OK, I finally got out and went for an extended ride. I know it's been like forever since I've gone for a "real" ride. Commuting is riding but not exactly for enjoyment. Well it all started out like usual for me.
It was a dark and... well it was just flippin dark and way before O'dark thirty, like 2 or 2:30 AM I decided to get up and head south. It was July 31st and I took both Thur & Friday off. My intensions were to visit Grants Pass, OR and see a sign buddy Jon and the Dam Queen (Cheryl) & her husband, see all the cool bears in town (they have about 80 and some are up for sale, Jon designed a few this year). After that head over to Alturas, CA. My original intent was to even hit Gerlach NV and do Jungo road to Winnemucca for the night or even push on to Elko for the night.
I had installed some new Pilot road 3's on the bike the previous weekend and it seemed like my rear tire was leaking air. I was having other issues getting stuff ready, and my GPS wasn't working (as in even the plug in to power didn't even power it or it was intermittent). I grabbed my other GPS and plugged it in and it worked but I didn't have a holder for it so I stuffed it in the tank bag. It ended up collecting dust in the tank bag as I couldn't see it for squat during the day. I told myself if the dang tires were down in pressure a few pounds I'd bag the trip. So now it's 2 AM or so and I'm almost sweating bullets in my riding gear and crawling around checking the tire pressure. It's down 1 pound and I couldn't be sure I was really accurate so I said "Lets go for it!" Over to the gas station, filler up and start bombing down the freeway south.
I love riding at night, there is minimal traffic and you can just look at the stars, and day dream (or night dream) of all sorts of things. I think I had my Sena headset hooked up to the phone and was listening to tunes and things were going well. I zip on through Seattle, then Tacoma and I'm getting close to Olympia and thought I should check my rear tire as it was feeling a tad squirrely in some sweepers and changing lanes. I found an entrance ramp with some nice lighting and pulled way off the road. Hopped off the bike with my air gauge and before I could turn around to get to the rear tire the blue/red lights were flashing. I had my lid up and waved. I walked over to the side of the Highway Patrol car to tell the officer that I was just checking the air in my tire and low and behold the driver was a smoking HOT total Babe! I was thinking - "What the heck are you doing out on the freeway at this hour?" I did my check and gave her the thumbs up. She pulled out and took off down the freeway and I shortly followed. I let her disappear before easing the speed back up to my normal.
I got through Portland traffic without a hitch. I was going faster than the locals and passed many without any issues. A few bikes wanted to keep up but decided I would be the rabbit. Now the speed limit on the freeways in Oregon is a silly 65 but it appears that nobody even realized that was the limit as everyone was going in the 75-80 range. I kept up that pace until I hit Aurora (near Woodburn) for gas. This was about 225 miles or so.
Next stop was to be Grants Pass for breakfast but I started to get really hungry and pulled off at Cottage Grove. Good thing as I checked my spotwalla page and it wasn't working.
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