For Orange Glen High School alum Kevin Bree, life really is just one great big adventure after another.

It all started when he decided to celebrate his 23rd birthday by sky diving and bungee jumping. And now, 14 years later, he can add a 13-day, 2,600-mile cross-country trip to his growing list of accomplishments.

Bree, who just recently moved to La Jolla, said earlier this month that he has always thrived on adventures.

"I just like feeling alive sometimes," he said earlier this month, adding that he's always looking for his next big challenge as a way to "keeping life from becoming stale."

At 37, he's already crowded a lifetime of adventures to his life.

Several years after he spent his 23rd birthday jumping out of a plane and hanging from the end of a bungee cord, he decided to test his physical limits with an "indoor Ironman" - a 2.4-mile swim in a lap pool, a 112-mile ride on a stationary bicycle and a 26-mile marathon on a treadmill.

Then, on his 26th birthday, Bree said he swam across La Jolla Cove at 2:30 a.m., saying that "there's nothing like swimming in the dark cold ocean by yourself."

Bree, who works as an aquatics director for The Sporting Club in La Jolla and as a coach for triathletes, said he especially enjoyed taking risks when he was "young and crazy."

He said he took a 10-year break from adventures - life was busy - before stumbling onto an opportunity he described as "too good to pass up."

Bree said he found a Honda VFR800 Interceptor on the eBay auction site, deciding that he had to have it because it was the first type of motorcycle he ever rode. He won the auction for the bike at a Cycle World shop in New Jersey, then decided to fly across country to buy it and ride it back to San Diego.

He said he was nervous but excited about his trip, which kick-started on Sept. 12 after buying the bike.

"The second I got on (the motorcycle), I knew it was going to be dangerous and an adventure," he said.

Bree said he had some initial trouble adjusting to life on a bike on the road, especially at a toll on a New Jersey turnpike where "people were honking at me, and I kept dropping change."

Soon after, he said, he began feeling comfortable riding.

He said that over 13 days, he stayed in "a lot of hotels." He said he also stopped at the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, La., (which is set up like a working plantation), rode through Alabama's Talladega National Forest - "a good chance for me to acclimate to my bike" - and drove through the beginnings of a "Texas-sized rainstorm" in El Paso before deciding to wait it out.

Bree said he enjoyed the adventure so much that he chronicled it on the site http://my-american-adventure.blogspot.com/ as he traveled.

Now that he's done - home safe and sound - he's decided that 10 years was too long in between adventures and that he sees many more in his near future.

Excerpts from Kevin Bree's cross-country trip log

• Sept. 12: On setting out from New Jersey for his 13-day, 2,600-mile trip back to San Diego: "Donned with a decoratively painted helmet, an armored jacket, tank bag, tail bag, backpack and my sweaty, shaky grip on the handlebars I couldn't get the picture from my head of that monkey the Russians shot into space in the '60s to see if he could function in his new environment and more importantly come back alive."

• Sept. 14: "As I fled the hurried pace of the freeway system around Baltimore and 'D.C.,' something happened. The pace of the drivers slowed, my grip on the handlebars loosened, I sensed some curious onlookers and one person even waved and smiled. The rumors are true, the south is a much more friendly place than Yankee territory!"

• Sept. 15: On his 'first real scare' when he couldn't get his bike started after a brief stop at a gas station in North Carolina: "I must have sat there for at least a half hour trying to remain calm and draw on the powers of the mechanical hemisphere of my brain when a North Carolina state trooper pulled up in a Hemi-powered Dodge Charger. A behemoth of a man with a Marine-style buzzcut stepped from the vehicle as I inundated him with mechanical questions. "Could I have flooded it?" "Did I fry the engine?" He looked me up and down and in a low southern draw said, 'Zit in neutral?' Instantly feeling like a rookie motorcycle buffoon I thanked him repeatedly and continued toward Charlotte."

• Sept. 16: "Crossing the state line into Alabama, neatly tucked in my 'aero' position, I noticed traffic piling up behind me. I glanced at my speedometer - 85 mph and I'm being tailgated? It then dawned on me. I'm in Nascar country."

• Sept. 17: On a stop for gas at a 'rustic blue collar gas station' in Alabama: "As I walked toward the front door to pay, I was caught off guard by a neon green cardboard sign, hand written stating: 'Tanning -- 3 visits $15, one month, unlimited tanning $35.' The Metro sexual revolution has hit rural Alabama."

• Sept. 19: "As I roll into the Austin city limits, a certain calm warms over me despite my intense fatigue as I know I will make this my home for the next couple of days and finally give my poor bike a rest."

• Sept. 22: "Off in the distance I can see what appears to be a long black curtain stretching across the road I am about to travel. It looks like an angry titan has stamped his massive dark foot in my path and dared me to pass. I realize I am about engage in battle with a Texas-sized rain storm."