Movie Time! Enterprise Ride Part 1

We're back!   What a trip!   I will probably write something about it,  but as they say, a picture is worth 1000 words.    What about a video?

There, that is the first leg of the trip!   There are more videos too!   Like and Subscribe to the channel to see more!  Aww heck, what am I saying.  Ill post more of them.. you know I will.  

This portion is from Spokane to Colfax, WA.   Not much to see but green.  Well, green and a couple little towns!    

Anticipa.............tion.

There are just 3 days left before I leave on my trip south.   I'm not sure how many are going, but we are headed to Enterprise Oregon to ride the Rattlesnake Grade!
  I am all packed up and have checked all the major points that one should check before leaving on a trip.    Weather looks good. Roads are open.  Bike is running like a champ.   We are all set to go.   But..... Its 3 excruciatingly long days until we leave.   It seems like each 24 hour day is a full week long.   The open road is calling, but I sit here at a cramped desk punching buttons.   Totally not fun!
I guess that's the breaks.  No matter where I go, or how I choose to get there, the days leading up to a vacation are always horrendously long.   At least nothing has gone totally haywire yet.   That's a good thing.   In fact, just a few weeks ago, the road just north of Boggan's Oasis had washed out and was all but impassable.   I thought that would be the end of our trip, but they re open it completely on Friday, the day before we leave!   Hot Diggity Dog!  
I really hope to get that sense of refreshment you get when you go do something that you have always wanted to do.   Actually completing this ride from start to finish is definitely a motorcycle checklist (I hate the term Bucket List) item.    Hopefully I can get a few more checks this year .  

What are the items on the list, you may ask?    Well,  let me tell you.   In no particular order:


I would like to ride across the US (West to East and North to South)
Trans Canada from Victoria BC to St John Newfoundland.
If I ever get the chance, It would be amazing to ride from my home in Spokane to Alaska.
I'd love to ride in Europe
I'd love to ride the Americas (from Canada to Chile).
Not that I would ever have time for any of these rides.  However, there are a few rides that I can do, and probably will.
Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to San Francisco.
Glacier National Park (specifically the Going to the Sun Trail)
Yosemite National Park or Zion or both.
Lolo Pass. (right) -- 99 miles of twisty roads on that ride.
If I can't do the PCH, then just to the Redwoods. That would be fun.    I may do any of these, or all of these or even none of them depending on Time and Funds.  After all, a guy like me has quite a lot of responsibilities.  Family, Work, Faith, they all take tons of time.    Even if I don't get to ride these rides, I can still ride to work and around town.  It's still better than caging it!

Angry Biker = Dead Biker

If you type Motorcycle into the YouTube search bar you will generally see, somewhere in the mix, videos about angry people yelling at motorcyclists.   Some of these turn violent, but almost always you will see a biker getting yelled at and yelling in return with many expletives flying about.  
The problem with these videos is that they give the wrong impression of motorcyclists.   Not all of us are like that.   Most of us just want to ride our bikes and not die.  Unfortunately there is a subset of the biker bunch that seems to want to cause trouble.    This is generally limited to the 2 extremes.  Either an angry "Clubber" (The traditional bikers you see on TV and movies), or a young punk who thinks that it is cool if you wear down your chicken strips (The rubber on the extreme edge of a motorcycle tire that does not get used if you ride correctly).    The videos go like this:  The biker is usually doing something stupid.  Wheelies, illegal lane splitting, crazy revving of loud pipes or anything of that sort tends to infuriate people who think that they are the authority, and even sometimes the authorities.   Once the biker makes the other person mad, they usually have a few moments of speeding and swerving in order to flip off the offender or offended and eventually one of them wrecks or they stop and have a fistfight.   (Not smart for the anyone in a car or who isn't wearing a helmet designed to take a high speed impact.)
Now, the intelligent person will take pause at the whole situation.  The whole altercation could be avoided by just being smart and safe.   It's the Freeway, but it does not mean you are free to do what you want, especially when what you want can endanger others.
I do have a suspicion that these bikers are actually trying to get people angry.  After all, conflict makes for good entertainment...... (for unintelligent people who thrive on violence.)    But the fact that angry idiots can and do endanger everyone else around them should make us all be concerned.
However, if you are like me the sense of schadenfreude is overwhelming.   The sense of empowerment you get from seeing someone get their comeuppance is what drives these videos.  I feel guilty however.  It isn't right to get exited over someone else's misfortune, even when that misfortune is their own fault.  
Rather than make fun of them, or even cheering them, we should help to educate these angry people.  They need to understand that it isn't good for them to be that way.   The young but stupid bikers doing the tricks on the freeway at breakneck speeds, we can help them to see that they are putting lives in danger.  And we can hope they listen.  The clubbers, well we can just stay out of their way and ignore them, that's what they want anyway.    As for the cagers.. well, you are not the police, leave it to the boys (and girls) in blue to do the job of policing the streets.   If you are concerned,  slow down and let them pass.  Give the stupid space to do what they do and minimize the danger to yourself.   If we do that, then either these goofballs will see that it isn't so cool to act like an idiot or we will have a lot of new Darwin Award winners.    Either way the problem is solved.