Travels Without Charley
With extreme apologies to Robert Frost AND John Steinbeck. I guess if you are going to rip off titles you might as well pick two great authors to 'paraphrase'. I did.
Have you seen Google Maps Timeline? What a great thing for a guy like me that rarely writes things down. I actually tried on this trip-then my water bottle leaked and wrecked my notebook. Sigh.
4200 miles (6700 km) was the total. Those of you who are familiar with the area will see that I traveled some lightly populated areas and lonely roads. My kinds of places. 31 days.
Obvious highlights include Lassen Volcanic and Crater Lake National Parks and the 'Volcanic Byway' that connects them. I intended to go to at least 3 other National Parks but a bout of covid ended that plan.
Crater Lake NP
My Goldwing Motorcycle was flawless, just perfect or even better. The trailer was likewise perfect AFTER I got a little better balance on the tongue right out of the gate. Couple hundred miles to get it balanced then it was right behind me the whole way.
I absolutely loved camping out of my trailer. The big tent and cot are already favorites. I bought a new cold weather sleeping bag that is lightweight and very effective after my old bag broke. I guess 'wore out' is a better term. I had big plans for cooking on my trip-that didn't work out so well. Cooking takes time and I didn't want to take it. It'll be different preparations for the next trip.
Temperatures on this trip ranged from 42f (5.5 C) to 105f (40 C) and I was more or less comfortable with all of it. As comfortable as you can be on a motorcycle. I got rained on 4 times and raising the windshield made three of those a near non event. The 4th one was just south of Quartzsite, AZ when I ran into a violent thunderstorm. I was almost home...
So. I'll post more on specific portions of the trip on a precisely imprecise schedule. Thanks for joining me on the ride.
All words and photos in this post are mine. For better or worse.
"Author's Note: All photographs taken with my Moto Edge phone. I didn't take a single frame with my Nikon. Amazing good 3 lens camera in that phone.
Man, I havent been to Crater Lake in years. I cant wait to get back to Oregon and visit.
It's a really cool place and I'd been 'burned out' of going there twice in the last 4 years. It was especially cool this year-less than 50 degrees, foggy and drippy. :)
Thanks Kitty! I really appreciate the visit and the words.
I saw barns that made me think of you. I was never in a position to get a photo (in a hurry, on a curve, etc) but I will one day. There is one just about 10 miles east of Ukiah, OR that I'll have to stop in the yard and ask but it's worth it. An Alpine roofed hay barn. A good barn picture needs to be stalked and I am doing so. I first saw it when I had covid and just didn't feel like any effort at all. The next time by I was meeting a guy and late. I'll get it.
Hey, I just appreciate that you thought of me! 😊
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I totally hear you about cooking while you are camping. After my wife and I sleep in then take our walk and finally getting around to cooking a big breakfast it is almost time for lunch! Tongue weight and adjustment is such a huge deal. Even with trucks, people don't realize it, but it makes such a big difference. It looks like you had an awesome trip! I can't wait to hear more about it! I hit the UP twice this summer so I would have to say it was a pretty great camping season for me!
I had a great trip. Everything worked. :)
You know I miss the UP, right? I'm really glad you got to go. Twice. :)
I made two serious errors. 1: Decided my phone was plenty and left my maps at home.
2: Decided I could do everything on my phone and left the laptop at home. I'd have been way better served to do at least some of my photo massaging while out and about. I have a couple hundred photos to go through and edit.
After all that I've done to avoid it and a certain smugness that I had done so. Got covid on the way up. Fully vaxed and boosted and really pretty careful...
Other than those three things it was a GREAT trip.
I started making a point of downloading offline maps to my phone of the areas that I know I am going to be visiting. I still miss my Garmin though, it is nice just being able to see everything around you as you are traveling. My truck is a year too late to have Android Auto... I am glad you had a good time! It sounds like it was a pretty epic journey (minus the Covid)!
I miss my Garmin, too. But what I really miss is a big fold out map that will show me areas relative to other areas. I'm not too much concerned about specific points, my phone does really well with that-but the big picture was very much missed.
One point in favor of the phone is the music that comes out of it :) I have a handle bar cradle and USB port mounted...
Yeah, I can understand that.
Extremes to cope with, good long road trip not good hearing about the Covid strike, or ending with lightning bouncing all around when out in the open road.
Hope to see more about the journey as you remember, balancing out memory and diary after winning the wager of trailer being well laid out.
Stay well and good to hear you back!
@tipu curate
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The lightning was the absolute least of my worries in that thunderstorm. For about 5 minutes it rained like water being poured out of a bucket. There was a guy ahead of me that recognized my distress and slowed down to let me lock in behind him. I got a chance to thank him when we were stopped alongside the road waiting for a wash to go down to a fordable depth. By then the sun was shining and it was very pleasant out... He said if the rain would have lasted any longer he'd have pulled over and gotten me in his pickup to wait it out...
Who says there are no good people left in the world?
I promise more of the journey. I've got about 400 photos...
Thanks Joan. Always appreciate hearing from you.
Been some wild flooding in various part of the world, being on a bike towing trailer any cross wind or heavy rains, no walk in the park.
Glad you found one good Samaritan on the road that day, makes life good reason to smile when the sun shone again.
Look forward to seeing this expedition you undertook, always good to do now, rather than regretting not getting going.