The Shleppy Chronicles

Our agenda on our second day in Death Valley was to cross the center of the park and head up and over Emigrant Pass and down Wildrose Canyon. We geared up and headed out of Beatty at around 8:00 am heading down hwy 374 towards Death Valley. Just like the day before the temperature was [...]

Day 2 started at around 2:30 AM when we woke up to the sound of breaking glass. Somewhere in the motel somebody was either trashing the inside of a motel room or throwing something, or someone, through a window. Over the next 10 minutes we heard shattering glass time and time again followed by someone [...]

The best time of year to visit Death Valley is in late fall/early winter when the temperatures drop to tolerable levels, so my buddy Noah and I headed out in December of 2011 for a couple days of dual sport motorcycle riding. We rolled out of Southern California, headed up hwy 15 and peeled off [...]

At around 7:00 am I rolled out of bed listening to the roaring sound of the Downie River just outside my window. I short while later I strolled downstairs to grab some coffee, juice and a bagel which I brought back to my room ate on the patio overlooking the river. It was a chili [...]

Wow.. what a day. The best day of motorcycle riding so far on this trip! When we arrived in Downieville yesterday we thought it was an awesome town, but after hanging out for 24hrs we were more impressed than we anticipated. The town still hasn’t been tainted by any commercial development of any kind. No [...]

Here’s a video summary of today’s ride. At around 4:00 am we woke up to what we though was lightning… nah.. couldn’t be lighting. A few seconds later there is thunder in the distance… Uh oh. A few minutes later Noah and I hear ….plink….plink….plunk……. the sound of heavy rain drops falling on our tents. [...]

Here’s a video summary of today’s ride. Feel free to watch it instead of reading all the long winded info below. Today started with a lazy departure at about 9:30 am as we rolled out and headed north along the east shore of Lake Tahoe on Hwy 89. Once we reached the northern end of [...]

Had another great day in the Sierras. Feel free to read all the rambling below, or watch this 4 minute video which summarizes the day.. At around 8:30 we left Lee Vining and headed north on hwy 395 passing Mono Lake. Just north of the lake we headed east towards Bodie, a ghost town about [...]

Today we rode through Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Yosemite National Park, over Tioga Pass and on to Lee Vining in the eastern Sierra. Here’s a short video summary of the day. The day started when we left the town of Three Rivers at around 9 am and headed through Sequoia and Kings [...]

Ring……Ring…….Ring (Me) “Hello” (Noah) “Hey.. Jeff.. You want to take off on a motorcycle trip for a week in June?” (Me) “Are you kidding me.. Of course!. One small problem however. You don’t currently have a motorcycle.” (Noah) “No problemo.. I’ll have one in hand in a month or so. Just need to decide which [...]