July 2024 Moto Ride

Our last day on the road was an easy one; some nice twisties coming out of Mariposa on 140, but then freeway blasting all the way back to San Francisco. Another successful, safe, and thoroughly enjoyable time on the road. We saw some beautiful parts of Canada on our "invasion", met some interesting people, survived about a 50 degree temperature swing, and arrived home in one piece. The bikes handled everything we threw at them with power and reliability. A few quarts of oil consumed, which is to be expected when riding for hours on end at 80mph. A few fun facts about our trip: We covered ~4,300 total miles; our trip was short cut given that we could not visit Jasper in Canada. We made 61 total gas stops Our first time riding in Canada - spectacular country and incredibly friendly people ! While not a scientific study, I believe we consumed about 20 pints of beer each on this trip. There were so many great local breweries every place we stopped for the night. The food on the r...

Nevada City CA to Mariposa CA - 200 miles Second to last day on the road - a light day tooling down Hwy 49 following the gold rush trail thru Northern California.  While washing our bikes the night before, we met a great grandmother with was with her extended family that has been doing family reunions in Nevada City for years. She was our biggest fans for riding, and loved our bikes. After a few conversations, she asked "I hope you are ok with me asking, but are you two doctors or nurses ?" As a tech dork, this was a big compliment for me. Kate also worked in technology (at UCSF). We did find that the 3 of us all had something in common - health care. Great Grandma is a retired therapist (...but I cannot remember which kind - speech perhaps).  One of the wonderful parts of these rides is the amazing people we meet from all parts of the world. We started the day with a wonderful breakfast at Three Forks (both dinner last night and breakfast were just amazing), and then hopped ...

Alturas CA to Nevada City CA - 340 Miles We started our day hoping to make our way out of Alturas, west on 299, and then south on Hwy 89 thru Lassen National Park. Those plans were nullified by the Park Fire. More about that to come. First - the videos from yesterday's ride ! Finally got to a hotel that has technology invented in the last 10 years and could upload :-) Alice riding Hwy 20 in Oregon (2 mins): Kate riding Hwy 20 in Oregon (2 mins): Lake Abert in Hwy 395 in Oregon (1:26): Now back to today's ride... We checked the road conditions prior to leaving this morning to make sure there were no road closures on our route. All highways checked out OK - no closures.  But CalTans screwed up when they reported Hwy 89 open with no closures -- 89 goes thru Lassen National Park, and the entire park was closed. So we had to take some detours to get around the park. But before we even got close to the park, we had to drive thru about 50 miles of VERY smoky conditions. Visibility was...

Boise ID to Alturas CA - 394 Miles After a crazy long day yesterday, we were looking forward to  shorter day, and gaining back an hour as we entered the Pacific Time Zone. Here is the morning view from our hotel in downtown Boise (the Grove): After a quick 50 miles on the freeway north, we broke off to Highway 20 west, which starts out VERY DULL. Of course, we had to stop for several one lane traffic controls (the amount of road construction in Idaho, Oregon, and California is insane). Here are a few shots from a stop on Hwy 20: We didn't stop to get a lot of pics on Hwy 20, but the video footage is AMAZING. Unfortunately, the wireless was not reliable or fast enough for me to upload the videos, so I will try again tomorrow. From Hwy 20, we got onto 395 south in Oregon. The first 100 miles were pure monotony. One straight line of 80 mph in 80 degree dry heat. Ew. It got a little interesting when we hugged Lake Abert: After another hour on 395, we finally crossed back into Californi...