Moto Aventura reunited!

Wes & Lauren gave us a fantastic welcome and reunited us with Ron, Bob, Bill and Jim who were part of the group that went to Argentina & Chile in 2008. We had a great evening and it was lovely to have the opportunity to meet their wives and partners too.
The next day we set off for a ride to Northern California, following route 1 along the pacific coast and then turned inland through the gigantic Redwood forests ending up in Fortuna.
Wes had planned a fantastic route full of twists and turns.  The bends certainly kept you focused, with many areas having no barriers and large drops, but it was certainly an exhilarating ride.

Lake Tahoe

The famous Fisherman's Wharf

 



 

Lombard Street (Russian Hill)

 

Golden Gate Bridge

 

Anne & Steve

 

America's Cup (Ben Ainslie won the first day)

 

Trams at the bottom of a steep hill.

 



We have had a great few days with Steve & Judy who have looked after us really well. We came via  Lake Tahoe on the way to San Francisco. The America's Cup was on so watched some of that whilst here. John rode down the wibbly wobbly road (Lombard Street) - he had to do it 3 times for me to get the right photo!  The steep gradients are a bit of a nightmare - doesn't do your clutch any good if you have to stop! We thought the M25 was bad, but coming out of San Francisco at 4.30pm is bad news - the roads are jammed for miles. The only good part is that in California on a bike you can filter whereas in other parts of America that we have passed through, you can't.
Our Garmin Sat Nav failed (it had been intermittently causing problems for a while) so luckily there was a BMW dealer in SF who supplied and fitted a new one (not cheap!)
It has been lovely to experience cooler temperatures here - in fact had to wear jackets in SF as the mist was down in the morning but burned off later in the day. San Francisco didn't disappoint - it is a lovely city.

Late getaway today as John had to find a motorcycle shop to buy some oil for the bike.
5 hours spent travelling on Interstate 80 - we were heading for Lake Tahoe but the heat became wearing so we decided to pull off at a town called Fernley.
After a lovely shower we walked over the road to Walmart to do some shopping, couldn't be bothered to eat out tonight so had a Subway and bought a pack of cold beers to take back to the motel to watch MotoGP on the laptop. On to San Francisco tomorrow via Lake Tahoe, to meet up with Steve & Judy, Anne's brother & sister-in-law. This will complete our first stage travelling East to West and we have now covered over 4000 miles.

Today was John's day. As we were in Salt Lake City, John wanted to see Miller Motorsport Race Track where they hold a World Superbike round each year.  It turned out they were holding a club race and the guy on the gate let us in for free as we had come all the way from England!

The Museum was closed but the guy opened it up especially for us to look round - somehow I can't see that happening in England.

From there we went on to Bonneville Salt Flats which has been made infamous by Bert Munro (The Fastest Indian). It is strange to travel for over 100 miles on the road with salt flats either side.

Even stranger is when you cross from Utah to Nevada and the Salt Flats disappear only to be replaced by Casinos.