Our traveling season has officially begun! Yesterday we motorcycled to Boise, Idieho and after getting of off the bike at the hotel I felt like a mailman - I made it through rain, sleet and hail and still survived.
We left our CA home around 7am (which, to those of you who know me, is a very early hour for me to be awake) and met a couple of other guys from our chapter to ride part way up with. So at 8am kickstands were up and off we went. It was cold, but wasn't raining. We had put on our heated gear so the temperature didn't bother us. For those of you who don't know where we live in CA, we are near Sacramento and the only way to get to Boise is over the Sierra Nevada mountains, about 80 miles away and about 7,000 feet high. If you 've ever studied western history you may recall an event that involved the Donner party that had to revert to cannibalism to try and survive in the Sierras during the winter of the 1800's as they tried to get to CA. Well we have to travel over what is now called Donner Pass and it is about 7,200 feet above sea level. Now please remember that if you look at the calendar you will see that it is May 28 when we left. That's May - springtime, almost June, almost SUMMER!!! We get up to the mountains and there is about 3-4 FEET of new snow! I have to admit that it was one of the prettiest times I have ever seen the mountains like this. It was a picture postcard sight. Everything was covered in new snow, but come on-it's May already!
Anyway, we make it through the mountains with no problems, just wet roads. As we get to Reno it starts to rain. Not bad - not anything hard where we would need the rain gear - just bothersome. We arrive in Winnemuca,, Nevada where the rain stopped and we stopped - for lunch. After lunch we said good bye to our travel companions and they headed to Elko, Nevada for the night and we continued on. Maybe we should have stayed in Elko too. Almost as soon as we leave Winnemuca the rains started. Luckily (?) we had put on our rain gear before leaving this time - just in case. Well, the rains came and didn't let up. As we passed into Oregon the rains changed to hail - and not small hail either. We wore our heated gear along with the rain gear the whole time and as we were pelted by the hail you could feel it hitting us through all our gear! That went on for almost 30 minutes and then rain again. But along with it came the winds. And what winds! They were coming from our left side and were so strong that the bike was leaning almost at a 30% angle. My neck was so stiff after that I thought for sure I would end up with one of my bloody headaches. But didn't happen, thank God. Now as we entered into Idaho the rain (which is still falling) changed into sleet. That made for a little tense ride as it was staying on the road a little. Finally we made it to our hotel at 6:30 that night and were very glad to get here. Now we can rest and enjoy our time here with other Blue Knights.
Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend. But please take a moment sometime this weekend to stop and think about the veterans that made this weekend possible. God bless us all.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
On the road AGAIN!
Well I guess it's time for me to fire up this blog again so people won't get confused as to where we are at any one time because it is time to hit the road for our travels starting this Thursday and not stopping until early November (really, I'm not kidding!).
To begin I will give you all a Reader's Digest version of where we are going to. Ready? Here we go: Idaho, California, Washington, California, Washington (Karl), New York (Me), California (both of us), Washington, all of Canada, New England, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Tenneese, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California. WHEW!!!! From the time we left with the motorhome from Arizona until we get it back to AZ we will have traveled over 12,000 (in the motorhome alone). That is not counting the times we will be flying back and forth to CA. As we travel more details will follow.
Right now our first stop is up to Boise, Idaho for the Memorial day weekend. We take the motorcycle and scoot up there on Thursday (only an 8 hour trip) and meet with a bunch of other Blue Knights for an informal get-together. Then scoot back home on Sunday. From the reports of weather (from our "trusted" weatherpeople) we will definitely be getting wet and cold on Thursday, but will have a beautiful day back on Sunday. I know some of you are shaking your heads about us riding in the rain and cold, but when you have heated gear and rain gear it's not a problem other than watching out for the stupid car drivers! Just a word of advice for those of you who drive four wheels - please double check for motorcyclists when you are driving. It could be my life you are saving. So far we have ridden in ever kind of weather you can think of: rain - yes, snow - yes, sleet - yes, hail - yes (and that hurts!), winds - yes (hate that), heat - yes, hurricanes - yes, tornadoes - yes, and even sunshine!
On another note, I have been tracing my family roots lately and boy what I have found is amazing. I don't want to tell you here because my sister will read this and I don't want her to know until I see her in July and then tell her, my mom and my neice together. But they will be surprised! If you would like to know shoot me a email or ask me when you see me next. But ii has been like a treasure hunt - the more I dig the more I find.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this blog and will follow us on our countrywide journey this year!
To begin I will give you all a Reader's Digest version of where we are going to. Ready? Here we go: Idaho, California, Washington, California, Washington (Karl), New York (Me), California (both of us), Washington, all of Canada, New England, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Tenneese, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California. WHEW!!!! From the time we left with the motorhome from Arizona until we get it back to AZ we will have traveled over 12,000 (in the motorhome alone). That is not counting the times we will be flying back and forth to CA. As we travel more details will follow.
Right now our first stop is up to Boise, Idaho for the Memorial day weekend. We take the motorcycle and scoot up there on Thursday (only an 8 hour trip) and meet with a bunch of other Blue Knights for an informal get-together. Then scoot back home on Sunday. From the reports of weather (from our "trusted" weatherpeople) we will definitely be getting wet and cold on Thursday, but will have a beautiful day back on Sunday. I know some of you are shaking your heads about us riding in the rain and cold, but when you have heated gear and rain gear it's not a problem other than watching out for the stupid car drivers! Just a word of advice for those of you who drive four wheels - please double check for motorcyclists when you are driving. It could be my life you are saving. So far we have ridden in ever kind of weather you can think of: rain - yes, snow - yes, sleet - yes, hail - yes (and that hurts!), winds - yes (hate that), heat - yes, hurricanes - yes, tornadoes - yes, and even sunshine!
On another note, I have been tracing my family roots lately and boy what I have found is amazing. I don't want to tell you here because my sister will read this and I don't want her to know until I see her in July and then tell her, my mom and my neice together. But they will be surprised! If you would like to know shoot me a email or ask me when you see me next. But ii has been like a treasure hunt - the more I dig the more I find.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this blog and will follow us on our countrywide journey this year!
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