Phoenix to San Diego
9/19/04
I left
home at
At the restaurant in Tonopah, I had a seat where I could watch my bike. Mostly I do that so I can admire Bullet while I sit, but also to keep an eye on it. I discovered a nice side benefit: I get to see people ogle my bike. An older couple left the restaurant and went to the minivan parked next to me. As they approached their vehicle, the man stopped and looked over my bike. He walked around it, eyeing it from every angle. He unlocked the passenger door for his lady, then went back to the driver side, squatted down near the right front faring, presumably to see that it was NOT a BMW, but a Yamaha ;o) and climbed into his van. They must have sat there for 2-3 more minutes, with the woman leaning across to see out the driver's window while they pointed at my bike and talked. Mostly, though, their mouths were hung open with what looked to be awe and amazement. Hee hee!
My first 4.15 gallons of gas got me 215 miles. That's almost 52mpg, baby ! I gassed up in a small town called Middle of the F***ing Desert (or maybe it was Desert Center, I can't recall exactly) where unleaded regular was $2.69/gal.
At this
gas station in Middle of the F***ing Desert, I went into the nasty ladies' room
(you'd think that with the price they charge for gas, they could have made the
station a little nicer) to wet down my t-shirt and vest, but there was no place
to lay out my jacket to zip the vest into/out of it, so I laid it partly across
the sink and partly across the opening of the garbage can. If it was anyone
else, that would have worked out fine, but this being ME, the pocket of my
jacket was unzipped and my keys fell into the garbage can. I fished them out,
unaware that my earplugs had also fallen into the garbage can. By the time I got
to my bike, suited up and ready to put them in, I realized what had happened. I
was not willing to dig through that garbage for the foam earplugs. I decided to
put up with the wind noise until I got to Indio where there would surely be a
Wal-mart and I could get some new ones.
As luck
would have it, I found a Wal-mart in Indio on the way to the junction of the
highway I wanted to take, and went in to get some new earplugs. I found some,
but they didn't have the foam kind that you smush and cram into your ears. All
they had were little rubber jobs, so I gave them a try. They simply did not work
for wearing in a motorcycle helmet. There went $8 down the tubes. (Turns out I
was looking in the wrong place for earplugs!) So I put up with wind noise for
the rest of the ride.
I drove
through Indio and Palm Desert (a budding metropolis) and took hwy 111 to 74. Hwy
74 wound very twistily up into the mountains, although you wouldn't really know
it by looking at the map. My goodness! I think it was about 44 miles of twisting
roads. Motorcycle Nirvana! For the most part, I could ride it at speed, but
there were some sort of hair-pinnish turns (I learned after taking the first one
at a higher speed than I would've liked). So when the sign said 30mph curve, I
didn't take them at 60 like I did in the Salt River Canyon. I took them at 40-45
since I don't want to die thinking, "Oh Shit!"
After I
turned off of 74 onto 371, the roads were straight and boring for the most part,
but the countryside was pretty. For some reason, I never thought of California
as having hick towns, but it does. I didn't stop to speak with the residents, so
I couldn't tell you if they speak with a twang.
By 4pm I
was getting pretty tired. My knees and hips were cramped and my hands were worn
out. For long, mostly straight roads, the Vista Cruise throttle lock wins the
Most Valuable Farkle award (MVF), but on twisty roads, and through hick towns
where sputtering primer-gray pick-up trucks pull onto the highway and don't make
it up to 50mph before turning off again, the vista cruise is just a
not-so-pretty handlebar ornament. I pulled over to program the GPS to reroute me
directly to my hotel, and it directed me to I take 79 to I-15 south to SR76 to
Oceanside. That road needs to be widened, as there was a lot of traffic. Of
course, I hit the area at rush hour, so I suppose that didn't help. Did you know
that motorcyclists in CA can split lanes? Holy cow. The first guy who did that,
zooming past me partially in my lane, scared the crap out of me. Shit! It didn't
strike me as a terribly safe practice (especially on the freeway where people
don't just change lanes, they dart from
lane to lane), and for such a thing to be legal in a state with a helmet law
seems a bit contradictory. But that's just me.
The
on-ramp to I-5 south toward Del Mar and my hotel was a left turn. So was the
on-ramp to I-5 north. Guess which way I ended up going.
OK, so I
take the next exit, cross under the freeway and get back on going south, right?
How hard could that be? Well, that particular exit was weird and again I turned
earlier than I should have and ended back on I-5 north. The next exit was 3.5
miles ahead. Argh! This time I managed to follow the signs properly and got back
on I-5, going south now. I rode for 25 miles before finding my exit and my
hotel, the Hilton Del Mar.
I'm
guessing I was the stinkiest guest they have ever had there, but they gave me a
primo room anyway with a huge bathroom (probably so I could, like, use it).
After a delicious shower, I walked to the Fish Market, decided not to wait 30
minutes for a table and went instead to Denny's and had fake fish and fake
shrimp before returning to the room to put on my bathing suit and finding my way
to the hot tub. I had it to myself for probably ten minutes before being joined
by a woman from NJ with whom I had a nice chat.
I returned
to my room and paid too much money to watch I, Robot. It was pretty good. If you
haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend it just for the chance to see Will Smith
naked. That is one gorgeous hunk of man. The next morning, I snarfed a breakfast
at Denny's, and returned to the room to plot out my day's drive.
I decided on route 18 of the Mad Map's guide that JC loaned me. From my hotel I took S6 north east to Escondido. It was a wonderful drive with little traffic. What's cool about this place is that few of the roads are straight. It took a while to drive through Escondido, and S6 north from there was under construction, which wouldn't have been bad except there was a freaking cement truck ahead of us, which would not pull out to let cars pass. It went between 15-20 mph all the way to Valley Center, and the constant throttle adjustments and clutching tired my hands out quickly. From Valley Center to Rincon, and the junction of hwy 76, was smooth sailing, but the drive wasn't anything to get excited about.
On the way to Santa Ysabel, I pulled over for a snapshot. As you can see above, the ground was not paved. I came way too close to dropping my bike while trying to position it here (Jim, don't laugh!). By the time I got to Santa Ysabel, I had to pee, so I decided to stop in Julian, not far up the road, for something to drink and a potty break. What a cute town! Got my fridge magnet, too. The road leading into Julian and then south on hwy 79 was AWESOME! Can you say AWESOME?! They probably could have made a lot of that road straighter, and had the engineers been from Phoenix they probably would have, but these roads were curvy and twisty and WOW! I’m drooling with the retelling, it was so good. It was almost more fun than one woman can handle. I saw more bikes on the road than cars, practically (and Julian was FULL of bikes everywhere).
Although it was only about a 180 mile ride, it took me all day. I guess I did stop in some of the shops in Julian and chatted up some folks, but still, I didn't spend all that much time there. This may be no surprise, but I "only" got 45 mpg during this ride. J I found a Target on the way back to my hotel, and managed to secure a few pairs of foam earplugs for the trip home. Ahhhh, much better.
For the ride home, I took S21 down along the coast, toward La Jolla. I’d intended to go that way all the way to Sea World in the Mission Bay Park, but I made a wrong turn and ended up at the I-5 on-ramp.
I was in Going Home mode, so it was just too easy to hop on, and then high tail it over to I-8. Traffic was minimal going through San Diego, so in that regard it was a good decision. Coming out of San Diego County I got cold. The wind sweeping across the freeway batted me around like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. I slowed it down to 70 to make it easier to stay between the lines, but once out of SD County and we touched down to sea level (there’s even a sign), it warmed up plenty. I made it to Yuma on the first tank of gas, stopped for a drink and to put on my Sahara vest, and called my mommy. I almost forgot the gas, and thankfully happened to notice the one bar blinking on my dashboard before I left Yuma. Got 42mpg from the hotel to Yuma on CA’s gas. Hm. I expected better.
About 50
miles outside of Yuma, I stopped at a rest stop just ahead of some ominous black
clouds. It was starting to get a bit toasty out there in the desert, so I
thought a little rain wouldn’t be unwelcome. Turned out to be more than just a
little rain. I had water splashing up onto my boots, so again I had to slow it
down to 70 or so for a while. Soon enough we broke through the rain and emerged
into the <ahem> mph territory. ß
That’s in case my mom is reading this. J
I arrived home about 7 hours after setting out, hungry, beat and stinky.
But I was greeted by a wonderful smile, and lots of hugs and kisses (despite
being stinky). Everyone should have a dog like mine!
Total trip miles: 952