Southern Exposure

The last two days on the road have not been easy. Tuesday morning, we started out from Crescent City, CA, heading South on 101 through the redwoods. The scenery would have been enjoyable if not for the constant rain, wind and fog, that pretty much lasted all day with various degrees of intensity, making me wish I was cozied up with a cup of hot chocolate somewhere by the fireplace. The one thing that kept my spirits up was our scheduled visit with the Original Adventure Rider, the man who inspired generations of motorcycle adventurers, the author of “Jupiter’s Travels” – Ted Simon. We were introduced to Ted by a mutual friend (Hi John!) about six months ago, when Ted was visiting Seattle on a promotional tour for his recent book. We invited him for dinner at our house, and after a few bottles of wines, a few rounds of vodka shots, some good laughs and stories we felt like we received a proper blessing for our trip from the maestro. Before leaving on the trip we contacted Ted and were extremely excited to be invited to visit him on our way down.

After a quick lunch in Eureka we were on our way to Ted’s. The road conditions were getting worse with every hour. Our last stretch of 30 miles of twisty narrow road off 101 was a rider’s nightmare. While it was only 5 pm, we were riding in complete darkness, the fog and the rain were so severe that we could not see more than a few feet in front of us. Matt was leading, we were going very slow, struggling to stay on the slippery road and make the tight corners; on top of all the hazards, a few times we encountered a deer on the side of the road completely oblivious to our troubles. It felt like the road was never going to end, but it did, and we finally made it to Ted’s land.

We stayed up till midnight eating Ted’s “poor man’s stew”, drinking $2.99 red wine (which tasted better than many Bordeaux wines I’ve had) and enjoying spirited conversation. All in all the day ended on high note, and we felt vindicated by our good fortune.

The next morning we hit the road, and yet again encountered a technical problem, this time with the GPS that refused to turn on. We stopped in a smaller stoner’s town called Willits in Mendocino County where Matt spent a few hours trying to fix the problem, and on the phone with the GPS manufacturer without positive results. Even though we had a significant layover dealing with it, we weren’t able to make contact with our friends living in town. Sorry Erika & Jerod! We decided to keep going in order to make it past San Francisco that day. In the afternoon, we finally enjoyed some sunshine and were happy to take the many layers of clothes off for the first time. We met a friend for dinner in San Jose (Hi Daryl!) and finished the day at Salinas. I hope our luck with the weather has turned. Tomorrow should be a pleasant day!