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November 24, 2015
Day 2 - Salida, CO to Chambers, AZ (Tue 11/24/15)
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in Chambers, Arizona.
Starting Odometer: 33,462
Ending Odometer: 33,880
Miles Driven Today: 418
Miles Driven This Trip: 547
Here's a map of where I drove today.
I sleep in because it's freezing cold outside and I don't want to lose my hands. I've sort of loosely planned on crossing over Wolf Creek Pass at noon, as that's about the warmest part of the day. So, that's about all of the planning I've done really. I might stop in New Mexico. I might try to go to Phoenix. I don't really know. Playing it by ear.
At about 10:00 a.m., I put on every stitch of clothing that I brought and then venture out Into the parking lot. I have to fix a few things on the bike before I ride today. I adjust both rear view mirrors which is mind-numbingly complicated, but I get them both set properly. Also, I adjust the left bark buster so that it's higher up, and also the clutch handle. Both of these come up because the morons at RPM had them adjusted so far down that the bark busters weren't blocking the air from hitting my left hand.
Also, I adjust the clutch because I didn't like the clutch point they left it at.
Clean the mirrors, the headlight. GoPro case. Helmet visor.
Reset all of the clocks. The 3 Canon cameras. The 3 GoPro cameras. The clock on the GPS. And the clock on the motorcycle. I'm not saying I changed them all, but I checked them all and changed them if they needed changing. One GoPro thought it was 2014. None of the Canon cameras were aware of the time change. Ditto for the KTM.
I also notice that the MacBook air updated to the new IOS X El Capitan installed last night, probably after I fell asleep.
I don't know why I haul all of this garbage around with me...I swear the computers and cameras are more trouble than they're worth. So, yeah...I upgraded my IOS in a sleazy motel room in the dead of winter in Salida, Colorado. Not sure why, but I did.
Now I take off. It's cold, and as I drive south, it starts getting colder. Gradually, I realize that we're climbing, and it's getting colder. Nice.
And I do wonder, of course. Why am I doing this? Where am I running to? What am I running from? The truth is that, I don't know. I just get restless. No matter what I'm doing, I always get stir crazy and, afraid I'm missing something, I decide I need to leave the country on a motorcycle. And for me, it works. It's a chance for me to get out of my little box, look around me for a while, and then go back to my home in the Rocky Mountains, assured that I won't die without seeing "so and so". At least, now, I can say that I've been there. Done that.
Also, I don't think that I (or most people) really ever grasp their true potential. People hold back, for various reasons. We all do. We're all afraid to take risks. Afraid of dying alone, of being destitute, of getting let go. We're afraid to start our own companies, because we're human. Because we can imagine, very clearly, that things could go wrong. And they could go wrong very badly.
But it's not like having a house and lots of money in the bank is any better. I know people that saved their whole life for that future day when they'd retire. And then they didn't live a year after they retired.
I don't like lying around in bed doing nothing. But it's easy. It's comfortable. This is a concerted effort to do something different. To get out of bed, and go for a ride.
And what's oddly counterintuitive, is that what we need the most is seldom what we want. No one truly "wants" to be cold. No one with any sense would drive across the continental divide in the dead of winter without heated hand grips. But no one can appreciate a warm shower so much as the man that just came in from the cold.
I've never been this way before, but it's a beautiful ride. Then I see some buildings I recall. So I have to rethink my position. I have been this way before. Wendy and I went to Santa Fe this way one time.
After I clear a small pass, I'm in the San Luis valley, which is just stunning. Really impressive mountain range. I shoot some with the DSLR's and some with the GoPro.
And part of me wants to strangle Steve for making me come this way. And part of me wants to kiss his toes. It's certainly the best view. It's stunning. Cold, but beautiful.
Just before I get to Del Norte, I'm so cold I have to stop. I pull in for an early lunch, and to thaw my hands. This store has some gloves for sale though. They're only $1.29, so I buy a pair of knit gloves and wear them inside of my other gloves so they work like a liner, basically. This is a great improvement.
Now, I head west up and over the continental divide at wolf creek pass. So cold I think that I'll die. There's snow on both sides of the road, of course, and I'm freezing.
I should make clear here that there's plenty of room for self-doubt on these journeys. Like, few other people are doing them. (I know some people that are, but as a percentage of the general population, the number of people riding motorcycles across timezones into foreign countries is fairly small, I have to think.)
Roll down the other side of the divide. Giant ice cycles hang from vertical cliff faces. Colder than the north pole. There are scenic turnouts, but I'm just rolling downhill searching for warmth.
I got to Gallup, NM, and the sun had set, but I figured I'd push on...get across the border into Arizona just so I could say I made it to AZ. But the sign says the next town on I-40 west is Holbrook, AZ - another 70 miles. I'm not wanting to ride 70 miles in the dark on the interstate, but I don't want to turn back either.
I'm not sure what the calculations are for wind chill at 75 vs 95, but I'm running in the 90's on I 40 heading west, hoping for a miracle. Hoping for a little town to pop up unannounced. And not too far into AZ, I see a little "no tell motel" and pull off for the night. I could have pushed on, but I drove 400 miles today. That was a good day. And it's too cold to drive any more tonight.
Now, when you're crossing the continental divide in November on a motorcycle, you're dreaming of a hot shower. (I never saw a single other motorcycle in Colorado, and several people commented on the fact that I was driving one. My motel room last night had a ski rack in it so...yeah.)
And when I check in, I get a warm shower. And it's nice. I turn it up so hot that it's about to peel layers off my skin and I stand in there for an eternity. It feels good. I need this after a long day on the highway in a Colorado November.
Then dinner - in this case, a microwave burrito from the gas station attached to the hotel. I'm not proud. I'm not a food snob. I've been eating a lot of burritos. They're fast, cheap, readily available at the gas stations.
Then, in the room, the rituals begin. Everything has to be charged. And all of the photos and videos have to come off of the cameras, into the laptop. Then, they're deleted from the cameras. Then, they're copied from the laptop to the 1TB external drive, and deleted from the computer. This is the way it has to be. Everything has to flow in a neat, orderly fashion, or you lose photos. If the dates are wrong on the cameras, you'll never straighten it out.
So that's what I'm doing now. My little pathetic didactic ritual of charging cameras, phone, laptop, and moving data.
Only now, when I connect my camera, it doesn't launch iPhoto. In a panic, I realize that the fucktards at apple have done away with iPhoto, the only App they ever had that was worth a shit.
Now, the new app is just called "Photos", and of course, it's incompatible with iPhoto. And of course, even though I deleted all of the photos out of my iPhoto library, it still takes up 400 Megs because the idiots at Apple are so fucking stupid.
And Photos can't update my existing iPhoto library because it's too large and would take too much space. (It's empty, fucktards).
So, finally I delete my iPhoto Library files through Finder. Now we'll see what happens.
OMG. I think it worked.
Import all new photos.
Delete items after import.
5 items successfully imported.
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
Great.
For some reason, it's not happy about this memory card. But when I stick it back into my camera, and connect the camera to the MacBook air via a USB cable, it works fine. And imports a bunch of photos. Nice.
OK. Now, the GoPro. I hook it up and it launches Photos.
Import all new videos.
Delete items after import.
10 items successfully imported.
I unplug the cable from the GoPro Hero 4. It doesn't yell at me about disconnecting it improperly, for whatever reason. The Hero 4 shows that it has 0 photos. And the battery is fully charged. Which is hard to imagine. It died on me halfway through the trip today. Though I have 2 more, so I could have swapped it out, if I were more organized. Tonight, I'll make sure I charge as many GoPro's as possible.
Checked the date/time on the GoPro. It's within 2 minutes of being right. Deleted all files on the GoPro using the GoPro menu. Turn it off. Plug it in. I'm not clear how I can tell when it's fully charged. It cut out on me about halfway through the trip. This website says:
"When you plug it in the light will turn on and when its charged the light will turn off."
So, mine still has a red light on it, so it's not fully charged, apparently.
I hooked up my other GoPro Hero 4 though, and the red light went off on that one, and it has an LCD display that shows a USB icon, and a battery that fills up with little black boxes and then erases them. So, it looks like it's charging, but it doesn't have a red light indicator. Hmmmm.
OK....now the old GoPro Hero 4 is flashing alternately between a fully charged battery icon and an AC plug icon. Not clear what this means either. (This is the one that didn't have the red light on.)
OK. The one with the red light on it did go off, eventually. Interesting.
Finally figured out what the problem was. The other one was turned on. Once, I turned it off, it also had the red light, indicating it was not fully charged. Doh!
OK, so now, ostensibly, I have all of the photos off all of the cameras, and all of the cameras are charging. So now, let's see if I took any photos that are half-decent...
OK. Here's a video of Allie crashing my $2,000.00 drone into a pine tree:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iTvnB9KA8
I posted some photos from the trip today on Facebook. It's harder for me to share them on PeenieWallie, unfortunately.
OK. So, the GoPro videos I exported yesterday are at:
\documents\GoPro Videos 11_23_2015
Oh, for the love of God. I'm trying to find my videos in the new Photos app that replaced iPhoto. These jackasses sorted the videos in with the photos and there's no way to separate out the videos that I can see. You just have to hunt through hundreds of photos looking for a little camera icon. Freaking morons.
OK. I was finally able to hunt down my 10 videos from among the hundreds of photos. Good job, Apple. Well played.
I exported them to a new folder:
\documents\GoPro Videos 11_24_2015
Now, to import them into iMovie...isn't this simple?
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 24, 2015 at 6:13 PM
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