August '11

Greetings to you from us. How did the month of August treat you? We had a great month. The summer has been very mild for the San Joaquin valley - usually we see the temperature in the 100's, but this year it's been a comfy summer of temps in the 80's and 90's.

I took a week off of work to fulfill an old dream: to make the motorcycle mecca to Sturgis, South Dakota. I packed up, and headed north first.

I met my sister in Portland, Oregon (she rode her new motorcycle south from Sequim, Washington).

We headed east, along the Columbia Gorge. This is eastern Oregon at dusk.

We rode through Idaho...

... and into Utah, where our brother, Dan, lives. We spent the night at his place, but first we had dinner at a local cafe called, "Beehive" (check out the hang-glider on the wall).

Bear Lake is in eastern Utah.

We rode around the south end of the lake and on into Wyoming.

We rode from the southwest corner of Wyoming diagonally to the northeast corner...


It was the longest part of our ride. Wyoming was huge, barren and desolate... but beautiful.

We finally made it to Sturgis, South Dakota, after four days of riding.


Mt. Rushmore is just south of Rapid City, South Dakota, where we were staying. After stopping by Sturgis we rode to Mt. Rushmore.


From the motel in Rapid City we took a shuttle bus back to Sturgis for the evening.


We found a place to have some dinner and watch all of the bikes riding through.



On the way out of South Dakota we stopped to see the Crazy Horse memorial. It is a work in progress, but will be similar in size to the Mt. Rushmore memorial when it is finished. My sister, Donna, is part Shoshone Indian, which gave the visit some extra meaning to us.


We continued heading south through eastern Wyoming to Denver Colorado, where a friend of Donna's lives.


We spent the night in Colorado, had our usual breakfast and headed back west across southern Wyoming...


...and back to Utah...


...where we met our brother, Dan. The three of us rode for an hour or so, before spending the night. Donna and I hit the road again.


From Dan's place Donna and I split up and rode towards our own homes - I headed southwest across Nevada and into California, while Donna headed northwest across Idaho and into Washington.

I stopped in Reno - planning on spending the night, but there were no motel rooms available in the city - as I happened to be there during "Hot August Nights" - an annual rally of restored and custom cars. So I continued west into California and back to Stockton. I put 4,100 miles on my bike in eight days - the longest ride ever for me!


I finally got the Li-ion batteries that I ordered for my Vectrix (back in May). Jerod went with me to the warehouse in San Leandro to help me lift them into the truck.

Forty-two cells, 3.2V each, 50Amp-Hours - they will allow my Vectrix to have a better range than when it was new.

My friend and co-worker Dean is helping me with the electrical part of the conversion (he is an electrical engineer who fixes medical equipment at the hospital). First we took out the old NiMH battery pack.

Then we put in the new Li-ion cells. They are not wired together yet - Dean and I couldn't quite finish the conversion as Haruko and I left for Japan for two weeks... but watch for more next month - oh and and maybe there will be some pictures from Japan too   ;-)

I hate to end on a sad note... but on occasion illiteracy still rears it's ugly head...

Until next month!




Videos

Sturgis 2011

Vectrix Conversion