Day 17

Day 17
Thursday, November 2, 2006

Total miles (truck+bike) = +6,800

Total miles on the bike = 3,682

Walmart Supercenter Alert
The final count is 23….

Final pictures on the bike


We are now back in Dallas safe and sound. We managed to make the trip with no mechanical issues and zero tickets. Tomorrow I will be driving the truck down to Austin to pick up my Mom at the airport to go to the Texas – Oklahoma State football game. I start making my way back to the Bay Area on Sunday. I don’t think I will do the marathon drive this time.

Day 16

Day 16
Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Okay now we are crazy. Today we left Atlanta and we wanted to try and make it all the way to Shreveport, Louisiana so the last day would be a short ride. The ride started off with clear sunny skies and the temperature got up to 81 degrees. Then when we got to Mississippi we finally hit rain.

We managed to avoid riding in rain the whole trip up until now. We decided to put the rain gear on and tuff it out.

We rode in the rain at night with some pretty good wind. We managed to make it Shreveport at about 9:00 PM Central. We covered 4 states and logged 680 miles on the bike in one day.

Day 15

Day 15
Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Today we rode from Charlotte, NC to Atlanta, GA…well not exactly. The town our friend lives in is in far, far, far, North Atlanta. It is kind of like people living on Long Island saying they live in New York City. We finally found Russell’s shop and got the inside tour.

They have started a full blown race team and custom work shop. Look for them soon on “Monster Garage”.

http://www.kssmotorsports.com/index.aspx

As you can see from the pictures they have a few Porsche race cars at the facility.


They also have two full blown transport rigs for the vehicles.

Later that night we met up with some of their friends for a Halloween dinner.

Then we took the kids around the block to Trick or Treat.

Russell and Michelle are almost done building their house on Lake Lanier.

Day 14

Day 14
Monday, October 30, 2006

No riding today. Chris had meetings in Charlotte all day so I just hung out and relaxed. Tomorrow we will be riding down to Atlanta to meet up with an old friend, Russell Smith and tour his new business venture. http://www.kssmotorsports.com/home/home.aspx

Day 13

Day 13
Sunday, October 29, 2006

Walmart Supercenter Alert
The count remains at 15….

Total motorcycle miles = 2,536

Click here to see all of the pictures

Another beautiful day…Today we left Myrtle Beach and rode to Charlotte, NC to meet some other people and go to the Sunday night Panthers – Cowboys game.

The Cowboys killed them in the second half. It was a great game.
Too bad for the Panthers, the beating even caused Elvis to leave the building early.

We had a great time. Charlotte is beautiful city that is young and growing.

Day 12

Day 12
Saturday, October 28, 2006

Click here to see all of the pictures

Today we woke up to beautiful sunny skies in Myrtle Beach, SC.

We decided to ride north to Wilmington, NC to visit the USS North Carolina Battleship.


They have done a fantastic job of restoring this fine Battleship that saw active duty in every major battle in the Pacific during WWII. Despite all of it’s battles and even being hit by a direct enemy torpedo only 10 men lost their lives aboard this ship.

Chris takes control of this ship

While Patrick directs him from the Captain’s chair.

Day 11

Day 11
Friday, October 27, 2006

Click here to see all of the pictures

Today it rained all day in Myrtle Beach. We just hung out and relaxed around the condo for the day.

Day 10

Day 10
Thursday, October 26, 2006

Click here to see all of the pictures

It was cool but not freezing. We woke to a sound of light rain but luckily it never started raining hard. Even though we were camping and carrying all of our gear on just two motorcycles we managed to do pretty well. We had a portable stove with us and we were able to have a breakfast consisting of coffee, bacon, and eggs. Chef Hilton did a great job.

The days ride was mostly freeway riding as our goal was to make it to Myrtle Beach before dark. We just made it a little bit before dark. Now we will relax for a few days before we go to Charlotte for the Sunday night Panthers - Cowboys game.

Gabcast! 2006 Motorcycle Trip #6

Day 9

Day 9
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Click here to see all of the pictures

Walmart Supercenter Alert
The count is now 15….

Today we are getting ready to leave Sevierville and head back across the Smokey’s via the Foothill Parkway and back through Deals Gap again. We will then connect to the Blue Ridge Parkway at the Cherokee Indian Reservation. We are not sure were we are stopping today. We will just ride until it is time to call it a day. I will update again on Thursday when we get to Myrtle Beach.

You can see from this picture how much we have packed on two motorcycles.

Wow what a day… Today’s ride was one of the most beautiful rides that I have done, including all of my rides in California. We went over the Smokey Mountains via the Foothill Parkway.

This is a beautiful easy going road with minimal traffic and fantastic views of the Smokies.

The Foothill Parkway connects up with 129 that leads you down to Deals Gap. We rode the Dragon one more time and I have to say this road is crazy, switchback after switchback. It was a lot different riding this road with all of the gear on our bikes. We ended up watching a piece of history while we were there. There is this little thing in the motorcycle community called “Iron Butt”. To receive this honor you have to log 1,000 miles in the saddle in a 24 hour period. Well there is this guy that rides Deals Gap on a yellow Honda Gold Wing, a.k.a the Yellow Wolf . He was in the middle of his 24 hour ride on the Dragon. He started Tuesday night at 6 PM and logged 1,000 miles on this 11 mile twisty road in just under 24 hours. He only had 20 minutes of total break time spread over 3 stops. Let me tell you this guy was flying on this Gold Wing. We were coming down the road when he came on us and we let him pass. I then realized after he passed that it was a Honda Gold Wing, so I had to take off and try to catch him. He obviously knew the road as there are a lot of blind corners that decrease in radius. It took me a while to catch up to him but I did. I was scraping my center stand on some of the corners. He was moving… It was amazing to see someone make such a huge bike carve the corners.

We then continued down 129 and connected with 28. This is also another amazing road. It winds along between the mountains next to a lake. The scenery was stunning. We later jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is an amazing road… It is a two lane road with no commercial traffic allowed. The max speed limit is 45 mph and it just winds along in the mountains through the Carolinas and into Virginia. This is the best road in America hands down. If you have never been on this road you need to. It was very cold at the higher elevations on the parkway as you can see from this picture.

We ended up finding a nice camp site along a river outside of Asheville. So we hung out here for the night and slept in our tent. We figured that we were carrying all of this gear and we were going to make sure we camped one night.

Day 8

Day 8
Tuesday, October 24, 1996

Walmart Supercenter Alert
The count remains at 13….

Miles ridden today = 187
Total motorcycle miles = 1,569

Today’s entry will be short as well as the next two days. I will provide more of an update when we get to Myrtle Beach. Today we rode across Smokey Mountain National park over into North Carolina. We then ran “Deals Gap”, which is better known as the Dragon, 318 turns in 11 miles. If you were in a car you would get sick, it is nothing but left, right, left, right, etc....

Click here to see all of the pictures

Day 7

Monday, October 23, 2006

Walmart Supercenter Alert
The count is now 13….

Miles ridden today = 98
Total motorcycle miles = 1,382

Today we slept in and just hung around with the family. We had to find Chris some warmer clothes as this cold system that moved in has dropped the temperatures to 15 degrees below normal. Chris doesn’t have the heated clothing like I do, that was the best purchase that I made for this trip. We took my Mom’s car to drive to Johnson city to checkout a few motorcycle stores for clothing. When we got on the freeway it was snowing lightly… holy crap. Man this is going to be some cold riding.

The US speed skating team has really let themselves go….

We left my parents house a little after 5 PM for a short ride to our condo in Sevierville, TN. This will be our base area for two days as we do some runs through the Smokey Mountains and the Cherokee National Forest. It was about 39 degrees on the ride but we stayed pretty warm with our gear. I don’t think we would make it for a long ride with these temperatures. The forecast shows the weather warming up for us as the week goes on.

Day 6

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Walmart Supercenter Alert

The count is now 11….

Miles ridden today = 298
Total motorcycle miles = 1,284

Well Chris and I were moving a little slow this morning. We stayed out late at the bars in downtown Nashville and helped out their economy a little. The weather is overcast today as that high pressure system has moved in with some pretty cold air. Luckily we didn’t catch any rain on the ride to my parents.

We left Nashville at 12:45 PM and drove to my parents in Kingsport, Tennessee. No backroads today. We took I-40 most of the way. The scenery from the freeway was amazing. All of the trees are changing color and it was a very scenic ride. We made it to my parent’s house at 6:30 PM Eastern.

Here is a picture of me with my Grandmother and my Aunt Vivian.

Just because you are out on the road doesn’t mean you can’t keep in touch or that you have to miss your football team’s game. Chris and I made a stop on Saturday to pull out the Satellite radio and portable speakers and listen to the Texas – Nebraska game.

Some of the beautiful scenery on the Tennessee backroads

Day 5

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Walmart Supercenter Alert

We decided to start a little game on the ride and keep count of how many Walmart Supercenters we come across on these back roads. So far we are up to 8.

The cheapest gas we have seen so far has been $1.95 a gallon.

Today was a very long day. We ended up riding about 540 miles total. The weather was fantastic and the ride was beautiful. We left Russellville, Arkansas at about 9:15 AM and started north up Highway 7 through the Ozarks. What a fantastic ride. The scenery was amazing.

Chris had a little scare on the ride up highway 7. I was riding behind him and I noticed a deer on the side of the road up ahead of Chris. Then the deer started to move and I said. “No way is that deer going to run out into the road in front of Chris.” Sure enough the stupid deer darts across the road in front of Chris. Luckily it didn’t require any major evasive maneuvers on our part and the deer cleared the road. Chris said it was close enough that he could here the deer’s hooves on the road…close call.

We continued up highway 7 North to 412. We took 412 east across Arkansas into Missouri and then into Tennessee. 412 was a nice road that reminded us a little bit of riding through the Hill Country in Texas. The trip has made it very obvious to me that California has the worst roads in the US. Even on the drive in the truck the roads through New Mexico and the state roads in Texas were 200% better than the roads in California. The small backroads in Arkansas were fantastic. It is a shame that Californian’s are so heavily taxed and we have the worst road infrastructure. They also do a much better job of labeling all the roads and upcoming intersections. Arkansas does a great job in labeling all of the roads, it was very easy to navigate all of the backroads in Arkansas.

The day was very long but we finally made it to Nashville around 8:30 Saturday night.

Day 4

Well it is Friday at about 9:00 AM Central time. We are getting ready to head out towards Arkansas. My next post will not be until Sunday night when we make it to my parents house in Tennessee. We plan on camping tonight in the Ozarks National Forest and then making it to Nashville on Saturday. The weather looks good for the next few days. The big cold front has moved out of the area and it is getting warmer.

Here is a picture from Wednesday morning during my drive to Dallas. It was taken on I-40 in New Mexico...

Today we rode about 440 miles. We left Dallas on I-30 towards Arkansas and our first stop was in Hope, Arkansas – the birthplace of Bill Clinton….actually we drove through on the freeway as fast as we could when we came to Hope, Arkansas…LOL.

We then exited I-30 at Caddo Valley to take Highway 7 north. Highway 7 is listed as one of the 10 best driving roads in the United States. It runs through the Ouachita National Forest and the Ozark National Forest. We passed through Hot Springs, Arkansas and even got to see Nimrod Lake. Yes there is a real place called Nimrod and it is in Arkansas.

Our plan today was to camp in the Ozark National Forest, unfortunately we couldn’t find the campground that we were looking for and there were not many other options. We decided to backtrack and get a Hotel in Russellville next to I-40. The only bad part about the area is that it is a Dry county…give me a break. Good thing Chris and I had our own bottle of Glenmorangie scotch.

Tomorrow we plan to make it to Nashville. We will continue north on Highway 7 to 412 east. Then we will pickup 70 into Nashville. Tomorrow’s total distance will probably be about 472 miles.

Day 3

Well I made it to Dallas at 8:30 PM Central Wednesday night. I ended up driving straight to Dallas without stopping at a hotel - San Jose to Chris’s house in Dallas totaled 1,612 miles. I stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico at 3:45 AM to grab a few hours sleep but I was not able to sleep. I got back on the road at 4:40 AM and just started driving.

Gabcast! 2006 Motorcycle Trip #5

Day 1

Well I am finally all loaded up and ready to go, nothing like leaving at 2:00 PM.

Why is it that you always feel like you are forgetting something when you leave on a trip? Oh well, I will just drive as far as I can tonight and stop to sleep for a few hours.

Route from San Jose to Dallas, just a little over 1,700 miles.

San Jose to Dallas" />

Day 0

Well the first snag to the trip has already happened. I ended up breaking my rear luggage mount on the Ducati on my trip to Tahoe three weeks ago.

I guess too many years of lugging a heavy laptop back and forth to work finally caused a stress fracture. So I had to buy a new frame mount kit. The kicker is that the original luggage manufacture went out of business and the parts team at Peninsula Ducati didn’t have a clue if the older luggage would work with the new stuff. Everything looked the same so I went ahead and ordered the frame kit for $190. If you bought the whole kit with the new luggage it was over $800; the heck with that when my luggage is still good.

I have been waiting for this kit to arrive for almost two weeks. When I ordered it I told the parts guy that I had to have it by the 12^th as I was leaving on a trip. “No problem” I was told….Yeah right !!!! Last Friday I am sweating bullets as it did not come in and they were hoping it would show up on Monday. Luckily it did show up but with a catch.

Yes…to ensure more money lets force the consumer to have to buy all new luggage by changing the mount plate with the hooks for the luggage just enough so the old luggage will not fit. So yes I was in a fantastic mood and my usual calm self when I got home and compared the mounts with my old luggage. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, “Freaken Idiots”.

I decided to mount the brackets and see if there was a way I could use my old mount plate with these brackets. The first challenge was reading the wonderful instructions with precise and crystal clear diagrams (yeah right). The schematics were done by a retard with zero CAD skills. Richard and Tu could have done a better job after a 12 pack and blindfolded (for those that are not from Caspian I am sure you are wondering who the hell Richard and Tu are… LOL),

In addition to changing the luggage brackets they also decided to change the angle of the brackets so there was no way the old mount plate would bolt to the brackets. Now I am really in a jolly mood. After careful inspection I found a way that I could use the old mount plate with the new brackets. It just required drilling some new holes in the brackets and some good lock washers with plenty of loctite. Yes….. no way I am going to pay another $600 and waste a functional piece of luggage.

Click here to see all the pictures.

Now that I lost a good portion of my day on this wonderful task I need to alter my plans. I will not be leaving at 5:30 AM on Tuesday, now I will probably just sleep in, play it by ear and leave whenever I get all of the other stuff done tomorrow. I will probably not roll out of San Jose until 11 AM or noon. I figure I will just drive until I am tired and then do a long drive to Dallas the following day.

Gabcast! 2006 Motorcycle Trip #4

Why?

Why am I doing such a long trip? Well I have always wanted to do a long motorcycle trip and the timing just happened to work out. As most of you know the Board pulled the final plug on Caspian towards the end of September and I had been talking about doing a long ride with my good friend from Dallas, Chris Hilton.

We both decided that now was the perfect time and also a good time of year to do the ride.

Several people have asked where we are going. As usual we don't have the final details 100% planned out, but this is not unusual. Chris and I took a trip to Europe in 1995 with no major plans and no place to stay in most of the countries we visited. We just played it by ear and had a blast. Ask me sometime about the story when the cops approached us at 3 AM in a parking lot in Oxford, England. Two drunk Texans sitting in a Saab, smoking Cuban cigars and listening to Garth Brooks at 110 decibels.... LOL

The current plan as of 12:20 AM on Monday, October 16, 2006, is that I will leave San Jose Tuesday morning at about 5:30 AM driving my Ford F350 with my Ducati ST4s loaded in the back. I plan on driving straight through to El Paso (my birthplace), Texas and find a hotel off I-10. Wednesday morning I will make the drive to Dallas, Texas to meet Mr. Hilton.

Start the Motorcycle Trip:
>> Fri, Oct 20th -- Leave Dallas and go to Arkansas, pickup Highway 7 (best 10 rides in the US) and run north through the Ouachita National Forest up through the Ozark National Forest. We camp somewhere along the way.

>> Sat, Oct 21st -- plan a route from Arkansas that takes us through Tennessee. We either camp Saturday or hit a Hotel.

>> Sun, Oct 22nd -- plan a route depending on where we decide to stop Sat night and we make it to my Parents house in East Tennessee Sunday mid-afternoon.

>> Mon, Oct 23rd -- (My Dad's Birthday) spend time with the relatives and eat some good food, change the oil on the bikes...Leave in the afternoon and ride to our condo in Sevierville, TN. Spend the night.

>> Tues, Oct 24th -- We ride south through Smokey Mountain National park and then do Deals Gap. Then we pick up the Blue Ridge parkway. Stop and camp halfway or a 1/3 up the parkway.

>> Wed, Oct 25th -- We continue up the parkway to Virginia. Then cut over and down to North Carolina. We either camp or do a hotel.

>> Thu, Oct 26th -- We ride through North Carolina on our way to Myrtle Beach to stay at our condo.

>> Fri, Oct 27th -- Hang in Myrtle Beach and relax.

>> Sat, Oct 28th -- Ride to Columbia to go to the University of South Carolina – Tennessee football game and then back to Myrtle Beach.

>> Sun, Oct 29th -- Ride to Charlotte and get a hotel and then go to the Sunday night game – Cowboys vs. the Panthers.

>> Mon, Oct 30th – Chris has a Monday morning meeting. We take off Monday afternoon and ride to Atlanta to stay out our friend’s house, Russell.

>> Tues, Oct 3st -- Hang in Atlanta and possibly get on the track at Road Atlanta in a Porsche GT3 race car.

>> Wed, Nov 1st -- Ride to New Orleans and get a Hotel.

>> Thu, Nov 2nd -- Ride back to Dallas.

>> Fri, Nov 3rd – I will drive to Austin to pickup my Mom at the airport. I am flying her out from Tennessee to go the Oklahoma State – Texas Longhorn football game.


Then Sunday I will make a 3 day drive in the truck back to San Jose, CA to see my wife Steffanee...