One Man Trail

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Yuma, AZ
One Man Trail

Vehicle-based adventure travel, photography, and exploration.

12/04/2024

The Trans America Trail track has been updated. My coast to coast route now includes all of the original route as well adding 500 additional miles. You now have the option to do the full original TAT route using my high accuracy GPX files and I’m still offering them completely free.

www.onemantrail.com

08/24/2024

Today…was a good day.

07/23/2024

I’m back from the latest 10-day stint in the ICU. Happy to say the most recent brain surgery was another successful roll of the dice. Looks like the infection was cured. I have a period of time that I’ll be on antibiotics just to make sure nothing was missed. Also, I got staples this time instead of stitches. 🧵🪡

07/18/2024

Update: I always wanted to fly in an EC-135 helicopter. Not necessarily on a stretcher inside one. ✅ For some unexplained reason my blood pressure shot up and I flew to one trama center. 🚁

Then the next day it took over 30 hours for enough people to come to the consensus that the stitches in my brain surgery shouldn’t be leaking blood out of my head.

Then, as they figured that out they also figured out my brain probably shouldn’t be infected either if it’s going to heal.

The infection got in my skull, so we opened it up again. They removed a giant section, soaked it and cleaned it, then reinstalled it with titanium hardware and big fat staples. Nothing but the best we could get at Harbor Freight on a Sunday.

All I can say is that I’m still in the fight and doing surprisingly well and every day is one day closer to getting back to work.

If you’re doing worse than me, keep on rocking, you’ll get through it. Being patient enough to actually heal is the hardest part.

07/14/2024

I just found out I have to go through another brain surgery tomorrow. I got an infection from the prior surgery and it needs to be cleared out before the infection can spread and antibiotics can’t fix the rest.

This is in most ways more dangerous than the first surgery. Going back in is never the best option. But an infection in your head without treatment is certain death so it’s good we caught it.

I pray I wake up after the surgery the same guy for a second time.

See you in a few days. I hope.

07/09/2024

Three weeks from brain surgery to being able to ride again. (No cross-continent adventures just yet)

It felt great to get on the bike again. I won’t be doing any off road trails for a while obviously, but I do have something coming up that I’ll share soon.

Thanks for the support and encouragement.

07/07/2024

Despite not getting to finish the trip as planned, I was still able to add some cool locations to my panniers. I especially like the fact that I was able to ride from Arizona until I saw icebergs and Northern Lights.

07/06/2024

I’m going to say it. I love my 1250 GSA. But I don’t know what the design team is thinking with the 1300 GSA they just announced. I’m honestly embarrassed by the entire thing.

07/05/2024

As we gather this evening to celebrate in whatever way is meaningful to us, please remember how important your fingers are to riding motorcycles, setting up tents, and photography.

07/04/2024

Had to ship the bike after the accident. It made it safe and sound. Riding up the driveway was a great feeling.

07/03/2024

Today is the day I can explain why I suddenly dropped off social media and my motorcycle trip stopped suddenly after 11,482 miles.

I was making my way across the mountains of Idaho when I stopped for two nights to hide from an expected nasty storm. The second night just as I went to bed I had a short duration headache and unknown to me that was the moment a blood vessel began to bleed in my brain.

Then I fell asleep. Then by some miracle I woke up the next morning. I knew something was not right. I was losing peripheral vision on the right and I didn’t feel like myself.

Due to my remote location I made the decision to self rescue. (I do carry an active InReach) I didn’t think I had time to wait around. I know my body and this just felt serious. I was able to plot a route to a hospital (not a clinic or urgent care) using my Garmin XT2 which ended up being 62 miles on mountain roads down to Mountain Home, Idaho an hour and fifteen minutes away.

I only vaguely remember the trip down the mountain. My parents and I retraced the route after I was released from the hospital and I only remembered the center of the road. My only resource was following that magenta line on the Garmin. And I remember telling myself to stay to the right side of the road. That’s it.

When I got to the hospital it was less than 2 minutes before they had correlated my description of the symptoms with the seriousness of the issue. I changed out of my riding gear into my regular clothes and was immediately taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise 41 miles away.

I was in the neurological ICU for about 2 weeks and underwent two surgeries in the brain. One accessed through the wrist, and a second through the wrist and the skull.

It has been two weeks and a couple days since the last time they tickled my brain and amazingly I don’t expect to have any lasting long term effects.

The root issue was called an AVM (you can google it) it’s something of a birth defect that you’re born with. Most people never know it’s there until it bleeds like mine. The good news is that if it’s fixed, it’s fixed for good. It’s not something that grows back. Mine was 100% successful. My vision has also recovered to normal.

There are many more details to the story, including how half of my body had to relearn how to function but it’s amazing how the body heals. I’m about 90% me again so far and getting closer every day.

Thats why I’ve been so quiet. I almost died and I should be blind, but I’m not dead and retained my sight.

Better luck next time.

06/17/2024

A lot of people have been wondering where I have been.

I am not quite ready to spill the beans on what the last 15 days or so has been.

I will check back with everyone soon thank you for your patience

06/03/2024

I spent the day navigating my maps finding go-arounds for the passes that were snowed in. I made it to the Smokey Bar Store, a stop I always make when coming across the TAT.

I traveled a lot of the day without cell reception so I wasn’t 100% up on the weather. Some locals showed me the weather alerts on their phone that said up to 2” of rain expected overnight and into tomorrow.

2” is a lot of rain, especially in steep mountainous terrain. So I made it to Featherville and I’ll wait out the storm here. Maybe stay tomorrow night too and give things a chance to dry out.

06/02/2024

I didn’t have service last night. I camped out on the mountain near Antelope Pass, Idaho at 7,400ft. I tried to get over the pass this morning at 8,800ft but it was still snowed in. I wish there was a notice 25 miles ago.

I was about 50 miles from Ketchum, but had to reroute about 120 miles to get there.

On the way I stopped at Craters of the Moon NM

I’m pretty sure the next pass I need to go over from here is also going to be snowed in at 9,000ft. So I’m working on my go-around.

The new Dunlop Trailmax Raids work really well off road and are very comfortable, but holy hell the front tire is loud. So annoying. I tried every pressure to see if I could find a quiet spot.

Truth be told I’d rather be back on the Missions. They did everything I asked for off road and were an excellent road tire. Quiet. You just have to use caution in the wet and I’m ok with that trade off. I’ll run these tires to the Rally, but doubt I will deal with the noise all the way home. I’ll gladly run Missions on the BDRs.

06/01/2024

Well over 400 miles so far today. I’m in Arco, Idaho having a quick dinner, then heading up into the National Forest to find a camp spot. I have a few saved from previous adventures. If you don’t hear from me tonight, I’m camping and I’ll see ya tomorrow.

05/31/2024

I gotta admit, these tires do make a GSA look the part. I can’t wait to get it in the dirt tomorrow.

I also was able to get the parts guy to take a photo as I was paying my bill.

05/31/2024

- Engine oil change
- Rear final drive oil change
- Drive shaft inspection
- New tires
- Brake fluid flush/replace
- Air filter
- spark plugs
- Valve clearances check

And I found a place down the street that buys kidneys!

05/31/2024

365 miles today. Made it to the Salt Lake area. I have an appointment tomorrow for a 25,000 mile service. It will be interesting to see what the valve clearances are. Everything sounds and feels really good.

The bike is getting new shoes tomorrow as well. The Missions have done over 11,000 miles and still have life in them but I want to see how long the Raids will last doing mostly dirt from here to Oregon. I’m guessing they will be a 6-7k mile tire at most.

A huuuuge pet peeve of mine has always been motorcycle manufacturers altering the speedometer readout to read 2-4 mph faster than you are actually going. I have heard all different reasons for why they do this but have never heard the real reason from an OEM. But I know my speedo is always off my two GPS’s by 2 mph on the BMW and 4 on my Yamaha.

Today I fixed my BMW and the first time I had both GPS’s and the bike and the cruise control all with the exact same numbers it was the ultimate OCD moment.

I use a device all BMW riders know well called a GS911. It allows me to reset service lights and change certain things on the bikes ECU without needing the dealer. Recently they introduced the ability to calibrate the Speedo output so it would match my GPS. A couple of tweaks and I have it bang on. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time.

Sorry no photos today. It was either too cold, too windy, or nothing really to see. Not a lot in that area of Wyoming into Utah.

P.S. I’ve had my bike for 14 months, but minus the time I’ve been out of country for work. I’ve only ridden it 6 months. 25k in 6 months.

Address

Yuma, AZ

Website

http://www.OneManTrail.com/, http://www.OMTPhoto.com/

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