02-03/10/05 Eight wheels to Long Beach We headed south out of Bishop on the 395 and drove to Ridgecrest, where Carol, Rita and Mikayla were staying after a family wedding. We met quite a few of Rita's relatives and spent an hour or so chatting about our trip and the crash before we kidnapped Carol and made her navigate us to Long Beach. We spent the evening talking over news, old and new, and generally putting the world to rights. Carol and I did our degrees together in Portsmouth, England and Carol pointed out that it was probably twenty years ago to the day that we first met - LAWKS!! The next day we both slept late before finding space in the garage for the bikes. Later we headed to the Long Beach Aquarium to ooh ... read more

Here's the one you've all been waiting for... 18/09/05 Bishop CA We set off early as we had a long distance to cover, made good progress, reaching Coaldale by 11 am, our biker friend was correct it is nothing but derelict buildings, the main reason it gets a mention on maps is because it is at the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 95. We turned onto the 6 and continued on our way. We had planned to stop at Coaldale for lunch, but as the riding was easy we pressed on, stopping at about 12.30pm for energy bars and Gatorade (lunch is becoming sooooooo predictable). As the afternoon progressed the riding became more difficult as we headed up hill towards the Montgomery Pass; before the actual pass the road had one last trick to throw ... read more

First of all my apologies in advance for any spelling/grammatical errors, I'm writing this on 21st Sept and if you read far enough you'll understand my woozy head - C 08/09/05 Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon Again we raced west, this time to the Grand Canyon via Monument Valley. We ate at a roadside cafe where I had tomato soup with the colour and consistency of strawberry Angel Delight. Fortunately, it tasted of tomatoes. Monument Valley was impressive, but strangely anti-climactic. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thought there would be more 'monuments' than are actually there. We reached the Grand Canyon just before sunset - most of the crowds had gone and the colours were amazing. We pitched the tent in the Desert View campground and drove over to Canyon Village ... read more

It has very sensibly been suggested that we should put some dates into this, so here goes: 31/08/05 Memphis We're having trouble finding accommodation because of refugees from Katrina, we've ended up on a travel plaza with rigs all around and somebody has just tried to get into our room, mmmm nice. 01-02/09/05 Memphis to Tulsa We spent the morning in the Pyramid Centre at Memphis viewing "The Art of the Motorcycle", see photos for the full beauty of an Ordinary with engine. After lunch we drove past Gracelands then headed towards Tulsa, getting as far as Lake Ouchita where we camped. We got approached by raccoons, which was rather unnerving as their eyes lit up fluorescent green in our torches. They ran away when Vern tried to take a picture. We met a couple from ... read more

I've already lost count of the days! Stafford to Fredericksburg It was absolutely tipping down when we woke up, so we hung around at the motel writing up the blog and generally hoping the rain would stop - it didn't. At 11 am we got on the bikes and set off to Fredericksburg in a downpour. More traffic on route 1 but we got there without incident and sat outside a cafe dripping gently on the floor. We decided to stay the night as the weather was looking set in for the day and headed downtown to the visitor centre to arrange something. The nice man at the centre pointed us to the Richard Johnston Inn across the road and kept an eye on the bikes while we checked in. When we went back for the ... read more