Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet;
When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet --
Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale?
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as, swinging heel and toe,
We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
The tragic road to Anywhere, such dear, dim years ago.
-Robert Service 'The Tramps'
To download a movie of my pictures, click here!
To see Axl's website with lots of pictures, click here!
Saturday, August 28, 2004
We met up with everyone at Marina Del Rey overlooking the Pacific and at the end of LAX.; Planes flying in and a good day for riding ahead. The group consisted of Mark (LA riding a Cafe Sportster), Fabrizio (LA of Italian descent riding a CB750K), Ute (LA from Germany on a CB550K), Jason (LA riding a CB750K), Jason's Dad Jerry (LA riding a CX500), Andy (Boston from Scotland riding a CB750K), Tim (England riding a CB750F), Axl aka "Satanic Mechanic" (Germany riding a CB750K chopper from Ebay), Stevie (Scotland riding a CB750K8 from Ebay), Dustin who joined us in Barstow (LA riding a CB750K he is delivering to New Orleans) and me, Elwood (Spotsylvania, VA riding my 78 CB750K8). I had my MP3 player set on "Born to be Wild" and when we officially started the trip, I started the music! Very appropriate.
We had only gone about a mile or so when Stevie's bike got a flat rear tire. Since we have the attitude that we will leave no one behind, we motored to the local Honda shop in Santa Monica. They fixed his flat, replaced his rear wheel bearing and only charged him $180!! While we were there, Tim's bike was found to not be charging the battery. Since we did not have a meter with us, I went to the local Home Depot and bought one. Tim found the connection under the side cover was melted just like what happened to my bike a year ago.
So we finally got under way again around 11am. We headed to the Angeles Crest Highway on the 405 when Mark's Sportster sprung an oil leak. He took off to a Harley dealer and was to meet us on the mountain road, Route 2. The mountain road is the one that sport bikers love to run at high speeds and the scenery is beautiful high above the LA area. I saw a sign that showed the winding road symbol and said, "Next 37 miles." They weren't kidding.
Anyway, we met up with Mark again at Newcomb's. It is a restaurant/bar about halfway along the Angeles Crest Highway. The parking lot was full of bikes of all types. When we pulled up, we added more class to the lot!! We had the lunch buffet and moved on. Near the end, we stopped at a scenic overlook and Fabrizio heard his rear tire leaking air so Ute and him took off to find somewhere to fix it. We found them at Wrightwood, a little tourist type place that had no motorcycle service available. Mark talked to a lady at the Harley souvenir shop and she had some tire irons she would loan. Fabrizio fixed his tire with others helping and once again, we were on our way.
We hopped on the I-15 heading across the desert and got to Barstow where we met up with Dustin. The ride across that part of the "High Desert" was incredibly hot! Like riding with my head stuck in an oven no matter how fast I went. We got very cheap rooms at the Desert Inn and I jumped in the pool to bring my body temperature back down under 150 degrees!! COLD WATER! But it felt great. After dinner, I fell asleep. The others went to Ruby's for some nightlife. I heard that they were up fairly late or early in the morning..
Friday, August 27, 2004;
I woke up and ate the Holiday Inn Express breakfast eggs and started figuring how to pack everything on my bike. I had parked it in the underground garage last night and it was nice and cool and clean. The new T-Bag I just got works like a dream. It mounts very nicely and looks good. When all was packed, I headed to the Post Office to mail the straps and locks home from the shipping container. Then off I went to find Mark's house where Andy, Tim, Stevie and Axl were working on their bikes. I checked into the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia and found Mark's. Later we ate at a local Mexican restaurant and then checked out the nightlife at the Aztec's bar. Lots of people were there but we crashed at about 11pm because our adventure would start at 7am in the morning when we would meet at Mark's house to travel to Marina Del Rey.
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