Waterford

In Virginia. Lovely place. I discovered it three months ago while riding the Guzzi and went back there three times already.

I really like this picture of the Guzzi. But I have to post one of the Yamaha... I'll try to do it next week. By the way, our Fall ride with Steve has just been postponed. He got promoted and he has to spend the whole month of October in Dallas.. Oh well, we decided we would give it another try in April.

That's after the big rains and floods last June in Maryland. There were so much trees and debris carried by the river that they all piled up against this old bridge. Luckily, it was sturdy enough to withstand the pressure. They were about to close if for a couple of days to bring a big crane and clean the mess.

Antietam...The scene of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. I like to go riding around Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, along the Potomac. It's my favourite ride from where I live. You can feel the presence of history which is great for some eurotrash such as me.. Here is the Guzzi a few weeks ago near Antietam train station. Special trains were set up from Washington DC after the battle for relatives to come and identify the deads or get the wounded back home. "23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after twelve hours of savage combat on September 17, 1862. The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s first invasion into the North and led to Abraham Lincoln’s issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation" that's from the official site http://www.nps.gov/anti/.
It is actually not very different in shape and outcome from the battle of Solferino three years earlier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Solferino which sealed Italy's independence. This was the time when the world was really on fire. War in Europe, War in the United States....

Harper's Ferry nearby is of John Brown's fame: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html. Victor Hugo the French writer, poet, political leader, led the campaign in France for John Brown not to be hanged. He left some beautiful drawings about it http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/DRAWINGCENTER/hugo98/hugo3.html. International Human Rights campaigns are not a new thing. In the case of John Brown, it didn't work.
Anyway, I loveAmerican History and it's very much right here, in Maryland and Virginia that some of the defining moments took place.

Hello again

Well, I decided it was time to update the blog a little bit. I sold the Ducati which gave me a lot of troubles and was way too expensive to maintain and bought a...japanese bike. A Yamaha FZ6 to be precise. It's an OK bike, but I miss the Triumph. It was a big mistake to sell it. Otherwise I still have the Guzzi that I use on weekends. Just did a 250 miles stint in Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia with it and had a blast. The picture was taken on White's Ferry, crossing the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia.
I havent' seen Steve and Celia since I left Waco last September but we're keeping in touch. Steve and I are planning an other trip in the Northeast in October.

Reaching the Atlantic Coast (updated)

I finally reached the Atlantic Coast on Friday night after a 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) ride to get there in time to spend some time with my family at Chincoteague. The boys were very happy to see me. Elizabeth took this (little staged) picture on Saturday morning with the Atlantic Ocean on the background. The other one is of the Ducati and the Assateague lighthouse. I feel a little bad because the Triumph should be on the photo rather than the Ducati after doing the bulk of the job.
When I started the Ducati on Saturday morning in front of the hotel, it cranked but wouldn't fire up. I put more choke to no avail until I realized that the kill switch was on. That switch "kills" the engine without turning the ignition key off and I had used it the night before not to wake everybody up. Because of the choke, fuel pressure had built up in the cylinders and the bike started with a very loud detonation sounding like a gun shot. Elizabeth and the boys looked at me with a puzzled expression on their face, all thinking that I had bought a real lemon. The hotel management came rushing out fearing that a gun battle had started on their premises. These Ducati have such a way to introduce themselves to the civilized crowd....
And that was just before I almost drowned Henry, sitting him on the sand just when a big wave was coming. I couldn't see him for about five seconds and Elizabeth fished him out of the water a good two meters from where I had left him. Henry was not amused and Elizabeth pretty mad. Hey, Papa is back, let's have some fun...
Anyway, I took a swim in the Atlantic Ocean and the water was good, much warmer than the Pacific where waves discouraged me from taking the plunge.
I love the Chincoteague/Assateague Natural Reserve. Sea birds and wild poneys roam around, it's totally untouched by urban developement and Chincoteague itself has the look of the little harbour in "The Birds", the Alfred Hitchcock movie. It may not be as spectacular as the Pacific Coast and the riding is certainly not as spirited as on Highway One but if you're not willing to cross the United States on a motorcycle it's a nice ersatz. The only drawback is the really voracious mosquitoes.
The Washington Post had a story on Saturday about how Real Estate developers are now coming to Chincoteague with the intention of turning it into the next Virginia Beach or Ocean City. It would be sad to see such a gem going down the drain with casinos and high-rises. But what can you expect, only four hours away from DC ?
This little detour by the Chesapeake included, the trip total is, as of Sunday night after return in Washington, of 10,212 miles (16,339 km) of which 8,117 miles (12,987 km) with the Triumph and 2,095 miles (3,352 km) with the Ducati.
Apart from the GPS, not a scrape, not a scratch, not an incident. I guess I should considered myself lucky (or just well prepared)
And now, back to work on Monday... Bummer.
I'll keep the blog updated in the following weeks with more pictures of the trip and new comments. Now, I am going to bed. My butt hurts.

New low for the GPS

As you can see on the picture it's a low my trusted Emap is not going to recover from... The nifty mount I had for it on the Triumph couldn't fit on the Ducati and it was in the top of the tank bag Steve gave me to put my "essential" gear for the trip home (the Triumph tank bag fits the Triumph only and I had left it with my poor old betrayed former motorcycle).
But the Ducati shakes (more than the Triumph) and the Emap slid off while I was riding near Pocahontas (Arkansas) this morning. I think it survived the initial shock because I felt it bumping on my thigh and saw it sliding on the road. But it did not survived the pair of 18 wheelers than ran over it during the time it took me to make a U-turn to go back...
Oh well, the Emap was something like six years old, I bought it on eBay for quite cheap. The only reason I picked up the pieces is to try to recover the 156 MB memory card that could be used on an other GPS. But it's AWOL somewhere on an Arkansas road shoulder.
Anyway, I won't get another GPS anytime soon. These things are very good if you want to know where you are when you're lost. But that takes a lot of fun out of the art of getting lost which is, as every couple knows, the essence of traveling. Otherwise, I used it during the trip to know how high, or how low, data which is non essential for survival, and to get into lenghty arguments with Steve about what his GPS was showing as opposed to mine (it was the same information but his has a horizontal screen and mine had a vertical, hence the different readings...). The debate was usually solved with the help of a good old map, a piece of hardware I intend to rely on for the foreseeable future.
Otherwise, I dropped today the Ducati on its left side thinking the side stand was extended when it was not (no damage otherwise than a very slightly bent clutch lever and a nick in a side bag and a very damaged amour-propre when two guys had to come and help me putting it back on its wheels...). I also had to change the bulb for the turn signals indicator that had blown. A nice way of getting acquainted with how to "undress" the Italian beast, ie to remove the numerous fairing parts that those (beeep) engineers have put between your (un)expert fingers and the (very tiny) bulb.
BMWs are very well designed motorcycles. Everything is easy to access (but they've put so much electronics in the new models that if a bulb blows the whole motorcycle stops). With Triumph, Ducati and Japanese motorcycles, one gets the impression that the designers started with a bulb on a blank sheet of paper and built the motorcycle around it to make sure the distressed owner (or the mechanic, but he's making money while doing it...) has to dismantle the whole thing to change a miserable idiot light.
Trip wise, I am near Knoxville (where I was already on September 2nd), a little late on schedule after leaving Waco a day late and because the bulb thing wasted about two hours.
I'll have to skip the detour by the Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow and stick to Interstate 40 and then 81 to make it to Assateague on time Friday evening. But the Ducati is the "Koningin auf das Autobahn" or rather "la Princessa della Autostrada". It goes 80 mph for hours (all right, I know the speed limit on I40 is 70 mph but Steve told me there is a 10% tolerance...) and the mileage at those speed is about 45 miles per gallon. It turns Interstate riding almost into a pleasure.
I can't believe there are only 620 miles left after covering more than 9,580 miles all across the United States since I left on September 1st (add an other 175 miles to make it from Chincoteague back home on Sunday night).
The whole trip is going to be close to 10,500 miles (16,800 kilometers). It's a big country....

I've done something really bad

I sold the Triumph !!!
I brought it to the shop on Tuesday morning to get a new front tire and there was a beautiful Ducati ST4S, year model 2002 with 4,500 miles on it. I just couldn't resist... The dear old Triumph had 35,000 miles it, was six years old and I did not want it to start giving me problems. Furthermore, Mark Andrews at the Euro Shop gave me a good price for trading it in.
I know, it's a cheap excuse and it's awful to betray such a good friend that took me on this trip without a glitch and did everything it was supposed to do.
Except that the Ducati is a better bike, more fun to ride and which does everything the Triumph does but better. It's charcoal gray and the only difference with Celia's is that it doesn't have ABS. But ABS is for sissies anyway (until you really need it and then it becomes a life saver). You can see the two of them together on the picture.
I know the Triumph is in good hands and will find a new owner in Texas. It was time for a change, to try something different. I'll have to sell the Guzzi as well to pay for the Ducati but so be it (anyone interested ? You'll find a picture in the August achives). Strangely enough, the Ducati reminds me of the Guzzi in many way. These italian bikes are like a rail, they stick to the road and don't deviate an inch when put on the proper line in a curve. The Triumph always felt a little imprecise in that regard, but it was plusher with a softer ride.
So now, I am a "Ducatisti". By the way, a little bit of history: Ducati, a very famous brand in the 60' and 70's was on the brink of bankruptcy by the late 80's when a group of American investors called Texas Pacific Group bought the marque and put it where it is now: the most profitable motorcycle european maker with BMW and a synonim of quality and style. I know I'll go back to Triumph someday because this is where my heart really belongs. But I really wanted to have a Ducati before getting too old. I am spoilt.

So Long Steve

These three weeks with you on the road will stay as one of the best memory of my life. Yes you're can be a little pig headed but you're a Texan so what to expect and I am French so who am I to complain ? But you're also a heck of a nice man, a fabulous rider and a wonderful traveling companion. I'll miss you these next few days while riding alone back home. It won't be our last trip together, I know that.
By the way, who would believe than a Texan Police Officer and a French journalist could spend three weeks together without killing each other ? I guess that's the miracle of riding motorcycles. It brings the most unlikely people together.
(oh, and about the loud snore that bugged you so much: I was just dreaming about the sound of the Ducati I was hearing all day long...)
Take care and happy rides.

Back in Waco

We came back to Waco on sunday night. We had heard last week that hurricane Rita could hit central Texas this monday so we hurried back. But it's bright sunshine, no wind and 100° fahrenheit (about 35° centigrade) so no worry. That allows me to take a day off at Celia and Steve's, fix a few things on the motorcycle, and update the blog from the local Starbucks where they have an awesome high speed internet connection (much better than in my tent...).
Driving through the (very straight) roads of Texas on saturday and sunday was very fast but also tremendously boring. Luckily, Steve knew where to get the best chicken steak in the whole State of Texas (and I think he mentioned the world...) at Mary's Restaurant in Strawn. I must say it was pretty good, though I was very tempted by the fresh oysters. Steve convinced me that eating oysters in Central Texas was a little bit of an anathem and that I should wait to be in the Chesapeake bay next weekend. That man has a lot of good sense.
Waco feels a little bit like home to me. I've been here a lot of times over the past three years following President Bush (I am a journalist accredited with the White House but I am getting another beat in October hence the month off..) and I got to like it. It doesn't have any hidden treasure except for its unhabitants who are very, very nice. (You could pretty much say that of all Texans by the way). The only hitch is that the air conditioned broke down in the house as soon as Steve walked in and it's pretty hot over there. That's the real reason why I've taken refuge at Starbucks, leaving Steve to roast waiting for the repairman...
I'll hit the road again tomorrow Tuesday after a call at the local Triumph shop (Euro Shop) with 2,000 miles to go to Chincoteague/Assateague where I hope to be on friday night.
And here's a very touching picture of Steve and Celia getting together again after three long weeks of separation. "Love is in the air, tatitati , tatata" (a free used tire to whoever tells me who sung it).

Highs and Lows on a GPS

The low recorded in Death Valley and the High in Rocky Mountains National Park.

Going high in the Rocky Mountains

We reached more than 12,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains National Park on Friday (that's more than 4,000 meters for you metric people...). From the low of -300 feet in Death Valley (-100 meters), that definitively brought our trip to new heights !!! It was cold up there with temperatures near 35 fahrenheit. A hailstorm did not make things any better and the road through Miner Pass is hard and twisty (not as much as Ebbetts Pass near Tahoe, but still). The wind was doing its best to blow the front wheel off the road but we ploughed on and made it. There was no snow except on the peaks above 14,000 feet. Nowhere in Europe, we could ride as high through the mountains and it was quite an experience.
An hour later, it was 70 degrees down in the valley in Estes Park. We then headed south through Colorado and the traffic was heavy (where do all these people go ?) and drivers not exactly bikers friendly contrary to what we have seen along the Pacific coast and in Montana and Washington.
We rode past Black Hawk, a resort 40 miles west of Denver where real estate developers are doing their best to create a Las Vegas of the mountains complete with casinos, fancy hotels and posh restaurants. It's drawing quite a crowd but its fakeness felt a little weird after the loneliness, barreness and majesty of the Rocky Mountains.
We ended up riding into the night ("drive by night" with Humphrey Bogart, is one of my favourite movies) looking for an evasive campsite in Shawnee. The flashing signs along the road warning about the presence of wildlife did not make us feel any safer. We ended up tailgating cars to benefit from their headlights all the way to Fairplay where we finally checked in a motel. Ah, the joys of riding motorcycles are uncomparable !!!

Mammoth Hot Springs

It's hot, hellish and smelly. I guess this is what the Ancient Greeks would call the kingdom of Hades, beyond the Styx.

Big Buffaloes

They're very big but according to Steve, no more dangerous than cows... I am not so sure.

Yellowstone

If the Grand Canyon is about bigness, Zion about colors and Yosemite about rocks, Yellowstone is about water and fire. Cascades, boiling pools and geysers abound and the skeletons of trees burnt in the grand fire of 1988 add to the atmosphere of "after the end of the world".
This time, we took our precautions and booked a campsite early enough. We went to sleep with the yelps of coyotes and howls of wolves in the distance after dodging buffaloes erring on the road.
Of all the National Parks we've been to, Yellowstone is certainly the wildest. The wildlife is always close and I felt very lonely riding back to the camp at sunset under a purple sky. The only disappointment ? Old Faithfull: It goes "pshiit" in a puff of steam for five minutes and that's it; not even a pleasant smell of rotten egg as with so many other geysers and ponds in the park. But I am spoilt by so much beauty seen over the last three weeks, I guess.

Rolling fields near Walla Walla in Washington State

The aera along the Washington and Montana border is gorgeous. Rolling corn and wheat fields as far as the eye can see, covering hills like a furcoat.
I remember seeing landscapes like these in Andalusia in southern Spain but not on such a scale. We stopped in Walla Walla and there was what I mistook for the mannequin or a farmer, complete with straw hat, white shirt and pants, red suspenders and a light yellow jacket standing in the scorching sun next to a barn. I approached to take a picture when he moved slightly. He was a real person but so well dressed and still that he was almost surnatural.

And the road to enlightenment leads to...

Wisdom is in Open Sky country in Montana between Missoula and Livingston, my favourite town during the whole trip with Downierville in the Sierra Nevada, northwest of Tahoe. I really loved it there, wild, big and beautiful with landscapes reminiscent of "Dance with Wolves" the Kevin Costner's movie.
Not far from Wisdom is the site of the battle of Big Hole fought in 1877 between the Nez Perçé (nai-pierce as pronounced in American) and the United States Army. From what I read, a great number of Nez Perçé women and children were killed when their camp was attacked by surprise but the battle ended in a stalemate. The Nez Perçé, who were driven out from Idaho, even managed to capture a cannon from the American and turn it against them. The whole battlefield is very moving as if the soul of the people killed was still hanging there. You can see the brand new rear tire on the Triumph.

A little mishap

The city of Lewiston Clarkston marks the place where Lewis and Clark embarked on canoes to bring to its destination their expedition to the Pacific Coast. It's today a pretty much non descript industrial town that we reached after a beautiful ride through the corn and wheat fields of Washington State. Brown, yellow and ocre mix in a marvelous natural symphony with the rolling hills being cultivated from top to bottom. It's also the place where Steve noticed a white ribbon shaped mark on my rear tire, where the cord was showing. No good, that meant that I had no rubber left on it and that it could deflate at any point. I had hoped to make it to Jackson Hole where I had made an appointment at a Triumph dealer to have a tire change after putting 7K miles on it but that was obviously over optimistic.
There was no hope to find a place to fix it in Lewiston Clarkston on a sunday and motorcycle shops are usually closed on mondays. So we decided to try to reach Missoula in Montana, 200 miles to the East and try our luck there. I did not like a bit riding with that near dead tire on the Northwest Passageway through Idaho and kept my speed under 60 mph throughout, Steve standing by to help in case of a sudden flat.
After a cold night camping out near Lowell - where we saw a splendid Citroën 2CV coming all the way from Texas - we got to Missoula monday at noon. Steve decided to push ahead to spend two days in Yellowstone and I was resigned to wait for the Triumph dealer to open on tuesday to have my tire fixed and then to meet Steve in Jackson Hole on wednesday night.
No sooner Steve had disappeared down Route 93 that I found a little motorcycle shop that has the right size of tire in stock !!! I couldn't believe my luck and within two hours was on the road again, chasing Steve with the hope of catching up with him on tuesday somewhere in Yellowstone. The ride through Open Sky country in Montana took me at sunset in Livingston where, by an other stroke of luck, I checked in the same motel where Steve was staying. So we'll finally do Yellowstone together tomorrow and thursday.
By the way, the picture is of Mount Hood overlooking the Columbia River.

A full moon over Maryland is a full moon over the Columbia River

My little Henry (3-1/2) has a thing for the moon and was so happy yesterday when he saw the full moon over our house in Maryland while I was talking to him over the phone. Well, Henry, I had a full moon too on the other side of the country and I watched it rise over the mountains thinking of you

Columbia River

It's wide and gorgeous. We reached it from the south side, crossing that very big and long bridge (luckily there wasn't too much wind) in Astoria and got on Route 4 and then Route 14 (both beautiful) after crossing the outskirts of Portland.
Two hundred years ago, almost to a month, Lewis and Clark discovered this river and the magnificient landscapes of the Northwest. Lewis got killed a few years later in a city next to the Natchez-Trace (I learnt that during the trip...). Thomas Jefferson ordered both the Louisiana purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition after hearing about the forays Captain Cook had made along the Oregon coast. These names, Jefferson, Cook, Lewis and Clark, are what dreams are made of. The country was nonetheless populated long before and the "Bridge of the Gods", somewhere along the Columbia River, was the name of a Native American folktale according to which people in ancient times could cross the river by foot. Geologists recently discovered that a landslide a few centuries ago had actually blocked the river for a while before it found its bed again. So the "Bridge of the Gods" was not only a tale, it was the truth, told from generations to generations.
We're camping out tonight at the confluence of the Columbia River and the Hood River under a full moon. What Lewis and Clark did not have to put up with was the train going right next to the campsite but they had other worries.
And I have internet in my tent, provided I can get access to a cellular network. On n'arrête pas le progrès.
Oh, another thing: From today on, the little compass on my motorcycle is showing the direction I am riding as East, after showing West for two weeks. Go East Young Man (not that young anymore, though).

A view fron Highway One

But you've seen it a thousand times on postcards already...

Cape Blanco

The lighthouse at Cape Blanco, the most westerly point in the continental United States. The reflection mecanism for light beams was invented by a Frenchman, Augustin Fresnel, in 1822. The reflecting mirrors could magnify thousand of times the light of a very small oil lamp, projecting the beam up to 19 miles off the coast. In Chincoteague in Virginia I climbed up to the top of the local lighthouse. But the Fresnel lamp had been taken down in 1963 to be replaced by an electric one whose beam could go as far as 22 miles. The Fresnel lamp is displayed in a museum nearby. I always was fascinated by lighthouses. In Normandy where I come from, there is a big one on the Cap d'Antifer near Le Havre and I remember as a little boy the beam lightning up my room every 30 seconds at night. It was reassuring and also a little bit scary. Jules Verne has written a book called "Le Seigneur d'Antifer" (The Lord of Antifer) and it is one of his scariest novel.

Early morning in the Redwood Forests

From the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters...

Well, I haven't been on this trip to the Gulfstream waters but at least I've seen the redwood forests. And those sequoia trees are mighty !!! They're towering over you like masts from a Man of War and oscillate gently in the wind. Riding through these forests gave me the childish feeling of fear and awe that I had as a young boy while reading the "Little Red Riding Hood" or the Brothers Grimm tales, as if anything, whether good or bad, could come out suddenly from the darkness and surprise me. The contrast between the soft ocre of the bark and the dark green of the leaves is also very appeasing. Steve measured one and found it to be more than ten meters in diameter. An other one, burned from the inside, was like a giant chimney. Staying still among those giants is incredibly humbling. We stopped at the entrance of the Humboldt State Park and spend at least an hour looking at those trees. Nearby was a marsh where small bamboos were growing, giving to the aera the aspect of a prehistoric forest. We did not see any dinosaur but I swear we heard them groaning in the distance.

I lost my lock in San Francisco

So, we're now in Oregon, in Reedsport to be precise and we're having a jolly good time riding Highway One (and 101) from San Francisco up to the Columbia river. (Except that it was raining pretty strong tonight and that we had to stay in a motel instead of camping out as intended).
But let us tell the story from back where we left it: San Francisco, where the Triumph had to stop by for an oil change. It all started with my lock, a big U shaped black thingie, dropping from my very precarious packaging and making a few loops in front of Steve's Ducati on Highway 101 just before the Golden Gate. He did not like it a bit and did not stop to pick it up amidst all the morning rush hour traffic and I therefore lost my lock in San Francisco (on the tune of "I lost my drill on Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino. By the way, did he make it out of New Orleans ? He was reported missing for a while).
San Francisco, to my mind the most European of all American cities, even more than New York where the skyscrapers contradict the european atmosphere of the Village or Chelsea. But every time (I've only seen the city twice, mind you...) I look at it from across the Bay, it reminds me of one of the fabled interstellar cities in Flash Gordon (Guy l'Eclair pour nos amis francophones). Don't know why. The sky is hanging over San Francisco like a dome and the reflection of the sun in the sea makes the city shine like if it were illuminated by some artificial light.
On a more earthly note, we rode the tramcars, we went shopping in the embarcadero aera and visited Grace Cathedral, built from 1928 to 1966, pretty much at the same time as Washington Cathedral was erected. I like these American neo-gothic Cathedrals. At Grace, they did not put any brick "filing" in between the "croisées d'ogives" (I don't know how to say it in english but that's the stone that comes on the top of the ogival vaults in gothic architectural style) and that makes the nave look like a giant spider web. A nice guide lady told us that they couldn't do it for lack of money.
We left San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon, hitting Highway One immediately. Boy, it's twisty and sometimes outright treacherous. We stopped for the night, camping out, at Point Reyes, a pretty spectacular lighthouse, taking it very easy on Wednesday, stopping at almost every vista. Then we camped out the next night at Salty Point, the tents right next to the water, on the edge of a little cliff. Highway One lives out to all the expectations. It's the most fabulous road I know of in the United States and doing it on a motorcycle beats everything. The only drawback is that it is very long. We hit it on Tuesday afternoon and it is now Friday night and we're still not seeing the end of it.

Thursday, September 15

There's been no word from our roving correspondent for a few days now, but not to worry, friends. Jihelle is alive and well and camping in Eureka. CA, that is, where the Redwoods grow taller and redder than anywhere on Earth. Jihelle and Steve have forsaken hotel comforts for the joys of outdoor living these past few days, and despite the amazing gadgetry in their collective possession, they have not yet acquired electricity in their tents. So no posts, but promises to log in very soon and satisfy the curiosity of all their fans.
This is jihelle's wife sending along his best wishes to one and all.
A bientot!

From wine to riches

Today, I saw Napa Valley, a name and place now synonimous of Waterloo to any Frenchman. Here are grown the grapes and bottled the wines which are now wiping our Bordeaux and Bourgogne from the face of the earth. As with many other things, Americans have a methodical approach to sell and market wines, not so much as a product but as a lifestyle. For exactly the same reasons that would lead somebody to buy a Mustang rather than a Porsche -even if the latter is a much better car - one would buy a Californian wine rather than a French one. Those neatly arranged rows of vines, the orderly succession of wineries and their tasting rooms, the fancy houses and the "wine train" composed of old style dining cars, where guests dine and taste during its slow path among the various "grand" wineries such as Beringer, Mondavi, Gallo, compose a picture perfect of what wine country should be. Restaurants with fancy italian names compete with each other along the road (sometimes four lanes wide) that drives through Napa Valley. It's reminiscent of Bordeaux, plus the restaurant and the train, but so far from the laid back and old world atmosphere of Bourgogne, where are still produced wines that let you not only taste the grape but also the earth from which it was born. Selling the wine on its "cépage" (Pinot, Chardonnay etc) only tells half the story; reading the étiquette on a French bottle will tell you exactly from where the wine comes from but looking at the tag on a bottle of Napa Valley wine may tell you which side of the highway it was grown, unless it is bestowed of fancy names such as "Escapade winery", seen today along the Napa Valley road.
Don't get me wrong, some American wines are truly excellent, notably some from Oregon and North California. Napa and Sonoma Valley wines are aperitive wines best drunk before the meal or by themselves. With food, there is nothing to match a good Bourgogne or Bordeaux.
That said, from the renaissance of wine drinking in the U.S. springs again "artitistic drunkenness", a social genre gone since at least forty years. It was until very recently frowned upon to drink a little too much and artists, actors (and Presidents) were strongly advised to present a lean, clean and sober side of themselves. Now that road trips down the Napa Valley are the stuff of movies and that the Wall Street Journal offers its readers a guide to wine tasting in California, it's once again very fashionable to drink a little too much, à condition to do it while delivering lenghty - and usually murkier by the hour - discourses on the art of wine making. In Bonum Vinum as our Roman ancestors knew already.

Thanks Scott, Vanessa (and Dan)

For having us in your wonderful home of Norden, near Tahoe. And that will show all our White House Press Corps colleagues than Scott is alive and well and enjoying every minute of his new life. By the way, you were right Scottie, Route 49 is truly incredible, zigzaging through the Sierra Nevada and my favourite town in the U.S. is now Downieville. I want to live there, so we won't be too far apart.
Thanks again !!!

When Nature gets impressionistic

A painting exhibition in the late 70's in Paris really triggered my intested for the United States. It was the first of its kind organized in a French museum displaying all the famous American painters from the last two centuries. I was particularly impressed with the masterpieces of Church and Bierstadt depicting the great American landscapes, including Yosemite. Five years ago when I first went there, all the passes were still closed by the snow and we had to admire the peaks and domes from the valley and that led to some disappointment. The scenery was impressive but not as breathtaking as expected. This time, the Tiaoga Pass road, and Glacier Point were opened and I realized what Yosemite was about. Those rocks polished by the ages are almost surnatural and the view from Glacier Point is a testimony to the implacable force of nature. One doesn't get the same impression of humbleness as in Zion but one of empowerment borne from the ability to domine this sea of grey stones, to embrace in one eye blink vaste swathes of mountains and valleys. Yosemite also brings softness with its marriage of minerals and water. The Bridal Veil waterfall was a thin layer of water, blown away by the wind at the very moment it was leaving the riverbed to start a fall of several hundred feet down in the valley below. To be able to stand underneath the waterfall but not to hear its noise or feel the droplets is surreal and the name Bridal Veil gets all its meaning.
Yosemite Fall, at the opposite side of the valley next to the Capitan mountain, was dry, only the black marks left by the water on the rocks visible to the naked eyed.
Yosemite was formerly a huge Glacier that little by little melted away, carving the rocks in those amazing shapes. Before the valley was filled by ice, it was a green meadow and it slowly now returns to its initial shape and form, unless the climate or the landscape don't change again in cataclismic ways. But let's not forget that the story of the earth is one of cataclisms and nowhere else than in Yosemite it's being made so obvious.

Off-road riding

Every camp site in Yosemite was full on Saturday except two up there in the mountains where the temperature at night would have been below freezing. So we got out of the park after riding through the magnificient Tiaoga Pass road (boy, it was windy and as we say in my country "the wind was so strong that it blew away cow's horns") and went down Route 140 looking for a camp site with space still availaible in it. But to no avail. A Park Ranger told us that we might find some space down a gravel road on the Merced Wild River aera but it was full as well. It was fun going down that little wooden bridge and the gravel road but our splendid Sport Tourer bikes are not made for this (Sorry Celia, the Ducati was really dusty but we washed it - and the Triumph - the very same night). We finally found an hotel in Mariposa, had a good dinner at Charle's Inn (hello, Charlie) and then went back up into Yosemite Sunday morning through an other route entering South (we had came from the West on Saturday). On Sunday we rode from Yosemite to Tahoe through beautiful roads going through Gold Country and then the Ebbett's Pass (very tricky and curvy that one). We're now statying with Scott Lindlaw, a former colleague of mine who covered the White House for the Associated Press (I may have forgotten to mention that I am a reporter myself, covering the White House for an other newswire, Agence France-Presse, but I am over with it now and will start an other assignement in October in Washington DC. Scott is a fantastic guy and he is presently taking a sabbatical in Tahoe with her girfriend Vanessa. The two have a very good life, riding their bicycles in the summer, skiing in the winter and enjoying life.... Hmmm, may be I should do the same.

The Cafe Crowbar in Shoshone

We stopped for lunch in Shoshone, a little town just at the entrance of Death Valley. The Café Crowbar has been standing there for a very long time and looks like the perfect western saloon. We had lunch there also five years ago when I came to Death Valley with my wife, mother and kids and it was a little moving to be back there. Next to the Café sits an old 1940's car next to disused gas pumps. It is a very "the Postman always ring twice" atmosphere (the remake with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway being as good as the original movie with Lana Turner and John Gardner). The wind was blowing hard that day and I had a difficult time keeping the Triumph on the right lane. It was pretty scary. The Ducati is not as sensitive to sidewinds, unless my packing is only to blame. The loneliness of Shoshone and Death Valley was more than welcomed after Las Vegas.

It's hard to be a crow in Death Valley....

A fish view of the world (click on the picture to enlarge)

Lost my hat in Badwater

Well, not mine exactly but the wind blew someone's else hat off in the shallow water in Badwater, the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. You're not supposed to go and fish it back, it's forbidden, verboten, so the poor guy had to leave it there, in the middle of Death Valley where you definitively need a hat, or a helmet that is...
The wind played tricks on me today. Soon after leaving Las Vegas it tried to blow me off the road several times and did not abate until we exited Death Valley on Route 190 (a very pretty one). Steve did not seem to suffer as much but I guess my very unprofessional luggage system is to blame. No serious rider would travel with a hard Samsonite case strapped with bungee cords on the back seat. But I do, and for one good reason: I never found any motorcycle luggage that was truly waterproof under hard rain conditions and had several times to wear damp clothes due to a leaking side bag or tail pack. My trusted Samsonite that I have had for the last ten years is absolutely waterproof, handy and you can walk into an hotel room with just a single suitcase instead of carrying big ugly dirty motorcycle side bags or zillions of damp plastic bags containing your soggy clothes. Of course, I get dirty looks from other riders who paid a hefty price for a very nifty hard side bags, top case luggage system of matching color and bungee cords are a thing of the past but the heck with it, I want to carry and wear dry clothes. The drawback is that it makes the motorcycle, and especially the Sprint ST, more sensitive to crosswinds (and when I say "a little more" that's an understatement to whomever would have heard me calling the wind all sorts of names this morning). The mysteries of aerodynamics....
Death Valley is always fascinating. it was my second time there and apart from the pelerinage to Zabriskie Point that every Antonioni aficionado wants, and needs, to make, we went to Badwater to experience the strange feeling of being below sea level without being underwater. I love the sign high up above the mountain that says "sea level" to which everyone is looking from below. I'll try to post two more pictures, one of the sign and the other of two crows tucked under the narrow shadow of a rock, to exhausted to fly and face the heat.
But it wasn't so hot. It never went higher than 40° centigrade (105° fahrenheit) which is quite bearable. Some tourists still looked at us with amazement while we where strolling by in full leathers. Hey, don't they know that exposing your skin to the sun is actually what makes you feel hot and that nomads in the desert always keep their skin covered (all right, may be not with 2 centimeters thick cowhide but that's because they don't own motorcycles).

We met two fellow long distance riders from Quebec that were coming down from Yellowstone and warned us it's already below 30° degrees fahrenheit (-2 centigrade) there but without snow yet. We shall see. We are not due over there before an other ten days and things can change for the best or the worst. If that's the worst, will adapt and take a more southern route.
We did not reach Yosemite today. We left Vegas a little late and spent more time than expected a Death Valley. So we're in Lone Pine the "base camp" for hiking Mount Whitney and home to an apparently up and coming film festival set in October. The view on the Horseshoe Mountains is breathtaking. Oh, and I've seen my first Joshua Trees today. They look funny and they remind me of the eponymous and best U2 album. I could listen to it for hours on end. Otherwise, we stopped for lunch at the Crowbar cafe in Shoshone. I'am surprised that this place has not made it yet into some movie. It's one of my favourite place in the U.S. and one I fondly remembered from five years ago when we had lunch there with my mother, Quentin, Geneviève and Charlie (three of my four beloved children, the fourth Henry was not yet born) and my dear Elizabeth on the way out of Death Valley. The place still looks the same and there is a Post Office right across the street. perfect for writing post cards over lunch and putting them in the mail right away. I'll try to put a picture on the blog as well.

From wonders to glitter

Riding in one day through the Grand Canyon, Zion and then Las Vegas is a humbling experience. From the majesty of natural wonders to the ugliness of human deeds, I experienced both all the fascination I have for America and the dislike for some of its features. We went to the north rim of the Canyon which is much more peaceful and less touristy than the south rim where I had been five years ago. The riding through the forest before coming onto this big scar splitting the earth is truly gorgeous and the view from the north rim, which is higher than the southern one, goes for more than 60 miles. Looking at the Grand Canyon makes me keep quiet, at lost for words. And I struggle to write about it as well. May be it's the feeling to be brought back to the size of an ant, to be faced with an inverted mountain going so deep into the ground, the notion than time is for nature a different benchmark than for us and that we may be not truly belong to it.
Then Zion: There again it was my second time there and the same feeling that this land is almost biblical in spite of the total absence of human intervention. The eroded rock looks like a giant frozen wave and the valley opening slowly between the pink and orange dented peaks is like a guiding light (to anyone going to Zion, I strongly recommend entering the park from the east where the road zigzags through narrow canyons and exiting to the west where it opens into a big valley with the mountains slowly fading away). I guess others before me had those same feelings considering the name of the place. I could stay there for hours, days and years, looking at the slow variations in colors and the contrast between the red stone and the pale green of the trees clinging to the barren face of the mountains.
But we had decided to spend the night in Las Vegas and so did we. The night ride on Interstate 15 was not a thing of a pleasure, struggling to fend off trucks racing each other on the very twisty curves going through the Arizona mountains. But that allowed us to discover Vegas by night, in all its glittering attire under a perfectly shaped moon crescent. We rode down the strip, all geared up, seemingly as out of place as two fully dressed astronauts at a cocktail party in the company of an other long distance rider on a BMW K1200RS coming from Canada (the long distance motorcycle riders community is a small one and encoutering one another on the roads is always worth noting, except for Harley riders. You never know whether the bike has not just been unloaded from a truck and made like it had been ridden for miles...) .
We had booked a room at the Luxor and they apparently make everything possible to transform the check-in experience into a nightmare (may be they're taking their clues from airlines ?). Long lines at the desk, then parking lots miles away and pretty much nothing to carry your luggage to the room. I guess we could have used Valet Parking but they don't do it for motorcycles.
It has always been my idea than no one should ever spend more than 30 minutes in Vegas, riding, or driving, through it, preferably at night, and go. It's like a toy miniature train. They look awesome when they belong to somebody else but if you try to play with them, they never work. I don't understand why Vegas is the favorite vacation destination for more than half of Americans when their country harbors such natural splendors. And Vegas is nothing in itself, just a pale, comical copy of other people achievements around the world (including New York). But when it comes to this, I much prefer Legoland where kids can also pretend to have fun.
And yes, we gambled: ten bucks each in one armed bandits. Steve ended up with twenty and I with zero. To put it in an other way, he won a free tank of gas for the Ducati.
Oh, and one last thing: The air conditioning in the room sounded like a running diesel truck all night. I tell you, Vegas is just a fake, a glittering doublet (that's a fake diamond).
Now, back to the marvels of mother nature: Death Valley and then Yosemite. We going to camp out there (not in Death Valley, we not THAT mad, but in Yosemite) and I may not be able to update the blog for a few days.

Monument Valley

We were there at sunset, with a beautiful light. The ride through the Valley is amazing even if as there are less monumental rocks than I expected. Movies and television pictures always embelished the reality somewhat and it's sometimes hard for the real thing to then match expectations. Don't get me wrong, I really liked it and may be staying longer and exploring the Valley more would give a different impression.
Tomorrow, off to the Grand Canyon (North Rim), then Zion National Park that I've already seen five years ago and remember with awe and then The Horror, Las Vegas. Steve has never been in the Capital of Sin and I believe it's my duty as a Frenchman to introduce a pure blooded Texan to Vegas. More about it tomorrow. Now, it's time for a well deserved rest.

The Red Sisters

Aren't they beautiful ? The Ducati is a phenomenal bike that seems so easy to ride. But Steve is a very good rider and I suspect every other bike would look easy to ride in his expert hands. I struggle a little bit to keep his pace with the Triumph but it's like comparing a Ferrari (the Ducati) to a Mercedes (the Triumph). My bike does everything very well but the Ducati does it better. But price and technology wise, they're not in the same range.

Four Corners

Here is how you do four States in one day. It's the only spot in the U.S. where four States have a common border. So you just go round that little mark and there you are, that easy. Yes, the boots are mine....
Actually, we did rode through the four States, starting the day in New Mexico, then Arizona through Apache Japarilla country, Colorado, then Utah into Monument Valley and back to Arizona to spend the night in Page. Another 600 miles the day, finishing well into the night. But I am the only one to blame: I had done some miscalculation in the mapping and the distance from Taos to Shiprock ended up being 150 miles off mark. Steve didn't took it in stride but we wanted to be in Page tonight to have enough time to spend in Death Valley on Friday and Yosemite on Saturday/Sunday. So a lot of riding, a very lucky rabbit that almost met is fate a few miles from Page under the wheel on my bike (a chipmumk was as lucky with Steve a New Mexico) but otherwise a rather uneventful day through beautiful scenery. We met 'Paul' in the little town of Bluff, Arizona on his BMW going to Glacier National Park to Mexico in twelve days. So we're not the only ones doing these senseless rides, see ?

Steve

There was not a single picture of Steve on the blog !!! So here is one taken this morning in New Mexico on the road from Las Vegas to Taos. New Mexico is gorgeous. I want to retire there. We had an other long day but the road and scenery were splendid. Four States in one day !!! More about that later.

New Mexico

We're in New Mexico after a lot of "slabbing" today. 640 miles from Waco to Las Vegas a little city 80 miles south of Taos. That's eleven hours on the saddle but I feel surprisingly fresh. Steve is sleeping with a pillow on his face but, hey, that was his first day riding so he's still a little tender footed...
The long straights in Texas near Abilene and Lubbock and in New Mexico near Clovis allowed a spirited pace, just stopping for gas and food. As soon as the landscape turned better, it started raining. But nothing too bad. We had lunch in Post, the city were the eponymous cereals are made. No surprise, judging fron the size of the silos around Lubbock. They dwarf cathedrals !!!. The highlight of the day was meeting in a gas station with a group of seniors going from Abilene to Albuquerque, their first stop in a tour of the West. They were very interested in the bikes and even more by the strange combination of a Texan cop and a French hack traveling together. It turned out that one of the lady of the group was born in France (in Lorraine) and she was most surprised to be able to speak french with a motorcyclist in the middle of nowhere New Mexico. Their group will be in Yosemite next Saturday and in Tahoe on Sunday so we could meet again. Who knows ?

Bug storm

That's my poor little bike after going through the "bug storm"' in Texas. Impressive, eh ? It took Celia and I a good 30 minutes to clean it. And thanks to Mark from the Euro Shop in Waco (Triumph, Ducati) for coming to his shop on a Labor Day Monday to give me the brake and clutch levers I had ordered as spares.

Waco

I arrived in Waco this afternoon to meet Celia and Steve. Steve put me to shame with his very tidy packing. He's going for three weeks and it looks like is he's going for a weekend ride. He had to tell his dad everything about his bike (sorry, Celia's bike), the oil he put in, the new tires and everything... I wish my dad was here to ask these questions but he wouldn't anyway. He would just think I am plainly mad.
Going from Louisiana into Texas, I had to ride for twenty miles in a bug storm. I was splatched with thousands of little black and orange flies and had to stop three times in twenty miles to clean my helmet shield. Luckily, it didn't last but I made quite an impression arriving in Waco. We going to ride to New Mexico and hope to stay near Santa Fe for the night. It's going to be a long ride, so we're all going to bed now. One last thing: it took us about two hours and several test rides to make the Chatterbox communication system to work. It now does and will allow us to communicate from bike to bike throughout the trip. The only problem is that I have to speak with a big booming voice for Steve to hear me; I won't have any voice left at the end of the trip. Steve's voice is apparently more "manly" and comes across no problem. Chatterbox(es) are apparently not for Sissies. Steve gave me a list of all the "10" (10/4, 10/9 and so on) and I wrote it down to read it on the map pouch on my tank bag tomorrow.

That's "Louisiana House" in Natchitoches. I love those houses and this little town harbours several of them. The name of the city comes from a Indian tribe (sorry, Native Americans) which allied with the French against the Spanish in the 1700's. Hey, this is Louisiana, everything is french. The gift shop here is called "Merci beaucoup", one B&B is "Chez des amis" and only the main restaurant is town is called "The landing". What would the French have to do with food anyway...

Natchez Trace and Louisiana

That was the view from my tent this morning at sunrise at Tishomingo State Park in Mississippi, on the Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez Trace is not as beautiful as the Blue Ridge but very peaceful. The road is pretty much straight all the way except for the first 50 miles near Nashville and I was happy to see the end of it after some 450 miles. The Natchez Trace was the walking path connecting Nashville to the Gulf of Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries and the Parkway goes alongside. The arrival in Natchez of the first steamboat going down the Mississippi from Tennessee in 1812 was the death knell for the Trace which is now almost totally overgrown by the forest.
A Park Ranger brought me back late Saturday at the Tishomingo camp site my camera that I had left at the restaurant two miles away. He was told by some nice lady riding a Harley Davidson that I was staying at the camp and he did not hesitate to bring it back. Park Rangers are my guardian angels...
A lot of trees down at the end of the Natchez Trace, but the road was cleared up all the way to the end. I had to wait in line to get gas once in Natchez but strangely enough that was the cheapest price per gallon since the beginning of the trip !!! Two gas stations were out of gas but people were very helpful telling me where to find some. It's very warm (about 100-105 Fahrenheit, 33 to 36 centigrade) but people seem rather unfazed by the disruption brought in by Katrina. Tonight at Natchitoches, a very pretty town not far from the Texas border, I was watching on television the reports from New Orleans but it seemed so far away (only two hundred miles, though). The Bed and Breakfast(e)s are still full of people that left New Orleans last week but I was lucky enough to find a room in a hotel downtown. Natchitoches is home to a lot of old houses Louisiana style. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow when I'll be in Waco (Texas) to meet Steve, my riding buddy for the rest of the trip. As of today, I've covered about 1500 miles (2400 km) and everything is going on perfectly.