I threw my camera onto my handlebars for a little stretch of the PCH today. Just for fun, so I could share it with you guys. What a nice road!

Andrea Says: Paul and Mike round 3

New picture, same rules. Quick - What are they thinking:

Andrea Says: Priscilla still giggles :)

The boys are in San Francisco tonight hanging out with Priscilla. Mike says it feels very surreal. He traveled across the country only to hang out with one of his oldest friends from Mansfield.

Andrea Says: Paul and Mike round 2

New picture, same rules. Guess what they were thinking:

Andrea Says: In the woods

Mike began his story about today’s adventure with an observation.

“I am sitting on a little stone wall practically on a cliff overlooking a sandy ocean with a beach on it,” he said and continued with the adventure that got them to this hidden campsite.

The boys got up a bit later than expected. Mike said they were out late the night before with Meaghan in San Diego.

For breakfast they had amazing leftovers and they all got to try a bit of the leftover Snickers Pancake.

“It was really good,” Mike said.

They said goodbye to Meaghan and hit the road.

Mike then went on to explain the names of the roads and which ones they decided to take.

“We took The 5 until Dana Point, at which point we switched over to Route 1 which is the Pacific Coast Highway or PCH,” he explained twice.

They stopped for a bit to look for stickers, but couldn’t find the ones they were looking for.

“We jumped back on PCH and then we were in Orange County,” Mike said excitedly. “We started seeing famous places.”

They parked their bikes, crossed the street and started to explore.

“We went by Laguna Beach and we met this guy and we stuck our fingers in the Pacific Ocean,” he said and never elaborated more about guy until a bit later.

Based on Meaghan’s insights, the boys learned jaywalking is a serious crime in California. But, like good New England men they decided to live on the edge and attempt to cross the street.

Because as Mike explained it, “You just look both ways and you don’t die and it is not that hard.”

One of the cars that passed the boys turned out to be a cop car. Mike said they were clearly standing on the side of the road waiting for the cars to stop before they crossed.

“The police car slowed down and said ‘don’t cross there,’” Mike said and explained that it was playful, but they went to the crosswalk anyway.

Upon crossing the street the two saw this man that looked like a “rockstar.” Mike said he kind of looked like Russell Brand, but it wasn’t him.

Several people slowed down and said hello to this guy.

Mike said to him “Hey, I guess you are really popular.”

And he responded in a British accent, “That is because I have the best drugs.”

Then more people stopped to say hello and shake this guy’s hand. The man then went into his artist studio.

Mike doesn’t think he is a drug dealer, just a local celebrity.

The boys then went on a hunt for an “In and Out Burger.”

It took a while and a bit of searching on the GPS, but they ended up at the burger joint. They both ordered a Number 2, which is a cheeseburger with fries and a medium Doctor Pepper. Mike said they learned to order the food “Animal style,” which meant they added sautéed onions and cheese sauce.

“I thought it was going to go on my fries and burger and it only went on my burger,” Mike said. “It was just like McDonalds. It was nothing special at all.”

They got on the road again and passed by a pier that Mike thinks is the place where THE Bluth banana stand was in the show “Arrested Development.”

While they were there they saw a skywriting plane that was making circles with “Xs in them and it looked like the X Men logo,” Mike said. “Then we road right by LAX.”

When they stopped for gas they met a fellow rider with a KLR (yup, I had to look that one up too it is a motorcycle).

Mike went over to compliment him on his bike, and the guy told him of a secret place to camp.

I’ve been asked to not go into details about the site, but on the way to the site, Paul dumped his bike twice and Mike dumped his bike once. They are both fine, and were only going 2 mph. I guess the road was just lose and messed with the tires. Paul did break a front peg off his bike, but because Mike already did that the boys knew how to fix it.

The site is pretty cool and other folks are around, so they won’t be lonely. The boys set up their hammocks like bunk beds, according to Mike.

As I was getting off the phone with Mike, Paul was preparing dinner and Mike fell off the rock he was sitting on. Tomorrow they head to Big Sur.

Andrea Says: Paul and Mike round 1

Time for a game. I am going to put a picture up of Mike and Paul and people have to guess what they are thinking:

Andrea Says: They are in the O.C.

Got a text from Mike this morning. They are at Laguna Beach. It looks quite beautiful. I know I've been slow on my blog posting duties, I blame the 3 hour time difference. From what I am told, they had a great time in San Diego that was packed with things to do and sights to see. They did get a chance to stop at the zoo. Mike says he has better pictures to upload. But here are a few:

Palomar - POV

Riding up to the Palomar Observatory, I decided to put my camera on my handlebars again. You'll have to forgive the tilt. I put a heavier camera on the handlebars in Utah and it's been pointing not quite on center since.

To play the Great American Rideabout home game, watch this video 100 times, then eat a freeze dried meal with tortillas, and sleep outside in a hammock. You can make one out of a blanket.

Andrea Says: They are in San Diego

Just a brief up date, the boys are in San Diego having fun.

Day 19: Things don’t always go according to plan

18 May 2011

Our initial plan was to check out the Nuclear Museum in Albuquerque, check out Santa Fe and then stay at a place north of Santa Fe. Things were going swimmingly as we started to enter Albuquerque. Then, a bend came in the highway. Up to this point, my bike had not exhibited any strange handling characteristics. I pushed the handlebar to start leaning into the corner... it was extremely difficult. I managed to force the bike through the corner on the highway. Upon straightening out I looked at my front tire; it was flat! This was the first flat tire that I've ever encountered on a motorcycle and I've always been a little scared of potential outcomes. Luckily, I had become a member of the American Motorcycle Association before the trip and they provide roadside assistance. Compared to AAA, this was incredible. They arranged for the bike to be taken to the local Triumph Dealer, which they looked up for me. And also, the tow truck arrived in 45 minutes or so from the time of my first call. Sadly though, because of this delay we cancelled the Nuclear Museum and not sadly we decided to stay in Santa Fe for the night.








The Triumph Dealer was called PJs, and they were all extremely nice and genuine. I ended up getting new tires, both front and back because my tread was low anyway. While we were there with WiFi, I checked out the forecast for our upcoming days. This was bad news. It was then that we did our route change for Colorado.




Finally leaving the dealer, it started to rain so we high tailed it out of there to Santa Fe. Santa Fe was also rainy for the evening.




Santa Fe, aside from the rain, was unique and quite delightful. I expected it to be a bit mroe city-like. Sure, it was expansive, but the entire city had low buildings and felt like a small town. All over were adobe style buildings and quaint little side streets and alley ways. An odd thing about the city though, is that it has a REALLY high percentage of homeless. It seemed that there was a homeless person for every four or five normal citizens. This could have been because we were there on a weeknight after business hours. We ended up grabbing some food at this place called the Blue Corn Cafe or something like that. Their green chili stew is amazing by the way.

Day 18: Arrays of the Very Large Variety

17 May 2011







Riding through the mountains of New Mexico was pretty cold. It was beautiful though. We rode through Lincoln NM, which apparently was very prominent with Billy the Kid, and the whole town was old western style.




Smokey the Bear looks like he did something bad, so I'm scolding him. We stopped by Capitan NM for some breakfast. The place was the Smokey the Bear Restaurant. It turns out that Capitan is the birthplace of Smokey the Bear. We saw pictures of this young bear with bandages. We assumed that he burned himself trying to put out a fire and started telling other people that only THEY could prevent forest fires because he had crippling memories that prevented him from doing it. In reality, I later found out that he was a real bear cub that was burned in a local forest fire. He was taken care of and then became the mascot for forest fire prevention.




We passed through this area called the Valley of Fire. For miles, it was nothing but black volcanic rock. The area was very similar to Mordor.

We finally reached the Very Large Array and had a fantastically nerdy time checking it out. They can move the arms of the array in and out for different purposes. When we visited, it was a fully extended day which made photographs more difficult.

After geeking it up, we hit the road for a campsite in Datil NM. Riding through the desolate open plains towards the mountains made both of us think of the movie Red Dawn. Eventually we set up camp and had a pretty cold night considering the cold front and the fact that we were at 7400 feet.

Andrea Says: They are in California

Today the boys left Las Vegas after Laura and Fabian showed them the sights. (Like Quark's Bar)

They hit the road and ended up in Idyllwild, California.

"It kind of has a Cape Cod feel but it is in the mountains," Mike said.

Along the way they stopped at Big Bear City at Big Bear Lake. (I think that is the name of the city, Mike added).

They ate at a place called the Lumberjack that is run by Spanish-speaking family who hung out in the dining area like it was their living room.

"I got a club salad," Mike said and then he added that he ate bacon! "The salad came in a bowl that looks like it came from the Christmas Tree Shop. It looked like a giant clam that you would fill with marbles and put on your coffee table."



"It made it really hard to eat because it had a bunch of grooves on it," Mike said and added that the entire bowl tipped every time he applied force.

Paul got a sloppy joe with waffle fries and "he shared some with me and I ate them," Mike said.

They are now camping at Idyllwild Park. Tomorrow they head to San Diego.

Andrea Says: Look at the guy in the background

I was scrolling through the pictures from the Grand Canyon Adventures and found this gem. I love the grumpy teen in the background.

Las Vegas: In Depth

Las Vegas was pretty great! I'll come back. Onward to Idyllwild, CA for some camping tonight. More to come!

Day 2 - POV Video

Day 2 - POV from Mike Calvin on Vimeo.

Ever wonder what the Great American Rideabout is like first hand? It's a lot like this, but hundreds of times longer.



This video is from day two of our journey in Pennsylvania I think. This was a really nice road that ran along a river. On the other side was forest and stone wall, and even one water fall.

Andrea says: The Hoover Dam is sooo Art Deco

Mike and Paul woke up this morning at the Grand Canyon Village campground

“It rained overnight and when I woke up,” mike said, “our motorcycles were frosted over and my helmet had a snowcap on it like a mountain.”

Once the temperatures went up the boys programmed Las Vegas in to their GPS and they were off!

They boys rode for a long time on I-40 at a comfortable speed and “then we got off and diverged on to Route 66,” Mike said.

Route 66 was a “whole bunch of little kitschy tourist traps, diners and souvenir stores,” Mike said and added that the area was packed.

Eventually the road turned into a straight nothing. He said there would be patches of grass and then a run down shanty.

They boys came across the Frontier Café somewhere in Arizona. He said the entire diner was run by grandmas.

There was a special that day where you could take anything from the menu that had bread and replace it with fried bread.

“And anything that came with fries, you could replace with a cup of soup,” Mike said.

Paul got a plain Jane cheeseburger with a cup of soup and Mike got his new favorite meal: Chili size

“Chili size is an open-faced hamburger with chili on top,” Mike said and added that replace the bun with fried bread. “It was excellent.”

Then they were on their way again. They then stopped at a souvenir shop where they got Grand Canyon stickers.

The boys got on Route 93 North, the path to the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.

Once they got to the dam Mike said it was different from TV.

“On TV it looks like the road just goes right across and then ‘hey I am on the dam,’” mike said. “In reality you drive over a bridge and then you go down this long snaky road, go to a security check point and all this touristy stuff and then you go across the Hoover Dam.”’

The boys parked in the “free parking” area and got a good look.

“It is art deco to the extreme,” Mike said.

He said at one end there are these two 25-foot-tall statues of copper men with falcon arms.

“I am sure you’ve seen this thing before because it is super art deco,” Mike said, assuming that I am all up to date on Art Deco.

The boys then headed to Las Vegas. Mike said there was heavy traffic, but the drivers were very friendly.

They found their hotel, the Tropicana, and pulled up to the front. Some guy told them they had to valet their bikes. Mike just looked at him and said that wasn’t going to happen.

They were directed to the south parking spot and they walked, the very long walk to their room.

Their room, Mike says, has a Caribbean/Columbia drug lord motif.

Another perk of the hotel: “The elevator goes down so fast it makes your tummy feel funny,” Mike said.