Take only memories, leave nothing but rubber

It took 8 days. 650 or so miles per day on average, with a couple of legs around 750. I stopped for gas, ate while refueling, and took pictures from my bike. I was accompanied by my best friend, who drove the whole time I rode.

Through the adirondacks, across the plains of kansas, over the rockies, through the barren wasteland of utah, through las vegas and across the mohave desert in california, down around the forests and desert of arizona and new mexico, across texas, through new orleans and up through the mouth of the mississippi across the bible belt, and finally back home.

Here's the link to my trip

For the most part, the stops represent nights where I slept, except for the markers in Denver, Co and in California (in both of those cases, I took a different route than the Google optimum route).

It was insane. I'm still remembering sights, sounds, feelings from the trip. And because it happened so fast, I'm sure it will take me weeks yet to fully digest. And yes, I did it all on my 2007 Suzuki GSXR 1000 K7 (with the gel seat). All of my belongings were stashed in a backpack that I wore the whole time.

Highlights: Utah, Arizona, Kansas, The Mohave Desert. The most serene moments of enjoying scenery, nature, and enjoying the power of technology-enabled independence. Somehow, riding the peak of modern technology in motorcycle form while enjoying the rawness of north american geography was deeply satisfying.

Lowlights: The rockies (it rained, there were high winds, rocks on the road, deer crossing, switchbacks, and dotted traffic lines that meant SUV's constantly swerved into my lane). It was hell on earth, and I repeatedly thought I was going to die. Also, I had the opportunity to ride through a number of great midwestern and southern cities, but none were as dangerous as Dallas. I feel perfectly comfortable riding in Manhattan, but have never felt more exposed and vulnerable as I did in Dallas. In NYC, everyone drives a constant speed: fast. In Dallas, some people drive slow, others drives fast, and some crawl - in every lane. Dallas highway driving was a constant chore to avoid getting swiped by a massive tinted-windowed SUV piloted by a cell-phone holding soccer! Finally, for some reason the plains of Texas develop some nasty crosswinds on the highway. I've never before felt like my bike was actually going to lose traction because of the wind (previous bikes were all naked, while the gsxr1000 is fully faired), and this was quite scary. However, I found that I could avoid the winds by riding in the wake of large trucks, who sliced the wind, and left behind a calm zone 20 feet around their trailers.

I took a few pictures, and even some videos from my seat. But none were as nice as the artistic ones you can find on fliky or google images. Apparently it was Chief Seattle who said, "take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." I'd like to propose a blatant / cheesy modernized biker ripoff:

Take only memories, leave nothing but rubber...