So friday morning, got up earlier than I normally do for work, ran out of the house strapping the last couple of things onto the bike (sleeping bag and air matress anchored to the bike by a bungie net, tank bag secured to the tank with most of my vital stuff in it, wallet, keys, camera, cell phones, etc.

Travel up I280 into SF, through SF onto the Golden Gate bride, up 101 towards Cloverdale. Like I said before, it's been pretty hectic lately, so I hadn't even really looked at a map that much to know where I was going, just sort of glanced at Yahoo maps and didn't really know distances I was trying to cover to get to the meeting place. Got to the meeting place at about 10:15 am when we'd said we were going to meet between 10:00 and 10:30, checked my voicemail and got a message from Mike that he was running a bit late. No big deal, parked the bike and hung out waiting for a little bit until he showed up. We talked bikes a bit and thoughts on how to travel for the day and then headed up 101 together. Traffic this far (other than the commute traffic into and in SF) had been light, and continued that way for the rest of the day.

We head up 101 going through nice long sweepers at a fairly brisk pace, nothing exceptionally outrageous, staying with the fast cars was our theory on HPDA avoidance for the day, and it worked marvelously. At Eureka we stopped for lunch at a place Mike knew (and who's name I have forgotten) in the parking lot of the Motel 6. Good diner food was had by both of us. We planned to turn inland at Arcata and run up 299 to Willow Creek, up 96 to Happy Camp, and then along the twisty road to O'brien, Or, get dinner probably in Cave Junction before heading to his friend's cabin a little north of Cave Junction

The run up 101 was short, and we headed inland at 299. It looked familiar, but I know I've not been on that section of the road before (at least, not that I can remember). I've been on other sections of it though, so that might account for the seaming familiarity. 299 is lots of long sweepers followed by some tight sweepers and occasional tight twisties (if I remember right). We rolled into Willow Creek and headed north on 96.

We stopped a little south of Happy Camp for a little road-side rest, and chatted a bit. Mike let me know that if we were together in Happy Camp, he wouldn't make a stop there, but that we'd just push on through until O'brien, and that on the road between the two to be careful because there was often at this time of year loose sand in the road, so as we made the turn in Happy Camp, I had that in my mind and my scanning picked up a bit more than usual for road debris.

The road from Happy Camp is wonderful, I've been on it once before, about 6 years ago, heading (I think) the opposide direction than we were traveling this time, with the TAHRS (Turtle and Hare Riding Society, or something like that). I was feeling good, the bike was running smoothly, we'd been having a great day, the roads had been nice, the cops had been busy or uninterested in us, I didn't feel like I was pushing any of my limits, either making the back of my brain jump up and panic, or pushing the bike anywher near the limits of her abilities.

This road was a little messier than the others we'd been on, there was definite signs of small slides, there was sand across the road in a few places, not clean but nothing that I've not seen or dealt with before, and nothing that made me panic in and of itself.

Mike at this point has gotten a little ahead of me, but on the longer straights we are still seeing each other. I'm figuring that he's going to get a break in O'brien as I make my way there, no big deal at all. There's a long left followed by a swift right corner, the left passes uneventfully, I brake a touch and lean over into the right hand corner, and this is where things start to get interesting.

The back of my brain suddenly decides that I'm going too fast to make this corner successfully, that's okay, I know how to ignore that particular voice. I keep looking through the corner and ... wait! what's that patch in the road that looks like loose stuff. I ease into the front brake letting the bike start to stand up (and making the bike turn less, which is not good right now) expecting that in about 1/2 a sescond that I'm going to be able to get off the brake and continue through the corner on a slower course but hopefully having pushed back down into a tighter turn.

Just as I'm about to get off the brake and slide back into the gas, the front end starts to slide. I'm not sure if it was because of the braking I was doing, or cruddy pavement mixed with braking, or possibly just cruddy pavement (there was a patch of stuff that was easy to grind apart with my foot the next day), but it doesn't really matter which it was, cause right now the front end has broken free, and I can feel the tire sliding sideways. This is not good, I'm not a racer, I don't like this, I know that there is now practically nothing I know to do to save it, and it's going to happen really fast. I'm not sure if at this point I tried anything othe than going "oh shit", but even if I did, it didn't work. Front end tucks under, bike goes down on it's side, I ride it all the way down onto the pavement where we seperate. I remember looking straight down at the road and seeing my right hand and 1/2 of the instrument panel in tunnel vision, and then I found the pavement.

I know from the riding suit that I went in fore-arm first, as the cordora there is scuffed up and seperated from the ballistic nylon (threads shredded), but I honestly don't remember the sensation of hitting the pavement. I did hear the bike hit, I heard the bike slide, and then I head other noises. About this time, I'm on the pavement, I don't really have any recollection of sliding or rolling but I know I did at least slide, and perhaps roll once.

So those noises I heard, that was Turvy going over the edge of the road, and down the cliff / embankment. It was probably about an 80 degree incline of loose sandy soil and shale with rocks in it. Next thing I know, I'm following Turvy, riding down this cliff on my butt. I tuck my head forward once to see if I can see anything at all about where I'm headed, cause I know that bad thing are likely in my way. The world is brown, the color of the dirt and dust that Turvy has kicked up before me so I put my head back in line with my spine, bend my legs and slide my heels along the ground to slow myself using the typical skiing snowshoe.

I get to the bottom and there's a pile of rocks at the edge of the large stream/creek / small river. Probably about 15 feet wide or so. The dust rolls past me as I take an assessment... hurts just below my knee and my hip, no where else. Test carefully, still not moving, hip and shin are only places that hurt, and they aren't broken, they feel bruised and nothing more, stand up and take off my gloves and my helmet, and find somewhere relatively level to set them down. Look up at the road, which is up a ways above me. Look at the creek, and there's my saddle bag, my tank bag, and my sleep bag floating in the water behind my bike.

Realizing that it's going to be at least a few minutes before Mike will circle back looking for me, I check and it looks like it'll be pretty easy to step into the river and grab the stuff that's floating, so I do, putting it up on the bank. There's really only about a 4 foot shelf of loose rocks that makes up the bank here.

Directly after that is Turvy, sitting upright in the water, front end looks wedged between some rocks, but she's upright, with just the handle bars above the water. The instrument cluster and the windscreen are gone. As I start gathering my stuff together there at the edge of the river, I notice that there are pieces of her in the bank that I'm looking at, a piece of plastic here, a piece there, another piece over there. I set my tank bag down and look next to it, and there's the keys that were in my ignition (just 2 keys, one for each bike, this is the light ring). Pick them up and put them in my suit pocket where they belong. Check the inside of the tank bag, mostly dry, a little damp on the bottom. Pull out the phones, both of them have signal. But, I have no idea what the road I'm on is called or what mile marker I'm at, I can wait until Mike gets back and hopefully he'll have a better idea of where we are.

Gather everything together as much as I can, realize that the towel and two rags are from the other saddlebag, the one that wasn't floating. Mentally scratch everything that was in that one off my list of possessions. Decide that it's time to try to head up the hill slowly and carefully. Not sure why I decided to take my helmet up with me of all the things that I had down there, but I did. So slowly started working my way up a pile of mostly-solid looking debris.

I think I hear Mike go by once, but I'm not sure if it was or not, and didn't see him, then a little bit later I hear him heading back, looking up and see his helmet, yell up to him. I hear him stop, give him a minute to get his helmet and ear plugs out, and then yell up "Mike, I'm OK". He shows up at the edge of the road looking down and is amazed.

We have a brief discussion of what to do, and I tell him to go ahead and call 911 instead of trying to just find a wrecker to come and haul the bike up. He does and while he's on the phone I finish making my way up to the road.

Looking down, it's quite impressive. You can see the bike sitting there in the water, covered up to the handlebars, and it's amazing to even think that someone could have followed it down and been uninjured, yet here I stand, not even limping. I peel out of my slightly wet Aerostitch (remember, I went into the water to grab my gear), put down my helmet and take off my gloves (hmmm.. guess I didn't take them off down below after all, I'll have to go back and fix that). Mike mentions something about a picture, and I remember that my camera is down in my tank bag, so I decide to go back down and gather stuff and take pictures while it's still light out. So I walk back down the road a little bit and find a smoother way down to the waters edge. Work my way down, walk in the river a little back up stream around some rocks and find my toiletry kit floating there, pick it up and put it with the rest of my stuff, pull out the camera and take a few pictures, the bike in the water, what it looks like up the cliff, things like that.

Mike calls down that the Highway Patrol has shown up, I tell him to tell them I say hi. The officer shows up on the road edge a few moments later. A little bit after that the paramedics show up. They are all pacing back and forth up above as I am fussing with my gear, tucking the towels and rags into the tank bag, putting the toiletry kit into the saddle bag, stuff like that. Mike calls down that the paramedics want me to come up to see them, so I climb up a rocky area I noticed on my way down last time that is much easier to get up then the other ways I'd found so far.

The EMT's check me out, and the tow truck pulls up. There's a lot of joking and chatting going on as the EMT's have determined that I really am totally fine. Everyone is looking down over the edge amazed at what luck I had to not only survive but that I am essentially unharmed. I have a nice chat with the CHP officer about what happened, as well as all the clerical details of who I am, who's bike it is, do I have insurance, etc etc.

The bike gets pulled up the cliff (ouchie) and slung off the back of the tow truck, I get a ride down to Happy Camp with the officer, and I get a room for Mike and I at the only motel in town. She knows who I am cause she's got a scanner and heard the reports as they were happening.

And from there, it's all denoument and humorous things that happened afterwards with the police and the tow-truck driver, being bored in a small town for most of a day waiting for Liz to show up, stuff like that. Called lots of people in my phonebook who I wish I talked to more often, walked around town a little bit, stuff like that.