A respite

Boy, is it good to be home. I don't know for how long yet, but hopefully I will get today and tomorrow off. Although, I would rather leave tomorrow night if they are sending me on another long trip. A weekend home would be nice. I miss my family and friends.
I got up yesterday morning in Corning, CA about 90 miles north of Sacramento. I planned on getting home early as possible. So woke up at 3:30 and hit the road at 4:15. It was raining, but not terribly, and the road was pretty much empty except for the occasional car and a few trucks. Sunday morning coming down. :-) It was pretty nice all the way through Sacramento, then started getting some of the weekend travelers going home. Still not a bad ride though, until I hit Santa Clarita. Then I got the usual LA traffic and all the regular erratic and crazy drivers that come along with it. I only had stopped twice to complete the required bodily functions for about a half hour combined time, so I was doing well. Got home in about 10 hours covering 567 miles. Not bad in a truck. But, sitting for those long periods takes it's toll. I stopped and grabbed a hamburger and some beer after I dropped the truck at the yard and got close to home. Becky was here to greet me, along with Roxy she had stopped and picked up at my sister Mickie's house. It was good to get a greeting and good to finally relax for an evening. It didn't last long, since I was asleep by 9 or 9:30. Trying to catch up on lost sleep. I know it doesn't really work that well, but it felt good trying. :-) Have a few things to try and get done today, since I don't know when I am going out again, and it could be tomorrow.

A couple of things I have noticed on the road and been meaning to post, but get tired and run out of space sometimes. First is touring motorcycles. Of course, being a biker, I always notice bikes on the road. Of the bikes, I have seen most are touring, which makes sense, since I try to avoid cities during rush hour traffic and that rules out most of the commuters. Even in this unusually cool spring/summer, there are quite a few bikes out on the road. Of these, I would have to guess that close to 95% of them are Harley Davidson's. The other 5% are a mix of Japanese, BMW, and a few Victory's. The most of these 5% tourers are Gold Wings, with probably 3% of the 5%. Obviously this is just an observation, and hardly scientific, but I would say fairly accurate. I have driven nearly 20,000 miles in the last month, and have seen a lot of road and a lot of bikes. A good enough sampling for a wild ass guess. :-) So, I have to surmise that either Harley riders are the true adventurous nomadic bikers, or there are just THAT many more of them in the country. I suspect that except for the Gold Wing clubs and touring groups, there are guys that just buy a Gold Wing or other touring bike and only take it out on the occasional weekend. Now, the Harley rider, will take almost any opportunity to hit the road to some gathering or just to go somewhere for the hell of it. I know, I know, there are a lot of Harley riders that don't ever hit the open road, but imagine how many more there would be if they did. Kind of makes me want to get out there and do a little tour. I am itching to ride, even after 20K on the road. But, on a bike is a whole other story.
Now that I have eaten up a world of space on that rant, one other thing I will make short mention of is the difference in rivers in OR and WA. Now, both states have a lot of rivers, much more so than CA. In CA, we call creeks or runoff channels rivers. The other states have REAL rivers. For some reason, and I suspect grazing or farming land, the rivers in WA are much muddier than the rivers in OR. In fact, I only noticed a handful of muddy waters in OR. The rest are beautifully clear. In WA, it is hard to find one that is not muddy. Anyway, just some useless bit of trivia I happened to notice and probably not interesting to anybody but me. But it is funny the things you think about in those lonely hours on the road when you are tired of listening to music and there is nobody but you and God in the truck.

Take care my friends, I will be back with another brilliant observation of life on the road soon.

Larry