Picto Diary - 2, 3, 4 November 2019 - Slab
Above: TIMDT at Pony Express Monument. This is the Place Park. 02 November 2019. Salt Lake City, UT 2019.
We walked a two and one half mile loop around the park area. As can be seen from the image, a stunning day.
Above: Duc parked at Best Western Gold Country Inn, Winnemucca, NV. 03 November 2019.
Out and about on the Duc.
On way to business meeting in San Francisco.
375 west bound, I-80 slab miles. 80 miles in the dark. 5 1/2 hours.
Gorgeous sunset vistas with orange/pink backlit ranges showing as irregular, sawtooth silhouettes. Earlier, pre dusk, my favorite time off day, when oblique light, now in my face, casts elongated shadows which render Nevada's worm like (satellite view) ranges stark relief.
The landscape between the ranges is post fall, pre winter. Fifty shades of brown. Among Nevada's strip ranges, only the 11K foot, Elko County Rubys, with new snow capped peaks, portend the wintery days to come.
I try to channel the mind of Tamsen Donner, spry in her early forties, one of the more sensible of that tragic community that plied this same Humboldt River route about this time, 173 years ago in 1846.
Tamsen, family and friends, California bound, were late as they approached the Sierra. Here in Winnemucca I and the Duc are two and one half hours away from the vast, craggy, mountains separating the cold, arid Great Basin from the gold fields of Sutter's Fort and the arable lands in equible climate of the Sacramento River valley.
Near this point (there was no Winnemucca then) Tamsen's bunch, then mid October, had nine more days to go before reaching the Sierra, with no Weather Channel app to warn of snow.
Hardy souls then. Risk takers. The Donners had erred listening to con man Lanford B. Hastings talk about the "shorter route" across the Wasatch and the Great Salt Lake Desert, and had lost a full month. 45 died and 45 lived (including Tamsen) because of their route error.
I don't understand why history has frowned on the Donners for cannibalism. They (one exception) only consumed the flesh of those who had passed. The survival instinct is strong. This - cannabalism - is something most humans would do under similar circumstances. No?
My weather app says clear skies and 55 degree temperatures at Donner pass tomorrow. 70's in the Bay area.
Back to today's ride. 42 to 59 degrees. I'm wearing no heated clothing, just using the Duc's heated grips. I felt cold after second gas stop in Carlin (first gas stop, Wendover). I hyperventilated for a few minutes riding out of Carlin and started to feel better.
Except for bathroom break at Carlin, I took no time for drink/snack at gas stops, as I normally do on this route. I wanted to minimize riding after dark.
60 miles from Winnemucca I got a second wind, as it were, and started feeling very comfortable at 80 mph and 50 degrees ambient temperatures, nursed by the soothing, drone of the Duc. I was, after five hours of riding, in a "motorcycle high," internalizing the joy I have experienced over the last twenty years of riding.
Headlights on Duc are terrific. Visibility is good in the crescent moon's light. In the dark I turn on the Duc's flashers for greater visibility when vehicles come from behind, though it was rare when they did. More often, it was Mwah (sic) who was doing the overtaking.
Looks like key fob battery needs replacement. I have a backup battery, but it's a pain getting the fob apart. Meanwhile, using the emergency, no-key, code start mechanism to start the bike. Too much technology. Unnecessary maintenance. Yearn for the days when keys were keys.
Otherwise, 2015 Duc Multistrada is performing well.
Next day edit. Replaced fob battery. Key now working well. Awaiting 9 AM departure, when temperatures expected to be 45 degrees.
Drinking macadamia flavored coffee, eating milk carton scrambled eggs and factory produced sausage, at Best Westen "free breakfast." I'm surrounded by fellow deplorables. Mostly male, baseball capped, overall wearing,, pick-up driving railway workers, miners, linemen yada, all of whom are working, with growing wages, thanks to the economic policies of Donald Trump.
Next: Coffee with Dave R. In Reno. Dave, a real adventure rider, has ridden his BMW F800 GS across Russia and from Reno to Ushuaia and back. Dave was once General Counsel for Burning Man.
It is clear to me as never before that Epstein didn't kill himself.
Above: Walden's Coffe House. Reno, NV. 04 November 2019. File image.
Above: Dave Rankine. Motorcycle adventurer and attorney. Reno, NV. file image
Above: Dave Rankine in Russia. file image.
LSDM 04 November 2019
Topic du jour: Big Dog. Both sad to miss 2019 'Dog.
F800GS (Dave Rankine)
The Bishop
Out and about on the Duc.
Coffee at Waldens with uber adventure motorcyclist (trans Russia, Reno to Ushuaia and return) Dave Rankine. Second image of Dave shows him in Moscow during his 2015 solitary motorcycle ride across Russia.
I so admire the true adventure motorcyclists like F800GS and Dr. G. Yes, I've been all over the world on motorcycles, but I've always ridden in remote areas with guides, accompanying mechanics etc. The Dr. G's and F800GS's travel alone and live by their wits.
Dave recommended I ride the Pacific Coast Highway and see Hearst Castle. Stay for the film, he said. I have ridden by there a few times, but, have never stopped. Hearst's wealth came largely from Park City silver mining. I guess as a Parkite I should go there.
I arrived in Reno an hour early at 10:30 AM. Winnemucca to Waldens in Reno took two and a quarter hours. But, I left at 8:00 AM. I thought it was 9:00 AM. Somewhere, between changing from Mountain to Pacific time, and the first day of Daylight Savings time, I missed a beat.
My appointment with Dave was at 11:30 AM, so I waited an hour at Waldens drinking coffee and reading emails. Peacefully ensconced by a window at.Waldens, I also waxed philosophically as to how I had never shot a man in Reno
I should have known my timing was off. The Winnemucca temperature had been forecast at 46 degrees at, projected departure time of 9:00 AM. But, when I left it was 33 degrees. Bad forecasting I surmised.
I figured rightly that the temperature would rise. I was dressed for a sustained 45 degree ride, but not for a long ride at ten degrees less.
Sure enough, by the true 9:00 AM, 70, miles down I-80, Lovelock, the temperature had increased to the forecasted 46 degrees.
It is clear as a bell to me, as never before, that Epstein didn't kill himself.
Lovelock, NV. Home of the Nevada State Prison. I hadn't been this way for four or five years, so today I wasn't able to yell, "hello OJ!" as I rode past the prison.
Another interesting thing about Lovelock is that its located at the lowest part of the Great Basin at below 4000 feet. 3908 feet was the lowest readout on my Garmin as I rode through Lovelock today. Salt Lake City, the largest of the Great Basin settlements, sits at 4200 feet.
Lovelock is just adjacent to The Humboldt Sink, the point at which the Humboldt River, flowing from obscure ranges in northeastern Nevada, west to Lovelock, just disappears into the dry, arid earth.
California bound pioneers, the Donner Party, 49ers in search of gold, the Pony Express, and the Transcontinental Railroad, all followed the Humbodlt River west across Nevada to ensure a water source until the Humboldt Sink, where the water disappears into the ground.
The next fifty miles west, beyond the Humboldt Sink is waterless until travelers reach the Truckee River flowing to the east, eventually into Pyramid Lake, from the Sierra Nevada Range.
As I was on the point of departure this AM a Best Western maintenance guy came up to me as I prepped the Duc for departure. "You wanna buy a like new Tiger 800," he asked?
The BW maintenance guy then told me the story of how he was not able to ride his new Triumph dual sport motorcycle on account of his recently being hit by a car as a pedestrian. The fellow was bummed out about missing his new ride.
Motorcycle types like to jabber. He asked where I was going. I said San Francisco, 370 miles down I-80. He noted as how he didn't like to ride slab. "I like riding back roads and dirt roads," he said.
We parted company. On my own ride, now, heading west I thought, "well I like back roads too." But truth be told, I don't mind slab.
Some of my best, or my most infamous, motorcycle riding experiences have been on expressways.
Very near here, on I-80 in 1998, I was ticketed for going106 mph in a 70. My bad. Going that fast by motorcycle on an easy, isolated freeway is not that difficult...its just dumb...
How can I forget riding in a typhoon on the Tohoku Expressway outside of Tokyo in 2005?
What about riding the San Diego Freeway eighty miles from Costa Mesa to Ventura in pouring rain in 2012? Missing a turn, I ended up at Staples Center, downtown LA, before redirecting myself north.
And then there was the time, circa 2004, when I was riding my Duc ST4s at 100 mph, direction south, in the.passing lane of the Autostrade di Fiore near Genoa. Thinking no one would be coming up from behind I focussed forward in my reverie of speed...until... a shrieking horn from a Lancia four door behind me almost caused the ultimate sphincter moment.
There is a kind of elan that arises while riding on any crowded freeway where speeds are high. There is an adrenelin factor that gives more verve to the senses while riding in a fast moving maelstrom of vehicles anywhere.
Also, high speed slab riding is like scrolling on a computer. Particularly in the American west, watching the varied landscapes "scroll" by at 80 mph renders a fresh discovery at the summit of every incline and around every bend.
Today, after crossing the Sierra Nevada, I stopped at the In and Out in Auburn for a ritual cheesburger. From there it took an hour and three quarters to reach my San Francisco resting place, Marriott Union Square.
The Marriott hotel clerk said I had no reservation. I found the reservation filed on my device, but it was in TIMDT's name. After answering some questions proving I was TIMDT's husband, I was allowed to register.
A walk up Bush street to San Francisco Chopstick House, recommended by the concierge, and dinner. Kung Pao chicken. A stop at the Marriott bar to do these notes, then bed.
Tomorrow. Business Meeting. Limited Partners meeting for a fund in which we are investors. Sadly, TIMDT is not here for this visit, so no popover from Niemans on Union Square.