congratulations, ben and laura!
Neither of them read this site (that I know of...), but they deserve the best of
happiness and joy and love. Aren't they adorable?
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May 27, 2003
This weekend was Ben and Laura's wedding, which was the reason I was riding down to Milpitas all the time and other exciting things. It was gorgeous and romantic and giggly and fun and everything that weddings should be. Since all of the festivities were in Half Moon Bay (here's a map for you non-Northern Californians), Peter and I rode the motorcycles over the hill to the hotel.
The ride there was fairly uneventful -- we took back roads to Highway 84 (aka Woodside Road), which crests the foothills, passes Alice's Restaurant, and ends up intersecting with Highway 1 at the ocean. I like 84 -- it's not technically very difficult, and is generally well-paved, which means that it's a perfect road to practice lines. We got stuck behind some slow-moving cars, though, which made it a little more difficult to really nail the good lines. I practiced shifting my weight and looking like a silly monkey instead.
Riding the bikes to the wedding gave us the unintentional benefit of getting chauffered around by friends with cars for the entire rest of the weekend. Score!
So, yeah, our friends are married now. Ben is Peter's best friend from middle school, and Laura has been a good friend of mine since college. Isn't that cute? Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding. You can pretend that they're topical, since Kim and Peter are in some of them, and, y'know, they ride motorcycles.
We all stayed in Half Moon Bay again on Sunday night, which meant that check-out time on Monday found a bunch of tired and hung-over people wandering the hotel parking lot in relative confusion. I decided to go ride up the coast and grab a couple of nearby historical markers before lunch. 35 markers down now; 15 more to go.
A bunch of us drove/rode back up Highway 84 and had lunch at Alice's. It was less crowded than I'd feared; we actually got a table for six right away. Peter and I were the only ones riding, though his visiting friend (and co-best man) Ram also rides occasionally back in Ohio. There was heavy police action in the parking lot; at least two bikes were towed away during our lunch. I don't understand why people insist on parking their plateless bikes up there anymore -- there have been CHP ticketing every time Peter and I have been up there lately.
On the way home, Peter and I took Page Mill, and got stuck behind the slowest people on the face of the earth. It wasn't just annoying; it was fringing on dangerous. We couldn't keep the throttle on during any of the turns. When we finally got down to the bottom of the hill, I rode up to the first car and politely informed the driver that legally, he's required to either drive the speed limit (he was going around 10mph) or use a turnout. The driver didn't really say anything, and looked like he was afraid that I was going to jump through the car window and beat him up (a thought that I admit to entertaining during some of the downhill hairpins). I really wish that people would learn how to drive.
So that was our exciting weekend. Now it's back to the grind.