2008/07/25 10:27pm: Home

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have seen the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a big mistake missing doing my writeup of yesterday, because now, I just don’t know where to begin.  So we’ll go with where we left off, Klamath Falls. Nice town that. If you’re ever there, stop into Waldo’s on Main. Great bar, excellent beer selection, and a bottle of Glennmorangie that doesn’t cost much to sip from. The next day I took some time to sleep in a bit before heading to the actual goal of this trip: Crater Lake.

On the way through Fort Klamath, I found this abandoned service station.

This old truck was parked inside, and surprisingly, no squatters.

There’s a part of me that wants to start this bit by quoting the old adage “Never meet your heroes, they’ll only let you down” but its not really true to say that in this case. I think somewhere in my mind I’d really built up this spectacular land mass to be the resolution, or at least the justification, for this trip. And my brain does this thing when I build things up a little too much sometimes, and when it actually witnesses the thing built up, it just sort of deflates itself with an appreciation more or less along the lines of “oh, that’s nice…” Which as I finally crested the western Rim Road and looked down into its deep blue depths, was sort of what I did – admittedly amidst an exterior of giddy childish bounciness. I made several stops at various vantage points, took lots of photos, admired the snow that was still managing to hang on, despite it being July, chatted with a motorcyclist from Alberta, Canada, and had a salad with the most boringly cooked piece of chicken.  If I sound underwhelmed, I’m not – the place is utterly magnificent, and while I hope I will be pleased with my ability to capture it in camera, I felt totally ill prepared in that regard. But all along, I’d only meant this to be a reason t do my first bit of touring – a destination far enough away with enough reason to see it to justify the trip – when really, like those nauseating saying go, the journey was the destination in this case.

Crater Lake: Geological pornography.

A panoramic from Discovery Point.

This was the farthest the old girl had been from home. Can't wait to see where we go next.

A bit deflated, I made my way down the hill towards Medford, my resting place for the night, when I remembered what this trip was supposed to be all about – riding my motorcycle until the wheels fell off. Hwy 62 from Klamath up to Crater Lake was a fairly boring affair, but heading further eastbound to Medford was a very different story. Pristine tarmac, properly cured but without any other mark, blasting downhill in wide, lazy sweepers through beautiful forest terrain. I’m sure that the park rangers don’t approve of this level of speedcrime, but they weren’t on hand to wag the finger of shame at me either, so I was happy to take full advantage. 80mph was a conservative average, slow corners made me drop to 60, and as for the upper bound…  a gentleman never tells. But if you ever get the chance to do this one, do it on a weekday. And don’t blame me if you get caught.

As for Medford, it kinda sucks.

By Friday, it was time to head home. I was plenty road weary and eager to sleep anywhere but another crappy hotel bed. The plan was to head south as directly as possible but still taking good roads. In practice, that would mean getting on 5 south down to Yreka, gassing up (and finally doing it myself, the way god intended) and heading south out of town by way of Hwy 3, seeing the other side of the Trinity Forest, which sadly was still on fire. If I was asked to recommend 3, I wouldn’t, except for one part that will invariably make me bite my tongue. Ostensibly, its a bit of a snoozefest – long straights and very lazy curves blasting from one sleepy village to the next, until you pass a sign designating Ycatapom peak. Heading southbound, road does an amazing job of shedding much of its 7,596′ elevation in as little a space as possible without just dropping you off of a cliff. Steep descents, switchbacks, hairpins, chicanes, and everything else in the road lexicon that is typically the territory of goat trails, but this time with smooth, predictable tarmac, and wide, properly divided lanes. Just pray you don’t get caught behind traffic. if you do, stop and soak in the atmosphere and let them run ahead – there’s no room for them to let you by, and even less room to pass.

This section of Hwy 3 is a lot steeper than it appears here.

From here, I’d like to take back some of the things I’ve said about Highway 36. I will happily admit that when I rode it the first time a few days prior, I wasn’t in the best mindset. I was tired, I was concerned about it being closed because of the forest fires, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get stranded with nowhere to stay for the night, and I wasn’t used to enjoying that faster sort of road. Typically I enjoy smooth, extremely technical roads that allow me to exploit the SV’s high degree of flickability with its grunt that makes it a joy to squirt it out of corners anywhere in the rev range.  With the bags changing the handling characteristic quite a bit, roads like these became much more of a burden, but the bike still seemed to respond well to high speed cornering with firm but gradual direction changes. Exactly what Highway 36 had in store for me today – all 100 miles of it. its like being a kid in a candy store – only out here, everything is free until you get sick. And I didn’t. Fantastic.

This looks like a lot of fun for a reason: It is.

I’d been planning on taking two days to get home, but then, I’d planned on getting into Fortuna much later in the day. I’d made very good time that day. Leaving Medford around 9am, I was in Fortuna 6 hours later. I checked the map, did the math, and realized I could be home in 3-4 hours if I just knuckled under and took the 101 all they way home. And that’s exactly what I did. I was more than ready to be home, which is why I am there now as I write this. Were I more coherent in my thoughts, I would have a more coherent summary of the experience. But I think those thoughts will need to congeal over the next few days, and I’ll come up with something then.

Until then, cheers.

-T

If you’d like to check out the full gallery of pictures along with prints for sale, click here.

2008/07/23, 6:49pm: Klamath Falls, OR

It was today that this trip really started to grow its legs and run with them. After waking up in the veritable smokehouse of Douglas City (thankfully there was no drama with my parking my motorcycle in the motel room with me) and getting on the road, later than I would have liked, I finally grew to like the roads I was finding up there. Which is a good thing, because there were a lot of them, and they were a lot of the same. Highway three brought me up a short trip to Weaverville, which is apparently where all the cool kid motorcyclists stayed, likely because there were modern amenities like cellular reception, which I used to update the family on my whereabouts. Gassed up and headed northwest on highway 96. The highways here are fast, swoopy and with generally little gravel and good pavement quality. Of course, with the Trinity Forest fires going on, they are also very smoky. I put my helmet on at my last rest stop outside of town and remarked how much it smelled of barbecue. it made me hungry immediately.

The fires in Trinity National Forest made for some really smoky conditions and poor visibility.

Heading out to Willow Creek was by far the roundabout way of going about things, but without having a very good mileage calculator, and my map indicating that there was a lot more fuel to be had along this route, I went with it. After stopping for a quick muffin and a fine cup of coffee in Willow Creek, I headed through more fast swoopy corners north up to Happy Camp. If you’re a white knuckle sport rider with your hair on fire, you would love these roads. I was averaging around 60-70mph, and keeping an awful lot in reserve, what with the limited visibility, the desolate conditions and the fact that I was riding solo and had no one to help me out of a ditch if things went pear shaped. The visibility was limited due to all the smoke, but so was the law enforcement, since they probably have something better to do, like stop the world from being on fire. Not that that stopped me from applauding their hard work when I passed by the fire camp somewhere around Orleans.

This valley cut by the Klamath River was one of the clearer areas from the smoke, but not by much.

The gas stop at Happy Camp will possibly be the most memorable of the trip. It was at the corner of what looked like a huge construction staging area, and it was just two pumps, a card reader, and an awning – easily the most austere one I’ve ever seen. No attendant, nothing. which is especially surreal considering that I’m going to have to get used to someone else pumping my gas for the next several days. Then a pile of motorcycles started showing up – the two-up 1200GS I’d passed a little while down the road, and a surprisingly unladen Monster S4R and a 600RR – both only sporting large tank bags, with various bits of Laguna Seca souvenir poking out. I’d gone down to the races with more than that on the bike – the same kit I’m carrying now, and I’ve already been home a day to do my laundry. We’d all chatted and shared road stories for a bit while our legs remembered how to pass blood back down to our feet, then sent each other off with well wishes. I’ve always said, the nicer you are from home on a motorcycle, the friendlier folks get.

The fuel stop at Happy Camp. WYSIWYG.

From here my road careered east, still on 96. I’d tell you about this road, but really, its more of the same fast swoopy roads, this time with a few more straightaways, and thankfully, we were out of the smoke haze finally, so there was some good visibility. Before too long the aforementioned S4R and 600RR appeared in my mirrors, and not wanting to hold them up, I waved them on through, assuming they were quicker riders. They were, the Honda rider by a narrower margin so I stayed with him a ways until I lost the rhythm and just wanted to putter along at my own pace. Not too much longer I crested a hill to see my very first presence of law enforcement since I lleft on this trip – having nabbed the Ducati rider. Guess its sometimes nice not to be the quickest guy on the road. Sorry, mate.

Its now that the sense of bold adventure and exploration fades a bit – this is the furthest north I will be staying. Tomorrow I will go to see the gem of this trip, Crater Lake. I’m already seeing the signage for it, and I figure I can’t be more than an hour away. I will see the sights, smell the smells, take the pictures and then head west to stay the night in Medford before returning south. Surely some of these roads I will do again on my return journey, some I will pass on for others. But now, its time to see what this town has to offer.

2008/07/22, 8:39pm: Douglas City, CA

Its my first night bedding down in a place far from home, and things are already getting surreal. The forest fires in Shasta Trinity forest not only game me a surreal light show of salmon-hued sunlight as I rode through the much-lauded Highway 36, but its made the atmosphere of the town of Douglas City so hazy it feels like it was a set plucked from Silent Hill. Nevertheless, a $40 a night room at the Timber City motel, a microwave burrito, a tall boy of Sierra Nevada, a bottle of water and I’m set. The motel even had a video rental service, so I’m in store for some Super Troopers later on. And while I think the CC’s in my engine outnumber the residents in this town tenfold, the presence of an auto shop that seems to run all night across the street makes me think that I should ignore how nice the carpets are in here and just wheel the bike indoors, just for the peace of mind that it will be there in the morning. Like the song says, Heaven ain’t close in a place like this, but I daresay that Hell has a ways to go before its at my doorstep either.

The motel wasn't fancy, but it did the job.

Yup, we did that. Apologies to the management.

If you asked me earlier why I was going on this trip – and one of my coworkers did – I wouldn’t have been able to give you a firm answer. And to be honest, I still am without one. I’ve had the touring itch for a long enough time, for sure, I just never had the luggage to make it be a realistic option until now. But the timing is pretty right too. There’s been just so much noise in my life as of late that this will be a good chance to step away from it and see how it looks form a good distance. An opportunity to blow out the mental cobwebs, if you will. Which is not to say that this is all about exercising demons – some stuff that has happened has been incredibly beneficial, or at least quite enjoyable, but I’m hoping that it will also give me some time to think about some of the things I have lost this year, and how I feel about them now that I’m starting to really settle into the notion that they are indeed gone, and ponder the ways in which they exited my life. That and more importantly, its an opportunity to twist an awful lot of throttle in a short amount of time.

The route I took today involved me slabbing it out of San Francisco (home base) up to Cloverdale and start off with some familiar but much missed roads, taking 128 all the way out to the coast. From there I went on what was my friend and ex-roommate’s admission was the best stretch of tarmac he’s ever ridden on, The portion of Highway 1 north of Fort Bragg. As I meandered north, I’d wondered what he was on about – the views were nice, but the road was fairly boring and well trafficked. Then, as the road veered right into the woods, I suddenly got it. Beautiful, predictable surface, an endless stream of 20-30mph corners, weaving left and right with more elevation changes than you could shake a stick at. This is also where I encountered my greatest amount of motorcycle traffic, folks either going the distance like I am, or quite possibly just heading home from the race weekend.

Highway 36: Fun but Smoky.

From there I approached Fortuna, which could have been my first stopping point of the day. As I rolled into town, the motels just seemed a little to close to home, and a little too soul crushing to give in that early. So I gassed up, and headed easy on what was supposed to be the gemstone of this trip – Highway 36 – not really knowing how much further I would have to go, or how dark it would be before I found a place to stay for the night. Highway 36 is supposed to be god’s gift to motorcycles – endless tight twisty turns, racetrack quality pavement, stretching on for miles and miles and miles without a single cop or motorhome in sight. The discounted tire service there is speedy and can be found every 35 miles, the fuel stops are gratis, and should you crash, your impact will be cushioned by a wall of nude virgins who will tend to your injuries in any way they know how. In reality, it is a good road – in fact I’d say it is the longest very good road I have ever ridden on. But If I was to say I didn’t feel oversold, I’d be lying. I really enjoyed the post apocalyptic feeling it gave me as I road through this smoke shrouded forest without another human soul in sight, and it was the first place that inspired me to stop and get the camera out on this trip, but the best of the best? I’m not so sure – either that or they’re keeping the really good bits on the last stretch into Red Bluff, which isn’t really going my way. Either way, it got me here, and that’s good enough for me.

The cat from Norway got stuck in a doorway.

Given the amount of traveling I do in a given year – primarily for work – I’ve always been thankful for one little biological gift. I’m pretty resilient to the effects of jetlag, because my diurnal cycles are fairly photosensitive. Or in other words, when its light out, I’m awake and fairly happy to be so, and when it gets dark out, give me a few more hours and I’m ready to go to sleep and be rested for the very next day. Where this fails is when I try to visit someplace at a fairly high latitude, especially in winter. I’d been to Sweden in the past during the height of summer – the Summer Solstice to put a fine point on it. I was pretty thankful for the thick curtains that covered the hotel windows, making it dark whenever I liked, rather than letting nature take its course, would would have had me going to bed a little past midnight (business as usual there) but then waking by 2:30 in the morning. But when you’re going someplace like Olso, the capital of Norway in the wintertime, this all gets kind of pear shaped – there just isn’t any getting away from the fact that the sun is down for the count by 3:30 in the afternoon and won’t be back until past 9 am the next day. Needless to say, this wreaks some serious havoc on your ability to get yourself rooted with the local timetable in a hurry.

Fortunately, like far too few things bad in this world, there’s an upshot to all of this. Sure the sun is only out for a few hours a day, and when it is it isn’t much warmer than when it was warming up other parts of the world, but the low sun angle produces some of the most gobsmackingly beautiful and dramatic lighting you’ve ever seen – or at least have ever seen in any abundance. A lot of photographers occasionally make reference to what they call the “golden hour” which is essentially the last hour of daylight before sunset. This lighting is great because the low angle creates the sort of highlights and shadows you typically need a studio to get with any consistency, and because of the angle at which the light is raking through the atmosphere allows it to pick up golden highlights in places where they hadn’t existed before. And yet here, in this northern latitude, you get that sort of lighting for pretty much every single one of your six hours of daylight. Long story short, if you are the sort of person who prefers quality to quantity, this is the place for you.

As I’d already mentioned, this was not my first time visiting Scandanavia, and my last visit left me with one indelible impression – I really like the people that inhabit this part of the world. That’s a bit misleading perhaps, I love meeting people from just about anywhere that isn’t where I’m from, but I really had a hard time putting my finger on why these folks left such an impression, but I think I’ve started to chip away at it. It seems to me that if you asked the governments of Norway and Sweden what they thought their most valuable natural resources were, I believe that one of them would be their country’s population. Everyone I met or observed here, whether the people I was doing business with here, construction workers, even the people working in convenience stores seem to have a deep rooted sense that they are doing something to benefit society and that they are valuable and contributing members. they seem to value intellect and craft, and speak well for themselves and others as a result. I find this reflected particularly in the employees of FunCom, the game developer I was there to visit. Its not hard to love what you do when you make games, but I feel that their passion for their project, their honest admission to their own doubts, and their steadfast belief in themselves stems from this ethos. It is a truly infectious outlook on the world, I feel.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my career path that I’ve been able to visit a number of amazing places in the world, and I can honestly say I’ve loved something about each and every one of them. London, Tokyo, Spain, Germany, Montreal, every single place I’ve been, I eagerly await my next trip there. My last trip to Stockholm planted a slightly different seed in my head, one that whispered that of all of these, I found a fondness there I could make a home with. Of course, that’s easy to say when you’re visiting at the peak of summer and the day is as long as you like. So I told myself that I would wait to properly make up my mind about this corner of the world until I’d been back in the winter. Now that I have, I have to owe up – I could live here and be very happy.

If you would like to see the rest of my photos from this trip, head over this way.

First post!

“We come from the land of the ice and snow

from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands

To fight the horde, singing and crying:

Valhalla, I am coming!”

But sometimes, I get ahead of myself.

I created this blog with the attention of trying to draw more attention to my photography and provide some words and stories behind the images, to give it some context. But along that thought process, I realized that I might have a few other bits to say on a few other topics, so this will be a bit of a catchall, although trying to keep things focused on a few topics that I tend to be either shouty or opinionated on. At least it will provide some guidance so I don’t let this thing dissolve into making you read about what I had for breakfast or the patters of soapscum on my shower wall.

But like all photo blogs I really should get on with some photos, in trying to keep things chronologically relevant what you are about to see is my second attempt at doing some rock photography. My first, which was largely incidental, came from my role as event photographer for the Devil Dolls Motorcycle Club benefit for an adorable young girl with Rett Syndrome. I walked into the thing expecting to shoot a whole lot of people and artwork, but it was the six punk rock and rockabilly acts that really took center stage for me. That’s really what planted the itch for doing more photography of the fine art of rocking, but opportunities hadn’t really presented themselves to give me the chance.

Well, at least until Saturday. My friend and coworker Steve Beacham with his band Beercraft were playing a commercial shot for the new Linden St. Brewery in Oakland and invited us out. After making sure that me taking pictures wasn’t going to get in the way of the commercial production, he enthusiastically encouraged me to lug the rig out.

While Beercraft played most of their set as the last of the days light went away, this show had pretty much the same challenging lighting I recall from the last time I saw them play. But for playing at a warehouse loading dock, its hard to really expect a lot more. Thankfully, the combination of sodium lights, neons and the odd incandescent managed to give a satisfying amount of color to the shots while still remaining fairly workable. But I’m pretty sure the next tie I shoot for them, I’m going to bring out a few shop lights, if for no other reason than to make my job a little easier. That and I was using a rented 580ex speedlite flash, to varying degrees of success. Once finished, their friends in the crowd One in the Chamber took up the stage and I shot them using natural light and my 50mm f/1.8. All in all, I am much happier with what I got out of the set

.

If you’d like to see the rest of the pictures, go here.

The upshot of all of this is that my aforementioned friend Steve runs Headchange Studios, so he works with a lot of bands in the area – and assured me he’ll be trying to set me up with more rock photo gigs in the future.

The quote at the top of the page isn’t anything more than a nod to what I’m doing as I write this, which is sitting in the airport in Newark, New Jersey waiting for the plane to board to shuttle me off to Oslo, Norway. Having been to a Scandinavian country only once before, I’m pretty excited to go again, even accepting the fact that it will be much colder now than the last time I was in Sweden. I’m a touch underprepared as I need both a warm hat and some shaving gel, but this is the sort of thing that I really enjoy buying on foreign shores, to me they’re more meaningful souvenirs than whatever kitsches you might otherwise find. Besides that, foreign toiletries are the best.