Posts Tagged ‘national parks’

  1. Yosemite

    August 25-27, 2015
    Posted on March 14, 2017

    It was time to leave the city behind, but not before some scheduled maintenance. Alex’s bike was due for an oil change and Ben graciously agreed to show us around the Alameda island to warm it up. Ben has a WR250X, which is closely related to Alex’s WR250R, and they swapped bikes to try them out. Alex said it felt very very different.

    After changing the oil and fixing a couple other minor things, we were off towards Yosemite. Once out of urban area and off the freeway, the path passes through numerous farm fields, with local produce advertised on the side of the road. Everything from strawberries and peaches to walnuts and almonds – I was getting seriously tempted. Sometimes when you go with a purpose in mind, you tend to keep going by inertia, instead of stopping to check something unexpected. So in this case, by the time we caved in and agreed to stop at the next available fruit stand – the farm fields ended and we were reaching into the mountains. Think faster next time.

    Stanislaus National Forest

    Stanislaus National Forest

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  2. Crater Lake

    August 21-22, 2015
    Posted on August 6, 2016

    Sometimes life works in weird ways. Back in Olympic National Forest I dropped my bike in a funny way and broke the mirror mount. As our schedule was pretty much non-existent and the chances that this tiny part will just randomly happen to be in stock at the next Yamaha dealer were slim, I just called up the next place I knew we will be in sometime this month: San Francisco. A local dealer there placed an order for the part and I went on my merry way.

    Fast forward to the day I was contemplating heading to Crater Lake. Upon closer examination, turned out this iconic landmark is way inland, a few hours away from the coast. Visiting it would take at least a full extra day of travel. Alex was insisting we just push to San Francisco and pick up the mount so I can finally have two mirrors like a normal person. A little disappointed, I agreed. And then he noticed a Yamaha dealer on the side of the highway in a sizeable town with a romantic name North Bend. He insisted we stop and check it out. And in the most unlikely fashion, they had that part in stock.

    While there, we also checked the oil level on my bike, and found it lacking. For the last couple of months, even before the trip, we noticed that oil was disappearing from my XT. We were topping it up occasionally, sometimes as much as 600 ml after 1000 km of riding. For a bike with barely more than a litre of oil in the first place, that seemed troublesome. We topped it up again in the parking lot, and I kept wondering if I’m measuring it wrong, or if there is a problem with a bike, a thought I was pushing away as hard as it kept creeping back at me.

    For now, seemingly free from mechanical issues, we headed to Crater Lake.

    North Bend

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  3. Percé, Québec

    May 24-25, 2012
    Posted on June 13, 2014

    The final leg of our trip was through Québec and around the Gaspésie peninsula. This province rarely disappoints me.

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  4. Cape Breton Highlands and Cabot Trail

    May 22-23, 2012
    Posted on June 4, 2014

    Cabot Trail was meant to be the highlight of our trip: it’s one of those beautiful twisty coastal roads that are a pleasure to travel by when you just want to enjoy the ride and not get from point A to point B. Unlike the Pacific Coast Highway in Oregon, Washington and California, Cabot Trail exemplifies that notion as you literally cannot get very far: it’s a 300 km loop. We had two days to see how far it can take us.


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