Went on another run today, this one I did solo to test my loading strategy for Vegas in two weeks. I think I’ll be prepared to undertake the COS to LAS via Grand Canyon run.
Map of today’s excursion
Some items worth mentioning… the trip between points D and E on the linked map were by far the most challenging and fun part of today’s trip. This was my first real attempt at traversing a gravel road, which motorcycle riders know must be treated with the utmost respect as traction is reduced greatly due to the lack of a firm gripping surface. Things like cornering I ended up taking on 2nd gear if I was going around a blind turn. Surprisingly there were a couple cars coming down the path, but even more surprising I didn’t meet a car in one of the many one-lane sections of the road… I would have hated to back up through a narrow path to let a car through. Also,my new eTrex H apparently tracks GPS signals while in my jacket pocket. Nice. 
What I didn’t care for was the first leg of my trip, heading down I-25 towards Colorado City. It seems that once I passed Academy Blvd at the north end of Ft. Carson there was a particularly strong crosswind all the way down to Colorado City. I felt like I was riding alot faster than I actually was… the wind was pretty strong and blowing against me. I hope that’s not a common feature of the wide-open space south of Colorado Springs, but if so I guess I’ll be able to handle it, since Walsenburg isn’t too far past Colorado City, and the crosswind effect dissipated once I got off the freeway. Maybe if I plot properly I can even avoid the I-25.
Read the rest of the post to see pictures w/ GPS coordinates.
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Here’s the google map of what I plan to do for the 18th. Note that Tsegi Canyon road is unpaved, and I’m ending this day at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
Folks, this trip is spiraling into all sorts of challenges that I didn’t plan on before. When I first decided to go to Vegas, it was purely just to go and play for a weekend. Today’s excursion with Mr. EP, however, has really opened my mind to the possibilities for adventure for the approach to Las Vegas. I went out and bought an el cheapo GPS receiver and am planning to take pictures at regular points in my trip to post to Google Earth.
One major hurdle for this plan is the packing. I have to pack a tent and sleeping bag, both of which can fit on the back of my bike, but I also have to pack shower gear and 4 nights worth of clothes–5 sets of underwear, socks, and shirts, 2 jeans, and walking shoes… not that much really. I think I can cram that into my gym bag, and my gym bag can be tied down with some bungee to the seat behind me, if it can’t already be tied under the cargo net. On top of this I have to ride down Tsegi Canyon, which looks to be a windy dirt road.
I’m going to practice on Sunday. I’m going to load my bike with what I plan to bring with me to Las Vegas, and I’m going to take it out on a dirt road down the 24, only an hour away from my place through the mountains. There are some dirt roads out there that I would call “easy”, as in they’re mostly straight with very gradual turns. Long, slow braking and easy turning is key from what I can say, as I treat riding over dirt like driving a boat in water, and I don’t want that boat to move sideways, so… really really easy turning.
My only wish is that I had a riding buddy of sorts that would watch my back. I guess I just forge ahead on my own, like always.
Wow, I’m pooped!
We ended up making an oval path, and instead of going to Gunnison, we went down to Salida, then up to almost Buena Vista, at which point we turned towards home. Point C on the map is where we took our mid-ride break, stopping for a drink (water and coffee), fuel, and just a break from the riding position. We went our separate ways once we hit downtown Colorado Springs.
I was personally tempted to embark on another journey, but I was feeling pretty tired on the way towards Woodland Park near the end, so I just went home after grabbing something to eat in town. All in all a fun ride. I was glad as usual that I had a full face helmet, as Mr. EP apparently took a bee to the face while we were in Cañon City. As for myself I have a collection of bug carcasses all over my faceshield, jacket, and pants.
Some notes for the ride to Las Vegas, I think it’s going to be colder as we go into the fall season, so I better see about buying some sweatshirts. I only have my UCLA one and my flight hoodie from basic training, and now that I’m moving to Ohio next year I’ll have to get some more cold weather clothes. Also, Mr. EP recommended a route that involves hitting the Four Corners, Grand Canyon, and Hoover Dam. I’m looking into it now, and am pretty excited about the prospect of riding through the desert and some NA reservations.
Good morning!
Today I’m going to meet up with a friend from work, Mr. EP, in 1 hour and we’re going to ride out to Gunnison, CO. I don’t know what’s out there, but as is the way with motorcycle rides the journey is more of the point of this excursion than the destination. I think it’s alot of parks and mountains in Gunnison, not sure if there’s an actual city, although they do have their own website.
Anyway, I’ll try to practice more riding skills in preparation for the Las Vegas run–i.e., taking breaks regularly, remaining calm and relaxed, etc. This’ll be my first “group” excursion, as all my previous trips I’ve been solo riding. I’ll be back in a couple of hours!
My next base is going to be… Wright-Patterson AFB, OH!
Alright! So maybe it’s not Los Angeles, and maybe I won’t find myself next to potential 2-4 million possible girls I can ask out. Maybe next time. But this is a great first base, I think. I can get my Masters degree here at AFIT (if I get in, of course), and it’s the cradle of aviation R&D! Maybe I’ll get to work on something cool! Actually, I think anything I’ll be working on will be awesome, I just want to see it and learn.
It looks like I’ll be joining the 677th Aerospace Systems Group this coming 2009… I wonder what they’re like. I know I have tech training there after OTS as well. I dunno, I don’t even care if it’s like an AETC base, I think I’ll have fun anyway. Fun learning, fun meeting folks, fun learning the ropes of the commissioned officer corps. Damn… I gotta get ready to go! Need to outprocess, pack my shit, prepare my farewells… so much to do in so little time! AND I gotta get in better shape… I don’t want to go in with an 82 PT score, I want to get back up to near 90! Time to start doing some situps and pushups at home!
Man… here we go. The journey begins now!
Well it was a beautiful day, for the most part. I woke up about 7:30AM, puttered around my apartment for a little while, then decided to equip my bike with the new saddlebags I bought, some Monzas from Firstgear.
I hadn’t looked at the saddlebags after I brought them home, so when I opened them they had a bunch of straps, some hard plastic sheets, and two bungee cords. Okay… what the hell do I do with all this stuff? I had bought the bags thinking that I could just throw them over my back seat and be good to go, but looking at all this included stuff made me think about whether or not my “throw and go” hypothesis was flawed, since I hadn’t thought about how secure a simply-resting saddlebag would be at 85 MPH (or higher). So, I just did the best I could. Threw the bags over the seat, kinda pinned the two rear straps underneath each tail blinker, and used the bungees on the front to secure them to the new saddlebag brackets I installed. These damn things don’t come with an instruction manual so I pretty much just jury rigged what seemed to make sense to me.
Turns out I did pretty well, as far as bags go. I wanted to test them out, so I put all the stuff I normally carry in my backpack (rain gear, towel, tire pressure gauge, windex wipes, and a ride journal that I never use) into the saddlebags, then packed the backpack into the bags as well. I also put in a shirt to see if the insides would stay dry. Then I geared up and headed for the mountains, which had some dark clouds forming over them at about noon today.
I had no real plan, I just wanted to ride. I ended up heading for Hartsel, CO first. The ride there was nice, but halfway between leaving downtown Colorado Springs and getting to Woodland Park I saw a few drops of precipitation hit my faceshield, so I pulled over and donned my rain cover–just the top half. This ended up being fairly nice, as my protection leathers are a porous textile, and past 30MPH it’s easy to forget I’m wearing a jacket due to the amount of wind that passes through… the rain cover acted as a windbreaker and allowed me to avoid alot of the wind chill. I stopped at Hartsel to fuel up and have a cup of hot cocoa. I bought a map as well, a hard plastic one that I checked out to plan the rest of my trip.
Here’s where I have a “lessons learned” that I need to do when I go to Vegas, or any future trip longer than 2 hours. I need to mentally note my next stop, and make an effort to rest. I kinda screwed up today… after I fueled up and continued from Hartsel, the next time I actually turned off my engine was back home in Colorado Springs, and I got back here by way of Denver. 
I rode a good 150 miles without taking a break, that’s like a 2 hour trip. I need to take a break at least every 75 miles… otherwise I start getting agitated and the ride becomes less fun.
Case in point… I decided to tail some guy who flipped me off on the road, at about 70-90MPH. Bad idea. I could have gotten hurt or worse, fortunately after a while I decided to let my anger go. Not sure what this guy’s problem was… but his Colorado license plate read “018 IUE”. So… look up the address and let me know where he lives. Maybe my next trip can be to slash someone’s tires.
Anyway, on the way back home from Denver it began to hail and I almost got run off the road by some retard in a Cooper Mini. I know this isn’t my fault, but thinking back I could have easily avoided this situation by rolling back on my throttle. See, for some reason this Mini was pulling out of the shoulder, and I guess he just decided to gun it without looking who was in the road he was merging in to. Well, unlucky for me he decided to try to take my space… luckily for me I swerved and the car that was in the next lane saw what was happening and backed away. I’m just lucky really that I didn’t wreck. The driver in the Mini was shooken up, because for the next couple of miles he drove at least a good 10 seconds behind me, which equates to about a quarter of a mile away at the speeds we were going.
I just got home finally about an hour ago. I checked my bags and sure enough everything inside was dry… nice. Even the shirt I threw in there showed no signs of even a drip of water. I think I’ll be ok for Vegas as far as packing enough clothes for a 4-night excursion. I just have to remember to take breaks at least once an hour so I can continue to enjoy the ride next month.
I just have one question…
How is a nude female model able to look sickeningly hideous and bombshell alluring in the same photo set?
I stumbled upon a set of photos of some girl, and one of them is on my desktop, but some of them she just looks gross. And she’s not even doing anything lewd, just poses you’d find in Playboy… quite tame.
I just confused my penis.
Alright, so far I have the following people who sound like they’ll be able to go:
Then the following will possibly go, still checking schedule:
I possibly have a room at the Jockey Club, no word on that yet. It’s my folks’ timeshare and they’ve offered it to me many times before but I never used it, I figure I should ask them this time before I just go and get my own room to save some money. If alot of people end up going then please make arrangements on your own, sorry. I think I can comfortably keep like 3 people in the suite, but if you want privacy then get your own room, of course. (Read: if you meet someone at a club you want to take to your room, you’re not taking them to the suite.)
My plan is to load up my bike and take 2 days to get there, snapping pictures and taking frequent stops along the way and on the way back, stopping for the night when it gets dark and continuing when the day breaks. I plan on travelling at a pace of 50mph, taking in to account food and gas stops and sleep breaks at roadside hotels. I also plan to set aside $500 for gambling and food while in Las Vegas. The important thing is that I plan to be in town the afternoon of the 19th and leave on the 21st, Friday to Sunday stay, returning to town Monday evening.
ALSO… I’m printing business cards. 
I just had this crazy idea, like I’d hand these cards out if I happen to talk to someone interesting, kinda like “you met me in Vegas, holler at me when you get home”. I know… it sounds stupid, but I really want to try this. Call me crazy.
If I somehow win big, I’m paying for a grand dinner Saturday night, and a round or two of drinks that same evening. I have no plans on coming back richer, I just want to have fun, but hey if I somehow make $700 on roulette again… then okay. No use keeping that money in the pocket in the company of friends.
Ok, if I think of any additional details and when I hear back from the Jockey club, I’ll follow up this post.
Read the title. That’s right folks, I need a motherfucking vacation.
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I found this article when I googled “smart people can’t get dates”. Yeah… maybe I was being a bit pretentious.
Or maybe that’s my problem… I’m not properly recognizing my worth and backing it up with a proper attitude. I read this article and it gave some insight on “I’m nice, why don’t girls like me?” What I took away from this was that I may be smart, decently good looking, and financially secure, but I’m not backing all of my qualities up with enough assertion. Admittedly I spend alot of time at home trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing instead of going out and actually doing something… anything.
Check this out http://xkcd.com/439/
It’s dumb, but when I read this I thought this was funny, and yet at the same time it made me realize that I tend to do the same thing. I see a girl I’d like to talk to, and for some reason I kill the initial feeling because really I just don’t want to deal with the rejection or bad times that I may or may not have with this girl. I realize I’m on the fast track to nowhere going down this road. I already don’t meet enough girls day-to-day, and what few girls I do come across I don’t talk to.
Something has to give.
