A quick trip to Big Sur

I decided to meet up with some inmates in Big Sur, since it was about a thousand miles one way I decided to make it two days down, two day riding with my friends, two days home.

Here I am ready to go the night before



The next day dawned mostly crappy so I set out in the rain. I decided to bomb down I-5 looking for some better weather. About 20 miles in I found that my rain gear wasn't working so well, since I had left at 6:30 AM there weren't a lot of options on where to get some rain gear. I toughed it out to the closest Walmart and bought some rubber rain gear, for less than 10 bucks.

After about 50 miles on the freeway I noticed that my new rain gear was flapping in the breeze quite well. I stopped to get gas about 100 miles later and the entire back of the jacket was just shredded. Since it was a decent hour I was able to swing into Bi-Mart and great a much heavier PVC jacket for $19

I hadn't pulled out my camera because of the rain, I did have a nice ride over Happy Camp road and by the time I got to Eureka the weather was clearing up. I headed to the lost coast and was finally able to pull out the camera.










You can see the shadows are getting long and I still have quite a ways to go tonight.







I got to Petrolia just as the store was closing, I was able to load up on water and ice cream.

I liked the light on the church



Just a couple of miles from camp and the sun is gone



I set up camp in the dark, had a snack and hit the sack. I knew I would be up before sunrise in the morning and my plan was kickstand up before daybreak.

Beautiful start Allan, looking forward to more

WOW Sweet Pics!!! Keep em coming!

Also - how do you creating this type of high rez photo??

Cheers -

Pangia

I'm enjoying this thread already, Allan
thanks for taking us along on your trip and I appreciate your excellent photography to help document this journey
I can't wait for the next post. Again, thank you

Thanks

I carry a Nikon D600 which is a full frame DSLR, I carry this in my tank bag and I figure if you have it why not use it.

Thanks

More tonight.

Enjoying your rr before work - Big Sur here we come
Thanks, chuck

Great Shots Al, and great spending time with you in Big Sur.

Looks very promising . . . thanks for taking us along!

I'm glad you are enjoying it Chuck

I had a great time with you as well

I'm glad you are enjoying it.

Day 2

I was awoken in the middle of the night by a bunch of noise, I looked out of my tent and I saw that several vans full of people had arrived. It was around midnight so they were running very late. I went back to sleep and didn't think much more about them.

I awoke to my alarm at 6 and immediately got to packing up. I had a long way to go and I was planning on taking the less traveled roads. I also was going right through the belly of the beast, I was going over the Golden Gate and right through San Francisco.

I got going just as the sun was coming up, I was on the road for just a few minutes when I came across this sight.




It didn't look that stuck and with 3 other vans I would have thought they could have gotten this out of the ditch easily, I'm going to guess they didn't have a lot of experience unsticking vehicles.

I had breakfast in Redway and read the local paper. It would seem that they are having major problems with young people just hanging around and "camping" in public parks. The locals didn't seem too happy with the way the local government was handling the situation.

After breakfast I went down 101 to the bit of road I was really looking forward to this morning. Hwy 1 between 101 and the coast is an amazing motorcycle road. I was lucky I only had to pass one truck on the road and I had it mostly to myself. I was way too busy riding and having fun to take pics.

After I got out to the coast the camera came out again.



Mendocino is a very cool little town, I wish I wasn't in such a hurry and I could wander a little more.

Interesting statue on top of the church





The moon was out.



Local color







Some more views down Hwy 1






After this the camera went away, I had a long way to go and the days are short. I went across the Golden Gate and didn't even slow down to take a pic.

This is what it looked like in 2012 when I was coming back from Baja



I lane split through traffic, my first plan was to ride down the coast all the way but with the amount of daylight I had left I would be riding for hours in the dark. I elected to stay in the valley and on the highway until Salinas and then take 68 into Monterey. I have driven and ridden that part of the coast several times so I wouldn't be missing anything.

I made it back on to Hwy 1 and south of Monterey after 5, I knew I would be arriving in the dark but I kept pushing hard because I have a really crapy headlight

Getting near sunset I had to stop and grab a few shots









I found the campground in the dark and I mean dark, I wandered all around the campground looking for motorcycles until the camp host came out and pointed me in the right direction. All my buddies were out eating dinner.


More later

awesome, awesome, dude....awesome

Thanx so much for the RR and the fantastic pics...prolly only way I'll see the coast...I'm runnin outta daylight...LOL:eek1

Dude

I'm glad you are enjoying it, I'm enjoying your RR as well

I'm glad you are enjoying the pics

The next morning we were off to Big Sur, Bryan had a problem with his eye and he was headed to the nearest doc. We decided to accompany him, while we were there we had a great breakfast and loaded up with fuel.

Since Bryan was going to be spending a few hours at the docs we went for a ride. Chris found about the old wagon road so we had to ride it. I came around a corner and I liked the light so I had Chris make a few passes for me. I did get one pic I really liked.



I should do this more often, I normally just take pics as they happen but maybe I should do more setup shots. I took this one of my buddy Mark a few years ago and it also took a few passes to get the shot I wanted.



We came out by the Bixby bridge and we ran into Campbell Rabbit



Good thing about being the photographer, I don't have to wrangle the Crow or the Rabbit






The weather was just perfect







According to the locals this is a secret submarine base, or maybe sending secret signals to submarines, or something








We got back to camp, Limekiln state park and went for a walk up to the kilns, I didn't like any of the pics I took of the kilns so you can a couple along the trail






Some sunset shots












More later