35th Wedding Anniversary

June 12 - 16, 2009

Trip Report

Sequoias Trip Prep

Chris and my 35th Wedding Anniversary was coming up and since Chris could not get but one day off; we had to go someplace somewhat “local”. I started racking my brain, trying to come up with someplace within a day’s drive that would be worthy of an anniversary. It wasn’t easy, but I finally came up with us going to the Sequoias. It was perfect since neither of us had been there and it was 300 miles away, which made it somewhat “local”.

I made reservations for us to be there three nights, but a couple of weeks before the trip, Chris got an extra day off, so we extended it a day! This way we wouldn’t be traveling on our Anniversary! (-: Also, I first tried to talk Chris into riding the bike up there, but she would have any part of that, but then said that I could trailer it up there. Kool! (-:

After changing the oil in the bike, it was ready for the journey. Too bad I can’t say that about the trailer. A couple of weeks before, I had tried to coat the inside of the trailer with a truck bed coating. The plywood was so dry; it just sucked in all of the liquid and just left a coating of sand like material, but all globed up in spots! So I bought some Flat Black Rustoleum and painted the plywood with that. I also had bought a wheel chock from Harbor Freight and set it up so I could just bolt it from the top. That worked out great. It will actually hold the bike up itself. Sure makes for loading the bike off and on a breeze!

The next issue with trailer was the wheels. One wheel was lousing air, so I bought some slime and put in it. But when I went to remove the tire, I could tell it wasn’t spinning very well. I removed the bearing to find the grease I put in it a year ago was all balled up and not greasing much of anything. So I had to pull both sets of bearings and had to re-grease them. This time I used different grease. It seemed to work well since we were able to pull the bike all the way up and back without any issues!

So the trailer and bike were set, and the weekend before our trip, I stopped and had the truck’s front tires aligned and the transmission serviced. We were ready!

The trip – Day One

We were not in any super big hurry to get out of the house on Friday, besides I had to re-paint the Master Bath shower first, then load the bike and then the truck and we left around 11 to 11:30am. Just in time for the lunch rush hour traffic. We made our first stop in San Bernardino, gassed up and then ate and were back on the road.  Once we got up to US395 just south of Victorville, the traffic didn’t seem half bad. We made a couple of more stops on the way up and the drive was fine and pulled into the Comfort Inn around 6pm.

Day Two

Free Breakfast included…that was a joke. Chris and I went down to have breakfast and it was a bloody free-for-all! There were maybe 30 people trying to get to the toaster, some hard boiled eggs and cereal. I finally got a couple of eggs and started trying to peal them. The egg was coming off with the shell! Then Chris shows up with an English muffin, after fighting to try to get to the toaster. I said; let’s go find someplace to eat! I threw the “food” away and went to the truck, unhitched the trailer (motorcycle was still on it) and away we went. It took a couple of miles, but we found a little café and had breakfast there. It wasn’t the greatest, but better then what we were getting back at the motel!

When we got back, the first thing I did was to take the bike off the trailer, after hitching the trailer back up to the truck of course. Because of the overcast and low temperatures, Chris didn't want to ride the bike up, so we took the truck instead. We grabbed a little food and some drinks with us and then proceeded to head off towards Sequoia National Park, which is on the same road that the motel is on.

Sheesh, once through the park entrance, the road is long and very winding. Several times I saw the back end of the truck as we went around some of those curves! Because of this, it was very slow going. Also, as we climbed the mountain, the temperatures continued to go down! We weren’t sure just how cold it was at the top, but it had to been in the low 50’s or upper 40’s! It was also pretty damp. We did get out to hike down to the General Sherman tree, well we got close to it anyway, there was a lookout just above it, we decided that was close enough and we started the climb back up. Needless to say, we had to stop a number of times for Chris to catch her breath!

We finally saw about all we needed to that day and started down. I knew that Hwy 245 would be winding as well, but it was worse then I thought. It took us forever to get through it and at one point, the GPS was telling us to go one-way, but I stayed on Hwy 245. We finally got back to the motel in the late afternoon.

After recovering from the days drive, we went into Visalia for dinner and after dinner; we found the local Wal-Mart and picked up supplies for the next couple of days (including instant oatmeal for breakfast!).

Day Three

The next morning was bright skies and sunshine and I figured Chris really didn’t want to “ride” on the motorcycle over the roads we had the day before, so I picked a different route. This one went south and into the mountains, but just before we were leaving, I somehow erased the route from the GPS and got everything screwed up and made some wrong turns and finally I just rode to Porterville. From there I re-entered the route (going the opposite direction from what we were going to do originally) and had it start there in Porterville.

We were on our way! (-: After riding through what seemed to be farmer’s fields and orchards, we finally found the road that would take us to our first landmark, a town called California Hot Springs. As we climbed higher it started getting cooler and also cloudier, so we stopped, took a break and got on heavier gear to handle the cold better. This road was in need of repair, that’s for sure and as we climbed away from California Hot Springs, the road got worse and then it started getting foggy and colder. (Can’t remember how cold, but in the upper 50’s).

As we came to a junction, I spotted a “break area” in my mirrors, so I turned around and stopped for another break. At least this time, there was a potty there! As I was stopping, a guy and his wife drove up and started talking. And talking ..and talking … and talking..and talk…I told Chris to go use the facilities and this old guy was still talking when Chris came out. At one point he was telling me that I shouldn’t go the direction I was planning because the road wasn’t any good, just a lot of twists and turns and poor surface. So I changed my GPS to point to the location he started talking about, only to find out that that was the way we just came. I just hadn’t paid attention to all of the different towns below. Once I got that straighten out, they finally took off and I was able to take care of business and then I reset the GPS to the town we wanted to go through, Camp Nelson.

We were on our way again, this time down a much better road then expected. This road was the “Western Divide Hwy”. At one point I was seeing a lot of cars parked along the roadway, so I slowed down to about 40mph (even though we were in a 55) when some guy on my left, came running from behind a bunch of bushes, and started running across the road in front of us. He had made to about the mid point in the oncoming lane when I hit my horn, which stopped him dead in his tracks. Which was good, because any further, we probably would have hit him, since I wouldn’t have had the time to have stopped.

We continued for another hour or so and came across a “store” with a café. So we stopped, took another break and had some lunch (instead of eating the sandwiches Chris had made for the ride). We were ready for the next leg now! Downhill to warmth!

As we were riding down the mountain, Chris got brave and took a few videos of us riding and going around the curves. She even put one of them up on her Facebook page last night. The down hill ride was pretty uneventful. It was just full of lots of curves is all! Too many for Chris, she only likes to see trees on both sides and no drop-offs!

As we were going down, I decided to take the long way back, so Chris didn’t have to worry about any more hairpins then what we did. So we rode back down towards Porterville and then back north to Three Rivers and the motel!

This trip was only supposed to be about 170 miles, but we got close to 194 by the time we took all of the detours in the morning due to the GPS erasing my route!

Day Four

On our last morning, Chris and I got up (this was our Anniversary day (-:), and Chris asked me where we were going. I really didn’t think she wanted to go back into the mountains, but she suggested we go see King’s Canyon. Huh? Are you sure? I then asked the dumbest question of the whole trip, “Do you want to ride the bike or take the truck?” And she answered with the dumbest answer of the trip: "I don’t want to make anymore decisions." So I said, “okay, we’ll take the BIKE”, although I knew she wanted to take the truck. (-:

So we got ourselves together and took off on the bike. This time I set the GPS and started following it, right down a goat trail! This road eventually ran into Hwy 245, which got us to Hwy 180 and Kings Canyon, but what a lousy road! As we were on the goat trail (about 20 miles from the motel), Chris asks me a really dumb question, ”do you have the receipt from the other day (so we don’t have to pay to enter the park again.)…ah…no..it’s back in the truck. After a few hundred feet I decided to turn back. Then about 1 mile down the road, I turned around again and said, oh well, we’ll just have to pay the $20 entrance fee again. )-: As we entered the Park and pulled up to the Kiosk, I said something to the Ranger about going through Sequoia NP just a couple of days before, and that I had left the receipt in my truck. He was nice enough to give us a day pass! Saved that $20! We were elated! (-:

As we were closing in on the park entrance, the cloud cover was back and the temperatures started going down. By the time we hit the top of the mountain, and the cutoff for King’s Canyon, it was only 59 degrees! We then started down towards the canyon and it started creeping back up. I think it made it all the way to about 68 once we hit the bottom of the canyon. The drop into the canyon is fantastic if you like heights! Total drop off from the side of the road, for I would guesstimate some 3 to 4,000 feet straight down! Some shoulder areas were well covered by a wall or berm, but some areas had a small shoulder and that was it. It scared the heck out of Chris. She was afraid the whole way down and the way back up that someone was going to go around the corner too fast and knock us over the edge! So she just wouldn’t look, nor take any pictures! I was really bummed when she told me the camera was put away in her pocket and it was staying there!

The road surface was great; I didn’t have any issues with it. And of course the ST was perfect for the trip! Made all those corners feel like I was on rails. But since I was going a little slower that I would have if I was a lone, I guess that helped! As you are descending, there are a number of fantastic sights. The ragged mountains, the rivers below, just really beautiful! I just wished it wouldn’t have been so cloudy! For the last number of miles, the road is right next to the river and again, lots of fantastic sights! As the road followed the river, there were just too many great shots, Chris had pulled her camera out again and started snapping pictures! Thank goodness for digital pictures! I would have hated to see the bill on developing film! lol

We made a pit stop at an area called Grizzly Falls. It even had a clean bathroom (They were just finishing the clean as we arrived). After a couple of pictures and taking care of business, we were again on the road following the river. Did I say how fantastic the sights were? Hwy 180 ends a few miles from the end of the road, but we stayed on it to the end, where there is a big loop. Once we got turned around, we headed back to where 180 ended since there was a small store and a smaller café there! It was so small; they were out of potato chips, so I had to go buy a package from the store! The sandwiches were good, and we were about to leave and I figured it would be a good idea to use the facilities again, only to discover that they closed them from 1pm to 3 pm daily for cleaning! Huh? I guess that way they can keep them cleaner! Grrr!

As we were gearing up, it started raining. So we got our gear on and took off. It quit raining soon after we were on the rode and didn’t see anymore for the rest of the trip! We headed back up those mountains we had come down a short time later (there is only one-way in and one-way out!), And Chris didn’t feel any better about them going up as she did coming down! But I took it easy and we made it to the top just fine…a bit colder (it was only 48 degrees out). We made it to the beginning of the park and instead of going back down Hwy 245, I continued straight, well as straight as you could anyway.

My biggest problem at this time was that I really needed a break, but there weren’t too many places to take one. We rode all the way down to Hwy 63 and turned towards Three Rivers. This added about 30 miles to the day’s ride, but I figured it would be best to take less curvy roads for Chris! This area was mostly ranches and farms. It was pretty nice since most of it was straight! We finally got back a little after 5pm.

I then took my wife out for our Anniversary dinner to Red Lobster (her favorite) and then we got back to the motel pretty late.

I would say that this ride was better by far then the previous day. The views were more exciting and it wasn’t boring at all. Highly recommended! I think we did around 200 miles that day.

Day Five

We didn’t even try to eat breakfast at the motel, so we just got up and packed. Once I was done packing, I went out and loaded the bike up on the trailer. Sure was nice between the ramp and the new tire chock! Rode the bike right up and the chock held the bike up while I got the straps on her!

With pulling a trailer, we just took our time and even stopped at an IHOP for breakfast! Everything went great for the trip home, other then the fact we had to go home! We pulled in around 5pm.

Pictures of our Trip: Pictures