3,200 Miles, 1 Bike, 2 Friends: What Extreme Motorcycle Adventure Taught Me

That wild ride remains one of the most unforgettable adventures of my life

In 2009, I worked my fifth job since immigrating to America - a busboy at a Marina district restaurant in San Francisco. By day, I studied at City College of San Francisco (before transferring to UC Berkeley the following year). By night, I cleaned tables, mopped up vomit, and cleared cocaine from bathroom surfaces as the restaurant transformed into a nightclub.

The summer had a surreal soundtrack - Michael Jackson had just died, and DJs played his hits nonstop during my shifts. I lived on Treasure Island then, which became the starting point for a motorcycle journey with my friend Tim.

In 2009, I had to maximize a rare 5-day break from work and studies. With no money for hotels or international flights, I decided to explore other states instead.

I plotted an ambitious loop on Google Maps to maximize our five days. We'd ride east to Salt Lake City, north through Idaho to Yellowstone, then northwest to Seattle. The return leg would take us down through Oregon's Crater Lake, and finally back to San Francisco.

We left Treasure Island at 4 AM, aiming to reach Salt Lake City by nightfall. The Nevada desert proved brutal - we should have drunk a liter of water every hour but didn't. I started hallucinating; Tim fainted. By West Wendover, on the Nevada-Utah border, Tim was collapsing on the grass, begging to stop. I pushed us to continue.

We finally crashed just outside Salt Lake City, near a church. A police officer woke us that night. In our dehydrated, exhausted state, we imagined he was there to kill us. He just checked we were okay and let us sleep. We were too tired to care either way.

Day two: we explored Salt Lake City briefly, then rode north through Idaho, where we swam in a lake to cool off. Yellowstone was less memorable than expected - I later learned it needs 2-3 days to properly appreciate its geological wonders and ranger programs, which I finally did in 2024 with my wife Paula and friends.

The real adventure happened in Bozeman. Spotting a Montana State University shirt on a City College friend, I called him from Yellowstone. He not only had connections there but offered us a place to crash - a fraternity house. The brothers were fascinated by two Eastern European bikers from San Francisco. Instead of sleep, we got an impromptu cultural exchange and my first game of beer pong.

We left Bozeman hungover, facing hundreds of miles through Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Washington. The Columbia River guided us west to Seattle, where we finally got our first shower of the trip at my friend's place. The next morning, we toured Redmond's Microsoft campus, visited Bruce and Brandon Lee's graves, checked out the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market, and saw Fremont's Lenin statue.

We made our way to Portland by evening and from there, we drove through Oregon all night to reach Crater Lake at dawn. The park's mountain air was freezing, but its beauty was worth the cold. Racing back to SF, we spotted rain clouds ahead on the single highway through Northern California. With my work deadline looming, we couldn't wait it out. We rode through the downpour, stopping hourly to wring out our soaked jeans.

Three major failures marked our trip. Within hours, we lost all our supplies when our backpacks, tied as makeshift saddlebags, scraped the highway and disintegrated. Empty, torn bags were all that remained at our first stop.

The worst came in the Nevada desert. Tim, severely dehydrated, passed out while riding. He hit his head on the bike's frame as he fell, blood spilling onto sand. For ten terrifying minutes, as I held him, I thought I'd killed my friend through basic negligence - we simply hadn't drunk enough water.

Yellowstone was a different kind of failure: poor planning. You can't experience a park that size in a drive-by. It needs days, not hours.

This trip taught us three things. First, the most memorable experiences often balance on the edge of ridiculous and dangerous. Second, humans can handle far more than they think - though we didn't need to test those limits quite so extremely.

Third, and most sobering: ambition has costs. Less mileage would have meant more enjoyment. For weeks after, I questioned if I'd actually survived. The Nevada desert plays tricks: I'd drift off while driving, eyes closing with a truck ahead, only to "wake up" with it somehow behind us on a single-lane highway. Tim kept pulling me back from these microsleeps, just as I'd done for him during his dehydration episode.

Looking back at that reckless summer of 2009, what stands out isn't the miles covered or the landmarks checked off, but the raw experience of two young immigrants pushing their limits on American highways. We survived on luck and stubbornness, and while we might approach such a journey differently today, that wild ride remains one of the most unforgettable adventures of my life.