City of Roses

Portland has beautiful rose gardens. I took a book and enjoyed myself very much.

It was overcast and wet...I know, unheard of in Portland...but it meant some great colors and probably better photos.

Ghostland Observatory

I arrived in Portland Saturday evening to immediately head to the Ghostland Observatory concert at the Crystal Ballroom, an awesome venue in downtown Portland.  It was a great show, considering I'd never heard of the group before.

Lights these days are outstanding.  They are all lasers and can completely change a show.  Especially for electronic music like Ghostland.

The video does neither the lights nor sounds justice. It was a very fun concert, considering I'd never even heard of the group before!

No Speedo...or...Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

That's the speedometer cable above. It should be connected! So, I'm stuck at 39,699 miles. And have been since somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula. I have no speedometer or odometer, meaning I also don't know how much gas I have.


We'll see how my zen and moto maintenance skills are honed and toned when I get parts in from Tim. I'll put on a new wheel as well as new speedometer cable, housing, and drive gear.


I tested my luck and made the trip to Portland with some key parts missing, like the snap ring on the wheel that keeps bearings from moving about! The mix of broken pieces, above, are normally what holds the snap ring in place on the axle. The tabbed washer, below, should not have any jagged edges and keeps the speedometer drive gear in place. Obviously several things went wrong.


The snap ring barely still on the wheel. The mismatched broken pieces above, should be on the wheel holding the snap ring in place.


On a different note...Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a very interesting book that I highly recommend. It's quite dense and difficult to make it through; if you do, though, the reading, lessons and journey are enjoyable. Pretty much just a philosophy book with analogies to motorcycle maintenance and everyday life. Mainly comes down to Quality and how we approach things!  What is Quality?

Carve It Up

Katie and her roommates threw a rocking pumpkin carving potluck party. The food was great, the 40 something people there were great, and the carving was great. It really was a fun night.


Jay above. Every main room of the house was crowded with people carving stuff!
There were some very cool pumpkins that came out of the evening.



Jane, one of the roomies, and my Picasso-esque production that came about due to several knife slips! The damn thing was so large that it was like 4 inches thick! Once the knife got in and started moving, it was hard to take the action back.


And at some point, people started wanting to wrestle in one form or another. Katie learned not to take on Dave!

Liking the Lichen

The Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park was pretty awesome. Most photos just didn't do it justice. Half the time it seemed that the main body of the tree couldn't even be made out because of the amount of mossy lichens hanging all over everything.

Also, all was soft and cushy, below, like the well-padded paths of many fallen leaves and trees.



Unfortunately, upon leaving we hit rain for several hours. Motoing with a passenger went pretty well. I hadn't ever done it before and Katie and I only had several near-falls when going super slow and turning or something like that! Overall, the Olympic Peninsula was awesome. It is very well guarded, though. We got pulled over TWICE by a Park Ranger in Fort Worden State Park, in Port Townsend, where we spent the first night in a cool hostel.

First, I was apparently going almost 30 MPH in a 15 MPH zone! But even better, we walked down by the beach that evening and he came out on the beach to tell us it was closed off. Then he was like, "Oh, bummer, I already pulled these two over earlier this evening!"

The Sea Cowboy meets Second Beach

I'm not sure how this amazing place could be anyone's Second Beach? I think it was only that in name, because it was absolutely stunning. Katie Donze and I took the moto out to the Olympic Peninsula and were lucky enough to get at least one clear day and night to camp out on Second Beach on the west coast. I was hopping, below, in my excitement when we reached the beach and unpacked!

We ended up scavenging some mussels from this rock, if I remember correctly, and cooking them up with dinner.

Although none of the photos came out well, we camped on a full moon night! We also saw a sea lion while walking the beach that evening. The ideal weather that day made the whole trip worthwhile!

It was a really cool place.

The Sea Cowboy! I'm a raging dork!