Steve's pictures

Here are pictures Steve took. The first 5 are of an island he saw off the coast and after a closer look he saw Sea Lions on it. The rest are random shots.

More pictures

Here are more pictures from the past few days. The first ones were taken at the Golden Gate bridge. The rest were on the road through the forests and at some of our campsites along the way. The last one is Alcatraz island.

Catching up

We haven't had WiFi or cell service at the campgrounds we've stayed in the last 3 nights so I'll try and catch up on our trip so far. We left Salem Sunday morning and headed for the coast. Once we hit 101 we turned south and rode it to almost the California border that day. The next day we continued on and picked up California highway 1 and took it down near Jenner. Tuesday we continued on and rode over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, took pictures and turned around rode back across and got out of town. Last night we ended up in north east California near Downieville on highway 49.

The pictures below are of the coastline, Redwood Forest, Golden Gate bridge and anything else I thought was interesting.

Leaving in the morning

Sunday morning we will head for the Pacific coast and start riding the 101 towards California. I don't know how far we will get every day. We had a good time here at the BMW MOA rally and met a lot of nice people from around the country and the world.
I should have pictures to post tomorrow.

MOA

We are at the BMW Motorcycle Owners Association rally for the rest of the weekend. Steve and I are now together and will be for the next 2 1/2 weeks. Still great weather.

Here is a picture of our camp at the rally.

Great ride today

Today I put on 500 + - miles and ended up in Bend, OR. I traveled through Lassen Volcanic Nat. Park which has some steam vents and bubbling mud pots like Yellowstone. Then through Crater Lake. Almost all the roads I took were perfect motorcycle highways with gentle 35-55 mile hour curves and plenty of elevation changes.

Tomorrow it will be an easy 100 miles over the mountains to Salem where I'll meet up with Steve. He is in Boise, ID tonight so he has a long ride tomorrow to Salem.

The first 3 pictures below we're taken in Lassen, the 4th is Mt. Shasta and the last 2 are of Crater Lake.

Another camp site

Here is my camp tonight. It's in the Donner Memorial State Park. This is where the famous Donner party survived  by cannibalism when they got trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains on their way to California in the winter of 1846.

I'm having a freeze dried dinner of beef stroganoff, or so it says on the package.

That brown metal box is where you are suppose to put your food at night so the bears don't get it . Comforting thought as I sleep in my nylon tent that a mosquito could break into.

A sign in the road

Fasten your seat belts it's going to be a "fun" road.

Yosemite Nat. Park

Here are pictures I took today as I went through Yosemite.

July 2013 trip

I'm headed to Salem, OR to attend the annual BMW MOA rally with brother Steve. After it's over we will ride down the Pacific Coast Hwy. to about San Francisco and then head East working our way to Colorado via Oregon, Idaho and Utah. We will meet our other brother Darryl err Kevin and Nate, Greg, Frank and Bruce in Ouray, CO. From there we will spend a week running around that state.

Here is a picture of my camp site on Sunday up in the Sierra Nevada Mtns.

Another ride

Steve and I are doing another little ride. Janet and I drove to her sister and Dads in Murphysboro, IL trailering the BMW. After a couple days visiting I took off on the bike and met Steve in Jackson, TN. From here we are going to watch a Pro Motocross race in Blountville, TN. From there I'm headed to Cedar Falls, IA stopping to see my cousin Bill Green near Princeton, IL along the way. When Janet is ready to head home I will return to Murphysboro and trailer up for the trip back to Arizona.

Today's my birthday

I took off today to ultimately end up in Moonshine, IL for a moon burger with Steve and Kevin along with hundreds of other motorcycle riders. After about 575 Interstate miles I'm spending this first night in Tucumcari, NM and am heading to Dallas, TX tomorrow to meet Steve and some other BMW K1600 riders.

Death Valley STOC

I'm headed to a Death Valley in the morning to attend an ST Owners get together.

Day 8

From Show Low we drove along the Mogollon Rim to Payson and then on to Strawberry where we stopped for breakfast and a piece of pie :o) With the weather turning cooler and wet we decided to head to my house the shortest route but stopped along the way to see our cousin Bob, the brother of Bill.
My portion of the trip is now over. Steve hung around on Friday and we continued our visiting. Tomorrow he will be hitting the road back to Kansas Ciy.

Day 7

We woke up to another blue sky day, life is good. After a breakfast of instant oatmeal we were off to see the Catwalk. This is a walkway made of expanded metal that winds its way through a narrow rock canyon. We didn't get very far as there were repairs being made to the catwalk probably do to flooding.
We then headed to Arizona on highway 78 which took us to Clifton/Morenci where we saw another open pit copper mine.
This put us on The Coronado Trail or highway 191 which used to be highway 666 but that designation couldn't pass modern "political correctness". No pictures of this road do to paying attention while driving. Not finding a suitable camp site we opted for a motel in Show Low and a prime rib dinner :o)

Day 6.2

After arriving at the cliff dwelling information center and getting a little education we went to saddle up and I noticed cords showing all around my rear tire which had 7,900 miles on it. We were 44 miles from town on a very winding road, which may have been a good thing seeing as how the edges had plenty of rubber. So I dialed the throttle response to the RAIN setting and the suspension to COMFORT. I also brought up the tire pressure readings to the display and we headed back to town. Once in town I couldn't find a motorcycle shop on my GPS so Steve pulled out his BMW Anonymous book and I called a rider listed in Silver City. He was out of town riding with 9 other guys but was able to direct me to the only bike shop in town. Even though they specialized in ATVs they had a 180/55 ZR 17 no name sport tire in stock. Although a tad smaller than stock I took it and $134 and 45 minutes later we were back on the road. A burger, some Walmart shopping and back to the KOA for the evening.