Category Archives: walk-about

As some you already know, your obe­di­ent scribe is plan­ning a trip, what my wife and I refer to as ‘going walk­a­bout’ after the aus­tralian tra­di­tion of ‘see­ing what’s out there’. In this case, I’ll be using a KTM 950 adven­ture for trans­porta­tion, and ‘out there’ is shap­ing up to mean­ing most states west of … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Prepar­ing to go ‘walk­a­bout’”

The bear is on the road. The Tur­bo Giraffe prepped and wait­ing in the sun­shine. The man him­self, suit­ing up. Every­thing is good to go. And away he goes…

well, day 1 went pret­ty well. I sit here in the pala­cial liv­ing room of my friends Joce­lyn and Steve, after a nice din­ner, steal­ing their inter-tubes. two tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties reared their ugly head: the GPS anten­na can­not live on top of the radar detec­tor: the radios inter­fere with each oth­er. so, att the first … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “day 1, in which very lit­tle excit­ing actu­al­ly happens”

447 miles today, a lit­tle longer than I usu­al­ly like, but there were Issues. It appears that rain is head­ed for the north­ern cal­i­for­nia coast tomor­row. In con­sid­er­a­tion, today’s plan was to get far enough south that cut­ting inland could be done fair­ly ear­ly tomor­row, in an attempt to stay dry. Look­ing at the weath­er forcast … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout Day 2: In which I went down the drain. drain, ore­gon. really!”

  307 miles today, but it felt a lot longer, most­ly due to toren­tial rain, cold, and even a lit­tle snow just north of Lay­tonville, CA. Yikes. Wait­ing this morn­ing in the hotel in Eure­ka, I real­ized that I hate doing noth­ing. I could have spent the day in Eure­ka and avoid­ed all the unpleas­ant­ness, but … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout day 3: in which there were snowflakes…”

Arose this morn­ing at Chez Grrrl­dogs in Galt to a beau­ti­ful morn­ing, at least out­side. Inside my head was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, I was a bit blue and home­sick. This usu­al­ly hap­pens to me on a trip, about day 5 or 6; I wake up in the morn­ing, and won­der why the heck I didn’t …

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout day 5: Sier­ra Neva­da foothills and Tehachapi Mts.”

Woke up ear­ly this morn­ing, but not in any par­tic­u­lar hur­ry, as my des­ti­na­tion for the evening was my friends Mark and Ln’s place, Sun­fire, in Escon­di­do. GPS says 202 miles. I get a road rec­om­men­da­tion from Mark (Fort Tejon road up into the Ange­les for­est, high­ly rec­om­mend­ed), and head out. I avoid the free­way and … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout, day 6: wind farms, switch­backs, and rainbows.”

Had a leisure­ly after­noon yes­ter­day with mark and the dogs. Got a pair of tires ordered, and it looks like they are going to the right place in texas, and will beat me there. yay! Got a fair­ly ear­ly start this morn­ing, leav­ing Sun­Fire at about 7:30. Head­ed up to Warn­er Springs, then over the … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout day 7: it gets hot in the desert…”

385 miles today, King­man to Kayen­ta, AZ. An absolute­ly beau­ti­ful day. Temps from 65 to about 80, clear skies with the occa­sion­al cloud. Rode to Grand Canyon Nation­al Park, took a bunch of pic­tures, bought the req­ui­site lapel pins. Had ‘a moment’ on the way there though: about 15 miles west of Williams a 2 ton dualie … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout day 8: nat­ur­al wonders”

  356 miles today, Kayen­ta, AZ to Taos, NM. Stel­lar weath­er the whole way, 60s and 70s and no clouds. Much of the morn­ing was spent cross­ing the east­ern hald of the Nava­jo nation. It’s fair­ly obvi­ous that, at least in this area, the Nava­jo are not get­ting rich off of gam­bling, maybe a few, but … 

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Walk­a­bout Day 9: a road to remember”