Brandon O'Brien

Sunday, July 15, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

It rained off and on throughout the night last night. I actually slept pretty well with my new Yellowstone fleece jacket on. I only remember waking up being a little cold once. The first time I woke up it was around 5:45am but I convinced myself to fall back to sleep for a little while longer since we weren't really in a hurry today. I finally ended up getting out of the tent around 7 and Ryan followed soon there after.

For breakfast I tried the Mountain House Scrambled Eggs w/ Bacon and it was pretty good. I was a bit shocked that the serving had 113% of your daily intake of cholesterol though. Ryan had the Mountain House Granola w/ Milk and Bananas and said it was also good and filling.

We were camped next to a couple other older bikers who were from out east and were completing a rather large trip through many of the northern states.

The plan for today was to take a tour through Yellowstone making sure we saw Yellowstone Canyon and Old Faithful. Today was looking to be much nicer than yesterday which was great. We could actually see our surroundings today and wouldn't be freezing.

We packed up our tents and got everything loaded back onto our bikes and were on our way to explore around 9:00. We made sure to turn our GoPro cameras on today so we could get some good footage of the park. Our first destination was Yellowstone Canyon. This is a very cool canyon that has a giant waterfall and river running through it. The canyon itself is very colorful. We took some photos there and then made our way around to Old Faithful, stopping at several geysers and hot springs along the way to soak in the views.

The only animals we saw today were some bison that were causing quite the backups. We were both hoping to see some bears or moose but weren't lucky enough this time around. By the time we reached Old Faithful, I was extremely hungry. It was around noon and my breakfast had worn off after a couple hours.

Our first order of business was to go into the visitor center to try and find out more information about getting me a new park pass issued since I had lost mine yesterday. They said there was nothing they could do and told me to head over to one of the entrances and they might be able to help more. I was a little discouraged but then saw that Old Faithful was set to erupt very soon so Ryan and I went outside to get a closer view. Old Faithful itself is cool to see, but after it blows water up a few times that's about all it's going to do. We decided to beat the rush and went into the Old Faithful lodge to eat lunch. We were seated and I noticed our server mentioned he was from Indiana on his name tag. He ended up being from Fort Wayne and went to IPFW (a Purdue extension in Fort Wayne). I went to Purdue in West Lafayette and knew some people who went to IPFW.

After lunch we went back into the Visitor Center so I could get my National Parks passport stamped and Ryan bought a Yellowstone sticker for his panniers. We fueled up and set off for our campground at Henry's Lake, ID.

The rest of the ride through Yellowstone was nice as we had some nice scenery and little traffic. There was one small spot we got rained on a bit, but it only lasted a few minutes and wasn't very heavy. We got to the West Entrance so I pulled over to ask about the national park pass. The guy said unfortunately there wasn't anything they could do since the park pass doesn't actually have any personal information associated with it and there was no way to look me up in any kind of system. Since the lady who sold it to me didn't give me a receipt it left me with even fewer options. He gave me the phone number for the gas station I thought I left it at, but then when I called it said the number is no longer in service. I'm still not sure what to do because being out 80 bucks really sucks.

We quickly made it to our campground at Henry's Lake around 3:00pm where we were greeted with some awesome views. Apparently that same storm that hit Yellowstone last night also hit here and caused some severe winds to blow through along with extremely heavy rains. as of 7:30pm when I'm writing this we haven't had any bad weather yet so we're hoping it holds out. We immediately set about putting up our tents so we could get that out of the way.

We mixed some gatorade with vodka and relaxed for a bit, knowing that tomorrow is going to be a very long day. After a few drinks we decided it was time for dinner. I had the Mountain House Lasagna w/ Meat Sauce and Ryan had the Mountain House Chili Mac w/ Cheese. We also had the Backpacker's Pantry Mocha Moose Pie for dessert which was good.

We tried starting a little fire but everything was too wet from the rains the previous night. Ryan then decided to go test out the free showers and said the water was nice and hot. I'll be doing that shortly and then we'll be heading off to bed. As I said earlier, we've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow where we'll be covering quite a distance.

Teaser photos:

Our camp site in the morning

Yellowstone Canyon. Thanks to an advrider for telling us about this in our ride prep thread! The view from here was amazing.

We had to stop and see Old Faithful erupt. We watched it for about a minute then ran inside to get some lunch before the mass crowd did the same thing.

We got to our campsite pretty early and had a chance to set up in the sun and relax for a bit.

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Tags: motorcycle

Posted from: United States

Saturday, July 14, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

Today started with us waking up around 5:30am and getting ready. We packed up all of our cloths and other miscellaneous items we had out the night before. We left Ryan's house around 7:00am and he needed to fuel up. By the time he was finished with that and I had given my chain a good lubing, we set out around 7:15. We made our way toward Fort Collins where the GPS had us take HWY 287 instead of the interstate. We were glad we did since the roads were empty and we passed through some awesome terrain. We continued on to Rawlins, WY where we stopped for lunch at Subway. The weather looked like it was going to rain soon so we put on our rain gear. It ended up not raining so we ended up sweating like crazy. We eventually stopped and took the rain gear off again in an effort to cool down. After another couple hours of riding, the sky started looking very ominous as we entered the Shoshoni National Forest. We made it another half hour before we had to stop and put the rain gear back on. Fortunately we got the rain gear on when we did because it started raining immediately afterwards. We would be in rain from around 2:00 until 9:00.

When we entered the Grand Teton National Park we both bought a national park pass so we could come and go as we please through the national parks without having to pay entry each time. After entering the park we drove around through the rain without being able to see anything more than a couple hundred feet around us. We eventually stopped for gas just before entering Yellowstone. We went inside a service center there to dry off a bit and figure out what we wanted to do. If it kept pouring like this, setting up our tents and staying dry at night would be extremely difficult. We eventually decided to keep going and we'd pull over in Yellowstone and see if there were any cabins or lodges available.

We found another reservation center in Yellowstone and asked about availability but the only room available was 2.5 hours north. We hesitated for a bit and then she told us someone else had just booked the room. Before heading back out into the rain we decided we would head to the campground and hope it stopped raining for long enough to set up camp and eat.

We missed our turn to the campsite and ended up heading over to Old Faithful. As we stopped the rain finally let up. We walked around the geysers for a bit and checked out some of the old lodges there. I went into one of the gift shops to buy a fleece for the night so I wouldn't be so cold. Afterwards I realized that my park pass wasn't in my pocket where eI had hastily put it in the rain after purchasing it. It hadn't fallen out when I bought the fleece so my only thought is that it fell out when I was fueling up just before Yellowstone. By now all the service centers were closed and I'll have to figure out what to do about this tomorrow when they open up again.

We eventually made it to our campground around 9:30pm and had to set up our tents in the dark. There was some water falling from the trees but nothing too bad. We ate dinner (I had the Santa Fe Chicken from Backpackers Pantry and Ryan had the Spaghetti w/ Meat sauce from Mountain House). They were both good and it was nice to have some warm food in us. We packed up all of our food and put it in the bear box and then both headed off to bed before the rain was supposed to hit again.

I already posted a brief description about day one earlier. Here are some photos from our first day riding from Denver to Yellowstone.

Teaser photos:

Leaving Ryan's house in the morning. Bikes both look nice and clean at this point.

Outside of Fort Collins heading up to Wyoming

The sky is starting to look really bad. Soon after this we pull over and put on our rain gear...

All of our gear was completely soaked after 4 or 5 hours in the rain

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Tags: motorcycle

Posted from: United States

Friday, July 13, 2012 @ 5:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

Today started with me, Brandon, riding from Albuquerque, NM to Denver, CO to meet up with Ryan. I left my house at 6:30am and arrived up here in Denver around 2:00pm. The ride was pretty uneventful and the weather was nice. There was a little construction traffic along the way but nothing too terrible.

After I got up here we did a few last minute preps for our ride. We synced up our new Cardo Scala Rider G9's, got a few extra tools and got an external hard drive to backup our photos and video for the upcoming trip. Today's ride didn't really feel like the start of the journey since I've made this ride several times before. Tomorrow morning will see us heading up to Yellowstone. We have 575 miles ahead of us so we're planning on a very early start tomorrow.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's report!

Tags: motorcycle

Posted from: United States

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

I had a good sleep last night and woke up feeling pretty refreshed. My body was still pretty sore from putting on 700+ miles yesterday but it wasn't too bad. I got all of my gear packed up and started running it down to my bike and loading it up. Before leaving I decided to go down to the breakfast area and had a waffle and apple before hitting the road.

I wanted to top off the tank before leaving and luckily there was a gas station just around the corner where I fueled up. I was out of the gas station by 6:30am and fortunately beat the morning rush hour out of the city. I was back on US-54 before too long and continued my journey westward.

Unfortunately I was back into boring riding areas pretty quickly. Straight, flat and boring made up the majority of the day. I passed some cool clouds in western Kansas and a bunch of huge cattle ranches in Texas. During one of my fuelups I decided to buy a pre-made sandwich at a gas station so I could stop along the side of the road to eat. I figured this would be a lot quicker and cheaper than fast food.

I can't remember exactly where it was, but I stopped at some picnic tables along the side of the road and had some lunch next to three cops waiting for cars to come flying into town where the speed limit dropped from 65 to 35 in the matter of 1/4 of a mile or so.

After a couple more hours I was really starting to get fatigued and tired. I was extremely sore by now and just wanted to get home. I was getting so worn out from the heat and monotonous riding that I finally pulled over after I crossed into New Mexico and had a 5 hour energy to keep me going.

I made it through Tucumcari and was hoping I wouldn't have to fill up again to make it home. Unfortunately I had a rough headwind heading west on I-40 which kinda killed my mileage. My fuel light came on with about 40 miles to go in my ride. Rather than risk it I stopped in Moriarty and got some gas.

I finally made it home, unpacked some of the essentials and set about answering a ton of emails I had built up. Some friends invited me over for a fajitas dinner so I went over and had some fajitas and drinks. I was completely exhausted by like 9:30pm so I headed home to finish writing this report.

Overall the trip was a blast. The riding was a little more than I would have liked each day but now it's something I can cross off my list and say I did.

Teaser photos:

Some cool looking clouds

My lunch spot for the day

I was fading hard, so this was a much needed boost

Gigantic cattle ranches in Texas

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Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

Today I awoke to the sound of thunder rather than my alarm. I saw yesterday that there was a chance for some early morning thunderstorms rolling through Indianapolis but figured they'd all be done by the time I was ready to set out. I got up around 5:30am and got dressed and finished packing up my stuff. I finished eating breakfast a little after 6 and the storms weren't letting up yet. Fortunately they were heading east pretty quickly so it was only a matter of time. I finally decided that i should be safe leaving a little after 7am which is what I did.

I left in some rain and had to deal with steady rain and traffic for the first 45 minutes or so while I was riding west out of Indianapolis. Soon enough the dark clouds turned into white puffy clouds and then they eventually broke into sun. I hit a couple more small patches of light drizzle but was able to take my rain gear off by the time I stopped for lunch.

For lunch I had packed a smoked turkey sandwich, some carrots, apple, cookie and brownie. I ended up at a TA where I went inside and sat at one of the restaurant tables to eat. Things were really starting to warm up now and all the rain gear was getting even more uncomfortable. I took off the jacket's rain lining but left the pants rain lining on.

On the way home I decided not to take the bypass around St. Louis and instead wanted to continue on I-70 through the city so I could see the arch. There was a little bit of traffic due to construction but it wasn't enough to make me regret taking that route.

The riding was pretty uneventful interstate riding for most of the day. By the time I got to Kansas City I was really starting to feel tired. I took a little side route down US 169 in order to avoid toll roads and ended up back on 54 which I took into Wichita.

About 20 miles from Wichita I noticed several cars swerving all over the road like they were being driven by drunks. As I got a better look I realized it was just people on cell phones who had no idea how to drive. It must have been some kind of requirement that to operate a car or truck in Wichita that you must talk on your phone and swerve at least 2 feet over the line both directions a minimum of twice every minute.

Rather than camping this time around, I figured I'd stop at a hotel so I could get a proper shower and also make a little more distance on day one. I looked online and found the Wichita Inn which had the lowest price of $58 while still looking fairly reputable. I made my way here and got a room. After hauling up all of my gear I set about eating, showering and getting ready for bed.

In total today was just over 700 miles and I'm definitely feeling it. Tomorrow is going to be just under 600 miles so I should be back to Albuquerque in the early afternoon. I'm planning on getting up at 5:30am again tomorrow morning so it will give me a nice early start.

Teaser photos:

Leaving Carmel in a storm

Screenshot of the storm I'm about to ride through

Past the construction and back on the road

Taking over a hotel room. Not a bad choice for $58 for the night. I could also see my bike if I looked out my window which was nice.

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Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Monday, May 28, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

Since the race didn't get as wild yesterday as we were expecting, I was able to get to bed by a semi-reasonable time last night. I got a decent amount of sleep and woke up feeling a little groggy. I'm pretty sure that grogginess came from sitting in the sun for 8 hours yesterday, but I can't be totally sure.

After getting up and having breakfast, I relaxed for a little bit while waiting for my grandparents, uncle and his wife and his wife's sister and husband to show up. They all arrived and we broke out quite the feast. We had some filipino food, burgers, all kinds of side dishes and some good frozen mango margaritas.

We all hung out for several hours before people started heading home. I started to pay attention to the weather as they were calling for some severe thunderstorms rolling through that night. Since I was leaving bright and early in the morning I was anxious to see if I'd get rained on or not.

Since my parents and I were still fairly full from the big lunch I started to get some laundry and packing done so I wouldn't have to do it all in the morning. We ordered a pizza for dinner which was really good. I still wasn't feeling 100% so I wanted to make sure I got a good night's sleep so I decided to head upstairs around 8:30pm to finish this report and get ready for bed.

Tomorrow starts my journey back home!

Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Sunday, May 27, 2012 @ 5:00 PM in General Travel

I woke up this morning at 5:00am in order to be at my friends house by 6:00 so we could leave for the track. There were 19 of us in total so we rented a big 12 seater van and then took a Tahoe so we could carry all the coolers and the remaining people.

We got to the track around 7:00 by taking our secret route in and bypassing all the traffic. We saw some people who must have been sitting in traffic for at least a couple of hours. The news shows in the morning were showing lines of traffic that had been sitting there since about 4:00am.

After unloading all the coolers from the cars and cracking some beers we headed into the track. In total we had four coolers full of beer and two full cases of water. We zigzagged around until we finally made it to the 3rd turn and set up our chairs and coolers. It was still a little on the cool side which felt nice and made it easy to drink beer. With all of our empty beer cans we started to build out an "Indy 500" in the fence in front of us.

Part of entry to the track was free entrance to the Snake Pit where Krewella and Benny Benassi were set to put on a show. We brought a cooler in there with some beers and got to enjoy the concerts. Around 10:30 the sun finally broke above the haze and it started to warm up drastically. Benny Benassi finished his set just before noon when the race was set to start. Before we left for the concert our beer can "Indy 500" was at "IN" and when we got back people had started adding to it and were starting to spell out Indianapolis and had made it all the way to "INDIA". We quickly started adding to it to continue spelling it out.

At our seats we were all starting to feel a little miserable due to the heat. As the day drew on we all stopped drinking beers and switched to water because it was so outrageously hot. They came on the loudspeakers eventually and said we set the record for the hottest race on history for the 500 at 93 degrees.

The race itself also had broken the record for most number of leader changes which helped to make the race exciting. We made our way back to the vehicles and started our journey home. The ride back was uneventful since most of us were extremely tired from the sun.

When we got back to my friends house we grilled out some chicken, burgers and brats and had some other munchies. I came back to my parents place to shower then went back over to jump in their hot tub. It ended up being a really long day but it was worth it.

Teaser photos:

My attire for the race

Loading up the coolers. 4 coolers filled with beer, 2 coolers filled with water, 1 cooler filled with sandwiches

Benny Benassi spinning on stage

Beer can Indianapolis 500 mural

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Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Saturday, May 26, 2012 @ 5:00 PM in General Travel

Today was simply meant to be a rest day before the big race tomorrow and to handle any recovery from yesterday. I got up around 9:30am which isn't too bad considering I didn't get to bed until about 2:30am. My dad made an eggs and bacon breakfast which was really good and we started trying to figure out what we wanted to do today.

My mom wanted to get me a back and neck massage since I had spent those two full days on my bike so I let her talk me into that. I'm not really a huge fan of massages since I usually come out feeling worse than I did going into them. This one was about as expected but it still felt nice to get some of the tight spots in my back worked on.

We came back to the house and relaxed a bit before lunch which consisted of turkey sandwiches that my dad had smoked a few weeks ago. Smoked turkey sandwiches are the best if you get a chance to make them! We then ran a few errands and came back in time to have dinner with my grandparents.

I found out we were leaving from my friends house tomorrow at 6:00am so it was going to be an early night for me. I relaxed with the family for a bit and started getting ready for bed around 9 in order to get up by 5am.

They're saying tomorrow is supposed to be record setting temperatures so I've decided to bring my 3 liter camelpak with me so I can hopefully stay hydrated during the race tomorrow.

Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Friday, May 25, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

I was able to get a good night's sleep last night in a real bed. Since I wasn't meeting my friends until 10:00am I didn't have to rush waking up this morning either. After eating some cereal and relaxing for a bit I went to meet with my friends.

We hung out for a bit while waiting for a few people to make it into town then left for the track. We ended up having 15 people with us divided up into 3 cars. Traffic to the track was very minimal since we did get a late start, plus we had a different route to the track that not too many people know about.

Parking was $10 just around the corner from the entrance. We had three coolers full of beer and some chips to munch on. When we got into the track we cracked open some beers and watched some of the practice runs. We soon decided to walk around and see if we could get any free swag from the companies in booths around the infield. Chevy had a big setup with some of their ZR1 and Z06 Corvettes sitting out which were extremely cool looking.

We got a big group photo taken at the Mazda booth while half of us were wearing the Mazda sponsored track suits. Five Hour energy was giving out free samples and Banana Boat was giving out free sunscreen and cozies which came in handy. After collecting all of our free stuff we headed toward the concert area where Lynard Skynard was about to start playing. The concert ended up being a lot of fun. We got to hear a lot of classic songs including Freebird.

No one pushed their limits with the booze at the track today and we didn't see anything really crazy happen either. The temperatures were a little on the warm side but still very tolerable. It's supposed to be a lot warmer for the actual race on Sunday though which isn't going to be too fun.

After getting back from the track I came back to my parents house and showered and got ready to head to another friends house for a party. I hung out there until about 1:45am when things finally wound down and I could barely stay awake.

Teaser photos:

Our group. We're getting another round of beer in before heading into the track.

I guess we should see some cars

Heading to the Lynard Skynard concert

Emptying the coolers so we don't have to carry them all the way back to the car full of ice.

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Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States

Thursday, May 24, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

Last night was a pretty crappy night to be camping. Now don't get me wrong, it could have been much worse but it was definitely still crappy. After riding in that intense wind and heat all day I just wanted to crash out and get a good night's sleep. After setting my tent up in relative calm I finally tried to fall asleep. It was still pretty hot and the wind was starting to pick up heavily too. Add to that a nice dosage of humidity and you have yourself one hot sticky mess of a sleeping arrangement. It was too hot to try and use my sleeping bag but it was too cool to try and sleep without some kind of cover. I opted for an awkward half covering until I finally fell asleep. Then the wind really picked up. It sounded like it was going to blow the trees down and my tent kept getting blown around with them. After a couple hours of on again, off again sleeping my alarm finally went off at 5:30am.

I got up and immediately set about deflating my sleeping pad and getting my sleeping bag packed back up. After that I put on the same smelly clothes I wore yesterday and went out to start putting stuff away. Since I basically had the entire campground to myself I didn't have to worry about being quiet which made it a lot easier to get everything packed up and put away. I ended up eating a granola bar and chugged a bunch of water before brushing my teeth and putting my jacket and pants back on.

The wind was still howling but it had finally cooled off a bit during the night so the morning was pretty pleasant for a few hours (aside from having to ride sideways against the wind). I eventually made it into some more tree-filled areas and the roads started to get a little more exciting (read: not straight and flat with nothing to see for miles).

Crossing into Missouri was actually quite nice. It seemed like almost immediately the land was a little greener and the roads more hilly and twisty. I just got into the rhythm of riding sideways and following US-54 until finally I met up with I-70 just north of Jefferson City, MO. Getting on the interstate after being on a US highway for essentially all day yesterday and all of today was a bit of a downer. Dealing with semis and a lot of traffic made me realize how nice those lesser used highways really are. I hit a few construction zones and eventually made my way through Missouri and Illinois and finally into Indiana.

Just before getting onto I-465 there was another construction zone where everyone was crawling along at 5mph and this semi just decides it doesn't care if I'm in the left lane and that it was his so he just rolled on over. Fortunately even after 600+ miles and 11 hours of riding for the day I was still aware enough to see what was happening and pulled over and honked while avoiding becoming roadkill like the many deer and other wildlife along the side of the road.

The final stretch to my parents place was pretty uneventful. Fortunately I had missed the evening rush hour and made good time to their place. I got my first shower after two full days of riding which felt great. After that I had a pizza dinner with my parents and grandparents.

Time yet again for bed. Tomorrow is Carb day at the Indy 500 track. This should be a day filled with drinking and debauchery so I'm sure there will be some fun photos and stories to share with you all later.

Stats:

Teaser photos:

Riding into the sunrise

Getting a little greener

Pizza with the family

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Tags: motorcycle, indy 500

Posted from: United States