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Lock up the farm animals Goat is on a trip. Plus commentary


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Saw bloody big trees at sequoia the other day

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Wanted to see these trees since I was a wee kid reading books on marvels of the world. If you look closely at the not very good pic you'll see little tiny people. These are not borrowers, they are mainly Germans

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The place is named after the tree.


Enjoy it, Mr Goat. Remember that the UK and the US are two nations divided by a common language...


I reckon that the US is far more foreign to us Brits than any country in Western Europe. I found once I just accepted that it was unlike anywhere in Europe, it became a lot easier to understand the place.

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  • 2 weeks later...

WEll we enjoyed our few days off. Ended up in Sacramento as the accommodation was far cheaper. Took a ride over to the Bay Area, drivers in California are shockingly bad. Saw 5 bad accidents on the road in two days. Decided to take the coach into San Francisco Wednesday rather than ride to avoid bad drivers and very heavy traffic.

Got some fresh tyres fitted, the rear was squared off a gooden after 5 and a half thousand miles of straight American roads. More expensive than we thought for tyres here.

Friday we headed up to wine country, currently staying with someone off motostays and will be staying with a tentspacer from advrider tomorrow. Monday Tuesday should be camping up the coast somewhere before heading through the coastal redwoods to Oregon. Weather finally cooling off now we are headed North. 38-43 degrees most days in the Sacramento area. 32 degrees today over by the coast, feels very pleasant to us given the heat we've had the past 6 weeks.

Budget looking a bit bleak so trying to figure out the rest of the trip. Over a month left.

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We headed up through napa valley, stayed with someone on motostays and up the coast into Oregon to camp a few days. Oregon is my favourite state so far, coast, trees, rivers just beautiful. Cold up the coast, around 13-18 degrees which coming from continuous temps in the 40s has been a shock. As soon as we headed back inland temps rose very quickly. Now in eugene, nice university town but like all the towns/ cities we went through in California it has a severe homelessness issue. Saw Elk on the way which was good and some whales heading up the coast in the distance.

 

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Struggling to get my head around it. We've now crossed the continent through multiple time zones, all sorts of weather and landscapes. Have to remind myself what's going on. Not sure if we'll ship bike home from Seattle or press on. In two minds.


Met some brilliant people along the way but not sure how I feel about the US as a country. Game of two halves like most places I guess. Not even sure how I feel about travelling by motorcycle, difficult way to travel, has great moments coupled with the drudgery of loading everything up and the faffage of general bike stuff whilst everybody else just chucks stuff in their air conditioned car and heads off stress free, still wouldn't have it any other way though.

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Regarding travelling by car or bike I suppose you wont know til the end of the trip whether the pleasure outweighed the pain!

It sounds like endurance sports, some of its tough and no fun but the satisfaction you get at the end is something you hold on to and relive forever. Well maybe, just guessing.


What are the two halves of the US youve seen?

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Regarding travelling by car or bike I suppose you wont know til the end of the trip whether the pleasure outweighed the pain!

It sounds like endurance sports, some of its tough and no fun but the satisfaction you get at the end is something you hold on to and relive forever. Well maybe, just guessing.


What are the two halves of the US youve seen?

First half is we've met some brilliant people, an amazing sense of generosity and interest. People have taken us into their homes, fed us, bought us food out, one guy took a day off to ride with us and gave my partner a gel seat pad, another guy took us out shooting in the Nevada dessert for example. People are quick to speak to us and wish us well and help if they can.

The landscape is varied and beautiful of course.


The other half are the sicknesses of the modern world, laziness, everything is drive thru to avoid any movement, food is available in low quality massive portions. homelessness is rife and desperate when juxtaposed with the obvious wealth. There are a number of other minor things I'm uncomfortable with, prescription drugs being advertised on tv as sales pitches, and the like.


Issues that face most places I guess. I feel more aware here that whilst people are generally good problems go unsolved.

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Great write up and lovely pics so far, annoyed I've only just noticed this thread.


Can feel your pain, long holidays whilst a great idea at the start can become very tiring, that coupled with the riding must be exhausting for you so do hope you can look back at the good when you're done.


Hope you enjoy the remainder of your trip however far you get.

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Great write up and lovely pics so far, annoyed I've only just noticed this thread.


Can feel your pain, long holidays whilst a great idea at the start can become very tiring, that coupled with the riding must be exhausting for you so do hope you can look back at the good when you're done.


Hope you enjoy the remainder of your trip however far you get.

 

Deffo tiring but we're not riding much at the mo which is good to relax a bit. Think I'll appreciate things more when I'm back home and could put things into context. Some of the things I've enjoyed most are odd little things that to many would mean nothing, the other day we crossed a bridge over a river in Oregon and the river banks were covered in driftwood. Nothing really but something about the image really resonated with me.


In other vague news we think we'll ship the bike back from Seattle and get a cheap flight to Alaska and maybe hire a car. Much cheaper to ship from Seattle than Anchorage and bike will be shipped to uk. From Anchorage there is just one company that will ship the bike and only to Germany which all has me s bit paranoid. I want the bike back in the uk to sell on and buy a cheap london beater. Our budget is looking a bit thin for accommodation, food, fuel, warm bike clothing and contingencys to make the 2800 miles through Canada and Alaska. Not set in stone yet but seems the most practical solution if not the most adventurous.

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Sounds like a plan and the added bonus out relaxing more at end of trip.


Anchorage is on my bucket list so enjoy it :thumb:


Long term dream is to do the route 66 trip on a bike, but realistically even without injury and license set back now I don't think I'll ever do it as expect reality will be a lot harsher than the dream.

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Regarding travelling by car or bike I suppose you wont know til the end of the trip whether the pleasure outweighed the pain!

It sounds like endurance sports, some of its tough and no fun but the satisfaction you get at the end is something you hold on to and relive forever. Well maybe, just guessing.


What are the two halves of the US youve seen?

First half is we've met some brilliant people, an amazing sense of generosity and interest. People have taken us into their homes, fed us, bought us food out, one guy took a day off to ride with us and gave my partner a gel seat pad, another guy took us out shooting in the Nevada dessert for example. People are quick to speak to us and wish us well and help if they can.

The landscape is varied and beautiful of course.


The other half are the sicknesses of the modern world, laziness, everything is drive thru to avoid any movement, food is available in low quality massive portions. homelessness is rife and desperate when juxtaposed with the obvious wealth. There are a number of other minor things I'm uncomfortable with, prescription drugs being advertised on tv as sales pitches, and the like.


Issues that face most places I guess. I feel more aware here that whilst people are generally good problems go unsolved.

 

Sounds like a lot of countries problem wise. The good bits sound fantastic.

After a long day on my bike I always get into a car and think ooh this is comfy, what a great idea! The air con is worth its weight so it’s sounds like just the ticket for the end of your trip.


[mention]Via[/mention] when your legs fixed up good n proper there’s no reason you couldn’t do Route 66. Whilst layed up a while back I spent weeks cheering myself up with various road trip plans. It’s nice to have something positive to look forward to. Plus there’s so much involved in the planning hours can be wasted in a pleasant fantasy land bubble!

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[mention]Via[/mention] don't give up on the idea. Life has a strange way of turning out. I never thought I'd even learn to ride a motorbike but things strangely fall into place.


We're still mooching about the north west. Lovely few days staying near eugene on a farm out nowhere. Countryside is lovely here and had some good food (cake mainly, bloody love cake), nice wines up these parts but pricey. Some lovely biking roads many of which lead up to covered bridges over beautiful stretches of river.

 

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We're in Vancouver, Washington and Portland for a few days then going to head to Seattle to stay with friends of a friend.


Shiny side up people.

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Those covered bridges always freak me out but I think that's due to American film and TV making me think you're either going to:


a) be involved in a drug deal that goes bad

b) drive through the side of it into the freezing river below (coming back as a ghost optional)

c) get to the other side to find out its sent you back to where you came from as you can never leave

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Those covered bridges always freak me out but I think that's due to American film and TV making me think you're either going to:


a) be involved in a drug deal that goes bad

b) drive through the side of it into the freezing river below (coming back as a ghost optional)

c) get to the other side to find out its sent you back to where you came from as you can never leave

 

Luckily with the GS being 25ft wide we couldn't fit through the bridges so we're safe.

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We spent a nice couple of days in Portland. Interesting city, nice shops, streetfood and the like. Homelessness was very bad, some of the worst we've seen and that's going some in the West of the US.


Some great street art

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We had a great doughnut, sort of a croissant/ doughnut, very tasty

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We're now in Seattle staying with friends of a friend. Lovely couple, Irish so great to chat with some normal people with a good sense of humour. Met their neighbours at a block party went out for coffee with another neighbour and down to the beach. Parts of Seattle are nice, main urban centre is pretty dull but suburbs are leafy and pretty. Taxation is nuts here. Where we are staying the road is closed to fix a collapsed sewer pipe from a house in the middle of the road, apparently that makes it the responsibility of the home owner and the bill stands at over $40000.

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Flights to Anchorage organised, just got to sort bike shipping. All is well.

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More amazing pics. The wall art makes our banksy look a bit pedestrian ay! Not on the message front of course, he’d have a field day with the homelessness situation you’re telling us about.

$400000 how can that possibly be the homeowners responsibility- unless they were the ones who dug the thing in the first place?


Both the doughnuts have exactly the same bite mark, did you do try before you buy? :lol:

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More amazing pics. The wall art makes our banksy look a bit pedestrian ay! Not on the message front of course, he’d have a field day with the homelessness situation you’re telling us about.

$400000 how can that possibly be the homeowners responsibility- unless they were the ones who dug the thing in the first place?


Both the doughnuts have exactly the same bite mark, did you do try before you buy? :lol:

 

no idea how the sewer pipe thing works, seems nuts. Apparently it's taken them a month to dig the hole to the pipe, milking it for all they can get it seems. Plus the house has had no running water or flushable toilet for the duration. Bloody nightmare.


Doughnuts were awesome, could have eaten their whole stock shortly before slipping into a diabetic coma,


It seems seattle have an additional booze tax, you buy a bottle of spirits, they add tax then add an additional tax based on the bottle size so a litre bottle would be an extra $5 or something, boo hiss!

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