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Pacific Coast Highway
The original plan for this
trip was for my friend Paul and I to meet in San Diego and head south through the Baja to see the
whales in Scammon's Lagoon. Paul flew out from NJ and rented a
Harley for this trip.
Sometimes things just don't go according
to plan, however. My Harley started running intermittently on one
cylinder early in the morning, and things went south from there (both
literally and figuratively). Read on to see what happened
to our plans and how we made a graceful recovery.
All shots on
this page were made with my old Nikon N70 (yep, a film camera) and a
Tamron 28-200 Super II. The Tamron is a super travel lens. I
used 200 and 400 Kodak film.
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Paul rented a Harley Fat Boy from Eagle Rider in San Diego.
We linked up at the Eagle Rider store, and I bumped into this reptilian dude
eating lunch in the shop.
This lizard is about 4 feet long.
Looks like a real dinosaur, doesn't he? |
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Here's Paul with his 2005 Fat
Boy (next to my 1992 Softail) in the Rosarito Beach Hotel parking
lot.
My old Softail was already starting to make
noise. Not a good sign, especially since we were planning to push
about 600 miles further south into the Baja peninsula. |
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We spent the first night at the
Rosarito Beach Hotel, which is right on the Pacific Ocean. The food
there is great. The Margaritas are pretty good, too.
This is a shot from the rear balcony of our
room. |
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This is a statue in the hotel
parking lot. |
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A silhouette shot taken early
the next morning.
The tapping from my Harley notwithstanding,
we pushed on. Within the next hour, we made it to Ensenada. My
Harley's engine was so loud by that time that we decided to turn
around and head back. I was afraid of getting stranded in the
Baja.
Paul and I decided to get me another bike
and ride the Pacific Coast Highway. We turned around and headed
north, back to my house near Los Angeles, with the Harley clanging and
banging all the way. |
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| We picked up the Suzuki TL1000S
at my place and headed north. Time for Plan B, which was a run up
the PCH to San Francisco and Sausalito. |
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We stopped for dinner in Studio City and
stayed in Carpinteria the first night. I had ridden over 400 miles
in the preceding 24 hours, and we ended up less than 100 miles from where
I started.
Check out these longhorn steers at the La
Purisima Mission. |
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Here's another shot of a
longhorn. Those things have got to be 5 feet from tip to tip.
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A public restroom, circa 1850 or
so. |
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Turkeys. These
things were really colorful.
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A turkey closeup.
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Here's the inside of the chapel
at the La Purisima Mission. I rested the camera on one of the posts
you see in the foreground of this picture, and shot in the program mode at
f8. |
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I spot metered here on the green trees
outside, which threw everything inside the doorway into sharp
silhouette. |
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We made this trip in April
2005. I think I ran into more bugs on this trip than any other
motorcycle ride I've ever taken. We were stopping every hour just to
clean our face shields. Our jackets were caked with squished bugs.
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Chacho's Mexican Food, a
roadside restaurant along the PCH. I had the best chicken
burrito in the world there.
Chacho is short for Muchacho, as the owner
explained to us while asking about our trip.
One of the many great things about these
trips is the people you meet.
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A painting on the side of
Chacho's place.
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Paul, with the Pacific in the
background.
We had 5 days of perfect weather.
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The Pacific Ocean. You can
see the PCH winding along its edge. The riding was awesome.
Somewhere along this stretch, I had to slow
down in the twisties behind a car I initially thought was a Camaro.
When I got a bit closer, though, I found out that I was following an Aston
Martin Vantage or Volare or something. I smoked right on by
it. Imagine that...kicking James Bond's butt on my TL1000S. |
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I grabbed this shot of a guy
smoking along on a dual sport while Paul and I were standing along the
roadside taking a break.
When this rider saw me with the camera, he
really wicked it up. After passing us, he almost lost it on the next
turn.
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We stopped right after rolling
across the Golden Gate bridge.
Riding a motorcycle across the Golden Gate
bridge on a Saturday morning is one
of life's great experiences.
I used fill flash to take care of the
shadows from Paul's hat. On the shots with fill flash, I removed the
Hoya polarizer. That's why the sky is not quite as blue as in many
of the other photos (like the one below). |
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The Sailor's Memorial just north
of the Golden Gate bridge. |
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We had lunch at a great
restaurant in Livermore on Saturday.
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After leaving the Golden Gate
area, we rode up the 101 to 580, around the Bay area, and then down
California 99.
That was a fast ride. We ran most of
it above 90 mph (sometimes well above 90 mph) for about 150 miles without
seeing any cops.
Our destination that night was Bakersfield,
and then it was on to the Bodfish-Caliente Road.
Bodfish-Caliente is one of the world's great motorcycle rides. It
runs from 58 directly into Lake Isabella.
This is a photo of some of the wildflowers
along the Bodfish-Caliente Road. |
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This shot hints at what a
great road the Bodfish-Caliente is. |
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I don't know what these bugs
are.
Flies?
Bees?
Whatever they are, we sure connected with a
lot of them.
The Tamron 28-200 Super II does okay as a
macro lens. This shot would have been a lot sharper with my Sigma
50mm EX Macro or 180mm EX Macro lenses. If you want to see some
great bug shots from these lenses, check out the dragonfly
shots.
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Taking a break on the
Bodfish-Caliente Road.
Whaddaya think? Is that
old N70 Nikon and the Tamron lens doing a good job? |
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One of the last shots of our
trip. These fellows are Germans, who flew into San Francisco, rented
Harleys, and were doing the same thing we were. We talked to them
while stopping for coffee in Lake Isabella.
Great roads, great bikes, and great
weather...small wonder these guys are all smiles... |
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The last shot, in Inyokern,
where we stopped for lunch. After that, it was a quick run down the
395 to the 15, and then home.
We covered about 1500 miles
in 4 days, and it was a great trip. Next year we are going to do the
same thing, but we'll head south and see the whales in Guerrero
Negro. If you want to see what they look like, check
out this link. |
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| A couple of days after
returning home, I started checking into getting the Harley
fixed.
To my astonishment, Harley dealers won't work on a
Harley older than a '95. Imagine that. Harley advertises endlessly
about nostalgia and their heritage, and then they refuse to work on anything
more than 10 years old. And, they do this after gouging consumers for the last 15
years by charging well over MSRP.
Talk about fate...the day my Harley conked
out, Harley stock dropped 17% on the NASDAQ? Coincidence? Who
knows...
Okay, off the soap box and back to
the story. After passing on having the work done by the Harley dealer (always a good idea,
in my opinion), I took my Softail to a local independent shop. The
preliminary diagnosis is that the oil pump failed, but it worked just
enough to keep some oil circulating in the engine. I won't know how
badly the internals are damaged until Victor (my mechanic) gets into the
motor, and he won't be able to do that until the weekend. The
Laughlin Run is coming up this weekend, and the shops are booked up with
guys getting their bikes ready for the run (I did it a few times in past
years; my Laughlin photos are
also on the Joe Berk Photography site).
When I learn more
about the fate of my Harley, I'll post it here.
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