Gilbert Arizona to Monterey, California
Thursday, April 17: Gilbert, Arizona to San Bernardino, California
After a restful sleep and a great breakfast, we loaded Taz and the trailer, did the daily safety check, took some more photos, and said our goodbyes to David and Jan before heading out on the next leg of our adventure..
David had told us last night that the best way back to I-10 West from their house was probably to take the 202 loop around the city...a few miles longer than a straight line to the interstate, but it would keep us from catching the early morning traffic headed into Phoenix. And, David was very right on this. The loop was easy enough to find and once we got into the HOV Lane, we moved ahead at 70 mph right along with the rest of the high-speed traffic. There was a slight bottleneck as we got close to Sky Harbor Airport, but that was soon resolved and before we knew it, we were out of the city and headed west.
A few miles outside of town and an hour or so after we left the house, we stopped for gas and McBreakfast before continuing the journey. I was pleased to find that on that particular leg of the trip, we had averaged just over 30 miles per gallon, maybe the best average yet...sure hope that continues!!!
Since this was the first time we'd crossed I-10 in this part of the country, we paid lots of attention to the scenery (much like what we had found on the eastern side of Phoenix). The distant mountains were difficult to shoot because of the haze in the air, so we just did the best we could.
We stopped at the Bouse Wash rest area for a butt break and ended up staying there for nearly an hour and a half showing Taz to a group of four Canadians who were touring this part of the country. They were all motorcycle riders and were very interested in what we thought of the Can Am as opposed to other three-wheel cycles. We did everything but give them a test drive, and they invited us to come to eastern Canada and ride with them whenever we make our dream trip to the northeast.
After that break, it was time to scoot on down the road and get to California.
We had another refueling stop in Quartzite, Arizona, winter home to thousands of RV'ers. We were expecting to see large clusters of RV's, but guessed that that must have already left the area to return to their summer homes.
A few miles later we entered California. We thought we'd have to come up with an explanation of why we were carrying apples into the state (Jan had given some to us as snacks for the journey), but when we stopped at the Agricultural Inspection Station, no one came out to check us, so we put 'er in gear and kept on trucking.
We also discovered, shortly after entering California, that the speed limit for trucks and vehicles towing trailers is 55 MPH. That really put the kibosh on making time across a long and very empty stretch of highway. We looked and looked for a place to pull over and eat at, but there just weren't any of those places available.
Travel across the desert can get very tiring, especially on a motorcycle, even one as comfortable as Taz. We've discovered that either of us can stand up for a bit to take some of the pressure off the affected body region (as long as we don't stand up together and veer off the road). It must also be pretty boring for the passenger, because Barbara spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of me standing up while we were moving (the 55 mph limit made that a little easier) and then she pieced some of the photos together to get this shot.
We finally arrived at Chiriaco Summitt, about 30 miles east of Indio, and found a delightful cluster of buildings housing a gas station, some shops, a great little restaurant, and even a General George Patton Museum. While we had enough gas to get us down to Indio, we did take advantage of the restaurant for a good meal and air-conditioning.
We were worn out by the time we arrived in Indio, so we stopped for a rest break and checked out the local hotel situation. There were plenty of hotels to choose from, but there was also a big music festival going on, and what rooms weren't already booked cost more than we were willing to pay. So, we made up our minds to truck on to San Bernardino, the closest town with an available Best Western.
As We got to the Palm Springs area, we couldn't help but notice the wind farms that have sprung up since our last trip through here nearly 8 years ago. the scenery is different, but the farms are reminiscent of the wind farms that are sprouting up all over West Texas.
We hit San Bernardo in the thick of rush hour traffic, but most of it was headed the other direction...lucky for us. We found our motel, checked in, and then went across the street for a great steak dinner at Black Angus before returning to the room and settling in for a very restful night.
We voted last night that it was more important to get to Monterey by the end of today than it was to ride up the coastline from the Los Angeles area, so we rerouted our trip to take advantage of the various freeways to get us upstate. We wanted to stay in Carmel and make day trips to Monterey, but that turned out to be impossible, so we made our reservations in Monterey and would have to do our best to get there in the longest riding day so far.
So, we arose early, did all the morning duties, and were on the road by 6:30 am, early enough to miss much of the early morning rush, not that there is any time during the day that there isn't a rush on area highways.
We managed to run into all kinds of weather today...cold, cloudy, and a little bit of rain as we started out, and warming up considerably by noon. We also discovered that we knew absolutely nothing about all the mountain ranges between Los Angeles and Monterey. It appears that our education hasn't ended after all!
Once we got out of the mountains and down in the "flatlands," we entered the growing regions, homes to every kind of food crop imaginable. We saw vineyard after vineyard, citrus grove after citrus grove, and later on, vegetable farm after vegetable farm. If the Midwest is the nation's breadbasket, California must be the nation's produce market!
One interesting stop we made was at the Murray Family Farms store along Interstate 5. They had every kind of honey on their shelves, but we just didn't have room to pack anything else.
When we got to Lost Hills, the point on Interstate 5 where we had to turn west on CA 46 to catch Highway 101 (many miles away), we discovered field after field of active pump jacks, clustered even tighter than the ones we had in the oil and gas fields outside of Artesia and Hobbs. It's obvious that many of these jacks were put in before there were regulations about distances and separation of pumping equipment.
Farther down the road at Blackwell's Corner, we found an establishment devoted almost entirely to James Dean's last drive. The story upon which this establishment was founded is that James Dean stopped at the little store at Blackwell's Corner and bought a pack of cigarettes before continuing the trip that ended with the car crash in which he died. Whether true or not, the legend goes on, and the store gave us a nice, cool place in which to take a break and look around at all the tourist "stuff."
From Blackwell's Corner to Highway 1 we ran the gamut of desert, desert mountains, and vineyards with adjoining wineries. We decided that it would be possible to stay "juiced" all the time just by visiting all the wine tasting events that occur daily in this part of the state!
Once we hit Highway 101, we knew we were finally making progress. It had been a long day already, but there were still miles to go.
We took a rest break at the Camp Roberts rest area (named for Camp Roberts, the National Guard Camp across the highway). As I came back to the parking lot from taking pictures around the area, I spotted another Can Am near ours. It wasn't long before a couple of riders, both from Canada, came over and we started taking shop. Barbara told me later that she wasn't going to leave me alone at rest areas anymore, because we spend more time talking than traveling.
Finally back on the highway, we rode until we reached King City where we stopped to refuel and have a very late lunch at Denny's. When we came out, we found that a storm front was blowing in and temperatures were dropping. We had to make a short stop up the road to put our coats back on, and then hit headwinds that were as fierce as anything we ever encountered in West Texas or Southwest Kansas...for about 45 miles, the bloom was definitely off the rose!
To make matters worse, the traffic was stacking up and we were stopped behind a farm workers bus hauling porta-potties on a trailer...and, those potties had evidently not been cleaned for awhile. The wind was blowing directly off that trailer and there was no way to move over and pass it until I finally spotted a small opening in in the traffic, made my move to pass (just as the bus started speeding up) and finally got around it. It was still cold and windy, but the air in front of the bus was much fresher!
We finally got to the point where we could head west toward Highway 1 and made the last 25 or so miles of the day without incident. We arrived at the Monterey Best Western, checked in, unloaded all our gear for a two-night stay, and relaxed a bit before calling former West Middle School and Liberal High School Student Sergio Padilla the third to make arrangements to get together tonight for a meal and some serious catching up.
Later, we made our way across Monterey to meet up with Sergio and spend a delightful couple of hours visiting and making plans for tomorrow.
We chose this particular hotel because it was on the beach, so Barbara decided at 6:00 am that we needed to go out on the beach to greet the morning. We quickly donned something that wasn't too offensive to other patrons and made our way downstairs and out onto the sand. It was a beach and it had all the requisite composites of a beach, but it was windy and cold...so much so that we stayed out long enough to take some photos and then went back inside to warm up.
After a light breakfast and some more resting and relaxation, we decided to hop on Taz and cruise down to the Carmel area to see the sights. Several folks, including friends, Pete Lyall and Max Johnson recommended the place and gave us lots of ideas for spending time there.
Unfortunately, we had very limited time since we had made arrangements to meet Sergio for lunch and an afternoon of touring Monterey.
We got totally lost trying to find Carmel, but did get to the beach at Carmel by the Sea, where we took photos of the beach and some long shots of the Pebble Beach Golf Course. We faced our first instance of vehicle discrimination when we attempted to drive the highly touted 17-Mile Scenic Drive. We were stopped at the Carmel entrance to the drive and told that motorcycles weren't allowed. Oh, well, it was their loss.
We rode back to the hotel, parked Taz, and then walked about a half mile to the bus stop in Seaside to wait for Sergio.
While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, we got a message from Sergio that he was at Chili's, just a block or so away...seems he decided to take a taxi rather than the bus. So, we walked to the restaurant and began our day of visiting and sightseeing with a great meal (and photos, of course)l.
When we were finished eating, we walked back to the bus stop and began our experience with the public transportation system, eventually ending up at Cannery Row, a place made famous (or maybe, infamous) in John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. After one look, we were pretty sure that Steinbeck probably wouldn't recognize the place, even though a number of the buildings are from the same time period.
And thus began our education and entertainment for the day.
After what seemed to be HOURS of walking (in reality it was only hours of walking), we had seen about all there was to be seen along the walking path through Cannery Row and up through the new Fisherman's Wharf and the old Fisherman's Wharf. Exhausted and too tired to take many more steps, we hailed a taxi and rode back to the motel.
Later, Sergio and I walked a few blocks to McDonalds to grab some food to take back to the motel. We ate at a table by the pool and then Sergio and I went out on the beach to see the sights (not much to speak of that time of day) and take a few photos.
We went back to the room to visit awhile longer and then Sergio had to leave to do some shopping and go back to his quarters for some serious study time.
For our part, we tried to do a little packing to get ready to leave tomorrow morning, but were so exhausted that we just passed out...tomorrow would be another day and we'd just deal with it then.
"A traveler without observation is a bird without wings." - Moslih Eddin Faadi, Persian poet of the medieval period
And that's our story from Monterey, California,
Jim/Dad/Gramps and Barbara/Mom/Grams/Gramsy
David had told us last night that the best way back to I-10 West from their house was probably to take the 202 loop around the city...a few miles longer than a straight line to the interstate, but it would keep us from catching the early morning traffic headed into Phoenix. And, David was very right on this. The loop was easy enough to find and once we got into the HOV Lane, we moved ahead at 70 mph right along with the rest of the high-speed traffic. There was a slight bottleneck as we got close to Sky Harbor Airport, but that was soon resolved and before we knew it, we were out of the city and headed west.
A few miles outside of town and an hour or so after we left the house, we stopped for gas and McBreakfast before continuing the journey. I was pleased to find that on that particular leg of the trip, we had averaged just over 30 miles per gallon, maybe the best average yet...sure hope that continues!!!
Since this was the first time we'd crossed I-10 in this part of the country, we paid lots of attention to the scenery (much like what we had found on the eastern side of Phoenix). The distant mountains were difficult to shoot because of the haze in the air, so we just did the best we could.
We stopped at the Bouse Wash rest area for a butt break and ended up staying there for nearly an hour and a half showing Taz to a group of four Canadians who were touring this part of the country. They were all motorcycle riders and were very interested in what we thought of the Can Am as opposed to other three-wheel cycles. We did everything but give them a test drive, and they invited us to come to eastern Canada and ride with them whenever we make our dream trip to the northeast.
After that break, it was time to scoot on down the road and get to California.
We had another refueling stop in Quartzite, Arizona, winter home to thousands of RV'ers. We were expecting to see large clusters of RV's, but guessed that that must have already left the area to return to their summer homes.
A few miles later we entered California. We thought we'd have to come up with an explanation of why we were carrying apples into the state (Jan had given some to us as snacks for the journey), but when we stopped at the Agricultural Inspection Station, no one came out to check us, so we put 'er in gear and kept on trucking.
We also discovered, shortly after entering California, that the speed limit for trucks and vehicles towing trailers is 55 MPH. That really put the kibosh on making time across a long and very empty stretch of highway. We looked and looked for a place to pull over and eat at, but there just weren't any of those places available.
Travel across the desert can get very tiring, especially on a motorcycle, even one as comfortable as Taz. We've discovered that either of us can stand up for a bit to take some of the pressure off the affected body region (as long as we don't stand up together and veer off the road). It must also be pretty boring for the passenger, because Barbara spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of me standing up while we were moving (the 55 mph limit made that a little easier) and then she pieced some of the photos together to get this shot.
We finally arrived at Chiriaco Summitt, about 30 miles east of Indio, and found a delightful cluster of buildings housing a gas station, some shops, a great little restaurant, and even a General George Patton Museum. While we had enough gas to get us down to Indio, we did take advantage of the restaurant for a good meal and air-conditioning.
We were worn out by the time we arrived in Indio, so we stopped for a rest break and checked out the local hotel situation. There were plenty of hotels to choose from, but there was also a big music festival going on, and what rooms weren't already booked cost more than we were willing to pay. So, we made up our minds to truck on to San Bernardino, the closest town with an available Best Western.
As We got to the Palm Springs area, we couldn't help but notice the wind farms that have sprung up since our last trip through here nearly 8 years ago. the scenery is different, but the farms are reminiscent of the wind farms that are sprouting up all over West Texas.
We hit San Bernardo in the thick of rush hour traffic, but most of it was headed the other direction...lucky for us. We found our motel, checked in, and then went across the street for a great steak dinner at Black Angus before returning to the room and settling in for a very restful night.
+++++++
Friday, April 18: San Bernardino to Monterey, CaliforniaWe voted last night that it was more important to get to Monterey by the end of today than it was to ride up the coastline from the Los Angeles area, so we rerouted our trip to take advantage of the various freeways to get us upstate. We wanted to stay in Carmel and make day trips to Monterey, but that turned out to be impossible, so we made our reservations in Monterey and would have to do our best to get there in the longest riding day so far.
So, we arose early, did all the morning duties, and were on the road by 6:30 am, early enough to miss much of the early morning rush, not that there is any time during the day that there isn't a rush on area highways.
We managed to run into all kinds of weather today...cold, cloudy, and a little bit of rain as we started out, and warming up considerably by noon. We also discovered that we knew absolutely nothing about all the mountain ranges between Los Angeles and Monterey. It appears that our education hasn't ended after all!
Once we got out of the mountains and down in the "flatlands," we entered the growing regions, homes to every kind of food crop imaginable. We saw vineyard after vineyard, citrus grove after citrus grove, and later on, vegetable farm after vegetable farm. If the Midwest is the nation's breadbasket, California must be the nation's produce market!
One interesting stop we made was at the Murray Family Farms store along Interstate 5. They had every kind of honey on their shelves, but we just didn't have room to pack anything else.
When we got to Lost Hills, the point on Interstate 5 where we had to turn west on CA 46 to catch Highway 101 (many miles away), we discovered field after field of active pump jacks, clustered even tighter than the ones we had in the oil and gas fields outside of Artesia and Hobbs. It's obvious that many of these jacks were put in before there were regulations about distances and separation of pumping equipment.
Farther down the road at Blackwell's Corner, we found an establishment devoted almost entirely to James Dean's last drive. The story upon which this establishment was founded is that James Dean stopped at the little store at Blackwell's Corner and bought a pack of cigarettes before continuing the trip that ended with the car crash in which he died. Whether true or not, the legend goes on, and the store gave us a nice, cool place in which to take a break and look around at all the tourist "stuff."
From Blackwell's Corner to Highway 1 we ran the gamut of desert, desert mountains, and vineyards with adjoining wineries. We decided that it would be possible to stay "juiced" all the time just by visiting all the wine tasting events that occur daily in this part of the state!
Once we hit Highway 101, we knew we were finally making progress. It had been a long day already, but there were still miles to go.
We took a rest break at the Camp Roberts rest area (named for Camp Roberts, the National Guard Camp across the highway). As I came back to the parking lot from taking pictures around the area, I spotted another Can Am near ours. It wasn't long before a couple of riders, both from Canada, came over and we started taking shop. Barbara told me later that she wasn't going to leave me alone at rest areas anymore, because we spend more time talking than traveling.
Finally back on the highway, we rode until we reached King City where we stopped to refuel and have a very late lunch at Denny's. When we came out, we found that a storm front was blowing in and temperatures were dropping. We had to make a short stop up the road to put our coats back on, and then hit headwinds that were as fierce as anything we ever encountered in West Texas or Southwest Kansas...for about 45 miles, the bloom was definitely off the rose!
To make matters worse, the traffic was stacking up and we were stopped behind a farm workers bus hauling porta-potties on a trailer...and, those potties had evidently not been cleaned for awhile. The wind was blowing directly off that trailer and there was no way to move over and pass it until I finally spotted a small opening in in the traffic, made my move to pass (just as the bus started speeding up) and finally got around it. It was still cold and windy, but the air in front of the bus was much fresher!
We finally got to the point where we could head west toward Highway 1 and made the last 25 or so miles of the day without incident. We arrived at the Monterey Best Western, checked in, unloaded all our gear for a two-night stay, and relaxed a bit before calling former West Middle School and Liberal High School Student Sergio Padilla the third to make arrangements to get together tonight for a meal and some serious catching up.
Later, we made our way across Monterey to meet up with Sergio and spend a delightful couple of hours visiting and making plans for tomorrow.
+++++++
Saturday, April 19: Monterey, CaliforniaWe chose this particular hotel because it was on the beach, so Barbara decided at 6:00 am that we needed to go out on the beach to greet the morning. We quickly donned something that wasn't too offensive to other patrons and made our way downstairs and out onto the sand. It was a beach and it had all the requisite composites of a beach, but it was windy and cold...so much so that we stayed out long enough to take some photos and then went back inside to warm up.
After a light breakfast and some more resting and relaxation, we decided to hop on Taz and cruise down to the Carmel area to see the sights. Several folks, including friends, Pete Lyall and Max Johnson recommended the place and gave us lots of ideas for spending time there.
Unfortunately, we had very limited time since we had made arrangements to meet Sergio for lunch and an afternoon of touring Monterey.
We got totally lost trying to find Carmel, but did get to the beach at Carmel by the Sea, where we took photos of the beach and some long shots of the Pebble Beach Golf Course. We faced our first instance of vehicle discrimination when we attempted to drive the highly touted 17-Mile Scenic Drive. We were stopped at the Carmel entrance to the drive and told that motorcycles weren't allowed. Oh, well, it was their loss.
We rode back to the hotel, parked Taz, and then walked about a half mile to the bus stop in Seaside to wait for Sergio.
While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, we got a message from Sergio that he was at Chili's, just a block or so away...seems he decided to take a taxi rather than the bus. So, we walked to the restaurant and began our day of visiting and sightseeing with a great meal (and photos, of course)l.
When we were finished eating, we walked back to the bus stop and began our experience with the public transportation system, eventually ending up at Cannery Row, a place made famous (or maybe, infamous) in John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. After one look, we were pretty sure that Steinbeck probably wouldn't recognize the place, even though a number of the buildings are from the same time period.
And thus began our education and entertainment for the day.
After what seemed to be HOURS of walking (in reality it was only hours of walking), we had seen about all there was to be seen along the walking path through Cannery Row and up through the new Fisherman's Wharf and the old Fisherman's Wharf. Exhausted and too tired to take many more steps, we hailed a taxi and rode back to the motel.
Later, Sergio and I walked a few blocks to McDonalds to grab some food to take back to the motel. We ate at a table by the pool and then Sergio and I went out on the beach to see the sights (not much to speak of that time of day) and take a few photos.
We went back to the room to visit awhile longer and then Sergio had to leave to do some shopping and go back to his quarters for some serious study time.
For our part, we tried to do a little packing to get ready to leave tomorrow morning, but were so exhausted that we just passed out...tomorrow would be another day and we'd just deal with it then.
"A traveler without observation is a bird without wings." - Moslih Eddin Faadi, Persian poet of the medieval period
And that's our story from Monterey, California,
Jim/Dad/Gramps and Barbara/Mom/Grams/Gramsy
