On the road again, sure as your born, natural born easy on the road again

Well I have finally picked up and gotten a move on once more. It has been an eventful...5 weeks?! Things are going to be picking up again now that my wheels are set to rolling. Let's catch up, shall we?

Bay To Breakers

My last post was 2 days before the Bay To Breakers 12k. We can blame B2B for keeping me in California past April. I was told not to miss it. "What's so special about it?" Well, if you're a runner, you get to the starting point on time and run 12 kilometers. Everyone else arrives not so promptly and it turns into a massive party that crawls across the city. A lot, if not most, of the people who go to the race show up in costumes.

I was in a group of about 10, 6 of which were dressed as dinosaurs:





It was a lot like Halloween in New York City.



Some people wear nothing at all, so I did see some boobies.

Yosemite

The next weekend, I went on a group ride with some local riders to Yosemite: A great and beautiful national park here in Central California.

Now, the scenery out here in the hills of Central California is a little alien. Back in April all the local riders were saying we should go riding while it's "still green", because apparently the green of spring only lasts about a month. After April, all the grass turns golden. Now Californians are a little jaded to it and I can understand getting sick of it after a couple years, but for this North Easterner, it creates a weird green and gold color scheme that looks pretty cool:



On the way up through the mountains, at the end of May, there was still snow on the ground:



Yosemite itself is gorgeous.





The other bikers stayed in a hostel, but I chose to couchsurf as I do. While everyone else went home the next day, my host took me back in to the park to explore it a little more in depth. As we were going in they pointed out that from this particular entrance, the trees on one of the mountainsides forms a natural Grateful Dead bear:



Dead center of that picture. I think that's pretty cool and appropriate.

We went right up to Bridalveil Falls which was overflowing at the time, so much so that the path leading up to it was like a river unto itself.



We got to the base of the falls and got thoroughly soaked.

Last Hurrah: Los Angeles

The weekend after Yosemite, I went down to Irvine again for one last visit with my friend down there. This time, it was Palomar Mountain or nothing. But before we went to Palomar, we went to a showing of "The Room" at the Sunset 5 Theater in West Hollywood.



Now you may not have heard of The Room, so allow me to enlighten you. It is, perhaps arguably, the worst movie ever made, but therein lies it's saving grace. It is comically bad. Watch it alone and you're in for nothing but painfully bad cinema, watch it in a group and it's comedy gold. Such has been my experience. I had heard that it is screened on the last Saturday of every month over at Sunset 5 on 5 screens, and better yet: The Writer/Director/Star attends every screening! Me and one of the people I went with got our picture taken with Tommy Wiseau.



Too bad my camera is just awful in low light conditions. You'll just have to take my word that it's him.

Tickets sell out on a regular basis. Just take a look at the line to get in. The front of the line is to the left of the picture, and the line extendeds behind me by another 100 people or so.



"The Room" is the new Rocky Horror picture show. It's constant audience participation kept us laughing almost non-stop from beginning to end. Few events have been more fun than that.

The next day, Alex and I finally made it out to Palomar Mountain.



People talking about Palomar Mountain often call it the most technical or most difficult road in California. California riders will tell you otherwise because whoever said that hadn't ridden too many roads out here. Now it was fun, but only because I was riding with a friend. I would have been sorely disappointed if I had ridden all that way (90 miles from Irvine) expecting this amazing road only to get there and be let down. Expectations aside, a good time was had by all.

U2

Hey remember a few paragraphs earlier when I was couchsurfing in a town next to Yosemite? Well my host and I got along especially well and she just so happened to have a free ticket to go see U2 in Oakland in 2 weeks. I may not be the biggest U2 fan out there but I don't know what kind of a fool I'd have to be to not leap at this opportunity. The original plan was to leave California on June 2nd or 3rd after getting back to San Jose from my last visit down South.

Instead after returning from SoCal, my new good friend Heather came out to San Jose to hang for a few days.

Around San Jose, we went to Kelly Park, saw the "Japanese Friendship Garden" there:



Also, what appears to be a real live Truffula Tree:



The Lorax was not present.

We also went out to the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden because sometimes it's important to stop and smell the roses.



Sometimes it's also important to get a job, hippie!

Then of course, there was U2. It was a pleasant surprise that the opening act was Lenny Kravitz.



It was unfortunate that the crowd seemed dead for Lenny Kravitz, but luckily U2 lit the place up. Both literally and figuratively.











Now again I say, I've never been much a fan of U2, but they put on one hell of a show. It was a great time.

We were lucky to be going by motorcycle because it was estimated that 2000 people missed the concert do to this awful California traffic that we were able to just slither our way through.

The Great Lick Refractor

Our next adventure took us to the Lick Observatory which at the time it was built, was home to the world's largest refracting telescope.



The Lick Observatory was built to honor James Lick, who's body is interred right below the Lick Refractor. James Lick was a piano builder who apparently became so wealthy that he could decide to have the world's largest refracting telescope built as a memorial to himself. And so he did.

"Words" to live by?

But who needs a fire starter when you have electric grapes?

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: