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Left Techachapi early this morning and rode 450 miles to Chico. Surprisingly.....uneventful!
Here's a few more pics of the trip: Me outside motel in Yuma, riding down the streets of Los Mochis, farewell at the bus depot, following Good Sam out of town, Mo after the "night ride" and a closeup of the damaged engine case on his Honda.

Trying to get home

From Tucson yesterday, did 500 miles making a loop to avoid Phoenix, taking I-10 to Palm Springs then the 29 Palms Hwy to Yucca Valley, spending the night in Victorville — a place that sucks bigtime with regard to any semblance of layout for traveler convenience. Really thought I might do 600 miles today and make Chico, but heading west on Hwy. 58 toward Bakersfield, I suddenly encountered a Spring storm with horrific winds and SNOW! Simultaneous with this unwelcome development, I began to lose power and the motor started missing. I switched to reserve fuel and the engine caught again. Even tho I had been bucking a ferocious headwind, I was flabberghasted that I was running out of gas after only 100 miles. Conditions were major bad, i.e. a virtual whiteout with blowing snow and hardly any visibility. Of course, my visor fogged up too. Thank God I made it the 17 miles to Tehacahapi where I pulled off and sought refuge in a cafe. Two hours later, weather was even worse so I called it a day at 11 AM and took a room at a motel adjacent to the restaurant. As I type this, it is blizzard conditions outside. Just getting the bike from the cafe 100 yards to the motel was an adventure with nearly an inch of hail/snow in the parking lot.

A few extra pics. Guaymas coast and fishing harbor and a few Bonzai bushes at my motel that I liked. Also, I've added the paltry few pics I took earlier to one of the earlier posts, i.e. In Mexico.

BUSTED!

Well, a short bloody trip this. When parts began spewing off Mo's bike Saturday followed by a stream of oil all over the Mexican landscape I got a sinking feeling which got worse as the day went on. We were 20 miles south of Los Mochis, anticipating a big day under bright skies when the primary drive sprocket, clutch, clutch housing and of course, chain went flying. We got a ride from 3 burly Federal Traffic policemen who responded to our arm-waving by piling out of their pickup, semi-auto M16's in hand, but were quite nice and briskly loaded the bike up and took Mo back to town while I followed. There, a gaggle of onlookers gathered to commiserate, and one of them, who owns a small ranch outside of town was our Good Samaritan as we loaded the broken bike in his little Chevy pickup and proceeded to find out from three different bike shops that 1) nobody had the parts, and 2) it would take five to seven days starting on Monday to get parts and fix things. Game over baby. I toyed with the idea of continuing solo, but gazing on the defunct Honda easily made the decision for me. Unless you can fix nearly anything on your bike and speak better Spanish than I do, going solo is out of the question. You need a buddy for the unexpected and you'd better expect the unexpected in Central America amigo!

After learning the bad news, Good Sam took us to a shipping business where we drained all fluids out of the dead bike, took off the gas tank, lights, and windshield and "packed it" Mexican style with old cardboard boxes. Sam took Mo to the bus station and kindly led me out of town so I could find the highway again. A bit on the lighter side: As Sam is taking us into town, he runs out of gas so Mo filled a 2 liter Coke bottle from his bike's tank and we grinned at each other as our friend gased up on the side of the road (on the usual virtual shoulder I might add!) See pic

Needless to say both of us were devastated. Mo probably more than I since his bike was the cause of our trip's demise. At Nogales, his girlfriend's sister is supposed to meet the truck with his bike on board and somehow get it into the USA.

I rode alone some 700 miles, staying one night in Guaymas where I took a few of the fishing boat/ocean pictures. Three Federale stops, but they just asked where I was going to and coming from and waved me through. One young soldier wanted me to do a wheelie before he would let me go, but I told him the added weight made that too difficult. ( as IF!) Not feeling especially adventurous after the day's events, I stayed on the main highway rather than trying to find the "free roads". Then, just to make things complete, the bike died and refused to start about 200 yards from the border. Long line, stop and go, and I think it vapor locked. I pushed myself to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.........showed my passport and assured the Border guards that I had no Mexican products with me, pushed another 100 feet to some semi-shade and waited. Still no luck after 1/2 hour so I drained the float bowl on the carb wondering if I had vapor there too and hey hey hey.........it started. I'm in Tucson now and will take a couple of days to make it home. As they say, "¡Cuesto lo que cuesto! That's all folks.

Violating CA riding Rule Numbers 1, 2, 3

A better day than yesterday. Left early and hit Hwy. 15, the cuota or tollroad which was quite expensive as anticipated. We spent $30 in tolls even after detouring around two booths on the backroads. Right there on this main highway, one encounters horses and cattle grazing in the median, people riding bicycles along the nonexistant shoulder the wrong way, and of course, unlimited access to the road itself. Signs almost never state how far to the next town. Instead, there are myriad exhortations not to drive while tired, not to drive while drinking, not to throw trash, dim your lights, and my two favs.........one which tells you to obey the signs, and another commands you not to deface the signs.

Two Federale check stations ONLY for northbound traffic so we whizzed by, but semi trailer rigs were backed up for a distance of nearly 4 miles at the first! So much for overnight deliveries.

Bright sunny day which was truly a relief after the rains, but Mo's bike began missing and we then discovered his chain was so loose, it was nearly falling off. Two hours in a parking lot in Ciudad Obregon but he fixed his stator, shortened the chain by one link and we were off albeit with some tightness in the chain which bothered me, but he thought it would loosen up with some miles. However, we killed another hour in the next town, riding around to various motorcycle dealers while he tried to buy a spare chain (and finally did). We needed to make up some miles so we made the mistake of pushing it to a town called Los Mochis....forgetting that simple mileage doesn´t tell the tale here. Stops for tolls, slowdowns for the imposing traffic bumps called topes which seem everywhere, stops for ag inspections, etc. don´t let you easily bat off the ¨mile a minute´ you´re used to. Thus we wound up riding nearly 75 miles at night as in pitch black dark stuff. It was cold, toll stops abounded and the bugs smeared our visors so badly, we could hardly see. I don´t have terrific night vision anyway and it was truly a hellish finish to a bloody long day anyway.

Did get a nice room for $25 plus a $10 deposit for the key and TV remote which you get back when you return them. Hunted up a sidewalk cafe and stuffed ourselves on tacos, soup, rice and salad. I´ve got a few pictures I´ll post later. Nearly a 500 mile exhausting day.

In Mexico

An inauspicious beginning as it rained all the way from Los Banos to LA on Tuesday. Rode 500 miles and stayed in Monrovia just east of Pasadena. Next day was more rain until I got east of San Bernadino, then clear sunny skies from Indio into Yuma. Checked into my motel and went exploring, also picked up a few more items from the local Kawasaki dealer.

Today, Thursday, turned out to be quite a deal....
Mauricio did not have Mexican insurance, so we spent about an hour while he bought some via phone and had the policy faxed to the motel. At the border, a scant 22 miles from Yuma, we obtained our tourist cards OK, but the computer was down at customs so we proceeded into the country nearly 120 miles to the first checkpoint where we went thro the relatively minimal hassle of getting our vehicle permits. This all involved a lot of running back to the copier to duplicate license, passport, etc, but was pretty painless all in all.

More painful by far was the weather once we set out on Mexico Hwy. 2 from San Luis de Colorado. We traveled thro desert reminiscent of the worst parts of Nevada thro some jagged hills and most of it in a constant downpour. Part of this area is protected habitat and is indicated by roadsigns depicting coyotes, roadrunners prairie dogs and other animals we would consider vermin in the USA. Road quality is fairly good, but the rain was unrelenting which made passing the double trailer semi rigs really tough: Mauricio blasted along at 75 mph, a pace I wasn{t about to match given the conditions. At one point, we were forced to detour around construction on a muddy dirt road for several miles. Not fun. At least I was semi'dry, albeit cold, in my gear, but Mauricio was soaked since he didnt bother to pack any rain gear! It was all pretty miserable and about the time the lightning began, I had to stop at a remote roadside cantina and buy 10 liters of gas for 10 bucks as I was on reserve and no way could make it to the next town. The highway is peppered with signs imploring you not to drink and drive nor pass on the double yellow ....right! That went on its butt about 2 miles from the border when several pickups roared around us as we were primly following the rules. When we arrived at Caborca, we both agreed it was time to call it a day after a grand total of only 220 miles. We got a room without a heater at the Hotel Blanca, ate a chicken dinner and now I am typing this while Mo watches Spanish TV. Forecast for tomorrow is better and I sure hope so. No fun today and little progress. And oh, by the way, Kevin bailed out of the trip two days before it was to begin so it is only we two. Funny punctuation is because this Mexican keyboard does not type the same characters as are shown. Pics - Happy Mauricio in Yuma, Hotel Blanca in Caborca after deluge, Mauricio sleeps anywhere, any position

Prequel

Ready to Rock n' Roll (3200 miles)
I started this blog to keep in touch with family and friends during a motorcycle trip to Costa Rica. My plan is to try and update it every few days as I travel, and post pictures along the way. Although others who've done this seem to find Internet access quite readily, I really don't know how available this will be for me on my particular route. I'm not bringing a laptop so will need to rely on Internet cafes to make this happen. Thus, there may be several posts or few to none . . we'll see.

I'm traveling with two other guys whom I've not met, but who seem like quite good companions. We've been in touch for several weeks via e-mail and telephone. Mauricio is Peruvian, lives in Bullhead City, AZ, will be shipping his motorcycle from Costa Rica to Columbia and vacationing with family several days in Costa Rica before flying home. Kevin lives in San Diego, CA and is engaged to be married to a Tico woman he's known for some time. He is on the cusp of leaving his life in America to move to Costa Rica permanently. I'm doing this for 1) the adventure of it all and 2) to deliver a KLR650 dualsport to Costa Rica as I am building a house there and will use the bike for transpo when I visit. House isn't done as I'd planned, but the window for riding-in-the-dry closes in a few months and I don't want to do all this planning again next year. Besides, I've got two good amigos to travel with, and that ain't easy I can tell you. (Many, MANY false starts along the way these last six months!)

I will be leaving Chico, CA Tuesday March 20th, to rendezvous in Yuma, AZ with the others and enter Mexico the 22nd. 2400 miles later, we'll cross into Guatemala, then El Salvador, cut a small tip of Honduras above the Golfo Fonseco into Nicaragua then on to Tico country.

¡Vamonos!