The Central California Coast
Woke up early to a dreary San Francisco, cloudy and about 50 degrees. I said good by to my guest host Brian who had to head off to work and packed my bags.
I knew parking in his garage would be tough but getting the bike out would be even tougher. I don't know if you can tell from this pic but it is an *extreme* angle.
I hadn't dropped the bike in the last 9000 miles, I sure wasn't going to drop it now. So I ended up turning the bike around in the garage, powering out of there up to a flat spot at the top of the hill and coming back down to shut the garage. Whew. I headed down to a breakfast spot that Brian's room-mate had recommended at Half-Moon bay. I can't remember the name of the place but it's at the intersection of Main and Miramontes. Something like "Main Street Cafe". It was an excellent 60's style diner and even the cooks were singing along to the hits on the juke-box.
After a good breakfast, I hit the coast. And of course, more sight-seeing tourists clogging up the roads. But I just took it easy and enjoyed the view.
I had decided earlier that I would stay the night in San Simeon. But after getting there quite a bit earlier than I expected, I decided to trek on down the coast. My new destination for the night was Oxnard, to visit my motorsports buddy Mike. I see him every year at the Monterey Historics and he's always invited me down to his house so it's high time I took him up on that invitation. Mostly uneventful, driving down the coast. Just nice and pretty.
The sun set on a beautiful Pacific ocean as I got into Oxnard. Again, my GPS took me on a scenic tour of the wrong part of town. My fault actually, I wasn't paying attention. I finally rolled into Mike's garage about 8pm. The car you see behind us is Mike's Lotus 7 kit, with a Mazda rotary engine and a supercharger. I've been hearing about this rocketship for years, it was good to finally see it.
Mike's is like me, been affected by the economy. But he's been looking for work a lot longer than I. We had dinner that night, talked about economics, politics, race cars and women. I was thankful he shared his home with me on one of the longer of my riding days, a little over 400 miles and 14 hours on the road.
View Larger Map
Tomorrow, down to the Valley to see my brother!
I knew parking in his garage would be tough but getting the bike out would be even tougher. I don't know if you can tell from this pic but it is an *extreme* angle.
I hadn't dropped the bike in the last 9000 miles, I sure wasn't going to drop it now. So I ended up turning the bike around in the garage, powering out of there up to a flat spot at the top of the hill and coming back down to shut the garage. Whew. I headed down to a breakfast spot that Brian's room-mate had recommended at Half-Moon bay. I can't remember the name of the place but it's at the intersection of Main and Miramontes. Something like "Main Street Cafe". It was an excellent 60's style diner and even the cooks were singing along to the hits on the juke-box.
After a good breakfast, I hit the coast. And of course, more sight-seeing tourists clogging up the roads. But I just took it easy and enjoyed the view.
I had decided earlier that I would stay the night in San Simeon. But after getting there quite a bit earlier than I expected, I decided to trek on down the coast. My new destination for the night was Oxnard, to visit my motorsports buddy Mike. I see him every year at the Monterey Historics and he's always invited me down to his house so it's high time I took him up on that invitation. Mostly uneventful, driving down the coast. Just nice and pretty.
The sun set on a beautiful Pacific ocean as I got into Oxnard. Again, my GPS took me on a scenic tour of the wrong part of town. My fault actually, I wasn't paying attention. I finally rolled into Mike's garage about 8pm. The car you see behind us is Mike's Lotus 7 kit, with a Mazda rotary engine and a supercharger. I've been hearing about this rocketship for years, it was good to finally see it.
Mike's is like me, been affected by the economy. But he's been looking for work a lot longer than I. We had dinner that night, talked about economics, politics, race cars and women. I was thankful he shared his home with me on one of the longer of my riding days, a little over 400 miles and 14 hours on the road.
View Larger Map
Tomorrow, down to the Valley to see my brother!
posted by Nathan at
10:12 PM
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