Long Ride South

Christmas in Mexico

And a happy new year. I´m struggling to type on a dinosaur of a pc with a Latin keyboard in the small, happening town of Alamos, which has been our home for the last 2 days. My dad has a connection to the town, which hosts a national music festival in January, and houses a decent number of old ex-pat hippies holed up in the crumbling old ruins of a once-wealthy silver mining town. A generous character named Jerry Rosenfeld has let us camp out in his own private ruin since our arrival, and I really can’t even try to thank him enough, so I’ll do what I think he would in my situation, and not try.

It’s been a grand ol’ time here though. Alamos is a lively, beautiful old town. You can see everything from ruins with just a wall and floor standing (a la Jerry’s), to giant dilapidated edifices of wealthy partiers, to places renovated in the 60’s with hosts of avocado-colored technology. You can drink beer and sit or take a walk. Man do I miss that in the states (even if it’s highly tolerated in SF).

This afternoon I walked up El Mirador – a mountain featuring an amazing view of Alamos and the surrounding mountainside – but managed to catch a ride back to town with a car full of Tecate-drinking 18 year old Mexicans. They gave me beer and a ride into, and through, town and I gave them a sharpie to sign my bike. Pretty good trade in my opinion.

My Spanish is rapidly improving. I can now comfortably order a beer, say happy Christmas to a pick-up loaded with a small army of cute children, and shoot the standard mindless shit people in small towns shoot. Feels pretty swell.

I have a great appreciation for the fact that Spanish was the language I chose to study in school. The energy from the people here is inspiring. In this town twice the size of the one I grew up in, people on the streets wave as they go by. Strangers will stop and talk to you, even if you can barely keep up the most basic parts of the conversation! More than anything, people here will give you some of their time, and in the US, that’s hard to get even when you do speak the language.

Tomorrow morning, we get out of this proverbial Dodge, headed for all points South, and I’m ready. The hammock I’ve been sleeping outside in on the hill is starting to feel just a little bit too much like home, and there are a lot more places to see. It was nice to spend a few days in a place early though, as it refreshed the notion in my mind that there’s just so much to see in nearly every place in the world, and even us with no schedule and no reason to rush miss so much beauty hidden just beyond the road well traveled.

Well, lots more to say, but I didn’t bring my camera to upload pictures, so I may save it for another day. For now, I think I’ll go back to sweating through Christmas in the skinny cobbled Mexican streets. ¡Feliz Navidad!

Leaving Silver City

The preparations finally done, today my father and I left Silver City… kinda late. As one may expect, after spending a handful of days in one place, we’d managed to spread out in Joe and Deb Kelly’s house, and hadn’t bothered/wanted to pack the night before. Add in breakfast, last minute copying of important documents, and finalizing which of our items won’t make the cut to journey to the end of the world, we decided to stay in the U.S. one more day, and instead head to the Chiricahua National Monument – an amazing place filled with trees, mountains, and towering spires of rocks that leave those of us with a background in physics calling bullshit.

The path to Chiricahua that made the most sense from our starting point involved going what some may call the “back way,” which consisted of a 20 mile dirt/gravel one-lane winding mountain road. We failed to anticipate that the road would hit altitudes greater than 7000 feet, which left us navigating tight gravel turns covered in snow and ice with near-sheer drops of thousands of feet to greet us should we misjudge the traction on our overloaded motorcycles. We made it through without incident, and with my mind reeling at the implications of months of this yet on the horizon.

We made it to Chiricahua as the sun was setting, treating us to a panorama of physical beauty my pitiful point and shoot camera failed miserably to catch. Like something out of a Wile E Coyote cartoon, there were massive slabs of rock teetering on pebbles. Great craggy spires shot from the lush mountainside. Cool stuff!

We headed out the paved exit through a valley. The retreating sun passed below the surrounding mountains, leaving our surroundings in near-total darkness, but with a sky still holding onto some semblance of blue. Winding down the road, I was left to gaze in absolute awe at great columns of cracked rock, completely shrouded in darkness, sweeping out giant swaths of fading blue sky.

From there, we rode in darkness on highways so straight you don’t need the sun or civilization to tell you you’re in the desert, even if the temperature is anything but an indication. I write this from our overpriced Motel 6 room-for-the-night in Douglas, AZ – one mile from the Mexico border. Tomorrow things start to get really interesting… More pictures and “Interesting things” after the break. read more…

Met some great people after writing Monday night’s post (friends of the aforementioned motel employee – Hi Richard). They were on the way to make some good use of a tattoo gun they happened to have, and offered me some commemorative ink, but sadly I didn’t have a good design in mind. Too bad.

Woke up bright and early in Tehachapi on Tuesday ready to dig my bike out of a few frozen inches of snow. Added another two signatures, including one in Hebrew. Battled my first mechanical problem when the cable that’s supposed to cut the engine when the bike is in gear and the kickstand is down froze overnight. This left me with a bike that thought the kickstand was down even when it wasn’t, and with a bike that would die as soon as I put it in gear. Luckily, my obsessive research into the bike before buying it had warned me of this, so I knew what the problem was, and it wasn’t too hard to disable the system altogether. A few slushy miles later, I reached clear, if still very cold, freeway.

As the day productively wore on, the eastern sky that was my destination deepened to a dark bruised visage, as if to question my chosen direction of travel. My rear-view mirrors reflected the setting sun hanging in a watercolor sky, an unnecessary contrast to the upcoming rain. Hours of looming doom never came to fruition, and I finally pulled into Tonopah, just West of Phoenix, still dry from the day’s travel. I stayed at a heavily armed motel (complete with NRA stickers in the office, and paintings of Native Americans with guns adorning the rooms) and ate dinner at an awesome sleazy diner with $3 pitchers of beer.

Interesting things seen on day 2: a sign advising we “Get the US out of the UN,”  – home to the 20 Mule Team Borax plant and mine – the largest Borax mine in the world.

Then I was on the home stretch of the first leg of the trip, with just 366 miles to go before reaching Silver City, NM to meet up with my dad. I hit the road early and without breakfast (the NRA apparently is happier to spend their money on guns than breakfast) and had that old craving I get in the early morning on a road trip: Waffle House. A mostly southern phenomena, I hadn’t tasted the pools of brakkish grease dripping from those hash browns and eggs, the big round waffle that looks so impressive in the menu, and the sub-par coffee since I’d been in Georgia over a year ago for a work conference, and with multiple road trips to Florida (Spring Break, helping Brandy move, and visiting my Brother) through Ground Zero for the Waffle House movement, the thought hung heavy in my traveling mind. No sooner did my stomach protest to my foodless start did the telltale Waffle House sign hang, beckoning, in the cold morning sky. Empty calories, and the first former biking codger intent on explaining every motorcycle trip he’d taken greeted my waking consciousness. On the road again.

Mountains, shrub-covered foothills evocative of West Texas, and finally ungodly windy desert brought me into my dad’s friends Joe and Deb’s driveway in Silver City, NM, where we’ve spent the last few days in preparation. On my bike, we’ve added connections for a power outlet, a hookup for my electric jacket liner, missing bolts and nuts, new tires, and a healthy dose of loctite and torque to much of the hardware. I also must add to my Dad’s praise of our hosts in feeding, housing, and putting up with us for the last few days…

Interesting things seen on Day 3: the first bad traffic of the trip, more cops than any part of America should be allowed (though many waved as I passed), my dad and his bike waiting on the side of the road – aware to nearly the minute when I would arrive thanks to my GPS tracker.

The haiatus is nearly complete. Friends, family, and viewers, start your browsers: Tomorrow, we ride.

Finally on the road, and it looks like both of us got off to snowy starts. I had high expectations out this morning pretty early, and eastbound out of SF in the morning doesn’t get much traffic. Unfortunately though, the morning was very cold downpour, followed by a chilling afternoon with scattered showers (and the best rainbow I’ve ever seen), and finally with terrifying hail, then slush, then full-on snow. There’s a snow man in the parking lot of my hotel.

Sounds like tomorrow may be pretty ugly too. Ahhhh, not even 24 hours of homelessness in and it already feels like an adventure. No great epiphanies yet – those don’t come on the first day.

Interesting things seen today: 1) “Gun Club Road” 2) a school on Gun Club Road 3) a guy taking a picture of my bike covered in snow 4) a motel employee with too many DUIs.

After resting up and warming up, I have spent my time here in Silver City getting the KLR ready for foreign travel.  New tires/tubes, oil change, replacing broken hand-guard and mirror isolator.  Ordered more spare parts, clutch/brake levers, oil filters, clutch and throttle cables, etc.

waiting for new rubber

Stocked up on chain lube, some back-packing meals.  Watched with fascination as Levi left San Francisco and started his journey here;  following progress on the SPOT tracker was way cool.  Took a ride with Joe and Deb to Hillsboro, NM.  Past the Santa Rita copper mine, and through the Black range.

the lookout at the pass through the Black range

I left Michigan the morning of Dec. 4th.  The weather was so bad and the roads so icy that I had to rent a trailer and ask my friend Carol to drive me south, pulling the trailer with my KLR onboard, about an hours drive until the roads looked safe for two-wheel travel.   I gassed up and continued south on two-lane towards Indianapolis with the temps in the 20’s.  The KLR ran way too cold.  I was way too cold, too.

First day was a disaster;  I barely made 200 miles.  I stopped for the night in Anderson, IN, and managed to drop the bike in the road when trying to maneuver to get to a motel.  I was tired and just too cold and stiff.  I had help getting the bike up again, and the only damage was a broken mirror isolator.  Friday morning, it was so cold that the KLR did NOT want to start.  Had to use ether.  The bike ran cold and got bad mileage.  I got off of I-65 onto the Kentucky parkway system to go south-west.  Very glad I did.  Good road and little traffic.  Finally got so cold I had to stop at Benton, Kentucky.  Another very low-mileage day. On day three, Saturday, I woke to ‘mild’ temps – a whole 35° F.  Bike started like it should.  An easy morning’s ride to Memphis.  Got confused and lost time in the construction mess after crossing the bridge into Arkansas, but burned across the state to Texarkana, AR.  I was beat and cold, and dropped the bike again!  Again volunteers came to help lift the mule;  this time I shattered the left hand-guard.  I found a sleazy sleep-cheap and crashed.

After an early stop at the local wal-mart for duct tape to temp-up the hand-guard, it was off into Texas.  Weather improved, and so did my spirits.  I shed the Toggs and balaclava, and felt MUCH better.  Through the Dallas-FW mess, and on from I-30 to I-20.  Finally warm enough to ride late,  and I got past Abilene before stopping.  Oil country.  Monday, day 5, got an early start.  A quick ‘screw-you’ to George and Laura as I blew past the ugliness of Midland/Odessa, then lunch in the nearly-ghost town of Monahans.  Lucky timing in getting to gas and shelter in Van Horn before a huge wind-rain storm blew through. Then 200 miles of fighting 45 MPH head winds to reach El Paso by 4:30.  The ride on I-10 through the Rio Bravo valley was impressive.  An easy (but cold) ride got me to Silver City, NM by 7:30.

So, after 5 difficult days, I arrived at our rendezvous point.  Here I have been holed-up and waiting for Levi to arrive.  I have been staying with my good friends Joseph and Deborah Kelly, who have been so very gracious in allowing me to stay and complete the work on the bike here.

first morning in Silver City

My name is Levi Weintraub and I’m going on an adventure with my father to Tierra Del Fuego, the southern tip of South America, on a couple of motorcycles… because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Today is my last day at my job at Microsoft in the Bay Area. This weekend I begin my ride to New Mexico to meet up with my father. From there we’ll head south. We have no specific route. No schedule. Just a destination.

We’ll both be posting photos and stories from our travels here. You’ll also find a link to a map which tracks our progress by GPS in real-time to the right.

Since my time with access to the internet will be rather limited on the trip, I’ll be relying mostly on this blog to keep up to date with my friends and family, so I invite you all to follow along, leave comments and questions, and hopefully enjoy living vicariously through us. I promise more interesting things are to come…

Hi;  for those who don’t know me,  I am Joseph,  proud father of Levi and Isaiah.  I have fantasized and talked about (mostly in jest) touring South America for most of my life.  I still don’t really know why I am fascinated by, and drawn to explore that part of the world, but it has always been there.  My family probably heard me talk about wandering off to Tierra Del Fuego too many times.  I have also been passionate about motorcycling,  and motorcycle touring,  ever since I bought my first used Honda 305 Superhawk in 1967.    Both of my sons have become riders as well.

But it is Levi who has actually made this fantasy become a reality;  he has ‘called my bluff’ as it were,  by his being willing to leave his job and friends in California, and inviting me, his father, to join him on this adventure of a lifetime.  NO WAY would I pass up an opportunity like that!

We have both worked hard and long to make this crazy dream become an opportunity, and I admit to being both exhilarated and terrified.  I cannot guess at nor imagine all of the adventures and experiences that are in store for us,  but I am sure that the two men who return from this odyssey will not be the same as those who left.  Wish us luck!