From Port Orford,Oregon. I did it! Coast to Coast on a TW200! Check! Been there. Done that!

It's been an exciting couple of days. Sorry about the lack of Internet last night. I was in Silver Lake, Orgeon, and there is no lake there. In fact, there are only about 10 buildings. And it is in the high desert, so there is nothing to see either. But this morning when I left, about ten miles down the road, I came to the Oregon forest, the end of the high desert.

Yesterday was the ride from Nampa, Idaho to Silver Lake, Oregon. I was duly welcomed to Oregon:

As you can see it was a clear blue sky; a good day for riding. It was a beautiful agricultural area with lots of green fields:

They ship their farm crops in these produce crates, lots of them everywhere:

And they are proud of their agricultural heritage:

But soon I came to the high desert:

Beautiful area, but deserted desert. There was nobody there. And no gas stations. I was worried the first time when I went 68 miles between stations. Then learned that it was 104 miles to the next station. I never got the bike over 50 mph so that I could conserve as much fuel as possible, because I didn't know at the time how many miles to the next gas. But I made it with gas to spare. I averaged 80 miles per gallon by going very easy on the throttle. I didn't think about much else beside gas, and it was hard to enjoy the scenery for worrying about gas. But that's just the way I am.

So I had a pleasant enough night in the Silver Lake Motel, one of their six rooms. Very basic. Very. I've stayed in several of those kinds of places. But hey! This was the only motel in 150 miles either way. You take what you get and be happy for it.

This morning I left at 7:15 shortly after sun up as usual for me. My phone said the temperature was 40 degrees, which was not too bad. I was questioning that temperature when I saw the frost on my motorcycle seat:

But not long after I started, I began to really feel cold. First, I noticed that I had left my outer jacket unzipped. With the helmet closed, I couldn't see my belly! When I stopped to check, my jacket had been flying to the wind! I thought zipping that would solve my problem, but no, it kept getting colder. It was so cold, I was worried about my fingers getting frost bite. They were hurting. The rest of me was warmer than that, but not very.

I worried some more when I got this message on my cell phone:

In case you can't read the small print, it says, "Unable to Charge. Charging paused. Battery temperature too low."

How low does it have to get to say that? I think the answer is FREEZING.

I stopped to get gas after 60 miles, and the lady at the gas station said there was a thermometer on the door post outside. I checked and it was 34 degrees there. Do you know what the wind chill factor is for a person in 34 degrees riding at 50 mph on a bike without a windscreen? Me neither, but let me tell you - it's cold!

Finally, I found a cafe that was open and stopped there for a hour and had breakfast. It was even cold in the cafe. But when I left, it seemed the temperature had risen to about 40, and the ride got warmer and warmer throughout the day.

But I did see these mountains all around me:

See that? Snow! And not far away.

I passed through several areas where it was obvious there had been forest fires. Many of the little stores had signs out that said, "Thank you firefighters!"

Then I started descending from 5,000 feet all the way down to the ocean. That was nice. Warmer and warmer as I went down.

When I was almost to Port Orford, I passed through a little town named Langlois, which is the same name as Sarah's work friend. So I stopped and took a couple of pictures for Sue and Pete because they have been so kind about following all my adventures:

I was so excited coming into Port Orford, as you can imagine. I had ridden that little bike all the way across the country to be there - from coast to coast! How exciting! And I really wanted to take my picture at the same place where all the riders of the Trans America Trail do. So I was following my gps very closely through town and was almost there.

I was literally one block from the end when I saw this behind me:

That's right. A cop. He stopped me for doing 40 mph in a 20 zone near a school. I did not notice the school zone or the cop because I was so excited and looking at my gps. Can you believe that? A speeding ticket in the last block of a Trans America Ride?

The cop named Mike was so nice. And I was still excited and told him how I had come all the way from Norfolk, Virginia to be in this town. And told him all about the Trans America Trail, and how great it was that I was finally here, in Port Orford.  He was so nice and enjoyed hearing my story, but gave me the ticket anyway.

He kindly explained that I could do traffic school online from home and it wouldn't cost me anything, which, of course, I intend to do! But what a way to end my journey!

Here's another photo at journey's end:

So that's it! I did it.

Why? That's a good question. Why did I decide I HAD to ride a 200 cc bike from coast to coast? I have no idea. I get these wild hairs and just have to do a new adventure. I do it because it is there.

I am spending the night at a lovely hotel right on the beach overlooking that view in the picture above. But it's kind of like seeing the Grand Canyon. You finally arrive. You look. You ohh. You ahh. And ten minutes later you say, "Okay. We did that. Let's go." Or that's what I do.

Now the only thing left is to commute back home - 2,600 miles.

From Nampa, Idaho. Who knew Idaho was going to be so pretty?

Wanna see what I saw? You can see all the photos here (14 of them):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pS4k3p2vgf3JoLjO2

It was a cold start this morning at 33 degrees. Did you know that is only one degree over freezing? Oh. I figured you did. But that is cold on a motorcycle. I did fine with it because I bundled up like the Pillsbury Doughboy with all my clothes and my handy dandy electric jacket liner, and I was just fine. The sun finally came out though and started warming things up. By the time I got to Nampa, it was 59 degrees. And the weather forecast looks good and warmer for the foreseeable future. I'm glad. That 33 degree stuff and rain stuff is hard to take.

It was a pleasant ride today with very scenic views as you can tell from the photos. And a short one for me - only 200 miles. You will remember that I had stopped two days ago about half way through the day's mileage because of the rain and cold. Then I took a rest day. So today I finished up that day's ride. It was one of those situations were there was no convenient motel a bit further along. So I was satisfied to have a shorter day. I rode from 10 to 3. I waited until 10 hoping it would start warming up, but it was still 33 when I left.

One of the problems I have is making sure I find gas. Because I am taking the back roads, not the freeways, there can be very long stretches without gas. That's a problem for me because my gas tank only holds 1.8 gallons of gas. Then I have 3 MSR bottles with a little over a half gallon in the three of them. My mileage depends on how fast I am going, of course. When I am lazing along at 45-50, I get well over 70 mpg. One time I went 88 miles and put in one gallon. But when I am pushing it at blazing fast speeds like 55 or even 60, then my mileage goes down to about 60 mpg. So that would mean that in a worst case scenario, I should be able to go 140 miles on the gas I have on board. And if I am taking it easy, I could get almost 200 miles.

I am using Google maps and telling it to avoid "highways" = freeways. The problem is that Google could very easily take me on routes that may be close to gas stations but not exactly by gas stations. I was on one stretch of road two days ago with a sign that said, "Next services 104 miles." It turned out that I found gas in about 50 miles, but that will make you stop and start calculating the ounces! I prefer to get gas somewhere between 50 and 80 miles, and almost always it works out that way.

So now one of my bits of homework is to look on Google maps and find the gas stations along my route the next day, so that I make sure I don't run out. Of course, if it did, I would probably stop at a farmer's house and see if he would sell me some gas from his lawnmower's gas can. I'd probably be fine. Probably. But you know, "probably" can make you nervous. Sometimes there's not a farmer.

Two more days of riding, and I should be at the coast, as in the Pacific coast, as in "TW200 Coast to Coast!" That was may goal, and it's close. The bike is running fine, and I am feeling fine. So all signs look promising that I will achieve this goal.

(And let's not even talk about the fact that I will still have a 2,600 mile ride back home! That's just a commute.)

Thanks for riding along with me.

Same place. Hey! Even God rested.

Plus, I have my reasons:

1) It's 39 degrees outside and still cloudy and moist. Yuk! There will be a slow warming trend over the next few days here. So another day = warmer. And maybe the sun will come out. That would help a lot. Cold with sunshine is not as cold as cold without sunshine.

2) They have a guest laundry here, and I NEED to wash clothes.

3) This is a pretty good place to spend another night. It's cheap but not ratty (I've stayed in a few ratty places on this trip.) There are convenient restaurants and a Wal-Mart nearby.

4) I need to change the oil in the bike and check it over really well.

5) I'm tired. I feel like the old man that I am today. I'm just tired. I'm going to sleep... a lot. Maybe read a book.

6) Even God rested after six days of hard work.

7) I got no place I gotta be. Isn't that nice? I don't think I've ever said that before.  Of course, it has been true at times, but not very often. I always say, "Places to go; people to see!" 

But right now, I've got no sermons to prepare, no hospitals to visit, no administrative work to do. I don't even have dental appointment until December. 

Well, I do have to preach in Pikeville the first weekend of November. There's that. Maybe I'll be back by then. We'll see.

From Burley, Idaho. Sister, it's COLD out there.

I left Ogden,Utah this morning in 50 degree weather which was cold enough. In fact, I thought that was as cold as it was going to get, but as usual, I was mistaken. By the time I got to Burley, it was 42 degrees, which is much colder than that on a motorcycle. It's a proven scientific fact that cold is colder on a motorcycle than in any other place.

I left about 7 this morning, and it didn't start raining for almost an hour, but then it rained non-stop until I cried, "Uncle," about noon. I thought I was covered in both senses of the word. I thought it was going to stay about 50 and that I was going to drive through the band of rain. And I thought my rain jacket, rain pants, and rain boot covers would keep me dry. Wrong on both counts.

The temperature kept going down, but I didn't have a thermometer on the bike, so I just thought I was feeling a little more chilled and a little more chilled and a little more chilled. I knew that my gloves turned out to not be waterproof, which still surprises me. Maybe the rain ran down in the cuffs. But I was not aware that my left foot was getting wet too. My right foot was not wet. I think the rain must have ran down my pants leg under the bootie and into my boot. I don't know how else my left foot could have gotten wet. Wet and cold, I should say. So my hands were wet and cold, my left foot was wet and cold, and my belly was wet and cold. Yeah, my rain jacket only came down so far and my rain pants only came up so far, which was a surprise to me. I thought I was covered. Well, until I stopped for lunch and started realizing just how wet I was. I knew I was cold, but I didn't know how wet I was until then.

I am sure I would have been in trouble way before then except for my heated jacket liner that I mentioned in my last post. That kept my core toasty, but eventually when the rest of me got wet, even that was not enough to keep me warm.

When I stopped for a burger at noon, I realized, "Hey! I'm in trouble here. I'm wet! Wet and cold!" So I looked on my phone and found a Super 8 just 9 miles away and hustled there... Here.

It's going to warm back up in the next few days and get back to normal temperatures - 50, 54, 58, 60, 62, 64 and finally back up to 71. But there will still be cold nights in the 30s for awhile. Most of all it will be dry. I think I can handle the cold with my heated gear, but the wet and cold was too much today.

So now it will probably take me three more days to get to the coast. The coast as in TW200 coast to coast! That will be the achievement I set out to do. But then I have to go home! And that will probably take nine days of hard riding. So this adventure is a ways from being over. I may have to study the weather forecasts and decide if I want to return by a more southern route to avoid this cold. But I think this was a fluke weather event and it's going to return to normal temperatures for awhile. We'll see.

But hey! Before the rain finally got under all my rain gear, I was having a big time. I was still too cold to stop and take a picture of my bike at the Welcome to Idaho sign. In fact, I took no photos today. You will just have to use your imagination and picture the rain and a wet and cold biker plowing through it.

Another day; another state. Only Oregon is left. Well, and more than half of Idaho.

What a grand adventure! Hope you are enjoying going along with me!

From Ogden,Utah. It's been another good day with cool temperatures and clear skies. I think I made 300 miles today, heading north through Utah. For the first 200 miles, I concluded that nobody lived in Utah. It was all desolate but beautiful area. The colors of the grand escarpments changed from the Moab reds to sandy and grey, but they were equally stunning in their own way.

Here is a link to a few photos I took:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sHaOXc9l7kevJ3K12

After examining the situation last night, I decided to head north because the path through Nevada had very few places where I could find a motel. The motels in the small cities that were about my range had no vacancies already. I was worried about finding a place, so I decided to head north now rather than later. I knew I could find a motel in the Salt Lake City area, and I had never been through there anyway. From here, it looks to be about three good days to the coast - Boise, Idaho, Silver Lake, Oregon, and then Port Orford, Oregon.

But the weather forecast for tomorrow shows 80% rain in one weather app. Other apps are showing less chance. It might be a rest day for me. We'll see what the weather looks like tomorrow. You know, you can never trust those weather forecasters! Best to just look out the window and see if it is raining.

Today's ride was on some main highways with a good bit of fast traffic, not the pleasant back roads. So I was pushing the little TW to keep up. I don't know why, but I was expecting the elevation to go down a good bit, but the road went back up to 7,200 feet at one point. Salt Lake City is about 4,200 feet. As I went up, my bike started losing power again, so I stopped and reset the carburetor and that helped a lot.

Then about 90 miles from Ogden, I found out where all the people are in Utah. It was solid development for the last 90 miles. And the road had a stop light every half mile all that way. After two hours and 65 miles, I finally decided to jump on I-15 and get to my motel to rest.

That was exciting! The speed limit was 70, and I was chugging along mostly at 55. People were passing me right and left, sometimes quite literally. On a good run, I can hit 60. One time an 18 wheeler passed me. I got caught in his turbulence and got pulled along at a whopping 62 mph! Big thrills in Utah!

It's been a good day, but I am beginning to realize just how big this country is from coast to coast. I called Sarah this afternoon and asked, "Why did I think this was such a good idea?" She certainly didn't know. I don't either. It's just out there. One of those things that has to be done. It doesn't matter if I enjoy it or not, it just has to be done. But I am enjoying it. It's hard to sit on a small motorcycle for eight hours or more, but it is still very interesting. I love seeing whatever comes by. And I love having a feel for the lay of the land from state to state. You never know what beautiful things you will see unless you get out there and find out for yourself.

And the good part is that for the first time in my life, I have no commitments. I don't have to be back at the end of a two week vacation from work. If I am back in two more weeks, that would be good. If it takes me three weeks, that's Okay too. My next commitment is the first weekend in November when I am supposed to go to Pikeville to preach at my old church there. Surely I can make it back by NOVEMBER! I think I have 12 more riding days. But I don't expect to be able to ride every day because of weather, and who knows? I may decide to take a rest day. Hey! That may be tomorrow.

Hope you are enjoying the craziness!

From Moab, Utah. Now that was an amazing day, just amazing.

Today was all about the incredibly beautiful scenery, which just kept getting better mile by mile. I took a lot of pictures, but missed some incredible shots because there was no place for me to stop and take the photo. If you really want to see the pictures you should go to this link, click on the pictures and expand them to full-size:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/j2rMWEBLLDetgl5j1

I have been disappointed with some of the pictures in the blog because they are not very big, and it is hard to see how things really looked. But here are a few if you don't want to go to the link:

I could talk all day about the incredible scenery but I will have to let the pictures speak for themselves. I wish I could describe it adequately. I hope you can get a feel for it from the photos. I was amazed and stunned all day long with one spectacular sight after another.

Instead, I want to talk about some technical aspects of my trip. If you are not into that sort of thing, I recommend hitting "like" and forget about reading the rest. But some might be interested, and it's fascinating to me, so here goes.

The day started cold and got colder. It started out about 55 degrees in Salida, but I immediately started ascending the Rockies and it got colder and colder. It felt like the 30s.

So... you are wondering how I can ride a motorcycle in cold weather. Well... I have a secret weapon. It's my electric jacket liner. Here's a picture:

See that handy dandy cord hanging out the bottom. I can connect that to my 12 volt system, turn the dial, and be toasty warm no matter how cold. I love that jacket liner. And when I keep my core warm, my hands and feet stay warm too.

The only problem is that my little TW200 has a rather small electrical output. So I worried and worried about whether I would be draining the battery when I ran my heated gear. That has happened to me before on a motorcycle. Arrived at my destination, and the battery was dead. So that I would know and not be guessing, I ordered another handy instrument - a USB connector that indicates the volts. Here is a picture of that:

As you can see, at the time of the photo, my system was producing 13.4 volts. Anything over 12 volts in charging properly.

The problem is that when I have my phone, which I use for navigation, charging and my heated gear plugged in, it produces about 11.7 volts = discharging. What to do?

After reading tips from the TW200 forum, I rigged a system where I could turn off the headlight. Usually on modern motorcycles the headlight stays on. There is no switch to turn mine off. But I took apart the headlight system, and disconnected the green wire, according to instructions from the forum, and now when I turn the headlight from bright to dim - it turns off. And my voltage immediately shoots up into the normal range. Cool work-around. I know, I know, I need the headlight on so people can see me coming even in the daytime. I agree that it does help some to have the headlight on, but I also have two orange running lights that are on all the time. That helps. And when I am traffic, or a town, or not using the heated gear, I flip the headlight to bright and am safe again. Nobody complains about a bright headlight during the day. It's not that bright anyway. Hey! I had to choose headlight or heated gear. Heated gear won.

The other problem I encountered today was a power problem. If you know your cc's, you know that a 200 cc engine is WAY smaller than, say, my Yamaha FJR with 1300 cc's. I don't have much power to begin with on the TW. But when I got into the higher elevations today, it started losing what power it had. It was terrible. I was creeping up that mountain, and just had no power. I quickly realized that the higher elevations meant the air was thinner which was throwing off the mixture in my carburetor.

Fortunately, I brought with me another homemade tool so that I could get into the very tight spot under the carburetor and change the fuel mixture. I don't know why they made that screw so hard to get to and in a place where no screwdriver will fit. Here's a picture of my work-around makeshift tiny screwdriver for the carb:

I wrapped the duct tape around a screwdriver bit for a drill, and that thing fits perfectly in the tiny space.

So I stopped on the side of the mountain, and adjusted the fuel mixture screw so that it would be more lean. It ran a little better, but it needed more. So I stopped again. This time I turned the screw completely shut and opened it only one complete turn, whereas it takes 2 1/2 turns at normal elevation. Yippee! The bike had power at elevation! And I got to an elevation of 10,500 feet this morning.

When I dropped down to 5,000 feet at Montrose, the bike started running poorly again now because it was too lean for the elevation. So I adjusted the fuel mixture back to normal, and it ran fine again. Well, until the road started ascending again. I got back up to 8,000 feet this afternoon, and I was losing power, but I didn't stop to change it this time. I was climbing some of the afternoon mountains in third gear at 35 mph. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic and usually a slow lane, so I wasn't holding anybody up. Now that I am in Moab at 4,000 feet, the bike runs great again.

That's another benefit of having a simple bike that I can work on myself. Of course, most modern fuel-injected bikes will adjust automatically for elevation. Oh well. I liked being able to solve the problem myself. First time I have adjusted the carb for elevation.

Since I am boring you with technical information, I want to add one more. One of the necessary maintenance items on this bike is cleaning and lubricating the chain, which can be a real pain. The reason is that you can only access a small part of the chain when the bike is sitting normally. To lubricate the whole thing, you have to service the visible part, move the bike forward a bit, then service some more, then move the bike, lubricate that, move the bike, etc. You see the problem and what a pain that is. When I am at home, I can put the bike on a motorcycle jack, thus lifting the rear end and simply spin the wheel while lubricating the chain until it is all done.

I stewed and stewed on this one since I knew I would have no jack with me on the trip. I finally invented the Mickey's Marvelous Motorcycle Lifter. Here's a picture:

Yeah, it's a stick. But it's a stick just the right length so that I can push the bike over toward the kick-stand just enough so that the stick fits under the footpeg on the other side, and the rear wheel lifts 1/2 inch off the ground inviting me to lubricate the chain by spinning the back tire. The other tip is that you will notice the front tire jammed against a curb. That's to keep the bike from rolling forward when Mickey's Marvelous Motorcycle Lifter is under the right footpeg.

All in all, I thought it was ingenious, and it is an original idea. It works very well. Someone else may have something similar, but I haven't heard of it. Solves a big problem for me.

Okay, I think that is all the technical stuff. That's more than enough of it. But it's all really cool to me. That's the kind of stuff I think about when I should probably be thinking about something more important.

It's been a fun day. (And did you notice? No gravel!)

From Salida, Colorado

As you can see from the photo, I am in the mountains now! Lovely scenery everywhere - clear mountain air, high meadows, five mule deer, twenty wild turkeys, and a herd of pronghorn antelope. Lovely place to ride a bike.

That is not to say that I am without adventures.

This morning I tackled the TAT again in spite of my fears. There is always something to worry about, you know. I worried about the quarter inch rain yesterday afternoon, and what that would do to the "off roads." But it turned out that Colorado off roads handle that much rain very well. The roads were wet, but not really muddy. Not the kind that bogs you down and sticks to your tires. It was pleasant riding. I just had to avoid an occasional pool of water on the road.

But as often happens before the day is out, I found a rough section going over one particularly tall mountain, West Spanish Peak at 11,000 feet. It took me about an hour to go five miles. The road had outcroppings everywhere with four inch boulders sticking up, making for a really, really rough ride. Nothing really dangerous or difficult, just really rough. It was so rough that things started bouncing out of my milk crate. I thought I had everything tied down with bungee cords. My tool bag came upzipped and dumped all my tools into the milk crate. Miracle of miracles, I don't think I lost anything but a six millimeter Alan wrench. It was not until I got to the motel and prepared to cover the bike that I realized my bike cover had bounced out. I think those are the only two things I lost this time.

Yeah, this time. It happened once in Oklahoma too when I hit some spots on a gravel road that were like one foot high speed bumps. That time my tool bag bounced out and hit me in the back. I thought I had recovered everything, but I lost a 32 oz bottle of Gatorade that time.

Yeah, I know. Gotta tie things down better. But who would have thought that things would bounce out of the milk crate? I did have the bungee cords over them, and thought I had them all tied down well enough. Oh well...

So I just went to Wal-Mart to buy another bike cover, but they didn't have a motorcycle section like most Wal-Marts do. That's the bad news because I like covering the bike at night just to keep people from snooping around in my milk crate. The good news is that I pulled up beside this truck at Wal-Mart:

See that? That guys got a Yamaha TW200 loaded in the back. You don't see many of those.

Here are a few other miscellaneous pictures from the day to give you a feel for the scenery:

No pictures of the rough stuff. Too rough to stop and take pictures.

After about sixty miles of off road, I took the easy pavement on to Salida. And I have finally made a decision to give up on the TAT. I have done hundreds of miles of it, enough to decide I just don't like it. The easy gravel like in those photos is fine, but I invariably wind up somewhere I don't really want to be. And then, the minute I hit pavement, I start having fun again.  It takes me a while to make such a obvious decision, as you can tell. I've been complaining all the way across the TAT. But I've finally made it. I'm a pavement guy. It's pavement for me the rest of the way.

It's still 1500 miles to Oregon, and then it will be 2600 miles back to Lexington, so I still have plenty of adventure ahead of me. And I still have the goal of taking the TW200 from coast to coast and back home again.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me.