Robert Bronsdon (Hollywood Rob) October 2018
Last week my brother and I set out upon a road trip on our motorcycles. We made two rides with the express goal of traveling along the most iconic motorcycle roads in the US. First we rode up route 1 from LA to Carmel, and then we rode from LA to Gallup New Mexico on route 66/40. In Gallup I turned around to get home before the hurricane hit from Baha and my brother continued on to get back to his home in Pennsylvania. For me it was seven days of riding over eight days and for him it was eleven days of riding over twelve days. For me, it was over 2000 miles. For him, I don’t know yet because he just got home but somewhere over 3600 miles.
We rode along the California coast through landslides and fog. We rode across deserts with temperatures above 100. We rode on mornings when the temperature was below 50. We rode on two lane blacktop across countless miles of trackless grassland and we rode through forests of pine and aspen getting as high up as 9000 feet. Sometimes we rode on seemingly endless ribbons of dead straight highway and sometimes we rode on mountain roads so treacherous that some corners could only be taken at ten mph.
And universally, I would have to say, my experience was overwhelmingly positive. The people that we met along the way were happy and excited. The roads that we used were well maintained and the places that we stopped for food or gas or lodging were all nice. People of all races were going about their business with kindness and good will. There were, of course, Indians. We were, after all, traveling through reservations for a good part of the trip. They were all proud to show you what they had to sell, and they made the best cherry pie of the whole ride. There were many Japanese and Chinese tourists. They couldn’t navigate the roads very well but they were on holiday. Anyone who has had to deal with the difficulties of navigating through a country that does not speak your language can understand how difficult it is just to find gas for your car and then you have to figure out how to pump it because these days nobody is there to do it for you.
There were huge packs of European tourists riding route 66 on rented Harleys. They spoke among themselves in just about every language you could imagine and yet, they were having the experience of a lifetime riding across your country. They were seeing with new eyes the sights that you see every day and to them it was a wonder. They marvel at traveling for days to cross one state when they can cross their entire country in a few hours. They love to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona and wait to see if a girl my lord in a flatbed ford will slow down to take a look at them.
It is easy to sit in your house and complain that everything is going to shit. It is easy to drive around this country and find desolation and squalor and to assume that it is all bad roads and boarded up businesses. But it is not that. There is that, but there is also great beauty. There are wonderfully smooth paved roads and there are people working hard to repair and maintain them. There are nice hotels in the middle of nowhere and yes, they need to have guards to ensure that nobody sneaks into the lot to steal anything, but they do have guards.
Route 1, the west coast highway, has been closed for most of this year because the rains caused several landslides that entirely removed the land that the road was built upon. In less than one year, people, Californians, working around the clock managed to stabilize the slopes, rebuild the bridges, create a landslide tunnel, and to completely rebuild the road where the landslide occurred. Why did Californians spend the money? Why did Californians work so hard? Well I am sure that a lot of them knew that they needed to make hay while the sun shone, but in the end, the road that they repaired needed to be there and it needed to be open and the reason that it needed to be open was that people wanted to drive on it to see the beauty of this country. Your country. You know, the one that contains the thirty blocks. The one that contains Detroit, and Chicago, and Baltimore. Well it also has Big Sur. It has the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert. It has the Skyline Drive.
So my suggestion; get out and see it. Go take a look at the good. Go and see the people who are working every day to make their little piece of the good even nicer. It is in their best interest that they do so. It benefits you that they make the effort. Reward their effort with your dollars so that they might prosper and that you might be inspired. Ride on the roads that they worked on. Buy your food from them. Sleep in the beds that they prepared. And then, ask yourself this one question.
How does the contribution that you make to this country compare to the one that they make every day?
If your answer is that you have made a greater contribution then good on you. If it is not, how can you find a way to improve the contribution that you make? Maybe you create the jobs that they have. Maybe you buy the products that they sell. Maybe you sell them the products that they need. There are many ways to make America great again. Which ones are you doing? Which ones am I doing? How do we do a better job at being an American? How do we, you and me, make America great again?
In summer 2017 we were out at a campground and in the lot across from us pulled up a young man on a motorcycle, Adam. Since the SO and his dad are riders, they went over and spoke to him. He had been going from the east coast to the west, and was on his way back (near the Colorado/Utah border). He’d been living off dehydrated food and was real happy to join in our dinner of fresh grilled chicken fajitas with local grown onions and peppers, grilled corn on the cob followed by peach/cherry cobbler with home made vanilla ice cream. They all spoke at length about the best route back through the mountains. I couldn’t help but think what a great adventure for a young man, with a lady waiting at home when he gets back. Too bad she didn’t come along for the ride!
Great composition! Thanks Hollywood Rob for this great Sunday read. Keep on truckin’ (or moto’in’)!!
No one with more than two brain cells would deny that this a wonderful county with mostly wonderful people. Conversely, no one with more than two brain cells would disagree that our government sucks.
The wife and I took a 10,500 mile trip from Fl, out west and back. At west TX we turned north thru NM, from northern CO turned west down and down thru UT and AZ. From San Diego, up the coast to OR. Rented a couple of 650 Suzuki V-Stroms in Portland. Across ID and on to SD where we rented a couple more in Sturgis. We didn’t haul our bikes because of the distance and a CVT on our Murano. We took 7 weeks to get-er-done. We couldn’t agree more with HR. Fantastic country we have filled with marvelous people.
If you get a wild hair, try Moto-Quest. They rent motorcycles for trips all over the world.
Awesome post!
Thank you.
Drive through LA.
https://www.weaselzippers.us/399038-typhus-reaches-epidemic-levels-in-parts-of-los-angeles-area/
If this isn’t fixed now, it’s going to metastasize throughout the entire country. Sure, you can still find places in America that haven’t been ruined yet. Yet.
Things aren’t OK, and pretending they are fine is only going to ensure our destruction.
I almost commented the same on the post about flu shots. Typhus vaccine:
Typhus vaccines are vaccines developed to protect against typhus.[1] As of 2017 they are not commercially available.[2][3][4]
One typhus vaccine consists of formaldehyde-inactivated Rickettsia prowazekii. Two doses are injected subcutaneously four weeks apart. Booster doses are required every six to twelve months.
I received typhus vac when stationed in Turkey but likely not much good now.
I had a friend tell me one time that “gratitude” is the awareness of blessings.
For the most part, and for the time being, we live an amazingly fortuitous time and place; especially when compared to other nations.
Dentistry alone is one of the best things in this time period.
Absolutely! As a kid and young adult ,I had many memorable toothaches. I haven,t had one since 1969. Modern dentistry is one of the greatest blessings from God through the white mans civilization.
Premise of the post is laudable. I have a ‘yeah, but’ however.
So what’s next?
Any plans to travel and see the good that the shithole cities you mention have to offer?
Didn’t think so. No hope for them.
Those places don’t qualify, under the prejudice of outsiders, especially those on the coasts.
Them damn old negative stereotypes.
Can try to kill them, but, they just keep getting reinforced. At times, legitimately.
Cuz ugly garners more attention than the pockets of glass half full you describe that are there, too.
At other times, illegitimately, by those from afar, with no clue about what locals see every day.
Internet search for examples and statistics to support their bias, vs. spending time there.
Twenty-plus years on the road taught me it’s all about location and the inhabitants.
Some people are just unredeemable human shaped piles of shit.
Some people are different when taken out of their natural habitat and away from their “Homies”.
That applies to Manhattan, Martha’s Vineyard, and the SF Bay, as well as East LA, Harlem, and Fly-Over Country.
Meatball , I agree there is alot of great places to see and things to do for now. After all our money still has some value and people can still eat themselves to death. There is fuel for your motorcycle Plus we haven’t been completely overrun by people from third world hell holes who will eventually turn this nation into a hell hole. We should count all our wonderful blessing that God is most definitely going to take away sooner then you think and then all the warm fuzzy feelings you have will be gone with the wind. You see God in nothing. I see God in everything especially history and history is God’s Judgements . Enjoy the ride while you can. Your oh shit moment is calling.
Just wondering did you carry a pistol with you ?
All you say about the wonderful people, the panoramic vistas, and good interstate roads is confirmed by my recent 7000 mile trek. Get off the big roads and away from small towns and large, the material poverty from the Atlantic ocean to the Rockies left a lasting impression. On a res, we passed by what looked like an RV graveyard. The rigs were peoples’ homes. Saw more living conditions than one would like that rivaled my memories of driving through the Natchez trace in the 70s. And the best part of the trip were the many grounded and generous people I encountered. Add to that the well documented urban blight, we are in deep guano when the banking house of cards is blown down and pandering politicians produce nothing. There is no safe homestead.
The trip described was part of the one we just took. The beauty of it is awesome. But the conclusions reached are vastly different between Rob and I.
What I saw was a decaying civilization. I saw despair everywhere in Gallup. I saw the Indians in great trouble. I saw illegal immigrants everywhere. I saw poverty. I saw enormous taxes. I saw huge numbers of people living in areas they should not live, facing severe water issues. I saw ill health.
Amazing how two sets of eyes can see the world so differently.
Yes. That is exactly the point.
So what you are saying is that one of us is blind as a bat, and the other one of us is me!
?
All that, and you don’t tell us what you’re riding? I’m guessing you’re a BMW man, mostly because I don’t figure you for a sadist. Sounds like a great trip either way. There’s something about being out on the open road on two wheels that tends to melt away just about everything other than the moment.
BTW, if you haven’t yet read Ridley’s “The Rational Optimist” I think you’d enjoy it.
Nope. Rode my Harley the whole way. No sissy bagger. No sissy windshield. My brother rode the BMW.
Well, the highways do need oiling, so thanks for your service. 😉
Great post, Rob. Road trips on motorcycles are something that everyone should do at least once, whether you like bikes or not. It saddens me that I will never own another motorcycle. I did all mine when I was younger, and too many people count on me to take even the small risk that even occasional riding brings. But talk about a spectacular way to travel. It helps to be quite flexible. Weather matters. Traffic matters. But it is so good for your inner being. Llpoh, the best thing about your move down under, is that is brought you some inner peace. That’s a great thing. But it’s not so bad here, and for reasons you throw out all the time. This is the land of opportunity for the driven. Still. All that slack you see that horrifies you, looks like lack of competition to me. I spent the last three years rebuilding something big that I had let set for quite a while. I see nothing ahead but good things. It has been a zig when I would prefer to have zagged, but still a good read of what’s coming. All of the economic numbers are crooked, there is no question about that. But they are still astronomically better. And if we take the weight of supporting the world off of our shoulders, we are the entire game once again. Will globalization have been worth it? Time will tell. Will the missing generation of entrepreneurial Americans be the end of us? It’s possible. Depends how we sort things out in the next decade I guess. But if I had nothing, there’s no place in the world I would rather be. You know as well as I do, probably better than I do, how hard actual upward mobility is. What most people don’t realize, is that it has always been hard. Free money is coming to an end. Sure, lots of people made out that were really quite undeserving. That’s okay, without the proper mindset they or their progeny will lose it quick enough. I watch it happen everyday
Star – glad to see you are upbeat. Good job. Yes, opportunity will present itself for the prepared. I just am afraid of the govt grabbing everything from those that have done the right thing then redistributing it. Plus there are just too many damn people.
I am enjoying the insanity of the left as Trump wrings their tails at the moment re SCOTUS. That pleased me no end.
It is great to see such an upbeat story for a change.
I have driven (in a car) across the USA twice in the last 4 years and traveled the southeast extensively by motorcycle. The car trips were from LA to Fort Lauderdale FL and Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale. The only Interstate traveled on was I70 between Salina and Grand Junction. No matter how you feel about the interstates that piece is worth it. It’s like driving through a John Ford/John Wayne western. Beautiful. The trips took 21 days and 24 days respectively.
Rob and Lloph are both right. The good and the bad are always there and always together. Which one you see depends greatly on who you are at heart and how you feel at the time.
Motorcycles are wonderful machines. When you ride you feel free and at one with your surroundings. To bad they share the road with Buick’s and pick-ups.