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A quick note: I started Last Moto because I missed writing for fun, and I thought I should try writing what I like to read. That coincided with the 2017 Salem Flat Track season, and I think the site found a small but dedicated audience that liked reading my race reports and wrenching wins and losses. This year I won’t be at most of the Salem races, but I hope to continue to use Last Moto as a place to write about my wrenching, travels, and racing. If you started reading this blog because of the Salem races, I hope you continue to do so as I will be racing and I want to cover the races and riders that I’ve grown so fond of. No hard feelings if some of these upcoming posts aren’t your bag. I appreciate the person who is attached to the eyeballs that are dancing over these words right now. This post may be a little long and maybe a little personal, but I promise Last Moto will always be about motorcycles, cars, and anything else that interests me. I hope it interests you, too.

So my last post is a bit bittersweet – I was really hoping to make it to Castle Rock for some races but my bike wasn’t finished and life got in the way. I’m looking at that phrase on the page and I don’t like it: “Life got in the way.” What could life get in the way of… more life? It sounds like a snake eating its own tail. I’m never going to say that platitude ever again. Life happened and I missed Castle Rock, but my second Flat Track bike was still coming along and I focused on getting it buttoned up along with a planned move to the Sierra mountains of Northern California. That didn’t work out the way I planned it, either. Snake, eat tail.

I landed in Southern Oregon on my parent’s property — a sanctuary on top of the mountain where I grew up. A place I could wrench, scream, wander and ride. My parents, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews felt like a warm blanket. Thank you, family. Thank you. I got some things I wanted to get done: like getting the Elsinore #2 finished and fired up. 

I’ve never taken a motorcycle engine down to the bottom end to do a complete rebuild, so I was a bit nervous about reassembly. However, much like my Vespa which I’ve cracked open and rebuilt more times than I’d like to admit, it all made sense and went together without many hitches. My Dad kicked it over, and it sounded like my old Elsinore that was stolen at the beginning of this year.

I saw the smoke. It was alive. 

However, the Salem races were still almost 6 weeks out and I knew I had to move along before that. I love being around my family and the solitary nature of my folk’s property gave me the breathing room I needed, but I was restless. Summer was still hanging on and I racked up a lot of miles on my trusted 1972 Honda CL350, but nights were getting colder and fall was taking hold.

My best friend had just bought a house in Pasadena and told me to come down and hang out with him for a while. The grace I’ve been granted in life is immeasurable. So today I packed up and headed south.

I’m going to try and write every night and share some photos of my trip. I’ll detail my travel setup in a separate post, but I’m taking my 1975 Chevy pickup with a couple Honda 350’s in the back and a travel trailer I rebuilt about 8 years ago. It’s an Aristocrat Land Commander, which is a name that I hope I can live up to. For one person traveling, this is a bit ridiculous don’t you think? Me too.

But I need the ridiculous right now. I need to feel like a man in the 50’s, when gas was cheap and highways were clear. Sure, my truck gets 10 mpg and it drops exponentially when loaded with bikes and hauling a trailer that is the shape of a worn brick — but it’s not about that. It’s not about money or mileage. I’m tired of being pragmatic. It’s not about having a light foot on the gas pedal while I point my truck down I-5 and follow a carefully curated route – not this trip.

I want this trip to be about the freedom I’ve read about in books and seen in movies. Is it real? I don’t know. Probably not. I want to find out. I want to understand who I am, and I want to take the little loops that I’ve been circling in all my life and tear them apart. I want to feel scared. I want to feel the contentment I have when I’m riding my motorcycle all the time. I want to taste fire and plunge my hands in new dirt and feel the grit in my teeth and the sand in my eyes and the sun on my face.

So I’m on my way. But before I taste fire and cleanse myself with gas, air and spark, I need to get a hamburger. So I stopped in the tiny town of Merrill and got a $5 burger which I ate as the sun sank lower. I realized I had no food for the next day. No problem, the gas station guy said that the market across the street was the only one for miles. So I spent $14 on a jug of water, a box of breakfast bars, a bag of chips, and can of soup.

Now I just need a place to park this caravan of vintage metal and wood. I crossed into California as the sun dipped down below the horizon, and then quickly double-backed into Oregon and landed at the Lava Beds National Park. The drive in was amazing, but it was completely dark when I found a camping spot.

This may be getting a little long and I am getting very, very cold. I’m going to crank up the heat and think about the morning where I may unload my 350 and check out the caves and roads that I passed on the way in. Next stop after this is heading into Nevada and toward Reno, where I hope to soak up some neon lights and visit See See Reno. I don’t drink and I don’t gamble, but I feel like Reno is calling me like a siren. Sail on, sailor. 

Thanks for reading along. Tomorrow: more pics from the road and a tour of the travel trailer. I think you’ll like it.