Fuzzygalore.com - Girlie Motorcycle Blog » Memory Lane

Collecting Road Trip Travel Mementos

Fuzzygalore — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:38:09 +0000

Rick from keeptherubbersidedown.net posted a blog about having stickers on his motorcycle start a conversation at a stoplight. His blog inspired me to talk about my own sticker collection. That sounds so third grade, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to trade me your puffy unicorn for my ‘bears sliding down a rainbow’ sticker.

Other than a single pink Deals Gap dragon sticker on the seat cowl of my Speed Triple, I don’t have stickers on my motorcycle. Instead I have started to put them on the interior door of my garage. There is plenty of space to use and it offers a little more permanence. Every time I walk in and out of the garage, I get a nice visual reminder of some of the places that we’ve been. Of course, I only wish that I’d stuck so many past mementos here.

When traveling, I also make it a point buy postcards. They offer the most “perfect” photos of places. Keep a few stamps in your wallet while on the road and send yourself a postcard with notes from the trip. Looking through your card stack on a dreary winter day will bring a smile to your face.

Happy Traveling!

Deals Gap Dragon sticker on my very dirty Triumph Speed Triple

Do you collect anything from your travels? Spoons, tshirts, shot glasses? Tell us about it!

Lost Loves: Fuzzygalore’s 1996 Kawasaki ZX6R

Fuzzygalore — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:01:24 +0000

My Firecracker Red 1996 ZX6R was named Cherry Pie. To say that I loved that bike would be the understatement of the century. Unfortunately she met her untimely demise in a tangle with a minivan in 1998.

Photos of a much younger me and Cherry Pie from 1997:

Fuzzygalore - 1997

The Last 100 Miles – Saying goodbye to an old friend

Fuzzygalore — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:07:43 +0000

Today I waved goodbye to an old friend. After 11 years together my ZX6R has finally gone off to dance with another partner. It’s hard to believe that I’d had that particular bike for so long. It was with me before my dog, before getting married, before my daughter. We sure had a lot of fun together. There have been so many good memories over the years.

I rode her for the last 100 miles to meet up with her new owner. I thought I would feel a little more tugging at the heartstrings than I did. Though I have a tendency to become emotionally attached to the idea of things, I felt good letting the bike go to someone else who will enjoy and actually use it. I hope they have many happy times and safe miles together. So long, old friend.

Remembering California: Serendipity Strikes Outside of Redding

Fuzzygalore — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:19:52 +0000

Leaving Mount Shasta in the early morning we began to work our way south. We were headed towards Redding so that I could see Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge at the Turtle Cove Exploration Park.

Inside the visitors center sat the usual rack of local tourist pamphlets. I do tend to poke through them when I’m standing around. Most often they seem to hawk places to buy handcrafted pottery, ugly local artisan jewelry or an outlet mall. But, sometimes…sometimes you find a diamond. This was my lucky day. I found a pamphlet that included scenic drives. Low and behold, it made special mention of “good motorcycle roads.”

You Never Know What you’re Gonna Get

The little map directed us towards route 36. With no other plan in place anyway, what did we have to lose by trying the route? From Redding we followed Platina Rd. out through Ono and on to 36. As we moved further away from the city each mile that went by gave us something new. There were sections of road with turns marked at 10mph that ran along the face of the mountains. Further along the road opened up into fast paced sweepers. As the elevation began to climb and things became greener, the road re-tightened again. Nearly 150 miles of twists and turns came with little to no traffic at all. We rolled the dice and came up winners. [Map Link]

We stayed with route 36 back to 101 and into Eureka. We stopped to have a look around town and grabbed a bite to eat at the Opera Alley Bistro. With hours of daylight still left on the clock we headed south from Eureka towards Ferndale and the Lost Coast. But not before relishing what we’d just ridden. You really never know what you’re going to find in the course of a day. Sometimes you’ve just got to take a chance.

click to enlarge

Memory Lane: Remembering Badlands National Park

Fuzzygalore — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:35:00 +0000

Inspired by reading a post on hellforleathermagazine.com, I dug out some photographs from Badlands National Park in South Dakota. In May of 2005, Kenny and I rode from New York with the intention of visiting Mount Rushmore. One of the stops that we simply had to make on the way was Badlands National Park. Kenny was piloting his 3 week old Triumph Speed Triple and I rode out on my old 98’ ZX6R.

‘I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands. What I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere.‘ – Frank Lloyd Wright

Even if you view photographs prior to visiting Badlands Park, you will be unprepared for the sights that unfold in front of you. Some things just require your physical presence to understand the magnitude of them. The landscape is so unlike anything I’d ever seen before or since. Though these mountain formations have stood for thousands of years, they give the appearance of being as fragile as dollops of meringue. I got the distinct sensation that if you touched them they would crumble into a mound like a sandcastle. The park is nothing short of beautifully fascinating.

click to enlarge

Remembering California: Discovering the Jewel that is California’s Lost Coast

Fuzzygalore — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:35:00 +0000

While out west, we stumbled upon a stretch of road called the King Range National Conservation Area also known as ‘The Lost Coast’. Before leaving for California, I had never even heard of it. I discovered the Lost Coast, reading a small local paper during our trip.

The Lost Coast.

That name conjured up all sorts of romantic visions of what it would be like there. My mind immediately went to Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the surf in the movie From Here to Eternity. I imagined myself as her but on the Lost Coast. The warm rays of the golden setting sun glistening on the sand. The sound of the ocean waves. Romantic, indeed.

Alas, it is more of a hiker’s paradise apparently. Instead of a sexy romp in the sand, it is probably more often a day filled with blisters, backpacks and trail mix. Maybe your sexytime uses those props, so your mileage on this fantasy may vary.

Coming south from Eureka, the 3 of us wheeled into the Victorian village of Ferndale. Ferndale is the perfect town for strolling. We walked the streets, looking in windows and trying to soak up all of Ferndale’s charms.

Following route 211 west through Ferndale brought us to Mattole Road. As I made the left onto the road I had the distinct feeling of wondering if I was going the right way. The climb up the roadway became very steep at points and the road condition wasn’t anything to write home about. There was not another soul on the road. Still, we pressed on. Looking back now, I am so glad that we did. It was one of the most memorable views of my life.

As we crested over a hill, it felt like it took a moment or two for my brain to catch up with my eyes. I realized that I was looking at the horizon. The ocean touched the sky as the Earth gently curved.

No people. No Cars. It was just us, the water and the waves. Riding along next to the ocean for miles was in short, heavenly.

*This is a re-worked post. Additional images added.

Memory Lane: Reminiscing about visiting Devil’s Tower

Fuzzygalore — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:01:50 +0000

I love looking through old photos. It really does bring you back to those moments in time when they were taken. Why else would you snap them, right? I was waxing nostalgic over our Wyoming trip… again, thinking about what it was like to catch a glimpse of Devil’s Tower for the first time.

The way that I remember it now is that it was kind of surreal. It rose up out of the earth like a luminescent, gray mushroom with nothing else around it that it was akin to. It is it’s own special knob. I remember riding along in the cool morning air with a sense of almost disbelief going.. is that it? as I caught my first glimpse of it out on the horizon. And really, what else could it have been?

Devil’s Tower – Google Maps

You can catch a faint glimpse of it on the left horizon

Me, perfecting the fine art of being a dork.

A peek at my extree fancy gps

Memory Lane: Riding through Sequoia National Park

Fuzzygalore — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:20:38 +0000

Sequoia National Park in June of 2008 was the first time that I’d ever laid eyes on what it really means to see a big tree. They’re so huge that it’s quite difficult to capture them in pictures because you can’t actually get the whole tree into the frame and then on top of that you don’t have much to compare to size-wise if you do.