When people listen to the Beach Boys, or Red Hot Chili Peppers and tell you they're amazing. This is a fact. Those are 2 great musical groups, that have touched millions in many ways. But to listen again to some of those songs crusing up and down the Pacific Coast Highway going around 70 mph with the coast off to your left, the smells of the sea and bikini clad women everywhere......something is more real about those songs. It can't be explained in words I don't think, but think about it like this. Take your favorite dessert, mine is cheesecake. Try to explain the taste and texture to someone who hasn't had it. The taste is nothing like you can imagine! Point made I think haha!
I set out from some crappy town on old 66 called Barstow. There are more people living in those hotels than I've ever seen in my entire life. Cool. The guy I spoke to yesterday seemed to have an issue with brushing his teeth and smelled like his shower must have been broken, or he's allergic to soap. But most of these people have some kind of mental health issue that hasn't been addressed and are reduced to living in a shoddy motel in a shoddy town with 0 opportunity to improve. Well, after 4 restless hours or maybe 6 hrs, i woke up and got out. The next stop was this place called Glen Helen, which is a dirt track where a huge moto series was going to start up. It's called the Red Bull Glen Helen MX National. I stopped hoping to catch some glimpses of the pros, but to no avail. When I hopped a fence to get a closer look, I got a real friendly ride back to my bike from the overweight 'security' in a golf cart. I could have crawled faster than they could sprint, but why push it, I haven't made it to San Fran yet, and to be honest, after that things will get interesting ;). Oh yeah, I just e-winked at you.
The drive to Newport Beach was awesome. It was like a huge windy decent, a lot of brake lights came on, but mine never did! Two things I've learned in my short 28 years on this rock:
1) Trust your equipment, AFTER you know it.
-You read the manual, know where everything is and have a good idea about how it works. Then you push it to its limits and know about how far it can go before it fails. Other people will get scared by your antics after, thinking "you're going too fast" or "you're leaning too deep". Doesn't matter, because you know the limit.
2) Don't trust other drivers.
-Besides the stereotypical bad drivers, every car on the road is considered a hazard to a bike. Be careful, in some cases you push that rule, but as long as you stay alert you'll stay alive.
Thus endith thy lesson.
So as I'm zooming along like a bat outta hell, I frequently check my surroundings and then it hits me like a million bricks. BAM! That smell of sea. Holy cat turds! THAT smell! Sooooo fresh, so clean, so paradise like. (not referring to cat shit, fyi) And if you can help smiling you don't even know. I'm grinning like a fool, trying out this 'splitting traffic' all of these people in California keep raving about. So essentially in Illinois, people hate bikers that weave through traffic and split traffic and do everything cars cannot do. Jealous people. I'm also a jealous person, I don't let spandex toting fools think stop signs don't apply to them, but that's another story. Guys and Gals on crotch rockets are much more likely to eat it if you cut them off, so I watch as best as I can. Out here, people will actually move to allow you to split traffic! I have these saddlebags that prevent me from having too much fun with this maneuver, but I'm still able to do it effectively haha. OMG! I'm smiling again as I split traffic and avoid the worst of the traffic. In and out of traffic, easily 20 mph faster than everyone else, and the fun happens. Some 30 yr old doucher in a hot Ferrari moves to cut me off, so I move around him and let him know he's number 1 in my book, complete with a wink. Oh buddy is so mad, just glaring behind his oversized oakleys, I mean, even all that chest hair popping out of his super deep V-Neck looked angry. Well, I made it to my Newport Beach in one piece and met up with an old childhood friend.
So I get there and there are bikes everywhere, with a ton of happy fit people on them. One thing I've noticed, everyone is wicked fit and happy down here. So anyhow, I kind of cruise around and eventually stop for gas. I shoot her a text letting her know I'm in town and ask if she still wants to meet up. One thing about this trip is that everyone has been super generous, so I try my best to not overstay or if someone has a change of heart, I'm not going to get upset hell, I'm having a blast just cruising around! She seems genuinely happy to catch up and grab some chow, so great! I finally get to her place, which is ON the freakin beach! WHAAAA?! The gf and I have a nice expensive place by the beach in Chicago, but it's not exactly sunny and beautiful nor populated by models. Wow, truely paradise! So I haven't seen her in like 10 years or so? Maybe more? Anyhow, I have no idea what to expect but heaved a sigh of relief when I saw her. She looked like a slightly more mature version of the childhood memory I retained. She showed me her place where her roomate was home, and was super nice. Conversation was natural and nothing seemed strained or stressful, but I guess I was so taken by the beaches, the view, and the sun that I wouldn't have noticed if there was! We went to this nice little Italian joint and ended up with a server that might have just come from the south side for all I could tell. We went easy with waters and light fare, but the waiter was doing a lot of new guy things like constantly checking on us and making little side remarks about everything in any given situation. It was goofy and fun, but we caught up and she extended an offer to stay as she had some time off work and could show me around. But, I had made arrangements with a friend up in Ventura so I didn't need to stay there. Although, now I kind of want to go back on my way home haha. Anyhow, it's nice to see that socal hasn't changed her much and she remains sweet and down to earth. After the short tour she gave me, I have to figure a way to get the sugar sweet GF to socal now haha, it's easily the most beautiful place I've ever laid eyes on!
I took off heading for Ventura, but not before I hit up Huntington Beach, home of the surfer or whatever. There was a street fest going on, so of course I had to! I parked and went to the little parking kiosk, not unlike Chicago's rip off parking, I expected the worst. But this dude starts yelling and runs up to me and hands me this slip of paper. "Hey man, we have this until 8:30 tonight but we're leaving now, take it man.". I can't believe this level of awesome. I can't imagine this situation happening in Chicago, not that there aren't nice people, but theres nothing set up so that kind of situation could happen either. I hit up the fest and buy a QuickSilver hoodie. This is super cool by the way. There isn't much in the way of T-shirts that I could see myself getting into, but everything fits a bit more loosely, and it's way more laid back out here. So, on to Ventura, and I hop on and ride. I have a conversation with my dad where he tells me he can't wait to do that kind of ride once he's retired. So with that in the back of my mind, I take off, and it's beautiful everywhere. Suns out, wind is down and it's just so great. I keep thinking how I wish pop was there to take it all in and what not, but of course I doubt he'd find himself splitting traffic like i was! So I ended up in Ventura and grabbed some food with Gordy and his gf of 3 years. They are awesome friendly friends that I was much too tired to express my gratitude enough. So I was quickly in and out, but they kept asking me to stay if I wanted and their door is always open. So generous.
On the way to SF so far, I have a leaky tire, and need a new front and rear tire, which will cost me, but better to be safe than dead. I've got about 3.5 hrs left so hopefully I get there before the Hawks game starts, unfortunately I left my Keith jersey at home so I'll have to figure out another way to heckle LA Kings fans. Shit. Heckling is too much fun haha, ok well I'm off, Stay frosty friends!
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