Overland Expo<\/a>, for those of you not familiar is a gathering of like minded travelers who travel, well, overland.\u00a0 We drive, forsaking the the “friendly” skies for tried and true wheels on the ground.<\/p>\nI’ll save my dear reader the travelogue of play-by-play details and instead focus on thoughts from each day.<\/p>\n
Day 1:\u00a0 Final packing a departure, in our Ford Econoline 250 extended body raised roof van.\u00a0 Precariously strapped in the back of the van with an amazingly spendy wheel chock was my motorcycle.\u00a0 It was raining hard and I didn’t fancy a ride over the Cascade maintain range.<\/p>\n
Day 2:\u00a0 Unpacked the motorcycle from the back of the van.\u00a0 Mind you, this was only the second time we’d done this.\u00a0 The front wheel caught on the chock’s small ramp and I essentially skidded down backwards without brakes.\u00a0 Harrowing tales of loading\/unloading the bike would continue to be a theme of the trip.<\/p>\n
Day 3:\u00a0 Crazy wind, but I’m starting to see this as a theme to my travels.\u00a0 Either I’m becoming more sensitive as I age, or there is a god of wind that has an axe to grind with me for some unknown offense.\u00a0 Also, our first night camping in the van — ever.\u00a0 What could go wrong?<\/p>\n
Day 4:\u00a0 Ever ridden a motorcycle at high speeds after zero sleep for 200-ish miles?\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 Miserable night in the van, and only caught a few hours of sleep.\u00a0 However, arriving in Utah it was toasty warm with lots of tar snakes which made for some squirrelly riding.<\/p>\n
Day 5:\u00a0 Decided to pack up the motorcycle for the 300 miles into Flagstaff.\u00a0 Got to OE, and set up camp in a horse field.\u00a0 Interesting horse fact, they poop when ever and where ever they like.\u00a0 The site, beyond being filled with horse poop was also very rutted.\u00a0 Hoping it doesn’t rain, because the van may become a permanent feature of that field, and undoubtedly covered in horse poop.\u00a0 Another sleepless night in the van.<\/p>\n
Day 6:\u00a0 First day of OE.\u00a0 Witnessed beautiful sunrise.\u00a0 I’m not a morning person, and I can probably count the sunrises I’ve seen on my digits.\u00a0 Did you know, dear reader, that horse poop can fly?\u00a0 Simply bake it in a field for an amount of time, then add strong wind and about 10,000 people walking around to smash it into smaller bits.\u00a0 I may have inhaled a whole an entire horse poop today, one microscopic piece at a time.\u00a0 Third night in the van.<\/p>\n
Day 7:\u00a0 Second day of OE.\u00a0 Learned so much about how I don’t have my motorcycle configured for distance riding.\u00a0 Also how to make some field repairs on the bike.\u00a0 I feel like MacGyver.\u00a0 Almost worth the impending lung disease brought on by poop inhalation.<\/p>\n
Day 8:\u00a0 Final day of OE and our anniversary!\u00a0 Angie is such a lucky girl getting to sleep in the back of a van with just the bare necessities and an (un)healthy dose of airborne poop as an anniversary gift.\u00a0 Packed up the van for early departure in the AM.<\/p>\n
Day 9:\u00a0 Up early to get to the Grand Canyon.\u00a0 We spent the first day walking from Grand Canyon Village to the Hermit’s Rest on the south west rim.\u00a0 This was my first time seeing the canyon and it was amazing.\u00a0 When we first arrived I needed to take a moment to absorb the vastness.\u00a0 Hoteling it for the rest of the trip!<\/p>\n
Day 10:\u00a0 Drove the south east rim.\u00a0 Stopped at all of the vantage points.\u00a0 Cannonball run up to the south Salt Lake City suburbs for next hotel.<\/p>\n
Day 11:\u00a0 Cannonball run to Boise.\u00a0 Stopped at the Snake River Birds of Prey center to see the raptors they have there as teaching birds and some which are recuperating from injuries.<\/p>\n
Day 12:\u00a0 Cannonball run from Boise to Portland.\u00a0 Stopped in Pendleton for a tour of the woolen mill and lunch in town.<\/p>\n
Was OE worth the trip, the near death experiences getting the motorcycle in\/out of the van, poop based lung disease, and the further wrath of the miscellaneous god of wind that has it in for me?\u00a0 Definitely a yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Admittedly I’m a bit tardy writing this — like two years tardy.\u00a0 But doesn’t somebody say “better late than never?” As I’m sitting here writing this on a rainy day, two years later, I can still clearly remember the journey to and from OE West 2016.\u00a0 Overland Expo, for those of you not familiar is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle","category-ride-report","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rubschlager.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}