California Day 2- Two wheels good!

Sunday: 7/17/2011

After a good night's sleep at the Courtyard by Marriott, we were ready to start our long drive north. Because California was undergoing “Carmaggedon” on the 405 Hwy, we were told to expect delays. We wanted to make sure we could get to the motorcycle rental place in Mountain View, CA near San Francisco by 5pm so we could start the motorcycle part of our vacation early.  The whole "Carmaggedon" bit turned out to be much ado about nothing, at least from our view point.  There was absolutely nobody on the road this morning and we were only forced to get off the 405 one exit early.  Sweet.  

We left the hotel by 7am and drove up the Pacific coastline to see Malibu and find out what all the hype was about. It was a pretty area. We could see the rocky coastline of the Pacific ocean. We stopped at a Mcdonald's (my first time to step foot in a Micky D's in two years!) for some yogurt parfaits and mango/pineapple smoothie and then headed back to the highway to travel north on I-5. It was going to take us at least 5 hours to get to our destination. 

Panorama just above Malibu.  We were quoting lines from "Malibu's Most Wanted" all morning.  Who brought their harpoon gat?!

For lunch, we stopped at an In 'n Out Burger and had a really delicoius lunch. Now we know what all the excitement is about!  The GPS kept referring to it as "In 'n Out BERGE" (think french pronunciation).  And we laughed about that the rest of the trip. The burgers are really good and the fries are freshly cut and oh so delcious. The weather is in the high 80's but one would never know. It feels so much better than 80's in Mississippi's humitidity. We sat oustide in the shade and if I had could have easily laid my head down and taken a siesta!

Somewhere before lunch, we stopped for gas and this 'restaurant' sign had us laughing.   Dinners and zucchini?  Really?

We drove a little while longer until we got to Gilroy and then we stopped at a little stand by the road and bought the most delicious fresh cherries. They proved to be an awesome snack for the next 3 days.

We arrived at the Motorcycle rental place at 4pm and it took us almost 2 hours to get ourselves oriented and packed with all of our stuff for the road. It took about an hour to figure out how to arrange our luggage on the bike.  I think we loaded and unloaded the bike twice before we got everything stowed away and balanced.  

The bike that we were renting was a 2010 BMW R1200RT that came with a metric ton of cool buttons and switches for me to play with: electronic suspension adjustment, electric windshield, heated grips, heated seats, radio, MP3 player connection..so many buttons!!  I took the bike around the block to make sure I could handle it.  My one fear was that the seat was going to be too tall and that proved to be the case.  I could manage but not comfortably.  Other than not being able to touch the ground, the bike handle slow speed stuff well and the brakes were great.  Not wanting to downgrade to one of those slow, lumbering, clumsy, ill handling Harley's I pressed on.  This would almost prove our undoing later (ooh, foreshadowing!).  I reminded the shop guy that they were supposed to install a 12V outlet so that I could plug in our GPS that had all three days of riding loaded into it.  He quickly did so.  I mounted the GPS, plugged it in, Angela climbed on and we were off!!!!!

Ingred, our 2010 BMW R1200RT

This was IT.  I don't know about Angela, but this was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to.  Three days of riding with my wife in some of the most beautiful countryside in the world on some of the best roads in the world.  

We drove North and hit San Francisco around 6:30pm and drove over the busy, yet beautiful Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was low in the sky and the view was absolutely beautiful. I was able to take a few pictures and videos while driving. After the bridge, we took a wrong turn and ended up in Sausalito. . . a place I wanted to visit anyway. We drove around a few minutes and then tried to get back on Hwy 1.  The problem is that Hwy 1 is at the top of a steep, winding hill.  Sausalito is at the bottom of that hill and there was stop and go traffic all the way up.  Remember when I said I could barely touch the ground?  I think there were two or three instances where I came close to dropping the bike.  I so wanted to lane split and just bust right up to the top of the hill, but I wasn't sure which direction to go once we got up there and just wasn't really sure how the lane-splitting thing worked anyway.  So I endured the slow creep up the hill and made our exit back onto Hwy 1.  

Just getting onto the Golden Gate Bridge

Looking back at San Fran

Shortly after getting back on Hwy 1, we realized that our power leading into the GPS wasn't working. Shortly after that, the battery ran out.  So we were driving blind. In the town of Almonte, we stopped and Angela asked a few ladies how to get us back in the right track. We needed to make it to Petaluma and after discussing it with them, we decided to head to Hwy 101. By going to Hwy 101 we missed a portion of Hwy 1 but it was getting late, and not having any maps, felt discretion was the better part of valor.  We arrived in Petaluma and after driving through the cute downtown area (reminded us of Asheville, NC type stores) we arrived at the Comfort Suites tired and hungry.

We ate dinner at the 101 Casino's restaurant, just a short walk from the hotel.  I had tortellini in pesto sauce, and Angela had a salad and coconut prawns. Very delicious, but we could barely keep our eyes open. We got into bed around 11:30 and had a deep sleep.