Up North of the Border

Today was possibly my best day's riding ever. Starting out at dawn from Beatty Nevada, I headed west on the 374 State Highway, with the rising sun behind me and the setting moon and multicoloured Death Valley ahead of me. Absolutely no-one else there at all and I zoomed along the smooth as silk tarmac surface, which curved up and down and round and round. I crossed the Panamint Range, with 3 valleys and passes in between, dropping to 625 feet below sea level at the bottom of Death Valley and up to more than 6,000 feet at the top of the last pass. I diverted off the road to get some gravel action towards the colourful Mosaic Canyon, wit it's colourful split rock formations. I got a great view of the grey granite and limestone of the appropriately named Sierra Nevada ahead of me, with Mount Whitney and its sheath of snow clearly visible. Passing Panamint Springs (now in California) I followed the road towards Lone Pine, skirting the salty expanse of Owens Lake. I saw a sign for a Sulfate Road and saw the road heading straight across the lake> I went for it and satisfied my frustrated desire from Bolivia, to do some more salt flat riding and headed on to Lone Pine. Tried to fill up with petrol, but was frustrated and continued to Bishop for a great sandwich at Erick Schat's Swedish Bakkery. Due to the time difference I felt like I had ridden all day, but it was still only 11am, before heading west through Yosemite.

Met George and Alberto at Erick Schat's Swedish Bakkery, Iraqi Veterans heading home to Reno for Memorial Day. They were riding 2 well used hand custom Harleys, and had been all over the USA since they had left the army last year. George had been shot in the leg and seemed to have recovered physically pretty well, although judging by the way they both smoked constantly, pulling hard on each tab right to the end, it seemed that mentally perhaps they were still in some recovery. They had noticed my Iran sticker and wanted to know what it was like to travle there as they were interested in travelling more around the world, now they had seen the States in some detail. They also helped me out with some tips for Alaska too. They asked me what type of gun I was carrying. Shocked when I said none and wasn't planning to either, they strongly suggested that I buy a big can of Bear Mace as a last resort defence.

First to pass over the Tioga Pass, 3031 metres high, into Yosemite from Lee Viney since they shut it in October 2007. It was now May 22nd and I was amazed how much snow and ice was still there. I was lucky enought to see Ranger Chuck Brown switch the sign over from "CLOSED" to "OPEN" on the turn off and went for it. Snow and ice were still on the road, although most of it had been pushed into banks on the side of the road. Ten or twelve feet deep, the banks were well above my head and I felt great breathing in the clear fresh air through my balaclava (getting its first use on the trip) enjoying the breathtaking views of the forests with the solid rock mantle of El Capitan soaring above. I had to pay some attention to the road however, as there was still some snow and ice around and as I had found out from George and Alberto, in National Parks and throughout Alaskan state highways, they don't use salt on the roads as it attracts the Moose, Elk, Wolves and Bears and such out to the tarmac to lick up the much needed mineral and so increasing the liklihood of accidents and unwanted "interactions" with humans.

In a car you always see things from inside a tin box that has a wheel in each corner and a windscreen that provides a frame that trammels your view of what you are passing through, like a TV or a film. On a bike you are in complete sensory contact with everything around you - the temperature, the smell, the feeling the touch of the surface of the road against your tyres, the unrestricted view of what is around you and if your mouth falls open agog at the wonder of it all, you can also experience the remarkable taste of lfies too! Despite the advent of iPods and intercom systems and the on board entertainment system of the Honda Goldwing, by and large, a motorbike is the place from which to meditate and contemplate your surroundings from. You can do this at your leisure without pressure of time and without the feeling that you ought to be dong something else. My bike swings through each corner with a natural ease as the bike leans and plunges and soars through all 3 dimensions and I shift my weight so that it is always between me and the tarmac. The way is full of tight turns and sudden views of a cove below, with foaming spume being drawn over the pebbles by the receding tide or black cherry stalls appearing in the occasional turnouts. Slanting slate shadows, angled low in the approaching evening through the dry red country left a beautiful blue melancholic feeling as I zoom around the San Francisco Bay and over the enormous Richmond Bridge, with the Golden Gate silhouetted by the setting sun to my left.

Having arrived to a warm welcome in San Rafael to stay at Maggie and Gaby's, we take a trip to City Lights, a San Francisco establishment was a great place to browse. Founded in 1953 and the first to publish many of the Beat authors, including Jack Kerouac's iconic "On the Road". It was the USA's first all paperback bookstore and retains the higgledy - piggledy structure of a second - hand bookseller along with imaginative and radical title selection missing from the big chain stores and a gently persistant pressure to "sit down and read a book" from a plethora of signs. Then we wandered around China Town, before settling down for a couple of Guinness (best on the trip so far) at the Irish Wall pub. As the evening approached we enjoyed a great pizza at Cafe Zoetrope before popping across the road to catch the early set from Houston Person and a Montenegran pianist that Maggie recognised and had a chat with afterwards. We were at the cosy, red velvet cavern that was Jazz at Pearl's. No doubt the smooth saxaphone acoustics were aided by the soft furnishings. The overall atmosphere was topped off with the neon Friday evening cityscape in the background and the striking perpendicularity of the downtown area behind, along with the crossed street signs of Colombus and Broadway outside the window.

Next day we went out to Muir Beach for a bracing walk and visited the nearby Pelican Inn for a couple of resotrative ales by the fire. That evening I went out with Albert and some of his friends to the Edinburgh Castle and then stayed at his place. One of his friends, Seth, told me a great story about the Bay to Breakers run they had completed the previous weekend. Whilst there are a group of hard core runners who take the event seriously, most are in it for fun and there is a lot of dressing up. The funniest and most famous is the Salmon Run Club, a group of surrealist "runners" who dress up in salmon outfits, start at the finish line and aim for the start, "swimming" against the flow as they go! San Francisco originally called Yerba Buena by the Spanish, and I certainly smelt a lot of herb in the Edinburgh Castle and saw the most cocaine in the toilets since Colombia. Maggie, Gaby and I enjoyed a day wine tasting in the Napa Valley, visiting Viansa, Mondavi, Opus One, St. Suprey and Beringer.

The next day, I went for a ride in the rain to Point Reyes Station on HIghway One, which despite the weather was a great run, especially going through the redwood forest glade on Lucas Avenue that the eponymous Director used for the jet - bike scene in Star Wars 2: The Empire Strikes Back. Highway One is famous south of San Francisco, but I thought the northern section was pretty remarkable too. We had a great visit to Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate and then across the soaring ochre span to explore the new hotel, Cavallo Point at Baker's Point on the opposite shore of the mouth of the Bay. We also spent some relaxing evenings in watching great comedy at Maggie and Gaby's - Tracey Ullman, Margaret Cho and Dawn French - Girls Who Do Comedy and Boys Who Do Comedy, mostly on You Tube. The internet is changing the way people watch TV and I think the quisling BBC in particular, are in for trouble. Their pricing model, based on enforcement for everyone who has a TV set is completely out of date as you can watch their programmes on Youtube instead for nothing on your computer. Eventually, the morning came for me to leave after a great time with the Kalifornia Krew and I left early after being woken by the racoons rattling in the rubbush bins in the drive.

Listening to a couple in a diner when I stopped for lunch, I think that Americans feel fear and because they don't understand the world, they lash out at what they do understand - their fellow Americans. The country is polarised and different sections of the population seem unreconcileable, whether their differences are about race, religion or gender. If Eric Hobsbawm was still alive he would write a history book about the last 25 years forward into the next decade at least called the Age of Terror. There are plenty of alternative Americans who seem to understand the situation clearly and even have a sense of humour about it too. This is the land of the bumper sticker and I saw a great one the other day that made me chuckle. "My country invaded Iraq and all I got was this expensive gas!".

Following the Eel River Valley north, taking a diversion to go through the Avenue of the Giants. I felt small and light due to my surroundings and my new light packing, having left the remnants of Neil's gear and a load of my books and some worn out shoes and clothes that I had finished with.meant that I was now travelling light, with space for Dave B and Lena to ride pillion. I have entered the land, thickly wooded mountains and river valleys, of the Sasquatch or Bigfoot. Stayed in a motel next to a micro - brewery between Fortuna and Eureka (no sign of Archimedes). It was cold and damp and I realised I was going to have to get some more cold weather clothing as well as the bear spray and maybe some deer whistles too, as that morning I had seen my first Elk.

North along Highway 101 now with gradually increasingly frequent and longer glimpses then full splendid panaoramas of the North Pacific through the rolling hills, thickly covered by the giant coastal redwoods, with a light fog of spume and spray covering the coastline in a hazy veil. Stopping for lunch in a roadside diner, I ordered local grilled chinook salmon and the large, flat - faced waitress fussed over me and we chatted for a while, she being interested in the novelty of foreigner as I had left the cosmopolitan Bay Area far behind, and I was glad of the company. We chatted about healthcare of all things as she had heard of the NHS, telling me horror stories of people falling ill in the reatuarant, being picked up in an ambulance, taken to the local hospital 5 miles away and charged 18,000 USD! She was a member of the Chilula tribe who funded their own clinic and that is where she went for her regular doctor's visits, eye care and dental work, although she still seemed fearful about getting a serious illness. She said she was thinking of moving to Alaska (telling me how beautiful it was and not too cold around the Inner Passage in the south - east) as the State offered free healthcare to attract more people to settle its deserted wilderness.

Onto the Redwood National Park and along a gravel track past herds of Roosevelt Elk and arrived at the empty Gold Bluffs Beach campground. I set up the tent and gathered some firewood for later, finding an enormous laterally cut log from a Redwood, much larger than the wheels of my bike. Rotten in sections along the sapwood but as hard as granite inside and outside this on the cambian layer and in the heartwood, I nevertheless soon split it up with my handy hatchet. Bleached on the outside, the new wood shone like damasked satin, burnished an irridescent coppery red as I split it along the grain. Then I headed up the hills towards along the Miner's Ridge trail, feeling dwarfed by the giant trees. Lots had fallen, as for all their size above ground their roots only penetrate upto 12 feet deep. although they do spread wide and their cones are relatively tiny too, creating clearings where I sometimes glimpsed more Elk, but I was deliberately making noise as I walked to give the native Black Bears plenty of notice of my arrival. I explored the remains of the Gold Mine and camp and then came back to the beach, noticing how the undergrowth was also full of relative giants too. Massive clumps of clover, like enormous three leaved umbrellas must have drawn the elk into the forest. In a couple of months the berries would do the same to the Black Bears, as the bramble blossoms were as big as dog roses. There were also swathes of wild blue lupins everywhere too, reminding me of the same sight in the Southern Hemisphere spring in the Parque de los Alerces 6 months ago now.

It was a sombre scene, as dusk approached and a bank of tall grey clouds advanced across the shore and I saw that I still had the whole site to myself. I lit the fire and munched on some roasted almonds and candied ginger, still full from my big, late lunch. Then I went for a walk along the beach, accompanied by seals and pelicans parallel to the shore, the former 10 metres out in twos and threes and the latter a hundred metres out swooping over the breakers, always maintaining exactly the same distance between themselves and the broiling water. The sea was getting rougher and there were some vicious riptides along the shore. The loneliest thing on the beach was a big wooden pole driven into the sand, with lots of momentos left around it and some Native Indian ribbons and fetishes. I came back to the camp to find a note from the Ranger, informing me that "vehicle needs to be moved to designated parking area outside of individual campsite". I pushed my bike the requisite 5 metres, glad that my the mysterious jobsworth had shown me the error of my ways in a public campground I had all to myself!

I read by firelight and then when it got too dark I played my mouth organ as the doleful (and dreadful) notes floated up into the starless, moonless sky, following the billows of smoke from the fire. Distant thunderheads reared quivering against the electric sky, silently behind the roar of the ocean, before being suddenly sucked away into the velvet darkness again. I saw strange shapes of blue in the salty gloom about me as the lightening flashed without any sound above the din of the waves and never with any rain. My silver bike, the white toilet block and I could also make out the nearest, biggest trunks from the forest line between me and the beach, although mostly it remained an impenetrable dark mass. This, despite the intense periodic flashes of lightening making staccato glimpses of blue illuminated days from the night, which always returned to its curtained darkness.

The brief flashes of the surrounding bluffs, forest and sandy links revealed the landscape in its true geology; not of rock, water, trees, salt and sand, but that of the fear of being alone. I was comforted however by the fact that I was enjoying the loneliness of my situation, I just yearned to be able to share it with Lena and so I made do with this poetic description instead. I packed my food into the bear - proof container provided at the campsite and went to bed. Without this, I read a poster outside the toilet block which said that all food, rubbish and scented items - soap, toothpaste and lotions - would have to be bagged and taken 200 feet from where you plan to sleep, hoisted at least 12 feet up a tree and 10 feet out from the trunk and five feet down from the branch to keep it out of the reach of bears. Just take a moment to think about theses distances and see if you got the same chill down your spine to think of the sheer size and power of these beasts. I leave the campsite in the morning, riding along the dirt trail along the seashore, past the dessicated, bleached hulks on the beach. Like leviathan logs beached on the sand. Further on, magnificent bull elk, brooding 2 hundred yards away from the cows and calves for another few months until the rutting starts. It was a beautiful place.

The Coastal Redwood is world's tallest living tree, monarch of the NW Pacific coast and one of the only living links with the age of dinosaurs. A redwood grows from a seed the same size as a tomato pip and yet can weigh 500 tons and reach nearly 400 feet high when fully grown, which takes a mere 2,000 years or so. The shorter, stouter Sequoia can weigh double that and can last more than 3,000 years - that's a lot of rings for someone to count. Its full latin name is Sequoia Sempervirens and means everlasting Sequoyah, a famous cherokee leader. Both species can survive forest fires and the attacks of insects thanks to bark layers which can be more than a foot thick at maturity. Later that day, I was stopped by Trooper Katzakis of the Oregon State Troopers and warned in a friendly, efficient and professional way about my speed but not asked for my non-existent insurance. I resolve to get this sorted on the internet as soon as possible. Soon afterwards, whilst pulling up at roadworks, I hear a "ping" as the spring on my left throttle body snaps and my left throttle cable is stuck open. I make it the 40 - odd miles north to Newport, Oregon by riding slowly and switching the engine off when I need to stop. Tired and cold, I check into the Best Western and resolve to get up early the next day and try to:

1. Fix it myself
2. Ride it to town and get it fixed here
3. Ride it to Salem (the nearest BMW dealer) and get it fixed there, approx 70 miles and want to avoid city riding if possible
4. Ride it to Portland (the biggest BMW dealer) and get it fixed there, approx 150 miles and want to avoid big city riding if possible.

Also if I can't fix it myself, then I only have tomorrow to sort it out as am meeting Dave B in Vancouver on Tuesday, otherwise will have to hang around until next week and potentially miss him or leave the bike and hire a car instead!? After some advice from Neil on the phone I try to re-bend the spring with my Leatherman tool, but only succeed in snapping it further. I find out about the cost of transport and am shocked that everyone quotes more that 500USD, so I hire a U-Haul truck for one day, one way to the nearest BMW dealer in Eugene, Oregon for 114USD plus the cost of petrol.

After realising that I can't fix the broken spring as it is sealed onto the throttle return ring and when I dismantled it as much as possiblee and started trying to bend it, the spring snapped some more. So, after calling BMW of Western Oregon and they have a new part, so will head over there and see what they can do for me there - I guess it means I will be here again tonight, but hopefully should be on my way tomorrow to meet Dave on time. On my way over I feel lucky that at least it didn't happen in Alaska - I would have been bear bait, or worse, nibbled to death by blackfly! The blokes at the hardware store and U-Haul agency in town were friendly and helpful and I am soon on my way in a big van, with a ramp, automatic gear lever on the steering column and exclusively country and western on the radio.

I left Newport at 1.30pm after sorting all that out and thanks to the 55 mph speed limit throughout Oregon, I got to the BMW place just before 5pm. They fitted the left body but pointed out that the right is pretty worn too, so I overnight in a motel and get the right replaced too, as I don't want it to go in Alaska where there are no U - Haul Trailers / BMW dealers around, nor threaten my rendez - vous with Dave or more importantly with Lena in just a few weeks. Mark Ledger the Service Manager of BMW of Western Oregon in Eugene, was a rotund, friendly good ol' boy who squeezed me into his busy spring service schedule. He also pointed out an oil leak between my gearbox and engine casing and suggested that this was an indication, along with the mileage on my bike (84,000km) that my clutch needed replacing. This concerned me, given the riding ahead and the fact that I had just left the spare clutch that Neil had at Maggie and Gaby's place just a few days ago! Over the next few days, Maggie helps out bigtime by not only sending the clutch on to a place in Canada for me, but also helping out with arranging my overdue insurance too.Once it is done, I head straight for the border on Interstate 5,and make it through busy Seattle to another generic motel in Everett.

At Kalama, Washington, I cross the river where Lewis and Clark met the Pacific after setting out from St Louis years earlier on their mission from William Jefferson. From Portland up, the C&W rednecks have disappeared again and a chilled out, wacky metropolitan vibe has taken its place for the first time since San Francisco, where all the love children and beat generation from California seem to have ended up. Everything is drive through in the USA (or should I say drive - thru). I hate that - you know if they don't like the English language, then they shouuld choose another one to abuse. My biggest bugbear is "tire" instead of "tyre", as not only is this mis-spelt, it is also a completely different word! maybe it will be Spanish in a few years anyway. I aso hate the drive thrus, because my cashpoint card is proving unpredictable in the USA and Canada and it is odd to be stood in a queue for the ATM on foot when everyone else is in an enormous truck!

Free coffee and wi-fi on the rest areas, well at least in theory as the volunteers who ran the coffee stall couldn't tell me why there was no internet connection, despite the official signs on the highway. Service was available in the nearest Starbucks along the road, although I was informed that I woud have to pay 8 USD per day to get access, which along with 5 dollars for a coffee, seemed a bit steep. I have found that whilst the USA may like to call itself the most connected country in the world, particularly on the tech - dominated West Coast, it is not so easy for visitors. Even the Starbucks in Mexico City had free, open access internet for customers and not surprisingly, it was packed. At the rest area I met Brendan and Lee, 2 engineering students struggling to undo their beer bottles at the rest area, wandering around trying to lever the top off on the side of the picnic tables, rubbish bins, door handles. I showed them the trick that Yan tought me, employing the engineering principle of leverage, and got chatting with them for a while over one of their beers they offered me. They had been in Seattle for the night to watch some internationally famous DJ perform at the big stadium downtown (?), hence all the traffic jams the previous night. They were heading back to Vancouver, seeking to top up the beer buzz they had attained previously before ging back to college the next day. They were nice blokes and I saw them intermittently along the road and the queues at the border on the way to Vancouver.

Everybody shouts in America - Generica. So, as a consequence, you get to hear a lot of other people's conversations. Amazing how banal they are, when the closest race for the nomination of the Democratic Party is happenning and the country is the most embroiled in a war of terror, most conversation is about gas prices (average now over 4 USD per gallon). Now people stop me and ask me not about where I have been and my journey so much (I don't think most people here recognise so many of the stickers on my bike) but about the fuel efficiency of my bike! Also, everyone seems so socially isolated here from all but their immediate friends, family and companions, that no-one wants to talk to you, even when they are checking out the bike and I am nearby smiling and trying to look approachable. BUT, as soon as I am away from the bike and in a cafe, bar or restaurant, a crowd gathers round to look closer, poke, point and stare. One exception to this in the Motel 6 in north of Seattle, heading for Vancouver. I had parked my bike next to a funky pink and white beetle. When I came back in the morning, a note was left on the bike which said "I would have been so happy to listen to your stories - sorry I missed you!"

Into Canada and the place names (New Westminster, Richmond and Victoria) immediately became more familiar. As did the face on the back of the notes and coins, with a much more honestly aging portrait of that German woman who sits on the British throne. Unlike British Subjects though, Canadians have voted to become Citizens. Canada so far looks familiarly like suburban Britain, especially if it were ever to become more integrated with Europe - all the street signs and notices are also in French, the metric system has resumed again after imperial USA and the currency is also different, but everything else is essentially the same.

First impressions of Vancouver are pretty good, although its attraction as the best place in the world to live must be statistical, and you know what I think of those by now. There are no particularly iconic sights or monuments, but some of the older buildings, the art deco Marine Building and the Canadian Pacific Railway Station in particular, are pretty impressive. Granville Mall is a pretty alternative place, full of pubs, clubs and "street" shops although my wanderings into East Hastings Street revealed that was the true heart of the city's streetlife. At 7pm on Sunday evening, there was a lot of pavement dealing going on, trade to attain access to other people's bodies and to get the means to get out of the physical restrictions of your own body. There were also loads of homeless, especially trolley people, in Vancouver, in greater concentration than I had seen anywhere else on the entire trip. This is remarkable on a number of points, firstly just given the relative wealth of Canada and Bolivia or Nicaragua for instance, but also it is unlikely that these people would concur with the oft - touted statistic about this being the best city to live in the best country to live in the world in terms of quality of life. That is unless it is also true amongst homeless circles and homeless people relocate to Vancouver, as they seem to in San Francisco, because of its relative attractions. What is also remarkable here is that there seems to be an equality of lack of opportunity here as far as misfortune is concerned. Men, women, whites, blacks and unusually in my experience, Asians, approach you with their blank eyes, "spare change" mantras and hauling trolleys of equally tangible physical and mental baggage behind them through the streets.

There is also lots of conspicuous consumption in the city too. Along with the middle - class rebel kids and weekend warriors hanging out at the bars on Granville Mall, there are lots of Porsche and Ferrari owners cruising the streets, displaying the benificence of Ganesh in a ritualistic way, bringing their spoils back to the maw of Mammon in thanks and glory to their fellow vistors and the shabby hordes of the vanquished on the pavement. There are lots of high - end shops in the centre too, along with lots of book and record shops, which I would be very tempted to browse through if it wouldn't lead to frustration due to my lack of luggage space. There are also more coffee shops here than I have ever seen anywhere else. Perhaps there is a symbiotic relationship with the street people, as they all need an empty coffee cup to hold out for donations? Blenz, Tim Hortons and Starbucks are on almost every corner, often right next to each other. The city is also noticeably another very cosmopolitan urban island, after leaving San Francisco and spending a week in the conservative North American hinterland, with all types of food, drink and substances easily available I opt for an Indian accompanied by some Anchor Steam Stout.

Looking around Gastown I come across the saloon of Gassy Jack Leighton, after whom the district was named. He is remembered for rowing across the Burrard Inlet and offering a group of thirsty workers at Stamps Mill all the whisky they could drink if they helped him to build a bar. Within 24 hours the Globe Saloon was finished. A statue of this famous yorkshireman standing on a whisky barrel is in the Maple Leaf Square, with his second bar behind hom, built in the same way.

Canada, British Colombia and Vancouver in particular like to market themselves a lot. A marketing shop on the border where I bought a sticker for my bike in record time. Even the licence plates for BC say "Beautiful British Colombia" and all the city corporation trucks say "The Best Place in the World". It is certainly a nice place, but not the best in the world in my opinion. Apart from being pretty expensive all over I resent choosing something in a shop, bar or restaurant and then having lots of different taxes added afterwards. Most galling was the hostel bill, which, amongst other state and city taxes, had one charged at 2% by British Colombia for "marketing". When I quizzed this, I was told it was a new one charged on tourists for marketing the state to them in the first place! I am not someone used to paying taxes and expect value for money when I do, but I thought this was just incredibly cheeky. Off to get my tyre changed and then meet Dave B :-) at the airport in the rain:-(, in what would turn out to be the worst weather of the whole trip so far.