Sept 21 - North Coast

After leaving Santa Rosa we traveled on Hwy 101 to Ukiah, CA.

I met Loren in Ukiah and completed some grocery shopping before continuing home.

Larry & Mike rode up to Willits and rode to Fort Bragg on Hwy 20. From Fort Bragg they rode Hwy 1 to Leggett and then south to the Avenue of the Giants.

They then rode to Kelseyville.

An awesome ride of a little over 5,700 miles.

This morning Mike continued his ride home.

Sept 20 - Hwy 1

We departed Pas Robles bright and early - not much bright because of the marine layer.

As we continued on Hwy 46 over to the coast the marine layer lifted and provided an awesome display of the surrounding area.

In Cambria we stopped at the American Legion for a pancake breakfast.

We left Cambria at 9 a.m. under fair skies and no wind. The ride north was made even more special because the traffic was light until we reached Carmel.

We lunched at Phil's Fish Market at Moss Landing....yummy as usual.

We continued north on Hwy. 1 to the San Francisco area. Lots of ohs and ahs and very few "Oh, what a stupid driver!

We skirted San Francisco on 19th Street, making good time to the Golden Gate Bridge park. We hit the gift shop, found my mother's memorial brick at the Presidio and also checked out Chrissy Field.

While we were parked at the Golden Gate Bridge area the trike attracted lots of attention (I also found an awesome parking spot right near a bus stop). Mike says I should start charging a fee for people to photograph the trike & trailer. One woman was so intent on having her photo taken WITH the trike she was walking beside the trike as I was leaving the parking spot.

After the Golden Gate Bridge we proceeded to Santa Rosa for the evening. We stayed at the Sandman Motel - and we gave this facility high marks. We paid just as much as we had in Paso Robles and it is a much better facility.

Sept 19 Paso Robles

Once again Larry led us on a ride that kept us off of major highways from Needles, CA over to Paso Robles (near the Pacific coast of CA).

Another lovely day for a ride. We rode on Hwy 58 until we reached CR 223...and then continued on to Hwy 46.

I had never been to this area of CA - lots of oil wells, sand, power poles and more dirt. Best of all....little to no traffic!

On reaching Pas Robles we stayed at the Travelodge on Spring St. Okay - but way too much money.

Sept 18 Needles, CA

What can on say about Needles? Hot, can't imagine why anyone would choose to live here.

We rode from NM to Needles with mostly great riding weather. That is except for the 5 minute heavy down pour west of Flagstaff, AZ.

Only funny thing on the ride was 40 miles east of the AZ line. I passed a white semi truck and trailer. Made a clean pass and changed back into the slow lane. I kind of noticed the driver had his face plastered to the driver's side window, so I just waved as I passed. Not 2 minutes later this truck was plastered to my rear end. Scared the crap out of me! I thought - wow, did I screw up and ticked this guy off? Did I slow down? So I sped up....he sped up. I slowed down....he changed lanes and stayed right next to me. Finally I shrugged provided a Gaelic shrugg - like what do want? He slowed down and backed off (also Mike pulled up behind me to block this guy).

Well, from then on the driver stayed back at a safe distance. We pulled off at the Hwy 95 junction in AZ because that is the last cheap gas before Needles. The truck also made the change (by this time I'm feeling stalked or maybe in an episode of the Twilight Zone). I noticed the truck had stopped and parked on the side of Hwy 95 and did not gas up.

I forgot about him as we began filling up. Suddenly this guy about as tall as I talks up and says, "I was the one following you." I said - you scared me! Then he proceeds to tell me he has a Silver Goldwing Trike and he was really interested in the trailer and the trailer hitch!

Whew! Mystery solved. I gave him the information he needed.

So if you see a silver Goldwing trike in the Chicago area - wave. He is a nice guy. A little too focused, but a nice guy!

Sept 17 Albuquerque, NM

Wow! Clark looks great. Thanks to Cathy we had awesome accomodations at their motel in Los Lunas....highly recommend their Western Skies motel.

We had a lovely visit with Mike, Dottie, Kathy & Clark.

Truly, Clark looks wonderful. Improving all the time.

New Mexico 9/14, 9/15, 16 & 17

On the way to Alamogordo we stopped over night in Carlsbad, NM. Of course, we had to stop in at Carlsbad Caverns first! Some idiot with Nevada license plates was reversing on the road INTO the caverns, but other than that no one else tried to kill us!

We had a nice ride to Alamogordo....a little more rain.

We checked out our house, took care of getting the roofing job started and generally checked out the town.

Since we purchased the house 3 years ago there has been quite a bit of construction in town - but still not another grocery store or improved clothing shopping.

Today we had a mild weather ride to Los Lunas - we are currently staying at the Western Skies motel owned by Kathy & Clark Flynn. I can highly recommend it if you are every in the Albuquerque area.

Not sure how long we will be staying - we could be leaving as early as tomorrow or waiting until Friday morning. I'm hoping to ride to Archs National Park in Utah - we've passed by, but never stopped in the past.

Spring Branch, Texas 9/11

We rode form Gilmer to Spring Branch on roads that kept us from having to drive through Austin.

The GPS and Larry had us riding on one road that was a single lane....but it was paved!

We arrived at Harvey & Judy Paris' home around 2 p.m. - lovely riding weather. Harvey turned 81 on the 11th.

We stayed with Harvey & Judy until Sunday morning.

On Friday Judy drove us to the Alamo - our first visit. Fortunately the weather was mild.

On Saturday there was a gathering of family to celebrate Harvey's birthday. We had a great time.

All during our visit there was the threat of bad weather because of hurricane Ike. Well, Spring Branch was dry and clear, not a drop of rain!

When we left on Sunday it was around 75 degrees and sunny. As we rode west we had cloudy skies and a little bit of rain (none of which had anything to do with the hurricane). A very fast ride. Love the speed limits on roads in Texas!