That will be tough. Between Santa Barbara and San Franciso (at least), everything is at a premium. Our dumpy hotel just north of Cambria, was $140 - the most expensive of the trip. Gas in Cambria was $4.50+/gal premium. Beer was $10 a six pack (Negro Modelo which is usually not too expensive). Pizza was about $20 delivered which isn't too bad, but there weren't any cheap places to eat that we could find. Others may have better insider info for that area. We just winged it and found it to be the most expensive portion of our trip. It was worth it, but not a cheap area to travel thru.

 

One other tidbit should be noted here. Try your very best to not hit Hiway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz on the weekends. It gets horribly busy with all the Motorhome tourists, and there's nothing more frustrating than sitting in the middle of a large pack of cars going 25 MPH following a 36 foot Land Yacht that nobody can pass because the road is to curvy...

Granted there are still quite a few of them out playing on the weekdays, but there will be fewer "regular vehicles" and a bike can usually get around the Land Yachts in tight spots...

Steve

 

No doubt! Our timing was good. We headed north out of San Simeon at 7 am Monday morning. There were hardly any cars on the road at all. It wasn't until we got very close to SF (around noon?) that the traffic picked up a bit. The RVs had gone home I would imagine, because I don't think we encountered a one.

 

OK,OK. You've had time to rest your weary typing thumbs, now get on with the rest of the story Paul Harvey.

 

I agree. My wife asked me the other night why I wasn't watching TV. I was in my office reading this thread for the past few nights. Now you got me in trouble for not spending quality time with her and I keep checking in to see the rest of the photos for the remainder of the journey. Type on!

 

Very nice thread. The pictures are worth the read. Thanks.

 

Great read..........great pictures.......patiently waiting..........

 

Thanks - I'm glad there is an interest - even at the expense of angered loved ones Like most of you, the cold and snow has me living vicariously thru the travels of others. And, of course, the memory of my own travels. This trip is winding down. But, there's still a lot of winter left here in Wisconsin. I encourage all of you to post up whatever pics and stories you have on your travels. It's a nice way to galvanize memories of a trip in one's mind, as well as share with others. Thanks again for all the kind words.

 

Day Ten - Big ant hills, piles of manure, Secret Government areas, and Bullwinkle.

Another bright and early start. This time departing John Day Oregon. Now, each day seems even more precious than the last, because home is only a few days away - even if it is still really far from here.

We were the very first bike out of the lot. It was early and cold - somewhere in the forties. One of my regrets was not bringing a pair of heavy gloves. The Held Steve's I wore, that are great at fifty and above feel stiff and cold at sub fifty. Thank God for grip heaters. All you have to do is turn this little dial and.....all you do is turn this dial and....Crap. That power outage back in Medford took out the heated grips too. Cheryl was unsympathetic. She had no grips at all, let alone heated ones. And her hands were freezing too. Difference is, I had to pull in a clutch and squeeze brakes.

We headed east on Hwy 26. It's mountainous and heavily forested. We didn't get a lot of pictures because we were both freezing. Just moving hurt. Pulling out a camera and snapping pics was not on the menu. That part of the trip was spent waiting for an ascent to warm up. The descents into valleys was brutal. Seems that area has an inversion. Normally it getsw cooler as you climb. But, sometimes certain areas actually get warmer as you go up. I've experienced this skiing at Jackson Hole. The base can be cold as hell and cloudy. Take the tram up and you'll often find it to be sunny and a lot warmer.

We were hoping we would happen on a coffee shop to caffeine and warm up. Unfortunately, there are precious few anything shops on hwy 26. Eventually, the sun rose higher and the road ran lower.



We had to gas up and as mentioned, we sorely needed caffeine by this point. There was an unusually nice gas station that looked like a log cabin. These two were looking for a pet when we parked. Cheryl is a sucker for dogs so naturally she took a thousand pictures of them.



Back on the road. Gas tank full and can of Starbucks double shot consumed. Beggars can't be choosers. It was well on it's way to being quite warm now. We ditched a few layers and continued east. I'm not sure what the elevation was, but it was fairly flat except for these mounds all over that looked like big ant hills to us.

 

Our goal for the day was West Yellowstone. To get there we would have to run a little slab down to Boise, and, depending on how good (or bad) of time we're making, slab all the way over and back up to West Yellowstone. As you now know, not something either of us relished. We would see how it played out.

Once we drew closer to Boise, the terrain grew somewhat featureless by comparison. Flat and dry. On the slab it was downright boring. We could see mountains to the east and I hoped we would be in them sooner or later. We stopped for fuel by the airport in Boise. A pair of fighter jets played touch and go nearby while we filled up. The roar was deafening - and very cool. I love aircraft of all types and rarely miss the annual EAA in Oshkosh. The airport exit is kind of a pita. Lots of traffic and the latest fad - roundabouts. I've never had a problem with them really. I'm just not a fan and they seem to be springing up everywhere in lieu of more expensive light controlled intersections.

We headed east on I-84. I elected to try and make some time via the Interstate. Abysmal. Loud. Dusty. Crowded. The last straw - construction. We were nearing Mountain Home Idaho at the brisk pace of 20 MPH. I was sorely wishing I would have taken hwy 21 north out of Boise. I had heard that it was a great route. But, it was definitely out of the way and presumably slower going. Slower than 20 MPH I wondered? Doubtful. The next exit drew closer and I figured we would pull off and look at the map again. The exit said Hwy 20. That was the highway that I had considered as an alternate when plotting the route. Plan B as it were. We exited the slab and never looked back. Hwy 20 Took us North and east, away from the flat, dry, slow wagontrain of sheetmetal and diesel fumes, and into rolling hills and two lane bliss. It was probably the second best "plan B" of the trip. We were making fantastic time rolling easily at 70 MPH and really seeing what Idaho had to offer, which was considerable beauty and great riding.

After a while on 20 we started seeing these crazy piles of manure everywhere. Not just small clumps, but huge mountains of it. We knew it wasn't really manure, but what the heck was it? A little farther down the road a sign provided some illumination.



Craters of the Moon was one of the things I wanted to see as it turned out. I had totally forgotten about it though because it was on our secondary list. But, there we were. The large piles were not exactly awe inspiring. We continued on. I'm sure it has some interesting stuff besides the large brown piles (lava beds as it turns out), but we were not inclined to investigate further as we had a long way to go.



The terrain changed back to "somewhat boring" for a bit, but the locals made up for it with their graffiti.



The nice thing about boring flat terrain is that it makes the few things you do come across more interesting.

A littler farther down the road we came across EBR-1. Described by Wiki as -Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Arco, Idaho. At 1:50 pm on December 20, 1951 it became the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plant when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs.[3][4] It subsequently generated sufficient electricity to power its building, and continued to be used for experimental purposes until it was decommissioned in 1964.



I had heard of that too from other road reports. I thought it deserved a bit more fanfare than the basic plywood sign telling us to "Turn Here". We didn't turn.

More big ant hills and a lot more sand. That was the theme for quite a while. And we were okay with that. Yet another perfect riding day. Swallowing up miles wholesale, but feeling in tune with it. Relaxed, yet moving quickly. The wind, sun, and sounds stamped indelibly in our minds for future reflection on cold snowy days in the North.

EBR-1 gave us ammo for more ghost stories. Ghost stories from our country's nuclear past complete with secret test sights and aliens. As we rolled along we both weaved tales about each building behind a barbed wire fence we saw. And we saw a lot of them. What is the deal on that?



It did seem strange. And all of the generic white and black vehicles did little to make it look ordinary out here in the middle of nowhere.....with barbed wire gates......and a whole lot of No Trespassing signs. We were pretty sure at this point that Area 51 was not the only place out west that had it's secrets. There was a pattern of false normalcy. It just seemed contrived. Just at point we figured that our imaginations had kicked into overdrive, the black helicopters arrived. Ok. Not black helicopters. But, the next best thing. Black SUVs. Lots of them. All coming at us from the east at a high rate of speed. They pulled into one of the non-descript drives and swarms of aviator wearing official types jumped out. We didn't see what they were all in such a lather about, but it must have been pretty important. As we continued east we counted no less than 50 shiny black suvs speeding in the opposite direction.