July4th weekend: SD-LA-SFO-PDX-Wa and back

Finally, I have something to write in this space. Although not technically a "motorcycle" diary post, I will still dump it here to give my dying blog some life.

Even before I begin, I have to say that all the photos appearing this entry are not taken by me. They are copyright Prakhar Jain. They cannot be used anywhere without prior permission.


4 of July was just 2 days away and we had no plans, I had just come back from Hawaii after attending a conference. yes, a conference, not honeymoon! How can we stay here at home for 3 continuous day without doing anything. After a few phone calls with some infamous junta, we were all set to do a mad border-border drive. The proposed length of the trip was 2600 miles roundtrip and we had 3 full days to conquer the distance. Three of us will be doing the driving and the plan was to shift every 250miles while the other two drivers rested.

Finally, the day dawned, the previous night I was supposed to have slept early in the hopes of catching some good sound sleep but like all classic Arun plans, I went and saw the movie public enemies instead and then came back late to home and then arranged my clothes and stuff, etc and finally it was 4 am by the time I slept. Good, I was supposed to wake up at 7 to get the rental car. Woke up at 7, went to avis and got the car and it was a nissan altima, one of my favorite sedans.

After abusing junta and get them to leave, we finally managed to leave the home and catch the freeway at 11am. We were already running 3 hours late even before the trip began. Here is raavan, he is very focused in life and driving. You can see it in his eyes.




He coasted us to Los Angeles, where we planned to have a quick break for lunch. Chipotle it was. we wanted to spice up our stomach with mexican food so that we could stink up the route with organic smell and mexican aroma. After eating chicken burrito, I was already feeling like taking a huge dump. Such is the power of good mex food. LA is weird, it is crowded unlike SD. They have huge pickups like these.




Saurabh is the person handling gas bills for the trip, here he is in action. It was first refill and he is happy and enjoying what he is doing.

Prakhar is very happy now after eating the veg special bean and cheese burrito and he is creative head behind these photos. Here you see him in action.

The joruney continued as we passed by many interesting characters and vehicles. Here you see some new age motorbikers with body armor, gloves, tees and flip flops. Long live!

Here is Prakhar again showing some of his creative photography skills. Yes, those are dorritos in the right corner. They are kept there so that we can stink up the system further just in case the junk food we ate during the trip did not do the trick. The guy sitting in between is Chandu and he must be thinking, why the fuck am I going along with these guys. He was in SD for a week of project and by ill fate he decided to join us on this trip. I guess, he will regret that decision through his life. Sorry Chandu!

raavan continued to drive through the dirty and crowded city of Los Angeles at steady pace, we were crossing magic mountains now.

We continued to pass some interesting cars and trucks. This was one such, I will leave it to your interpretation as to why it was weird.

Saurabh is probably wondering if this trip will materialize. The time was running fast and we were just outside LA.

Finally after crossing the arid and barren lands of SD and LA, we entered grapenvine where agriculture was happening in full swing. The central california agriculture belt is supposed to be one of the most fertile places in this country.

After about 300mi, it was time to stretch and change drivers. When we get a chance, we really stretch.

We got some coffee and snacks at IHOP to keep us awake for the next leg. Tiredness was already beginning to show on the faces. Heck, we are just 300 miles into the proposed 2600 mi trip.

There was more agriculture. Someone told me that the central agriculture belt of california produces about 1/3 of America's food grains. Amen!

We passed through more interesting vehicles.

Sacremento was our next stop and it was 247 miles away, it was my turn to drive now.

Prakhar caught a group of skool kids yelling inside the bus, I am not sure if they were crying for help, but he was happy to have his picture.

We had a quick pit stop some 100 miles into this leg to release organic gaseous material into the free atmosphere and get some more coffee. Some more words of wisdom from people who had been here. I am not sure if you can read them, but if you can it is funny. Prakhar wanted to pose with and he seems very happy after farting in the open air. He is even pulling up his pants after the act.

More agriculture...

and we continue driving...

thats me driving and you can see the concentration.

more cows now... mmm..I see steak and a nice greasy hamburger for dinner now.

finally we reached sacramento by about 8pm and you can see raavan stretching, he is really stretching.

I am pretty relieved to be off the car and so are the others.

Yes, you are right - after seeing all the cows on the way we had to eat some burgers :) There is no better place for burgers. Saurabh and I ate here while the rest of the vegetarian crew went on search of veggie delite :P

finally the veggie crew manage to find a taco bell serving bean and cheese delicacies.

raavan is not sure of he has to be impressed by the chicken tacos. He is still unsure.

chandu is asking for a custom order of a bean and cheese food it seems and apparently the waiter looks displeased with his custom order. After the meal, he was seen cribbing for the next 2 days about how bad it was.

The three meat eaters seem visibly happy with the dinner.

Saurabh is filling gas and he is starting to frown now. Raavan is wondering if the supposed to be efficient nissan altima is guzzling gas. It was saurabh's turn to drive now.

after about 120 miles, it was time to take a break to take a leak. Now thats some serious word play. I am proud of myself. We are seen dicussing shit here. Oregon border was still about 120mi away.

as we continue driving through the mountians and lakes, we finally see a small 3'x4' board welcoming us to Oregon. We immediately pulled over to the right and took some photographs at about 2.30 am in the night. At about 3 am we found a campsite near some lake and we wanted to sleep there for about 2-3 hours. By the time we set up the tent and slept it was 3:30am and we woke up around 4:30 am to start with the long second day.

By 5 am we started to drive again, it was raavans turn again. Oregon is boringly green. There are miles and miles of greenrey with too little people.

After 24 hours of continuous driving with 1.5 hours of rest, here we are with our tired faces. Chandu is definitely not impressed...

Being one of the chief architects of the trip, I am still trying to put up some smile...

raavan is also trying to help me...

saurabh is probably confused... probably thoughts like why the fuck are torturing ourselves is going through his mind now.

the photographer is fast asleep and snoring like a wild boar whose nose is smeared with fresh jalapeno extract.

Oregon is boringly lifeless and green. Oh, I already said that.

we continue on the 5 north...

portland is still about 91 miles away and we hope to meet some people there. Afterall, it is the capital city and a major metro.

At this stage we have completed 1025 mi on the car in less than 20 hours.

Finally, there are some indications of civilization and human settlement.

oh yes, we are in pdx baby!

alright, it is stretching time. We are seen dicussing if we should continue for the next 400 miles north to reach canada border or should we call it quits and return now. Finally, we decided that we will drive a bit into the WA state and then return back.

and so we enter into WA now... The first city is Vancouver.

Here we are sailing over the columbia river which runs across the border of Or and Wa. Glad Oregon and Washington are not in India. We know the consequences.

alright, he is not happy now. Too much gas.

The sun continues to belt us in Wa.

ahh... finally we were inside a pizza hut. We were very very hungry. The first thing I did was take a huge dump(really really huge) inside a restroom which does not close properly. And no, I did not coil up like randy marsh when doing the act. raavan stood guard outside to prevent people from accidentally entering in view of public concern and safety. Finally, I am relieved and wanted to eat a ton. I am frantically turning the 2 pages of the menu over and over again to find what to gulp.

after the meal, the smile says it all right? yes, we had some good food.

The return journey begins. It is my turn to drive and Saurabh is trying to catch some sleep using his towels.

we continue through boring Or until we find some rest area

and some coffee of course...coffee and smoke kept us going. ya, Mjs soul is currently trapped in Prakhar's body.

at this moment, saurabh is probably feeling like he belongs inside the trash can. That's how crappy and sick he is feeling.

we continue through green Or and enter into Ca now.

mt shaasta starts showing up the moment we enter CA.

We look for a place to park and rest for sometime. Living beings in CA are so disciplined that even pets obey the law.

we take plenty of pictures in the rest area with mt shaasta as the backdrop and we are all happy now.

these are the kind of informative maps on whihc the trip was based. it was random. All we knew was that we need to go on the I5.

saurabh started to drive now and the next stop was bay area. After many many hours of driving and tiredness, we reach SFO. Tired hands cannot take steady pictures. Prakhar was trying to disprove that and he failed. oh wait, doesn't it look artsy.

woohoo.. it is 2am and we are in the hip-pee center of the world frantically searching for the golden gate bridge.

After 30mins of searching, we drove past it and we were totally unimpressed :P Now, it was 3 am and we had to sleep. We searched for a campsite for sometime and since it did not materialize, motel6 was was our host. we finally slept peacefully for 5 hours till about 9 am.

alright, the bags are packed and ready to go.

we again drove by the goldgen gate bridge hoping to be impressed this time in daylight. After the round of photographs and usual posing, we started again.

the smile on raavans face indicates the obvious, yes baby, we were going to have some Indian food. My friend helped me on phone with the directions.

Saravana bhavan baby, time to cathc up with the idly, dosai and vadai adter a long time.

the food was needless to say, great. we ate a shit load.

and after a heavy meal, saurabh is disoriented.

a quick smoke and it was time to carry on.

this is what happens when you eat a ton on a hot afternoon.

raavan is still steady as always and driving after the heavy meal. Prakhar is giving him good company in the front.

1900 miles into the trip and still rolling...

instead of going on the 5, we drove south on the 101 because we were in hurry to reach SD. 101 is full of bikers, while negotiating with bikers like these, we got a hard earned ticket with 2 citations. It was a proud moment. In fact without it, the trip would have a boring long road trip. .

it was a double citation brother! the cop was definitely in a bad mood.

we kept driving and rested in a few places and continued. SD was still about 400 mi away. and finally we reached home at 2 am in the night with 2362 miles on the clock. PHEW!!! So, we ended covering this distance in 60 hours time with 6 hours of sleep. It is a July 4th weekend well spent. Looking forward to being part of many more weird trips like that in future.

PS: this whole article was written in less than an hour, I haven't checked for spelling and grammar. Please pardon me if you find too many errors.

PPS: please thank Prakhar for providing all the lovely pictures. He gives a rat's ass about your flowery words of encouragement. Thanks and hope y'all enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed being on the road.

SD-Bakersfield-Mojave-Santa Clarita-Los Angeles-Dana Point-SD

Participants: Ajith and me

Distance: 521.4 miles (30 hours)


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This ride was due for a long time. Firstly, it was a long time since I met my good friend Ajith. He got a motorbike recently and it was time to burn some rubber. Secondly, the idea of 1000 mi trip has been teasing me. I have been riding in the US for about 9 months now. Though, the original plan was to ride to Death valley, due to unforeseen changes in weather we had to curtail the distance and get back home to San Diego. :(


We had been planning the ride for over a month until we found a perfect slot where the weather would accommodate the both of us through the whole trip. The day was marked, one day after Christmas - Dec 26th. Until the 25th, it was raining in San Diego and San Jose. We started on the 26th and the plan was meet in Bakersfield and then continue the journey. The time was 10:30 and I was already nervous and I wanted to leave. We both begun at the same time. The first part of both our journeys was good. We both reached our first pit stop which was 120mi from home at around the same time. I reached the crowded city of Los Angeles and Ajith reached some town which was 120mi away from San Jose. We talked to each other and relaxed for some time. I stretched and relaxed my muscles preparing for the next leg which is supposed to be a very difficult one for me, It was supposed to be a cake walk for Ajith.


I started again on I5 north. This leg is challenging as I had to ride through the cold mountains where sub zero temperatures were prevalent. Yeah, I am not kidding. To add to the misery, the roads were so full of pot holes and terrain was challenging. :( With every passing mile away from Los Angeles, the tempreature seemed to be steadily dropping. It was getting cold. Mind you, I was wearing a jacket over the sweater over the t-shirt. Above all this, I had my leather riding jacket on. I had as many layers on the bottom as well. In spite of that, I was feeling terrbily cold. Yuck, what am I supposed to do. My finger tips were freezing and so was my toes. The two socks did not help me much. My hands and legs were starting to get numb. The pot holes on the roads was making me uneasy. Suddenly, "what the f*** am I doing?" kind of emotions started running through my mind. I tried stopping every 20 miles and taking a break so that I could warm my fingers and hands with the heat of my silencer pipe. The altitide was steadily rising, I was at 4k ft above sea level- the winds were chilly. aaarrgghhh! I was in deep shit. I still had about 30 miles to coast to safety to a placed named Grapevine which was still 30 miles away from me. I held my breath and did a quick and miserable lap to Grapevine. I saw a Jack in the box and wanted to take a leak there and get something to munch out there. I relaxed out there for about 20 mins trying to get my body temperature back to normal.


I called up Ajith and he picked up immediately, He had also finished a long leg. I shared my misery with him :) and then started my final leg for the day. I was still about 40 miles away from the destination. Ajith had about the same distance. That was the end of a painful first day.


The final leg was calm and peaceful, it was pleasantly warm at about 10 degree Celsius after that sub zero ordeal. Both if us finally reached the destination at the same time. I just pulled into the motel 6 just off 58 and he reached there 5 mins later. Yeah, we have amazing riding chemistry between us :P We got a nice warm smoking room facing the highway. We also got wi-fi access there for extra $3. We chatted, smoked, drank beer for most of the night after the grub at Dennys'. It was about 11pm when we decided to sleep. I could not sleep until about 3 am :( and so I had to resort to some songs from my cell phone.


I woke up at about 7am, went in for a quick shower and then woke Ajith up. We cleared the room by 8am and then filled gas. It was quite chilly outside. We came to our bikes and found a good layer of ice on it. Damn! that doesn't look good. We let the bike warm up for about 10 mins and cleared the ice off the bike. The ambient temperature was not bad and it was about 2 degree Celsius. We started off on the CA58 E Mojave bound.


Damnit, this ride was not easy by any means. The altitude was steadily rising until we hit about 3000 ft and we were riding through the mountains again. The ambient temperature and the wind chill killed us. The scenery was breathtaking, but god damnit, the hands and legs were numb again :( I found it hard to control my bike and Ajith faced the same problems. Layers of clothes really don't help it seems. Oh wait a minute, we saw frozen snow on the road side. All the vehicles that crossed us were SUVs and trucks. My good good, wtf are two of us motorcyclists doing out there. I cursed myself a thousand times during that stretch. There was a thin layer of ice on the road, a very thin layer actually. It was scary, we kept the speed down and rode on the right most lane. Even huge trucks over took us. Never before has something like that happened. But cmon we are on two wheels at the mercy of nature :( We finally reached the god damned town of Mojave. Here we had to answer two important questions.

1) is it worth continuing with the trip?
2) what is the fall back plan?

The first question had an easy answer. We called up our friends and found out about the weather updates for the route. It looked like it was cold through the journey. We were certain that our bodies would not hold up continuously riding at those insane climatic conditions which brought us to the second question. We were thinking of all kinds of possibilities. We pulled of to the CA14 highway shoulder and started pondering over what could be done being stuck in a barren town of Mojave. After a few phone calls and iPhone browsing we decided to get back to San Diego which was about 210mi away.


The first part of the 80mi was supposed to be an arduous journey through the mountains and chilly winds. We knew that if we could cross that stretch without any problems, the second leg would be easy. We decided to take some breaks every 40 miles and get through. Out first stop was at a place named Rosamond. It was filled with travelers in their SUVs. We were the only two losers in that whole area. We had good fatty American break fast, then an usual smoke before we started towards the next destination which was Palmdale.


The ride was super painful through bad roads, weather conditions, uncooperative cagers - we finally made it through to Palmdale where Ajith had a coffee. We relaxed there for about 20 minutes. By now, all that was left was another 30 miles of madness before we could get into the dirty city of Los Angeles. We battled through like mad and wounded warriors and finally it was I5 YAY YAY!!!

Nice warm weather greeted us. Hurray! We coasted along I5 before we stopped by at a Persian place for Lunch. It was so-so. To wash down the food, we proceeded towards the starbucks, Dana point. iPhone really rocks when you are on the move. A good coffee and some nice scenic views was part of the next 30 minutes. It was about 4pm and the sun would set soon.


It was time to leave and about 60miles to go. The crotch was in deep pain already. The ass was sore. What the heck! only 60mi to go and it was a very familiar stretch for me. I also had to keep in mind that Ajith was already passing out. He looked super tired to me. I had to ensure that he was good for the final assault. I had to ride along the right most lane to ensure that he kept up with me for the next 60 miles. We coasted at about 75ish before getting back home. The time was 5:42 pm with 521.4 mi on the meter- we were tired, confused and bruised. Hurray, we are back. So in effect, it was 530 miles in a 30 hour time span through the most inhospitable conditions. Do we qualify for the Iron Butt challenge?


Though, the trip was a complete failure in many ways. It was a great experience where we learned many important lessons. Some note worthy lessons in no particular order are:

• good music is very important especially when traveling alone. I am considering getting myself a good in-ear phone.
  
• Saddle bags is a great investment. Never depend on a backpack. It is the worst thing I did in the trip.
• Never plan long rides in the peak summer or winter unless you want to die sooner.
• Suzuki SV650 is a gem of a bike. It is an extremely reliable bike. It is solid. Even in freezing temperatures, just turn it on and it will fire up in an instant and it never heated up. My love for this bike has increased to dangerous limits after the trip.
• iPhone is not a bad investment after all.
  

In summary, the trip has given us the confidence in us that weather forgiving, we can do any distance on our bikes.

PS: Ajith rode back from San Diego to San Jose yesterday alone in 10 hours. Yes, that's the confidence we have now. I am very proud of him. It is no ordinary ride.

PPS: The originally planned trip will be completed in March-April time frame in sunny spring weather. Already looking forward to it now.

SD-Santa Ysabel-Escondido-Oceanside-Dana Point-SD

Participants - Ankit and me.

Distance: 220mi


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Back to 200+mi trips. Hip-hip-hurray. :) For a change this time I initiated the ride. Ankit and I had decided on this kind of a ride for a week now. The ride also assumed importance as this was the last weekend before Ankit left on a 40 day India trip. So, had to make the most of this Saturday.

We fired the engines at 1030 am and as usual filled up our tanks. The map of the whole ride was not pre-planned but there were two important criteria.
1)to ride in the twisties
2)have coffee at Dana Point.

The first one was my condition and the second one was Ankit's. We started on interstate 15 and as usual took the wrong exit. With Ankit in the front it is very very very likely that you screw up the exits :P. So, instead of Via Rancho parkway we got out of Pomerado rd exit. As soon as we got out, Ankit assured me that this road is twisty enough. We entered the Highland valley road next and boy, it was a scary road. To sum up it was twisty, tight and treacherous. Ankit was in the front having fun with his usual 60 degree leans and I was obviously a lot more conservative. :) I believe in "it is better to burn the rubber than the knee". Actually, thats a fancy way of putting it. The fact is I am not that skilled yet. :) Give me some more time please. After about 15-20 minutes on this road we found some cops and ambulances rushing in the reverse direction. I was pretty sure that some motorcyclist went down some where along the road. RIP brother. We continued on the road until we were lost. For the first time the apple iPhone was put to some use. It had a GPS and maps built into it. What a handy thing to have. No more carryring sheets of paper containing directions. Technology is progressing much faster than I ever imagined.

We found the directions to Ramona and then proceeded on the beautiful Julian highway to Santa Ysabel to the famous Dudley's bakery. Boy, the road was beautiful with nice high speed curves and banks. We reached to find a million people in there. It is a very very famous bakery with many many patrons. Count me into the list of patrons. I make it a point to eat there whenever I am around that area. We ate cheese danish and almond croissants and proceeded towards Ramona to have our lunch. We stopped by a place named manana's mexican restaurant. The food there was dirt cheap compared to the usual restaurants. I had carne asada burrito and Ankit had his usual chile rellenos. Carne asada burrito is my favorite in the mexican cuisine. My only complaint against that place was that it had too many flies hovering and the food was cold :(. But, for the price it was an awesome place to eat. Now again, the iPhone comes handy. We looked up the next set of directions towards Oceanside where we would merge with interstate 5 Dana point bound.

We proceeded on Highway 78. Holy cow, I was feeling so damn sleepy ::( The highway winds kept me awake, but I wanted to doze off badly. Ankit was leading the way and I was left trailing behing. Suddenly, there was this ducati dude who saw me overtake on the left lane and looks like his ego hurt and he started racing. :) I left him to go ahead, I was not in mood for any ego clashes and racing. But anyways, ducatis are better than the low and mid range zukis. They are not even in the same ball park. Forget it, they are not even in the same league. :) After a boring journey on the highway 78 we finally merged onto interstate 5.

25 miles to go before we can stop somewhere. Another boring journey gets underway before I see the highway sign which said 2 miles to Dana Point. yay, finally I can stretch my muscles. It was almost 80 miles of continuous riding through boring roads. We reached the starbucks and this time I got Vanilla classic and Ankit got a hot chocolate. We left our bikes there and walked to the amazing view point. We sat there for about 20-30 minutes sipping the hot beverage gazing at the amazing view in front of us.

"Alright bro, it is time to get back now." I said. "hmmm...okies" Said he. We started our journey headed towards home which was 60 miles away. We lost each other on the freeway and drove at our own pace and reached home in about an hour's time. It was a very nice ride, both twisties and Dana point was a nice experience. It will be a many weekends until he gets back. We miss you and your company :) Time to get Anshuman and Nikhil into riding.

oops, did you realize that this is the first time there are no pictures :P yeah, it was deliberate. I decided that I was not going to carry my camera around. It was a ride "ride", not a photo ride. :)

SD-San Vicente-Ramona-SD

Participants: Anshuman and me.

Distance: 80mi

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Like always, I was rolling on the bed on a lazy sunday afternoon. I recieve a call from Anshuman.

me:hello

Anshuman:Hey Arun, let's go.

me:Where?

Anshuman:I have a route in mind.

me:do you really want to go now?

Anshuman:yes!

me:okay, give me ten minutes and I will meet you in the parking lot.

yeah, like always, yet another random ride on a lazy sunday afternoon :) We start out at about 1600 hrs and ride on the miramar road, then onto pomerado road. For the first twenty minutes, it was boring as we were weaving through the city traffic after which we start to burn the rubber on the twisty roads. We turn onto highway 67 now and we are proceeding towards San Vicente reservoir (supposed to be one of those big ones around here). We reach the reservoir entrance just to find out that.... DUH! The pics speak for themselves. After some posing for the photographs, we decide to continue on our ride.

The roads around this part of the world are very exciting for motorcyclists, twisties - YAY! We continued on wildcat canyon road just to be tailgated by an officer :) He was right behind me waiting to pounce on me for the first mistake I was going to make. Hehe, but I was driving overcautiously right in front of me :D Always within speed limits and maintaing my lane - after about 10 mins of riding right behind me, he took an exit. Hurray!

Once, he was off my rear view mirrors, I sped to catch up with Anshu who was way ahead of me. We drove through Ramona and then through my favorite San Pasqual road and then finally reached Escondido. We stopped just to stretch our arms and legs. We rested for a few minutes and then decided to exchange our bikes and ride the way back to home. It is always fun to ride a 600cc gixxer and Anhsu wanted to try my torquey babe.

We started and man! within the first 5 minutes on the 15 freeway, a red light started flashing on the gauge cluster. I had no clue what that meant. Had to be some kind of warning. I could not pay attention to what it was exactly as we were on the freeway coasting at around 80mph on the left-most lane. The light started flashing more vigorously soon after. I started pulling over to the right and Anshu followed - we took the Del Mar exit and I was ahead trying to find the first palce to park our bikes and exchange back. I took a right turn and looked at my rear view and found a silver bike on the road. Shit!!! Anshu crashed my bike on the turn. Dang, a spotless bike in immaculate condition turned into a dud within a fraction of a second. :( :(

My heart was pounding for two reasons

1)Anshu ?

2)my babe ?

Luckily for Anshu, he just had some road rash on his right knee - nothing more. Got him off the road and the cop was immediately right with us to ask if we needed help and he gave us some time to clear up all the stuff. I picked up my right indicator which was hanging loose from the head. Anshu was in a position to ride - thank god. We then inspected the bike, and lots of cosmetic damages but nothing major, another big thanks. The frame slider did it's job and prevented any major damage to the engine or the radiator. We collected all the broken parts and rode back home.

Anshu went to the hospital to have his wound treated and he is alright now. He also got me a new pair of frame sliders. WOOT :) In the meantime, I also spent some time to cover up the cosmetic scratches and paint scrapes with decent success. The bike is back to normal now :P, just that the cosmetics are no longer what it used to be. who cares about the cosmetics anyway ?

The moral of the story : If you treat your bikes like your women, never share them with friends :)

SD-Dana Point-Oceanside-Carlsbad-SD

Participants: Ankit and Me

Total distance: 120mi

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Dana point is one of the most beautiful places in the SoCal area. It has a great beach and harbour. It is a delight for shutterbugs. Plenty of photo-ops out there for candids and landscape. Ankit and I started on a Saurday afternoon just after I had changed my engine oil and adjusted my clutch. The bike was a delight to ride that day.

We proceeded towards the gas station and then entered into interstate 5. It was one straight road :( No scope to lean the bike, drag the knee, etc, etc unless you want to do that on a freeway and have yourself killed by a cager.

We kept riding at very brisk pace and damn, we reached Dana Point within 45-50 minutes. That was a 60 mi journey mind you. Ankit led the way to an amazing coffee shop whose name was Starbucks :P, qite honestly that was first time in a year that I entered starbucks. Like always, he asked for hot chocolate and I ... was a total stranger to that place. I found something fancy on their menu and asked for spicy-pumpkin latte (how weird of all things in a coffee shop? :D)

We picked up our stuff and walked to an amazing view point. Hot coffee in one hand a stunning view ahead of you -- aaaaahhh! ecstasy. I took some shots of the harbour and the view in front of me while sipping the coffee. We stood there for about 20 minutes watching other people come by and do the same.

It was getting colder by the hour and it was 1630 hrs and the overcast and gloomy sky yelled at us "go home". We picked up our bikes and drove down on 5 again until we reached Oceanside. We proceeded on highway 101 after that, 101 is a very scenic highway with plenty of eye candies all along. It was nice driving through the Oceanside stretch of 101 - colorful shops and people all along the road. However, the most annoying thing about this road is the 1001 red lights. Yuck, they suck.

We stopped by a beach at Carlsbad for sometime and I got back into pictures mode again. This time some candids and sunset. After another 15-20 minutes, we zoomed back to our homes. What a day of riding.

SD-El Centro-Calexico-SD

Participants: Ankit and me

Total distance: 270mi


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Nothing gets more random than this one. I was woken up by Ankit's call at 1030 hrs on sunday morning. Although, we wanted to go to this place sometime, but nothing was concrete. He said "good morning, let's go" and I said "alright, 1100 we leave". I immediately took a dump, brushed my teeth, got under the shower and got out of my home within 25minutes, the other 5 minutes were well spent on lubing the chain and checking the tire pressure. At 1100 I was there by the YZF600r. It was a beautiful day with nice blue skies with cotton clouds in the sky. All in all, a perfect day to ride.

We left at around 1110 hrs from his parking lot, filled gas and hit the interstate 8. Our first stop was at a rest area near the sunrise highway. It was around 55 mi from home. I wanted to give zuki some rest as she did an hour of high-rev riding mostly at 75-80mph. She did well :) We parked and I started clicking some pictures while zuki was relishing the break. We noticed that it was starting to get a little hot as we moved away from San Diego. We met this totally random guy named Corey here. He looked like a person who was lost in life and wanted someone to speak to. He claimed to be a marine. I did not pay much attention to his stories as I was busy clicking pictures while Ankit was listening to his rants. He said that he was driving towards New Jersey which was like doing USA diagonally- south west to north east - about 3000mi. Yikes! we wished him good luck and we left as we did not much time to waste.

The second leg was pretty difficult as it was getting very very hot ~ 110F. Holy shit, haven't seen that high a temperature in a year at San Diego. The engine was getting very hot and the heat was passed onto the gas tank which was very close to my crotch. My crotch was screaming for help. :) The beautiful rocky mountains, valleys on the inter state kept me going. There were an array of wind mills beautifying the otherwise barren surrounding. We kept moving and moving, descending the mountains and suddenly agricultural farms appear all over the place. After another 20 miles, we proceed to Calexico.

We stopped by a Denny's joint to enquire them about the mexican food restaurants in the vicinity. Now that was something. :P Calexico being a border town had a minority of english speaking people. Where we could see, it was Spanish speaking community. Luckily the Denny's babes knew some English to guide us to the approximate location of the Mexican restaurants.

We drove by the shady pockets and reached a restaurant finally.

Both of us were too hungry. We entered the restaurant and the waitress greeted us in Spanish. On telling her that we do not know any Spanish, she had that puzzled look on here face. Maybe she though we were in Mexico and not the US. Almost all the people in that locality and restaurant did not seem an iota of Engligh. I thought to myself - C'mon guys you all are still within the US :) Since, I have a half Mexican-half white room mate, I know the food names at aleast. I ordered a carne asada burrito and Ankit ordered a Chile Relleno. The food was not great, but it was not bad either.

We ate to the point we were full and still there was 50% left on the plates. We asked for the bill and to the dismay of us they did not accept cards. That was probably the first time I came across a place in the US that did not accept cards. YUCK. Infact, they had a huge display on the entrance door which said that "cards are accepted".

We mustered up $8 and she said the bill was $17. We did not really care about it anyway. So, we asked for the nearest ATM out there. No one understood English there. :(

Finally using some sign language we found out the way to the atm. Ankit got some cash and we finally managed to get out of that place.

We topped up the gas tanks again and set out towards home whch was 135mi away. The heat was severe. The whole valley was 50ft below sea level. Does that explain the dry heat? No clue! Anyways, we stopped by the wind mills about 60mi away to click some pictures, drink some water and let the crotch relax. :D

The next stop was home sweet home. How nice it was reaching back in San Diego with awesome weather. I stayed under the cold water shower for over 30 mins to let my body get down to normal. What a day it was. It was a nice experience being to a 99% Spanish speaking place. I will definitely go there again, but after I learn Spanish or unless some Spanish speaking person wants to accompany me. I love going to such weird places anyways.

SD-Julian-Mt. Palomar-Escondido-SD

Participants: Ankit, Nikhil, Anshuman, me

Total distance: 140mi


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It was an excellent ride through the mountains. This ride was also important as it was the first "long" ride after reworking on the charging circuit. The charging cicuit is part of the engine and hence assumes importance. At many times, I was paranoid and smelling the engine oil and the exhaust to see if everything was okay. :)We started at 1230pm from Nikhil's home and ate lunch at Kabul Express. I had 'chicken kabobs' there. It was not bad I shoud say. While the meat was excellent, the salad and all the rice were a big buss. Excellent kabobs, never mind.

After the heavy lunch, we started again. The next stop was scheduled to be at Ramona so that we all could regroup. We reached and immediately started again towards Santa Ysabel, a beautiful valley. The area also houses the famous Dudley's bakery. That was my second visit to that bakery. They serve fabulous stuff out there. The crowd and the number of registers there says it all. We had different kinds of snacks. In particular, I had chocolate croissants. Yummy, easily the best I have ever had in my life. So tender and so fresh, yummm!

Okay, it is now time to do some actual motorcycling. We started out and started climbing the hills, the terrain was getting more and more challenging by the minute. However, I was enjoying it. We stopped by for a brief moment at the view point which over looked Lake Henshaw.

Stunning view of the landscape from the top.

We had some fun at the top. There were posers (Nikhil and Ankit)

There were canon 'shooters' :) (Anshuman giving the wicked look)
There were souls which mixed with the surrounding beauty. (Nikhil again)

Beautiful it was. We clicked some photographs and proceeded towards the world famous Palomar observatory. But alas, the group split and there was confusion. At the end of it all, we reached the observatory with 10 minutes before its public closing time :( Yuck!

From there we started out towards the notorious south grade road. This road was challening, too fuckin' challenging for my skill set. Infact, it has a bad reputation as being one of the most dangerous roads in the SoCal area. The set of high speed turns, combined with the steep descent angle made it worse for me. To make things worser, there were some oil slicks in a few palces and loose gravel, few things a motorcyclist will hate for sure. I slowed down big time and made the turns very cautiously and inspite of that locked my rear wheel on one turn. With my heart pounding and face sweating, I made the rest of the turns and made it out alive. At the end of it, I kind of came to conclusion that this road isn't for beginners like moi who are good at posing for a photo or two :P. But heck, It was fun :P

We continued till Rincon, where Nikhil and Anshuman filled their gas tanks before we shot back home on Interstate 15. It was nice jolly ride with some anxious moments. The climate, company, roads, twisties, food was a perfect combination. What more can you ask for? It was a day well spent and I was glad the zuki did well, she did not show a sign of pain or discomfort. I plan to frequent the south grade road frequently and practice. :) yeah, I am jobless. After all, practice makes a man perfect.