Adv #8: Western Sun: One-week southwestern highlights

So here we go on my last trek with Suntrek. Just a one-week tour picking up in San Francisco on October 5th, and ending on October 11th in L.A. In such a short amount of time, we covered 1783 miles and saw such highlights as San Francisco, Yosemite, Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, Lake Havisu, and of course, Los Angeles.

My group was smaller this time, only 9 people. But AGAIN....I was blessed with such a warm, fun bunch of people from 6 different countries. Father and daughter from Germany (Karl and Saskya), med-school friends from Serbia (Anna and Sandra), and 5 solo travelers from Australia (Peter), France (Laurent), Germany (Kerstin), Sweden (Susanna), and Monika (Czech Republic.) This trip more than any other really helped me get better at speaking German. Karl in particular was a huge help to me. Seemed that he and I were both trying to get better at the other language, and that just set me up for a continuing lesson on German. Here's some highlights of the trip:

On the 2nd day, here's Monika, Anna, and Sandra posing in front of the famous "El Capitan" formation in Yosemite. We all did a hike to Vernal Falls later in the day before heading to Vegas.

Tough to put into words, but seeing Karl and his daughter Saskya back together again really struck my heart a bit. Saskya had been an au pair in Conneticut and the Bay Area for an entire year, only having spoken on the phone and email with her parents in that time. This vacation was her Father Karl's first chance to see her in that entire year! I guess that doesn't seem like too much time... but I could tell how excited he was to see his daughter by a few words he said. Saskya is an only child, and maybe that was just part of why her father was so excited to see her.
The Dead Giant Sequoia in Yosemite made a good climbing point for Anna and Sandra.

Anna, is that really bear poop you're eating? Ahh....funny story behind this one. I'd rather tell folks in person how it works though.

Kind of a neat picture of Peter and Laurent standing on Devil's Golf Course in Death Valley.

Pretty Sandra, and a pretty view at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley.
Did you know you can walk into Vegas with no identification, sign a piece of paper and start firing a machine gun? Peter, Laurent and I did this. I had never fired an automatic before, so Osama took the first rounds for me. What cool experience, I shot 50 rounds out of an M4. One more thing to check off on the "To Do" list.

As a tour guide, many companies will "comp" me for bringing them some business. Peter, Saskya, and Karl all wanted to fly over The Grand Canyon, so this time I got to go for free. Papillion Helicopters choreographed this trip beautifully. Choking me up first by playing "Africa" by Toto as we fly over Kaibab National Forest on the way to the Canyon, and then timing the crescendo in "Also Sprach Zarathustra" so that it peaks immediately as I'm flying over the edge of the Grand Canyon. This was my second time to the canyon. Not afraid to admit....I was choked up again.

We grabbed carry-out pizza, and Susanna (nicknamed "Baby" for being the youngest in the group) and the rest of us headed to Yavapai point in the Canyon for sunset.

And then of course sunrise the next morning at Mather Point.

I forgot my camera for the time we spent in Vegas. What a great time though, we combined with 2 other Suntrek leaders and their groups to rent the "Party Bus," and headed out for all the site-seeing around Vegas. Like they say though, maybe it's only appropriate that I don't have pictures from the time there?

Finished the trip by hitting Joshua Tree NP on the way to L.A.


Of course we finished with a tour of L.A. Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Venice Beach. Harry Perry is the name of the roller-skating guitar player you might recognize. He's been skating and playing his way around Venice Beach since 1974, and has a really neat aura about him. Many street-performers tend to creep people out a bit, but Harry has a sort of innocence about him that is quite welcome on Venice Beach. He seems to be someone that could enjoy life, no matter what has been coming his way. Sounds like the right way to skate through life to me...

Anyway, this was my last Suntrek trip for the year. See what I'm writing about in Adventure #7 if you want to keep in tune to what I'm doing next. Looks like I've got some pretty neat plans taking shape, and this blog might have quite a bit of life left in it....

Adv #7: A Ride down the West Coast...and Beyond

My buddy Clayton Purvis (fellow Suntrek trainee) mentioned once that he had ridden all of the Pacific Coast Highway on his motorcycle. Well, I finally had a week off of work last week, so I figured I'd start working on a similar journey (it just sounded good.) But instead of just doing PCH, or Highway 1, why not drive all the way to the top of the west coast in Washington?

I started Saturday, September 27th after a few days of visiting here in Napa/Sonoma Wine Country with my brother, his wife, and her mom. Leaving Petaluma, CA, I made the 2-day drive up to the furthest northwest point on US Hwy 101, near La Push or Rialto Beach, Washington. Took a left, and started driving down. Here's a couple of things I saw along the way and some of the people I met who might become a long part of this story I'm writing.

Okay, first get into the state of Washington.

And there's the start of the 101, which runs north through a loop in Washington's northwest corner, and runs down thru Oregon to eventually meet up with the Pacific Coast Highway, (California 1.)

Hustled to make it to see the sunset at Rialto Beach. Let's just say I was very close to being on time....

There's my travel companion....watching guard over our campsite that night.

I thought this was a neat picture at Rialto Beach the next morning with the burl wood in the foreground.

Recognize this house? Now I'm all the way down in Astoria, Oregon. And yes....that is the house that "The Goonies" lived in from that famous movie in the 80's. Why is my shirt up? Yep....it was a subtle attempt at doing the "Truffle Shuffle" as "Chunk" was forced to do in the movie. Google it or find it on YouTube. What a great scene if you don't remember. (And yes, there were plenty of other tourists there checking this house out! I think the same house was also used in "Kindergarten Cop" and a few other movies.)

So further down the coast in Port Orford, Oregon, I ran into Peter Fischer from Germany. This is where my story gets a little more interesting......

Peter is an Adventure Riding Instructor working for BMW Motorrad (Motorcycles) out of Germany. When I took this picture, he had just finished riding for 40 days along the TransAmerica Trail. That trail is 95% off-road, starts in eastern Tennessee, and ends in Oregon. He had ridden most of it by himself, so Peter was quite happy to see another Adventure rider in the area. We ended up grabbing dinner and splitting a camp spot for the next two nights. Not to get too far ahead of things here.....but I can't tell you how excited I was to learn from him that jobs & careers like his exist. Aside from being a good guy to hang out with, he's helped me generate some neat ideas about my plans for the future.

So there's a quick shot of our motorcycles in front of our camping spot at Cape Blanco State Park, just north of Port Orford, Oregon.

And it just wouldn't be right for a couple of Adventure Riders to get together and not go for a ride, right? The next day, we headed down to the beach, despite the fact that sand/water/motorcycles don't really mix together well.

We thought it was so cool that we could dig our wheels in a bit and stand our bikes up in the sand without any side-stand or center stand being used! Oh....this was a mistake....

Peter really wanted to make sure his bike would stand up by itself....

And then when we're starting to show off how cool it is to have his bike buried, and my bike standing on it's own.....I was juggling two cameras and forgot to notice the inbound tide and wave rolling in (see next pic.)

And here's the mistake I was talking about. Didn't notice that the wave had knocked my bike down! So sure enough, we spent about 3 hours taking my bike apart to get the water out. Mostly laughing....but also dealing with the uncertainty of how to get it running again. Must have gotten into the intake system somewhere, so we had plenty of digging to do.

In the end, after the battery had been run down enough from trying to start it, Phillip had been walking by with his wife Laurie (both from Vancouver) and they offered to tow my bike behind the van in order to bump-start it. It worked! Unfortunately I didn't get the picture of Phillip, Peter, and myself pushing 400+ pounds of motorcycle about a half-mile through the sand to get back to the van! Thanks again for the help, guys.

We all had a barbeque that night around the campfire. Here in the pic is Phillip's wife, Laurie, and Jeff who was another one of our camp-neighbors, also from Vancouver. It's so neat how many good, fun people I've been meeting in this lifestyle and career I'm living.

And wouldn't you know it: I made a huge mistake accidentally bumping the heated-grips switch on my bike and accidentally depleting the battery all night long. So thank you Jeff for sleeping late, and still being available for a quick tow (about 6 laps) around the campground so I could drag-start my bike again! What a silly little mistake....killed the battery completely.

OKAY.....this story is not over. Gotta take a week for one more Suntrek trip, and then this journey will continue. The biggest news is: Peter and I both have open schedules after mid-October, so we're talking about riding to Argentina together. He has work lined up with the Dakar Rally (formerly from Paris to Dakar, but now beginning and ending in Buenos Aires) and needs to get to Argentina by late December. I've been planning on working/living internationally after Suntrek, so this might be the sign I follow for now. We're setting up plans day by day here.....it's 99% sure we're going at this point, and I can't tell you how excited I am about this.....

Adv #6: California Dreamin' - Tour of the U.S. Southwest

Finally, I was assigned one of our most popular trips, called "California Dreamin'" which meant I'd get to do and see many of the places I'd always heard my fellow trekleaders talk about. This 2-week tour started Sunday September 7th, starting and ending in San Francisco. Plans were to see the Pacific Coast Highway, Big Sur, L.A., and San Diego. Then head northeast to Joshua Tree NP, Lake Havisu, the Grand Canyon, Seligman/Route 66, Las Vegas, Yosemite National Park, and then back to San Francisco.

I was so glad to tell my passengers on the first day that I was going to see some places for the first time, too. (Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Vegas, and Yosemite were all first-time for me!)My 13 passengers were German, Swedish, Swiss, Spanish, and Belgian with ages ranging from 20 to 36. I know I've said this before....but really....what a great group we had. Energetic, rarely sleeping, always entertaining and happy to be entertained.

Since I’m not much into the cities, the first photos I took were from when we went kayaking through the caves in La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Here’s Yassir (Switzerland) and Jenny (Germany.)

Paddling with me was Cindy, also from Germany. Hard to see, but check out the sea lions in the background on the rocks.

These La Jolla caves are quite an interesting site. As I’ve learned over this summer….erosion will take away the softest and weakest soils first, and sometimes it leaves behind formations like these caves.

After each of us did kayaking, surfing lessons, Sea World, or the San Diego Zoo, we all ended up back on Pacific Beach for the sunset. Here’s Jenny and Cindy with me. Yes, that’s Walter Sobczak on my shirt, and no, he doesn’t roll on Shabbas.

Off to Joshua Tree National Park, I think the trees are far more impressive in the springtime when they are in bloom. The neatest thing we found in the park were the rock formations that are just fun to climb and hang out on. The face in the rocks behind Yassir looks like its’ going to eat him maybe?

Jenny, I’m not sure what looks better…

Cindy, you are very gracefully melting into that rock…

Next we heaed to Arizona, here’s a shot of the whole group.

Each of us was going to the Grand Canyon for the first time, and some folks like Yassir (in the white on the right) wanted to see the canyon from this unique perspective. Six of us took helicopter rides, and I don’t think anyone was disappointed.

My first time at the Grand Canyon, I could only muster up enough courage to hang one foot over the edge…not two. We had gotten carry-out pizza and watched the sunset at Yavapai Point. Perfectly timed.

The next day, my people did a hike on the Bright Angel Trail, and I did the South Kaibab all the way down to Skeleton Point. There’s a silly law in only a couple of National Parks that says I can’t hike on the same trail as my passengers unless I’m a licensed backpack tour guide. I’m not so I decided to avoid the fine and just hike separately. Pic is of me at Skeleton Point.

So we saw sunset the first night, saw the hiking trails the next day. What’s next? Sunrise at Mather Point, just before we leave for Vegas that day. This was absolutely worth getting up at 5am. The colors and textures just a few minutes after the sun shows up are absolutely beautiful.
Next it was Welcome to Las Vegas for a bunch of first-timers!


And speaking of Vegas, here’s the aircraft carrier……eh…….I mean “limo” I had arranged to give us a tour of Sin City. We were all first-timers in Vegas, too. This was a great way to all see some of the sites around town the first night.


There’s a little better group shot, with most of us huddled into one end of the limo. Geeze. I look like Bubba from Forrest Gump. "I wuz born wit big gumz." Reminds me of when I first met my buddy Jay Lay in college. I think the very first thing he said to me was when he asked if I had some dip I could spare. "Uh, sorry. I don't chew tobacco. I just have a huge bottom lip."

Not 5 minutes in the limo, and Ally from Sweden was all over that pole dance routine! The limo driver told me he has a midget that dances in there for bachelor parties sometimes. Get this….she makes $1500 for one hour of entertaining a bunch of meatheads. Good for her.

Next day was sky diving, just south of Vegas. I’m breaking the rules taking my people to do this…but hey, some rules are there to be broken. Yassir and Karin are getting ready to go first here. Yassir was ready for this moment WAY before it arrived!

Blurry pic, but Karin was elated to have just finished her first jump. Six of our group went for a dive that morning, and I think everyone was glad they did it. I'll go next time, as I get to jump for free if I get an odd number of passengers to do it.

Then onto Yosemite NP, here’s a group pic in front of one of the Giant Sequoias. WOW are they big.

One old, dead Sequoia was laying there. We found a good view of the roots first.

And then realized we could climb up the middle of the hollowed-out tree for about 60 meters and find an opening halfway up the tree! That's Jan making the way up the center.

Many of the spots in Yosemite will make it clear why this is a premier rock climbing spot in the world. That’s one sport I’m not too much into yet. I enjoy a little scramble on the rocks with just bare hands and feet here and there, and maybe someday I'll get further into the more technical climbing.

So as described earlier, we left Yosemite and headed back to San Francisco with flowers in our hair. This group had the idea to put all of our pictures on DVD's so we can all see what we might have missed by splitting up sometimes. That means I have something like 6000 pictures from this trip now? There's a couple of gems in there, I'm sure...