Motorcycle Trip - 09: Day 3

Day 3:

Woke up in Truckee, found there was only one out of the 6 showers that were open in the state park, and it required fifty cents, luckily John and I had just enough between us to wash off the previous day's road and sweat stink. We found breakfast at a grocery store that was packed with people. We rode off down the road, I believe it was Hwy 89 and it was awesome. The road weaved back and forth, up and down through mountains, it was nice and cool.

Eventually we came to our crossroads and headed off toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. Neither John nor I had ever heard of this park but several other motorcyclists recommended it so we took the 75 mile detour toward the park. About 10 miles from the entrance we saw a sign that informed us that the next fuel was 68 miles away. That was about 10 more miles than we were comfortable with but the previous fuel stop was about 30 miles back so we decided to chance it continue on. We just used the throttle carefully so as to be as fuel efficient as we could. The national parks only charge motorcycles $5 to enter, nice. We rode up the mountain a ways until we came to a parking lot near some of the parks features. We parked and got off our bikes and headed toward a hill with some steam coming out of it. John and I expected to find some sort of geyser or something really great. What we found was a just a hole about 2 ft. in diameter spewing sulfer gas. It was kind of funny in it's simplicity, just a stinky hole in the side of a hill. Then we spotted some boiling mud, much like the mud pots in Yellowstone, only, again, this was much smaller. We took a look, and maybe some pictures and headed back to the bikes. Just as we were getting geared up a big group of Harley riders pulled in, with a big yellow rented truck behind them. They got off, the truck rolled up it's door and started serving everyone some sort of beverage, I thought to myself, "I need one of those." We waved to the group as we headed further up the road. We started seeing a lot of snow along the road's edge, then spotted a really cool ice filled lake. About half of the lake was still frozen with that really blue glacier type ice. We chatted with an English couple that was there taking pictures, she had been there 20 years before and wanted to come back to see it. After chatting with them and laughing at a father and son team slide down a snow covered hill we went on our way. The rest of the way through the park we were watching our gas gauges. John's had moved to reserve and was counting down the miles as if to slowly torture him. We were still pretty far away but hoped that the downhill riding would save some fuel. We made it to Shingleville, yeah I've never heard of it either, but I sure was glad it was there. We gassed up and set our sights on Red Bluff where we would eat and make our way to Hayfork CA for the night.

As we headed down the mountain the tempurature got noticably hotter and hotter until we had dropped several thousand feet into California's central valley. We were looking for a County road that the map said would be coming up but as we headed down the road we realized it either wasn't there or was named something else, either way we were still able to make it to Redding.

The freeway in Redding caused me some trouble. There was construction going on, I wasn't sure which exit to take and it was really hot. After several missed exits and turning around, along with John having a good laugh at me we made it on the freeway toward Red Bluff.

During the trip, John made a habit of going to all of the fast food restaurants that he didn't have in the UK or Australia so I usually let him choose where we'd eat at night. Tonight he chose Arby's. I'll also note that Mountain Dew is John's favorite soda and Australia only has the original flavor and uncaffienated at that. Because of this John had also made a point of getting each one of the various Mountain Dew flavors that we have in the states along the way. So, at each of our soda shops I always saw John buying some new brightly colored soda. I'm glad we can support his lifestyle here in the U.S. As we sat and ate in Arby's I noticed that the bank across the street said it was 105f outside. By the time we left the temp had dropped to 101 f, nice and cool.

We (I assume John as well) were looking forward to Red Bluff for one reason, Highway 36. We had been planning on riding Hwy 36 since a good friend of mine at work had described it as the best motorcycle road he had ever ridden. All along our ride other motorcyclists had confirmed what he told us. Sure enough we got to the start of Hwy 36 and saw this sign.

That's right, curves for the next 140 miles. The only problem was we came upon this sign just as the last bit of daylight was slipping away. The road was truly amazing. I have never been on any road that undulates even close to this one. Up, down, left, up, right, down, on and on for the next 80 miles to Hayfork CA. I specifically decided to stay the night in Hayfork because I wanted to have some of Hwy 36 left for the next day, and boy am I glad I did.

It's time for me to admit to something. I get somewhat nervous riding around unknown, curvy, roads in the dark. It's as if my ability to corner a motorcycle disapears and I'm left hitting the brakes at inoportune time times and really not enjoying myself. I was totally unaware that there were any mountains between the Sierra's and the coast but around 10:00 pm we got into the Santa Clara mountains. It wouldn't be until the next day that I would come to appreciate and enjoy them. The road through these mountains was an endless(seriously that night they seemed ENDLESS), string of S-curves, all at about 20 mph. Here's another thing even in the daylight I don't find 20 mph curves fun. You just have to go too slow through them to really enjoy it. In talking with John, he was of the opposite opinion that I was. He quite enjoyed the roads through the mountains as long as the deer stayed off the road. Once we made it to Hayfork, it took us a bit to find the motel. When we did finally get there we found a note on the office door directing us to room number 9. We pulled up to the motel equivalent of Gov. low income housing. There were some beat up picnic tables on the gravel and weeks out front of the rooms. We also found that there were coffee cans lovingly placed on each room's doorstep for use as an ashtray. I was delighted to see that our can had not been emptied in quite some time. Did I mention this place was only $50 for the night? I wasn't surprised to find the interior lacking a bit from the usual ammenities that I'm used to on business trips. No TV, tiny sink and even smaller toilet. John's blankets had cigarette burns through them.

We slept well only to be awakened by a loud knocking on the door. When I answered there was a crazy looking woman with awful looking, scragly, long brown/gray fingernails, and long gray hair thrown into a haphazard bun on her head. She even had some weeds stuck in there for effect. She handed me the phone and it was Jen. I cannot for the life of me remember why Jen called but it was probably something really important. I'll mention here that thus far John and I had done a very poor job of calling our wives, in that we had been gone for three days and hadn't spoken to them. A few text messages had gotten through but that was it. Most of the blame can be put on the odd mobile service that John had. He would have a random text message get through and then show no service. We had to wait until the next day when we finally found both a store with phone cards and a pay phone, have you tried to find a pay phone lately, not very easy.

Back to the crazy lady, I don't remember her name but it was somewhat obscure Jewish name. When I got off the phone she proceeded to point at my Hare Krishna temple t-shirt and ask me, "You're not one of them are you?" To which I laughingly replied to the negative. She then starts in telling me about how her chiropractor turned into one of them and now she's a wacko. She continues telling me about everything in the town, as if she's just been dying to talk to someone for months. Apparently there are some big time pot growers there that keep illegal immigrants in the forest until nightfall when they come out to harvest the "crop." After 20 minutes I somehow get the door closed between us. I went to take a shower and had to wait for a few minutes for the rusty water to make it's way out of the faucet. I warned John about the shower. On to Day 4