Odd title for a post about motorcycles huh? This is actually two rides, with a break in the middle. You’ll get the title as you read along.

San Diego to San Francisco (Via Jalama)

Day 1: Christmas was coming. I’m personally not religious so Christmas is more of a time to go see the family. My family happens to be spread out along the California coast. Saturday morning I loaded the bike up and pointed myself north out of San Diego. Mom & Ted were camping at a beach spot in Jalama Beach, just west of Lompoc CA. The route from San Diego to there was pretty laid back. Unfortuantely there is just a ton of civilization between here and there. I could have gone inland and looped around but I was more keen on spending time with family. So, up the 5, 405, 101, 1, and then down a 14 mile twisty road to the beach. Along the way I tried out my new Spot Messenger. Its a pretty cool device, I think I bought as much for my family as I did for myself. I set it up to track my route sending its location every 10 minutes or so. It worked pretty well! Unfortunately they haven’t setup guest access yet so friends and family can check on it. Better yet would be if they setup an API so you can post the information on a website (I’m working on some php code to check an email address and parse the data).

I arrived at Jalama Beach just before sunset. My mom makes some of the best enchiladas for a gringa. Had an awesome dinner, philosophized about life, and crashed out pretty early. The next morning Ted and I wandered down to the beach. He was hoping to catch some fish, I was hoping to catch some good pictures. I got my pictures, he didn’t have much luck with the fish. (I think the act is more important to him than the catch). Had an awesome breakfast, wished them the best, packed the bike up and headed north to San Francisco.

Day 2: It was chilly along the coast this morning as I headed north. My route took me along the 1 with some intersections with the 101 all the way to Santa Cruz. I saw some new sections of the 1 here but this is a route I have ridden many times before on my way to Monterey. The wind was pretty gusty at times, and to be expected it was chilly along the coast. Around Big Sur I ate the most expensive hamburger I’ve every had. I think I paid $14.95 for it. It was good, but a bit pricey. At the stop I uncovered that shampoo in a not so sealed container can fill up entire open cavities with bubbles! DOH! Once I hit Monterey I realised that I’d have to take the short way into San Fran as following the 1 was going to get me in well after dark. Once I hit the 101 south of SF the traffic was heavy. I started to split lanes but apparently the SF 49er fans weren’t too keen on that. I also saw a couple of other bikes, but they weren’t attempting to split lanes at all. Go figure. Got to Jeremiah’s pretty easy and got to see him, Beatrice, and Carmen.

Day3: Today was chill day. Did some sight seeing around SF. Got groceries for dinner (We did our Xmas dinner on Xmas Eve rather than the day. Have turkey’s alway been that expensive? Spent the day playing with Beatrice, she apparently finds her Uncle Jason pretty cool. (I think she’s pretty cool too) Ate too much, passed out on the couch. A good day!

Day4: Xmas morning. I didn’t take off on Wednesday so I needed to head home today. SF to SD in one day isn’t a big deal. About 600 miles or so. I took a scenic route through Hollister, down the 25 to the 198. The 198 is a great road. That took me over to the 33 and south. At this point I had to put on my rain liners to shield me from the wind. It didn’t get above 40 degrees the entire day. I learned something about CA though. Along the 33 there is a stretch of oil wells about 24 miles long. After a while I turned off on Cerro Noreste. This road is fantastic. But, I advise doing it in the summer or warmer months. I came across snow, ice, and gravel all along this scenic route. At one point it was 35 degrees, brrr. Made it home that night, warmed up, and packed up for Baja!

Viva Mexico! San Diego to San Quintin

I should start this out by covering a few things. Our original plan was; Day 1 – SD to San Quintin via Tecate, Day 2 – San Quintin to Bahia de los Angeles (Bay of Los Angeles), Day 3 – Bay of LA to San Felipe, Day 4 – San Felipe to San Diego. Let me recap the bikes people are riding here so you have an idea of what we’re getting ourselves into. Byron is on a Suzuki DR650. Good bike, sturdy dualsport single cylinder. To most people this looks like any dirt bike. Andres has a Kawasaki KLR650. This bike is considered the poor mans adventure bike. Its a great bike honestly. Morgan is on his KTM 950 Adventure and I am on my BMW R1200GS. Morgan and I have big bikes, and later in the story you’ll see how the big bike affects me.

Day 6: Byron & Morgan came by my place around 8:30. First it was just Morgan. I asked “Where’s Byron?” The night before he decided to change the chain on his new DR650. He had some problems as it wasn’t a master link chain and it required a special tool (or a hammer) to mushroom out the rivets. Byron showed up a few minutes later. Loaded up we headed south to the Tecate Border Crossing. Today was fricken freezing. I was lucky, I have heated grips and a heated jacket. Crossing the border Byron got the Pase, Morgan got the Pase, I get the Regrese! I start to pull over for the inspection and the border guard gives me a wave and says “Pase Amigo!” Just inside Tecate we meet up with a final member Andres. Gas up and head south! About 14 miles south of Tecate we leave the pavement and roll onto the Los Compadres Highway. You can see a picture just above of Morgan on the ‘highway’. As you can see, its not much of a highway, but a dirt road.

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