Lap of California – 2013

The photos are here, by the way:

http://tinyurl.com/lso6rcu

It started in Heidelberg this summer when my friends Irene and Dirk invited me to come up and visit them when they came to San Francisco. It had been too long since I did a tour of the state, so I quickly accepted their invite. Things sat on the back burner until I got a call telling me to get up north. Things were a bit busy at home, so when the day came, I packed quickly and left. Too quickly. I like to think I’m an experienced traveler and know what to take, but perhaps senility is taking hold.  I was on the road less than an hour when I realized I hadn’t brought a spare pair of shoes. Or a flashlight, or any kitchen gear. Hmmm. Camping would be a bit rough. It was hours later when I realized I didn’t have my bike registration or proof or insurance, either. I’d better not get stopped by any police.

10 November – I was on the road by 10am. The weather reports looked good for the next week. The trip really took an auspicious turn when I made it all the way through LA without filtering once. I think it’s the first time in 30 years that’s happened. Average speed was 70+ from Orange County up to Oxnard. Excellent.

I stopped for lunch in Santa Barbara then headed inland. Riding on freeways sucks. Solvang was OK for some Danish pastry, but still too touristy. At least it gave me a chance to try a new road – Alisal Road, the first new road of the trip. Kinda nice, one lane for most of it, some sweepers and twisties in oak and chaparral ranchland. It was certainly relaxing after all the freeways of the morning. 

 Alisal Road

Alisal took me out to hiway 101, and it was a short bit down to the CA 1 turnoff, then up a few miles to Jalama Road.

Jalama is a surfing/windsurfing mecca about halfway between Point Conception and Vandenberg AFB. There is nothing there except a county campground, a beach and a tiny river mouth. Trains rumble past a few times a day, but otherwise, it’s pretty peaceful. There is a store/café at the campground that sells supplies and food. They are very proud of their hamburgers. What’s weird is that along with the cans of Coors and other crap beers, is an amazing collection of excellent wines. Well, it’s not so amazing when you realize it’s in the heart of “Sideways” country. Sideways is the movie that made Santa Barbara wine country famous. The store has a bunch of photos on the walls showing many of the ships that sank in the area. The captions read like “SS Yankee Blade, Dec 4^th, 1956 (Surf)”. I saw a bunch of those and then one that read, “USS Delphy, Sept 28^th, 1923 (Honda)”.  My first reaction was to think, “Damn Hondas, always crashing into things.” Then I remembered that Surf and Honda are 2 points along the coast near Jalama where ships have run aground. By the way, Vandenberg is the west coast version of Cape Kennedy, and Jalama would be a great place to watch rocket launches.

11 November - I spent a calm night in my tent and left early in the morning. I headed north through Lompoc and over the nifty Harris Grade Rd. First destination of the day was Guadalupe, a tiny farm town. With all the migrant farm workers in the area, English is a second language there.  What really makes the place special, though, is the Guadalupe Restaurant. They make the best huevos mexicano in the whole world. Just superb. It’s worth going out of your way (hundreds of miles in my case,) just to eat there. It’s been a required stop on my way north for years. This time I met Lance, who started working at the café after his father died. He helps his mother in between his other 3 jobs, and uses any free time to work on his lowrider car. It has 6” lifts on the front and 12” lifts on the back, so it gets hopping real well.

Lance and his lowrider

I had planned on doing a few of the side roads off hiway 1 that I hadn’t ridden in years, but I kept missing turnoffs. It’s just as well, because I’d forgotten how wonderful California One really is. It’s a magnificent road if you do it when there isn’t a lot of traffic around.  

It was a fun ride up to a tasty Carmel pastry shop, then AAA in Monterey for new maps, then off to SF. I told my friends I’d meet them at 2pm and I was seriously late. 

They didn’t seem too upset, though. Irene and Dirk are great hosts. I’m lucky I can call them friends. We had a lot of fun in 3 days, along with their extended family. The new Embarcadero, my first ferry ride across the bay, a Maren & Jeff encounter that included chowder for five, a funky hip winery with an outdoor art garden, the Sonoma mission, and a fun drive through the boonies was just part of a day.

The front tire on the FJR was already gone after only 5700 miles, (really!) so half a day was spent spending $200 at a tiny one-man shop near Market. That included a circuitous route back to Pacific Heights via the Mission, Twin Peaks, and the Presidio. Oh, and a ridiculously circuitous route through Golden Gate Park, too. The rest of the day was at the Exploratorium, which turned out to be surprisingly entertaining.

But the most fun of the whole trip was the time spent hanging out and dining at Irene & Dirk’s place. Maybe I’m not as much of a misanthrope as I thought.

Shroom shop at the ferry terminal

Sea lions at Pier 39

Public art in Sonoma

The City from Twin Peaks

Looking South from Twin Peaks

The Oakland Bay Bridge

Same bridge at night

14 November - My tour continued from Napa to Lake Berryessa on a superb bit of asphalt – Montecello Road. It’s on my top ten list now. One of those roads that make you giddy, swooping, diving, carving your way through some very beautiful countryside. As good as that was, the Berryessa-Knoxville road was bad. Not evil, but a lousy surface pockmarked with patch bumps, potholes, and puddles of sand. Still enjoyable, but would have been much more so on my BMW-GS, which doesn’t care about such stuff. Ah well.

Lake Berryessa

Turkey vulture in flight at Clear Lake

I found another great road after a detour around Clear lake. Hiway 20 from Willits to Fort Bragg. There’s something about a twisty trajectory and a clean surface that gets the adrenalin going. And it’s nice to find a good café somewhere along the way. A few years ago, I found the Headlands Coffeehouse in Ft Bragg. Nice to see it’s still there, serving good stuff. I do get confused though, trying to decide among the 16 varieties they offer at self-serve. 

15 November - In the morning, after stocking up on waffles and some pastry for the road, it was off to the Lost Coast.  The Lost Coast is that stretch of coast where the highways cut inland between Leggett and Eureka. It’s a wonderful piece of real estate that evokes an aura of either Deliverance or Middle Earth. There aren’t many roads through the area. I chose Mattole Road, which goes through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. When the Ewoks were riding the jet bikes in Star Wars, it was through landscape like this. Magical and awe inspiring.  I stopped in Ferndale, which used to have a museum for the Kinetic Sculpture race that starts in Arcata, across the bay, and ends in Ferndale. Sadly, politics and laziness caused the museum to close. The race is an excellent example of man’s creativity and whimsy. Some very strange human powered contraptions have entered the race.

California Highway 1 between Inglenook and Westport

CA Highway 1

Mattole Road, Redwoods State Park

363' tall, 53' circumference - a big tree

At Honeydew on the Lost Coast

The sign says, "Entering Tsunami Hazard Area"

The Lost Coast, North of Petrolia

The Lost Coast

Ferndale

I found a cheap motel in Willow Creek, a small town on the edge of the Trinity Alps. Checking out the area, I found a local garden shop. It was an eye opener. They had an entire room dedicated to exotic soil additives. Oh yeah. This is grow country. The marijuana capital of the US. The shop had tons of high tech irrigation control systems, tools, fertilizers, all kinds of equipment, all geared specifically for the pot industry. It’s obviously big business up there, but I was surprised how many other auxiliary businesses are involved – and making money. 

16 November - Fog. No, call it low clouds. The roads were damp, but still no rain. In mid November, no less. What luck. The fog was appropriate, though, for the Trinity Alps. It’s a true wilderness of rugged mountains. After passing through the Hoopa Indian Reservation, I rode through Somes Bar and Forks Of The Salmon to Cecilville. These are towns on the map, but really, they’re just a wide spot in the road. Somebody with a sense of humor painted “Begin Freeway” at the side of Cecilville Road. I was struck by how lonely it was. I went 34 miles before I saw another vehicle. I was parking in the middle of the road for photos.

Cecilville Road - aka the "Trinity Alps Freeway"

On the main road again, it was due east for Mt Lassen. Except it was getting late in the afternoon, I’d already frozen my butt going over one snowy pass, and I didn’t really want to ride through a National Park in the cold and dark. I took a bypass around it, which turned out to be a good decision. Black Butte, Wildcat, and Lanes Creek roads were excellent. A flock of wild turkeys crossed my path, and a herd of deer watched me go by. The landscape was littered with lava boulders and scrub oaks. 

Wildcat Road

Turkeys on Lanes Creek Road

Most of the lodges and motels in the area were closed for the season, and I really didn’t want to camp in the cold weather, so I forged on to Chester, by the side of Lake Almanor. Chester, heh. It ain’t nothing like the city of Chester in England. The “best” food in town was at the chain Mexican place. I’m glad I didn’t have to try the next best. 

17 November - I woke to find the FJR covered in frost. Brrr. A motorcyclist I’d met in the Mexican restaurant (whose business card says he’s a handyman and has a photo of his plumber’s butt crack) pointed me to Anna’s Café in Greenville. Oh boy, thank you Garry! The shrimp and mushroom omelet with hollandaise sauce was mighty tasty. You just never know where you’ll find decent food in the outback of America.

The weather reports said a storm was coming, so I beat feet south on 89, to Lake Tahoe. I guess it’s good that city people have places like Tahoe and Mammoth to own weekend cottages, because it leaves a lot of other beautiful places pristine, but Tahoe sure seems packed. There are still a few miles of undeveloped lakeside to enjoy, though.

Meeks Bay, Lake Tahoe

89 eventually ran into 395 for a short bit before I found the 108. In other words, the route was Pickett’s Junction, Markleesville, Monitor Pass and Sonora Pass. Sounds a bit more real, doesn’t it? It’s the 1^st time I’d been over Sonora Pass, but it won’t be the last. Between Eureka Valley and Pigeon Flat, the Stanislaus River flows through a beautiful narrow gorge of parallel basalt walls with a stairstepping waterfall. Nice. I stopped for the night in Twain Harte.

Leavitt Peak, 11,570'

18 November - One of the goals for this trip was to check out the damage from the Rim fire a few months ago. It scorched over 400 square miles. That’s an enormous chunk of land. There is a wonderful set of roads that goes through that area – Evergreen/Mather/Cherry Lake/Cottonwood Roads. It’s one of my favorite rides in the world – just a nice cruise through great forests and serene meadows. I wanted to see how it fared. I found a Forest Service Ranger Station. The woman at the counter was a real bureaucrat. She only said what was written in the official reports. All the roads in the area, except Evergreen Road, were closed. I couldn’t get her to open up about conditions, descriptions about the damage, anything. Yes, she’d been there. No, she couldn’t tell me anything. And she couldn’t tell me when the roads would open. One thing I did learn – the definition of “100% contained.” It doesn’t mean the fire is out, just that it isn’t spreading. The fire was “contained” on October 24^th. A month later it was still burning in isolated pockets, and it might burn for another few months. Sad. On my way out the door, she did tell me to try Marshes Flat and Penon Blanco roads. Huh. Maybe she was human after all. And those roads were fun, too, even if they did have too many bumpy tarmac patches. 

Penon Blanco Road

Hiway 120 is the main route into Yosemite Park from the northwest. It was also, more or less, the southern boundary of the fire. Every road that branches off from it is closed. Even the turnouts are closed, and there is no parking on the road. I was able to go up Evergreen Road, and the devastation is horrific. You can look over mountain ridges to the far horizon, all ashes. The firefighters who worked on the lines did an amazing job to stop it where they could. And quite a few of those guys are inmates of various prisons around the state.

On Evergreen Road

Fire damage on Evergreen Road

Manzanita near the Evergreen Lodge

I would like to have spent a night camping in Yosemite Valley, but Tioga Pass was forecast to close that night with the coming storm. Once closed, it probably wouldn’t open til spring.  I did a quick tour of the valley and headed for the pass. Yosemite really is a marvel. Just awe inspiring beauty. On my way out, I stopped to take a picture of El Capitan. As I looked at it, I noticed, half way up the mountain, a couple of bivvys. Somebody was going to spend the night up there, dangling from a couple of ropes, in a snow storm. Wow.

El Capitan

Half Dome

Yosemite Valley

The 2 bivvys are in the tiny circle in the middle of the photo.

Tioga Road, Yosemite Park

Lake Tenaya, Tioga Road

Tioga Lake

Tioga did close that night, and I think the FJR was the last motorcycle over the pass this year. It made it to Lee Vining with the reserve fuel light flashing, and all I could do was laugh at the price of $4.99 for a gallon of regular gas. That’s more than a dollar more than any place else I saw on the entire trip. Ah, capitalism. Heading south on 395, Bishop looked like a good place to stop. The Trees Motel was cozy and cheap. I asked the owner where the best food was, and was a bit disturbed when he said, “the bowling alley.” No, really. The bowling alley. And it was shockingly good. An excellent swordfish steak with fresh veggies on the side. Apparently, they fly the fish in daily. Will wonders never cease?

19 November – Taking the owner’s advice to try the Great Basin Bakery was an easy decision. And worth it. I really am a sucker for a good pastry. If you’re ever in Bishop…

Onward. I first learned about the White Mountains in March of 1958 when the National Geographic magazine ran a story on the bristlecone pine. The oldest living tree in the world is a bristlecone pine. It’s over 5063 years old and is in the White Mountains. I figured I should go look at it before it dies, or I do. It really is beautiful country. Rugged, desolate, far from civilization. The Sierra Nevadas suck up most of the moisture, sitting there like a wall across the Owens Valley. The view from the bristlecone pine forest is superb. It’s a bit strange – the landscape doesn’t seem as old as the trees.  And the trees aren’t nearly as majestic as you might expect. But their ability to survive in such a difficult environment is their great attribute, and it adds to their beauty.

White Mountain Road

The Sierra Nevada from the White Mountains

Lichen

Bristlecone Pines

Bristlecone Pine without its bark

Bristlecone Pine Cone

White Mountain Road

The High Sierras

Highway 168 in the White Mountains

Neon Green Lichen

I rode back down to the 395. Next stop was Manzanar, America’s version of a concentration camp. I’ve driven past it several times, but never stopped until now. I’m glad I did. The only buildings left from WWII are the 2 guard shacks at the entrance, and the gym, which has been converted to a museum.  Since the land was leased from the LA water authority, which required the land to be returned to its original state, the mess hall and 2 barracks were rebuilt, but there are still many artifacts just laying around.. The museum tells the whole story of how 160,000 Japanese-Americans were uprooted and incarcerated for the duration of the war. A sobering visit.

Manzanar Mess Hall

Manzanar landscape

Manzanar Memorial

Sherman Pass Road has been on my to-do list for a long time. It leads from 395 over to the Kern River. I always thought it was a state highway, but after I missed the turnoff, it became obvious that wasn’t true. There was a county forestry sign that warned of ice and snow on the road, but I’d seen a ton of those in the last week with nothing to show for it. The signs I did worry about were the ones showing how many miles (65) to the next gas station. I filled up at Pearsonville and started up the mountain. It’s a fun road, but I couldn’t get too rambunctious because I knew my rear tire was a bit worn. I figured I could get a new one in Kernville or Lake Isabella in the morning. I was up around 8000’ in altitude when the sun started setting. That’s when I started seeing ice patches in the road. It was no biggie – they were small and there were always clear paths of asphalt between them. I was more than 50 miles up the road, and knew the Kern River Road was only a few miles ahead. For a while I thought I might actually have crossed the pass. Then I came around a bend and saw an ice patch all the way across the road. For a second, I thought I’d just make my way across it and down the mountain. Then common sense hit me. I stopped with my front tire on ice and my rear tire on dry asphalt. I put my feet down on slippery ice. I put my sidestand down and looked carefully at the map. It said the pass was ~9200’. I was at 8400’. uhoh. A scary image came to mind. I would make it past this patch, then fall on a steep cliffside turn with no railing, and go over the cliff. No locals would be crazy enough to drive up here, the road would be closed for the winter, and no one would find me except coyotes and vultures.

I unpacked the bike, got out my folding bike lock and used it as an ice pick to clear a way to pull the bike backwards far enough to turn it around without dropping it on the ice. It took about 30 minutes, and by that time it was dark. I rode back 52 miles to the 395, then into Ridgecrest to a cheap motel. OK, maybe not so cheap. The 1^st place I found wanted only $35 a night, but it was so nasty grungy, even I wouldn’t stay there. I found a nice clean place (run by an Indian, of course,) for $50. Not bad.

Sherman Pass Road, ~8400'

20 November – I went outside in the morning light to look at the rear tire. Oops. There were cords showing. That officially made what I’d done the night before really stupid. Thankfully, there was a motorcycle shop a block away. In fact, it was the only motorcycle shop for 100 miles. I had to wait a couple of hours for it to open, and then had the pleasure of spending $342.57 for one tire, balanced and installed.  Whew! By the way, Ridgecrest is one of the ugliest towns in America, much less California. A real hellhole. It’s probably understandable, since it’s right next to the China Lake Naval Weapons Station. Who knows what evil lurks there?

Not too many miles left on that tire.

Greg, changing my tire in Ridgecrest

I couldn’t let the trip end on such an ugly note. A bit more fun was still to be had. I headed up away from the Mojave Desert to Lake Isabella. It’s a large pretty lake at the far south end of the Sierra Nevada. Well, it’s usually a large lake. Now it’s a fraction of its normal size, due to drought. Still pretty, though, and worth a lap.   
 

The Mojave

Canebrake Flats, Highway 178

Lake Isabella, low tide

The Kern River, without much water.

The last good road of the trip was Bodfish-Caliente, a great name for a road. The ride is even better. Just an excellent 30+ miles of twisty tarmac. And that’s how I’ll remember the trip – let’s forget the boring tedious ride down 395 to home, OK? 
 

Bodfish-Caliente Road

All in all, a great trip. One of the best I’ve done, ever.