Day 2 & 3, rain, rain and more cold.

Even after giving the weather a night to sort itself out, I woke up the next morning to look at the radar and see . . . another epic band of rain and snow.  I was just south of St Louis and had to be in Austin in two days, so I couldn't just hole up in the hotel and wait it out.  So on went the rain gear, and I kept making my way south through a giant, nasty storm front.  It was in the high 30s, low 40s if I was lucky, and when it wasn't pouring rain it was drizzling.

This was motorcycling at it's most miserable, which I suppose isn't the worst way to start a trip.  I mean, it's not like this could get any worse, could it?

Oh, dammit.  Snow.  Not much on the pavement, but it had piled up in various places and it was cold enough that it was sticking around.


I really need to stick to a budget on this trip, but by mid-day I was so frozen and miserable that I stopped in at a KFC for their AYCE buffet.  Yes, it's crap GMO billion-calorie fast food, but I don't care.  And it was only $7, which made it even tastier.

They did have some green things on the salad bar, but why would I bother when I could just eat more dead animals?

I also took advantage of their plastic bags to give my feet a bit of waterproofing.  My boots are water resistant enough to light rains and sprays, but if they're getting wet for hours on end they soak through.  Some nice thick dry socks, along with some plastic bags promised to keep the toes from freezing quite as badly.

I kept pushing south, and while occasionally the sky would try and look optomistic off in the distance, I was in rain for almost the entire day.

I made it as far as Fort Smith and got another hotel for the night; I was feeling really bad about blowing through this much money this quickly, but I was quite frozen and in dire need of a hot shower and warm bed.  At least I saved a bit of money by using the room's ice bucket to microwave myself some chicken pasta.

Or pasta with chicken-flavored goo on it.

The next day didn't dawn any nicer; yet again, 40f and raining.  Once again on with all the rain gear, and I kept heading south.

I FINALLY caught a break sometime around 3pm I found the edge of the storm front, and rode out from under the storm.  Within the space of less than 30 miles, it went from high-40s and raining to low 70s, and mostly sunny.

Oh god, I needed this.

I stopped off in some small town in Oklahoma (Drury?  Durrant?  Something like that) and stopped in at this place for some lunch.

Pork Tenderloin with what I thought was going to be a side salad.  Not that I'm complaining, I'll eat almost any amount of anything that's put in front of me.

But there wasn't much else interesting that happened today; I was so glad to be out from the storm that I just super-slabbed it most of the way down to Austin, where I currently am.  I'm staying with a friend here for the night, and then tomorrow heading off into Texas's Hill Country, and hopefully FINALLY getting some actual camping in.

Getting across the plain states

Usually I have a moral aversion to the super-slab, but when you're just trying to get across Illinois as quickly as possible there's often no better option.  It's not like spending a lot of time on side roads is going to show you much different than you'd see from the interstate anyway; it's all corn and soybeans.

When I left Chicago, it was presently sunny, and reasonably warm.  This was going to be a good day, I though!

All packed up and ready to go.

Starting mileage.

Goodby, Chicago!  I'll miss you a lot, and by "a lot" I mean not at all.

It wasn't an entirely perfect day to leave; I'd resolved to stay single for this summer, to not get attached and to really just travel, live for myself.  But in the month I'd been back in the city, I'd met someone who made that incredibly hard.  Why the hell was it so difficult to leave someone I'd only know for a total of two weeks?  I hadn't signed up expecting all of those feels.  I know, lots of other fish in the sea and all, but . . . ugh.  The feels.

Anyway, once I got out of the city proper and the hellish traffic, it was time to find a grocery store and load up on motorcycle road trip foods.

Taking pictures of my food is something that will be happening pretty frequently.

Only a couple hours outside of Chicago, and already it was time to put on the rain gear.  The first time through it was just a shower and I was able to take it off again, but eventually the sky ahead starting looking worse and I put it on again.  It ended up staying on for the rest of the day; the farther south on I-55 I got, the worst the weather became.

Hiding under a freeway overpass, the natural home of the biker in the rain.

Seems like Iron Man is diversifying into the concrete and gravel business. (It's a nerd joke.  If you don't get why this is funny, don't worry.)

I stuck to the super-slab for the whole day, making it to St Louis sometime around 7:30pm and hitting up an REI for a few basic supplies I'd forgotten.  I did make an effort to find a campground, but after getting sent on a couple wild goose chases by the GPS, I said to hell with it.  It was in the mid-40s with pouring rain, and well past sunset; not the idea situation to be setting up my tent for the first time in a couple years.  Knowing my luck I'd get all unpacked just to find I'd forgotten something important, and then have to pack back up with everything now wet.

So I rode back up the highway a few miles, and checked into the first hotel that I found.  As much as riding around in this weather sucks, I will never tire of the stares I get as I saunter into someplace in full rain gear, looking like a drowned power ranger.

What lovely weather.

Parking lot?  No thank you, I'll just leave my bike on the sidewalk under the awning.

And here I am; first night out of what's supposed to be an epic adventure, and I'm roughing it in a hotel.

Planning an adventure always sounds great on paper, but when you're in the thick of it you remember that the things that make great stories later are not much fun at the time you experience them.

First night out, and already I'm in a hotel

Wimped out and got a hotel for tonight, just a bit south of St Louis.  In my defense, it's 45 degrees and pouring rain, and I haven't actually testing all my camping gear yet.  I don't want to get half set up in a rain storm only to discover that I'm missing something important.

Unfortunately it looks like tomorrow is going to be shitty as well.  My only hope is to burn a lot of miles and try and ride out from under this giant front that's sweeping across the midwest.

A 30,000 mile summer

It's been a while since I spent a long time on the road, and the last few years have been . . . interesting.  I've bounced around the planet a bit; lived on a tropical atoll in the central Pacific Ocean for a couple of years, but decided it didn't fit me very well.  So I quit that job, and moved back to Antarctica to spend the austral summer working at Palmer Station, in Antarctica (http://frozennerd.blogspot.com)

I've worked quite a lot in the last few years; saved some money, bought a couple of motorcycles, and now comes my reward to myself.

This will be a 30,000 mile summer.

This is NOT the actual route; just the major destinations tossed into Google Maps.  You really think I'd ever spend that much time on interstates?

Today I roll out of Chicago, and the wheels won't stop turning until sometime in September when I go back to work in Antarctica. The bike is my new(ish) 2008 Suzuki V-Strom 650, which I've spent the last month farkling to the hilt.

The Elka 3-way rear shock on this thing alone cost almost as much as I've paid for entire motorcycles.  And yes, that's truck be liner on the fairing.

I've been mentally planning this trip ever since I finished my last trip in 2009, and seriously planning for almost a full year. It's going to be a great summer; check in here often to hear all about it!

Carlsbad Caverns is only barely in Texas, and by noon on the next day I was in Roswell, New Mexico, which is famous because half a century ago a weather balloon crashed near here and a bunch of rednecks flipped out about it.  Everything for 50 miles in every direction is UFO/Alien themed, well past the point of reasonable kitsch.  Especially the restaurant that I stopped at to fill out postcards, although they had some cool cars as well.



Nothing much of note happened this day, I mostly rode north into Central New Mexico.  A friend of mine from New York had put me in touch with one of his old friends in Santa Fe, and I'd arrange to crash on her couch for a couple of days.  I didn't make it to Santa Fe that day though; night fell when I was still about 130 miles away, and it was getting too cold to ride.  I followed a rocky, steep path up off the main road and set up camp.



This was by FAR the coldest night I'd ever spent on the bike; the thermometer inside the tent registered a frigid 19 degrees Fahrenheit.  In addition to my sleeping bag and fleece liner, I was wearing two pairs of socks and long thermal underwear, multiple shirts and my hat.  I shoved my head into my sleeping bag as well, cinching the opening down so that it was barely two inches wide, just big enough to breath through.

While I was cold that night, I wasn't dangerously cold; we spent a lot of time in Antarctica studying the effects of hypothermia, and there's a big difference between being a little chilly and it actually being a problem.  I actually slept pretty well given the temperature, although the next morning the inside of my tent was covered in frost from my breath.

I packed up the bike and rode out of the mountains, down into Santa Fe and to the first laundromat I could find.  I hadn't had a shower since West Texas, and if I was actually going to be in the company of other human beings I figured I should try and at least have clean clothes.  Via a flurry of text messages, I linked up with my friends friend and crashed on her floor that night; my first sleep indoors in a week.

The next day found me someplace . . . completely foreign, strange, bizarre and weird to me:



I was in a CAR!  A big silly metal box with four wheels, and walls.

My friend's friend and I had been thinking of things that we could do today, and finally settled on taking a drive up into the mountains where there are supposedly a lot of natural hot springs that are warm year-round.  After a bunch of googling we settled on one that was still open, but it was marked as being down a 4-wheel-drive only path.  Had I been solo on the bike, I don't think I would have had a problem, but given my recent, uh, experiences with rough roads, we both agreed that it would be better to take her SUV.  It was a pretty area, although I would have enjoyed it more on the bike.



After a bit of a detour of getting a tiny bit lost, we found the turn-off for the trail and drove to the end, where it ended in a small clearing at the bottom of a sizable valley.



From here, we found the creek that we guessed was sourced from the hot spring we were seeking, and we hiked a half-mile hike up the side of the valley.  This was in mid-November, and we were at a lot of elevation.  It was sunny, but quite cold.



Eventually we found it, and were both blown away.  This place was amazing.



Even at this time of year the water coming out of the spring was at LEAST 110 degrees; so hot that it was almost uncomfortable.  A series of dams had been built out of native rocks that separated the water into four consecutive pools; each a couple of feet lower than the one before it, with each dropping perhaps ten degrees in temperature.  All this, cut into the side of a mountain and looking down over a beautiful coniferous valley, with the steam rising up and playing with the sun beams poking through the trees.  It was perfect.

Well, almost.  When we first got there it was full of a bunch of naked old hippies, which while it wasn't unexpected was a little bit awkward.  We made polite conversation with them for a while (and tried to avoid the display of old man balls whenever one of them would get out in a particularly ungraceful manner), but eventually they all packed up and left, and we had the whole place to ourselves.

:)

A few hours later we drove back to Santa Fe, and I was actually glad we'd brought the SUV instead of the bike; when we got back into town, there were a couple inches of snow on the ground.

I was in Santa Fe for a two more days, spending time both bleaching my new friends hair blond and then going to junkyards with her, trying to find a truck differential for an theater project she was doing in school.  Eventually it was time for me to leave, so I bid my farewells and got back onto the bike, where I really belonged.

My first destination was actually back in the direction of the hot springs; I'd made note of the roads and scenery in the area and knew that I had to try them on the bike.  It was just as brilliant as I'd thought it would be.



All groups of people, religious and otherwise, have sacred symbols that they bow down and pay reverence to.  Motorcyclists are no different; we have symbols of worship as well.



 I had lunch at the same little cafe place that we'd stopped at when we went to the hot springs, using the time to look at a map and figure out my next move.









As much as the mountains here were awesome and I loved it, I couldn't figure out a good way over them.  I was in the vicinity of Los Alamos, and as much as the nerd in me figured it would be neat to have a look around, I figured they probably weren't giving tours of a nuclear weapons research facility.  On top of that, most of the east-west mountain roads turned to dirt as the crested the ridges and headed down to the west, and when I checked them out many of them had a good coating of snow and ice.  Instead, I headed back south the way I came on super-slab, taking a right turn at Albaquuwereureuwueurequeureueruewukicky and pointed myself west on Rt 60



But there's only so much slab a guy can take in a single day; after only a few hours I found myself poking at my GPS looking for something more interesting.  I picked a side road almost at random that supposedly connected to the national forest a couple hours south, and went on my way.  It wasn't . . . the most brilliant move I've ever made, but it wasn't the dumbest.



Sections of it were okay, but there were often large patches of sand and silt.  Most of the time I made it through, but eventually I got myself into a patch too deep to gas myself out of on smooth tires, and went down pretty hard.  This fall was basically the last the bike could take; the right saddlebag frame was cracked to shit, the bag was beaten to hell and only barely holding on.

 

I resolved that the trip didn't count if I couldn't make it to LA in one piece, so I made the decision that after I got done with this I would lay off the dirt.

No more wipeouts befell me that day, and I made it to the end of the dirt where the road became tarmac again.  I took one of the random little tracks leading off the road and set up camp for the night in a dry creek bed.  Cold night again, but not nearly as cold as it had been in the mountains of Santa Fe.



The next day I slabbed in west for a few more hours, with the goal of making it to Arizona and out of the mountains, down into the desert where it would be a little bit warmer.  Not only was it getting really cold up here, but the thin air wasn't giving the power that I was used to from the bike.

Anyway, I'm riding along just like I normally do on straight roads, with my feet up on the dashboard, when I see . . . weirdness in the distance.  As I got closer, it was . . . wait, seriously?  How in the hell did I end up on the set of the movie "Contact"?



And yet here I was!  At the creatively named Very Large Array; or just the VLA.



The VLA is a collection of 36 radio telescopes spread out across a few miles of desert, and linked together by a central controller.  By linking them like this, these 36 separate telescopes effectively function as a single giant telescope, giving unprecedented resolution and range.  This was so geeky that I HAD to stop for a wander!



They had a little visitor center with some informational movies and a self-guided tour, which I happily engaged in.  I even tried to help out with the science.



TSAVEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING.  You are not a radio telescope!  You cannot even detect light outside of the 400–790 THz range.

I bought some postcards, geeked out for a while at the science, and kept riding west.

As luck would have it, around lunch time I passed through . . .



True to it's name, this "town" consisted of a total of three buildings, all of which were devoted to selling pie.  And some other food, but mostly pie.




Now completely full of pie, I kept headed west, in the direction of Arizona.