There may well be one more photo post, depending on what Don has in his camera.
Nodding donkeys along highway 46
How do you tell how happy a biker is? Count the bugs on her windshield!!!
A break in King City, where it rained on me for the first time in my entire motorcycle ride.
A break alongside highway 58, before it gets really “interesting”. Wasn’t happy about the gravel riding!
88-carriage Santa Fe train…2 engines at each end. This is where we met Susan and Dick, the riders from Washington who were heading to Tucson
on their beautiful Goldwing.
A break in Edison, CA. Look, two bikes!
My last view of Arizona, from a gas station near the stateline. I left my raven feathers and stones there as a sort of thank-you gift, as I felt very “looked after” in various ways along the road.
Expensive gasoline.
Explanation for expensive gasoline.
I promised one more photo post from Santa Fe, and here it is. We went up the nearby mountain to a ski resort which still had enough snow for skiing. This is where Oakwoman and I had our snow angel moment…
On the way down, the forest struck me as dense enough to resemble rainforest, and the housing development there reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Iran, so that’s what that picture is about. The one of the converted bus or train carriage is of Baja Taco, a real local place, where Oakwoman and A. scarfed hot chilli and the staff watched from inside, giggling as they quietly exploded. I took one taste and wimped out. ;-)
I left at a little past eight in the morning on Friday, and said goodbye to Arizona and Raven’s Roads not long afterwards. I got kind of emotional crossing back into California.
I-40 was windy, what a surprise. I had gone from sightseeing mode to just plain arriving mode. I stopped at a middle of nowhere gas station with a funny sign which explained why the gasoline cost $3.60 a gallon - absolutely the most expensive I’d paid, anywhere. I’ll do a photo post in a little while.
I called Don and we arranged to meet in Barstow. We arrived within ten minutes of one another and met at a Denny’s, staying in the rather shabby motel opposite. Didn’t realise that Barstow was part of Route 66, which would explain the neat buildings and historical stuff here and there.
We explored a bit, and I got to ride on back and absolve myself of all responsibility for anything, which was grand. We got shopping and later on we went to see “Hitch Hiker’s Guide”, which was hollywoodified but also very funny at times. Worth a look if you’re not a purist and don’t mind silly and pointless plot additions (though I have to say the scene with the depressed Vogons was hilariously funny and still makes me giggle).
They left it wide open for a sequel.
On Saturday, we left and picked up 58 across the Mojave. The road was intense and I lost my mojo towards the end, being tired. There was just so…*much* of it…and fast and downhill and twisty.
And then we were about done with the desert…back to California slightly scorched-looking hilly farmaland. Home-stuff.
We got onto highway 46 which at that end of the road was straight and fun, but we were both tired and pulled up at Lost Hills, which turned out to be at a truck stop which turned out to have cheap wireless. Wheee!
We had an argument about when to leave in the morning, which meant I didn’t get anywhere close to a full night’s sleep and we were both grouchy when we left in the afternoon.
The last day, Sunday, we took bets on when it would rain. I said King City and Don said Salinas. The first sprinkles came just before King City, so I won. It also rained a few sprinkles in Salinas, and a few more in Gilroy. In other words, it was hardly worth a mention - there were these two big cloud systems and we seemed to be riding down a tunnel between them. Quite astonishing, really.
I had to take two naps in order to keep going, but it worked. Each ten minutes buys you an hour. I wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t have felt I could do it - I’m not stupid. I’d rather sleep and ride 30 miles home than never make the 30 miles home and I know my limits.
We got to the Bay Area where suddenly the road surface was vile - pitted with potholes and ruts that dragged at my bike’s tyres - and it was exceptionally windy as the next major storm system got ready to dump its water on us…overnight.
Home. Photos. Email. Shower. Food. BED!
2798.9 by motorcycle
And a certain number by car and aeroplane too!
And lo, I am safely back home, and there was much rejoicing.
Exhausted, very glad to be here, eager to unpack and settle back in.
Two out of three cats have deigned to be located/petted. ;-)
:: happy sigh ::
I will be heading off in about an hour. My schedule changes when Don is around. ETD is noon. I’m going to get rained on and I’m grouchy.
I just discovered that I can sign up for 24 hours of wireless for $3. T-mobile is such a rip off. I wish I had never signed up for their service…
Yay for truck stops and lightning fast internet…!
I got to Lake Havasu City on the 5th. I was tired when I set out and tired when I arrived, but I took it steady and didn’t make any dangerous moves AFAIK. The scenery was more of the same: lots of saguaro cactus (*), hills, intriguing rock formations, until I got to 95 north, when the road followed a canyon and was quite spectacular.
Route followers: 60 west to 72 to 95 north.
Lake Havasu is a reservoir, and sparkles blue in the sunshine. When I got to Joan and Paul’s house, they had a fantastic view of the mountains and the lake. (*) I freely admit to not bothering much with being online (I wasn’t able to hook my laptop up to a line, as there was no local dialup on my system, and I had fast browser-based stuff that I could use; just couldn’t use my outbound email). So I spent a lot of time contemplating the nature of the universe, and reading, and relaxing.
Had a little epiphany: “Time to come home”. I was thinking of making the trip last to 42 days, but nope. Time to come home.
I had never met Joan and Paul in real life before. Their son, Michael, was one of my first ever friends in California, a lovely guy, Virago rider like me, and that’s how we met. Michael injured his back at work, and his surgeries got progressively worse, and then he died very suddenly and unexpectedly three years ago. I still miss him - a lot. Anyway, I emailed back and forth with his parents, and sent them a postcard because I’d lost their latest email, and they invited me over.
I’m glad I went, because they are lovely people and I had a wonderful time, if a little bittersweet and sad at times.
Joan took me down to see the London Bridge (*) and to play tourist in the English village (*). Then we went and browsed round the kitschy little gift shops. (**) And then we went over the London Bridge and I got views of the lake. (*)
I decided to stay two nights because Don was not able to set out when he thought, and I needed to relax: I was tired! It did me a lot of good. When I got up on Friday I had a message saying that Don made it to Mojave at some obscene time in the morning; so I knew it was time to move on.
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