CATS, CATS, CATS

8 OCTOBER
DUTCHESS COUNTY, NY
A stallion snorts close by in a paddock to the rear of the house. Horses are messy eaters. Rats and mice would thrive but for the cats. A striped grey cat sits on a small grey plastic children's slide. A black cat preens itself beneath a bigger yellow slide. A marmalade cat washes its self on a chair. A fourth cat eats at the feeder on the table. I sip excellent coffee made in a wondrous machine that grinds fresh beans for each cup.

PIGEONS ON THE ROOF

8 OCTOBER
DUTCHESS COUNTY, NY
Friday and a crisp clear Autumn morning on the horse farm in Dutchess County, New York. I count seventeen pigeons sunning themselves on the barn roof. Why count? Why not?

END OF JOURNEY

17/18 SEPTEMBER
LA VERNE
A stiff head wind along the coast slows us. Turn inland and we ride through a splendid hill country of vast commercial vineyards and acre upon acre of plastic tunnel. Big John is expert in navigating the border with the US. Joe and I follow as he weaves and squeezes between long lines of waiting cars and trucks. The US immigration officer examines my passport. Mexico doesn't register as having left the US. “You entered in New York?” he says and waves me through. We load the bikes onto a California Scooter Company truck and the journey is done.
A night in a La Verne motel, a late brunch with Joe and his wife, then off to Ontario airport in joe's Corvette – Wow!

FIT FOR PURPOSE

j indiana jonesing


17 SEPTEMBER
TO TIJUANA
Here are a few musings from the road. J's modern Power Wagon is a powerful and effective off-road vehicle and delightfully comfortable. My opinion, it is not a vehicle for what I think of as an expedition. It is too complicated.
The rule for an expedition vehicle: Something breaks, can you fix it?
In my early twenties, I spent three months at a time in the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia, Northern Frontier District of Kenya and what is now northern Somalia. There were no roads, not even dirt roads. Transport was an early model Landrover and the original bright yellow Dodge Powerwagon – by today's standards, primitive vehicles. Crew were a Somali driver for the Dodge, a Somali interpreter and an elderly Ethiopian cook. A ten-ton Thornycroft truck brought supplies every fortnight (if it could get through). I carried spare leaf-springs, plugs, petrol pump, points, rotary arm and a distributor cap, a dozen or so inner tubes and boxes of hot patches (ten punctures a day in thorn country was common until a genius invented the gaiter). Communication was by radio early mornings. The radio was a heavy 19 Set used in Centurion tanks. Rig up a long aerial between two trees and I could usually get through to base. The radio was too heavy to carry in the Landrover when I was away from my camp – often for two or three days when exploring the territory - and I would leave the Powerwagon; it used too much gas.
My Landrover beat the hell out of me. I cursed it often, cursed the designer. However it was fit for purpose. It got me in, enabled me to do my work and got me back – and when it broke I could fix it. Same went for the Powerwagon.

JUMP START

17 SEPTEMBER
TO TIJUANA
6 a.m. and we breakfast at a restaurant next door to the hotel. A half day will bring us to the border. We pile our gear into the PowerWagon. Luxury creates its own problems: the PowerWagon's battery is dead. Someone must have forgotten to switch off the microwave or the espresso machine or the ice maker or the water heater in the 2nd bathroom. The kindly restaurateur jump-starts the PowerWagon from his beat-up pickup...

MAMA ESPERANSA

SEPTEMBER 16
ONWARD NORTH
Visiting Mama Esperansa's restaurant in El Rosario is a right of passage for California's bikers. Biker memorabilia cover the walls and ceiling - cards, group photographs, insignia caps, sweatshirts. Joe calculates that the present owner is third generation. She is an ample woman in her fifties. We have had a great ride. In adolescent mood, I tease the waitresses and have them giggling. What's good in sea food? Crab soup, fresher than fresh...
A large crab chopped in quarters swims in a big bowl of broth. Delicious.
I finish and the owner comes by. How was it, grandfather?
Perfection.
There is more broth in the pot, she says and has the waitress serve me a refill.
Such is the reward for speaking Spanish!
Onward a further sixty miles to San Quentin and a modern hotel on Main Street. We have been on the road twelve hours and traveled 325 miles – good going for a mini motorcycle. This old man heads for a hot shower and bed. Big John, as ever kind, brings me ice cream and a choice of sticky cakes!