New Friends, Auspicious Encounters

June 30, 2003 – Monday

So I noticed before I picked this particular shadow to sleep in that the grass in the area was wet. I took that as a sign that the sprinklers came on in the evening not the morning. I’ve made the mistake in the past of not considering the sprinklers and thought I was ok, but I’ve learned that wet grass in the evening doesn’t necessarily mean no sprinklers in the morning. Luckily I heard them come on in an adjacent section and got out of there before being greeted by a spray to the face.

Denies was open so I spent the next couple of hours there drinking coffee and recovering from a fitful night. I usually sleep well past dawn, so it was really cool being on the road as the city came awake and seeing everything in that moist morning light. I was heading north on I-15 looking forward to a crazy fun day on Hwy 2. Hwy 2 runs through the heart of the San Gabriel Mountain range and was the twistiest thing on my map.

I headed that direction and kept seeing “road closed ahead” signs. I was having too much fun to believe a few dumb signs. Great views, great turns, on fun bumpy, kinda dirty roads. Just the way I like it. Well, after about 15 miles or so of fun I came to the closed gate. I explored the trails around the gate trying to find a way to get my bike to the other side. Nope. Hard to hike, and impassible on my motorcycle. I almost took my luggage off and laid my bike on its side on my skateboard so I could roll it under the gate, but I didn’t want to do that to my skateboard.

The only other road that went the general direction I wanted to go looked pretty crummy on the map. It wound up being long and straight, but there were these seven foot humps in the road that kept things entertaining. At 80mph the bike got kinda light and you got that funny feeling in your tummy over each crest. At 110mph the bike was air born and that feeling transferred to my throat. Hell yah!

I stopped for a while in Bakersfield to work, then again in Fresno to find a place to sleep. I think that’s where I was when I sent off that last update. A Highway Patrolman told me about a camp site that was relatively close. Millerton Lake. I headed out there and found a great spot overlooking the lake, crawled in my sleeping bag, looked at the stars, listened to the sounds of the lake and drifted off. The ground feels really nice when you’re tired and sore, and sleep is wonderful knowing you’re in a safe place.

7/1/03 – Tuesday

Most bike guys love those perfectly paved, beautiful, third and fourth gear roads. For some reason I get the most pleasure out of crumbly, dirty, narrow, county roads. It forces me to be really cautious, the bike still slides around a good bit, and it’s still just as fast as the freeway. I had a great time on my way to Yosemite by simply staying off the main drag for as long as possible. Maybe one of these years I’ll do a cross country trip trying to stay on roads that don’t show up on your normal map. That sounds fun! Anybody want to join me?

Traffic coming into Yosemite was relatively light. I had a nice spirited ride into the park, took a detour to Glacier point before going into the valley. For those of you who have never been there it is simply impossible for me to explain the scale of this place. The park is bigger than Rhode Island, and there are cliffs all over the place that are nearly a vertical mile over your head. Waterfalls cascade off the cliffs and a beautiful river runs through the middle of this incredible sight. WOW.

I went searching for some pals that were supposed to be living in Yosemite Valley. I didn’t find them that afternoon, but I did make tons of other pals quickly. Camp 4 in Yosemite is climber central. There are always climbers from all over the world living there at any given moment. I met loads of really awesome people and had a great afternoon and night swapping stories, watching the crazier ones balance on some 4×4 posts and doing this silly head first boulder problem down a squeeze chimney. Those Brits had a game for everything. Most entertaining.

July 2 – Wednesday

I spent most of the day just sitting by the river watching tourists try to put their boats in the river. I can’t tell you how close I came to peeing myself. There were fat women with their video cameras falling into the river, rednecks with floating trampolines with a tag along beer raft, a Korean couple that thought it was the eco challenge and paddled like mad over the top of kids on inner-tubes, husbands that yelled at their wives because he was paddling the raft in circles. I mean it was non stop entertainment!

I ran into my friend Kelly that afternoon and had a joyous reunion. I hadn’t seen her in years so we were both stoked to catch up on all our stories. I also got to take a shower that night. That may have been the highlight of the day, except I didn’t have any soap or shampoo, so I kept having to sprint across the bathroom to get the pink soap from the sink. Glad no one came in. I’m sure they didn’t want to be seeing that!

There was an employee dance that night that I snuck into. True to form I didn’t have much fun. I don’t know, but I have a hard time enjoying myself at dances. I just have so much fun doing so many other things. I got lost walking back to my motorcycle in the dead of night. After much confusion and a couple of backtracks I found my bike and made it back to the camp site.

July 3 – Thursday

There was a 41 year old Harley woman that was traveling by herself and staying in the campground. We decided to go riding up to Glacier Point and take some pictures of the bikes in action around this incredible corner with an unparalleled view. She doesn’t ride nearly as aggressively as me, so I got to play on one wheel a lot. Leme tell you, wheeling through those long tunnels at 80mph gives you one insane sensation of speed. Your headlight is illuminating the jagged ceiling and your peripheral vision is just screaming at you to put your wheel back on the ground.

Anyway, we had a nice ride, got some good pictures (I need a web site to put all these pictures and stories on – anybody want to help?). That afternoon she went rafting and I went looking for more friends. Well the new friends name is Garian. We spent the rest of the afternoon jumping off the bridge, sunning in the sand, riding my motorcycle and talking over dinner. Nice time, great girl.

July 4 – Friday

Out of the valley I go. I decided I’d been lazy long enough and packed up to search for Abbie. I knew she was someplace around Tioga Pass. After a fun ride, and asking a load of people if they knew this girl I learned that she was working at Tioga Pass Resort. As soon as she saw me she jumped up, ran across the restaurant and gave me one humongous hug. I’ve been having a great time meeting new people and having great conversations, but it was so refreshing to spend a lot of time talking about a bunch of things with one of my close friends. Thank you Abbie, you’re awesome!

July 5 – Saturday

Good food, good coffee (been missing that!), and a good nap took up the day till around noon. Itching for movement, I hiked up over the ridge in front of the lodge and realized I could have just followed the road a half mile and gotten to the same lake. I hiked around the lake, found a secluded spot, stripped down, and jumped in for about 30 seconds until I found the breath to crawl out of that crazy cold water and put my clothes back on.

On the way back to the lodge I saw a sign that said “BBQ this way!” I didn’t feel like walking the two miles there and the two miles back, so I got my bike and motored up there. I always wear my safety gear, but since it was only two miles of gravel I chose to ride up there wearing what I had on. Shorts, sandals, sun glasses. Fishtailing sure is fun!

That night me, Abbie, and this cool girl Joey went to visit the hot springs in Mammoth before going to the sushi party at their friends house. These hot springs are at the end of a series of dirt 4 wheel drive roads. I had fun riding my bike on them, but there were a few deep sand sections and some technical rutty, rocky sections. On soft, deep, sand those fat tires on my bike just float. The bike feels like it’s steering from one wheel in the center of the bike. Scary stuff. There were all kinds of people out there so we decided to go eat sushi and dip another day.

There were like 8 or 10 cool girls at this sushi party. While talking to them I realized that we shared the same set of friends, and I had actually met one of them on a previous trip to Yosemite. That sure made hanging out with a bunch of new people really nice. My friend Aaron was pals with these girls, so we called him and he came over.

It’s astounding how small the world really is. I’m out here meeting new people and running into old friends through them. Sometimes it is just so obvious that you are doing exactly what you should be doing. Perhaps it’s the contrast of San Diego situation that is really making me aware of how fate is helping me out.

Ok, its Sunday July 6 and I’ve been caching up on my laptop all day and am looking forward to hanging out with my friends some more tonight. Take care everybody, and I hope life is treating you all well. I enjoy your notes and can’t wait to actually sit down with all you salt lake buddies.

Thanks again everybody.