Thirty five years ago I worked briefly with a Yankee fella in Melbourne.  We got along well & caught up for beers on one of his later Aussie trips.  Recently we reconnected via LinkedIn after I informed the world I'd retired.  We got talking and it turns out that he's still into bikes & in particular dirt bikes.

My original plan had been to arrive in LA with helmet in hand, buy a bike - any bike - and start touring from there.  That would have been tricky, but possible.  

However, John found a bike "up the road" from his home town that sounded the goods.  It's an '07 Suzuki DR650 already equipped with a heap of overland travelling add-ons.  Even better, the town "up the road" was covered in snow, discouraging buyers, so it was keenly priced.  He did the deal a couple of months before we flew out.

Isn't she lovely?

John is aiming to get into classic motorcycle circuit racing.  He wanted to visit a club race weekend in Buttonwillow, California, to see what goes on, about the time I was flying in from Hawaii.  What a neat co-incidence.

Having driven 800 miles from home in Colorado, he gritted his teeth and endured the Los Angeles traffic madness at peak on a weekday morning, to grab me from LAX.  What a godsend!  A couple of hours later, we were in California's Central Valley at the locality of Lost Hills.

Lost Hills: Two highways meet at a cross, with seven gas stations + two hotels + a dozen Mexican food trucks + a hundred semis running their refrigeration all night. That's it.

I'm trusting the USA has more to offer than Lost Hills.

Ten miles away is Buttonwillow raceway.  Over three sunny days we chatted with other motorcycle nuts and watched them do battle. John asked a heap of good questions on how to prepare his Honda NT650 Hawk for joining them on track.  Everyone was most welcoming.
 

Note the Kiwi fern on the tank.  At least this one could understand me.

A Le Mans start for tiddlers (e.g. Honda 160s).  Old blokes on old bikes.

The big drive from Cali to Colorado had constantly varying countryside: mountain passes, open desert plains, many spectacular rocky features.  I kept looking for Wile E. Coyote.

Sure, we have deserts in Australian, but we have to ride thousands of kms on corrugated dirt roads to visit them. Here, we had a luxurious strip of tar with two lanes each way and rest stops.

The route passed through Navajo Nation reservation land.  We chatted about many of the landscape features, local cultural aspects and place names as we went.  Fascinating.

Are U2 around here?

By and by we arrived at John’s home town of Durango, down in the “four corners” south west of Colorado.

What a lovely town. It's nestled in a valley with slopes of varied coloured rock strata, snow on peaks in the distance and historic buildings; there's even a heritage steam train service reminiscent of our own Puffing Billy.
 

Durango is big on outdoor activities: bicycle riding, white water rafting/kayaking, hiking, skiing et cetera.  There's even a downhill ski run within the town.

John threw me into the Animis River on a “ducky” (inflatable kayak) for white water lessons.

The Animis runs right through town with grade III rapids.  “Just follow me” he says & having never been in white water I did just that.  Oh boy, kinda exciting for a few moments.  It’s so hard to see the drops from upstream so suddenly bang! you’re headed into a hole in the water and have to paddle like buggery to get up over the standing wave.  A bunch of local surfers (yep, they surf the standing waves in the river) cheered us on.

John’s generosity continued. I’ve been in the lap of luxury in his guest room and given the run of his garage to prepare
the DR for travel.

Told you he was a good bloke

Susan, John's girlfriend, has charmed with lively chat over meals.  We’ve met up with many of John’s friends, often at a convivial breakfast or dinner.  It seems everyone is active in a mix of outdoor activities.  All have made me welcome.  I can't help but imagine Kirsten loving this town & fitting in well with these good folk.

I have a new best friend: Diane of the local DMV ("VicRoads").  Getting the bike registered in my name was looking shaky from the other side of the Pacific.  In the end, it was pretty darn easy, even with a foreign license.  Diane wanted to help me. I’m gunna take her back home to educate our local bureaucrats on true customer service.

We headed out for a squirt up a nearby dirt road.  What a relief, getting back on two wheels.

The man himself, also on a DR650

My bike has a few minor things to fix up, plus I'd like to increase the luggage size for all my crap. So I'll be twirling spanners for a few more days.

Tomorrow six of us head out rafting down the Green River in Utah, though Desolation and Gray Canyons.  It's said to be one of the most isolated areas in the lower 48. Enter at one spot, exit 84 miles and a week later.  All new to me.  What could go wrong?
 

American culture: sure, there are minor differences: taps, light switches & steering wheels are all arse about face, but here are the two big ones so far:

• Being called “sir” by anyone in a store.  In Aus, only soldiers + defendants use that term.
• Motorcycle riders greet each other with a left hand wave, index finger extended, rather than a sideways nod.  Much clearer.