feh.
I am lazy and can't think of a picture today.

still 9:30pm. still poolside, Red Lion Hotel. still same mileage.
After I got back to the hotel from the Shasta trip, I took a very welcome shower and an even more welcome nap. I went out to the pool to write for a few minutes, and as I was walking to a table, I heard, "oh, fine, be a loser and sit by yourself!" It was Danelle, so I gave up on writing and went and hung out with her and her friend (whose name I forget) for a few minutes. I really enjoyed talking with Danelle, but unfortunately didn't run into her again after our poolside chat. I left a note for her on her bike later that evening, but when I went back a few minutes later, the note was gone. Whether she saw it, or someone else took it, or it got blown away, I don't know. Ah well.

The banquet dinner started at 6pm, so I headed there right from the pool. Linda, girl I'd met at Dee's slideshow, was sitting at a table near the door, so she waved me over and I sat with her. Linda actually only lives a few miles from me here in the bay area, so we chatted about local stuff and the local chapter of WoW. Also at our table were Barbara from Alaska (!), Suzi from West Virginia, some people from Iowa, and a wonderful couple from Alabama. They were all really nice, and we gradually warmed up to each other, and spent most of the dinner laughing and swapping jokes and bike tales. Suzi is an MSF instructor, and she told a hilarious story about a student who was very angry that West Virginia had a mandatory helmet law. Suzi asked why he felt so strongly about it, and he responded, "well, I was in an accident with my brand new helmet, and it got totally smashed in and ruined! I had to go and buy a new one!" Suzi prompted him, "and....?" He replied indignantly, "I had to go spend another three hundred bucks!" Apparently it didn't sink in that he would have done his head more than $300 worth of damage had it not been for the helmet. ;)

After dinner, they announced the raffle winners (Barbara at our table won a $200 gift certificate from Kawasaki) and the various long-distance winners (Suzi won the long-distance award for her bike class). I won the award for youngest WoW member who rode her own bike to the Ride-In, though it was somewhat on a technicality, since I had met a girl earlier in the day who was 19. Sunshine (that was her name) lived in Redding, though, so I guess they figured it didn't really count since she didn't actually go anywhere for the Ride-In. We thought that was sort of unfair, but she told me she'd win next year, when the Ride-In is in Kentucky. ;) Sunshine was really nice, and I loved talking with her. She rides a 500 Interceptor and has a huge pickup truck and lots of spunk. I like that. I posed for some pictures with Esta, who at 75 was the oldest rider (I saw a women whom I think was older, but maybe she didn't ride there herself).

I spent most of the latter part of the banquet talking with the couple from Alabama. They were probably in their early 60s, and had shipped their GoldWings to....I want to say Reno but I'm not sure that's correct...and rode the rest of the way from there. She was pretty cool; she started riding 20 years ago when she up and decided one day that she wanted to ride dirt bikes. It was really neat to see a 60-year-old woman laughing enthusiastically about doing big jumps and wipeouts and stuff. :)

After the banquet, I tried to find Danelle and Sara to get a picture of the three of us on our SVs. I found Sara, so we got some pictures together (we cheated and moved our bikes next to Danelle's, so even if she wasn't in the pictures, her bike was!). At one point, a woman walked up to us with her son (?) and asked us some questions about the rally (they weren't with the Ride-In). Her son looked around my age, maybe a few years younger, and they were sort of unnaturally excited about the prospect of getting a picture of him with Sara and I and the bikes. While she went to get her camera, we talked with the guy, who seemed to take a relatively long time in believing us that the bikes we were sitting on were ours. His specific comment to me after hearing about my bike was "wow, you can take 650?" which seemed like a really weird thing to say. It was hard not to make a slightly dirty smartass comment back at him, but we smiled and restrained ourselves and posed with him for the picture like nice little sportsbike riding motorcycle mamas.

I talked to Peter a little bit after that, and then just sort of lounged around before bed, figuring out which route to take home. Part of me really wants to get back and lounge around with Peter and hang out, and part of me just wants to stay on the road as long as possible!

See the rest of the pictures from Day 3

july 7.

12:15pm. Pioneer Park, Calistoga. 3856 miles, 732.3 trip miles.
I can't believe I'm almost home already. Heh, it's funny to say that, since the last trip I took had Calistoga as its destination, and it seemed far away at the time. :) I'd forgotten how easy it was to cover miles on the interstate -- I took Highway 5 from Redding to Williams (~106 miles), and then Highway 20 from Williams to Clearlake, Hwy 53 (which turned into Highway 29) from Clearlake down to Calistoga. I didn't really like riding on the 5; it was too fast and too straight and too boring, and the drivers really drove like ass. At one point, a SUV from Nevada was weaving all over the road, passing on the right before the car in front had a chance to move over, and at one point even moved into my lane in front of me -- which wouldn't have been so bad were there not already a car there. The other car moved over in the lane and for a while, they were driving two abreast, la la la, at 80mph down the interstate. I admit to giving a whoop for joy when I saw the SUV pulled over by state police a few miles down the road. If you're driving that poorly at 9am, you've got issues. In hindsight, I should have taken 99 south from Redding and stayed off of the 5 altogether, but I'd forgotten how quickly one can cover 100 miles when one is riding at 80mph. Now I'll know for next time.

I really liked Highway 20 from Williams to Clearlake, though. The hills were yellow and brown, with clumps of green and orange. I really loved the colors -- it was the first time I'd seen a lot of orange and brown in the scenery on this trip, and it reminded me of fall and Halloween and pumpkins. I was somewhat surprised by how much I welcomed the orange.

Highway 29 south to Calistoga was pretty nice, too. Very twisty. At one point, I pulled off the road to drink some water and take a picture, only the gravel was more, well, gravelly, than I'd anticipated, and the road more sloped. I was getting off of the bike when the sidestand gave way, and the whole kit 'n' caboodle tumbled over. Because of the slope and the gravel, I couldn't get good enough leverage to pick her back up, so I waited. The first vehicle to pull over was a nice man in a van, quickly followed by an enormous AAA tow truck. The three of us got the SVS up without a single problem, and the man in the van hurried off again. It must have looked like a horrible accident -- a motorcycle laying on its side in a curve, with a AAA tow truck pulled over blocking half of the road. Of course, the bike was on its left side, and it was a right-hand turn, so it would have been physically impossible for me to have dropped the bike by wiping out in the turn, but I'm not sure that the AAA guy ever really believed me that the bike was off and wasn't moving when it fell. Oh well. He moved on down the road where he wasn't blocking traffic, and I geared back up and kept going. I gave him a big wave as I passed, and he waved back and got into his truck (he'd been standing on the flatbed looking for me). See how useful AAA is?

I had lunch at Nicolas' Cafe on Lincoln Avenue (the main drag) in Calistoga. While I was eating, two bikers, a Harley rider and his son (?) on a Honda Hawk, came in. I was hoping to chat, but they never even made eye contact. Oh well. I'm not too happy to be home in just a couple of hours. The rest of the ride is pretty boring -- I'll take the Silverado Trail down to Napa, but after that, it's just highway 680 all the way to the south bay. Yawn.

See the rest of the pictures from Day 4

3:15pm. Home. 3981 miles, 856.8 trip miles.