The last leg through Santa Monica:

Home at last, in the relative peace of a Venice alley:

All that I can say with certainty is that the USA is a big place.  I advise anyone considering a cross-country motorcycle trip to proceed without reservation, and plan to spend between two and three months.

220 miles, San Simeon CA to Venice CA.

Total miles: 7,778, calculated by route.  22 travel days, an average of 353.5 miles per day.  Shortest day, 28th of June, 85 miles.  Longest day, 19th of June, 640 miles.

8,385 miles by the odometer – that’s 607 missing miles.  Where did I go?

The Ruona Estate:

Over the bridge and into the city:

After I party with my sister Jenny and her spawn, Constance and Duncan, I make a quick stop at an old favorite, the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco:

I am accosted by a guy who just bought a Moto-Guzzi and is worried that his fuel tank is too small.  He wonders if Touratech makes a bigger tank for him.  I tell him, good luck with that.

I leave The City That Knows How around 4:00 pm and take Skyline Boulevard:

I make Pfeiffer Big Sur around 8:00 pm.  The park is quite full.

So are all the others to the south.  I stumble on in the dark:

I arrive at San Simeon at 10:30, and check in to the Motel 6.  I am disappointed at not camping on my last night out, but too tired to really care.

240 miles, Novato CA to San Simeon CA.

Tonight I will be a guest of the Novato Ruonas, which I anticipate eagerly.  It will be my first stay in a real home since this journey began.

I stop in Weed , California, for lunch at the Hi-Lo Cafe.  Fantastic:

The Weed Store has a dazzling assortment of stickers!  It is warm in Weed, at 3,500 feet.

By the time I get to Redding CA it is blistering hot.  I stop at an AM/PM, pound a Coke Slurpee and a bottle of water, and soak my t-shirt, helmet liner, and gloves.  Evaporative cooling has saved me repeatedly on this trip, a tip from my mechanic, Eric Carlton.

540 miles, Cascara Campground, Fall Creek Lake OR to Novato CA.

The best coffee since … Stumptown in Manhattan.  The above photo is the bookend to this one.

To further restore my traveler’s equilibrium, I set out to camp in the trees at Fall Creek Lake, having no doubt that I would find a camp-site on a Sunday night.  The campground was less than easy to find due to road construction and detours (one consistent hallmark of this trip), but find it at last I did.

The campground was quite full.

I found the camp-host and asked if there were any other (less popular) sites nearby.  I was told that the campers in site 12 had vacated just at that moment.  I hurriedly parked my bike at the site and walked back to the pay-kiosk, afraid to leave the site empty.  As I walked, I passed the ranger listing alternative sites for a new arrival.  I had made it by that much.

180 miles, Kelso WA to to Cascara Campground, Fall Creek Lake OR.

I took some film photographs and broke my fast.

I took a stroll in the beautiful park:

I left Old Fort Townsend State Park and headed into town:

I had a fine lunch at the Fountain Cafe:

Anyone for a Northwest getaway?

Heading out, I decided to take the upper road out of town, to see what was there.

As I rode the crest of the hill through a quiet residential neighborhood, at precisely 1:23 pm, White Tank unceremoniously died, or went into a coma – as if I had just run out of gas.  Which I had not.  The last (and only) time this had happened was on the San Diego freeway, heading south in the number one lane in a torrential downpour.  The Hall Sensor had failed, for which there is no remedy save replacement.  I waited a day in San Diego while the part came in, US$315.00.

I called San Diego BMW and talked to a mechanic.  He asked if I could hear the fuel pump cycle when turning the key.  I could not.  He had me check the fuse (after unloading all my luggage to get the seat off); it was blown.  I “borrowed” another fuse.  The fuel pump just clicked.  The mechanic told me that I had almost certainly gotten some foreign object stuck in the pump.

I was far from any dealer, assuming they had a spare in stock.  The mechanic recommended reversing the polarity on the pump, back and forth, until hopefully it would spit out whatever was stuck in its craw.

This meant pulling off the tank and removing the fuel pump.  Luckily I was very low on fuel.  I sprang into action, taking care not to spill any fuel as I pulled the pump and cannibalized some wires to reverse the leads.  Click.  Reverse.  Click.  Repeat.

Finally the pump coughed and spat a spray of fuel.  It lived.  I hastily put things back together and prepared to flee.

The battery was almost completely dead.  However, my curiosity had led me to the top of a hill, and I was just able to bump-start the bike before I reached the bottom at 3:11 pm.  Total roadside repair time: 1 hour 48 minutes.

I made for Bainbridge Island and the ferry to Seattle, an hour’s ride, hoping to make the visit to Touratech before their closing at 5:30 pm.

Now I was almost out of fuel with an injured battery and a questionable fuel system (more on that later), hurrying to get to the ferry, which is never in any hurry at all.  But, in the end, I made the ferry, the fuel pump kept pumping, and the bike miraculously started when it came time to board.  Approaching Seattle:

All aboard:

The GPS is highly confused by ferry travel:

The bike started again at the dock, much to my delight.  However, as I made for Interstate 5 up the steep hills from the ferry terminal, I could hear the poor fuel pump sucking air.  The had to be a fuel stop in my immediate future.  Additionally, there is no better way to clog a fuel pump than to run the tank dry.

See the 41L pros and cons, in my opinion, here.

Touratech was closed, but Kimmo, Iain, and Matt were still there, and I managed to slow them down even more with more pointless tales.  I am glad that I at least got see the shop, and thankful to the guys for sticking around and ruining their evenings just a bit.

I pushed on until late, determined to cover some ground, and came to an end at the Motel 6.

190 miles, Old Fort Townsend State Park WA to Kelso WA.

Full stop on Moe Ridge Rd:

I realized after one mile that a) the bike was too heavy, b) the day was too hot, c) the road was too technical, d) my skills were to remedial, and that e) I might die.  Answer: f, all of the above.  According to my calculation I had about a 40% chance of falling, and if I fell, about a 50% chance of being seriously bent/broken/dead.  My survival skills kicked in, and I (carefully) turned the bike around.

The ride back out:

Highway 2, the northern route over the Washington Cascades, put me back in good spirits, my heart rate having stabilized by this time:

Highway 2 reminding me of Nor-Cal:

Took my first moto ferry ride from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island.  Bikes get on first and ride up front.  Continued north and hopped the Port Townsend – Keystone ferry:

Camped at Old Fort Townsend, made camp in the dark.  Warm, quiet, peaceful.

295 miles,Moses Lake WA to Old Fort Townsend State Park WA.

The night was cold and tedious, much time spend trying not to touch the tent walls and stay covered up.  As I finished packing up, the sun came out:

Idaho, on Highway 12:

The featureless grasslands of Idaho.  This continued for many hours:

335 miles, Lee Creek, Lolo Pass MT to Moses Lake WA

In 1989 the residents of Gallatin Valley undertook the “Hyalite Challenge Project,” to turn the Hyalite Drainage into is a series of small campgrounds along Hyalite Canyon Road, just outside of Bozeman.  There is fishing, as well as numerous trails.  Gorgeous and very quiet on a week-day.

Leaving the forest and entering Bozeman:

Had a long, lingering breakfast at Wild Joe’s in Bozeman:

Central Montana:

Just before the Idaho border I checked in to Lee Creek campground in Lolo Pass:

Pleasant weather, and I got my camp set up before dark.  Quite by accident I met JR, a biker from central Washington on a 1200GS, riding with his buddy Scott on a V-Strom.  We had a fine chin-wag, sharing stories and opinions.  As anti-social as I am, it is one of the true pleasures of travel to have a chance encounter like this one.

255 miles, Hyalite Canyon, Gallatin Forest MT to Lee Creek, Lolo Pass MT.

A day of three firsts.

I saw branch lightning just off the highway. I could see where it came out of the ground. That’s right, lightning travels from the ground to the cloud, clouds have a negative charge. Hello.

I saw a real cowboy just off the highway. I recognized him from a distance by his large hat, his head tipped down. He was astride his horse, standing in a little grassy ditch, his hands in his lap. Holding a mobile phone. Perhaps he was texting. Or perhaps he was trying to check his voice-mail on his iPhone, and visual voice-mail was temporarily unavailable. He had to be a real cowboy to be texting.

I saw three sheep in the rain, munching grass in. One sheep had two birds standing on its back. Looking for bugs, I thought. How embarrassing for the sheep. “I know, I got bugs, I’m a sheep, I’m out here in the wild all day, and I appreciate you eating those bugs, fine, but do you have to do it in front of everybody?”

Terrifying and cold into the Crazy Mountains, aka the Crazy Woman Mountains, named for a woman who went insane and lived in them after her family was killed in the westward settlement movement … according to Wikipedia. 6000 foot pass in the rain, passing trucks on an up- and down-grade, not a whole lot of fun. But I could see blue sky on the horizon and it pulled me forward. By the time I got off the highway in Bozeman I had come out of the rain, but it was pretty dark by the time I found a camp site in the Gallatin National Forest. Set up my tent happily in the dark with my head-light and a lantern, polished off the remnants of my bourbon, and crashed out.

455 miles, Belfield ND to Hyalite Canyon, Gallatin Forest MT.

In the farmland of the American west there are truncated driveways off the highway that immediately become a dirt track. I thought that this would make a keen photographic opportunity, and this did turn out to be the case. However, turning the bike around on the dirt track proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated, the tall grass disguising deep ruts. I managed not to drop the bike, and only stalled it once, but I noticed that somewhere in that romp the GPS shut off, which it does occasionally, with no lasting Ill side affects. However, I did notice that the clock on the bike had reset to 0:00.  Odd. The battery is doing fine, no starting or ABS boot-up trouble. Mechanical Brain Failure?

You know the Windows desktop picture with the endless green grass and blue sky? The Dakotas. I stared at that for hours today. I could never find the Start button. I could tell I was moving by the gradually accumulating bugs on my visor.

En route to Belfield ND:

The Cowboy Inn:

The cozy interior:

Belfield ND:

Nice amateur fireworks across the town.  Old school.

480 miles,  Mitchell SD to Belfield ND.