Finding Winter

The Virgin plane with the purple lights and the safety briefing set to the latest pop song flew north from LAX to SFO. It wasn’t a bad flight but since it is now part of Alaska Airlines I would have thought that my very special status as a club 49 members would have gotten my bag free passage but it did not.

Our plan was to meet once again in the mecca of California Barstow, at our favorite Roadway Inn run by our pal Jonny who on this trip was wearing Rogers name tag. Maybe his name is Roger?

Roadway Inn

It wasn’t a bad ride there in fact it was rather pleasant. I had suited up since leaving the Bay Area in the morning is always cool with high humidity, so I was comfortable. When I got to Hollister I could look down the pass where highway 25 runs, my usual route and I could see lots of clouds some dark, and very possible rain…

I decided to take Pacheco Pass over to Interstate 5 and run down 5 to Bakersfield’s, which I did and it turned out to be a nice ride with not too much traffic and some friendly patch holders at a gas stop along the way.

Pacheco Pass

I think the patch holders were going to extend a membership invitation to me but then I started my bike and ABBA came over the stereo and well I didn’t want to be a “Chosen” member anyway.

Down in Barstow we met up as planned and the next morning left with only a possible plan as to where to go. We headed west and then hooked up with highway 395

Highway 395

The morning was windy but not too cold and we even turned around at Pearsonville to check out the abandoned ghost town whose claim to fame is the hub cap capital of the planet.

Where have the hubcaps gone?

Instead of the standard capitol dome this capitals most prominent feature is a giant plastic Uniroyal girl that is securely strapped to a pole and maintains   a steadfast vigil over the abandoned town.

Uniroyal Girl

There were some fellows already taking  there pictures of the Uniroyal girl when we rolled up and it should be noted that at no time did they or us look up her skirt. Sometimes a little respect goes a long ways.

Also of great interest parked at the site was one of the loaded truck trailers that all yesterday I saw rolling west and could never figure out their cargo.

Truck load of Garlic

GARLIC!  It was a truck load of garlic. Finally, enough for a recipe for roasted garlic. It smelled wonderful and made you hungry just looking at it.

The garlic did indeed make us hungry so it was decided that Lone Pine would be our lunch stop. We ran into a little weather on the way there (rain) but we did stop and put on the rain gear.

After a great lunch in a local café, some south bound travelers said they had encountered rain most of the way here from Bishop. I decided that I would suit up in all my rain gear and I was glad I did because before we got to our destination  in Lee Vining we encountered an 8000 ft. plus mountain pass that it just so happens it was snowing.

Luckily the snow was not sticking to the road but my traveling compadre did suffer from hypothermia by the time we got to our lodging.

Who knew that the weather that followed us most of the way across the Pacific would spill over the Sierra Nevada’s and turn to snow on us. Well just goes to show that being pure of heart mostly worked out again…..

Snow on my Motorbike