California Bike Trip Report July 22-26, 2004
With JB and Camille from France

Starring: The Vanimal from Manley Labs and her 1991 FXLR "Low Rider"...

...et JB Lierre de Jukebox France... 

...and his daughter, Camille. She is 12.

  Guest starring: My sister Spacey and her husband Keith
 PACA Chase Car Team: Erica from Universal Audio and her fiancé Bey. 
Special appearance by Hosanna Fox in Topanga Canyon.

JB and Camille arrived to Chino with friend Hosanna Fox in tow. The week started with a huge BBQ of course at Casa Manley. I was Team Crab Dip. Team Steak grilled up 9 Ribeyes, Team Fish prepared hundreds of salmon steaks from a 2 foot fish, Team Corn seasoned ears with olive oil and garlic salt in tin foil, broccoli, potatoes and creamed mushrooms rounded out the offerings. All were stuffed and flopped out at my place for the night. In the morning we packed up the bikes, waved good bye to Hosanna for a few days and proceeded up through Chino cow territory to the 15 freeway for a taste of the hot upper desert. After missing the 138 exit, we came back down the Cajon pass to actually take the intended exit and motored on through the hot route through Palmdale and Lancaster up the 14 through Mojave and up around some nice roads in the Sequoia National Forest passing by Lake Isabella.....

From there we joined the boring 99 highway just ways up to the 198 exit and then headed west through countless farms feeding the nation before finally arriving in Lemoore to visit my 6-month-pregnant-sister.

There at Spacey's house, we welcomed the opportunity to swim in her pool with her dogs. Keith grilled up some burgers and we all crashed out for the night. In the morning we received a tour of the Air Force Base and got to see up close all those F-18 Super Hornets. We didn't know if we could take pictures or not so we didn't.

Instead we took pictures of Spacey's dogs.

That's CAVU and Bogey there with their new friend Camille...

And we lit off again, still heading west on the 198, past the 5, past Colinga where we found a way cool route called the 25. It was over an hour of twisties and no traffic at all. Lovely road. I highly recommend it.

From there we scooted up to Santa Cruz to get a tour of the new UA factory and score some late lunch. Bey met up with us and gave us directions and procedures to get to the road leading to his family cabin located on the Hunter Liggett Army base area south of Big Sur. JB and I split lanes and jammed out ahead on the 101/1 traffic, confident that we were well ahead of the chase car, even after stopping for 15 minutes to gas up in Carmel. The coast ride was lovely, as it always is. Alas, just as the sun was setting at around 9pm when we reached the camp at the Nacimiento Fergusson Road where we were supposed to meet up, no chase car. We waited and waited and waited for we were where we were supposed to be. Cold, hungry, and tired and not looking forward to spending all night standing around by our bikes wondering the fate of our chase car, maybe it went off a cliff? Cell phones don't work in this remote area so we just didn't know what happened to them. At about 10:30pm, the chase car arrives. They had been there and left just minutes before we arrived thinking we had gone up ahead. Ayyy. Chase Car is usually good with this sort of thing... just not tonight.

So up we rambled into the darkness with chase car leading the way up and over the seaside cliffs for about 45 minutes of hairpin turns before reaching our friendly neighborhood checkpoint charlie rent-a-cop guarding Fort Hunter from unlicensed and uninsured foreign nationals such as our party contained... or how true was that, really? JB's Rent-a-Bike upset the Rent-a-Cop for not having tags. At all. And JB had forgotten his FRENCH driving license, but at least provided proof that he once possessed it (before leaving it at Hosanna's house) by producing the rental contract which had its number notated on it. "So you're French?" Rent-a-Cop cleverly asked after inspecting JB's FRENCH passport before he added IQ Genius question #2, "Do you speak German?" JB replied that he was FRENCH and spoke English and FRENCH. Officer Smarty informed us that he spoke German so I asked him, "Wo ist Oma?" and puzzled him further with my great command of the German language informing him that "Oma ist nicht da. Oma ist dick und tot." He was a little confused, but maybe he really didn't speak german or he didn't expect random fat and dead grandmother german phrases in this place at that hour. After a lecture about license plates and other blah blah blah, he let JB pass and then began inspecting me and my lack of decent papers.

While we waiting in the cold darkness for the chase car, I had taken a peek at my registration and insurance papers that always live under the seat of my bike rolled up in a little plastic bag and saw to my horror that I had not put this year's papers in there. Uh oh. Well, I put the 1993 ones back under the seat and decided that playing stupid would be my best play, especially cuz I do it so well. Especially with stupider Rent-a-Cop. So I made great flourish of opening the seat to retrieve the papers in the little plastic bag and handed that along with my driver's license to him. "These are expired papers," Officer Brilliant observed, "Do you have another copy of your current papers?" I told him "I hope so." to which he repeated with emphasis, "You hope so?" as I searched my bag for my wallet and produced about 400 copies of all insurance papers for all my other vehicles including another copy of the 2003 H-D insurance papers and also a copy of my Honda Hawk 2004 paper which left him satisfied enough to let me pass especially after I pointed out to him that in fact my bike was really registered as evidenced by the 2005 yellow sticker on the license plate, and also reminding him that they don't allow you to register without insurance proof and it was like, almost midnight, and we needed to just get on with our family and friends already and just cuz they are french and don't speak german, doesn't mean they are anti-american or anything...

Anyway, he let us all go and we roared on in the darkness avoiding deer and coyotes and other night prowlers before scrambling on the dirt road leading to Bey's cabin. No electricity! We lit candles and gas lamps.

That's Bey's cabin in the daytime. Can you smell the FRENCH toast Bey is cooking for breakfast? Yum.

After breakfast we walked down the dirt road to a great swimming hole.

And as expected, we all went swimming. Jupiter relentlessly retrieved sticks.

It was a relaxing 2 days at the cabin. We even gathered enough energy to hike about 100 feet up some rocks.

And take some pictures.

And we also saw a pretty tree.

On the way out we also took some more boring pictures.

Five second helmet rule violator!

So we bid adieu to Erica and Bey and roared down the 1 to Santa Barabra to stay in the same hotel that JB, Jamey and I had stayed at the year before on the Inaugural PCH trip. But alas, Jerry, the waiter by which to rate all other waiters, no longer worked at the restaurant we had been to. Too bad. Oh well, the steaks and lobsters were fab without him all the same.

In the morning we made the easy ride down the 101 to Topanga Canyon where we unloaded all our gear at Hosanna's place. Now what's odd, is when we were on the 101 going through Ventura, my iPod started playing America's "Ventura Highway". I mean, like, how did it know? It is always doing that sort of thing to me... It is so smart. For sure smarter than that stupid policeman stuck in the woods in the middle of the night.

We went to Santa Monica on Monday and then decided to go to the Getty on Tuesday after we returned JB's Rent-a-Bike.

JB rode in shorts for the first time in his life (we think). 
He doesn't want anybody to know that so that's why I am putting these pictures up here.

"Oh Really?"

The Getty doesn't have much art there, but the whole premises is damn impressive. Here's the cactus garden.

And here's a fountain area.

    The architecture is stunning.

The gardens are marvelous.

But the visitors are a bit odd.

We had a lovely visit. And we had a lovely lunch. Savory and tasty. Crabcakes. Yum.

So that's what we got pictures of this time around. These motorbike adventures are always fun.

Check out the other motorbike trip reports.

JB and Camille headed off to Boston to join Fletcher on another adventure. 
Undoubtedly we will all embark on more adventures together... until then, au revoir.