no wind and then wind, but not wet

View Larger Map

It seems that I am living my life by obsessing about the forecast and the weather conditions. Well... a huge pacific storm was headed for the coast and we are going to be caught up in it. When we checked the forecast on Saturday night (right now it is monday night) there was a high wind advisory for the southern oregon coast (30-60 mph) for the day we were going to ride on the southern oregon coast. Yikes. If you haven't had the pleasure of riding a motorcycle in wind, let me describe the sensation. First... let me describe the regular sensation of riding a motorcycle with no wind. Imagine the coolest roller coaster you can think of (minus the loop-d-loops). Basically we are riding that roller coaster only we can choose our speed. Now to add wind, pitch the track over 10-20 degrees depending on the wind speed. [adjusting the chain tension] Now add gusts... pitch it back and forth only you can't tell when the wild swings are going to happen. For those of you who have been to disneyland and ridden space mountain, it is something like that. It is fun... but also kind of scary. For instance, we were on the 101 today going over the Eel river on a fairly high bridge and boy did the wind start blowing. I looked over the edge of the bridge and thought... I wonder if I could survive the fall off this bridge into the water? Now, it really isn't that bad. I won't ever fall off the bike and as long as I keep it mellow and am prepared for anything, I feel like I am in control. Which is fun. But too much fun can be tiring.



[mama mia, that's a big'a tree] So here we are in Garberville, CA- probably the epicenter of marijuana growing in the USA. An interesting town for sure. It is just south of Humbolt State Park which is home to the 25 mile Avenue of the Giants. A small winding road through the largest trees in the world. I think we saw one other car on the road (which happens to be in the video). Absolutely fantastic riding. And the cool thing about giant redwoods? They block the wind.

What else have we done? We have ridden countless miles of spectacular coastline with giant waves (25 foot breakers are predicted for tomorrow). We have ridden past uber green fields with spots of fog dotting the skyline. We bought groceries at a COOP in Eureka and the cashier (who owns a motorcycle very similar to ours) invited us to stay with his daughter in Santa Barbara. In the same coop we talked with a bunch of different folks including a little girl who was so fascinated with bikes that she made her parents wait around for us to start up our bikes and ride off. She started off by saying "it is going to be loud." Thinking that she doesn't like loud noises, I reassured her that our bikes actually aren't that loud but as it turns out, she was waiting for us to start our bikes so she could here loud noises. I regretted disappointing her with the sweet german purrr of a single cyclinder BMW. (you can barely see here behind the pole in this photo)

[check out the sweet swell in the background] Tomorrow we head to San Francisco. Our plan was to head slightly south of here and then at Leggett start the 1 all the way into San Francisco. The 1 is the classic winding coastal road with very little as far as civilization. However, with 30 mph winds predicted and pouring rain (it is now raining hard outside our hotel room) we may take it easy and cruise the 101 instead. We'll see what the morning brings.

[running in the forest]








[a perfect snack, salami-thanks ian- cheese from the tillamook factory and coffee]








[sunrise at the sunset hotel]











[watching the radar image-this isn't good]