Getting some traction with a motorcycle and enjoying the sunrise

23/4 - Finally. Some traction.

24/5 - I wrote the two sentences above more than a month ago.

Since those two sentences came into being, I have not had the desire to write; the fire just isn't there.

It's smoldering, as if a bucket of water were thrown over a campfire.

There have been reasons to write, sure.

• I have a part time job now that I don't hate.
• I found myself in the newsroom of the Sacramento Bee, in a one-on-one meeting with a frizzy-haired and foul-mouthed editor of the newspaper. The collar of his shirt wasn't buttoned, and neither was mine (though the rest of my suit was flawless). 
• I had a job interview at a local credit union, and I showed up 15 minutes early prepared with two copies of my resume, dressed in a suit and shook the manager's hand firmly.
• I skipped rocks in the American River with good friends. 
• I completed a road trip to San Luis Obispo to visit a former coworker and be the designated driver. 

But, I don't want to write. 

No more for tonight, at least.

16/7 - To celebrate being rejected for yet another job, I rented a motorcycle for 24 hours this past weekend in Sacramento and headed into the mountains with a fellow motorcycling friend.

The last time I rented a bike, of course, was during those five glorious days in England back in 2015. This time, I saddled up a 2014 Honda VFR800 sport touring machine. It was similar to the Suzuki SV650S I rode in England, but this bike had more power. It also came with two saddle bags, in which I stored my sleeping bag, water and a pair of shoes. It cost approximately $200 to rent the Honda for 24 hours, and that includes the insurance and rental of other equipment such as Snell-approved helmet and gloves.

The Honda VFR800 is the white bike. We parked our bikes off the road and behind a tree for the night. No one bothered the bikes or us.

Riding a motorcycle is an intense activity, one that requires constant concentration. It's mentally and physically taxing because there are so many factors that need your attention. All four of your limbs have to operate a different lever (shifting, front brake, back brake and throttle), you have to pay attention to imperfections in the road, and you have to ride defensively. After a time, though, you become more connected to the machine and every action takes less thought. Riding plants a permanent grin on my face and sometimes forces me to giggle and whoop inside my helmet which no one else but me can hear or experience.

Being in the saddle of these machines is the greatest high I can think of, one that is healthy for the soul. During my trip to Glasgow, Scotland a few years ago in a car with several other people and a dog, we found a quote on a shop window that was easy to miss, but it applies to this adventure:

"Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul."

For 24 hours this weekend, the two wheels of the Honda moved my soul. If only for a short time, my issues and troubles melted away, ditched in the valley where they had no chance to follow (or keep up).

There was no destination in mind for this adventure. My buddy and I met on Madison Avenue in Sacramento, so we headed east on I-80 into Auburn and turned down Highway 49. We went through Cool and turned onto Highway 193 and rolled into Georgetown, where there was a large group of old, grizzled bikers with wild, gray beards outside of a bar, dressed all in black.

We turned onto Wentworth Springs Road and left most of the traffic behind, though we were still blessed with smooth, curvy roads. After a period of impressive views through patches of burned-out forest, we then turned onto Ice House Rode and eventually found our place for the night: Loon Lake. We parked our bikes on a turnoff right after the dam and found a spot on top of a rocky outcrop directly above the road on which to lay our sleeping bags.

We set up camp after all light had faded the night before. Tentless camping was a positive experience.

There were thunderheads in the area the night we arrived. I heard raindrops during the night, but it was short.

This act marked a first for me: Before this weekend, I had never slept under the stars without a tent. Both of us laid our pads on the unforgiving rock below us and placed our sleeping bags on top.

Surprisingly, I did not have issues with mosquitoes considering how close we were to the lake. Sleep came easily around 10 p.m., but not before I admired the bright crescent moon and the countless stars in the black sky, surrounding the Milky Way. I woke up at Dawn, greeted by the silent landscape of the still lake and dark, surrounding peaks like a loving partner would do in bed.

We had the fortune of watching a sunrise over the lake, and we saw how much it developed, changing by the second. Sunrays exploded every direction in slow motion, placing a spotlight on clouds far out to the west. The orange-reddish color of the early morning sun mixed with the purple and blue of the surrounding water and sky, and it set fire to the clouds closest to it.

This was taken with my iPhone 5. Sadly, cameras can not do scenes like this justice.

All we had to do was sit back, sip some instant coffee and enjoy the show.

It was a weekend filled with joy, peppered with bouts of giggling and a pinch of wonder. Twice I enjoyed skinny dipping and once I dropped the bike onto its side. And once, I made it back to the century mark on the speedometer somewhere in the area of Pollock Pines on Highway 50; the world travels by quickly at that speed, and nothing else matters besides the loud whine of the hard-charging engine and the feeling of a wide smile refusing to vacate my face.

Train stations, San Francisco views and more photos

2/3 - One thing I deeply miss about exploring new places is pounding the cold and indifferent streets on foot with a heavy backpack loaded with dirty, smelly clothes, a bottle of water, food, my wrinkled passport and some sort of charging cable to a device with a cracked screen.

I hadn't been able to do that until this previous Sunday when I visited San Francisco for the day to visit an old friend. This was also the first time I had used CalTrain to enter the city; a day pass from Sunnyvale cost only $7, along with a small fee to park my car. The ride from Sunnyvale to the 4th Street CalTrain station in San Francisco took a little less than an hour.

As I stepped off the train and walked towards the station on the platform, between two large and imposing trains, I had a flashback of the train station in Cherbourg. I had been on that platform at all times of the day in all kinds of weather, always the launch or conclusion of some adventure to a new or familiar place. Train stations have a similar effect on me as airports, in that I get feelings of anxiety, nervousness, excitement and giddiness. They are the starting or ending points of developing memories and experiences.

My destination after exiting the train was the Asian Art Museum, about two miles away. So, sporting a broken-in pair of leather Converse and a Nikon D3300 camera in my backpack, I set off on foot. Since it was San Francisco, I kept seeing many opportunities for a photo but I chose to simply observe them; I wanted to just enjoy the walk.

I passed some interesting scenes that made an assault on my senses. On 6th Street, I smelled marijuana among a small crowd of beaten-down and weathered homeless people, with some hurried grafitti decorating the walls along the cracked sidewalk. On Folsom Street, home to one of the biggest fetish and kink festivals in the world once per year, I caught sight of a "Help Wanted" sign in the door of a seedy, dark-colored adult video store. I vaguely wondered about whether the gig is full time and the kind of clients the store serves.

Once I had crossed Market Street and was close to the museum, I had to dodge defeated-looking homeless people sitting on the ground. Some of them had laid there heads right there on cement steps. Some sat against hard, gray walls. It made me wish I could help in some way more long term compared to giving one person the solitary, red apple in my backpack.

The rest of the day was a bit happier, as I met my friend and he got me into the museum for free. Typical admission for an adult non-member is $15 and $25 for special exhibits. I spent a little bit more than two hours in the museum, even after only skimming the later parts of the building.

Every time I go to San Francisco these days, it seems I end up somewhere new. This time, my friend and I found our way to Corona Heights, which is a hill that has a great view of the entire City as well as the Bay. It's a hill that juts up from the urban jungle and once you navigate the many wooden stairs up a gravelly incline, one has rocky hilltop on which to stand or sit. It is a perfect spot to watch a sunrise or sunset.

A few rapid Lyft rides and a Greek gyro later, we found ourselves in The Castro, which has the largest gay population in any city in America, according to the New York Times in 2015. This neighborhood is definitely one of the most colorful places I've entered, as even the crosswalks are a rainbow of colors in contrast to the usual white lines of most everywhere else. I appreciated it because it was so out of the ordinary of everyday life.

That trip was refreshing because it brought back memories of European adventure. It was a small taste of what I have been missing. Though it really was only a day trip, I enjoyed myself nonetheless. It was small injection of travel, a passion of mine.

3/3 - Since my last post, times have been tough. The job hunt was demoralizing; I finally gave in and took a temp warehouse job and accepted a part time paint delivery job, both in Woodland. From not working for the past year and a half, I will go to working 60-70 hours a week.

Talk about culture shock.

I also participated in the local art walk in Woodland a month ago, and I enjoyed the process of setting up a show of my own photography. Some of the photos below were showcased.

Somewhere along I-80 on the way to Reno, NV.

Donner Lake - this was entered into an international photography contest.

Yolo Bypass Wildlife Refuge at sunset

This is a photo of Christmas lights on the outside of a house. I shot through the bottom of a wine glass and then in Photoshop, I inverted the colors and then posterized it to give it the effect of a painting.

I was lucky enough to catch headlights of a large truck with this shot in the country between Woodland and Davis.

Point Isabel is a dog park in the East Bay, facing San Francisco and Marin County. This was the very first shot I took after jumping out of my car in excitement.

This bit of Sacramento street photography was total luck, as I saw the two priests hesitate when they saw me taking a photo. I am thankful they kept walking. This has been entered into a photography contest.