The Ride Day 2 - Into the Redwoods

This day was mostly about moving North. I stuck to Hwy 101 the whole way. In the northern part of Sonoma county I hit wine country; rows and rows of vines surrounded by hills of golden grasses and dark green trees. On the way in to Ukiah I passed the Mendocino Brewing Company, makers of Red Tail Ale, one of my favorites.

In Ukiah I exchanged the full riding gear for a mesh jacket. I am so glad I brought the mesh; without it I would have been almost literally toast. To save space I only brought one set of shoulder and elbow armor. It is somewhat tedious changing it out between jackets, but the little extra piece of mind is worth it.

Here is the bike packed for travel in the parking lot of a KFC. Those are small redwoods in the background.

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I got caught in another bumper to bumper traffic snarl in Willits. I was about to start lan splitting again when I noted that one of the vehicles just ahead of me was a Highway Patrol. Lane splitting is legal in CA, but LEOs can still ticket you for unsafe driving if I'm not mistaken. It turns out that 3 stoplights in a row were just blinking, and the LEOs were directing traffic. After getting clear there were signs advertising "Special Event Ahead, Expect Delays". No kidding. It turns out the special event was a 3 day Reggae festival. I had thought there were an awful lot of people around that seemed to be enjoying their own private universe.

Later in the day I rode through Humbolt Redwoods State Park. I stayed on 101 rather than take the more scenic route, but it was beautiful nonetheless. At the north entrance I stopped to gear up again since I was getting chilled in the mesh jacket and half gloves.

Mid-sized redwood in the background


Shortly after that stop I passed a couple on a BT on the side of the road. It didn't look good to me. I turned around to check on them. My parking spot on the side of the road was pretty precarious, but seemed OK. It seemed that they had a petcock gone bad. He had the situation well in hand, they had AAA and were getting ready to call. i pulled out my phone with data to try and find out where the nearest HD dealer was (redwoods Harley, Eureka). I was walking back to the bike to gear up again when a wind gust blew my bike over onto the guardrail. Grrr. The right saddlebag just flexed and took the weight, the fairing got scuffed. There is not really a crack in the fairing, but there is a shallow dent in the material. It was a bit of a bummer, but I think the couple was more worried about it than I was, like I was more worried about their breakdown than they were.

The couple I met were planning finding a room near the HD dealer. I thought I might do the same so I could buy them a beer since they seemed like they would be good company, but there really wasn't anything near and it was gettiing late, so I travelled on to Arcata. It took me 2 stops to find a room with alledged WiFi. When I returned from my beer run I spent a good half hour chatting with 2 brothers who had ridden down from Olympia, WA in 2 days, one on a Street Glide the other on a Vulcan. We figured we were pretty close on the miles we had covered. They had 60 more miles, but I had Bay Area traffic and stoner ... I mean Reggae ... fest gridlock.