I haven't disappeared, I've just been lazy

It's been almost a month since my last post. See? I told you this blog would get slow. I'll be heading out of San Jose around June 1st...ish. Generally I've been lazing around, taking day trips here and there, enjoying the great weather and scenery out here.

So about a month ago when I posted my frustrations with L.A. traffic, I had gone down to see my friend Alex.

On my way down, I had stopped in a French Bakery in Prunedale for lunch. The place was called Provence Bakery and the food is good. By the look of everything else around it's probably the best food you can get for quite a few miles and it just broke my heart to see a whole crowd in Burger King across the parking lot, and only 3 people in the Provence Bakery and I probably would have had to spend more at Burger King for crappy food. If you end up needing some food in Prunedale, CA this is definitely the place to stop.

The original plan was to hit Palomar mountain then, but it ended up not happening. Meanwhile, while I was down there, I had my first In-N-Out burger.


Proof!


Luckily, In-N-Out does not describe the burger's relationship with the person eating it. In the words of the immortal Walter Sobchak: "Those are good burgers, dude."

Here, by the way, is what Highway 1 looks like on a clear day.


I've been rolling around, biding my time...here are some other disorganized shots of my meanderings around California:




A friend of mine and I rode our bikes out to Alice's Restaurant. Now, it's not THE Alice's Restaurant, (that's in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and is now called "The Main Street Cafe") but it is certainly the place to go if you ask any biker around here.

The food was quite good, and they have a root beer from Devils' Canyon (a local brewery) that is just perfect.



We happened to be there when there were almost no other bikers out. I've since been back twice and each time there's at least 20 bikes in that lot.

All their specialty burgers are motorcycle themed (take a look at what goes on a Harley Burger):


I went for a ride with the "Four Corners Motorcycle Club" around some beautiful roads:


And I went out on a ride with SMR motorcycle club. Where we covered more of the great California scenery and stopped for lunch at the Whale City Bakery in Davenport. If you find yourself in the area, it is definitely a good spot for a meal, and they can bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie.



Tomorrow I head out for San Francisco to spend the weekend there for "Bay to Breakers". Supposedly it's a 12k run, but all the runners show up early and run it, while the rest of city shows up a little later and it becomes a massive crawling party across town. It's about as crazy as it gets and it's pretty much the reason I've stayed in California this long.

The roughest 60 miles...

These past 17,000 miles I've gotten rained on, hailed on, snowed on. I've warmed myself in a gas station while it was 29 degrees out and I still had an hour to ride.

One time I had to wipe ice off my windshield to see through it.

I've ridden through rain so hard I had to slow down to 30 mph on a freeway just so I didn't override my visibility.

I've sat in a gas station in Arizona getting dry while the sky threw a tantrum of rain and lightning down on the only way in to Flagstaff.

I've ridden over the usually beautiful and scenic California Highway 1 while the fog was so thick I could only see about a mile in any direction.

The worst disaster that a biker can ride in, is traffic in the L.A. metro area. Take my word on it.

California in Spring

In the interest of getting out and exploring California while I can, I met up with a couple of different rider groups out here to tag along on some rides.

It's a little more difficult to stop for as many pictures as I like when riding with a group, so I didn't really manage to snap any on my first ride. I did however manage to grab a few pics on my second ride.



Both rides were about 6 hours of beautifully scenic roads winding through the hills of northern California with some very cool fellow riders.

Here I am with the "Four Corners Motorcycle Club":



On the second ride, we stopped for lunch at Vasilis Greek Restaurant in Santa Cruz. If you find yourself in Santa Cruz, this place is worth checking out. The lamb souvlaki was absolutely perfect.

Last weekend I rode down to Irvine to visit the friend I stayed with on my way up. He just got his license and a bike shortly after I passed through, so I headed down for a weekend of riding and generally being cool (as we do).

I had come up the coastal highway, so I took the inland route this time. 152 is a great scenic road that passes by San Luis Reservoir just before hitting I-5.




I-5 for the most part is boring as any other freeway, but the part through Los Padres National Forest near Lake Pyramid is nice.



We rode the Ortega Highway, which is a beautifully twisty road from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinor.

When we headed out, the sky was threatening rain, but the forecast said we were safe and we were willing to gamble. Ready to turn back if we saw rain up ahead, we rode off toward SJC, got on the Ortega, and were well rewarded. We came around a curve and the sky just instantly cleared up into a gorgeous blue.





The plan was to hit Palomar Mountain on Sunday, but instead we went to a Persian Festival and hung out with some of his friends, and then went to LA to hang out with our friends out there. Palomar will have to wait. Next time, Palomar Mountain...Next time.

On the way back, I went back up I-5 to enjoy 152 again, and stop at Casa De Fruta. I had seen it on the way down and didn't stop there. I decided I wanted to check it out. Glad I did.



There's a playground back there too somewhere. This place is very cool. They sell fruits, nuts, dried fruits, sweets, wine, hot sauce, and just about everything else. There's also a store for wine, a coffee shop, and a restaurant. Everything smells delicious. I almost regretted eating a Clif bar 10 minutes before getting there because I wasn't hungry enough to get a meal there. Instead I got a Chai latte and browsed all the cool stuff I wished I had more cargo space and money for. If you're passing by on scenic 152, stop in at Casa De Fruta, or make a destination out of it.

It's been a slow day

Oh the wonderful world one can discover when too tired to get out of bed but not tired enough to go back to sleep.

Click to view full size.


I encourage everyone to grab a couple of sharpies, take your socks off, try it out, and post links to the videos you make here in the comments.

...Hm, a post about no more sitting around followed by a comic about toes. Really seizing the day there, Mr. Adventurer.

No more dillydallying! No more dithering! No more lingering, loitering, moping or lollygagging!

My plan was to seek employment while here in San Jose, but it's reached the point where if I want to work, I'd better be prepared to stay. I can take a 1 year contract and work until next March, or I can take a 6 month contract and work until the weather is turning cold again in the rest of the country and then either back track across the south, or start waiting for spring again. Either case has me leaving in March 2012.

I realized I really don't want to do that. I do have one last financial resource that I didn't want to tap into, so I can keep on rolling for now. I'm going to head out in This April or May and continue on the journey. Here I am in California, I got my bike up and running again, and I've been far too static here. Adventure awaits!

Although I'm down to my last $40 while waiting for a check to clear, so not too much adventure.

Meanwhile, I found out I'm only about a mile away from the world's largest permanent Monopoly board.





Here I am standing on Go. If only I got $200 for it.



I like to think that if I had a ridiculously large amount of money, I would bring 4 or 5 friends to this board, give them each $1500, and then play Monopoly with real money. I would also drive everywhere in a silver Ford 32 B Roadster, because I GET TO BE THE CAR!

Fresh snow, fresh adventure, fresh injuries!

So we got some snow in California a few weeks ago. No, not in San Jose, here it was just raining. Up on the mountains near Tahoe there was kind of a lot of snow and Ricky, being an avid snowboarder and Ben being a budding skier with a week off from school, Gaelle rented a cabin for a couple of nights for a few days of hittin' the slopes.

They had a spare board and boots for me, and we picked up some gear secondhand on the cheap cheap, scheduled a lesson for Ben and I, and off we went!

If Ricky hasn't snowboarded in every country where it's possible to do so, I'm sure he's hit most of them. He's been all over the world and snowboarding since the late 70's.

Here he is with his custom "Sweet Tooth" board:




He took this picture at the top of the mountain so we all can enjoy the great view (I sure wasn't getting up there):



And here I am looking like I have a clue:



I had the most beginner of beginner lessons and was making my way down the learner slope more or less sideways (very slowly) because it's pretty important to get stopping down before moving fast.

After getting up the rope tow without falling down, and making my way down the learner slope more or less under control, I decided on the second and final day to try taking the lift up the beginner slope. I made my way down a few times, had a few spills, and still never really felt like I got steering down to any reasonable degree. My last attempt as I started going down I really felt like had it under control. I mean I was in the ZONE! I was thinking in my head "I'm doing it! I'm doing it! But I'm going kind of fast...how do I slow this down?" So I tried slowing it down. I failed. I mean I succeeded, but not in the way I had hoped. I'm not sure what I tried, but I ended up falling backwards and hit my head hard. I mean really hard. The impact knocked my goggles off. A kind skier stopped to see if I was ok. I said maybe but all I could do was just lay on the ground holding my head and hoping I didn't have a concussion. After a couple of minutes, I was relatively sure I didn't have a concussion, and I was becoming more and more aware of a major pain in my side. I told the skier I was ok and thanks for stopping and I started walking down the slope.

Now that fall had happened in about 5 seconds so I was still right near the top and my side was killing me, so I got about 10 steps before I thought "There has to be a better way of getting down..." So I pointed my board downhill, sat on it, and rode it 2/3 of the way down the slope like a sled, before walking the last third. My side was in some serious pain, so I was done. I went out to the parking lot to try and scalp my lift ticket, but it was too late in the day.

The knock on the head was enough to scare some sense into me. The next time I go snowboarding, I'm wearing a helmet, even if I'm not going that fast. Luckily, I was able to learn the lesson without a trip to the hospital.

Turns out my bottom rib on my right side has a partial fracture near the front. Which put me out of commission to do anything at all for a about a week. After I could move without being in too much pain, I went out and put new break pads on my Valkyrie. It may have been a simple job, but I'm proud to say I did it myself and didn't spend $70 paying someone else to do it.

And while I was putting on those new brake pads, I noticed a new leak in the fuel system on the left side as gasoline was once again pooling on top of the engine. It's a different problem than it was before, just with similar symptoms. I have a part coming in the mail that should fix it, but man is this getting tedious.

Sittin' on the edge of America

So it's been 2 and a half weeks since my last blog and it hasn't been completely uneventful.

I went to the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate park in San Francisco.



It's a nice place to walk around.



I've also been to the Winchester Mystery House.



It was built by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester fortune after her husband William Winchester died. After losing both her daughter and her husband she was told by a "psychic" that the spirits of all the people ever killed by Winchester rifles were after the Winchester family and out for blood and the only way to get away from them would be to never stop construction on her house (ghosts are apparently easily fooled by architecture). So this house was under construction continuously for 38 years until she died. I guess if ghosts are after you it's just a matter of time. The "Winchester Mystery House" is full of things like fake doors, windows that face walls, and there's even a stairway that just goes into a ceiling.

Unfortunately photography is not allowed inside the place.

I spent 3 days in:



I was visiting a good friend of mine and attempting to get passage to Hawaii.

I saw some sea lions basking in the sun down in the marina district:



and I caught a great sunset on the beach:



I also went in to Musée Mécanique.



It's a very cool little place full of antique coin-ops that are all still working. They had a whole bunch of little animatronic things you could watch for a quarter and "fortune tellers" and that kind of thing



as well as just antique and vintage games





as well as some slightly more modern arcade games and a steam powered motorcycle:



I played some ski-ball while I was there (how could I resist?) but my favorite thing in the place was this pinball machine from 1967:



I like that this is not a "pinball machine", but a "Flipper Skill Game".


I know it's from '67, but calling it a "Flipper Skill Game" really makes it sound like something from the '20s. I can't help but picture every time you say "Flipper Skill Game", no sound is heard, but a card pops up afterwards with the words on it.

What really makes this machine hilarious though is this prominently displayed sticker:



In 1967, they apparently believed that playing pinball would corrupt any young mind not prepared for the horrors of pinball and society itself would eventually be brought to it's knees.

After much asking around and a little research, I found out San Francisco is not the place to attempt to get to Hawaii from. I still had fun around the city though.

I leave you again now, with some words to live by:

If a door closes in the woods...

I've always said that our lives are generally in balance.

For every good and wonderful thing that happens to us, something bad is lurking around the corner to pull the cloud out from under us. For every stroke of ill luck suffered, there are good things that happen to us to lift us out of life's pitfalls. A certain area of life falls apart while in another, things coalesce into perfection. Opportunities slip away while others just fall into our laps. And sometimes, things come together so hard and fast that they start to break everything up; great wrecking balls of opportunity crashing into one another with you in between.

Ultimately, whichever side of the ever flipping coin we perceive is simply the one we focus on. There will always be forces pulling or pushing on us at different times and without opposing forces doing the same we'd probably just go crazy: lost in the euphoria that it doesn't get any better this, or crushed under the unbearable weight of knowing that it doesn't get any better than this.

All I can say is this: I won't let greed and insecurity ever be a force behind the decisions that I make. And that is liberating.

______________________________________________________________________

I wrote the above in June 2009. It probably belongs at the beginning of this blog because it really was the seed that grew into this trip, but I was clearing out some old stuff and stumbled upon it now. It was a time in my life when something bad did happen, followed by quite a few good things. The good stuff was mainly in the job market. I had just been hired at my last job and I was receiving some juicy job offers from other places. I didn't know if I would have a job past October, but the idea for this trip was forming in my head, and while it may have seemed a little reckless I decided not to take any serious job offers where I would be expected to work more than a year. No, this was the time to hit the road. Being a consultant meant I was going to have a lot less money and could be let go any time a project was coming to a close, but it allowed me the freedom to get up and go. And while I didn't know for sure I was going to take this trip, and I didn't really know what kind of a trip it would be, I recognized that freedom.

The Adventures of Mr. Macevoy and Chad Chad in the Church of Scientology

No, that's not that title of a new children's book.



After the rain broke, I spent a couple of days closer to L.A. proper and took the time to visit a friend from college, who lives in the heart of L.A.

While we were driving around, we passed the Church of Scientology.

"You wanna go in there and take a personality test?" my friend half jokes at me.
"YES!"
"Ok but how do we get them to give us the test? We can't just go in and ask for one."
"We probably can, but I have to go to the bathroom. It's perfect. We go in and ask to use the bathroom and after we do, they won't let us leave without offering to test us."
"I dunno man, I don't want them having any of my information or anything."
"Dude, don't worry! Just give them nothing but misinformation and lies! We get to take the test, free of future hassle. Don't even give them your real name. Make one up."



And that's exactly what happened, and while we were hoping to hear some real crazy stuff in there, all they did was talk about dianetics as a way to better your life.

Meanwhile, I'm a socially awkward creature. Introductions for me are a complete knee-jerk reaction. Somebody I don't know says "Hi, I'm-" and my brain switches over to auto-pilot. I shake hands, say "Ian. Nice to meet you.", and am just relieved to be past the first part of any interaction. It's probably why I have such a hard time remembering people's names. So when the guy in the church said "Hi, I'm-" and offered his hand, I shook it and said "Ian. Nice to meet you."

Oops. So much for giving a completely fake name. So when filling out my "information" on our personality tests, I used a fake last name. My friend on the other hand stayed on top of things and said his name was "Chad". And when they asked him for his last name he just repeated "Chad."



"Chad Chad" still makes me laugh.

Anyway, after we dodged their probing questions for a while, took their 200 question personality test, watched some videos about people with "problems", and refused to buy books, we left the Church of Scientology behind.

He tells me a friend of his actually got stopped on the street and offered one of their personality tests and made a video about it. It's pretty funny and you can see it here.

Anyway, I said I wanted a picture of the Hollywood sign so we went to get a view.

Behold:


Turns out they don't light it up at night.

So we wandered closer:


Shame my camera does so poorly in low light conditions.

Anyway, thus concluded my night with Chad Chad. The next day (or around then) I rode up to Highway 1 to Paso Robles for a night, then continued up Highway 1 to San Jose. Now, Highway 1 is a gorgeous road with phenomenal views and it definitely has it's share of twisties.



It absolutely sucks in the rain. The vast majority of my ride I was getting rained on, conditions were dangerous, and visibility was about 1 mile at best.

I'm going to have to go back down on a sunny day so I can experience that road the way it should be.

I've been in San Jose for about a week. This blog is going to slow down a bit for a while. I'm done for now. I'm just about out of money and I need to get a job. I don't expect there will be too much to write about between working, working out, and well, whatever else I do in a "normal" day. But you never know. I'll let it flow however it will but come springtime, I'm back on the road.

The only adventure that I foresee in the near future is I'm going to try my hand at boat hitch hiking to Hawaii some time in the next week or so.

It never rains in southern California

I left Irvine and headed North. I don't know why, but I've always wanted to ride through Death Valley, and I'm a doer.

I came into the valley from Panamint Springs.



Death Valley has good scenery,



but on a note for a future trip, it would be better to camp there than just pass through.

Coming from Death Valley into Nevada, I got into Beatty, which is an interesting little place.



While in Beatty I learned of Rhyolite: A ghost town just a few miles back the way I came. So I turned around to check it out.



Rhyolite is a little more touristy than I hoped a ghost town would be. Not like there were vendors around or anything but I wasn't the only person there, and I was really hoping I would be.

It's pretty much what you would expect of a ghost town but with a few people walking around taking pictures. And while there is a house made out of recycled glass bottles, the strangest thing by far appears to be a giant lego "shemale" just off the main road:



I really have no idea what they were going for, but then again, maybe I hit the nail on the head.

In Henderson, Nevada I saw my first scorpion up close that wasn't in some tank:



Cute little thing, isn't it? It was promptly killed and flushed down a toilet. So long soldier!

While staying in Henderson, I took a trip out to the Hoover Dam.

Here's Lake Mead in all it's dammed glory:



This is what a road runner really looks like:



The cartoon was not true to life at all. We were all lied to by Warner Bros.! And there he goes!



This is Hoover Dam:



It is very large. For now that's all I have to say about it.

Outside Henderson, just past a donkey crossing, lies the fortress of Mt. Doom.



Well, actually it's Red Rock Canyon. I was told not to miss it but again, this is a place you want to do some HIKING, not just ride through. Though I'm sure it's more majestic on a sunny day.



As for everything else: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".

But no, actually I didn't visit Vegas proper. I'll have plenty of opportunities to go to Vegas later in life. I don't think I'll ever run out of people whom I can convince that is a good idea. Meanwhile I didn't have my walking shoes, or a confidence inspiring amount of cash on me, so I was actually just a few miles from Las Vegas and I didn't bother going to the strip or Freemont Street. Next time, people, next time.

So what am I doing now? When I left Henderson, it was raining. I rode all the way back to Irvine in the rain. And then it rained all the next day. All through it. It has apparently been raining here for the past 3 days or so. My friend said "In 5 years I've never seen anything like this."

Oh well, I'm supposed to be leaving.

I was all set to leave Irvine yesterday but a fellow rider, seeing me gearing up started talking to me and was telling me that "in the last 10 miles I must've seen 20 accidents." He's describing full size bumpers broken off and lying in the middle of the street and cars losing control and spinning out all over the place.

I'm not particularly scared of the rain. It's even pretty warm out here so while a little uncomfortable, the rain isn't that bad. The rain is friendly, with no lightning. Water falling from the sky is not going to keep me off my bike. It's drivers that scare me. And to me, the idea of a freeway full of SUVs that are all over the place because the people who drive them don't think they need to be careful in inclement conditions is terrifying. More terrifying than the thought of a pizza eating a baby.

So daring to be an inconvenience I called my friend and asked if I could maybe stay a few extra nights to wait out the rain at his place. He agreed. "Yeah, I would hate to have to go to a funeral for a friend because they came out to visit me."

It never rains in California,
but girl don't they warn ya,
it pours, man it pours.



ATV cat says:
"Hell is other drivers."