Crossing the Central Valley

In front of the millions of fruit trees near Fresno.

In Bakersfied

We made it to Bakersfield and found a Sonic.

We hoped to get about one hour further than this. But with the late start we stayed at the Hammpton Inn in Bakersfield. A wonderful first day. No problems at all. But we're ready for bed.

Making progress

Over the mountain and onto Bakersfield.

This is the scene from the last overlook in the Los Padres Forest before descending down into the Central Valley. All the rocks on Mark's right are from recent rock slides.

First stop Ojai

We finally made it to lunch in Ojai. Great ride so far. Bonnie Lu's Vegelicious!

We're on our way...

At about 10am the bike finally arrived. It's a beautiful black yamaha stratoliner 1300. Enormous, loud, and beautiful. Here's the truck it came on. What a sweet ride.

We're off!

Stumbling out of the gate...

Mark and I have been planning this awesome motorcycle weekend for about three months.  He flew in last night and is renting a Stratoliner (pictured to the left), and I'm taking my V-Star (below).

We're planning on riding up to Sequoia today, then on to Yosemite tomorrow before heading back down on Sunday.

 

 

To make this much riding possible, we planned an early start today.  The Stratoliner was supposed to be delivered by 7am to my house.  However, by 8am, still no bike.  So, we called and they said "Oh, we were planning to deliver that at 4pm."  Doh!  After some quick negotiating, they said they would get it here by 10am.  Unlikely.  I bet it will be more like 1pm.  Anyway... not the start we had in mind.

We thought by 9am we'd be to Ojai.  But instead, we're sitting at the bar of my house working on our PC's.  Doh.   (Take a look at the site Mark built to document our ride.)

The Big Dessert Bake-Off

We had a Bake-Off tonight after dinner.  It was great!