a motorcycle journey
across america
by andrew kenney
akbk.tumblr.com
andrewk.org
this was a weird moment. within a few minutes of the truck pulling away with our bikes, i was whisked off to san francisco. alex stayed in LA a bit longer then headed home. all four of us had spent the last 20 or so days together and now we were moving in different directions.
the drive to LA was alright. it was a huge change because we were on the road again but instead of being on two separate vehicles with no way to communicate, we were in cab and could actually talk. i was definitely bummed to no longer be riding, but i was still on a trip and exploring new territory so it was all good. with the help of a borrowed fm transmitter, we were able to listen and sing along to a good deal of saves the day en route. we stopped at del taco (that place rules). the mountains outside of LA are insane, lots of trains and huge highways running along the sides of the mountains and through various valleys.
that was kinda the end of the trip. it wasn’t easy for me to let it happen, but that was it. it didn’t make sense to buy another bike and with our limited tools and zero access to the parts we needed, we didn’t have an option. i didn’t really want to continue alone through the desert, just didn’t seem like a good idea.
so what were we going to do? alex found a guy on craigslist rideshare who was driving a truck from LA to NYC in a week’s time. we called him and made arrangements for pickup. we spent a week relaxing in las vegas (lots of: naps, afternoon/evening swimming, movies, donuts and vip status hanging in the various clubs at the palms) before heading to LA.
there is a casino with a 70 lane alley and 24 hour bowling. if you know me then you know why this totally rules. we went at 2am and played $1 games. of all the places to break down, las vegas wasn’t so bad. phil was also an amazing host, expecting us for one night but putting us up (and putting up with us) for way longer than that.
we started out in utah and made our way to rt 15. this highway was pretty much our only option for getting to vegas from southwest utah. there were other routes, but we weren’t sure about gas stations and the last place we wanted to run out of gas or have any kind of issue was out in the desert. the speed limit was 75, but we can call that the speed minimum because everyone was driving 90+.
we changed our oil behind the autozone in st george as we were due and it seemed like a good idea before hitting the desert. it was 123 miles to las vegas. doable, but it still seemed prudent for me to tell alex “it was nice knowing you” as we set out.
the highway was very fast, very windy, and very hot. this did not add up to fun. if you go too fast the bikes are going to fail, too slow and you will probably die. it was 125 degrees outside. my eyes wouldn’t stop watering (sunscreen + sweat combo). we made it to the first gas station but alex’s bike was leaking a lot of oil. he was already low on the dipstick after just filling up. every time we stopped we added more oil to his bike. eventually the inevitable happened, there was a loud clang from alex’s bike and a puff of smoke.
we pulled over to diagnose the situation. alex’s bike wouldn’t start. we were still 40 miles from city limits. awesome. i think we waited a bit and then he could start the bike but it wouldn’t idle and was running on only one cylinder. we found a side highway (this was very lucky) and slowly made it the rest of the way to phil’s house, on the far side of vegas. going through that city during rush hour with a bike that wouldn’t idle was the icing on the cake.
we parked the bikes and got in the pool.
neither of us knew it then, but that was as far as we would get.
the rest of the day of riding followed along the river in that valley and the road was built just right so that you never had to slow down or speed up. we cruised through long banked turns as the sun set and the shadows got longer. there was no one else out there. the afternoon light turned golden and those couple hours of riding were probably the most blissed out part of the trip. stayed at a strange little motel. the next day we were going to try to make it to vegas.
i think utah was my favorite state to ride through. the terrain never stayed the same for very long and it was always epic. we entered this valley through a huge hole blasted in the side of the canyon (you can see it in the back on the far right). before the valley everything was desert but as soon as we crossed that threshold there were farms and lots of green stuff.
if you look closely you can see the needle on the right gauge there is at 0. that is the tachometer and it should read around 5000 rpm. it stopped working about two days into the trip so the rest of the time i was shifting whenever it felt right. this is really a better way to ride the bike but it’s also helpful to know what the bike is actually doing.
though they were both technically working, our speedometers were highly questionable. we usually tried to maintain 60 mph, but we’d stop and i’d ask alex why he was going so much faster or slower than that and he would say his speedometer said 60. the needle would shake so much that you really had no idea how fast you were going but you could guess that if it was moving between 45 and 55 that you were probably around 50. maybe…
alex wanted to drive through a tree in a redwood forest but he had to settle for riding through a really big rock instead. this road snaked along the inside of a canyon and there were trees and lots of other green stuff because of the river.
the devil’s backbone. this curve had a guardrail but many others did not. nor did the straight parts (of which there were few). 1000ft drop straight down into a canyon on either side. the views were so amazing but it was one of those things were you really have to focus on the road right in front of you so that you don’t… die.
early morning and late afternoon shadows were the best. wish i had shot more of them.
a bit after this was taken, i started to run out of gas. i knew i wasn’t going to make it, but alex had the gas can so it’d be fine. i felt my engine dying out as it does when it has no more gas but then looked ahead and what do i see but a very long (1-2 miles?) downhill stretch in front of me. with a gas station at the end of it. so i motion alex to go ahead and i get as much momentum up as i can… gas runs out right then and i coasted the rest of the way in. by the time i actually got down the hill i wasn’t going more than 10 mph but i didn’t have to push at all and it was a huge, kinda hilarious, victory for me.
this was after the previous day of rain all over and camping in the sand and not eating anything. there was a weird diner place in town and i had the best blueberry pancakes ever. and then of course alex’s shifter was stripped again so we were stuck there for a bit…
the storm got worse and worse and it didn’t look good. then we went around a big curve and there was a ranger / camping outpost, with a gas station. the grocery store had just closed so we weren’t going to eat dinner (though i did have an apple in my bag) but at least there was a place to camp. we waited for the rain to break for long enough to get to a camp site and put up the tent. we camped by the river and our stakes wouldn’t stay in the ground because it was all sand. we lined the outside of the tent with big rocks so it would have the necessary tension to stay up. “think the tide is going to come in?” “do rivers have tides?” “is that a river or a lake?” none of these questions mattered because by that point we weren’t going anywhere else.
the light really was that yellow/orange. very cool and strange to see a sunset through a thunderstorm. there was another huge rainbow behind us.
i woke up in the morning and there was a hammer laying next to me. alex pulled it out in the middle of the night because he heard something outside the tent. awesome.
and this was the opposite view of the last image.
a few miles down the road we stopped to climb things and take pictures. still very unsure of how the rest of the day would unfold. at this point we can see lightning in the distance and the thunder comes roaring and rumbling in from every side. when you are in a really big canyon, really loud stuff sounds really crazy.
..and here’s the view once i stepped out. there was a double rainbow behind me (no, not quite all the way, but still awesome). maybe a good time to mention that none of the photos here are altered in any way, they are posted here the way i received the scans from the lab. felt it was prudent to mention that as i can barely believe the light in this image myself…
we couldn’t outrun the rain forever. here we are, under the tarp, again. things were getting a little weird because it was getting late in the day, we weren’t making much progress (stopping for rain, waiting, going ahead, stopping again), and were also running low on gas. the town we saw on the map turned out to be a closed motel surrounded with barbed wire and very unfriendly signs. we knew we didn’t have enough gas to make it to the next town, but were going to get as close as we could and then one of us would hitchhike in.
