An excellent day of small adventures!
Thanks Normie for letting me stay at your place for a couple of days! Sorry that all I could do for you was let you into Costco to get free samples and let you pretend you're riding my bike:
So I left them to their free samples and blasted down the highway towards San Juan Bautista, where the church from "Vertigo" is (this has been a big Hitchcock tour as well). Along the way I noticed an unusually large amount of bikes around me. Everywhere, going every direction. I pulled into San Juan Bautista and found this on the main street:
"One of these things just doesn't belong here!!!"
But I noticed a bike with a Canadian Flag hanging off the back - It's Dave and Andrea who have come down from Port Alberni!
They explained that there's a huge rally in Hollister, down the road, with over 250,000 bikes!!! Wow. They suggested I go check it out, but not wanting to get lynched by Harley guys, I went the other way to Monterey and ran into the total opposite bike crowd:
It was a Ducati Meet celebrating the Moto GP race next week! Coool.
So then I headed down the coast highway, knowing it was closed 30 miles down - it was worth it for the amazing vistas:
Cool picture, huh?
And here's as far as I got:
It was about 150miles to detour around this 60 mile stretch, but you don't get stuck being tourists doing 35mph so I figured it took about the same amount of time.
So I did it. I rode my motorbike from Vancouver, BC to Ensenada, Mexico. Conquered the Coast, relived US-101. As people have told me, "a road-trip to talk about forever".
"I hate taking photos. Why does he drag me all over the planet?"
The long way back included a detour on Highway 3 to Tecate, which is much easier crossing than Tijuana. The road is also way better for motorcycling; along the way are some incredible mountain passes in the tundra/desert - temperature was over 100F!
It's mostly northbound from here, but my back tire is totally worn after today's roads. A new tire is waiting, but it's 450miles away in San Jose... Let's hope it holds together on the I-5!
The USS Midway museum is so very cool, and well worth spending half a day. If you're special you can get in for free (who, me?).
Chief Petty Officers are not ones to be messed with..
San Diego's World-Class Zoo is also worth a late afternoon/evening if only for the Pandas:
The Madonna Inn is worth a stop for its "Roadside America" character.
This is the Mission in Santa Barbara, one of the prettier ones down the coast, and where I started to run into traffic headed towards LA.
This is on the Ventura Hwy heading into LA, traffic was light here, but got much worse as I got close to Santa Monica. Crossing LA was a pain, and I got into San Diego really late and after over 360miles..
So I left them to their free samples and blasted down the highway towards San Juan Bautista, where the church from "Vertigo" is (this has been a big Hitchcock tour as well). Along the way I noticed an unusually large amount of bikes around me. Everywhere, going every direction. I pulled into San Juan Bautista and found this on the main street:
"One of these things just doesn't belong here!!!"
They explained that there's a huge rally in Hollister, down the road, with over 250,000 bikes!!! Wow. They suggested I go check it out, but not wanting to get lynched by Harley guys, I went the other way to Monterey and ran into the total opposite bike crowd:
It was a Ducati Meet celebrating the Moto GP race next week! Coool.
Cool picture, huh?
SF is very bike friendly for parking and traffic jams.
Then I took one of our customer's demo Electric Bikes for a spin:
and worked and relaxed the rest of the day, trying to figure out how to get around the fire in Big Sur. I'm probably going to kick around the Bay Area one more day.
