When Ron said he was having a Spring Fling again, my wife almost jumped out of her shoes, she was so excited! It’s been 5 years (2007) since the last one and we both have missed going every year.

• Preparations

The only preparations I had to do, was to get my trailer ready to haul the ST1300 up north. The plywood had rotted (after 9 years) so I wanted to replace it and repaint the metal. So I took advantage of the week in April that Chris took off and spent with our Son, his wife and their new baby, by leaving Chris’s car out on the driveway and pulled the trailer in and took it apart. I then sanded and repainted it, had it back together and her car washed before she got home!

• The Drive Up

I took off the Thursday that we were leaving (Chris had to work) and got everything ready. The bike was loaded and left about an hour after she got home. Our first stop was Sam’s Club in San Bernardino to gas up and get an In-N-Out Burger next door before heading back on the freeway to our overnight stay at the China Lake Inn in Ridgecrest.

After our stay in Ridgecrest, we were driving up US395 and we were driving through the town of Bishop and decided we needed to take a break. So we stopped at McDonald’s and as we were coming back out to the truck and trailer, I noticed something with the trailer’s left tire. On closer inspection, I could see that the tire sidewall was separating! I didn’t want to travel too far, but figured it would be easier to have a garage swap the tire, instead of me.

We didn’t have to go too far and the speed limit was slow, so we pulled into the first tire place we saw. It cost all of $10 to have them to change out the bad tire with my spare. But it made me wonder about the other trailer tire, since I bought them as a pair some 4 years ago (2008), but didn’t install them until sometime in 2010.

We were soon back on the road and taking it easy, since we really were not in a big hurry… Well you know how that goes. Chris decided we needed to get something to eat, but since by that time, we were in the middle of NOWHERE, so there was no places (that we trusted) to eat at! Most of the little "restaurants" were too little and we just didn’t want to take a chance on getting sick, so we drove up into Nevada to the town of Gardnerville and stopped at a Taco Bell (not much better than what we passed along the way as far as I was concerned). The main problem with that idea was they had major construction on 395, opened to only one lane, so we had to sit and wait for about 20 minutes before they let us through. After eating, we made a Bee Line to US88, which we took all the way to the Pioneer Lodge.

• Made it to Pioneer

After pulling in and getting settled in our room, I needed to unload the bike. A nice thing with my trailer now, I can load and unload my bike by myself. The three across ramps make it so nice! Just as I was finishing up, Dennis and Harry showed up on their FJRs. So I had to stop and talk to them for a short spell. With the bike off the trailer, and time running out for us to get down to the campground, we jumped in the truck for the Friday Night group meeting and pizza.

• Friday Night Meeting

Lots of folks that we hadn’t seen in five years were there to greet us! Eduardo cornered Chris and she could not escape his clutches the whole time. I was able to go talk to most. I found Pete and Mike around the back where their tents and bikes were. It was great talking to everyone and I went and rescued Chris and we drove back to the Lodge. I had gotten the route directions, and spent the rest of the night trying to get them in my Garmin, but to no avail.

• Saturday Morning

The next morning, I got up early and prepped the bike (added a cable for Chris’s helmet and realized I forgot her custom saddle. A regret I felt/heard every time she turned around. THAT, WILL NOT happen again! Once we were both ready, we jumped on the bike for the ride down to the restaurant where we agreed to meet Dave. Had breakfast and as we were about to leave, Chris was summoned in the back to take a picture of the (part of our riders) group that came in after us.

As we made our way back to the campground where the ride was going to start, Chris needed something back at the lodge, so we had to run back there. She got what she needed and we were on our way back to the campground, where we met back up with Dave and all the others.

After a little kibitzing, we were ready to head out and of course, with a group like we had, we needed to break up into three groups. Dave and I chose to be last ones out… which turned into a big mistake.

• The Ride

As we took off, we fell in line behind a V65 Sabre and a new rider on a 600cc bike of some sort. The new rider was not sure of herself, so when we were on the curves, she was taking it pretty slow. So between that and the Sabre running a bit rich, I was starting to get sick. So I started dropping back as much as I could, then Dave and I were able to pick up the pace until we caught them again. At one point, Chris was afraid that we had taken a wrong turn, but I assured her we were fine. We caught up with the pack not long after that as we were approaching our first stop… which seemed to be a bit confusing. I found a service station and just pulled in and that’s where we took our break.

After our break, we saw a number of our group go by, which stopped someplace else; so we got it back together and we took off. As we were getting ready to turn off Hwy 49 and make a left, a Harley, speeding and coming from the other direction, made the turn just in front of us. He knew he had beaten us to the road and wanted to show us how country road riding was all about! So he took off the best he could and settled in around 60mph, while I kept it around the speed limit of 55. After about 10 minutes on this road, we hit a sign that said windy road next 9 miles. Well, it didn’t take long to catch up with the Harley and after sitting behind him for a mile or two, I radioed to Dave I was going around him the first chance I had.

No sooner said than a straight with passing zone came up (the only one I saw on this road). I had to wait for the truck coming the other direction, but as soon as he cleared, I took off around the Harley and we left him in the dust. Within a very short time, he was no longer in our review mirrors… Bye! ;)

After that we hit a little construction and some traffic, but no Harley in the rear view and then turned on hwy 4 heading away from the foot hills. We were taking this at a nice leisurely pace and looking for our next turn. The weather by then was prefect, we weren’t too hot nor cold, the Sun was out and it was just a great day to be riding!

We caught up with the rest of the group at the lunch stop. It wasn’t a bad place to stop either because there were a number of places to go get a bite. Dave, Chris and I decided we would go over to the Subway(which a large part of our group did too). After eating, Dave and I decided we would just take off on our own and see where it takes us. But Ron had other ideas. He thought Dave and I "were" the beginning of the group, so he hopped in front of us and led the way. I guess the rest of the group wasn’t too far behind because Ron had missed a turn and we wound up at the entrance to the lake we wanted to go around, not through the park. So we turned around and when Ron stopped to check the map, I took the lead back to where we missed the turn and Ron took back over when I pulled to the right and motioned for him to do so.

As we traveled through the outside of the lake, it took us over a couple of dams and around the lake, so it was an enjoyable ride. As we were pulling away from the lake, we got stuck behind a CHP Cruiser. After a few miles, he pulled off to the left and was checking us all out and watching our speed. He then pulled back out and followed, only to be followed, himself by the rest of our group. I guess he pulled over for them too, but kept the radar going on us all. Several said their radar detectors were going crazy!

We continued to follow Ron and at one intersection which we had a stop sign, Ron and I pulled across the road and to the right shoulder to wait for the others. But there wasn’t much of a shoulder, so Ron started going again. I had looked behind us making sure we weren’t going to get ran over when Ron stopped and I had only a couple of feet to the right of him to get by without crashing into him. That was a close one because I didn’t have the room to stop!

We collected everyone and headed for the next rest stop. Chris was pretty much done in, and we think Dave was too, so we elected to follow Ron back up Hwy 26 and back to Pioneer. Only when Ron took off, there was a bunch of others doing the same, all going different directions and we never did catch up with Ron, but that was okay. I had my GPS and just followed the road back and we saw the group up ahead after a while.

We made it back to the Lodge and Dereck, Lexie, Jack and Addie were there waiting for us. So we just kicked back for a little while talking and visiting until it was time to go to the campground for the BBQ.

The BBQ

Dave and I rode the bikes down and Chris drove down with Dereck & Lexie. As always, Ron & Doe put a nice spread together and had plenty of food to go around. We sat a talked for a while and enjoyed the company. At one point, Jack somehow tripped and fell by the wheelchair ramp and got hurt. After getting him to settle down, Chris and them took off back to the Lodge and shortly after that Dave and I left. Dave spit for home and I split for the Lodge.

Sunday

We meet Dave & Dino, Mom and Yvonne at Mimi’s near where my mom lives for breakfast. It sure looked like they got there at the right time, because when we got there, there were folks waiting all for the place, but Mom, Yvonne, Dave & Dino where waiting for us with a nice big table.

After breakfast we took a few pictures and then Chris and I headed home. We couldn’t even play around; we had to go directly home since Chris had to be at work the next day, which I had taken off.