June Run

Day 1 Coarsegold to Point Reyes Station.

Soloed out of Coarsegold at 8 pm. An R11GS and R100RT hang in my rearview mirror. What do these guys want? They won't pass but can't be more than 3 feet behind me. I pull over and they go with me. Well, trailers do that. I know it's there but for the first 50 miles it surprises me every time I look in the rearview mirror.

I had left my sons and wife (their stepmother) in the driveway. I could tell my wife was sad to see me go. I was glad to go, sad to leave her and glad she was going to miss me. Her son was on a road trip to Memphis with his stepmother. As often as not in the 90's parenting means taking care of other peoples' children.

The oaks and Sierra foothills give way to pistachios and row crops outside of Madera. Madera is mostly an Hispanic town. The Bear Flag revolution may have succeeded when we stole California from Mexico, but in the San Joaquin Valley, by mutual agreement, this is slowly being reversed. The night is balmy and Mexican men stand around the backs of pickup trucks wearing stiff white straw cowboy hats or baseball caps with the names of tractor and fertilizer companies on the front and eating fruit sold by sidewalk vendors. They drink beer from Budweiser cans and rub limes on the rim of the can. I buy a donut at the cross-branded minimart/Taco Bell. Bob Dole and Pete Wilson can rouse as much Republican rabble as they want, but it's hard for me to get upset about people that work hard to support their families.

On Hwy 99, outside of Chowchilla, the sky is a Dali landscape of Jello parfait. Purple, light orange, abalone-shell blue topped by blue ink. Palm trees to my right are silhouetted against the twilight and remind me of the Kubrick movie I saw the other night.

As I approach Hwy 152, a crescent moon hangs over the coastal range. Hwy 152 ultimately leads to Big Sur but with that moon it looks like a left turn could put me in Istanbul. I stay on Hwy 99.

To the right is a forest of orange lights at the Central California Womens Facility. I briefly think of Cheryl Ladd in half-buttoned prison blues but quickly remember the Cheryl Ladds of the world either get probation or marry doctors. None of them are sitting in stir thinking about me pulling two bikes on a trailer.

At 11:30 pm I pick up Bill in Davis. His R100RT is on the trailer and I'll need him to help me get it off. He probably has been hoping I'd get there by 4 pm but this is the best I can do. At 1:45 am we arrive outside of Point Reyes and sleep on Jeff's couches.

Day 2 Point Reyes to Noyo Harbor

By 10 am the bikes are off the trailer. Most years we would ride to Mike's in Petaluma and wait in his driveway while he finds and then packs his R80GS. It sits somewhere near the driveway all year waiting for this run. Since we are going north on Route 1 today Mike comes to us.

Jeff's son hugs him and cries as we leave. On Sunday mornings, every bike in the San Francisco Bay area that is not at Alice's, is on these roads. It's only Friday but there are already several bikes smoking the road. We know we will not find better weather, roads, scenery or food than around Marin County but a run is a run (and you can't argue with that) so we go.

By 11 we make the 4 miles into Pt. Reyes to gas up. Bill's handle bars are loose from the trailering so we head back to Jeff's where a wrench from a /2 tool kit and a hammer tighten the bars. We wonder about maybe over stressing the bearing races and we're pretty sure the bmw shop manual doesn't specify a hammer for this procedure. But the hammer works its magic and the /2 wrench graduates to Jeff's R100RT tool kit. We left the hammer though and a few days later had to borrow one in Oregon from a guy with Montana plates.

On the road at last we stop after 10 miles at Tony's Seafood on Tomales Bay for a 1 ½ hour lunch of grilled sole and fried oysters.

Route 1 is Route 1 and you can't argue with that either. It's a great ride and any motorcycle rider who has ridden and compared both the Northern California coast and the Northern Oregon coast over the last 20 years should get down on his knees and thank the California Coastal Commission for its work.

The road would be near perfect if the Commission had jurisdiction over RVs. As it is there are only about 400 yards of road on the whole coast that don't yet have the double yellow line. There are about 700 RVs that need to be passed and it's impossible to match them up with those 400 yards. We pass them anyway. In my mind, I start working up an argument that I'm just lane splitting and the RVs are sliding towards the line at the critical moment forcing me over the double yellow. Fortunately I never get the opportunity to try it on the CHP.

In the Noyo Harbor we get a room at the 10-room Anchor Inn in the parking lot of The Wharf restaurant. $40 for 4 people. There is no office; we check in with the bartender at The Wharf. The room is small and clean and will not be the worst room on the run.

Day 3 Noyo Harbor to Eureka via Lost Coast

We wake up to the sounds of seagulls, seals and diesels. Commercial fishing boats disturb the glass of the harbor as they chug out to meet the surge of the surf. The two guys in the room next to us load fishing poles and six packs of Coors in the back of their pickup as they head over to board a sports fisher. They cannot be planning on drinking that much beer; it must be bait.

Yesterday we spoke to a flagman at a road construction site for 20 minutes or so. He was a Harley rider and told us a poignant story about a Sportster he has had in a bedroom of his house for the last 7 years. He and his young son had been building the sporty while his son was fighting cancer. The son died before the bike was finished. The dad couldn't bear to work on the bike without his son and couldn't bear to part with it either. So, there it sits, still unfinished.

The flagman had recommended the Usal Road through the Lost Coast and told us how to find it by the highway mileage markers. I can't remember but it's around mile 89 or 91 or something, 3 or 4 or 5 miles up the canyon after Hwy 1 leaves the coast. The best way to find it is to go there with someone who knows where it is and to follow him. Of course you could send someone ahead of you to mark it with a paper plate with an arrow drawn on it.

The AAA map shows the road as paved and it is for the first 20 feet. After that it is dirt and the largest pothole could swallow a Humvee. Bill and Jeff decline and take their RTs inland to Hwy 101. They drink lattes in Garberville and meet us in Shelter Cove a couple of hours later. Mike and I GS the Usal Road. Everyone made the right decision.

The first few miles are easy. At a campground where the Usal Creek meets the sea, Mike and I talk to a guy camping out of a Ford station wagon. He had been there a few days, caught some barred perch in the surf and, I'm guessing here, missed a few meetings where he probably should have been relying on a higher power. He tells us the road used to be the main road up to Eureka but it's hard for me to believe unless he was referring to the time this area belonged to Russia. The road is 8 or less feet wide, very windy, and cut into the steep slope of the mountains. It more or less follows the first high ridge a mile or 2 off the coast. He also tells us that until CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Something) kicked in everyone was discouraged from using the road, although, or perhaps because, many agribusiness men made extensive use of it. All the side roads are still closed by steel gates and are only open during deer season. I guess the side roads are only safe if you're armed. I have a hard time thinking the Harley-riding flagman or any other HD riders actually had ridden this road. I do not see any chrome doodads littering the road and don't pass any HD guys wrenching.

25 miles later we reach graded dirt, then paved roads and meet Bill and Jeff in Shelter Cove. We gas up at a Shell station at the end of the airstrip. The sign says to honk for service and we do. After a few honks and a few minutes, I go around back and find the old guy who owns the place asleep on a bench. We eat cinnamon rolls while watching some neo-hippies from Maryland discuss which hippie shrine they will travel to next. They're traveling in a Dodge Caravan.

The Wilder Ridge Road takes us through a time warp to Honeydew and the sixties. There are no fields in sight but by this time of the year the crops have been planted and tended and there's not much for the locals to do while waiting for the crops to mature except smoke a joint from last year's dwindling private reserve, which is what 4 or 5 prominent farmers are doing at the Honeydew store porch when we arrive for iced tea.

From Honeydew the road follows the Matolle River to the sea. The beach is deserted and a strong wind blows straight down the coast in our faces. When the road leaves the beach it enters hills that I think have been imported from Scotland. The road climbs steeply with hairpin turns that come by that name honestly. When we reach the wooded lee of the hills I think Mike's rear wheel is wobbling but decide it's just the late afternoon light. After a bit Mike is looking over his shoulder trying to see the rear wheel. I think my ESP is cooking and he's very suggestible or his wheel is actually wobbling.

The road makes an abrupt descent into Ferndale where it slams into the town. One side of the street is forest and the other is houses on city lots. Mike had a new rear tire put on before the run. The bolts on the rear hub have come loose and while he and Jeff tighten them Bill and I keep a sharp lookout for Ebola-carrying monkeys and Rene Russo. We see neither and none of the 17 motel rooms in town are vacant.

We press on to Eureka and stop at the first pink motel. It's called the Flamingo and it's part of the Patel chain. $42 for 4 people. Outside our room a chunky teenage girl leans out the next window and tries to bum cigarettes. We have none so she asks for quarters. We keep ours. This room is the worst of the run. Jeff is certain there is a dead cat under one of the beds but none of us are willing to pull it out. Instead, we spread eucalyptus leaves around the room before leaving for dinner at Lazio's.

Day 4 Eureka to Brookings, Oregon

I wake up when a koala bear scampers across my beard. By morning the worst room of the run had become an Australian gum tree forest. I think about my dirt-coated R11GS and decide to go to the do-it yourself car wash next door. There's a local guy washing his R90/6. He used to live in Merced and rode a lot. CDF transferred him to Eureka and away from his riding buddies. He's thinking of selling the bike because he doesn't ride much anymore.

Nobody welds in Eureka on Sundays. This is not based just on strongly held religious beliefs but there is a municipal law against it. Welders do not even answer their phones on the day. A weld broke on Mike's bag mount on the Wilder Ridge Road on the Lost Coast the day before. It was my fault. Riding in front of Mike, and maybe tired from the Usal Road earlier in the day, I slowed down more than Mike expected when I came to an unpaved curve that seemed more like the face of a left breaking wave at the Banzai Pipeline than a road. Mike swung wide, came to a stop and then lost the bike while standing still on the slope. The mount was bent in and when I pulled it out the weld snapped. A bungee cord got us to Eureka, but Mike wanted a more reliable fix.

Someone in the Anonymous Book turned Mike on to Stormy Winter. Stormy is a retired dirt bike racer and has two garages behind his house which are better equipped than any shop I've been in. His family has lived on this spot since the 1890's and though it's a residential section his shop has been grandfathered in. This must also be why he can answer his phone and weld on Sundays. Stormy is more than a nuts and bolts guy; he's an artist. Don't go to Stormy if you're in a hurry or if you don't want the job done right. The weld is perfect and will still be holding when cockroaches are put on the endangered species list.

We hit the road at 1 pm and stop 10 minutes later on the other side of the bay. We eat breakfast at a place in downtown Arcata recommended to us by Stormy. Stormy knows food too. If I were ten years younger I could tell you the name. The waitress of the run works there and we are willing to take her with us.

Oregon is a friendly place.

The run into Brookings, Oregon is uneventful except for when I introduce Bill to toffee-coated peanuts in a supermarket parking lot in Crescent City.

In Brookings we stop first at Harris State Park, which we know has a beautiful beach. A bumblebee R100GS with a man and an identically dressed and helmeted woman goes in. We wonder why they are not on a Gold Wing.

$19 for a campsite for two vehicles and $14 more for the 2 extra bikes. We do the math and are struck by the invidious treatment of bikers just because we each have our own internal combustion engine. "After all," we politely point out, "there are only 4 of us and we have only 8 wheels between us." As discrimination against bikers has become all too rare we feel we must seize this opportunity and leave in a huff.

We stick with the Patel chain and stop at the Bon Aire. 4 people for $46 but today before we pay we smell the room. We know we cannot count on there always being eucalyptus trees around when we need them. Fortunately this place is true to its name. Dinner is down in the harbor along the Chetco River. We eat at a fish and chips place and even though everyone leaving as we come in is carrying big bags of leftovers, we don't order the small servings and we finish everything.

We probably did not make much over 100 miles today, but this truly is a trip to nowhere. Our only goal is to ride as much or little as we want and to be within a day's ride of home on the morning of the day we need to be back.

Day 5 Brookings to Sisters, OregonJeff's custom seat outside Grant's pancake house.

Who are the guys who do 200 miles before breakfast? They're not us. It's hard for us to get on the bikes before 10 am and its hard for us to spend less than 2 hours eating breakfast. When Jeff gets the chance he eats a meal before breakfast. Mike goes for a run and I walk across the highway and read the newspaper. Leaving from Brookings I know we'll do 30 miles because if we come this way we always eat at the pancake house at Indian Creek on the Rogue River just outside Gold Beach.

We call this the June Run but it is late July and hot everywhere but the coast. Last year we had gone through eastern Oregon to the Columbia River. It was hot and this year Jeff and Bill have solemnly vowed not to be hot.

There's some nice riding on Hwy 101 up the coast. The scenery is good and there are pretty girls selling blue berries along the road. The traffic has thinned out compared to Mendocino and the RVs are camped everywhere rather than spread out on the highway. This must be where they were all heading.

Where else but in America can retirees live for free at the beach in 45 foot, $100,000 motor homes while their government checks are direct deposited for them? I puke when I see some of them have Rush Limbaugh stickers on their bumpers. When Rush rants and rails about welfare and entitlements, they say "amen" without a clue. They want to cutback every program except the one that sends out their checks.

Mike

Humbug Mountain, the beach at Port Orford, the bridges across the bays at Coos Bay, Reedsport and Florence. I love this coast but from Florence north the riding is not very good as the cities and towns sprawl along the highway. In Florence at 5 pm we gas up at a Chevron and Mike suggests a turn away from the coast to Sisters. Bill and Jeff are comfortable behind their RT fairings and have not forgotten their vow. They are reluctant but don't say no either. Mike grew up in the Mojave and getting warm seems like a good idea to me. How does this decision get made? I don't know but we go inland.

The road east out of Florence zips. A gently flowing river runs down to the sea, but we are running against it. We come to a flagman (they're called "flaggers" in Oregon) and, as we usually do, we lanesplit to the head of the line like friendly puppies expecting to shoot the shit with the flagger. She explodes and we're busted like second graders as she makes us sit for a round as she puts us back in our places in line. We do not shoot any shit with the flagger. We are glad she is not armed.

We drop out of the gentle coastal mountains into the smog of the Willamette Valley. The blue sky of the Pacific Ocean has grayed in the blistering heat. We get popsicles at a minimart on the edge of Eugene that has a hand lettered sign on the door prohibiting us from bringing guns into the store. The elderly clerk tells us guns have been a problem in the store in the past and she just no longer allows them in.

East of Eugene we go up the Mackenzie River. There are no stores, no restaurants and no Patels. A couple of places quote us a $100 a night and one of them says we'll need two $100 rooms because they don't allow 4 men in one room. This would be a prohibited form of discrimination in California but in Oregon who knows? We decide not to sue and to give up on the Mackenzie. We have headed east and have been exiled from the coastal Eden. I don't even remember the apple.

Sisters is on the other side of the Cascades range and though the road rises to a 5000 foot pass there is nothing but big sweepers. It's dark and everyone but Bill makes good time. There is no traffic on the road and we pass few cars in our direction and even fewer in the other. We wait several minutes for Bill at the edge of town. It turns out one of the few cars we passed was the Oregon State Patrol. Though we did not notice him, he noticed us. He stopped Bill, wrote him for 80+ mph and suggested that his 3 buddies split the $165 fine with him since we were pulling away from them when he clocked him. It's not true of course because Bill had probably just dropped back and was probably just speeding up to catch us. We were probably only going 55, or maybe 56 mph, and, besides, the patrolman probably would have never caught up with us. We pony up our share anyway while eating a good pizza in a bar because all the restaurants are closed. For 40 bucks each Jeff, Mike and I are happy we dodged a bullet. We get a room at the Best Western around midnight. $80, why haven't the Patels found Sisters yet?

Day 6 Sisters to Newport, Oregon

Sisters sits on the east slope of the Cascades. It is in the transition zone between evergreen forest and high desert. There does not seem to be anything real about the town of Sisters. It's a western version of Disneyland's Main Street with about as many tourists. The real Sisters are 3 10,000 foot volcanic cones in a line of snow and glacier covered peaks lying west of the town. Whoever named them the Sisters had been on the road too long. I know because its day 6 and I'm thinking more each day about getting my spline lubed when I get home.

We blow through the town and the tourists to find a house Mike's friend is building on the northern outskirts. We had heard he was building a cabin. With about 80 workers working on the cabin, there cannot be anything else being built that day within 30 miles of Sisters. It looks to be about 6000 square feet, not counting the mother-in-law quarters and makes the Cartwright's Ponderosa look like a characterless tract house. When the friend introduces Mike to the 5 guys building the deck that will overlook the ½ acre pond, he describes him as his "friend and doctor." The workers must have seen Mike's R80GS because they look skeptical. Even in Sisters everyone knows doctors ride Harleys.

The heat is a constant reminder of Bill's and Jeff's broken vows. The sun is rising higher in the sky and as it does Bill and Jeff are increasingly tormented by guilt. Of course it may be just the heat but a solemn vow should not be taken lightly. We decide to return to the coast as quickly as we can without Bill getting another ticket.

Hwy 242 west out of Sisters is old and twisty. For a few miles it is cut through a recent lava flow (2500 years old) and even after the Mackenzie Pass when it drops into a lush western slope forest every curve is sprinkled with a nerve-racking coat of finely crushed lava.

At the top of the pass there is a nice lookout and display set in the lava flow. A guy in his 70s traveling in a Honda Accord questions us about our bikes. He had been to the National this year he says and he's thinking about buying an R11RT. He claims over 500,000 miles but since he's in a car today, I wonder.

We sweat our way to the coast through Sweet Home, Lebanon and Corvallis. We find a road that takes us along the north bank of the Yaquina River and its bay to Newport. We pass homes and oyster beds.

Newport

In the harbor at Newport there's a shrimp line where a dozen workers wearing plastic shower caps and white overcoats hand pick broken shrimp off a belt. I imagine I'm in Bavaria, the workers are all named Deiter and the shrimp are motorcycles. I wonder what they do with the broken motorcycles. I know the broken shrimp are sold in some form to somebody.

A 25 year old fisherman looking for a new boat tells us tales of the sea while we drink nonfat double cafe lattes. He longs to return to Alaska where he can get in bar fights without ending up in jail. He has a biologist's knowledge of sea life, a lawyer's knowledge of fishing regulations, and a respect for weather that I suspect only sailors have. He asks us if we're cops and when we laugh and tell him we're not he does some business with a teenager in a 4x4. He mentions he's living in a $35 a night motel within walking distance of the harbor.

When we leave to find a room, we head for the north end of town, out of walking distance of the harbor.

Day 7 Newport to Gold Beach, Oregon

This morning reality intrudes on the run. Runs have a front side and a back side. Today we are face to face with the back side of the run and it casts a faint shadow over the day. We drive in and out of fogs centered above the highway, hanging over the coast. The young fisherman yesterday afternoon told us the fog usually clears less than a mile off the coast. When we come out of the fog we can see the next bank. It swoops out of the ocean, rises with the beach, covers the highway and dissipates 100 yards east of the highway.

Each of us has a wife and children and more responsibilities than we can list, but when we left Point Reyes six days ago we believed we had freedom and endless possibilities in front of us. We could have gone anywhere. On the front side of the run our only responsibility is to not interfere with our enjoyment of the run. We eat, ride, talk and sleep and don't do much of anything else. Now we are faced with the need to get Mike back to Petaluma on Day 9 and the rest of us home on Day 10 at the latest.

We stop and nap along the shore of one of the coastal lakes that line the east side of the highway along the coast.

Today I think about K-bikes while stopped at a red light in a city. I twist the throttle a few times to feel my twin pull to the right. My dealer had loaned me a K75 while giving my R11GS the 12,000 service before the start of the run. I had never ridden a K before and had never really been interested in them. I know dedicated K riders rave about its smoothness but I think that's what I didn't like about it, having mostly ridden unfaired twins and thumpers. A Lexus sedan is smooth and wind free if you keep the door closed. I doubt I'll ever own a K bike.

Hans and Franz

We return to a small fish restaurant in a small harbor for shrimp and crab cocktails. The waitress had been quiet and taciturn a few days earlier. Jeff asks if she remembers us and she smiles warmly and makes polite conversation with us. We are no longer willing to catch as catch can with motel rooms and call ahead to the motel on the south shore of the Rogue River in Gold Beach to reserve a room.

As we cross the bridge coming into Coos Bay, I resign myself to getting a ticket. I am last in line and a white, high profile vehicle is coming up fast. At the first traffic signal in town I tell Bill and he and the rest clear out while I loaf along. If I'm going to get ticketed I want to make sure the others are lost in traffic ahead of me. I am happy when the vehicle turns out to be a Blazer with ski racks.

We blast down the coast stopping only in Port Orford to stretch and watch the waves. In Gold Beach the motel is very nice, has a jacuzzi and overlooks the mouth of the Rogue. After several days of good seafood we eat at a lousy Italian restaurant and return to our room to watch the Olympics. We know life is good because the gymnastics are over and we only have to see that girl twist her ankle 3 times tonight.

Day 8 Gold Beach to Garberville, CA

The waitress at the pancake house at Indian Creek is not the same one as a few days ago, so no one asks if she remembers us. I remember her from last year and, in fact, we all remember where we sat last year and what Danny, who is not with us this year, and probably never will be again, ate. Pretty sick, huh?

We retrace our path down Hwy 101. At the Ag Inspection Station at the border to California we are waved through. Though the sky was blue on our way north, on this return the sky is gray.

Crescent City hasn't gotten less ugly in the few days since we passed through. It's still the ugliest city west of El Paso, or is Butte west of El Paso? I can't remember.

Just south of Crescent City the highway climbs into a forested State Park. At times the road rises above the thin fog but mostly it's gray. As we pass a rest stop we get enthusiastic waves from a man and a woman in Aerostiches standing next to an R11GS and an R100GS PD, both with Oregon plates. Miles later they catch and pass us. For several miles we match their pace and all 6 of us smoke the road.

We see 2 HDs in the middle of a string of cars going not more than 60 miles an hour. They have an odd look about them and it is hard to figure why they seem so content to be stuck in that line of traffic.

In Eureka we look in at the Samoa Cookhouse but get back on the bikes when we realize we couldn't do justice to the meal.

Once we promise Bill we won't stop at Founder's Grove, he consents to take the Avenue of the Giants through the redwoods into Garberville where we've reserved a room at the Best Western. On the Avenue I hold my throttle in one position as if on cruise control. I ride with no rhythm at a steady speed, neither slowing down nor speeding up as the road curves or straightens. The pace is hypnotic and I feel as if the road is taking me and the bike through the forest rather than me taking the road.

We stop only when we see the 2 HDs we passed more than 150 miles earlier. They are German tourists, a man and a woman, each riding Road Kings they had shipped to Calgary from Germany. They proudly show us the pinstriping they had done in Seattle a few days earlier and look quizzically at Bill when he asks them if they've ever seen bikes like ours. Bill explains that he is joking and they laugh politely. I'm glad my R11GS, though born in Bavaria, has been raised in California. I wonder what life is like for a Harley Davidson in Germany. HD poseurs in the US at least come by it semi-honestly. These two riders look like they are going to a costume party.

Day 9 Garberville to Coarsegold via Point Reyes, CA

Today is the last day of the run and we leave the motel with a sense of purpose. It's our earliest departure of the run.

Garberville is sort of the outer limits for day runners out of the SF Bay area and the town is usually full of overnighters and people who at least look like hippies. Last year we ran into Jesse Colin Young on his bumblebee R100GS outside the corner cafe but this year we see no former rock 'n roll stars, so we hit the road. Jeff tells us that Jesse's bike burned and melted (he saw the globs of aluminum) in the Marin County fire last fall and we wonder what he's riding now.

Bill and Jesse Colin Young the year before.

To beat the heat we make 75 miles to Willits before stopping for breakfast. From there it's an easy run into Petaluma. On Hwy 101 a motorist sees me looking over my shoulder when I try to see if Bill and Mike are still behind me. The motorist tries to tell me something through his rolled down window and when he realizes I can't hear him he waves me over to the side of the road and tells me my friends are alright but have stopped a few miles back to adjust the gear bungeed to one of the bikes.

Petaluma is a beautiful town. The main downtown street is prosperous and populated. The women are pretty and stylish. The kids are hip. We stop while Jeff tries to buy the Legos his son is hoping for and drink the last lattes of the run (LLOTR) in a small square in the middle of the block.

I am surprised when a mother drops two young girls off at the square in the hometown of Polly Klass and then drives off until I realize they're here everyday and life goes on. If they are not safe in their homes with their mother in the next bedroom, why not leave them downtown? It couldn't get worse. I do not doubt Mark Klass's grief but am I the only one who thinks he seems to enjoy the spotlight?

We give Mike a motorcycle escort to his driveway before taking the road from Petaluma to Point Reyes. This road is one of the best of the run.

Our arrival at Jeff's ranch house outside of Pt. Reyes is anticlimactic. Neither his wife nor son are home but the dog is glad to see him. We watch his neighbors load a couple of horses on to a trailer from the field next door so they can go somewhere else and move some cattle around.

Bill and I load our bikes on our trailer and head for Coarsegold, a couple hundred miles to the southeast. We pass the redwood grove where Bill and his wife were married years ago and a few miles later drop out of the Marin hills into the end of the day rush hour traffic around the San Francisco Bay and on to Coarsegold.

Epilog: Bill sent his $165 fine to the court in Oregon with a request that the fine be reduced. He told the judge he was speeding but that he did not think he was going as fast as the officer stated in the citation. He also promised never to move to Oregon if the fine was reduced because "there are too many Californians there." Two weeks later the court sent back $65 of the $165 Bill originally sent.

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