put on the back of my dads bike (you can see it sticking out from under my seat where I was hiding it) without him knowing and he never saw it till our first gas stop of the day, I even got a picture of him heading into the gas station without him knowing. We ended up keeping these on our bikes the entire trip. Of course my said “please service immediately” and the funny thing is that later on just outside of whistler some guy asked me if the sign had brought me any luck yet…I knew they were a good idea.

The second thing was that every time my dad went to take a picture I could not help but take a picture of him. There was something so endearing or entertaining about him using the digital camera. Looking back on it now it’s pretty obnoxious that I keep taking pictures of him taking pictures of me and he’s probably pissed because I ruined all his pictures but I just could not miss an episode of him wielding the digital. Hopefully he understands my excitement.

We headed north and crossed the border into Canada this morning. It was pretty uneventful, or should I say, without episode. I don’t get it? Why is Canada, by shear virtue of geography so much cooler the U.S.? The second we crossed into Canada it was like this feeling that we had crossed a line into something really cool, like we were exploring or going where few dared to venture. I don’t care…it was cool! We just kept heading north on Highway 93 and ascending until we hit the Continental divide. It probably wasn’t a great idea to stop because the second we did we looked back at the sky. Dark, dark clouds. The kinds that bring rain. It was probably time to hightail it to Banff in order to avoid too much riding in the rain, but not before getting a picture at the continental divide sign. Incidentally, I will also say that on average Canadians, seem to be a much warmer, welcoming, and ready to converse lot than their American counterparts. We met a guy about my age at the continental divide that was on a big crotch rocket cruising across Alberta and British Columbia with only the clothes on his back. We all stood around bantering about motorcycles and taking pictures for each other. My dad gave him a water and he chugged it quickly announcing that it was the best water he had ever had. I guess he was having so much fun riding his new bike that he forgot to stop for water, unlike us who could not ride more than 50 miles without a water stop. He left and was doing well past 60 before ever switching to 3^rd gear…cool, just cool.

Coming into Banff it was immediately and undeniably clear why this stretch of a couple hundred miles or so of valleys is a national park. Each and every feature is on the grandest of scales. The mountains are not so much mountains but huge pieces of granite that were broken over the knee of God and propped up, jutting into the sky. The town of Banff was completely overrun by tour busses and each tour bus opened to spill tiny tourists holding hands with big open eyes searching for the closest chachka store, after which the shuffled right on back in and headed to their hotel, where they spilled out again. The town was a place to avoid however leaving town and the magic really happened. We decided the next morning to head over to Banff international airport. I hope you can appreciate the term “green design” when you look the airport. the sign on the left (in case you can't read it) states "caution, Low Flying Aircraft"...i hope that you can appreciate the fact that the entire runway is grass, I love it. While we were there a lady was walking her dog on it, I guess she wasn't worried about planes landing and there sure wasn't any runway manager telling her to leave. I guess something had triggered my dads memory because our of the blue he said. “Hey, when you go to pull over make sure you stake an area out to make sure there are no bears around.” He said this for good reason. They were everywhere...so we heard.

Heading north out of Banff toward Jasper would begin a day of absolute endurance on our parts. They day started off with rain, heavy rain which only cleared long enough for us to get a bit out of town but came again as soon as we were really under way. I had every piece of rain gear I owned on; Long underwear, motorcycle riding jacket, rain shell over the riding jacket, carhartt pants with rain shell over them and my gore-tex outdoor research gaiters on over them. The cold and rain came in a combination that seemed to laugh at each piece of dry warm clothing I employed. 40 something degrees with rain and riding 50 mph is a painful combination, I mean painful. My fingers were literally numb in the first 20 minutes. I didn’t want to stop or slow down because I didn’t know how I was going to let go of the throttle in order to do so, my fingers were locked into position. It seemed there would be no way i could pull on the clutch to down shift. We finally pulled over at a camp ground in order for me to find another pair of gloves that were dry, and to smoke in a feeble attempt to warm ourselves from the inside out. We hid out under the reservation kiosk sign in order to shield ourselves from the rain. Really the only way to warm my hands even somewhat effectively was to put both my hands down my pants. I didn’t look real cool when an entire family showed up in rain ponchos in order to fill out the ticket stub for their campsite, but I didn't care either. I stood in total seriousness, hands in my pants talking with them about the rain and our ride that day. I found surgical gloves I had brought to work on the bikes with but my dad and I decided we should use these to keep out hands a little drier and to cut down on wind chill, so we put those on under our riding gloves. It actually seemed to work a bit.

Even in the rain, the scenery and mountains were amazing and seemed to take on a Twinpeaks-ish quality as the mist and fog hung over the valley we were riding north through. Toward jasper we found the Athabasca glacier. As you can see it is still wet, raining and cold but it didn’t stop the Brawley’s from stopping and taking our mandatory photo op. Nothing, I mean nothing can stop the photo op!!!!!

At lunch we decided that it would be a good idea to break out the lonely planet as someone heading south told us that everything in jasper was booked for the night. It seemed that everymotorcyclist we passed was wet and worn, optomism of a summer motorcycle trip seemed a bit beat down by cold and rain. Each group of bikers were scrambling to find rooms for the night, Passing knowledge from one table to the next about which hotels, motels, or hostels in the next or previous towns were booked or not. Lonely planet publications combined with Brawley team ingenuity sent us calling ahead ahead to Jasper and booking a room in the Takara Lodge, which was listed as midpriced and a cool location. We’ll find out soon… This really took some of the franticness out of the rest of the day because we knew we wouldn't have to find a place later that night. (on a side note, my birdie finger on my left had is completely numb from getting stitches and I was staring out the window for a while only to return to the screen to see an entire paragraph of DDDD printer...oops.)

In the afternoon the rain started to subside, it was truly a godsend after a brutal morning and early afternoon of riding. We hung out by a river and got warm for a while before heading into Jasper. Incidentally, we were looking up at some mountain s and noticed that a sign stated that some early explorers or mountaineers had climbed them(see picture) in 1926. It’s really hard to fathom anyone ascending these mountains especially in 1926, that’s pretty inspiring. Suddenly I feel a bit meager only riding my motorcycle around in the cold rain all day, it just seems to easy compared to what they did.

We pulled in to Jasper after an enduring day of rain and cold to a dry warm afternoon. Like god finally felt sorry for us and gave us exactly what we wanted. The Lodge we found was quite possibly the most ideal place we could have hoped for. My dad likes the old lodges and wpa labor cabins build in the hayday of American construction. WPA stands for work program administration. it provided work for 8 million Americans and constructed or repaired schools, hospitals, airfields and stuff like that. Any way there a usually little cabins you find in national parks and out in the middle of nowhere, which the workers lived in.
We lit up a smoke in order to begin our ritual of parking the bikes, unloading our stuff and inspecting the area. The Takara lodge was a super quaint place perched on a shore high above confluence of the Athabasca and Miette River. They had place Adirondackchairs above the river so you could sit all day and enjoy the area. I found out from the front desk girl that Marilyn Monroe stayed there in 1956 during the filming of Road to nowhere, or something like that. I also found out that during the shooting of the film Joe DiMaggio visited daily and brought her flowers. I always love getting the inside scoop, see, it pays to be nosey. It turns out that it was a good find and we were practically on the set of lifestyles of the rich and famous.

I think Jasper was quite possibly my favorite town on the our journey. It seemed real, uncontrived, un manufactured. It was the first time my dad and I walked together on a trail. We found hobo marking on a train track inscribed “move to Jasper” and I had to wonder if it really was hobo markings. Maybe it meant something cryptic. Maybe it was some other kind of message like the others hobos left in towns to warn other hobos that were travelling through after them.

I like to think it’s some sort of hobo signal, like I was just reading about in the 2006 Harris’ Almanac. Harris’ Farmer’s almanac describes the difference between hobos, bums and tramps. A Hobo works and wanders. Tramps dreams of better times and places and hunt for new ones, while bums drink and rove the country. A hobo never steals. Well, the orgin of the word hobo is uncertain, but Godfrey Irwin proposed (in some unknown publication) that it was derived from the latin homo bonus, or good man. The word was first used in the united states after the civil war. It referred to soldiers walking home who answered “homeward bound” when questioned about their destination, and to men who had left their farms and sought work as “hoe boys”. Strangely enough there is a national hobo convention held in Britt, Iowa, each year. Its been held there nearly every august since 1900. I think we should use Jasper as an inspirational launching point in order to travel to the hobo convention next year!

8. Day 2

The first stop on the first day was at the Missoula Harley dealership. He bought engine oil and I got chain oil and we ogled over new Harleys with 6 speed transmissions, and Ducati’s which I wanted with a vengeance. We never made it far without stopping for something. A view, a cigarette, a water break, a pee break, or tourist attraction. That day seemed to be an all time high. On our way to Glacier national park we skirted ________lake on the west side, then came to a town where my dad knew this spot that had Huckleberry Ice cream. Ever had Huckleberry ice cream? Ever had Huckleberry ice cream and a cigarette? Hot damn…it’ll send your senses reeling, what a combo! Ok ice cream first, cigarette second. Hey, when in Rome, right. Our next stop was Glacier national park. The first half of the ride you ride along the shores of Lake McDonald on its south side. There were lots of great places to stop and throw rocks in the lake or by the river that drained the lake but you had to fight the selfish side of you that wanted to keep throttling through all the turns along the lake. Life is good when this is the biggest internal debate going on in your head (“throttle, turn, lean, sight see, big mountain, throttle, turn, ELK! more throttle, more turns!!!). At the end of the lake on the eastern edge you are delivered to the foot of Going to the Sun road. Think about it, it’s literal. There is only one reason they would call it this. As you sit at the bottom and look up it looks as if someone had just taken an eraser and erased a line along the side of a granite wall zig zagging all the way up, up, up. I really thought what I was looking at could not have been the road and that it was fissure in the rock or at the very most some primitive unused road of a bygone era. How quickly I was surprised as we ascended up and past hairpin turns noted on the map as “the loop”, and waterfalls called the “weeping wall”. You stop at the top for a rest at Logan Pass visitors’ center. That ride I viewed my first mountain goat.

The visitors center also forced us to be keenly aware that Europeans, as a general rule, wear shorts much, much shorter than we surfer fashioned Americans. Though these shorties may allow one a much more ergonomically correct stride and less hair loss due to friction they also display everything that God gave you all too often for most innocent bystanders taste. In the beginning you try to avoid it, thinking “ouch”, “ew” and later as you gain in comfort it steadily becomes a source of comedy, and a sort of sighting like a bald eagle, or fish jumping from water. I’ll let you think about that one.

We headed back down the mountain and out of the park (I had to stop for the first manifestation of my addiction to national park sticker first) toward the town of Whitefish, Montana. Now you know we were scouring for the old holiday inn express and after a couple cruises down the main drag I spotted it and headed in. NO rooms! NO rooms in town…the entire town! The girl at the counter smiles politely. My dad and I stare down at our handy map; look at each other like “the next town is more than 50 miles away”. We just stood there for a minute, preverbal gears turning, I turned and headed back in to ask one last question. “Now honey, you know my dad and I here aren’t too picky… is there anything you know of that has a vacancy anywhere within a few miles of this town?” Well it turn out she did know of a place but it was at the very top of a mountain up a long and twisty road and it was an old ski lodge they kept open during the summer, that’s what she told me. Jesus, can you say THE SHINING? That’s all I could think of when she said that, but beings that it was our last option I booked it using her desk phone and we booked it up the crooked road ever, all the way to the top of Big Mountain ski resort jis outsida Whitefish, Montana. It would be the first in many nights, and many meals for that matter that we rewarded ourselves with steak. It was the beginning of my understanding that my father has an uncanny ability to crave steak on an almost daily basis. I’ve never eaten so much steak, I miss it just thinking about it now!

7. day 1 riding

No amount of preparation, planning, preemption, postulation or prevention can really properly guide to the day that you actually pull the choke lever for the last time, turn the key and feel the engine start for the first day of a motorcycle journey.

After moving the last of my unwanted belongings or “free stuff” to the side walk, quickly making a “free” sign, sweeping my room for the last time, and placing my keys next to each other on the kitchen table I drove away from Carleton street and the fair city of Georgetown for Missoula, Montana to meet my dad at an undisclosed location or time. Actually we really didn’t know where we would meet. It’s impossible to disclose the undisclosable.

It felt earie and exciting to ride west on I-90 up the western slope of the Cascade mountains of Washington state. . It felt great to once again be doing something that I had never ever done before, and for a time I felt as if I had never driven this road, I saw it in a new light, with a new set of eyes. If there were a drug that gave you the sense that adventure was ON, I would bottle it and keep it all for myself, probably taking it constantly. The air cooled the moment I left Seattle and headed to the green lined highways passing over Snoqualmie pass. I thought I would never do this but I decided to take the I-pod along, I thought it would be a great idea to start the day with some Randy Rhodes tribute by Ozzy. It’s a great combo with the motorcycle and 3 cups of coffee together. I pulled in to Ellensburg and Roslyn to see if Darcy had got my messages, or if she was home. I pulled up and was greeted like we had been planning my arrival for weeks. Though I never really warned her before arriving she made me coffee, yogurt with muesli and loaded me up on Ibuprofen! I cannot think of a better place to stop or a more appropriate fist encounter on this trip. Thanks Darcy…and congratulations!

As I descended the east slop of the Cascades the day began to heat up, I passed through Yakima, the Grand Coulee dam and the Columbia River toward Spokane. Rest stops are great places to check out the action of true America. All the bad habits, paranoia, rudeness and obliviousness can all be observed in a spot no larger than a football field. If you want to experience the better sides of what we are capable of, avoid these places, unless of course there is free coffee and cookies. I tend to like to sit around and watch for a while. You pull up and all the other motorcycle riders have to check you out, like dogs at the dog park. I was hoping sit down on the lawn but I realized I was watching a woman get out of her air-conditioned car (leaving it running) to walk the dog over to the only shady spot so it could shit, and she could be in the shade simultaneously. I sat on the grass in the sun and devoured the last of my MRE (lifted from fort Lewis) tuna salad with crackers, which really wasn’t that bad I have to say.

By the time you leave Spokane and head into Idaho you start remembering why you bought the motorcycle in the first place. The road starts climbing, and descending, and climbing more all the while twisting its way through canyons. The trees begin to return as if they were somehow banished from Washington but allowed to return somewhere near the Idaho boarder. Its like leaving rolling grasslands of corn and wheat, ascending up past Laura ingalls wilder and the set of little house on the prairie and up to the set of Big Valley waving to Hoss, where the ponderosa pines poke out of pine needle carpeted mountains. The air enters your body in a way that no longer feels as if the life were being sucked out of you, crisp and gentle. I have discovered that the best roads tend to be those that follow rivers, the second best being those that follow lakes. For two reasons; one is that the roads are always full of curves and undulations, the second is that the air always seems a bit sweeter, cooler, and welcoming, especially as the sun sets and you can feel these changes sweep past you. .

By the end of the day my dad was stuck in a windstorm somewhere south of Missoula and said he probably would not make it to Missoula to meet me. Determined as I usually am, I swore I would be there if it took me all night. I was going to force myself to make my first day a 500 mile day since he had been doing 700 mile days for three days in order to meet me from Texas. We left messages every 100 miles or so on eachothers voicemail in order to guage our hopeful simultaneous arrivals in Missoula. As I closed in on Missoula within about a 100 miles or so I called my dad and it turns out that he hauled ass and outran the windstorm only to arrive sooner than I. We met just of exit 105 in Missoula if you were taking I90 east. I passed a harley dealership on exit 99 or close to that, so I made a mental note we should return the next day in order to add a dealer pin to my dads ever growing dealer pin collection. When we met at the convenience store called Nunes it meant that the trip was pretty much ON from that point onward regardless of what was happening on or off the bikes. I know he was looking at my puny little dualsport bike thinking “jesus, this is going to be a slow long trip”…ha, I put in the 16 tooth front sprocket so I could easily maintain 70 mph or so. 16 tooth would soon become my mantra while passing semi’s uphill or sightseeing tourists.

The first night we stayed in my dads favorite…Holiday inn Express. I’ve come to understand, as you will later the importance of having a favorite. It means that when you open the door to a room, there will be no unexpected treats, visitors, mushy mattresses, unfunctional remotes or used towels on the ground. It’s familiar, it’s like home, and while I do value adventure, a firm mattress and clean towels sure are nice when you are paying the price.

6. Well, its official. Tomorrow morning estimated time of departure is o-dark-hundred! I came into work today and found out that I got my shift for tomorrow covered which means I get to leave two days early and I still get my bonus for working all summer. sweet. By far this may be one of the wierdest jobs I have ever had. Well, i wont say the wierdest job, but the most unlikely environment i ever thought i would find myself in. I've spent the summer working at the Warrior Forge Clinic. the warrior Forge is where they forge the future officers (who are now juniors in college ROTC). The clinic is where future warriors (cadets) come when they are sick, break bones, have abcesses, colds, cuts requiring stitches, dehydration, broken teeth, ingrown toenails, venereal diseases, pink eye, ear infections, impacted ear wax, pregnancies, chest pain, headaches, mental breakdowns and a ton of other minor problems. It's been fun and it has been a great introduction to practicing medicine. Most things are fairly simple so it has given me some confidence where I was really unsure before. Also it has given me the opportunity to see a part of my brothers world. I guess I dont get to see what he really does but i get to see the environment he operates in. Its been cool, one of my brothers buddy's from Virginia is stationed out here so he stops by everyonce in a while. I'll be sad to leave because I work with great people here and it is a quaint little place. We had about 4000 or so cadets here this summer so when sick call got a bit out of hand we started using the old tent there on the right. when i work the night shift I go out there and smell. You know what one of these tents smells like? I little musty, a bit like adventure, a little mysterious, a little scary...you start to wonder what happened in this tent insome other country in some other decade. If you have ever been to an army surplus store you know what i'm talking about.

I'm probably headed to Missoula, Montana tomorrow night. I'll meet up with my dad there and from there we will head north into Canada. I'll probably ride about 500 miles. I'm trying to stop off in Roslyn, WA on my way out I-90 to have a little late morning coffee with my ol' friend Darcy. I'm just gonna go knock on her door if she doesnt start answering my phone calls!(heheh, sorry darcy)

ps. I found this cool little diddy under a bridge while out for a walk yesterday with Shane, Kelly and Lucky...

5. If you are going to take pictures, you better keep your camera handy. The next test was to figure out a way to keep the camera nearby so that I could take pictures whenever I wanted. I figure if there is a moose in the road or some herd of buffalo giving me a standoff on some remote highway I may want to take one hand off the bike, grab the camera, and snap a picture while still moving, performing a getaway, or in a highspeed chase . I know, I know, don't even think it.
so check it out, here is my on motorcycle camera holder!

I've been throwing stuff in a pile in my room for 2 weeks now. In my mind i keep saying "at some point you should really organize this stuff". Everytime I run into some piece of camping gear or soemthing i think I might need I throw it in the pile. Today I finally realized that If I was going to fit it all in onthe motorcycle I would have to lay it all out, and put in in the pannier one piece at a time in order to see if it will all fit. Here is a picture of all of it laying on the floor. Believe it or not I actually packed all this stuff into two panniers on the bike. this was nothing compared to trying to get it all in my backpack like i have for other trips. I may really like this motorcycle thing


I have also decided to take a long another camera. Its a plastic camera that holds medium format 2 1/4 film. They are very elementary, but take cool pictures. They are a little fragile so I make a little case out of bubble wrap. Not quite a s cool as the other case but I think it will keep it relatively safe. I must say thanks to Tim for loaning me the Holga. it will be a cool treat to use and get pictures back from. thanks tim!

I still have to pack all my tools. Actually there are a lot of tools: screwdriver, open ended wrenches, crescent wrenches, spark plug gapper, valve gapper, oil, torque wrench, pliers, tubes, tire levers, spare spark plug, spare fuses, tweezers, rubber gloves, sockets, rachet for sockets, extenders for sockets, etc...etc.

I made a tool box that would keep the center of gravity a bit lower on the bike. Not that it really matters but if I am going to throw 10 pounds or more of tools on the bike I wanted to keep the weight as low and forward as possible. chekkit! Don't laugh...yes it's made out of ABS plastic, its light, presumably water proof, and it was cheap. You love it!

4. OK, i finally decided there would be a modification on the bike i would not do myself. Essentially because I am so tired of running around before or after work everyday for parts, then sweating to death trying to pry some piece of metal or rubber from where it belongs to where I want it to be. I took the wheels off the bike and ordered some Michelin Anakee's. I broke down and took them to a shop to have them mount them. There certainly is a part of me that feels like I gave in and let someone else work on the bike. However it sure felt good to pick up the wheels and have the tires already mounted!!!!!

3.
3 days till takoff.
I had to move to Belling ham the day before yesterday. bad timing but again Shane helped me out and went up there with me to move all my stuff. Please note the Wagoneer! Lucky Limmo, hot rod extrodinaire. everytime i get to ride in it I relive a portion of my childhood. trying to make sure my brothers sweaty leg wasn't touching mine while we drove all over the place. the air conditioner never reached the back seat. It was coincidently, the first car I ever wrecked...I mean totalled.
Before we left for Bellingham Shane welded up the extension on my side stand. Evidently the man who owned it before me was quite a bit shorter. He lowered the bike and then cut the side stand so it would lean over properly. Well I raised it back up and if felt as if it was falling over every time I put it on the side stand. Check out shanes little diddy!
Moving is always adventerous and painful all at once. It's like a breakup. You never really see it in the correct light, for the greatness it contained, until you are driving away, then you are instantly filled with nostalgia and you miss it before you have reached the city limit. I feel this way about Goergetown and my brief stint on Carleton Avenue South. as with a breakup, the mover went almost smoothly. Problem was that the couch...no matter how creative we got...would not fit up the stairs. We did get a great ride in on Galbriath, went down to lake Padden, had a High life and went for a swim. I think I'm gonna love bellingham. Crisp lakes surrounded by green mountains containing miles and miles of beautiful northwest singletrack!

A couple of times a week shane and kelly invite me to go to the dog park with them and Lucky.I always have some thing i think i have to get done immediately so I always say no. today i decided i bette go check out what i had been missing since i am leaving soon. check out the dog parks in Seattle. I can't believe these places are in the middle of the city!

2.
I'm getting antsy. I can't sit still. Every conversation seems to gravitate to some detail about the motorcycle or the motorcycle trip. I keep taking it apart to fix some little thing, or some big thing for that matter. As the days move on and I get closer to leaving I can barely stand it. I finished the valve job which was an exercise in patients and stamina to say the least. Here is another picture of the valve shims which are essentially very nicely fabricated quarters.

I know I've said this before but I have to say it again. If I had hired a crew, a pit boss, or a teamate it certainly would be the Lowes. Check out the studio they let me work on my bike in while it was raining. I think Shane has helped me on just about every little project I have done so far. More on that to come later.

Well, along with all this great trip planning I have been doing. I also have to Move to Bellingham Washington before I leave on this trip because as soon as I get back from riding I start my new job in orthopedic surgery. In usual organized chaos fashion I have chosen to attempt to fix tons of things on this bike, move to bellingham, continue working 40 hours a week with a 2 hour commute daily, pull together resources for route planning, continue mountain biking regularly, helping other people move and still finish all the paper work to get credentialed at the hospital up in bellingham. It has almost surpassed my inhuman ability to juggle a ton of involved things all at once. At least this time I found my passport. Only problem I have now is a 16 tooth front sprocket that has been on order for a week now and still hasn't arrived. I'm getting a bit nervous. we shall see. 4 days till takoff. My dad has been calling every night to tell me where he is at. He started from Texas today and figures he can be here in 4 days. He's riding 700 miles a day so far. It sounds like it hurts. I hope I can keep up with him. I have already told him there is no way Im riding 700 miles in a day.